God has a will for
each person on this planet, and for each situation. This is a clear revelation
of the Bible, but it is just as clear that God, for the most part, does not
impose His will upon anyone. If we doubt that, then we must assume that what we
see in the world and the church is, in fact, God’s will – God’s imposed will.
Does anyone actually believe that God is getting His will, generally, in this
world today? Or even in the church today? God is, however, not defeated. Part
of His will, and within His sovereignty, is the provision that man be allowed
to reject His will. In the long run this will glorify Him, since all the
efforts of man to reject Him will come to nothing. In the end, God will have
His way and God always wins. Let’s be clear about something. God is not pleased
that men reject His will. God does not cause men to reject His will. God does
not ordain sin or unbelief. Teachings that suggest that everything that happens
must be of God or God is not sovereign are in error. The fact that God knows
ahead of time that someone will reject Him, but nevertheless allows it, does
not mean that it is God’s will that the person reject Him. God is so entirely
sovereign that He knows exactly when to move or not move, intervene or not
intervene, or bring about circumstances which will give people the opportunity
to turn to Him. But the choice is up to them. God is so sovereign that He is
able to know our choices ahead of time, yet not interfere with them. Any
suggestion to the contrary is not only unbiblical, but results in grave error. The
age old argument of where God’s will ends and man’s responsibility begins is
not one which God started. It is the result of people getting lost in
philosophy, rather than in Jesus Christ. The Truth is, once I say man has no
real choice – no matter how I prop it up with a religious song and dance
routine I am in error. Man does have a choice even a choice to reject the very
God who gave him that choice. God has made it so. God has made room for the
possibility that man reject Him. All morality, free will, love, and righteous
character depend on this. God does not care whether this makes Him look like a
failure – right now. He knows that in the end, He will have His will. And even
those who reject Him will prove God’s sovereignty by virtue of the fact that
they did reject Him and did lose out for all eternity. God has a will for this
age. He has a will for His spiritual Body or the "Body of Christ,"
not the "church" there is a huge difference. He has a will for each
person. That is not the question. The question is how to find God’s will. The
Bible gives us the answer: We find the will of God when we find God. None of us are born knowing or wanting the
will of God. In fact, our fallen nature automatically seeks our own will. The
idea of living for the will of God is totally foreign to fallen man. To us,
seeking the will of God is ABNORMAL. Getting our own way is NORMAL. This is all
part of what it means to be born "in Adam." At some point in those people
God "draws" to Himself through Christ, the light comes on. Not necessarily a big light. Not necessarily a
light like the one which knocked Paul off his horse on the way to Damascus, but
a light that begins to show a person that they are out of God’s will, and need
to get into God’s will. A person begins to sense that they are wrong with God
and need to be right with Him. This is not yet conversion. It is the beginning
of the work of the Holy Spirit. In John
6:44, Jesus said, "No man can come to Me except the Father who sent Me draw
Him." (John 6:44) It ought to be clear that the "drawing"
isn’t the same thing as the "coming." God does the drawing to Christ.
We do the coming. At some point, we have to relinquish our old life to Christ. Some
teach that no one can do this unless God does it in him. In other words, if God
draws us, our surrender is inevitable. This is not Biblical. Once we understand
that man was made for God, and is a moral creature, we see that, yes, God must
open our eyes and show us Jesus. But at some point, we are free enough to
choose. God will not have robots in His kingdom. Even after we give our lives to Christ, God
would have us seek His will. The fact that He wants us to seek His will ought
to prove to us several things. First, God never imposes His will upon
us. Otherwise, we would not need to seek it. Second, unless we seek it,
we won’t have God’s will. The exhortation to seek His will, by definition, puts
a certain amount of responsibility upon us. Now, don’t misunderstand. To
"seek" the will of God does not mean to "figure it out." It
doesn’t mean to drag it down from heaven. Predicated upon the God’s exhortation
to us to seek His will is the promise that God wants us to find His will more
than we want to seek it! So this isn’t a matter of us twisting God's arm. It
is a matter of us opening ourselves to what God already wants to do in our
lives. Notice the conditional aspect of our asking and seeking God for His
will, as related in the Bible. Now many people get off track wanting to know
God's will. Some are misled by folks
(pastors and teachers who do not know better), some intentionally for control,
that you must ask, seek, and knock again and again to know God's will and they
point to Matthew 7:7-8, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek,
and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that
asks receives, and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be
opened." (Matthew 7:7-8) Well, Jesus was not saying that at
all. If you look at the context and the
original Greek you find Jesus was warning the people, "Ask and it shall be given to you" or take heed, if you
keep on asking someone will give something to you. "seek and you shall find" or take heed if you keep
seeking something you will find something. "Knock
and it shall be opened unto you" or take heed if you keep knocking and
knocking a door will be opened unto you. Because, now open up your spirit, "For every one that asks receives, and
he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened." Jesus
was saying take heed for what is my will and not what you want by asking,
seeking, and knocking again and again till you find what makes you happy. In
James 4:2-3, "You have not, because
ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume
it upon your lusts." (James 4:2-3) Same thought here. Here you are asking, seeking, and knocking
for what you want or "amiss"
instead of what God wants for you then take heed you will not get it no matter
how much you ask, seek, or knock and of
course when we do NOT get our way in God especially if we think something is
God's will, well that only adds to our frustration. Now,
before proceeding, we need to make sure we do not misunderstand. God is not
leaving it up to us to figure out what to ask. He knows His will for our lives.
In other words, there is no need to fear that because I don’t know what to ask,
or what to seek for, that I will miss out. There is no need to think that
unless I am smart enough to know what to ask of God, that I will never receive
it. Can you imagine God saying, "Whoops. I didn’t consider the possibility
that someone would not know My will. I didn’t make room for the possibility
that someone would not have it all figured out." No. God knows all about
our struggles. What does that mean, practically? It means that when it is all
said and done, God wants us to seek Him. Thus, all I need to do is surrender
myself to Him in any situation. So we see knowing the will of God is tied to
knowing God and if we miss knowing God then we will miss knowing His will. I
can tell God that I don’t know what His will is or what to ask for, but that whatever
it is, I want Him to do it, reveal it to me, work in into my life. This is real
asking, and seeking, and knocking. So how then do we know the will of God? Yes, by coming to know God, but is the will
of God for our lives some great mystery? Do we have to read through the Bible
five or six times through before God reveals His will to us? Or do we have to give a certain amount of
money to the church before God will reveal His will to us? Or maybe we have to spend so many hours of
prayer before the LORD before He reveals the next thing He wants us to do for
Him? Of course not. Now, it is good to read the Bible, God speaks
to us in His word, it is good to give money to the LORD so others may be able
to receive, and oh yes it is good to spend time before the LORD in prayer, but
the will of God for our lives is played out every day of our life as long as
we are walking with the LORD. Now to
understand this we must understand and believe God does not set us up for
failure, God does not try to trick us, nor does He try to see if He can get us
to stumble and fall out of the way He wants us to go. So whatsoever we are doing for God at this
very second has to be His will. As long
as we are not over in sin and we know it. Remember, sin is to miss the mark,
not knowing right and wrong God's word tells us that, of which the mark is not
doing those things we know God does not want us to do, as Solomon said, "Let us hear the
conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man." (Ecclesiastes
12:13). Where we find our self at
the end of 2021, whether we like it or not, as long as we are not over in sin
and we know it, then whatsoever we are doing is the will of God for our
lives. Now I like that. That takes the pressure off of me to do
something for God and all I have to do is love God and learn more about Him and
His ways and things He wants for my life will open up like flowers. Oh, how I
want to travel overseas in ministry like in the past, but because with COVID we
(Karen and I) have not travelled overseas in the last two years. Are we just sitting around? Now the LORD has opened up the opportunity
for me to share 15 minutes every Sunday at 9:00 am on a Christians radio
station. If you cannot say what you feel
the LORD wants you to say in 15 minutes then you are probably getting carried
away. Our Home Group Meeting continues
with new people. The point I am making
is we are moving in the things God is bringing into our lives. I did not need to ask God should I speak on
the radio. I did not need to ask God if
He wants us to open our home to share the Gospel with people, oh no these are
things that God wants to happen, they are God's will for our lives. I do not need to ask God should I go to South
Africa and Zimbabwe in March or April or to Bulgaria and Romania in August or
September. All I need to do is plan to go in Hs will and be sensitive to the
LORD (get back to knowing God) to His change of plans or situation and
circumstance on the ground (such as COVID) that would stop us from
travelling. In 2021, the Brothers in
both Bulgaria and Romania asked us not to come because of COVID, they both were
at level 4 the highest rate, in November
as we have for the last eight or nine years, that was God's will, He did not
have to speak to me we just knew. Our goal is not to find God's will, but find
God and we will know His will. Jeremiah
helps us here in Jeremiah 29:13, "And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all
your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13) Notice he said to "seek me" (God) not my will. You know if we get this wrong we may really
destroy many things in our lives, even while doing things for the LORD. Again, the LORD is more concerned about becoming
something in Him more than working for Him.
We know of a lady who felt it was the LORD's will for her to go to
Africa and be a missionary. Well, her
husband was 100% against it, but she went anyway. First off the LORD is not
into splitting up a marriage. The spiritual authority of the home is critical
to God's order for the will of God to play out in lives. This should have been
the first sign to the lady that her going was NOT God's will, but being zealous
and supported by her church leadership she went. While she was in Africa her husband and
family really struggled, both physically and spiritually. But she continued on
in her presumption. As a matter of fact I had the opportunity to see her in
Africa on one of my trips and well, I will just say the African pastor who was
in charge of her security and whose wife just died were very very close,
indeed. Bad things were happening here in Africa and back at home. The last I heard the lady and her husband had
divorced, their kids were in disarray (to put it mildly), and the husband was
dealing with pornographic issues. The lady meant well, but she did not know God
and His ways, she did not know God's laws, she was religious and wanted to be
used of God, but by not knowing God she missed His will because God's
ways and His will are one in the same. I
mentioned it earlier, and it says this in Jeremiah 29:13, that God does not
want us to merely seek His will. He wants us to seek Him. The will of God, and
the Person of God, are not separate things. For God will not be content to
merely give us "things." He wants to give us Himself. God doesn’t
want us to merely do His will, or merely to receive His will. He wants us to
BECOME His will. God wants us to BECOME His will so that He can give us Himself
– that is – expand us such that we can have a greater relationship with Him.
This is a large part of what God wants to accomplish through prayer. Through
prayer, we don’t just ask God for stuff. We ask God for Himself. And God says,
"I will answer. But I must first get you to the place where you can
receive both Myself and the stuff." Here we see why it sometimes seems as
if it takes God forever to answer some prayers. In many of those cases, God is
answering. But the answer requires a change or adjustment in us. Until we are
brought to that place, we will never see, understand, or be able to handle the
answer. When we pray to God, we seek an answer. But seldom do we realize
that God has to make us fit to receive the answer. If we would just
understand this possibility, we would make things a lot easier on ourselves. We
have to remember that God never does anything which will hurt us. So just as a
child often wants things, or to do things, which are beyond his capability, and
must be denied by the parent until he grows, so it is with us and God. God will
often say, "You must grow to the point where this answer I want to give
you will not do you damage." God does not sit in heaven, simply handing
out answers to prayer. All answers to prayer are in complete harmony with God’s
overall purpose for our lives, of revealing Himself to us, and of teaching us
to walk with Him. Again, God wants to give us Himself. But in order to receive
Him in these new ways, we have to BECOME the will of God. My friend this should be our number one goal
for our lives in 2022. Written by David
Stahl
