How to Discern God’s Will in Your Life
(Or how I learned to stop worrying and make decisions like a real Christian)
By Pr Rich Futrell
How does a Christian figure out God’s will in his life? Closer to home, how can you know what life choices God wants you to make? That’s the topic of this lesson.
These questions aren’t just theoretical–they reach into all areas of life. Where does God want you to live? Should I take this job or that one (this is very real for a pastor who just deliberated a call to another congregation)? Should I buy the Ford Focus or the Chevrolet Sonic?
Based on the religious culture that exists in North America, Christians are often drawn in a couple of different directions.
Look inward, me boy, look inward! (Not really)
In the movie, Star Wars, Yoda directed Luke Skywalker to look inward and “feel the Force.” Although a good, sci-fi movie, that’s horrible guidance for the Christian to know how to seek God’s will. (Ironically, many Christians have absorbed that thinking and applied it in their lives.)
Now, Scripture does says that Christ dwells in our hearts by faith (Ephesians 3:17). But that’s not where Scripture directs us to find where God comes to us to give us what He wants us to have. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). The Word of Christ that that comes to us is not a voice in your heart but the Word that comes from outside of you: The preached Word of Christ, the spoken Word attached to the water of baptism, and the spoken Word attached to the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. God comes to us from outside of us.
Now, in Scripture, we can find many examples of God coming to someone in some extraordinary ways to reveal His will. But here’s the real-deal: God doesn’t promise that He will do that for you or me. If God happens to do something extraordinary like that, rejoice! But don’t expect, or test, God to act in such a way. After all, it’s His choice to make, not yours!
And neither should you fret about God not coming to you in some extraordinary way–as if that is some marker of a weak faith. That has nothing to do with your standing before God. Your standing before God has to do with His Son, Jesus Christ, and the gift of faith given to you by the Holy Spirit.
Proverbs 4:7: The beginning of wisdom is to get wisdom. And whatever else you get, get understanding.
- What does God tell us to seek concerning ourselves, Him, and the difference between the two?
As your knowledge of God grows, your moral character will grow with that. The “voices” within you can even grow into voices of wisdom. But this is not a wisdom that replaces what God clearly tells you in the written Word of God. Instead, it is the wisdom that God directs you to seek: The wisdom to discern good from evil, to make responsible choices, and live with moral integrity.
Ephesians 5:18-19: Be filled with the Spirit, reciting to one another psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music to the Lord in your hearts
Colossians 3:16: Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly with wisdom as you teach and admonish one another through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with thankfulness in your hearts.
- From these two verses, what principle do we learn about how Christ and the Holy Spirit “dwell” within you and “fill” you? Is it from inside of you or from outside of you?
Christ’s Church gathers to receive the Word of Christ. The two verses above speak specifically about that Word coming to us in songs sung externally by human voices. Why? This is so hearts may be formed inwardly in joy and thanksgiving and in the knowledge of God. The action is from the outside in: The sung Word of Christ becomes a vehicle for Christ and the Holy Spirit to act in several ways:
- To bring wisdom to dwell within you (that means hymns are to contain the wisdom of God)
- To teach you correct doctrine
- To correct you from false doctrine
- Bring you to make music to the Lord in your heart
- Bring you be thankful
Notice the action is outward to inward.
Are you beginning to notice that God directs you to look outside of yourself to get what He wants to give you? Don’t try to find God in your heart (oh, He’s there, but He doesn’t direct you there to seek Him or His will!). Instead, turn your attention to the external Word of Christ, the Gospel, which is what the Holy Spirit uses to form Christian hearts. All other things being equal, the more you are conformed in Christ’s image, the easier and more soundly you can make godly decisions.
Romans 12:2: Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world. Instead, be continuously transformed by the renewing of your minds. Then you will be able to determine what God’s will is–what is proper, pleasing, and perfect.
- What enables us to determine God’s will in our lives?
- How is your mind renewed to enable you to make God-approved decisions?
Romans 8:29: For those whom God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers.
Read John 7:15-19
- Where does Jesus direct people to know God’s will?
The Revealed and Hidden Will of God
1 Corinthians 2:11: No one can know the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
- Unless God has revealed it to us (the written Word), do we have the ability to know God’s thoughts?
The Apostle Paul masterfully made that point using poetry in Romans 11:33-35, where he also wove in truths from the Old Testament, Isaiah 40:13 (in 11:34) and Job 41:11 (in 11:35):
Oh, the depth of God’s riches,
and His wisdom and knowledge!
How unsearchable are His judgments,
and how fathomless His ways!
Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has become His adviser?
Or who has first given to God,
that he needs to repay Him?
For all things are from Him, by Him, and for Him.
To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
We should read the Bible, come to Sunday School, etc. to understand the revealed will of God made known to us in His written Word. But God is clear that it is not for us to “search” out His judgments.
James 4:13-14: Pay attention! You say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a town, stay there a year, conduct business, and make money.” Why, you don’t even know what tomorrow will bring.
- Can we know God’s will in advance?
James 4:15: Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”
- What attitude is behind the words, “If the Lord wants us to”?
- How should this help us deal with any anxiety associated with “doing God’s will”?
Colossians 3:3: For you have died [in baptism (Colossians 2:12-13)], and your life is hidden by Christ in God.
Spiritually, your life is hidden with Christ in God. But physically, you live in the same fallen world as everyone else. You are subject to the same natural laws, live in the same communities, and deal with the same concerns of everyday life. Yet, amid the uncertainties of life, Paul and Timothy tell us:
Colossians 3:23: Whatever you do, do it wholeheartedly, as something done for the Lord and not merely for people.
Praying for God to Make His Will Known
Is it then wrong to ask God to work His will in our lives? No! That’s what we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer when we say, “Thy will be done on earth…” We pray for His guidance when we have choices to make. But we do not pray for God to make our decisions for us.
Matthew 16:4: [Jesus speaking to the Jews of His day]: “An evil and adulterous generation craves a sign [from God], but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” See also Matthew 12:38-40.
- Are we to seek signs from God?
- What is the sign that God promises to give?
When we crave a sign from God, instead of trusting that He will take care of us according to His will, we are trying to walk by sight (a revealed sign), instead of walking by faith (that which we do not see, feel, or experience) (see 2 Corinthians 5:7).
Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans for well-being, not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope.”
– Who know God’s plans? Who doesn’t?
Through the Prophet Jeremiah, God didn’t reveal much about the plans that He had for His people. God said that they would remain in captivity for 70 years and that He would bring them back to their own land. God didn’t reveal further details. The point is clear–God knows His plans, we don’t! Except for what God has chosen to reveal to us, we don’t know God’s specific will concerning our decisions.
Deuteronomy 29:29: Some things are hidden. They belong to the Lord our God. But that which is revealed belongs to us and to our children forever, so that we may keep all the words of this covenant.
- What is the purpose for what God has chosen to reveal?
End-of-Life Decisions
In the Old Testament, after Job had learned that he had lost his family and house, he cried out something with profound significance: “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Praise the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). We live out our lives as God’s people in both life and death.
God created us to live, never to die. Death is the result of our fall into sin. So, even if death may come and alleviate someone’s suffering, it is still bad–for it was not what God created us to be or experience!
Yet, knowing that, we still have to allow God to call someone home to Himself. “Our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). So, how do we make life-and-death decisions that are thrust upon us, especially knowing what we have just learned? How do we make the best decisions, especially since medical advances bring us into situations that would have never taken place in years past?
In the many choices me make, some are between what is good and what is bad. Others may be choices among several good choices. In others decisions that confront us, we may be forced to choose the lesser of evils.
God doesn’t expect–or want us to–try to climb into heaven to find out what is hidden and secret from us. He offers us choices and is pleased to accept them as He carries out His promise “that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). Amen.
