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Transcript 231B — Discerning God's Will for Our Lives
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Hello. I have decision to make. I have prayed and asked people's advice, and so on: What should I do? Should I decide "A" or "B"? Now I have said to myself, "I 'm going to decide, and I'm going to do it according to God's will." But how do you decide whether something is really God's will? In other words, how do you determine if it's God's will or not? This is not only for that decision but anything from now on.
HC: The question that's raised is a very practical question that we all face virtually every day of our lives. And that is, how can we know God's will? When we're faced with the decision of which school to go to, if we're a student, or faced with the question of whom are we to marry, if we are concerned about that, the question of what town shall we live in, what job shall I have, what color shall we paint our house, what kind of a car shall we buy, all of these questions require decision making.
Now how can we know what is the pleasing thing to do? Well, God of course did not give us His Bible telling us about the color of the house that we are to live in. Nor does it describe the city that we are to live in. There are many details that are not found in the Bible.
But God lays down the basic principle by which we are to view any decision, any question. And as we bring to bear upon the question at hand these basic principles, we can soon begin to decide God's will.
Let me talk for a moment about someone who is planning to get married. What is God's will? Shall I get married, or shall I not? Well, the Bible doesn't say that we must be married. The Bible indicates that we can live in a very happy relationship to God in the single state or in the married state. But it does say that if we do get married, we are not to be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. And therefore it's imperative, if we are interested in romance at all, that it is with a fellow born again person.
If it's the matter of "Which job shall I have?" or "Which town shall I live in?" there are other rules that do apply. The Bible says, "Whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God." The Bible tells us to "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness." The Bible says that we are His witnesses. The Bible says that we are ambassadors of Christ, Christ as it were making His appeal through us. The Bible says that we are to be humble. We are not to be conceited. And so on and so on and so on.
As you read the Bible, you find basic principles. All right. Now you are faced with a decision. And so if you want to, you can think of it like this: I can do "A" or I can do "B." Now if I go in the "A" direction, will it be most to the glory of God? In other words, in this way will I be serving Him most greatly, or will it be to God's glory if I go in the "B" direction? If I go in the "A" direction, is that going to enhance my ability to be a witness.? Or will it be enhanced if I go in the "B" direction? Can I really say that going in the "A" direction effectively is there because of a desire to seek first of all the Kingdom of God and His righteousness? Or is it possible that I should go in the "B" direction? Or maybe I should maintain the status quo and go in neither direction.
You see, the better we are acquainted with the Word of God, the more sensitive we are to the way God speaks to us and thinks through His Word, the more we're going to know what kind of path to follow. Now we may finally decide to go in tile "A" direction, that that appears to be most desirable in the light of the principles God has laid down. And then, by that time, God may have shut the door to go in that direction. And so then we have to look again. It may not be God's will at all that we go that way.
The fact that a door is open, however, in any direction, is not in itself indicative that God is blessing that particular move. You might be considering different alternatives. One door is wide open, and the other is not nearly as wide open. And yet the door that is wide open may be a program where you are not going to live to God's glory. And God may be testing you. He may have opened the door to see what you will do. Will you go contrary to His will, or will you not.? You have this opportunity to go contrary to His will.
The best way to test any decision is by the Word of God. And God has given us the basic principle, even though He has not spelled out in detail the individual decision. Now God has given us a mind, and more than that, God has given us contact with Himself through prayer. We read in James 1, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth liberally and upbraideth not." That is, He does not revile us when we come to Him admitting our ignorance, admitting the fact that we need wisdom from on high.
And very frequently we come across a decision that has to be made, and after weighing all the possibilities in light of anything we might know from the Bible, we still don't know which way to go. Well, wonderfully, we have recourse to prayer. We can pray for wisdom. We can beseech the Lord that He will guide us in this. And how God will move in this we don't know. Perhaps after a while we'll just have the settled feeling that this is the way we ought to go, rather than the other way.