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As the basis of this lesson, we have chosen three Scriptures which refer to the will of God.
The first speaks of the believer's delight in doing the will of God.
The second is a believer's prayer, asking God to lead him in His perfect will.
The third is a benediction.
Psalm 40:8 I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart.
Psalm 143:10: Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy Spirit is good; lead me in the land of uprightness.
Hebrews 13:20-21: Now the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make you perfect in every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be the glory for ever and ever, Amen.
This is one of the great benedictions of the Bible, but it is also a prayer in which we ask the Lord to help us to do the perfect will of God-to make us perfect in every good thing to do His will.
In these studies on spiritual perception, we have dealt at length with the mechanics of finding the leading of the Lord as well as other aspects, but now we want to consider those basic inward qualities which will actually bring forth the will of God and cause us inevitably to do the will of God.
First, we want to read an exceptional passage about the will of God found in Matthew 12:46-50
46 While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him.
47 Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.
48 But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?
49 And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
50 For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.
The Lord was showing them that by doing the will of God a spiritual bond and a spiritual relationship to Him and to one another is created that cannot be accomplished in any other way.
Perhaps you are finding that flesh-and-blood ties mean far less to you than the bonds existing between brothers and sisters in the Lord, and that you are more concerned about this relationship to the Lord than relationship to anyone else in this world.
Suddenly family values diminish.
A young man who is called to be a prophet may find his parents set against the perfect will of God for
his life.
Suddenly he comes to the crossroads because he is set to go on with God.
They are following one path and he is following another. Although the young man really loves his parents, the relationship has changed.
The Gospel of Luke expresses it this way: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, he cannot be My disciple" ( Luke 14:26 ) .
The Greek word used for "hate" means that he must love them a good deal less by comparison. This means that your love for Him must be very true and real, and you must reach the place where everything else is secondary.
This passage in Matthew 12 about the will of God is wonderful. Jesus' mother and His brethren were waiting outside to see Him.
At that particular time His own brothers did not believe on Him. We read in John 7 that His brothers goaded him about going up to the feast of Tabernacles, saying, "Why don't You go up and show Yourself and the works you are doing?"
But Jesus remained until the middle of the feast before He went up to the Temple. His brothers did not believe on Him at this time; however, I Corinthians 15:7 tells that the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to his brother James and his other brothers after his resurrection, and they were converted then.
His brother James wrote the book of James, and he is also mentioned in Acts 12:17. Jud, who wrote the epistle of Jude, was also His brother.
When the message came, "Your mother and your brothers are waiting outside to see you," Jesus was impressed concerning His relationship with His disciples, and He said, "Who is My mother? Who are My brothers?
These are My mother, My brothers, and My sisters," and He pointed toward His disciples.
In what way were His disciples the mother of Jesus?
What did Jesus mean when He pointed to them and said, "These are My mother" ?
They were those who were carrying the revelation of Christ in the womb of their hearts. They were going to bring it forth to the world.
We who are walking in the will of God have a living Word, the Word of Christ, within us.
Sometimes it involves a great deal of travail, but He is coming forth; and as He does, those who do the will of God will mother a real Word of Christ to this world.
The will of God is a very important reality.
Who is My brother? Who is My sister? Those who hear the Word of God and do the will of God. They walk in His will.
It is not everyone who says, "Lord, Lord," but the one who does the will of the Father. This is what counts.
To summarize this point, we would say that those of us who walk with Him, and who walk in the perfect will of god, enjoy a relationship with Christ and with one another that is beyond explanation.
The bonds in the Spirit are those that really count. It is the trick of Satan to get people to pick at one another.
Do not do it.
God's people must not fuss with each other or be quick to criticize one another. They must have one goal in mind: to do the will of the Father.
Find the will of God and do it.
We are talking about the divine leading and guidance for our lives and the way to do the will of God.
Sometimes we think that this involves only the mechanics, so let me explain what I mean.
The person who will be classified as the mother, brother, or sister of the Lord will be the one who does the will of the Father.
That person has not found the perfect will of God by putting out fleeces to determine whether he should do this or that.
The perfect will of God does not come by using the right judgment or making the right decision concerning what you are to do from day to day.
The perfect will of God is the state which exists in your spirit., as well as your correctness of action and your being guided or led by the Spirit in everything you do and in everything you say.
Those things are only incidental to it. We are more concerned about the state of heart. To be found in the will of God does not mean simply making the right decisions and saying the right things at the right time.
It is more than that. It is a condition of heart.
To be in the will of God is to have a heart that is so in tune with God that it is set to do only His will.
When Jesus came into the world, He said, "I come to do Thy will, O God." ( Hebrews 10:5-7 ) .
He also said, "I do always those things which please the Father" ( John 8:29 ) .
Jesus walked in the perfect of the Father. ( John 8:29 ) . Jesus walked in the perfect will of the Father.
If we could only walk that way! It is not enough to have right judgment in every decision, or to take the right action through some odd conspiracy of chance.
You might make the right decision in a hundred different instances and therefore conclude that you were in the will of God. Not necessarily.
A man may make the right choices and the right decisions, but it is the state of his heart that really counts.
What about all the Christians who stumble and falter and use bad judgement in many situations? They are too unaware to know what they are to do.
They stumble along, feeling their way, picking themselves up off the ground a dozen times, yet going on, looking for help saying, "Pray for me, minister to me, help me."
Are they out of the will of God? Are they out in orbit somewhere under the devil's control?
No indeed!
I cannot believe that being in the will of God or reaching the goal actually depends upon a man not making any mistakes as to what he is to do today, who he is to call on or telephone, which chapter he is supposed to read in the Bible, whether he asks the blessing before every meal, says his prayers before he goes to bed, or remembers to pray over all his prayer list.
The will of God is not involved with these things.
There are many people who stumble along like Peter.
One time the Lord said to him, "Hold on. Get thee behind Me, Satan!" And another time He commended Peter, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; the Father revealed that truth to you."
People who are growing, opening up to the Lord and hungering after God with all of their hearts- they are in the will of God.
God is concerned with that state of heart.
David was a man after God's own heart, and we know how he failed!
You cannot get away from the fact that God loved him and chastened him severely. When he finally came through, he had been beaten up by the devil and by the Lord Himself.
It is difficult to know who gave him the worst time- enemies who were buffeting him and making him seek God, or God, who was correcting him if he deviated from the way.
Set your heart on God. This business of doing the will of God puts you in a certain state where you learn to do the right things.
You learn because God puts the pressure on you. I want to encourage those who never seem to feel or sense a blessing, who never react to the presence of the Lord, but have to take it all by faith.
They may have more faith than those who tune in and feel and sense so much.
Those who must accept it all by faith usually come through with more faith than anyone else, because they trust God implicitly. They learn to trust God to take care of them.
I have found one passage of Scripture that has taught me more about the will of God than any other passage I have ever read.
It is in the sixth chapter of Ephesians. You may need seat belts to hold you down, because some of these thoughts will be hard to take.
When the Lord gives you a truth, do you ever feel as if you are on a roller coaster and the seats are falling away from under you, and you are ready to be transported?
Some truths affect us like that.
Ephesians 6:5-8 was actually written for slaves. You may say there is no slavery today. You don't think so? What about your boss? Isn't he your master, at least from nine to five?
Servants ( slaves or bond servants, according to the margin ) , be obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not in the way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of god from the heart with good will doing service, as unto the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that whatsoever good thing each one doeth, the same shall receive again from the Lord, whether he be bond or free.
Let us consider this Scripture that we may grasp it fully, because it is a rich passage. A man who is a slave can be in the perfect will of God.
How does he do it? He must obey his master, but not with lip service or as a man-pleaser. In other words, he will not "butter-up" the boss or use a little "soft soap" on him, for such actions involve an element of hypocrisy.
God's servants are to be obedient unto their masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart as unto Christ. As unto Christ!
Am I saying that you should serve your boss, that "Simon Legree," as you would Christ? Yes!
There are some things in the book of Ephesians we may think should be deleted or rewritten for the twenty first-century mind, in order to be accepted or believed- statements concerning wives being obedient to their husbands, servants obeying their masters as they would Christ, in singleness of heart, and children obeying their parents.
( No doubt you detect my sarcasm. )
Should such instructions be there? It should indeed.
It may give us a bad time, but it belongs there. Consider the life of a slave in Paul's day. He was owned, body and soul, by someone else; and because he was a Christian, he worked and served that master- to whom he was obligated by the laws of that time- as he would Christ.
The Civil War was fought on the wrong basis. That was not the way to set the slave free. It should have been done another way, without bloodshed.
Very few honest historians today believe that slavery was the real issue in the war between the states; it was the propaganda issue.
Something else was at stake: the vying for industrial control between the North and the South.
The Lord has another way to solve the problem of slaves and masters. If you are under obligation to a man as a boss, you are to fulfill that obligation as unto the Lord.
Suppose you feel that the man is of the devil- then are you supposed to serve him? There is a place, of course, where human conscience enters into the picture.
Then you render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God, the things that are God's.
But as much as lies within you, with a singleness of heart, you will give him the full obligation you are required to give. You are to do the will of God from the heart.
Why? Because you know there is a principle behind it: knowing that whatsoever good thing each one doeth, the same shall he receive again from the Lord, whether he be bond or free.
Whatever you set in motion will remain in motion and will come back to you. If a man sends out evil, inevitably it will circle back to him in a boomerang fashion.
Haman died on the gallows he had built for Mordecai, and his sons died also. The lions suddenly found their mouths loosed, not to chew up Daniel, but to chew up the men who had plotted to put Daniel in the lion's den.
this is the way it always happens. Saul searched for years to kill David with his sword, but ultimately he himself fell on that sword and took his own life.
Hatred, jealousy, and malice always have a way of swinging back in a circle to hit you. The things you send out will come back to you.
If you send out good, eventually it will come back to you. what you sow, you will reap ( Galatians
6:7) .
Give and it shall be given unto you, heaped up, shaken down, and running over will men give to your bosom ( Luke 6:38 ) .
This is how God works. Actions travel in circles. What we send out will come back.
I am counting on this principle with all my heart. I know satanic devices have been set against us and there are people who have felt their full force, but I know also what will happen if we commit it to the Lord.
That device will circle right back on the one who sent it. You do not have to fight your own battle. God has set certain laws in motion which will work.
When you are worshiping and blessing the Lord and someone sets in motion some force or some curse against you, it will go right back on that individual.
Many a hand has been raised against me during and actives aggressive ministry, and I have seen one after another of those hands brought down.
What did I do? Not a thing. God did it. God says, "Touch not Mine anointed and do My prophets no harm" ( I Chronicles 16:22 ) .
This does not mean that His prophets are foolproof, that they are beyond making a mistake. That is not the issue. God has His hand on them. He is dealing with them very carefully and holding them in line Himself.
The same thing is true of you. If you are a Christian, people in the world may come against you and criticize you for many things, but it will come back on them.
Sometimes the confidence of a Christian is shaken because of the way he is being railed at, discredited, and beaten down, until he may wonder if there is something wrong with him.
But if keeps his confidence in God, even though he may be the poor of this world, God will make him rich in faith and an heir of the Kingdom which He has promised.
The things that come against him will ultimately come back on those who came against him. This is a great law. If you set blessing and good in motion, it will certainly come back to you.
If you are merciful and kind, if you love your enemies and do good to those who despite-fully use you, it will return to you. God will bless you in it. This is a picture of the will of God.
We now turn to Ephesians 5:8-21:
8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
10 Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.
13 But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.
14 Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,
16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
17 Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
Doing the will of God is sometimes a matter of feeling your way until you find what is well-pleasing to the Lord.
For a long time you did not know your place, where you fit in, or what you were supposed to do.
You were just feeling your way along, but everything that you did seemed to come back to you in blessing.
Sometimes it means much labor, but is always rewarding, because you are setting something in motion by doing the will of the Lord.
We walk as children of light, and even though we seem to stumble along, we prove what is well -pleasing unto the Lord and we walk in it.
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them; for the things which are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak of.
But all things when they are reproved are made manifest by the light: for everything that is made manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee.
Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
This is all a matter of doing the will of God. Much of it is dependent upon human initiative.
The Word continues: Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. There are some in this move of God who need to know how to get into the perfect will of God.
Sometimes people think they will be in the perfect will of God if they move from one city to another, or if they go to a different church.
They keep moving around, but they never are in the will of God because they are missing certain things they need to know.
Let us take note of the exhortation in Ephesians 5:18-21:
18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
They were not to be drunken with wine, but to be filled with the Spirit, singing psalms and rejoicing
in the Lord.
Praising God continually is very essential. Give thanks to God always for all things- not only a few things.
In everything we are to give thanks.
There are actually three things to note in this passage concerning the will of God: the rejoicing and the singing to the Lord, the thanksgiving, and the subjection one to another.
The will of God then actually becomes a state that is wrought in our spirits.
Let us consider this further. Was Jonah in the will of God when he was preaching to Nineveh?
Mechanically he was going through the motions, but was his heart in the will of God? No, he preached to them because he had to; it was forced on him.
He had experienced a submarine ride which was very convincing. Later he was sitting in the shade of the gourd waiting for the forty days to be up and for God to send fire and judgment down on Nineveh.
But they all repented and God forgave them. When judgment did not fall, Jonah pouted and became surly because the will of God was not really in his heart.
He did it mechanically, but not with his heart.
Our Scripture in Ephesians speaks about not being foolish, but understanding what the will of God is. Very clearly it states, "Be careful how you walk; not as unwise, but as wise people."
It is made very plain that we must redeem the time because the days are evil.
Being in the perfect will of God involves a certain inner state rather than simply having the right actions. Jonah finally did the right acts, but he never did them from his heart.
He reluctantly did the will of God, and that is not the perfect will of God.
The things that knock you out of the will of God are rebellion and depression on the one hand, and ingratitude on the other.
We mention rebellion in contrast to submission. The apostle Paul stated it positively, "You are to walk in the will of God; and in order to walk in the will of God, you must sing to the Lord, give thanks for everything that happen, and be subject to one another."
It is truly a state of being.
In order for Paul to be in the will of God, was it necessary that he find the leading of the Lord as to where he should go?
God did guide him, but sometimes, because he was being persecuted and chased out in the middle of the night, he had to flee to the next city, where he began to preach the next morning.
I do not think that the mechanics brought about the will of God. It was the state of his heart that brought him into the will of God.
I trust that you understand this is one of the most important truths about knowing the will of God.
If I am depressed, I am certainly not in the will of God. If I am discouraged, and I preach because it is my duty to preach on Sunday morning and evening and whenever a service is scheduled, if I do not preach out of a willing heart, but from a sense of duty, then I am not in the will of God.
That is not the perfect will of God for me. If I sit around and grumble and complain because the battle is rough, because I am in spiritual conflict, and I wish I could get out of this mess, that also is not the will of God.
Suppose everything becomes worse? Am I to be discouraged, and grumble and complain?
The children of Israel were always murmuring. What were they expecting? They were having a Free ride- manna every morning; everything they needed was supplied.
They had everything going for them. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. A little river followed them all through the wilderness.
There was always fresh water to drink from the rock, yet they grumbled and tried to find something to complain about.
Why?
Because they simply did not have the will of God in their hearts. They were taken out of Egypt, but Egypt was never taken out of them, though they seemed to be marching along to do the will of God.
Finally God said," I can't stand them any more," and He killed all of the older generation in the wilderness and led on a younger generation who would obey God and do what He wanted them to do.
Do not prophesy because it is expected of you, or sing in the Spirit because it is expected of you. Do it with all of your heart because it is a joy to do it.
A church is in the perfect will of God, not because it has gifts of the Spirit or because ministries are coming forth, but because they are moving in a right spirit in a right way.
The will of God is being done from a condition of heart. You may be tithing and still be out of the will of God because you are not doing it with a true spirit of faith as unto the Lord; you are not investing in the Lord.
You may be going through the motions in doing many things, and still be missing it because you are not doing it with all of your heart unto the Lord.
To be in the will of the Lord, we cannot disobey the first commandment while going through all the motions, or we will be just like the Pharisees, Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You thithe anise and cummin and mint, but the weightier matters of the Lord you leave undone.
You forget mercy, justice, and truth. You ought to pay tithes of everything you grow, but you should not leave the other undone ( Matthew 23:23 ) .
They were busy going through the motions, saying in effect, "We are doing the will of God!"
They were not doing the will of God, because their hearts were not right. To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength- this constitutes the basis of the will of God.
What then shall we do? What shall our reactions be? When we are in the will of God, they happen automatically.
A man who has the will of God wrought in his spirit and in his heart performs the right acts when the chips are down and when the situation demands it.
When Paul ans Silas were beaten at Philippi because they had cast a spirit of divination out of a woman and all hope of gain was gone for her masters, the anger of those masters lashed out.
They had Paul and Silas beaten and put in jail. No doubt salt was rubbed into their wounds according to Roman custom; and they must have been in a great deal of pain.
But they were not crying and complaining about the pain. Their praise to the
Lord enabled them to transcend the physical discomfort.
They were in the will of God and they knew they were in the will of God.
They did not say," If we are in the will of God, why were we beaten and put in jail? Since Christ is the Lord, the Lord of heaven and earth, how is it that we are being persecuted?
If He is the Lord and we are in the will of God, why did this happen?"
Reason could have taken over. Depression, rebellion, and grumbling could have come forth.
That is what happens to some of us sometimes. We may be very much in the will of God, but when adversities come against us, we do not obey the Word, "In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" ( I Thessalonians 5:18 ), and this verse also, "Give thanks always for all things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father' ( Ephesians 5:20 ) .
In everything we are to give thanks.
Have you thanked God for everything that happened to you this year? We are all guilty on this count. I have talked to the Lord about some things that happened to me recently for which I was not thanking Him.
I even had some heated discussions with the Lord, and I am not very grateful about it. Yet I honestly know that everything has worked for my good.
To be thankful is part of being in the will of God- thanking God for everything that happens.
What about the defeats? We learn more from our stupidity than from our wisdom. If we do something right, we do not know what we did and we probably could not do it again if our lives depended on it.
The Lord puts us in places where we learn more because we do not know what to do. What we do not know leads us into knowledge.
Can you really thank God for the path you are on?
Can you thank God for your life. Can you thank God that you are His child? Can you thank God that you are in His will?
This is all a part of being in the will of God. You are not to be unwise, but you are to understand what the will of the Lord is and walk along in it.
At the very beginning of Paul's life in God, the Lord told Ananias, "I will show him what great things he must suffer for My name's sake" (Acts 9:16); and that is exactly what happened to Paul.
He suffered. I suppose there were people who came to Paul and said, "I can't figure it out. If God truly anointed you and called you to preach, why is it that you end up in jail? Why are you beaten? Why are people always plotting against you?
Surely where there is a little smoke, there must be some fire!
Are you sure you are in the will of God, running all over the country preaching to some heathen who do not even appreciate it?
They have even run you out of town. Something is wrong. Maybe you should change your style of preaching. Paul. Use a little diplomacy. You ought to learn how to win friends and influence people.
Perhaps then you could settle down and have a ministry that would be well accepted."
Have you heard that kind of reasoning? Have you ever asked yourself, "Here I am trying to serve God, and if the Lord is in all of this, where are the people?"
In the past I have said, "We built the church- now where are the people? The Lord was going to bless this house, and we just lost forty or more!
Now what are we going to do."
We are going on with the Lord because we are in the will of God. We will rejoice more in the Lord, give thanks in everything that happens, and sing more than ever.
A child of God, even with tears and weeping, can sing better songs than the world can sing. The world has nothing to sing about.
Even though they beat up a storm and get tremendously excited, their songs have no real message. They sing about frustration and despair, about violence and hatred, because the world is filled with violence.
I wish we has some real entertainment. I like an old-fashioned belly laugh, when you have to hold your sides because you laugh so hard.
The world's entertainment is filled with blood and thunder, beatings and shootings. What is the matter with the people of the world?
They are only reflecting what is taking place in the spirit realm even before the physical violence breaks out in the world. Persecution and many other things are about to be manifested.
In the midst of this, what will the people of God be doing? They will rejoice and give thanks and walk on a path God has chosen- not in a state of resignation, but because the will of God is being wrought in their hearts.
If bitterness had filled the heart of young Daniel at the age of seventeen when he was taken as a war captive, placed in the king's palace, and treated like an absolute slave, how different the story would have been. We do not know all that was done to him.
It is very possible that many of these young men were mutilated so that they could never have a future as a man or a father, because that was the custom.
Daniel and the three Hebrew children could have been filled with bitterness because of what had to submit to in those days.
Instead of that, Daniel's prayers are exulting examples of the sovereign power of God over their lives to deliver them. It is an amazing thing to have the will of God wrought in your heart.
If God has done His deep work in a man, he is submissive to the will of God. That man is not depressed. He is not a grumbler. He is not ungrateful. He does not murmur against the Lord.
If a man does the will of God and the will of God is wrought in him, and he truly walks in the perfect will of God, the man sings and praises God for everything.
That man is submissive to his brothers and sisters in the house of the Lord.
What is the answer for the people who really want to walk in the will of God? Simplify! One more
Scripture will tell us to come into this simplicity.
In that hour came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And He called to Him a little child, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. ( Matthew 18:1-3 ) .
The teaching of the Lord must be embraced in its total aspect of truth in your life. To become a Christian you must believe that Jesus blood washed away your sins.
But if you want to walk with God and do His will, a change must take place in your life. The will of God is done through people who become like little children.
This does not mean that we enter into a second childhood and become senile. This word is speaking about our attitudes, about being simple and uncomplicated.
Come like a child and say, "Father, I trust You. Father, I serve You." We are too complicated. Simplify and become like a little child. The will of God is done in simplicity.
The prophets were men of simplicity. They put first things first and never let other things interfere.
If you want to learn to play the violin, you must practice day after day, day after day. Some day people may pay to hear you.
If you want to learn to play, you must put everything else aside. People may try to discourage you and want you to give it up, but if you are in the will of God, you will focus with simplicity upon that one thing and do it.
Whatever God has called you to do, set your heart on that one thing until it is finished. Even volcanoes erupt, earthquakes come, and minor revolutions take place in the meantime, do not be distracted.
Stay with what God called you to do. The secret of doing the will of God is in simplifying everything until it is reduced to the one thing that is really important and then doing that.
Paul said, "Forgetting the things which are behind, this one thing I do" ( Philippians 3:13 ) .
Why was that in his thinking? With his genius, he could easily have set up some concessions, started a special publishing company in Jerusalem, and a Christian Zion movement with converted Jews traveling through Gentile churches to take up offerings.
Paul could have been ambitious and accomplished many things, but he did not. He was focused on only one thing.
He said, "I determined not to come to you with enticing words of man's wisdom: I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" ( I Corinthians 2:1-2 ) .
What happened?
He moved a world for God. He penned half of the New Testament by the anointing of the Spirit. He did not start out to see how many books he could write or how many different things he could do.
He had only one goal, and the outgrowth of it was tremendous.
Does it pay to be simple in your approach to things? Many things may beckon you. Many things can absorb your interest.
I had an ambition for many years to own a small ranch where I could get away from everything. One day as I was praying about it quite earnestly, I knew the Lord was speaking to my heart.
He said,"I did not call you to raise radishes which can be bought two bunches for a dollar."
Simplify! Simplify! When Jesus told His disciples," You are to leave all to follow Me," they forsook their nets and everything!
I suppose some of them said," This business of following Christ is fine, but why couldn't we organize the business, have a business manager, and continue to sell fish on the side? It could turn out to be a real blessing to the Lord."
Discipleship could not be learned in that way. Almost every man whom God chooses to use, sooner or later experiences a time when everything goes by the board, and his all is laid on the altar. One thing emerges from it: His life is simplified to the demands of Christ as the Lord and Master of his life, and out of that comes the will of God.
Coming into the will of God is not a simple matter of coming to the pastor and saying," What do I do next? Do I resign my job? Do I go to Bible School?"
The will of God is attained by an attitude of heart. When that is accomplished, you start walking with God one step at a time.
A young man once asked, "God has called me to preach; what must I do to become a preacher? I am afraid I will miss it."
He received a wise answer: "Son, if you just walk with the Lord every day, and with every step you take, you loo to the Lord, loving Him and following Him, then if it is His will for you to become a preacher, you cannot help but become a preacher."
Simplify!
Without ambition, just walk with God. There are many important things to be done and we will do them as they come. Do not worry about them. Just walk with God and do the will of God.
We conclude with Romans 12:1-2:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of god, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God...
And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.
The will of God is done by a people who hold nothing back. They give the Lord their all. They are not conformed to this age. Their minds are renewed and they prove and walk in the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
His brother James wrote the book of James, and he is also mentioned in Acts 12:17. Jud, who wrote the epistle of Jude, was also His brother.
When the message came, "Your mother and your brothers are waiting outside to see you," Jesus was impressed concerning His relationship with His disciples, and He said, "Who is My mother? Who are My brothers?
These are My mother, My brothers, and My sisters," and He pointed toward His disciples.
In what way were His disciples the mother of Jesus?
What did Jesus mean when He pointed to them and said, "These are My mother" ?
They were those who were carrying the revelation of Christ in the womb of their hearts. They were going to bring it forth to the world.
We who are walking in the will of God have a living Word, the Word of Christ, within us.
Sometimes it involves a great deal of travail, but He is coming forth; and as He does, those who do the will of God will mother a real Word of Christ to this world.
The will of God is a very important reality.
Who is My brother? Who is My sister? Those who hear the Word of God and do the will of God. They walk in His will.
It is not everyone who says, "Lord, Lord," but the one who does the will of the Father. This is what counts.
To summarize this point, we would say that those of us who walk with Him, and who walk in the perfect will of god, enjoy a relationship with Christ and with one another that is beyond explanation.
The bonds in the Spirit are those that really count. It is the trick of Satan to get people to pick at one another.
Do not do it.
God's people must not fuss with each other or be quick to criticize one another. They must have one goal in mind: to do the will of the Father.
Find the will of God and do it.
We are talking about the divine leading and guidance for our lives and the way to do the will of God.
Sometimes we think that this involves only the mechanics, so let me explain what I mean.
The person who will be classified as the mother, brother, or sister of the Lord will be the one who does the will of the Father.
That person has not found the perfect will of God by putting out fleeces to determine whether he should do this or that.
The perfect will of God does not come by using the right judgment or making the right decision concerning what you are to do from day to day.
The perfect will of God is the state which exists in your spirit., as well as your correctness of action and your being guided or led by the Spirit in everything you do and in everything you say.
Those things are only incidental to it. We are more concerned about the state of heart. To be found in the will of God does not mean simply making the right decisions and saying the right things at the right time.
It is more than that. It is a condition of heart.
To be in the will of God is to have a heart that is so in tune with God that it is set to do only His will.
When Jesus came into the world, He said, "I come to do Thy will, O God." ( Hebrews 10:5-7 ) .
He also said, "I do always those things which please the Father" ( John 8:29 ) .
Jesus walked in the perfect of the Father. ( John 8:29 ) . Jesus walked in the perfect will of the Father.
If we could only walk that way! It is not enough to have right judgment in every decision, or to take the right action through some odd conspiracy of chance.
You might make the right decision in a hundred different instances and therefore conclude that you were in the will of God. Not necessarily.
A man may make the right choices and the right decisions, but it is the state of his heart that really counts.
What about all the Christians who stumble and falter and use bad judgement in many situations? They are too unaware to know what they are to do.
They stumble along, feeling their way, picking themselves up off the ground a dozen times, yet going on, looking for help saying, "Pray for me, minister to me, help me."
Are they out of the will of God? Are they out in orbit somewhere under the devil's control?
No indeed!
I cannot believe that being in the will of God or reaching the goal actually depends upon a man not making any mistakes as to what he is to do today, who he is to call on or telephone, which chapter he is supposed to read in the Bible, whether he asks the blessing before every meal, says his prayers before he goes to bed, or remembers to pray over all his prayer list.
The will of God is not involved with these things.
There are many people who stumble along like Peter.
One time the Lord said to him, "Hold on. Get thee behind Me, Satan!" And another time He commended Peter, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; the Father revealed that truth to you."
People who are growing, opening up to the Lord and hungering after God with all of their hearts- they are in the will of God.
God is concerned with that state of heart.
You cannot get away from the fact that God loved him and chastened him severely. When he finally came through, he had been beaten up by the devil and by the Lord Himself.
It is difficult to know who gave him the worst time- enemies who were buffeting him and making him seek God, or God, who was correcting him if he deviated from the way.
Set your heart on God. This business of doing the will of God puts you in a certain state where you learn to do the right things.
You learn because God puts the pressure on you. I want to encourage those who never seem to feel or sense a blessing, who never react to the presence of the Lord, but have to take it all by faith.
They may have more faith than those who tune in and feel and sense so much.
Those who must accept it all by faith usually come through with more faith than anyone else, because they trust God implicitly. They learn to trust God to take care of them.
I have found one passage of Scripture that has taught me more about the will of God than any other passage I have ever read.
It is in the sixth chapter of Ephesians. You may need seat belts to hold you down, because some of these thoughts will be hard to take.
When the Lord gives you a truth, do you ever feel as if you are on a roller coaster and the seats are falling away from under you, and you are ready to be transported?
Some truths affect us like that.
Ephesians 6:5-8 was actually written for slaves. You may say there is no slavery today. You don't think so? What about your boss? Isn't he your master, at least from nine to five?
Servants ( slaves or bond servants, according to the margin ) , be obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not in the way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of god from the heart with good will doing service, as unto the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that whatsoever good thing each one doeth, the same shall receive again from the Lord, whether he be bond or free.
Let us consider this Scripture that we may grasp it fully, because it is a rich passage. A man who is a slave can be in the perfect will of God.
How does he do it? He must obey his master, but not with lip service or as a man-pleaser. In other words, he will not "butter-up" the boss or use a little "soft soap" on him, for such actions involve an element of hypocrisy.
God's servants are to be obedient unto their masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart as unto Christ. As unto Christ!
Am I saying that you should serve your boss, that "Simon Legree," as you would Christ? Yes!
There are some things in the book of Ephesians we may think should be deleted or rewritten for the twenty first-century mind, in order to be accepted or believed- statements concerning wives being obedient to their husbands, servants obeying their masters as they would Christ, in singleness of heart, and children obeying their parents.
( No doubt you detect my sarcasm. )
Should such instructions be there? It should indeed.
It may give us a bad time, but it belongs there. Consider the life of a slave in Paul's day. He was owned, body and soul, by someone else; and because he was a Christian, he worked and served that master- to whom he was obligated by the laws of that time- as he would Christ.
The Civil War was fought on the wrong basis. That was not the way to set the slave free. It should have been done another way, without bloodshed.
Very few honest historians today believe that slavery was the real issue in the war between the states; it was the propaganda issue.
Something else was at stake: the vying for industrial control between the North and the South.
The Lord has another way to solve the problem of slaves and masters. If you are under obligation to a man as a boss, you are to fulfill that obligation as unto the Lord.
Suppose you feel that the man is of the devil- then are you supposed to serve him? There is a place, of course, where human conscience enters into the picture.
Then you render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God, the things that are God's.
But as much as lies within you, with a singleness of heart, you will give him the full obligation you are required to give. You are to do the will of God from the heart.
Why? Because you know there is a principle behind it: knowing that whatsoever good thing each one doeth, the same shall he receive again from the Lord, whether he be bond or free.
Whatever you set in motion will remain in motion and will come back to you. If a man sends out evil, inevitably it will circle back to him in a boomerang fashion.
Haman died on the gallows he had built for Mordecai, and his sons died also. The lions suddenly found their mouths loosed, not to chew up Daniel, but to chew up the men who had plotted to put Daniel in the lion's den.
this is the way it always happens. Saul searched for years to kill David with his sword, but ultimately he himself fell on that sword and took his own life.
Hatred, jealousy, and malice always have a way of swinging back in a circle to hit you. The things you send out will come back to you.
If you send out good, eventually it will come back to you. what you sow, you will reap ( Galatians
Give and it shall be given unto you, heaped up, shaken down, and running over will men give to your bosom ( Luke 6:38 ) .
This is how God works. Actions travel in circles. What we send out will come back.
I am counting on this principle with all my heart. I know satanic devices have been set against us and there are people who have felt their full force, but I know also what will happen if we commit it to the Lord.
That device will circle right back on the one who sent it. You do not have to fight your own battle. God has set certain laws in motion which will work.
When you are worshiping and blessing the Lord and someone sets in motion some force or some curse against you, it will go right back on that individual.
Many a hand has been raised against me during and actives aggressive ministry, and I have seen one after another of those hands brought down.
What did I do? Not a thing. God did it. God says, "Touch not Mine anointed and do My prophets no harm" ( I Chronicles 16:22 ) .
This does not mean that His prophets are foolproof, that they are beyond making a mistake. That is not the issue. God has His hand on them. He is dealing with them very carefully and holding them in line Himself.
The same thing is true of you. If you are a Christian, people in the world may come against you and criticize you for many things, but it will come back on them.
Sometimes the confidence of a Christian is shaken because of the way he is being railed at, discredited, and beaten down, until he may wonder if there is something wrong with him.
But if keeps his confidence in God, even though he may be the poor of this world, God will make him rich in faith and an heir of the Kingdom which He has promised.
The things that come against him will ultimately come back on those who came against him. This is a great law. If you set blessing and good in motion, it will certainly come back to you.
If you are merciful and kind, if you love your enemies and do good to those who despite-fully use you, it will return to you. God will bless you in it. This is a picture of the will of God.
We now turn to Ephesians 5:8-21:
8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
10 Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.
13 But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.
14 Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,
16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
17 Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
Doing the will of God is sometimes a matter of feeling your way until you find what is well-pleasing to the Lord.
For a long time you did not know your place, where you fit in, or what you were supposed to do.
You were just feeling your way along, but everything that you did seemed to come back to you in blessing.
Sometimes it means much labor, but is always rewarding, because you are setting something in motion by doing the will of the Lord.
We walk as children of light, and even though we seem to stumble along, we prove what is well -pleasing unto the Lord and we walk in it.
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them; for the things which are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak of.
But all things when they are reproved are made manifest by the light: for everything that is made manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee.
Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
This is all a matter of doing the will of God. Much of it is dependent upon human initiative.
The Word continues: Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. There are some in this move of God who need to know how to get into the perfect will of God.
Sometimes people think they will be in the perfect will of God if they move from one city to another, or if they go to a different church.
They keep moving around, but they never are in the will of God because they are missing certain things they need to know.
Let us take note of the exhortation in Ephesians 5:18-21:
18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
They were not to be drunken with wine, but to be filled with the Spirit, singing psalms and rejoicing
Praising God continually is very essential. Give thanks to God always for all things- not only a few things.
In everything we are to give thanks.
There are actually three things to note in this passage concerning the will of God: the rejoicing and the singing to the Lord, the thanksgiving, and the subjection one to another.
The will of God then actually becomes a state that is wrought in our spirits.
Let us consider this further. Was Jonah in the will of God when he was preaching to Nineveh?
Mechanically he was going through the motions, but was his heart in the will of God? No, he preached to them because he had to; it was forced on him.
He had experienced a submarine ride which was very convincing. Later he was sitting in the shade of the gourd waiting for the forty days to be up and for God to send fire and judgment down on Nineveh.
But they all repented and God forgave them. When judgment did not fall, Jonah pouted and became surly because the will of God was not really in his heart.
He did it mechanically, but not with his heart.
Our Scripture in Ephesians speaks about not being foolish, but understanding what the will of God is. Very clearly it states, "Be careful how you walk; not as unwise, but as wise people."
It is made very plain that we must redeem the time because the days are evil.
Being in the perfect will of God involves a certain inner state rather than simply having the right actions. Jonah finally did the right acts, but he never did them from his heart.
He reluctantly did the will of God, and that is not the perfect will of God.
The things that knock you out of the will of God are rebellion and depression on the one hand, and ingratitude on the other.
We mention rebellion in contrast to submission. The apostle Paul stated it positively, "You are to walk in the will of God; and in order to walk in the will of God, you must sing to the Lord, give thanks for everything that happen, and be subject to one another."
It is truly a state of being.
In order for Paul to be in the will of God, was it necessary that he find the leading of the Lord as to where he should go?
God did guide him, but sometimes, because he was being persecuted and chased out in the middle of the night, he had to flee to the next city, where he began to preach the next morning.
I do not think that the mechanics brought about the will of God. It was the state of his heart that brought him into the will of God.
I trust that you understand this is one of the most important truths about knowing the will of God.
If I am depressed, I am certainly not in the will of God. If I am discouraged, and I preach because it is my duty to preach on Sunday morning and evening and whenever a service is scheduled, if I do not preach out of a willing heart, but from a sense of duty, then I am not in the will of God.
That is not the perfect will of God for me. If I sit around and grumble and complain because the battle is rough, because I am in spiritual conflict, and I wish I could get out of this mess, that also is not the will of God.
Suppose everything becomes worse? Am I to be discouraged, and grumble and complain?
The children of Israel were always murmuring. What were they expecting? They were having a Free ride- manna every morning; everything they needed was supplied.
They had everything going for them. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. A little river followed them all through the wilderness.
There was always fresh water to drink from the rock, yet they grumbled and tried to find something to complain about.
Why?
Because they simply did not have the will of God in their hearts. They were taken out of Egypt, but Egypt was never taken out of them, though they seemed to be marching along to do the will of God.
Finally God said," I can't stand them any more," and He killed all of the older generation in the wilderness and led on a younger generation who would obey God and do what He wanted them to do.
Do not prophesy because it is expected of you, or sing in the Spirit because it is expected of you. Do it with all of your heart because it is a joy to do it.
A church is in the perfect will of God, not because it has gifts of the Spirit or because ministries are coming forth, but because they are moving in a right spirit in a right way.
The will of God is being done from a condition of heart. You may be tithing and still be out of the will of God because you are not doing it with a true spirit of faith as unto the Lord; you are not investing in the Lord.
You may be going through the motions in doing many things, and still be missing it because you are not doing it with all of your heart unto the Lord.
To be in the will of the Lord, we cannot disobey the first commandment while going through all the motions, or we will be just like the Pharisees, Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You thithe anise and cummin and mint, but the weightier matters of the Lord you leave undone.
You forget mercy, justice, and truth. You ought to pay tithes of everything you grow, but you should not leave the other undone ( Matthew 23:23 ) .
They were busy going through the motions, saying in effect, "We are doing the will of God!"
They were not doing the will of God, because their hearts were not right. To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength- this constitutes the basis of the will of God.
What then shall we do? What shall our reactions be? When we are in the will of God, they happen automatically.
A man who has the will of God wrought in his spirit and in his heart performs the right acts when the chips are down and when the situation demands it.
When Paul ans Silas were beaten at Philippi because they had cast a spirit of divination out of a woman and all hope of gain was gone for her masters, the anger of those masters lashed out.
They had Paul and Silas beaten and put in jail. No doubt salt was rubbed into their wounds according to Roman custom; and they must have been in a great deal of pain.
But they were not crying and complaining about the pain. Their praise to the
Lord enabled them to transcend the physical discomfort.
They were in the will of God and they knew they were in the will of God.
They did not say," If we are in the will of God, why were we beaten and put in jail? Since Christ is the Lord, the Lord of heaven and earth, how is it that we are being persecuted?
If He is the Lord and we are in the will of God, why did this happen?"
Reason could have taken over. Depression, rebellion, and grumbling could have come forth.
That is what happens to some of us sometimes. We may be very much in the will of God, but when adversities come against us, we do not obey the Word, "In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" ( I Thessalonians 5:18 ), and this verse also, "Give thanks always for all things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father' ( Ephesians 5:20 ) .
In everything we are to give thanks.
Have you thanked God for everything that happened to you this year? We are all guilty on this count. I have talked to the Lord about some things that happened to me recently for which I was not thanking Him.
I even had some heated discussions with the Lord, and I am not very grateful about it. Yet I honestly know that everything has worked for my good.
To be thankful is part of being in the will of God- thanking God for everything that happens.
What about the defeats? We learn more from our stupidity than from our wisdom. If we do something right, we do not know what we did and we probably could not do it again if our lives depended on it.
The Lord puts us in places where we learn more because we do not know what to do. What we do not know leads us into knowledge.
Can you really thank God for the path you are on?
Can you thank God for your life. Can you thank God that you are His child? Can you thank God that you are in His will?
This is all a part of being in the will of God. You are not to be unwise, but you are to understand what the will of the Lord is and walk along in it.
At the very beginning of Paul's life in God, the Lord told Ananias, "I will show him what great things he must suffer for My name's sake" (Acts 9:16); and that is exactly what happened to Paul.
He suffered. I suppose there were people who came to Paul and said, "I can't figure it out. If God truly anointed you and called you to preach, why is it that you end up in jail? Why are you beaten? Why are people always plotting against you?
Surely where there is a little smoke, there must be some fire!
Are you sure you are in the will of God, running all over the country preaching to some heathen who do not even appreciate it?
They have even run you out of town. Something is wrong. Maybe you should change your style of preaching. Paul. Use a little diplomacy. You ought to learn how to win friends and influence people.
Perhaps then you could settle down and have a ministry that would be well accepted."
Have you heard that kind of reasoning? Have you ever asked yourself, "Here I am trying to serve God, and if the Lord is in all of this, where are the people?"
In the past I have said, "We built the church- now where are the people? The Lord was going to bless this house, and we just lost forty or more!
Now what are we going to do."
We are going on with the Lord because we are in the will of God. We will rejoice more in the Lord, give thanks in everything that happens, and sing more than ever.
A child of God, even with tears and weeping, can sing better songs than the world can sing. The world has nothing to sing about.
Even though they beat up a storm and get tremendously excited, their songs have no real message. They sing about frustration and despair, about violence and hatred, because the world is filled with violence.
I wish we has some real entertainment. I like an old-fashioned belly laugh, when you have to hold your sides because you laugh so hard.
The world's entertainment is filled with blood and thunder, beatings and shootings. What is the matter with the people of the world?
They are only reflecting what is taking place in the spirit realm even before the physical violence breaks out in the world. Persecution and many other things are about to be manifested.
In the midst of this, what will the people of God be doing? They will rejoice and give thanks and walk on a path God has chosen- not in a state of resignation, but because the will of God is being wrought in their hearts.
If bitterness had filled the heart of young Daniel at the age of seventeen when he was taken as a war captive, placed in the king's palace, and treated like an absolute slave, how different the story would have been. We do not know all that was done to him.
It is very possible that many of these young men were mutilated so that they could never have a future as a man or a father, because that was the custom.
Daniel and the three Hebrew children could have been filled with bitterness because of what had to submit to in those days.
Instead of that, Daniel's prayers are exulting examples of the sovereign power of God over their lives to deliver them. It is an amazing thing to have the will of God wrought in your heart.
If God has done His deep work in a man, he is submissive to the will of God. That man is not depressed. He is not a grumbler. He is not ungrateful. He does not murmur against the Lord.
If a man does the will of God and the will of God is wrought in him, and he truly walks in the perfect will of God, the man sings and praises God for everything.
That man is submissive to his brothers and sisters in the house of the Lord.
What is the answer for the people who really want to walk in the will of God? Simplify! One more
In that hour came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And He called to Him a little child, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. ( Matthew 18:1-3 ) .
The teaching of the Lord must be embraced in its total aspect of truth in your life. To become a Christian you must believe that Jesus blood washed away your sins.
But if you want to walk with God and do His will, a change must take place in your life. The will of God is done through people who become like little children.
This does not mean that we enter into a second childhood and become senile. This word is speaking about our attitudes, about being simple and uncomplicated.
Come like a child and say, "Father, I trust You. Father, I serve You." We are too complicated. Simplify and become like a little child. The will of God is done in simplicity.
The prophets were men of simplicity. They put first things first and never let other things interfere.
If you want to learn to play the violin, you must practice day after day, day after day. Some day people may pay to hear you.
If you want to learn to play, you must put everything else aside. People may try to discourage you and want you to give it up, but if you are in the will of God, you will focus with simplicity upon that one thing and do it.
Whatever God has called you to do, set your heart on that one thing until it is finished. Even volcanoes erupt, earthquakes come, and minor revolutions take place in the meantime, do not be distracted.
Stay with what God called you to do. The secret of doing the will of God is in simplifying everything until it is reduced to the one thing that is really important and then doing that.
Paul said, "Forgetting the things which are behind, this one thing I do" ( Philippians 3:13 ) .
Why was that in his thinking? With his genius, he could easily have set up some concessions, started a special publishing company in Jerusalem, and a Christian Zion movement with converted Jews traveling through Gentile churches to take up offerings.
Paul could have been ambitious and accomplished many things, but he did not. He was focused on only one thing.
He said, "I determined not to come to you with enticing words of man's wisdom: I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" ( I Corinthians 2:1-2 ) .
What happened?
He moved a world for God. He penned half of the New Testament by the anointing of the Spirit. He did not start out to see how many books he could write or how many different things he could do.
He had only one goal, and the outgrowth of it was tremendous.
Does it pay to be simple in your approach to things? Many things may beckon you. Many things can absorb your interest.
I had an ambition for many years to own a small ranch where I could get away from everything. One day as I was praying about it quite earnestly, I knew the Lord was speaking to my heart.
He said,"I did not call you to raise radishes which can be bought two bunches for a dollar."
Simplify! Simplify! When Jesus told His disciples," You are to leave all to follow Me," they forsook their nets and everything!
I suppose some of them said," This business of following Christ is fine, but why couldn't we organize the business, have a business manager, and continue to sell fish on the side? It could turn out to be a real blessing to the Lord."
Coming into the will of God is not a simple matter of coming to the pastor and saying," What do I do next? Do I resign my job? Do I go to Bible School?"
The will of God is attained by an attitude of heart. When that is accomplished, you start walking with God one step at a time.
A young man once asked, "God has called me to preach; what must I do to become a preacher? I am afraid I will miss it."
He received a wise answer: "Son, if you just walk with the Lord every day, and with every step you take, you loo to the Lord, loving Him and following Him, then if it is His will for you to become a preacher, you cannot help but become a preacher."
Simplify!
Without ambition, just walk with God. There are many important things to be done and we will do them as they come. Do not worry about them. Just walk with God and do the will of God.
We conclude with Romans 12:1-2:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of god, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God...
And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.
The will of God is done by a people who hold nothing back. They give the Lord their all. They are not conformed to this age. Their minds are renewed and they prove and walk in the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
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