How can I know the will of God?

"The heart of the wise teaches his mouth, and adds learning to his lips" (Prov. 16:23). 

Most of us who are now in church grew up in a non-Christian environment. In a world where perhaps the motto was get rich or die trying or screw life before life screws you. In that environment we learned and adopted a set of mind that promised us the best of this world, but in the end it’s purpose was to lead us to failure, confusion, darkness, and death. I once was told by a person who I very much loved, “Sleep with all the woman you can because, if you do not, at the end, someone else will; might as well be you!” Some of us decided to follow these kinds of advice, and learned how to get our ways to please the desires of our sinful hearts. But perhaps some of us were a bit more careful with our decisions, and even though we did not participated in these “big” sins, our minds learned certain principles, customs, and ways of thinking from the culture of the people we were raised with. At any rate, the fact is that ALL of us have been intimately affected by the erroneous paradigm some people have of life.

Most of us have done like Salomon: Nevertheless, we have clung unto these things (1 Kings 11:2). The illustration the dictionary gives for the word cleave / cling is the instance where the smoke penetrates the clothing, and the smell stays for days. In the five accounts in the Bible where the word דבק  (dabaq) (cling / cleave) is mentioned, one of them gives the idea that this sort of closeness is the kind of relationship and bond an infant has with the mother’s breasts. It’s a very tight and intimate connection. Unfortunately, that is the type of attachment our minds have with the principles, customs, and ways of thinking that people and culture taught us as we were growing up.

Most of us, therefore, find ourselves from time to time in the middle of conversations that an imitator of Christ would not have. Seriously. Think about it. What do you usually talk about with your friends? With your best friend? With your husband or wife? With that person you are cool with? What kinds of jokes do you say? How do you ussually joke around? Be real with your self. Is it sex, boys, and girls? Money? Gossip? Problems? Work? Jesus? The devil? (seriously, some preachers talk more about the devil than Jesus). At the end of your conversations, can you really bow your head down and lift up a prayer with that person?

            CALLING:

Paul, thus, encourages most of us, by saying, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, and ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2, ASV). He repeats it again in Ephesians 4:23, “let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.”

HOW?

By letting “no corrupt word proceed our of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers” (29).

By leaving out “obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes” out of your vocabulary (5:4)

By “singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts” (5:19).

WHY?

So you don’t “grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (4:30).

So that you may know what the will of God is (Romans 12:2), because it is through your mind that he speaks.

INSTEAD

“Carefully determine what pleases the Lord” (5:10).

And “throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, your former way of thinking, which is corrupted by lust and deception” (4:22).

“Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do” (5:17). It’s not that he is not speaking, it’s that you are NOT listening and understanding what he is saying. Renew your mind!

RESULT:

You genuinely will surrender to God to the point where you will no longer be able to distinguish where you begin and where He ends. This kind of worship and submission will be a pleasing aroma to God enabling you to hear his voice and understand what His will is.

So in the name of Jesus, I encourage you, to start making changes today. Do not cling unto your former way of thinking, but cleave unto Him who knows what’s best for you. Search passionately what pleases the Lord, listen to Him, and be courageous enough to take up the challenge to do his will.

May you be an imitator of Christ today.

Blessings!