I shared with you last week some insights on how to discern the will of God from Chapter 7 of What Every Christian Ought To Know: Essential Truths For Growing Your Faith by Dr. Adrian Rogers.  As a recap, we learned that God’s will is prevailing and sovereign; but that it is also permissive in some aspects because God gave us a choice; and personal in its depth and application to each and every child of God.

This week, I would like to give you the assurance that God has promised to guide us in discerning God’s will for our lives.  Consider God’s promises in the following verses:

• Psalm 37:23: “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.”
• Psalm 32:8: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.”
• Isaiah 58:11 “The Lord will guide you continually.”
• Proverbs 3:6: “He shall direct thy paths.”

Since God has a wonderful plan for our lives, God has also promised that He will guide us so that we can know His will.  He has promised us power that we may accomplish His will.  He has also promised His presence with us while we go about fulfilling His will.  So, if all this is available to us, how come we still have problems discerning the will of God?  In part, it is because we have so many pre-conceived notions about the will of God (we learned the myths about God’s will already).  In part, it is because God’s will is provisional – it has been prepared for us, ready to be given to us but only on condition that we need it, we desire it and we are ready to obey it.  Yes, God’s will is provisional.

For this, we have the example of the life of Apostle Paul.  He was known as Saul of Tarsus: a Pharisee and a persecutor of Christians until Jesus Christ met him on the road to Damascus.  The light of Jesus Christ’s holy power assaulted him and he fell off his horse;  and he became blind.  At the same time, he heard Jesus’ calling his name: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” The first words that came out of his mouth give us an idea of how stunned and in awe Saul was.  He asked: “Who art thou, Lord?”  Jesus answered him and he said “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” To this revelation, Saul asked “What wilt thou have me do?”  Immediately, Jesus said to him: ‘Arise, go to the city, and there you will be told what thou must do.”

Note that God did not immediately tell Saul what God wanted him to do.  That revelation of God’s specific plan for his life (to be a light to the Gentiles and to go on missionary journeys throughout Europe) depended upon Saul’s willingness to go into the city; his meekness to accept being told what to do; to his openness to discard all his pre-conceived notions; and finally, his yieldedness to leave his former life and embrace the new life in Christ.

Saul was a man with an agenda, a plan, an itinerary and a purpose: it was his life’s work to get rid of all those who were attacking Judaism by preaching Jesus Christ.  He was single-minded in this endeavor and he brought all of the strength of his character to accomplish his own personal plans.  He had incited a mob to lynch Stephen in Jerusalem.  He influenced the Sanhedrin to give him the authority to arrest all Christians.  He left Jerusalem to implement the order of arrest against all Christians.  Suddenly this strong man was struck down.  He lay crumpled on the road disoriented, injured and impaired.  All his self-assurance and arrogance suddenly dissipated in the light of just one question: “Why persecutest thou me?” It was a loaded question because it showed Saul the truth that he was a persecutor—without cause he brought other people undeserved pain. At that moment, all that Saul held on to (his beliefs, the way he was raised, his doctrinal formation) was questioned.

In Saul’s words we see his brokenness: “Lord, what wilt thou have me do?”  We do not hear any protest, justification of his past conduct, excuses or hesitation. He came face to face with all that Judaism has taught him about the Messiah and he found them all fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  And he lay there totally surrendered to Jesus Christ, his former enemy whom he now called “Lord” and he has expressed his willingness to do anything He asked.

God told him to go to Ananias’s house.  Ananias was a little-known prophet.  Saul was intellectually superior to Ananias.  Saul was more powerful than Ananias.  Saul was more influential than Ananias, and yet, Saul sat there and listened to Ananias, God’s spokesperson.  Ananias revealed to Saul what God wanted him to do. God wanted Saul to receive the Holy Ghost and to go and preach to the Jews as well as to the Gentiles.  Preaching to the Jews about Jesus Christ was a career-ender for Saul.  He would be booted out of the Sanhedrin, out of Jerusalem and he would be a wanted man.  He would be branded a traitor and a trouble-maker.  Preaching to the Gentiles goes against every Jewish cell and sinew of his body: the Gentiles were unclean dogs, not fit for company, and yet, Christ died for them as well. It was God’s assignment for him to preach to the Gentiles.  In other words, God’s plan for Saul’s life was in total contradiction of Saul’s own plans.

Have you not wondered why after we decide to find God’s will and to obey it, that’s when everything in life falls apart?  It happened to Saul.  Jesus Christ receives sinners with open arms, that is true.  But when he has received a sinner and that sinner becomes a child of God, that former sinner who is now a child of God will be disciplined to walk worthy of the name of the God who has redeemed him.   Consider Colossians 1: 9-10.  Apostle Paul (his name Saul was changed to Paul) wrote to the Christians in the city of Colosse.  He said that he has a desire that they “might be filled with the knowledge of his will….that [they] might walk worthy of the Lord.” God will not reveal his will to us unless we want and desire it above all else.  God will not reveal his will to us just so we can have options.  Dr. J.I. Packer (in his book Knowing God) says that God in His wisdom orders the events in our lives for our sanctification (our cleansing and purifying) so that we can fulfill the work he has for us to do.

Cleansing and purifying us involve scraping off our confidence and dependence on our selves.  Cleansing and purifying us involve taking away all that we rely upon until we rely only upon God. The process is painful and humiliating but the result is a life yielded and surrendered to God and a mind and a heart ready to know and do the will of God.  Are you ready for your mind and heart to be shaped by God so that you can obey His will?  If not, then forget it: God will not show you His will unless you are ready to hear and obey.  You cannot come to God with your own plan for your life and submit it for his approval.  That’s not how it works.

Like clay in the hands of a potter, God will knead us to remove all the hard and jagged stones and pebbles embedded in us.  God will slam us on the potter’s wheel and He will hold, shape and mold us into anything He wants to make of us.  If He is not satisfied, he will take us and start from the beginning until we are soft and pliable, ready to be conformed to the image of Christ.

Are you ready for this?