What is the Will of God?

By James Pruch
June 9, 2007 (Revised September 16, 2009)

Let’s say you are entering your final year of university. You cannot decide whether to go into the workforce or go into ministry, possibly to seminary, overseas as a missionary, or maybe as a youth pastor at a local church. You are stressing over your decision. It is confusing and you aren’t sure what to do.

Maybe you are a confused high school student about what to do after graduation. Perhaps you are a 40 year-old who doesn’t know what the next job should be or you are struggling about what to do with buying a new house or car. Whatever your particular situation, you might find yourself in a whirlwind of confusion, impatience, and anxiety. So you shout, “I just want to know God’s will for this situation!” I’d be lying if I said I never asked that question. And I have heard it numerous times from friends looking for jobs, graduate programs, or even a spouse. I’m sure you’ve heard that before and have even said it—probably in the last week!

First of all, we must understand that we need to see God’s will in two lights. There is God’s sovereign will, which is unchanging, eternal, and happens exactly how God planned it. Also, we have God’s revealed will, which is what God desires to see happen. We could use the Ten Commandments as an example. These laws can be broken, but certainly God doesn’t want them to be broken. God’s sovereign will controls everything, upholding the world and ordaining all things, including bringing life and death, sickness and health, and prosperity and calamity (see Heb. 1:3; Lam 3:37; 1 Sam. 2:6; Amos 3:6-13; Matt. 5:45). Psalm 115:3 says, “Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases.” He commands everything in the world so that it will happen for his glory and pleasure. We don’t always realize this. On the other ahnd, God’s revealed will is what we can know—moral laws, instructions for godliness, ethics, etc.

So now we have a question: What is God’s will?

Our answer? To do what is right.

I want to encourage you, if you are someone right now who is struggling to know “God’s will” for your life. God will not drop down out of the sky and tell you with a microphone whether you are supposed to go to grad school or work at a local business. God will not secretly tell you in a mystical dream if you were meant to be a teacher or a lawyer. Do not feel less spiritual if God has never “spoken to you” with his so-called movie-like, booming voice, while angels festal gatherings dance above you. God speaks through his holy, written word, alone. Let us turn there to discover the will of God for our lives.

In the English Standard Version of the Bible (ESV), the exact phrase “will of God” appears in 17 verses—all in the New Testament. Seven of those are used in the greeting of Paul’s epistles or in a sense like saying something was done “by the will of God” (Romans 8:27; 2 Cor 8:5). If we were to take a closer look at a few of these verses, you can rest assured that God’s will is for you to do what is right.

So here’s a question: Which job or (fill in the blank) should I take? Or even more: Who should I marry? (That’s the big one, right?!)

Our answer? The right one. You are to take the job that you feel peace about. You are to marry the man/woman you want to marry. You are to work where your family will be edified most. You are to marry the one whom God has put in front of you to love, serve, and cherish for your whole life. You are choose what glorifies God and shows that Jesus is supreme, and not the job, spouse, or whatever it may be. Let’s look at how this plays out practically.

The first time we see the phrase “will of God” is in Mark 3. Jesus said in verse 35, “For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” Therefore, we can see that if you do God’s will, you are God’s child and an heir with Jesus. This verse comes right after Jesus preached on the only unforgivable sin, which is blaspheming the Holy Spirit. That is a fancy way of saying “never believing in Jesus as Lord and Savior.” The crowd told Jesus that his mother and brothers were calling for him and Jesus said, “Who are my mother and my brothers? For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” In essence, those who follow and love him are his relatives. Put this in context of Jesus’ teaching on the Holy Spirit and we see that one way to “do the will of God” is to not blaspheme the Holy Spirit by denying Christ as Savior. If you believe in the Lord Jesus, you are doing God’s will.

Romans 12:2, perhaps the greatest known verse about God’s will, confirms what I suggested at the beginning. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” What is the will of God here? Paul says it is whatever is “good and acceptable and perfect.” If you do what is good, acceptable, and perfect, you are doing God’s will.

When you are looking for what to do in a specific situation, you must do what is good. You must choose what is acceptable. You have to pick the perfect option. This may seem impossible! “How can I pick the perfect thing to do?” Well, if you believe that God has a sovereign will (which we already established that he does) you will never be outside of what God wants to happen. This is a still a real choice that has real consequences—for God’s will, not ours, is the ultimate source of reality. Nevertheless, you will be in harmony with his ultimate plan whatever choice you make. It may not work out perfectly—for example, it may seem that when you pick a university to attend or a job to work that things do not go as smoothly as possible and you find yourself second-guessing. Can you really say, “Maybe I should have picked the other school?” According to Romans 8:28, “God causes all things to work together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.” In this verse “all things” means everything you can possibly imagine. It works out for the best because whatever God desires to happen glorifies him! For Ephesians 1:11b says that God “works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Again, we see the phrase “all things” which encompasses everything in existence. It’s all done to the counsel of God’s sovereign will.

Does that mean you never choose wrongly in a moral sense? No. You can chose things out of selfishness, to please men, or otherwise. I do this all the time—Lord forgive me! But if we act according to Romans 12:2, and you follow the moral will of God, then choosing a job, school, or something else over another cannot be right or wrong. Is choosing which job to take a moral issue? Of course not. So, with that, take heart, be encouraged, and do not let doubt sink in when you aren’t sure what your occupation should be or where should you move to after university.

What else is the will of God in the New Testament? Paul teaches that slaves are to obey their masters in Ephesians 6:6. This is a rough equivalent of workers and employers today. We are not to be people-pleasers, but we should be “servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.” We see that the will of God is to work hard for the Lord “with a sincere heart” (verse 5). Maybe the question we should ask ourselves is not, “What job should I take?” but rather, “What should my attitude and work ethic be like when I start working at any job?” If you are working hard for the glory of God, you are doing God’s will.

Paul has much to say in 1 Thessalonians about the will of God—he is very specific. “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor…that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter” (4:3). The will of God is to be sanctified, or more specifically, to be pure sexually. Similarly, 1 Peter 4:2 says, “So as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.” The will of God is opposite of all that is contained in our fleshly desires. That is so difficult, isn’t it? Ephesians 5:3 says that there must not even be a hint of sexual immorality in us! That is a weighty standard! But this shows us that if we are growing in holiness and keeping our bodies undefiled, we are doing the will of God.

Paul also writes, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:16-18). Are we doing this? We should ask ourselves if these things are true of us in our choices, instead of worrying about the actually choice itself. Perhaps if we were pure sexually, rejoiced and gave thanks in all things, and prayed continually, we would never second guess the mundane decisions we make throughout our lives.

One more passage speaks very particularly about the will of God. The will of God in 1 Peter 2:15 is “silencing the ignorance of foolish people.” This is in the context of submitting to authority, much like Ephesians 6. We are to live as servants of God and honor everyone (verse 16). That is the will of God. When we are in lecture at university or when we chose to move into a new house, the way we treat our new classmates or neighbors is more important than hoping our decision was the right choice.

Be encouraged, Christian! Do not doubt the choices you make in life, but be convinced of your decisions and commit to them in faith. You will make mistakes—and anything that violates God’s law is wrong. We must repent of those things and seek to change by God’s power. However, in those amoral decisions like choosing jobs, houses, locations, a spouse, or anything else, we must live by faith—for whatever is not from faith is sin (Romans 14:23) and without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Conform yourself to the image of Christ and trust that “whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17). One may think that I created a list of conditions from all the verses I used to show that you must obtain salvation on your own. No! Rather, everything I discussed should already be true of Christians! We will struggle, yes, but by the grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are able to do what God requires of us. Your good works are evidence of your faith. They show that you are a real, genuine, Christ-centered, and secure Christian.

Wrestle with your decisions (even the small ones!) and labor over the tougher ones. Seek the Lord and carry out what the Scriptures call the will of God. Decide with a firm faith and know that if you love Jesus and treasure him as Lord and Savior, he had his best planned for you since eternity.

Now, by the will of God, display the supremacy of Christ and live out a passion for his glory in all things for the sake of all peoples.