What is the Will of God?

By James Pruch
June 9, 2007

Let’s say you are entering your senior year of college. 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 intern at a local church. You are stressing over your decision. It is confusing and you aren’t sure what to do.

Or maybe, you are a senior in high school and you cannot decide what college is best. 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. In a whirlwind of confusion, impatience, and anxiety, you shout, “I just want to know God’s will for this situation!” As a recently graduated college student, I’ve asked that many times and I have heard it numerous times from friends looking for jobs, grad schools, etc. I’m sure you’ve heard that before and have even said it, possibly even in the last week.

First of all, we must understand that there are two wills in God. There is God’s sovereign will, which is unchanging, eternal, and happens the exact way God planned it. Also, we have God’s revealed will, which is what God wants 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 (Hebrews 1:3; Lamentations 3:37; 1 Samuel 2:6; Amos 3:6-13; Matthew 5:45). God’s revealed will is what we can know-moral laws, instructions for godliness, etc.

Question: What is God’s will?

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 if you are supposed to go to grad school or work at Gallup. 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.” 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 (ESV) of the Bible, 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.

Question: Which job (or fill in the blank) should I take?

Answer: The right one. You are to take the one that you feel peace about. You are to take the one that will edify your family and those around you most. You are take the one that glorifies God the most and shows that he is supreme in your life. So, let’s look at how this plays out in a few verses.

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 heirs 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 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 of this essay. “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.”

When you are looking for what to do in a 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. You will be in harmony with his ultimate plan. It may not work out perfectly-for example, it may seem that when you pick a school to attend 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 we know that “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. With that, take heart, be encouraged, and do not let doubt sink in when you aren’t sure what your major should be or what job you should accept after college.

Now, let’s finish our discussion on God’s will. 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?”

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 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. That is a weighty standard! Lord, help us to follow your will in this.

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thes 5:16-18). Again, do we do these things? 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 our decisions.

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 get into that class at the university we chose or 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. We must do that, 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 1 John 2:17 that “whoever does the will of God abides forever.” 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 are things that should 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 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 God, he had his best planned out for you from all 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.