Do you sit around afraid to make a decision about the big things in life? Do you think that if you just knew God’s will you would always make the right decisions. When you know God’s will, do you submit (obey) it?
Do you sometimes put off making decisions because you get weighed down by the awesomeness of choice and you’re afraid of doing the wrong thing? Do you do all sorts of things to try to get a glimpse into the mind of God?
Some of us turn the Bible into a book of magic, letting the pages flop open and a verse catch our attention. Whether in or out of context—it doesn’t seem to matter—then take it to be God’s will.
Some of you, without even realizing it, have a system of intuition and hunches. You lift your inner impressions to the level of divine revelation and claim God spoke to you.
Others look at circumstances and coincidences (we like to call them open or closed doors) and from them determine what God is doing.
It is amazing how often you hear Christians talk about doors being opened or closed, and how they went through the open doors because they assumed it was God’s will.
Bestselling author, Terri Blackstock, knows this is not necessarily true. She never openly rebelled against God. But she found herself far away from Him after she walked through open doors of opportunity, believing they were God’s will.
A little over a decade ago Terry was an award winning secular novelist for Harper-Collins, Harlequin and Silhouette. She had 32 titles and 3.5 million books in print.
In her book, Soul Restoration, she wrote, “I had allowed myself to believe that God was blessing my career…because He had opened all the doors.”
And she got what she wanted—a successful career writing romance novels for Harlequin and Silhouette. But, in her biography, she said she was miserable. She lost what she most needed: a close relationship with God.
After wrestling with searching for God’s will, she finally told God that she would not write another book unless it glorified Him. Now she writes only Christian books with 30 Christian titles and more than 2 million in print.
The passive kind of thinking of coincidence, intuition and open doors gets us off the hook for the bad decisions we make, and when things don’t work out we’re angry or frustrated and may even blame God.
Or, if things work out really well, we’re quick to talk about how God “spoke to us” and led us through the open doors of opportunity. Next week we will take a closer look at open and closed doors in decision making.
But listen! God can and does open and close doors. But too often we trust the circumstances and our hunches without ever checking to see what God’s will is in the Bible. When that happens we become another Terri Blackstock.
Every pastor knows Christians who say that God led them to do certain things. And sometimes those things are blatantly against the clear teachings of the Bible.
Some Christians seem to think that God permits them to do things that He doesn’t allow in the church at large. One example today is unmarried Christian couples’ living together.
I’ve had couples tell me that because marriage is so important to God, they were sure God wanted them to live together before getting married to make sure it would work out. That’s a lie of their own making.
Obviously they have not read the Bible to see what God has to say. Or if they have, they’re not willing to obey. They should know this is not God’s will!
To the world it makes perfect sense to have a trial marriage—to test compatibility—and to share expenses.
Even though it may seem logical, and seem that the door is open, it is not God opening it. It is illogical because it is against God’s will. It is simply your lust and desires that are driving you.
God is not an old fuddy-duddy. He created sex and He knows what is best for you. If you are a young couple thinking that this is a smart thing to do, let me clue you in to a couple of things. You may think it makes perfect sense to live together to see if you are compatible.
You call it a trial marriage. But it is really a trial divorce. The only question is will you break up before the marriage ceremony or after? The facts are that living together before marriage actually greatly increases the chances that you will divorce.
God knows what is best. His word is affirmed by statistics that show it is a bad idea. You can read about them in a new book, Living Together: Myths, Risks & Answers, by Mike and Harriet McManus.
Not only that, men and women cohabitate for different reasons. Women see it as a step toward marriage. The think they can audition for the job. It’s an internship.
Men do it for the ready availability of sex, and having someone to share living expenses with them, and, I think, to have someone to clean up after them. (Baptist New Mexican, May 3, 2008)
This is just one example taken directly from our culture today. There are many other tough choices we each make every day.
When you find yourself facing tough choices in life—those day-in and day-out decisions that make up the fabric of our existence—don’t look for special messages from God.
Instead we should ask, “How can I develop the skills necessary to make wise and prudent choices within God’s will?” The Bible does answer that question. The Bible is not a map; it is more a compass, providing direction.
If you really want to know and be obedient to God’s will in the matter, you will discover what He says in His holy writings, the Bible, and you will let that be the ultimate guide in your decision making.
Why do we need the guidance of the Bible for our lives?
James 4:13 – 16,13Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.
Sounds like modern day business. James sat in as a group of businessmen listen to a marketing expert lay out their plans and goals. Either one of two cities is a good prospect.
If they would immediately take advantage of their opportunities within a short time they would begin making a profit. I imagine the expert laid out his charts to show the steps to the goal.
He probably listed a timeline. He had run the numbers through his abacus. He calculated the needed investment and the profit. All the partners were excited at the prospects.
Then James stands to tell them they are ignoring a crucial reality—they left God out of their planning. Verse 14, “Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.”
We can plan our business trips, vacations, dinner with friends, even our retirement—and it’s okay to do these things—but the fact is, we don’t know what tomorrow holds, let alone next year.
The writer of Proverbs agrees: Proverbs 27:1, Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.
The uncertainty of life is all around us. If you have money in the stock market, what a ride you’ve been on this year! Fifty-nine homes and cabins were destroyed in the Trigo fire in the mountains southeast of Albuquerque.
I don’t think a forest fire was included in their plans for that day. Or the people of Greensburg, Kansas, a town over 100 years old, had no idea a tornado would literally destroy the town in 2007.
Not only do we not know about tomorrow, but we are also impotent. Verse 14b says that, You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
Luaine and I were in Carmel, CA one year. My brother and I were golfing while the girls were shopping. A mist settled in the valley that morning. It was the thickest fog I’d ever been in. Literally we just had to take someone’s word that we were hitting the ball in the right direction.
By 10:00 am the sun had burned the mist away. Where did it go? It was gone. Like the steam from a kettle, no sooner does it appear than it disappears. Like your breath on a cold winter’s day—now you see it; now you don’t.
James said that we are like the mist. Here for a little while, then gone. Life is fragile; it’s fleeting.
How does that make you feel? We can’t even be sure we’ll be here tomorrow. Five of our church members who were with us at this time last year are no longer here—they’ve gone home to be with the Lord.
We are being arrogant when we act like we know what is going to happen next in life. You are in for a surprise if you think you are the master of your fate and the captain of your soul.
Haddon Robinson tells about a doctor, who had just given an annual physical examination to a patient. He pronounced the man healthy, giving him a clean bill of health. As the man was leaving the lobby, he fell over dead. That’s life!
Don’t misunderstand James here. He was not against making plans. He was warning that our freedom to make plans is not a license to live free from God, to not have a sense of, “if it is God’s will,” in our plans; to acknowledge God’s sovereignty in our lives.
You and I are free to make our decisions, but we are never free from God. We must be aware of His will as revealed in the Bible.
Years ago I was learning to fly. One thing I know about flying is that a good pilot must have a healthy fear of gravity. A pilot who doesn’t respect gravity isn’t around to tell about it. Gravity is a given. Break the ‘Law of Gravity’ and you die or are hurt.
These ‘natural laws’ are similar to us living our lives in submission to God’s sovereign will. Whether or not we choose to accept it, God’s sovereign will always wins.
But not only must a good pilot have a healthy fear of gravity he or she must follow the principles learned from other pilots—keep the plane straight and level, maintain proper speed to avoid stalling. If the pilot doesn’t the ‘law of gravity’ always wins. Doing these principles helps ensure the pilot will arrive safely.
Just as pilots obey these principles of aviation, we must observe the moral will of God. We must make our decisions in submission to His moral will. We must have a strong sense of, “If it is the Lord’s will.”
And God’s will is the abundant counsel of God given to us in the Scriptures. When we study the Bible and strive to obey His moral will, we acknowledge that God is the Lord of lords, the King of kings, the God of history, and the Master of life.
The question we must ask ourselves is, “Am I submissive to the revealed will of God in the Bible? The Bible helps us with our motives, our goals, and the appropriate ways to meet those goals.
One of the ways we show our submission to the will of God is through prayer. Why do we pray?
You might give me a lot of theological kind of answers, but if we are honest with ourselves we pray to get things from God; to get Him to do things for us; to try to get Him to see things our way. Am I not right?
But in reality the purpose of prayer is to bow before the sovereign Ruler of the universe and acknowledge His sovereignty in our lives and in our decisions. This is what Jesus taught us in the Model Prayer.
The first three petitions have to do with God. Personal needs aren’t even talked about until later: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9-11).
Too often we go to God to get His approval on plans we have already made—we want His approval for our own kingdom, glory and honor.
If you really want to be in God’s will, seek His wisdom in it. James 1:5 says, If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.
The Bible is sufficient to guide you in every area of your life. “But,” you say, “so many of my important decisions are not talked about in the Bible.” As you try to live according to God’s revealed will in the Bible, your will and God’s are somehow partnered together as He accomplishes His divine sovereign will. Develop the skills necessary to make wise and prudent choices within God’s precious will.