UNDERSTANDING GOD’S WILL

Paul’s message in Romans 12:1 is all about lordship and submission.  All Christians know Jesus as their Savior but that is only half of His commission.  “God has made this Jesus ... both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36), “Lord and Savior” (2 Peter 3:18). As Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah, He brings salvation.  But He is also the Lord God Almighty, and total submission as a bondservant... love slave, to His lordship is not only mandatory, it is reasonable rational intelligent service... “a living sacrifice”, as the Apostle Paul states in Romans 12:1.  What matters now and in Rome two thousand years ago is not that we are Christians.  What matters is that we are Christlike.  God’s goal is not a label... God’s goal is a lifestyle, which brings us to Romans 12:2 where Paul addresses this issue with two commands and a promise:

* Commandment One: Stop living, thinking and acting like the world.

* Commandment Two: Start living, thinking and acting like Kingdom people by the renewing of your mind.

* The Promise: “Then” you will understand, test, and approve God’s will, His good, well pleasing and complete will for you.

Do you want to know God’s will? Here is the only recipe given in scripture: “PRESENT your bodies a living sacrifice.” STOP living, thinking and acting like the world. START living, thinking and acting like Kingdom people. THEN you will understand God’s will. It takes a thorough understanding of God’s word to differentiate between the world’s ways and Kingdom ways, equipping saints under the Lordship of Jesus to complete the recipe... setting their minds on things above moment by moment, day by day. Overcoming life is life lived in the will of God... His good, well-pleasing and complete will...

GODS’ GOAL IS NOT A LABEL...

GODS’ GOAL IS A LIFESTYLE...

LIVING HIS WILL...

STEWARDSHIP BEGINS AT HOME

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?  If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)

Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?  For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

“I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Therefore: “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty.” Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.    (2 Corinthians 6:16-18; 2 Corinthians 7:1) 

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. (1 John 3:1-3)

DON’T DEFILE YOUR TEMPLE...

KEEP YOUR TEMPLE CLEAN!

OUR END WAS FIXED BEFORE OUR BEGINNING

God lives in eternity which has no time, no past, present, or future. Eternity only has “now.” God sovereignty works out His divine purposes through election, the selection of prescreened people who have a heart and passion for God. Election is God choosing the people in time who already chose Him in eternity: This is God in eternity past prescreening people by looking into time future and seeing who would say yes to the call of the Father. God’s foreknowledge always precedes His choosing, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined ... these He also called.” Predestination sets the boundaries of our meandering within the framework of God’s saving grace as our “steps”, our life, is ordered by the Lord. Our end was fixed before our beginning. The “now” we live is simply God’s plan being executed. Ever wonder how your name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life before the foundations of the world? Well... now you know...

AND THIS IS HOW IT WORKED FOR ME:

Before the first “let there be” in Genesis God, in eternity past, looked at my heart as a man living in time.  He looked beyond my sins, my short comings and my weaknesses because He had a decision to make and it would be based on only one thing; would I say yes when He called me to be one of His children?  Would I give my life, my heart and my very soul to Him?  When He seen in my heart that I would willfully serve Him, he wrote my name in the Lambs Book of Life!  Then He planned and decreed every aspect of my life to be, setting boundaries and orchestrating events of my life to make me receptive to His call, to justify me with the righteousness of Christ, to grow in me the spiritual nature and attributes of Jesus and, finally, to glorify my body with a heavenly body like His.  Then on December 7, 1999 at 7:45 p.m. like a bolt of lightning out of eternity into time the call of God came to my heart and I said yes.  At that very moment I was justified, declared righteous and placed in right standing with God through the precious blood of Jesus.  Since that moment I have been on a journey with God; the Holy Spirit is implementing God’s plan, the plan He made eons ago, and as I behold the glory of Jesus I am being transformed into His image, from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18). This is the Holy Spirit doing His job, manifesting Christ in me. As I learn to abide in the Spirit, setting my mind on things above , the holy nectar of God’s presence envelopes me more and more in intimate fellowship. The “now” I live is simply God’s plan being executed.  My “steps”, my life, is ordered by the Lord. And someday soon this old body of mine will also be glorified as I am changed and caught up to meet my Lord in the air.

THOSE HE FOREKNEW, HE ALSO PREDESTINED

OUR STEPS ARE ORDERED BY THE LORD

(Rom. 8: 29-30; Ps. 37:23)