God's Will, Part 1

Very often some sort of variation of the question "What is God's will for my life?" is asked.  Generally most are looking to have very specific questions answered, such as "Who should I marry?", "What school should I attend?", "Which job should I take?" etc.  We will address such questions in a future devotional but let us search through the Bible together and see exactly what it does say about God's will.  I have to start out by saying God isn't playing a game of comic hide and seek as many people seem to believe.  He hasn't hidden His will away in some secret corner where we have to search and try to find it.  If God has a will for our lives, He wants us to know it.  This is why we will search the Bible for answers, because there is no better place to look for God's will than in His revelation to mankind. 

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).        
This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:3-4).
 
It is God's will that we should be saved.  Many people go through life never giving God a second thought unless something goes wrong, then they may throw a prayer His way hoping to get something from Him.  If you have never got down on your knees at the foot of the cross and received Jesus Christ then you are not even in the beginning of God's will.  Qualification number one is Salvation, without that God has no reason to reveal anything specific to you.  While it is true that God is the sustainer of the entire universe and none of us would be where we are without Him (see Acts 17:28) there is no scripture to indicate God personally leads unbelievers as an ordinary occurrence.   

When He puts forth all His own, He goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow Him because they know His voice (John 10:4).

Without Christ, man is a rebel against God, it's when man has repented and put his trust in Christ that we see verses like (John 10:4) apply.  It's those who are saved that "know His voice".  With so many false teachers, religions and philosophies out there in the world one would have to be saved in order to navigate through them and follow the truth.  Salvation can be offense to people because one of its basics is an admission of sin, something most want to hide, ignore or pretend doesn't exist.  But it is God's will that we be saved.  At this point we need to acknowledge that we either need to be saved or we are saved and need to take the message of the gospel to others (Matthew 28:19-20).  Both of these are God's will as He has stated in the Bible.  So for now, instead of sitting around doing nothing wondering what God's will could be, lets do what we already know that it is from scripture.  Repent and put your trust in Jesus Christ and if you have already done that then go and tell others about Him so that all men might come to Him.  

 *All five parts of this are based on an outline I used from the book Found: God's Will from John MacArthur which I highly recommend.