How To Do the Will of God: Part 1

A nobleman’s son once complained that he didn’t know what to do with his life. “Father,” he said, “what should my ambition be? What should I make of myself? What should I do in life?” The nobleman replied, “When I was your age, I wondered about the very same questions. But over the years I’ve learned something that may be of help to you. I suggest that if you want to have an interesting life, just become a friend of the King-then wait and see what happens.”

Many Christians are looking for their calling, their great ambition, their main motivation in life… when all they really need to have a great adventure filled life is to simply become a friend of the King-then see what happens. God does not want his people standing on one foot, agonizing how to discover His will. He made His will very plain in Scripture. He just wants us to go out into the world and start doing it.

Thus, we should make it our goal to please Him. For instance, look at 2 Corinthians 5:6-9:

Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.

What the Lord is continually concerned about is the resource we are counting upon for success in whatever we do. Jesus was pleased with the widow’s mite and the offer of the loaves and fishes because each of these was a presenting of a simple object to God with the expectation that He would do something with it. That is faith… which pleases God.

So what will move me into actually doing what I believe? After being in the ministry for 34 years I have seen that the real problem of the Christian life is not how to discover the will of God. We have wrestled with that problem to one degree or another all our lives, but the real problem is to want to do it: it is the problem of motivation.

For instance, I can know volumes about the Christian life. I can know that the true purpose of my life is to glorify God. I can have a strong desire to please Him. I can even know just what is that pleases Him. And I can remember in times past the pleasure it gave me to please God and the blessings that followed. Yet confronted by the lure of the flesh, the pleasure of sin, and the ease of which it can all be justified, I can choose to disobey God - I’ve done it many times. And so I’m sure you have too.

Two powerful forces act upon us to stabilize our wavering wills and draw us back from the edge. They are like motors to move us in the right direction… indeed, the word “motor” comes from the same root as “motive”. To choose is a God-given human function, but to choose rightly demands that a force operate within us that will firmly turn us and propel us in the right direction.

Paul describes one of these forces to us in 2 Corinthians 5:10-11:

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.

Somehow the idea has grown among Christians that fear is an improper motive. But from Genesis to Revelations the fear of the Lord is a very proper and highly desirable motive for living right. Look at 1 Corinthians 3:11-15, 11:31-32. Or Psalm 34:7-9, 36:1, or Proverbs 1:7.

What comes to mind when we think of fearing God? When our dog Rocky would run away, he would later come crawling back, cowering. Such fear is inspired by guilt… and guilt has absolutely no place in the believer’s relationship to God. Instead, the fear a Christian is called to is a good and healthy fear of a child safely snuggled in their father’s arms, feeling so secure and so unconditionally loved… and yet they know that when that father says, “It’s time to go to bed now”, they must obey. It would be wrong to do otherwise. The fear of the Lord that Paul connects with his motivation is a sobering awareness that God cannot be fooled or deceived in any way.

After a Billy Graham Crusade a man sat on a bus by a young man who had just gotten saved in the crusade. He talked about the Christian life and said, “Now you don’t have to fear dying” Young man said, “I’ve never been much afraid of death, but I’ll tell you what I am afraid of-I’m afraid I’ll waste my life .“ This is what we fear… not pleasing the One we serve. Next post we’ll look at an even greater motivation in a believer’s life: the motivation of love.

Posted on 5/19/2008 under Pastor Cornett's Blog. Comments RSS feed.
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