How to Miss God’s Will, Big-Time!

It’s so important to find God’s Will for our lives God’s will is for our best (John10:10). 

The GENERAL WILL of God applies to all (walking in love, reading the Bible, praying, church etc) and is clearly revealed in the Bible for us to follow. 

The SPECIFIC WILL of God (your mate, job, house etc) is revealed to you step by step as you seek God. If we want to be in God’s specific will we must first follow His general will. We want to hear God speak His will into our lives, but God has already spoken His will through the Bible for us to get some important things right. When we do this, we can expect more specific guidance. 

The Bible emphasises and underscores these important issues by saying: “THIS IS THE WILL OF GOD FOR YOU.” God wants to get our attention for if we miss His will here we will miss out BIG TIME on God’s best for us. These issues can put our life way off course and destroy our fellowship with God. If we are out of fellowship with God, we cannot find His special will for us. It would be like expecting special directions to our destination while going down the wrong motorway! 

Here are some of the wrong motorways above which God has put a sign: “Keep Off.” Restrictions are for our benefit, to keep us away from danger and destruction, where God can bless us (like fences around Power Generators). It can be confusing because the whole world is going down these roads thinking they are O.K (Matthew 7:13,14). In avoiding these wrong motorways we stand out from the world.

1. UNBAPTISED. “But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected THE WILL OF GOD for themselves, not having been BAPTISED by him” (Luke 7:30). 

The world is ashamed to name Jesus except as a swear word. But we are not ashamed to proclaim Him in baptism.

2. INGRATITUDE. The world always complains and blames God but we are to continually give thanks in every situation: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is THE WILL OF GOD in Christ Jesus for you. Quench not the Spirit” (1Thess 5:16-18). 

It is God’s will that we develop a spirit of thanksgiving, tuning into what God is doing in every situation (seeing the positive side) and rejoicing. If we always just focus on the negative (glorifying satan) we quench the Spirit. We should also acknowledge good things about people. Jesus was “full of grace and truth.” The first key to graciousness with people is being thankful and appreciative of who they are and what they do. Otherwise we quench our fellowship and relationships. Likewise if we are not thankful to God it quenches the fire (fellowship) of the Spirit. We should be a lot better at praising God and people than we are at gossiping and talking negatively. God’s Will for us is cultivate a THANKING HEART and LIPS in every situation (good or bad). If it is bad, God is working it for good!

3. REBELLION. The world rebels against authority but the will of God is that we respect and relate properly to authority. Being free and forgiven in Christ does not mean we are a law unto ourselves. 

1Peter 2:13-18: “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men -as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. Honor all people. Love the brothers. Fear God. Honour the king. Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh.” 

We are to recognise and be submissive to authority in the nation, the church, the workplace and the home. God has instituted authorities for a peaceful and orderly life and we should respect, support and work with them, whether police, employers or teachers. The governing authorities are God’s ministers. Authorities may be wrong and should be accountable, but the spirit of REBELLION is rising against authority, railing against it, challenging, rejecting it or even trying to overthrow it. This puts us in satan’s camp in opposition to God and brings a curse upon us.

If we disagree or if they fail we should pray for them rather than tear them down. This applies to our treatment of the Royal Family and politicians. We must look past the person to the uniform (discern God’s authority on them) and submit to that. If we work under authority God will work with us because we are obeying Him. Remember God is the highest authority, so that if we are told to do something contrary to God’s will, we do not obey (but rather obey God, the highest authority) but still maintain a submissive attitude of respect for the authority. To respect authority is also to respect every person because God has given us all authority over our lives (free-will), being made in the image of God, so that we refrain from manipulation,control and domination. When we learn to submit to authority, we can be entrusted with it. The authority God gives us is for a purpose (to do a job), not to strut around and show it off. 

4. IMMORALITY. The world supports immorality but our bodies are for God’s glory. 

“For this is THE WILL OF GOD, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honour, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that you never cheat in this matter by taking another man’s wife, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also warned you. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit” (1Thess 4:3-8).

We must keep our sexuality under control for marriage: “Marriage is honourable among all, and the bed undefiled (only in marriage, otherwise you are defiled by wrong sexual relationships); but fornicators and adulterers God will judge”  (Hebrews 13:4).  Sex was given by God to be enjoyed in marriage. You must marry someone you can be in unity with - spirit, soul and body. The foundation is shared spiritual values and friendship. Then it is consummated physically. Sex before marriage by-passes the friendship stage and as a result the relationship will lack depth. It also creates ‘one flesh’ relationships too soon, like two pieces of card glued together making it hard and painful to separate when you realise you should. The glue keeps people in destructive relationships. Wrong sexual relationships are a major reason people miss God’s will.

Christians are forbidden marry non-Christians: 

“Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part (fellowship) has a believer with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with (a Temple for) 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."  God says to those in wrong relationships: “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" (2Cor 6:14-16). This describes fellowship restored, so that we can again enjoy the Fatherhood of God. Pray for the right mate and keep dedicate your decision to God. 

OCCULT INVOLVEMENT: “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh (immoral relationships with flesh) and spirit (occult relationships with spirits/demons), perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2Cor 7:1). 

The Occult leads to spiritual defilement, it gives LANDING PADS for demons. 

1Corinthians 10:20,21 says that it is having fellowship with demons, which breaks your fellowship with God big-time (the clash of two opposing spiritual forces in your life is confusing and dangerous): “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice (in their occultic religion) they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord's Table and of the table of demons” The world is immersed in the occult: spiritualism, tarot, horoscopes, fortune-telling, hypnotism, witchcraft etc, but God’s will is for us to avoid all contact with these doors of death. You CLEANSE yourself by RENOUNCING satan and the occult, CALLING on Jesus for deliverance (Romans 10:13) and CLAIMING the cleansing of the Blood (1John 1:9).