How Do We Know The Will Of God – By Prayer, Consideration, Fasting, & Counsel
Passage: Ephesians 1:5
“…having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,…”
As we have seen, the foundation of knowing the will of God lies in knowing the Word of God and seeking its meaning by means of the study of it. However, we also noted that this is not so neat a package as it appears to be on the surface. It is no so simple as just reading the Word and taking in the facts of the Scripture, and then, “poof” you know the mind and will of God. There is surely more involved than that. It is not the purpose of these devotionals to make a full study of the concept of knowing the will of God. However, it is just possible to summarize the chief ideas in the space we have available.
The first place we look is to prayer. Actually, this ought to go without saying, but, sadly, for many believers, it is the “lost” ingredient in their search for the mind and will of God. We want to know the mind of God, and we may even search the Scriptures to gain information about what God might think about a given matter. But how often do we really bathe a matter in prayer? How often do we spend the time on our knees before God seeking His face and asking Him to guide us and direct us? How much time have we spent meditating on the subject and turning over and over in our minds while talking to God about it? I suspect that we do not spend nearly as much time doing this as we do thinking about the local sports team’s chances or about where the money for the next house payment is coming from. Now, these things are important things, that we think of them is not the point I am trying to make. That we fail to spend the time in prayer seeking the will of god is what I am trying to get across.
Further, we need to spend time meditating on the claims of the Scripture, on the information that the Bible communicates to us concerning the matter in view. In short, we need to think about it. We need to ponder it, turn over the alternatives and consider the various options and courses of action open to us. It might be a good thing to do this in writing, in a journal, or some other tangible way that forces us to be systematic in our consideration.
It might be necessary, depending on the seriousness of the issue, even to fast while we seek the mind of God. Fasting demonstrates our seriousness about a matter and acts as a kind of “focus-er” and “cleanser” for the spirit of men to get us really dialed in what we are doing and make it easier for God to communicate with us by means of His Word.
An often forgotten resource in all of this is the value of the counsel of others concerning the course we ought to take. Now, we need to remember that not all counsel is equal. When we seek counsel, we need to seek it from godly individuals, who are knowledgeable of the Word of God, have demonstrated spirituality, and will treat the request for guidance seriously and seek to honor God in their response. Counsel from an ungodly source, in spiritual matters, is often worse than no counsel at all! We ought also note that not every matter that we need counsel on is a spiritual matter. For advice on what repair to make on our car, we ought to seek the advice of the best mechanic we can find – Christian or not! But in matters that touch on spiritual, or moral and ethical things, we need to seek out godly counsel for input and then give it the due consideration it deserves.
Finding the will of God is not the mysterious and difficult matter that it is so often portrayed to be. Neither is it a matter that can be accomplished by just any Tom, Dick or Harry. The child of God, given genuine and thoughtful interaction with the Word of God, taking advantage of the counsel available, thinking the matters through, even fasting, and above all, praying over the question can be certain that they will discern the mind and will of God. What a great assurance and what a tremendous resource!