What is God's will for my life, Part 2

I wanted to get this post done by Sunday, and, lo and behold, here it is Friday.  I'm also going to stretch this into three parts, because this would be a 20,000 word post otherwise haha.  Part three will, hopefully, be tomorrow.  So, the original question that we set out to answer in Part 1 was whether or not the phrase, "What is God's will for my life?" is a biblical question.  Biblical, as we defined it, was any principle that is grounded in Scripture even if it is not necessarily stated verbatim (i.e., "Trinity").  Well, after reading 286 verses, I can tell you that there is good news and there is bad news.  The bad news?  With regards to the phrase "What is God's will for my life?" I will quote the great Inigo Montoya, "That word....I do not think it means what you think it means."  The good news?  God does have a specific will for your life and it is more incredible and liberating than you or I could imagine.  Let's look together at what God's Word says about His will for your life.

1.  God's will for you is that you glorify Him.
When it comes to God's glory, there are few better places to turn than the book of Isaiah.  Let's highlight just a few verses.  Isaiah 6:3 says "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory."  Isaiah 49:3 says, "And He said to me, you are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified."  Isaiah 43:7 says, "everyone who is called by My Name, whom I created for my Glory, whom I formed and made."  And, last but not least, Isaiah 42:8 says, "I am the Lord; that is My Name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols."  Glory.  Specifically, God's own glory, is what He is all about.  Now, there may be some of you who are reading this who are thinking, "That's all well and good, Andy.  But you are a Christian, and I am not.  Does that mean God made me for HIS glory?"  I'm glad you asked.  The answer is emphatically yes.  Exodus chapter 14 finds the people of Israel, recently freed from slavery, being pursued by the Egyptian army.  The people of Israel are terrified, and Moses goes before the Lord.  The Lord tells Moses, "...I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all of his host, his chariots, and his horsemen.  And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen."  In other words, you can pass through the Red Sea and OFFER glory to God, or you can be buried under the Red Sea and BRING glory to God.  Either way, every human being gives glory to God.  So, believer and non-believer alike, God's will for your life is to bring Himself glory through you.

2.  God's will for your life is for you to be saved.
Now, we are treading in some deep theological waters here when we are talking about God's will for everyone to be saved.  Let's keep it simple and say that the offer is open for all men and women to come to God through the blood of Jesus Christ.  Tragically, all men and women will not.  But for those who will humble themselves and cry out to God (for it is by grace through faith that you have been saved), salvation is assured.  The book of Ephesians opens with some of the most stirring verses in all of scripture.  Here is Ephesians 1:3-12:

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴ even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love ⁵ he predestined us^[b] for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, ⁸ which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight ⁹ making known^[c] to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ ¹⁰ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

¹¹ In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, ¹² so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory

If you are a follower of Christ, let those words sink in for just a moment.  God chose YOU.  Sinful, rebellious, dirty, hateful, awful YOU.  He looked at your life countless ages before it even began and said, "I want him to be my son.  I want her to be my daughter."  That was his will for your life.  I mean, let's think about we have learned so far.  God's will for your life is to bring Him glory and for you to call him Father.  Are you full of joy and gratitude?  And do you maybe see why complaining about why you aren't sure where you should spend the next two or three years of your life sounds kind of...silly?  I think that as believers we kind of skip over how incredible our salvation is and say, "Thanks for the get out of @#!*% free card, God, but what about college?  Should I date this girl or not?"  Don't hear me saying that those aren't important decisions (and we WILL get there; I promise), but rather focus on the fact that these are decisions that will impact you for 50 years, tops.  The decision that God made to choose you will impact you for 50 billion of billions of years.  

3.  God's will for your life is to be filled with the Spirit.

I arranged these items in this order for a reason.  Whether or not you are a believer, God will be glorified in you.  That is why it was number one.  The second one was number two because the OFFER of salvation is open to any and all.  So, if you are not a believer, call out to God NOW and become one.  The rest of these "wills" apply only to followers of Christ.  Ephesians 5:18 says " ¹⁸ And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit."  Now, that is a command to all believers, so let's just assume that that is God's will for your life.  Ok.  Be filled with the Spirit.  What does that mean?  As is always the case, the words of Jesus are a good place to start.  In the book of John, chapter 14, Jesus says this about the Holy Spirit, ¹⁵ “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper,^[f] to be with you forever, ¹⁷ even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be^[g] in you."  Jesus goes on to say that,"the Helper, the Holy Spirit,whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you."  The Holy Spirit dwells in every Christian, and He makes himself known in a big way.  Galatians 5 describes the attitudes and actions of a spirit-filled Christian in this way, "²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."  Not only that, as if that wasn't enough, the Holy Spirit allows us to grow in wisdom.  It is this kind of wisdom that will allow us to make the decisions that so trouble our hearts.  1 Corinthians 2 says, "⁷ But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory," and "¹² Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. ¹³ And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit,interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual."  So, let's recap what we've learned.  God wants to glorify Himself in you, He wants to adopt you so that you be in His presence forever, and He wants to send the Holy Spirit to fill you with joy, truth, peace, and love.  God's will for my life is pretty awesome.  

4. God's will for your life is for you to be submissive.

Huh?  God's will for my life is for me to be submissive?  Submissive to who?  Well...everyone, actually.  1 Peter 2:13-17 says, "¹³ Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution,^[b] whether it be to the emperor^[c] as supreme, ¹⁴ or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. ¹⁵ For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. ¹⁶ Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants^[d] of God. ¹⁷ Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor."  As 21st century American Christians, we don't like the sound of this one as much.  The whole "chosen by God as his sons and filled with His Spirit" thing sounds appealing, but we aren't so sure about this part of it.  It is important, however, to see the WHY behind the submissive.  Christians are not to be submissive because they are weak, fearful, timid people.  Christians are to live submissively because they care more about the glory of God than they do about their own pride.  So, we live in a country where the government grows increasingly hostile to us, we live in a culture that is more and more opposed to God's word, and we work for bosses who don't treat us right.  We let others go ahead of us, lie to us, cheat us and abuse us because we want the name of God to be praised.  Honestly, I struggle so deeply with this one.  I don't like being treated poorly.  I have to kill my pride.  We have to kill our pride and submit to those around us for the glory of God.  After, this is God's will for us.