The Will of God for Your Life, Revealed in the Word of God
Readers of the Bible, granted the Holy Spirit by the grace of God, believe God’s inspired, inerrant, clear, sufficient, and authoritative report from His written revelation (Is 53:1; Eph 6:17; 2 Tim 3:16; Heb 4:12; 2 Pet 1:20–21). The born again children of God love the Bible because it reveals God’s love for the children He predestined to adopt out of the world (Eph 1:4–5; Rom 5:5, 8; 8:15, 23; 1 Jn 3:1; 4:19), even before the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8; 17:8; 21:27). It has been described by many readers as a “love letter.”
Everything the children of God need to know about their existence is explained on the pages of Scripture (sufficiency of Scripture). Knowing this, the Bible reader studies to know the will of God for his or her life. Whether male or female, prince or peasant, Jew or Gentile, the Bible guides the one belonging to Christ into conformity to Christ by the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:29; 1 Cor 3:23). Just as Jesus bore the image of God His Father (Col 1:15), so the Christian is identified with the image of Christ Jesus.
All people have a marred image of the fallen first man, Adam. The will of the first man came under the persuasive influence of the serpent, the devil in disguise (Gen 3). Despite every advantage of sinless innocence, Adam and Eve succumbed to the adversary’s intrigue. Because the will of God is eternal, the fall of man is recognized as an integral episode in the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:23).
Immediately after man’s sinful disposition was realized, the comfort of the Gospel was preached to them by God Himself (Gen 3:15). A man would come and destroy the works of the devil (1 Jn 3:8), who had wrested dominion from Adam as ruler of this world now thrust into darkness (Jn 12:30; 14:31; 16:11; Acts 26:18). Man was subjected to the “god of this world” and the domain of darkness (2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:13). Disobedience to God’s Word proved unimaginably costly to humanity. Life in the world turned into a difficult toil. Everything was burdensome to man. Sin is a brutal taskmaster, despite the façade of pleasure and prosperity. Sinners, enslaved to master sin, are rewarded to this day with death as an earned wage (Rom 6:6, 23).
The arrogance of Lucifer, the prince of angels, demanded that he be the hero of God’s story. Instead, pride cast him out of heaven and into the bilious role as a diabolical villain. He is the arch-enemy of God, and a notable adversary to heighten the drama of the cosmic conflict created by the Author of it all.
The true Hero of God’s story is the only begotten Son of God, who eternally existed as a Spirit until His incarnation (Jn 1:14). Now enfleshed as the promised Deliverer, according to the will of God, we are privy to know the story we, too, have been cast into for the Author's purposes.
All people have been written into God’s story and each one plays his or her part by design and decree. Each life is guided by God’s providence to the intimacy of exactly numbered days and even precisely enumerated hairs upon one’s head (Ps 139:16; Mt 10:30). No bird falls from the sky without directed permission (Mt 10:29). The tatterdemalion and the coiffed woman of haute couture both derive their place from the Author.
It is God’s will, revealed in God’s Word, for two categories of humanity to descend from Adam and Eve. One group was predestined as elect, that is, chosen people to be transformed from rebel sinners into humble worshipers. The other category was predestined to remain as rebel reprobates. These two categories are made manifest in Cain and Abel and down throughout history. Each category serves to display attributes of God that would not be known unless each category existed for this purpose.
The will of God for the reprobate is to highlight God’s attributes of sovereignty, patience, judgment, justice, wrath, etc. The will of God for God’s elect is to highlight God’s attributes of sovereignty, mercy, grace, justice, kindness, love, etc. Both categories bring glory to God, who is eternally good and always right in all He does.
Condemned sinners do their part to further the cause of evil in the world (Jn 3:18). Despite God’s light shining in the world (Jn 8:12), the children of darkness do not understand the light (Jn 1:5). They are blinded by their father, the devil, from seeing the glory of Christ, the Hero. They love the darkness because their deeds are evil (Jn 3:19).
Jesus Christ is the light of the world (Jn 8:12), and it is His Spirit who has shone in the hearts of God’s elect, redeemed people to reveal the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Cor 4:6). The changed hearts and renewed minds of those transformed by God’s Spirit and God’s Word are evidence of a new creation (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15). Behold, with every believer, a new life of a new creature — a man made new — is the product of God’s amazing grace.
The recipients of God’s love, poured out into their hearts, develop an insatiable desire for the things of the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5; 1 Cor 2:15). They want to hear the old, old story…again and again. It is the Spirit, employing the Word, who is working transformation in the soul of the child of the kingdom of heaven whose new affection is abundant life in the overflowing cup of God’s goodness (Jn 10:10; 17:17).
Still, the Christian is a vessel that has good contents in an unclean cup, in fact, a body of death (Rom 7:24). The body must be re-created along with the regenerated soul. The resurrection of the body is coming on the last day when the Hero of heaven and earth returns to gather His beloved bride and to dispose of the unsalvageable, unclean, who knew no grace unto salvation by God’s sovereign choice (Jn 5:28–29).
Sanctification is the will of God for His saints (1 Thess 4:3). Judgment and just punishment is the will of God for His enemies, who refuse to believe God’s report revealed as His written Word. The Bible remains forever as God’s warning to rebels, even as it is God’s letter of love to those to who have been recipients of its light and truth. Now that you know where to find God’s will for your life, it is assured that you will either scoff in ignorance (God’s will for the reprobate) or you will revel in the truth made known to you because of who God made you to be (God’s will for the elect). To which category do you belong?
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
May 18, 2022
