How to Know and Do the Will of God - Five Practices You Can Use Every Day
Walking a life with Jesus fundamentally means doing the Father's will. Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven (Matthew 7:21). But actually knowing God's will is not always so clear, and doing it can be challenging.
Here are five practices you can use to know and do God's will.
Let's start by breaking it down into what we see from the Bible as two different aspects of God’s will: God's sovereign will and God's prescriptive will.
God's Sovereign Will
God's sovereign will is something that will always happen no matter what. When God states that something will happen, it does. When we make big decisions, we can take comfort in His sovereign will, because no matter what we do, we cannot ruin God’s ultimate plans. In times of uncertainty, you can remember God’s permanent will that, once you become a child of God, nothing can separate you from his love. The apostle Paul put it this way: “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). That is God's sovereign will.
God's Prescriptive Will
The other aspect of God’s will is what he asks his people to do (or not do). This is often referred to as his prescriptive will. The key here is that God has given many commands to his people, but he also allows people a choice: whether or not to obey his commands. For example, the Lord came to Jonah and directed him to go to Nineveh and witness against them, but Jonah chose to flee from the presence of the Lord and, instead, went to Tarshish. Or we may have doubts about God's will and our ability to carry it out. For instance, when God told Moses that he wanted to send him to Pharaoh to bring his people out of Egypt, Moses responded with hesitancy and doubt about his own ability and worry about how the people would respond. But God assured him he would be with Moses and gave him specific instructions of how to proceed.
So, when you know God’s will, you can choose to obey or disobey Him. But remember, God is still in control and steadfast in love. He wants us to be obedient and live out his will for our good and for his glory.
Two Fundamentals
Before looking at the five principles for knowing and doing God's will, let’s look at two important fundamentals.
The Holy Spirit is our Helper
God has given us his Holy Spirit to live in us, to help us and guide us. It is the work and help of the Holy Spirit that forms the foundation for connecting with God to know and do his will.
Jesus referenced the coming of the Holy Spirit before his death. But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning (John 15:26-27).
After Jesus was raised from the dead, he presented himself to his disciples and told them they would receive the Holy Spirit, and that they would receive power through it (Acts 1:1-8). Then, in Acts 2:1-4, the Holy Spirit came upon them, God's ultimate gift of power and source of guidance.
Jesus has given this same gift to all who have believed in Him since, and it's vital for you to remember that God's Holy Spirit lives within you. It takes time to learn how to listen to the Holy Spirit, but without understanding this first, you will be trying to do everything in your own strength rather than using the greatest resource God can give you: a direct connection with Himself.
Jesus’s Commands are God’s Will
The five practices laid out below are for daily use when we’re not sure what God’s will is. But let’s start with the easy stuff. By definition, Jesus’s commands are God’s will. So the first place to start is by knowing and doing what Jesus commanded. Let’s keep it simple to start.
Jesus’s commands are clearly laid out in Scripture. So, daily Bible reading and study of Jesus’s teaching are the foundation for knowing and doing God’s will. For instance, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (Matthew 13:34-35). Obviously, this is an easy one to understand, maybe not so easy to always do. Or maybe you’re struggling with being able to forgive someone in a relationship and want to know if you should. Jesus was pretty clear about this one too when he responded to Peter asking him how many times he should forgive someone. As many as seven? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times (Matthew 18:21-22). So it’s clear the will of God is that we be forgiving without end - as God has forgiven us.
A simple internet search will help you find resources about the words of Jesus and his commands. Here is one I found to get you started - 49 Commands of Christ.
Five Practices to Know and Do God's Will
The Bible doesn’t specifically tell us ‘these are the five steps to knowing and doing God’s will’. There are probably dozens of things we can point to to help us know and do God’s will. But here are five commonly acknowledged practices you can use every day to know and do God’s will.
1. Surrender your personal desires and the voices of others
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:23-24; also Matthew 16:24-25). This is so foundational to a relationship and walk with Jesus - the battle between the flesh (our desires) and the spirit. In seeking God's will it's important to get ourselves out of the way to be fully open to whatever God wants.
You may have already decided what you want to do and are only coming to God for approval. You may also have certain biases. If so, you're not really seeking God's will. It's OK to have something in mind - God gave us our minds to use to think, reason and understand. But only when your desire to follow God outweighs your desire for a certain outcome, are you ready to hear from God.
Also, realize emotions are part of the process. God gave us emotions and listening to them is part of the process. The caution is not to let them get in the way of hearing from God clearly.
And, not only do we have to get ourselves out of the way, we also have to be aware of the voices of others in our lives. Many of us want to please the people around us and gain their approval. But that's just as bad as being biased to our own desires. Of course we want to be sensitive to how our lives impact other people, but sometimes doing God's will will disappoint others and we have to be willing to accept that.
2. Reading and Meditating on God's Word
God has made himself available for us to know him through Scripture. Scripture gives us God's word on all aspects of life - finances, relationships, work, family and more. So reading and meditating on his word is a great foundation for coming to an understanding of his will.
Using God's word is essential in comparing and contrasting your thoughts about things. You're thinking should line up with - or at least not contradict - what God has said through the Bible. God's word is timelessly relevant truth across time. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 5:12).
And the Holy Spirit will direct us to certain scripture specifically relevant for us. When the Spirit leads, He is not imparting “new” information as much as He is impressing on our hearts the truth God has already revealed in Scripture and applying it to our situation. He will never lead contrary to Scripture.
3. Prayer
God will communicate his will to us in any number of ways. Sometimes it might be through an interaction with another person, or a particular circumstance you find yourself in. Other times it might be a certain scripture you read. But communication is a two-way thing and we have to do our part in communicating with him. That's prayer.
God wants us to come to him in prayer. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God (Philippians 4:6). As a way to instruct the disciples about continually praying, Jesus told the parable about the persistent widow who continually and repeatedly asked a certain judge for justice (read it in Luke 18:1-8).
The process of praying itself can be a key part of understanding God's will for us. In talking with God, you might clarify your thinking enough to answer your own question about God's will for you. Of course, you will want to test it together with the other practices, but sometimes the process of prayer itself goes a long way in understanding God's will for you.
And this is one of the ways the Holy Spirit can help. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God (Romans 8:26-27).
4. Godly Counsel
Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed (Proverbs 15:22). It's always a good idea to seek the counsel of other Godly people - and be a Godly counselor yourself when someone needs your help. God made us for relationship. Don’t go it alone.
Godly friends can help by offering a different perspective to your situation, or by sharing a life experience that relates to you, or maybe bringing up a different scripture you hadn't referenced before or interpret in a different way.
And, of course, Godly friends can be praying for you. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective (James 5:16).
A caution in seeking the counsel of others is that you not look to them to make decisions for you. You are ultimately the one responsible for your decisions and cannot rely exclusively on what other people say. They may have biases of their own, even if they are strong Christians. So, again, use all these practices to test against each other.
5. Take Action
If you've humbled yourself, sought direction in Scripture, prayed about it and sought Godly counsel, you can be confident in making a decision and taking action. For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control (2 Timothy 1:7).
If you make a wrong decision, it's ok. God's got your back. He definitely doesn't want you to not make a decision for fear of making a mistake. And don't worry about having all the answers before you start, God will order your steps. The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps (Proverbs 16:9).
Your path to God’s will might not always be quick and direct. Sometimes God will lead us in ways that don’t seem so direct to us. But it’s always for our good and for his glory. Maybe to teach us something or acquire a resource or make a connection with someone we’ll need or be able to help down the road. But when we’re faithfully obedient to want to know and do his will, we can confidently take action knowing he’ll always be with us. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).
Conclusion
As followers of Jesus we want to follow his example of doing the will of our Father. It’s not always easy, but if we are obedient to Jesus’s commands and faithfully employ these five practices, we can be confident to live our lives boldly.
Sometimes there will be circumstances in our lives where we face major decisions and can use these practices to make those decisions. But even in our daily walk we always want to know and do God’s will. So employ these practices every day, even many times throughout the day. And, like anything you practice, as you do you will find them becoming easier to practice and use.
Finally, as you employ these practices and see God’s faithfulness in response, you will begin to correlate the cause of seeking to know and do God’s will with the effect of God’s response. It will begin to make sense. And, of course, as you do, you will gain more and more confidence in your daily walk with Jesus doing the will of God.
