All of my life I have heard about God's will. I know I need to do His will, follow His will, find His will, etc. Yet, there were many times I simply felt like I did not know what His will was. I think I often just made all of this much more complicated then it needed to be.
Colossians 1 has been a key passage in helping me understand the will of God. In verses 3 and 4, the apostle Paul tells the believers in Colossians that he gave thanks when he heard of their faith. Then, in verses 9 and 10, he tells them the secret to this whole idea of God's will. He says, "For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray and make request for you, that ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will." What had he heard about? Well it was the same thing he had just mentioned hearing about in verse 3 -- their faith. So, because of their faith he prays that they will be filled with the knowledge of God's will.
If we just stop here we still do not know much. We still don't know what God's will is or how we grow in our knowledge of it. At this point we need to go back to Christianity 101. What is God's basic will for anyone? It is just His revealed will that we find in His word. You know, the basics: honor your father and mother, love your wife as Christ loved the church, do not lie, remember the Sabbath, etc. By the way, I have found that doing a mediocre job of the basics usually is much more than I can handle on my own. So, if you are looking for the will of God for your life, start with these basics that He has clearly laid out. If you are living these basics out in your life, by His grace, you know your living according to His will.
Now, here's where Colossians 1:9-10 has really helped me. The apostle Paul wants the believers to grow in the knowledge of God. Look what happens next. Verse 10 says, "to walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God." Did you see that?! Paul said that he wanted them to have the knowledge of God's will so they could do some things! What, specifically, did Paul say that they would do? They would walk worthy in a manner that pleases the Lord and bear fruit through good works. This is the answer all along to my questions on God's will that I started with in the first paragraph. When we talk about God's will we are not talking about some mystical and vague idea. We are talking about real and concrete things. Those things are what we do and how we do them. How we "walk" and the fruit we bear. This is God's will for us! To work out our salvation in the way we live each and every day is the will of God for you and me.
Do you know the best part of this passage? It is found at the end of verse 10. Did you see it? What happens when we take the revealed will of God that we do know and use it to live in a way that pleases Him and to bear fruit? Exactly! Paul told the believers in Colossians that they would then increase in the knowledge of God! So, not only does this passage clear up the initial question of what God's will is and what we are supposed to do with it. It provides an amazing bonus. It says that as we put what we know into practice it has the result of increasing our knowledge of God's will.
So, what does this mean? It means that if we truly want to know God's will that we need to take what we know now (even if it is just a little bit) and begin to live that daily in a way that pleases God and bears fruit. This will lead us into more understanding of His will. We can then take that new and deeper understanding and begin to live that out. Then what happens?! You guessed it. We again get an increase in the knowledge of God! It's a cycle. 1. Take the knowledge you have. 2. Use it to walk pleasing to Him. 3. Bear fruit with good works. 4. Get more knowledge. 5. Repeat.
If this cycle is happening in your life it is an evidence of faith. Remember how we started this investigation? Paul started off by telling these believers that he thanked God when he heard of their faith, and that the faith he had heard about would then lead to this cycle of growth in the knowledge of God.
