One of the biggest questions Christians seem to have is, "God, what's your will for my life?" There is a very straightforward, Biblical answer to that question but most don't want to receive it.
The answer is not received for a couple of reasons. First, many consider it too general, as addressing Christianity as a whole, but in context it is being addressed to individuals. Second, it is not what people really want to hear. The verse is this, "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour" (I Thes. 4:3-4).
Yes, that is God's perfect will for every area of your life. What people don't like is that it doesn't tell them things like: marry Sussie, work at General Electric, become a dentist, or buy the red car not the blue one. That verse does not satisfy most Christians because they tend to think too much about their future, their car, or their vacation.
In all honesty, when most people ask God what His will is, they simply want God to give them the green light to do their own will in His name. A verse like I Thes. 4:3-4 is just not going to interest someone with that kind of mind set (or should I say heart set) because it centers on God's will and holiness, not temporal adventure.
When we say, "God, what is your will for my life?" we must realize that we have misstated the situation. What we should say is "GOD HOW CAN MY LIFE FIT INTO YOUR WILL?" Do you see the difference?
In the first statement we tend to see ourselves as being most important. We are concerned about OUR LIVES and FUTURE and want God to help US. In the second statement we are considering ourselves dead to "self" and are asking, "God, how can I HELP YOU!" Jesus is not a judge or a divider over temporal things and does not really care whether you buy the red or blue car, or if your relatives just cheated you out of your inheritance (Luke 12:14)!
We make our mistake when we want God to "have a plan for our lives." God's only plan for us is to die to self that we might serve Him. Then no matter what our college education, technical skill, or other "qualification in life" we will say, "Lord, I am crucified with Christ: please live Your life out through me!"
To that kind of consecrated mind and heart Christ says, "Son, daughter, this is how I'm going to live my life through you to reach others for my Kingdom, by causing you to possess your vessel (where God lives) in sanctification and honour." "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial [Satan]? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple [vessel] of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them: and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord Almighty. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (II Cor. 6:14-7:1).
"For this is the will of God, even your [individual, personal] sanctification... That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour" (I Thes. 4:3-4).
The first thing we need to remember is that God's will revolves around God, His kingdom, His gospel, and His plan of salvation. The second thing we need to remember is that man's will revolves around the FLESH. "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen. 6:5). Whenever we begin to move in the will or desire of the flesh, we are bound to mess up. This is why we need to stay in God's grace so that He will be the source of all "will" in our lives (Phil. 2:13).
This section on God's will is a key in uncovering how the ministers of the gospel of self-interest leave people with the impression that we can harness God's will so that we can then manipulate God to fulfill our will and desire.
Their theory is that if we can just figure out what God's will is in a given situation, we can punch prayer A and get answer B. The interesting thing in their theory is that they are RIGHT! That is, they are right in theory but not in MOTIVE!
It is true that if we are truly saved, delighting in the desires of God and making His desires our prayer requests, then "the desire of the righteous shall be granted" (Prov. 10:24).
The mechanics are right, but whose desire are we praying to come to pass--ours or the Lord's? Mark 11:24 says "ye desire," but that is speaking of a SAINT'S desires, which are not his at all but the Lord's. For prayer to be answered, Christians must always pray according to God's will. Praying for God's will to be done means praying for God's desire to come to pass, not ours! "Thy will be done" (Luke 11:2) is the disciple's attitude in prayer.
The religious person's attitude is reflected in James 4:3. "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your own lusts."
The prayer life of Jesus answers all our questions about prayer--answers that directly oppose what the false faith teachers are saying.
For example, they say it is WRONG to pray, "if it be thy will," insinuating it lacks faith, amounts to sin, and hinders God in answering our prayers. Jesus, God in the flesh, prayed, "IF thou be willing" and "IF it be possible" while going through the agony of Gethsemane (Matt. 26:39 & Luke 22:42).
Dare any man say Jesus lacked faith or sinned in praying "if"? Dear reader, the false teachers have said exactly this by their doctrine! If someone said all government workers were lazy and your father was a government worker, then they said it of your father whether or not they ever mentioned his name.
One of the most ridiculous pamphlets I have ever read was by Kenneth Hagin on how to know the will of God. After reading it, he had said absolutely nothing about GOD'S WILL. He used the entire book to make a person think that if you are a Christian you will is ALWAYS God's will! It's heresy to say YOUR WILL IS GOD'S! Hagin might as well have taught that we are GOD!
Under all the slick talk, the entire booklet was only based upon the carnal I DESIRE of the carnal heart. God's will is for us to be pure and set aside for God's service, to do God's holy will according to His desires, not ours. No human being saved or unsaved can trust his own fallen will. "For I [Paul] know that in me (that is, in my flesh [humanity],) dwelleth no good thing: FOR TO WILL is present with me;" (Rom. 7:18).
The Apostle Paul obviously didn't trust his will, yet Hagin wants us to believe that our will is God's?! Give me a break!
You can't get more perfect as a man than Jesus was yet even He didn't trust His own will because it was two-directional, just as Paul's was and yours and mine is (Rom. 7:22-25). Jesus prayed, "Remove this cup from me." This was His request according to His human will. His human desire in Luke 22:42. This is why the great drops of sweat were as blood, the turmoil, because of the will of His own human flesh! Had Jesus read Hagin's book and thought that His will was God the Father's will, then He would not have gone to the cross and there would be no salvation!
But (thank God) Jesus also prayed, "NOT MY WILL, BUT THINE, be done." Jesus knew the secret--resist your own desires and will no matter what the cost. Submit your will to the Father and only do His will. Jesus knew the way to stay out of trouble in the flesh, His formula was simple: I'm not doing anything or saying anything I don't see the father do or say (John 8:28). Even Jesus (God the Son) didn't seek OR do His own will (John 5:30).
What happened at Gethsemane illustrates several things including Christ's only prayer which was answered "no.' "Remove this cup from me" was answered no because it was the request of his humanity and flesh. In His natural human desire to escape pain, torture and crucifixion, He asked for the ordeal ahead to be removed (Heb. 5:7-8). He was not trying to escape the call of the cross which is why He also prayed, "Not my will, but thine"--which was answered "yes."
Escaping the agony was a desire of the flesh and had the Father answered that prayer or had Jesus only prayed for this, it would have been consumed upon Christ's "lust" (James 4:3 & Heb. 4:15) and resulted in sin. (Which was just what the devil was trying to get Him to do.) The prayer to escape the agony was the normal, sane reaction. Jesus, after all, was not a masochist.
None the less, Jesus did have a will, a desire, a prayer request for something that was not granted by the Father. The phrase "not my will, but thine" requires a difference of direction and opposing wills. Therefore, even Christ proved that the answer to prayer is not based upon the human "ye desire" or "whatsoever ye desire" of ANYBODY, but on the sovereign purpose and will of God the Father.
All other prayers Christ prayed were for the necessities of life, "give us this day our daily bread" (Matt. 6:11), for the glory of the Father (John 17:1), or for other (John 14:16). All these were granted because they expressed the will and desire of the Father.
James tells us how to seek God in prayer. "For ye ought to say, IF the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good [God's will], and doeth it not, to him it is sin" (James 4:15-17).
To say "I will do this and I will do that," or to somehow think that we now have God by the "Word" and that He now has to jump at our beck and call is the sin of presumption (Psalm 19:13). Hagin's book does not teach how to know God's will but how to become an arrogant boaster and commit self-righteous presumptuous sin!
God wants us to have a positive, powerful prayer life, but to have it it must be centered around the WILL OF GOD. "And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will [not ours], he heareth us; And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him" (I John 5:14-15).
Christians are to be dead to self priority (sin), and dead men have no desires! Christ's prayers were answered because there was no sin (self priority) in Him. Jesus operated totally within the desire of the Father, step by step, one day at a time. How unthinkable to realize that we in this country are plagued with hundreds of false teachers and millions of their little pamphlets trying to convince the little lambs of God's kingdom that God's will is simply that their desire, their will, and their gratification "be done!"
These thieves who indirectly are teaching us to pray, "Father, my will be done" shall one day answer for their sin. These "charismatic" tares will find their judgment in Matthew 7:21-23: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
The casting out of devils and prophesying mentioned here should catch the attention of any charismatic and make them sit up and take notice. That scripture addresses itself to a specific type of false Christian. These will one day stand at the Judgment and find just how presumptuous it was for them to have done their will in God's name, presumptuous enough to send them to hell! "Father my will be done" is a damnable prayer.