God's Will - Good
Scripture Reading - Romans 12:1-2 KJV
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
In today’s lesson we will briefly discuss the “Will of God”. Noticing according to verse 1 that you must first think about your body being a sacrifice unto God to even accomplish “God’s Will”. The battle every Christian must fight is not doing their own will over “God’s Will”. This is why the scriptures admonish us to make the sacrifice first so we can always conclude “God’s Will” has priority over man’s will, including doing our own will upon this earth. Yes, we can go a step further and state that “God’s Will” should have priority over all wills. We (ihlcc) say this because there are certain people who do the will of their spouse over “God’s Will”, others do the will of their employer over God’s Will and yet there are millions of children that choose to follow the will of their parents when it comes to making a career or college choice instead of following “God’s Will” in their heart. We do know that this happens quite often but it should not be. If the parents error in their judgment about doing “God’s Will” they pass that same error over to their children. The last thing any Child of God wants is to get to Heaven and find out they didn’t do God’s Will when given the call by God to do what they were created by God to do. Yes, we can choose to talk to the Lord now about His assignment for us while we are here on His earth or we will talk with Him in Heaven when rewards and blessing are passed out to the obedient. We also notice according to verse 2 that you will need to renew your mind to even recognize God’s Will. The simple truth of the matter is the majority of people think about themselves and their immediate family members above “God’s Will”, so unless they change their thinking they will never seek God’s good, acceptable or perfect Will. Yes, we know that there exist among us many Believers who don’t include God in the everyday life so the odds are very low that they would acknowledge doing “God’s Good Will” on a regular bases. Let’s strive to do “God’s Will” on all three levels - good, acceptable and perfect. Let’s explain a little about the “Good Will of God” which we (ihlcc) believe to be the lowest part of the pyramid of God’s Will. The “Good Will” of God includes everything we see around us in the natural realm. We believe that because in Genesis 1 The Lord used the term good to describe the works of His Hands. We know that whatever God creates is “good” including mankind when mankind performs His Will. So when you take care of God’s resources in this earth or use them as intended by God it is “good”. Yes, food is “good” for the body according to “God’s Will” and if someone chooses to dishonor their body by not eating food they will have problems just staying alive. We read in Romans 13:3-4 KJV that following the right laws of the land is “good” also: “For rulers are not a terror to “good works”, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is “good”, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for “good”. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Notice these verses are stating that God ordained governments to lead the people. Now we do know that everything the government does doesn’t glorying God but many “good” things the government does is “good” so we should support those efforts as doing “God’s Good Will” from our heart. Having police men is “good” to keep order, having certain agencies to remove harmful food products is “good” for our health, having public teachers is “good” for the children when they follow the path of righteousness. Our point is these are all a part of “God’s Good Will” whether you realize it or not. Another biblical example of doing “good” is found in Galatians 6:10 KJV which reads, “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do “good” unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.” In this verse doing acts of kindness or lending someone a helping hand is considered doing “God’s Good Will”. This means working is “good” because you are helping others to do something “good” that will help mankind. Of course this only works if you have a “good” job that is legal and helps people, not a bad job that produces an evil product that hurts mankind in general. If you are helping someone to learn more about a certain subject in school you are going a “good” thing. Yes, you don’t have to be a Christian to do “good works” and that is part of the reason we stated earlier that this part of God’s Will is very general and has a large base. The “Good Will of God” we see encompasses man, animals and plants that were created by God because they are all “good things”. Now, we (ihlcc) want to summarize the thought that you must decide how many “good things” you want to do because we can tell you, you can’t do everything. We don’t want to ever make the mistake of doing a lot of “good works” thinking that God is all about Good deeds. No, God knows every person should do some “good works” but God doesn’t rate you or love you based upon your “good works”. No, The Lord is much more deeper than that. God loves you without looking at your resume because God’s Love is not performance based, nor is His continuous love conditional. We also will state there are a lot more elements to “God’s Good will” than we mentioned our desire was to make a point. If you would like to know more about what is included in “God’s Good Will” just use a concordance to find all the references where The Holy Bible mentions the word “good” in context to “God’s Will”. However, please realize that doing “God’s Good Will” only has a certain amount of reward because many unbelievers operate in “God’s Good Will” without regard for our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore strive to go higher to the “acceptable” and “perfect will of God” because they are more pleasing to God which we will cover in another lesson. So be sure to realize that you are probably doing “God’s Good Will” every day and you need to think that way because then you will put your heart into it as faithfully serving the Lord Jesus Christ all for the glory of God. Amen!