So now we enter characteristic number two. Which is that God has a good will and He has
a perfect will for our lives.
I've been trying to tell you this over and over that God
has a wonderful plan for our lives. But the reality is that God has given the
freedom to us to choose whether or not we are going to follow
His will and so actually there are four possibilities.
Option number one: We could be content to remain
ignorant of God's will. Now that's obviously not you or you would
not be sitting here listening to me right now.
You obviously have a deep desire in your heart to
discover God's will for your life and you are going to
make that discovery in Jesus name. So option number two: We could know what God
wants us to do but choose to do things our own way
instead. Or to put this more simply and bluntly, this
is called disobedience.
And disobedience is a lethal enemy of God's will for our
lives. In fact we are going to talk about this principle
a little bit later on in the series.
But disobedience is one thing that will abort God's
perfect will from being done in you life every time.
Option number three: We could know God's will and
follow it in part but still settle for less than what God
had in mind. Now in my opinion this is the biggest challenge
that most people face.
Like I said, you wouldn't be sitting here listening to me
right now if you weren't interested in following God's will.
But people often settle for less than God's best because
they find an easier road. Good things often become the enemy of the
best things. Not only that but many times when we settle
for less it can often wind up being more costly in the
end anyway. Remember those two guys in our illustration.
It turned out that the cheap guy ended up paying more
in the end because sometimes cheap can be expensive.
So that leads us to option number four: We can choose
to contend for nothing less than God's best in our lives.
My friend, if we really believe that God has a perfect
will for us and that His will will always be better than
ours then we should be willing to wait for it and fight for
it when necessary. I believe that there is a perpetual conflict
in the Christian life between what is good and what
is God. What is the economical way and what is first
class so to speak.
For example I've seen Christians marry the wrong
spouse because they were unwilling to wait for God to
bring the right one along. God allowed them to do what they wanted to
do and in some cases even turn bad situations around
for His glory.
Yet whenever we disobey and do things our own way
something is lost that can never be recovered. Yes, God will forgive and He will heal but
He will not turn back the hands of time.
I wonder sometimes if one day the Lord will show us
what our lives would have been like and how He would
have blessed us if only we had obeyed what He told us
to do. A well known poem written by an unknown author
says it this way:
My friend, God has a good will for your life it is true but
He also has a perfect will. And His perfect will and the blessings that
go along with it are reserved for the ones who are
willing to be radically obedient and to wait when necessary.
Those that are slow to learn this lesson are going to
make many trips around the wilderness. They will endure much unnecessary hurt and
loss. It's very true that sometimes cheap can be
expensive. Sometimes the easy way out turns out to be
much more difficult than the right way would have
been in the first place.
There are moments in life when God's will will seem so
difficult, so prolonged and so unrewarding while our
idea will seem so much easier, much quicker and much
more enjoyable. But my friend it is only an illusion.
When you look back you will always discover that God's
plan was better than yours. And there will never be an exception to this
rule so you just might as well decide from now on to yield
to God's will.
Do it God's way and contend for God's first class, His
first and best will in your life.