Knowing the Will of God - Pastor Muyiwa Olubowale

Text: Colossians 1:9-10

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be lled
with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner
worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the
knowledge of God

It is important for us to know the will of God because it is not just about the present but also about
the future. Our desires need to be aligned with Gods will for us as God wants the best for us.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you
a future and a hope (Jer 29:11).

God has positive intentions towards us. Knowing the will of God is knowing Gods mind and that is
the secret of pleasing God. The secret of success in life is knowing Gods mind.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as
the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts
than your thoughts (Isa 55:8-9)

We need to know Gods will because our desires are not the same as His. However, His thoughts
are far better than ours.We need to cultivate a habit of seeking to know His will for our lives on,
even in the little things. Then, when the big decisions come, we will be accustomed to seeking his
guidance.

Man is made up of soul, spirit and body. God is a spirit. When we become born again, our spirit
man is regenerated by the Holy Spirit. When God wants to relate with man, he relates with man
through the spirit, not the body or the soul. However, for this to happen, we need to be regenerated
so that our spirit comes alive and is responsive to Gods Spirit.

The soul is made up of our mind - our will, our emotions and our intellect.
Our body feels and responds to the physical. our soul reasons, our spirit perceives. we can only
perceive the will of God through the spirit and therefor it is important to train our spirit to be able to
talk to God.In order to be receptive to the spirit of God, we need to work on our soul - to be
transformed by the renewal of our mind.

There is the perfect will of God and the permissive will of God. We need to strive to be within the
perfect will of God. Using the Israelites as an illustration - when we are in the permissive will of
God, a journey of 40 days will take 40 years. we often suffer unnecessarily when we choose the
permissive will over the perfect will. The perfect will of God is not always easy or convenient, but it
means that God has taking everything in the future into consideration, which we are not aware of.
If, for example, we are praying for a specic job, God may direct us not to take that job because he
knows that there will be trouble in the future. If we take the job, and loose it after a few years, God
will still provide a new one for us. However, had we heeded Gods advice from the beginning and
remains in His perfect will, we would have saved ourselves the unnecessary trouble. So,
sometimes when things are not going as perfectly as we would like them to, it is important to
remember that God has a will and purpose for everything and he makes everything work out in the
end. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are
called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

Our prayer should be that God lls us with the knowledge of His will.