Knowing God’s Will

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What is God’s will for me? What should I do in order to be in accordance with God’s will? How can I be certain I am not moving against the will of God for me?
These are the questions that we often hear in the Christian circles. But you need not complicate a simple truth. When Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica, he gives a powerful truth that we must all know.
‘Rejoice always,’
‘Pray without ceasing,’
‘In everything give thanks‘
And then he continues ‘for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.’ [1 Thess 5:18]

1. Rejoice always
Normally, our joy depends on our situation. And it’s human nature. As human beings, we tend to be joyous when something good happens to us. Marriage, birthdays, promotions, functions, recognition, etc. make us happy. We rejoice in God to a great extent. But my question to you is do we rejoice the same way when circumstances do not favour us. It is practically difficult. When I have lost a job, when I can’t afford to pay my child’s school fees, when unpleasant events happen in my family, I definitely cannot rejoice. May be I can sit for hours and cry at Lord’s feet, but definitely not rejoice. But Paul says we must ‘Rejoice always.’ Even in Philippians 4:4, we read the same thing. ‘Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!’

2. Pray without ceasing
To have a consistent walk with the Lord, that is a regular prayer life, is not easy. There are times we have a good relationship with God, but there are times when our spiritual life is dry. We might not opt that, but situations push us that far. Busy schedules and hectic life – and the thing we often choose to miss out is our prayer time. But that is not God’s will for us. Paul warns the church believers in Thessalonica to pray without ceasing.

3. In everything give thanks
Do we? Since our childhood, our parents teach us to give thanks when something is given to us. Someone offers a chocolate, we are asked to thank that person. Does any parent teach his or her child to give thanks when someone takes a piece of chocolate or cake from his hand? No! That would be for us a wrong use of the word ‘thank you’. Thereby we tend to follow the same principle with God. But Bible teaches us something different. We are asked to give thanks in everything. When we receive something, we must give thanks. When we lose something, we must give thanks. That’s what Job did. He gave praise to God in his abundance and he also gave praise to God in distress – when he lost everything, including his ten children.
And rightly summed up by Paul, ‘for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.’

Now that we know God’s will for our lives, shall we pledge to rejoice always, pray without ceasing and give thanks to God in everything?


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