A struggle of wills....for followers of the Messiah

[Tranquil Servant]

Do you believe you are doing the will of God? How can we know for sure we are doing the will of God or succumbing to our own wills?
People have done treacherous things claiming to do the will of God and many have used Scripture to justify their own interest. I believe, sometimes we may do this intentionally or unintentionally. Satan is the greatest of all deceivers and he tries his best to deceive and inspire those who have the most faith in Christ so that we give in to our own fleshly desires. According to Scripture, doing the will of God means we should refrain from satisfying our fleshly desires but how can we tell the difference in our everyday lives when making life decisions?

Romans 12:1-3
A Living Sacrifice

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Humble Service in the Body of Christ

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

 

[savagewind]

I think it is not possible to KNOW. Enough of a good pattern is left by faithful men and women and especially by Yehoshua Messiah that we can trust that by keeping faith in mind we will accomplish what we can for The Kingdom of God. There is no report card imo.

 

[Shiranui117]

We can be sure that we are able to discern the will of God if we repent, turn away from evil and sin and towards God, fast, and pray.

I know I'm discerning the will of God, and I believe that I'm where God wants me to be.

 

[Tranquil Servant]

We can be sure that we are able to discern the will of God if we repent, turn away from evil and sin and towards God, fast, and pray.....

When you say "turn away from evil and sin" do you only consider decisions made with bad or selfish intentions sinful? The reason why I ask is because you don't necessarily need to know something is a sin for it to be considered a sin...(you know what I mean) sometimes we don't realize we've committed a sin until we've suffered the consequences and even then sometimes we still can't know for sure because bad things happen to good people.

 

[Shiranui117]

When you say "turn away from evil and sin" do you only consider decisions made with bad or selfish intentions sinful? The reason why I ask is because you don't necessarily need to know something is a sin for it to be considered a sin...(you know what I mean) sometimes we don't realize we've committed a sin until we've suffered the consequences and even then sometimes we still can't know for sure because bad things happen to good people.

If we don't know what's sinful or not yet, then we need to learn from Scripture and the Church about what is sinful and what is good, and pray to God that He may grant us discernment about what is right and wrong. Once He has given us discernment between godliness and sinfulness, then we can ask that He may grant us discernment of His will for us, since once we understand what is godly, then we know the possible things that God could will us to do and/or become. Sins committed in ignorance are still sinful, but our liability for that is lesser than if we were to sin willfully and with knowledge that we are committing a sin.

 

[jtartar]

Do you believe you are doing the will of God? How can we know for sure we are doing the will of God or succumbing to our own wills?
People have done treacherous things claiming to do the will of God and many have used Scripture to justify their own interest. I believe, sometimes we may do this intentionally or unintentionally. Satan is the greatest of all deceivers and he tries his best to deceive and inspire those who have the most faith in Christ so that we give in to our own fleshly desires. According to Scripture, doing the will of God means we should refrain from satisfying our fleshly desires but how can we tell the difference in our everyday lives when making life decisions?

Romans 12:1-3
A Living Sacrifice

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Humble Service in the Body of Christ

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

Tranquil Servant,
Some Bible translations, by their wording make the original thought hard to understand. Take for instance a scripture you quoted, Rom 12:2. In that translation it says to APPROVE the word of God, where it really means to prove to yourself what the good and acceptable, and perfect word of God is. A real difference!!!
Another example is the use of desires, or fleshly desires, instead of the more accurrate LUSTS of the flesh. After all desires are not inherently bad.
The Bible goes into detail about the difference between minding of the flesh and a minding of the spirit, in Romans chapter 8:1-13. But you might ask what is the minding of the flesh and the spirit?? WE are told what the difference is between the minding of the flesh and the minding of the spirit, for a list of the things that we should be minding and not be minding are written at Gal 5:19-23. Everyone wants to keep in mind the things of the spirit and try to getr away from minding the things of the flest, as you can well see.

 

[ChristineES]

I know this is probably off topic, but it came to my mind while I was reading through the thread. We as Christians ought to know that there is no way we can be 100% sure that we are doing God's will. But there are ways we can come to at least some kind of conclusion.

I think that if we are doing God's will or not, it would be somewhat easy to test. Like this, for example- you believe God is telling you to do something, yet what you believe He is telling you to do seems to go against Jesus' teachings. Wouldn't be a safe bet that if what you think God is telling to do is going against some of the fundamental teachings of Jesus listed in the Gospels, then you can at least be somewhat sure that it is your own will you are following and not God's.

 

[Tranquil Servant]

I know this is probably off topic, but it came to my mind while I was reading through the thread. We as Christians ought to know that there is no way we can be 100% sure that we are doing God's will. But there are ways we can come to at least some kind of conclusion.

I think that if we are doing God's will or not, it would be somewhat easy to test. Like this, for example- you believe God is telling you to do something, yet what you believe He is telling you to do seems to go against Jesus' teachings. Wouldn't be a safe bet that if what you think God is telling to do is going against some of the fundamental teachings of Jesus listed in the Gospels, then you can at least be somewhat sure that it is your own will you are following and not God's.

Thanx for your advise.

 

[Raban]

I do not think it is possible to know for sure, I mean there are a bunch of things we can be certain about, however, even within Christendom there is much debate about them. However, we have been given example which to live by in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. I also believe that there are other great texts and role models which help one to come to a Righteous way to live (I greatly revere the Dhammapada for instance). I also believe that within every person is the 'Conscious' or as I like to call it the 'Good Voice' (as in the Gathas of Zarathustra) that guides all to righetous living.

 

[jtartar]

Do you believe you are doing the will of God? How can we know for sure we are doing the will of God or succumbing to our own wills?
People have done treacherous things claiming to do the will of God and many have used Scripture to justify their own interest. I believe, sometimes we may do this intentionally or unintentionally. Satan is the greatest of all deceivers and he tries his best to deceive and inspire those who have the most faith in Christ so that we give in to our own fleshly desires. According to Scripture, doing the will of God means we should refrain from satisfying our fleshly desires but how can we tell the difference in our everyday lives when making life decisions?

Romans 12:1-3
A Living Sacrifice

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Humble Service in the Body of Christ

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

Tranquil Servant,
The question is a good one, but the answer is not hard to understand. In fact the answer seems to be given in the Holy Scriptures.
The Bible tells us that we must seek for truth of God's word as for silver or hid treasures, Prov 2:4-10. Notice that the scripture says that if you search for wisdom and inderstanding, you will find the knowledge of God.
Also at James 1:5, we are told to ask God for knowledge and He will give it to you, and verse 6 says not to doubt at all, especially what you read God's word.
The learning about God cannot be taken lightly, it takes time and dilligent study, but if you pray for God's spirit to help you, you can learn, 1Cor 2:10.
Learning means our LIFE, John 17:3. Of course this means learning the truth, John 4:23,24.
Bible tells us that there are many false teachers, so must learn from God's word, and not from what men say that it says, Matt 7:15-20, 2Pet 2:1-3, 2Pet 3:15-17.

 

[Tranquil Servant]

I greatly appreciate all the impute. Thanx guys.

 

[Tranquil Servant]

I do think we will not always know or understand God's will and that's why we live this physical life. Life IS a test or (like I mentioned on another thread) a QUEST and that's why we ask QUESTions; so that we can discover certain answers (especially pertaining to God).

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

All the law can be summed as "Love one another as you love yourself"

Nothing more to it than that.

 

[Oak of Justice]

Scripture tells us what the will of God is.

Jesus said that He came down from heaven to do the will of the Father who sent Him. He also said that the reason He was sent was to spread the good news of the kingdom of God. Another time He said the reason He was born was to testify the truth. We know that He said Gods word is truth so in testifying the truth ,the word of God, He was spreading the good news, the word of God so He came down to spread the word of God which is doing Gods will.

Spreading the word of God is doing the will of God. This is why in the "Our Father " Jesus says Gods kingdom will come when His will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

There isn't a different will of God for each individual.

That is why Jesus sent His followers as He was sent. He said (Father) "As you sent me into the world so I sent them into the world."

 

[yokomodoful]

Look at a tree. How is the tree accomplishing God's will? It is accomplishing God's will by being a tree. It stands tall and brings life to the world and everything around it. We accomplish God's will by being who we are. Children of God. Stand tall be a child of God and recognize that everyone around you is a child of God. If we do this everything else will fall into place. We will just be who we are and be truly loved by God. We will be confident that we are doing God's will.

 

[gzusfrk]

Do you believe you are doing the will of God? How can we know for sure we are doing the will of God or succumbing to our own wills?
People have done treacherous things claiming to do the will of God and many have used Scripture to justify their own interest. I believe, sometimes we may do this intentionally or unintentionally. Satan is the greatest of all deceivers and he tries his best to deceive and inspire those who have the most faith in Christ so that we give in to our own fleshly desires. According to Scripture, doing the will of God means we should refrain from satisfying our fleshly desires but how can we tell the difference in our everyday lives when making life decisions?

Romans 12:1-3
A Living Sacrifice

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Humble Service in the Body of Christ

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

I do believe I am trying to do the will of God, I have seen a growth in my life. I use His Word, that is the New Testament as a guide. For it says those that belong to christ have crucified the flesh of its passions and desires, its a daily battle, but I press on to the goal.