Friday, October 16, 2009

How To Discover God's Will For Your Life Part 6 - Loving God

Loving God (Part 6)

You might ask why a study on discovering God's will for our lives has so much to do with our character and how we live our life. I like what Lysa TerKeurst has to say about that. She says that God's will for your life is not so much as what we do but it is more about who God desires us to be. And once we become who it is that we should be, then what God desires for us to do will naturally unfold before us. We cannot escape the fact that if we want to live in God's perfect will then we will be required to transform into His likeness.


1. 1 John 5:3 This is love for God; to obey his commands.

a. And what are his commands?

b. 1 John 3:23-24 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us; we know it by the Spirit he gave us.

2. Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

a. God is pleased with us when we seek him. He wants us to know him.

b. How can you love someone you don’t know?

c. Do you know God or do you just know about him? Try saying out loud “God, I love you.” How did that feel? Was it comfortable to say or was it awkward? If it felt a little awkward, that’s okay! This exercise is just meant to get you thinking…. “Do I really love God?” And how comfortable am I expressing my love for Him? Try this again telling Jesus you love him. If it was awkward or you felt like it wasn’t honest, it just means that you have now identified that maybe you know about God and that it is time to invest in a personal relationship with God and Jesus. Pray to God and tell him that you want to love him. Ask him to help you love him as you seek him in his word and in prayer and He will do it.

3. Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, and have been called according to his purpose.

a. The L.A.B. explains this beautifully.

“ God works in “all things” – not just isolated incidents – for our good. This does not mean that all that happens to us is good. Evil is prevalent in our fallen world, but God is able to turn every circumstance around for our long-range good. Note that God is not working to make us happy, but to fulfill his purpose. Those who are “called” are those the Holy Spirit convinces and enables to receive Christ. Such people have a new perspective, a new mind-set on life. They trust in God, not life’s treasures; they look for their security in heaven, not on earth; they learn to accept, not resent, pain and persecution because God is with them.”

b. Romans 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Once again, the L.A.B. explains this verse very well.

“God’s ultimate goal for us is to make us like Christ ( 1 John 3:2 ). As we become more and more like him, we discover our true selves, the persons we were created to be. How can we be conformed to Christ’s likeness? By reading and heeding the word, by studying his life on earth through the Gospels, by being filled with his Spirit, and by doing his work in the world.

- If we want to discover what our purpose is, if we want to discover what God’s plans are for us we will find all of the answers as we become more like Jesus.

- God is working in all things for our long range good to fulfill His purposes!

- God has always known us, before we were born He knew us. We are predestined
to become like Jesus. We need to embrace the characteristics of Jesus and walk as he did. We must not fight any process that is going to shake off the things that hinder us from being like Jesus.

- We show God we love him by believing that Jesus Christ was His Son and by loving others.

- If you earnestly seek God, he will reward you by showing up! If you truly want to know God personally and love Him, if you are desiring His plans for you then He will be there to guide you and He will show up.


This concludes our study on How To Discover God's Will For Your Life, thank you so much for joining me. Please come back and share with me anything that you learned from this study or your thoughts. I would love to know your thoughts.

Thank you,

Jenn

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