Faith & the Will of God

I John 5:14 (KJV)

And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us

Rom. 12:2 (KJV)

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

We have always emphasized the placed and importance of faith in getting answers to prayers, but there are many believers who can’t really even tell whether they are in faith or not. Someone may say I am believing God for so and so but I am not even sure if it is the will of God for me to have it or not. This is a big error that makes a mockery of faith itself. You cannot exercise faith where you are not sure whether what you are exercising faith over is the will of God or not. It is really that simple – faith begins where the will of God is known. The starting point of your faith is a certainty that what you are releasing your faith over is God’s will. If you were not sure that what you are believing God for is His will, then you cannot exercise genuine faith. This is the reason why every faith action must be rooted in scriptures. The will of God is contained in the scriptures and as a matter of fact the Bible is God’s will for you.

The Old Testament was written for your learning (Rom. 15:4) but the epistles were written to you. So we can safely conclude that the New Testament is God’s will for you just as Paul the apostle argued, and that will was enforced by the death of the testator who is Jesus (Heb. 9:11-20). The implication is that you can take scriptures from the testament which is simply a Will and apply to yourself. For instance in  3 John 2, it says I wish above all things that you prosper and be in health, that is God’s good will for all believers, and you can exercise your faith based on that scripture for healing and prosperity. But if you weren’t sure if God wanted you to prosper and be in health as that scripture says, there is no way your faith can get to work.

Now the illustration above may appear simple and straight forward because you at least know some basic things; that God wants you to prosper, He wants you to be in health, He wants you to be fruitful, and so on. We refer to all of these as God’s good will for all His children. Beyond the general good will, which you can expressly see as you read through the scriptures, God has a perfect will for every one of us individually and although God’s perfect will for you may be contained in His general good will i.e in scriptures, it is locked in there, and can only be discovered as you wait upon Him in prayers and fellowshipping with the word. This is exactly what our text (Rom 12:2) says. You get to find out from scriptures what God’s general good will is for all His children, and then what God’s specific and perfect will is for you as an individual.

It is easier to find out the general good will of God for you because they are there right before you all over the scriptures as you read, and you can immediately get your faith to work to make them your own experience. But when it comes to other issues that are more specific, you may not simply find them on the surface of scriptures. It may require deeper search of the scriptures, deep meditation, and fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit from where you can then get to know what God’s specific will is for you in that instance. It is only after you have ascertained the will of God that you are now ready for the battle of faith. If you just rush into attempting to exercise faith over an issue without being sure if you have ascertained the will of God concerning that issue, your faith will be porous, you will doubt your faith, and fall flat on your face, because your faith doesn’t have the needed foundation to hold it through the storm. The more this continues to happen, the weaker your faith gets because your experiences will be silently breeding mistrust between you and God (In my next article I will elaborate on the subject of faith and trust), and it is only a matter of time before you come into that conclusion that this faith business doesn’t work for you.

The bottom line then is that you need to get into the word of God and fellowship with the Holy Spirit to find out God’s will regarding any area of your, whether it is the general good will or His perfect will for you. It is only after you have found out God’s will for yourself that you are now ready to exercise faith, otherwise, you will only be presumptuous, and doing more harm to your capacity for faith. One provision you can take advantage of where you are finding it hard to discern God’s will concerning an issue is to pray in tongues. (Rom. 8:26, 1 Cor. 14:2)

Don’t be in a hurry to exercise your faith concerning any issue, first be sure to have found out God’s will concerning that issue. Always remember that faith begins where the will of God is known.

Shalom!

N.B

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