How To Know God's Will

Many times when we consider God's will, we consider it from our own perspective. We are actually wondering what is God's will for me, not what is God's will for God. We say we want to know His will, but we really want to know is what His will is for me.  If we want to understand God's will for us, we first need to be clear regarding what God's will is for Himself. The more we know God, the more we know His desires and what His will is. This must come before we can have a clear understanding of God's will for our lives or regarding situations we are going through.

Our will is what is in our heart—our desires, what makes us happy, what pleases us. Based on these things, we have a will and make choices. These choices develop into our purpose. Based on this purpose we make plans. Ephesians 1 shows us that God is the same.

• In verse 5, we are predestinated unto sonship through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of God's will.
• In verse 9, He makes known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself.
• In verse 10, we see this is unto the economy of the fullness of the times.

There was a time when God's will was a mystery, but it has now been made known. In the Gospels through Jesus' ministry this mystery began to be revealed and it continued to be revealed Acts and the Epistles in the New Testament. Now we can know His economy through Jesus and the Bible. God's economy is a direct translation of the Greek word oikonomia used in verse 10. This word refers to God's plan, care, and administration for His household—all of His believers.  Through reading the Bible and through spending personal time with the Lord Jesus, we can know Him and what His will is. To know a person's will, we must know that person well.

God's will is like the two sides of a coin. On one side God has His desires and his will—what He wants to do for Himself. On the other side is His plan fully focused on and worked out through man. We need a balanced view of these two sides. Hence, through knowing God's will, we are able to know what God's will is for us.

The book The Economy of God in our series of Free Christian Literature is a great help to see God's will and His economy which is the working out of His will.