There is a Truth

for some things, it’s not hard to figure out what God’s will is. We only have to look at Jesus and what He did.

in John 14 Jesus says:

he that hath seen me hath seen the Father

and

the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

so if we see Jesus doing something, that sort of thing is what God’s will is.

my old church sends out prayer requests via email. mostly for people sick or in the hospital with injuries. i’d be sitting at home and when I got one of those emails, most of the time i would pray for that person whether i knew them or not. i would say something to the effect of “Lord I pray that you would be with this person and that they would be healed and made well” but then i would feel like i needed to tag on at the end “if it’s your will.”

and you know, i started to feel like it was actually useless to be praying for that person. because if it was God’s will, then it would happen, and if it wasn’t, then they wouldn’t get better and what difference did my prayer make in the situation?

for one thing, God’s will can’t be manifested unless there’s some one here on earth that He can work through, and we are supposed to pray in any situation, but that’s another topic. what would have helped me during those prayers though was knowing God’s will for the circumstance.

so back to looking at Jesus to see God’s will. let’s take a look specifically at healing.

Jesus healed a lot of people. in fact, Jesus healed everyone that came to him. if you read through the Gospels, never once did He turn somebody away who came to him or say “it’s not the Father’s will that you be healed.” and sin was never a cause for not receiving healing. Jesus healed first, and after that said “go and sin no more.”

so, if Jesus’ action = God’s will, then we know that it is God’s will to heal those that come to him for that. Jesus didn’t scour the cities searching for all the sick to heal, but he never turned away those that did come. Also an important thing to point out is that Jesus often would ask “what would you have me do for you?” It may have been obvious that the two blind men in Matthew 20:30 were indeed blind, but instead of just giving them their sight Jesus asked them what they wanted.

i know i used to be confused about God’s will and my part in it. but it’s really helped to know i can go to the bible and see what Jesus did in situations that might be similar to what i’m encountering.

here’s a verse i came across and found interesting

I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.

here’s a great example of how Christianity and interaction with God should be viewed from the point of family. Just like we see our dad’s doing things and we learn from them, Jesus acted because He knew what God would do.

Religion is rules. Religion is “if you want God to bless you, you must do things this way.” Religion has confused and oppressed and misled people for a long time. Good intentioned, God-loving people perpetuate this because it’s what they’ve always been taught.

If you’re on a ship traveling across the ocean, and you happen to turn one degree off course without realizing it, it’s not that big of a deal at first. But once you’ve traveled 1000 miles, you’re going to end up a long way from where you thought you were going. All it takes for Satan to throw us way off course is to get us pointed just a little bit off course. Just get us to believe a little bit of false doctrine. The only defense is to know God’s will.

So read your bible.  end.