Thursday, July 16, 2015

Good or Bad

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.  Romans 12:2 NASB

The word ‘good’ suggests the existence of another word ‘bad’.  The word ‘light’ informs us of the existence of the word ‘darkness’.  The perfect will of God in our memory verse suggest the existence of a less than perfect will of God.  In other words if there is a perfect will of God, then there is also a not so perfect will of God also known as permissive will of God.  The Lord knew you before the foundation of the world (Jeremiah 1:5).  Whilst you were in your mother’s womb, He had decided His will for your life (Psalm 139:13). So you are not on earth by accident, you are here on earth for a particular purpose (God’s ordained purpose).

The perfect will of God is God’s divine plan for your life.  This is what He has divinely arranged – the kind of man or woman to marry, career, ministry, and so on.  The permissive will of God is what He permits. A point to note is that the fact that He permits something does not mean it is His will.  God can restore our lives when we fail to follow and find ourselves in a place other than where He had desired for us to be; but we will miss all of the blessing He had ordained for us in His perfect will.

Our free will is is a spiritual law.  The Holy Spirit is gentle and He will not force anyone against his or her will. Jehovah God wanted to be the king over the Israelites but the people saw how other nations had kings and desired a king for themselves (1 Samuel 8:1- end).  It was not God’s will for the people to have another king because God was already their king but the people kept asking for a king so the Most High said no problem and gave them a king – King Saul.  That was God’s permissive will not His perfect will.  God did bless them, but they did not receive the full blessing of God.  When God was their king, they had peace but after they received their king – burdens after burdens, wars after wars.  God wants to give you the best not His second best.  To get the perfect will of God, you need to be very patient.

Abram and Sarai his wife had been given an explicit promise by God that not only would they have a child, but that his seed would be as uncountable as the stars in the heavens.  However, despite this promise from God, they grew impatient of “waiting upon God” and decided to take things into their own hands and fulfill God’s promise by the works of their own hands.  Not only did Abram and Sarai become impatient with God, Sarai blamed God for her inability to conceive, saying “Behold now, Jehovah has kept me from bearing!”  Jehovah permitted the birth of Ishmael, though it was outside His perfect will and intent.  Today, mankind is still fighting wars which originated from Abram’s settling for the permissive will of God, instead of His perfect will. 

This is what the Permissive Will of God is all about.  It is about being impatient and settling for that which God will permit (ergo permissive), rather than waiting for the Perfect Will of God and God’s perfect plan and destiny for one’s life.

Because God is omniscient, He knows what He will accomplish in us.  He knows what we will do, and what we would do, in any given circumstance.  Thus, His plans for us will never fail; they will never be flawed by some missing piece of information, some unknown detail.  God's plan and purpose for each and every believer is for our good, and for His glory.  This includes all the suffering and tragedy that comes to us in life (see 2 Corinthians 1:3-7; 12:7-10).

Having said that there is a "perfect will" let us not conclude that there is an imperfect will of God, so that we might fear we will miss His "perfect will" and be forever doomed to live out a life of misery and failure and frustration. His perfect will takes into account our ignorance, our weakness, or sins, and even the sins of others against us (Joseph and his brothers - Genesis 50:20).

Always make a distinction between God’s perfect will and His permissive will, which He uses to accomplish His divine purpose for our lives.  God’s perfect will is unchangeable.  It is with His permissive will, or the various things that He allows into our lives, that we must wrestle before Him.  When we see God’s perfect will against our desires it will demand a choice; and that choice can affect not only us but others. 

Scripture to Claim:

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.  Hebrews 10:36 NASB

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