2 April 2023 – Mark van Pletsen
Good, Perfect and Pleasing
Mark encouraged us this week with a powerful message about being able to know the will of God and His purposes for your life. When you have important decisions to make that can change the course of your future, you need to have clarity of what God’s plans are for you. The good news is that it IS possible to know the good, perfect and pleasing will of God.
Life is not about serving time until eternity. God has a calling for your life that is bigger than the limitations you put on yourself. You need the confidence to trust that what God calls you to, He will sustain you through it. The three things that will settle us to know more of the will of God for our lives is to plan in advance, to have a fixed intention that cannot be changed by the enemy and to have the desire to believe that we have a purpose to live for.
WHAT GOD CALLS YOU TO, HE WILL SUSTAIN YOU THROUGH IT
In Romans 12:1, Paul urges us to dedicate and present our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, so we can live a life that is holy and pleasing to Him, which is His will for us. When we make plans or need to decide something, we need to put it in the view of God’s mercy and not our abilities or desires.
To honour God is not a religious act, but a heart that is full of faith and trust to listen to Him and to obey what He tells us, even if it makes no sense or we don’t understand it. To live a life in line with God’s will, we need to:
1) Stop conforming to the patterns of the world and trying to fit in. Stop giving in to peer pressure and taking advice from others. To conform is to take the shape of. Our sin, our pain, and wanting man’s approval conforms us to bend over and leads to brokenness. Isaiah 55:8
reminds us that God’s plans and ways are not like ours.
2) Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Luke 10:27 commands us to love God with all our hearts, all our soul, all our strength, and all of our minds. What you believe will determine how you live. Stop switching to-do lists and relying on pros and cons lists to determine how to make a decision about your career, who to marry or where to live. God has something better planned for you, if you will just fight the fog and listen to Him.
3) Test and approve God’s will for your life. Stop chasing the things you want and living a guessing game or questioning why your plans never work out. Listen to God speak so He can tell you His plans for your life, so you can experience His peace when you make decisions. There are no terms and conditions with God’s will and you don’t get the 5-year plan, but you need to trust that what God has for you will have a good outcome.
Stop choosing your plans and then asking God to bless them. First ask God and then surrender to His leading. Not every open door is from God, for the enemy can also open doors to distract and confuse you. Reverse your deficit of trust and start seeking God’s wisdom in view of His mercy and His perspective view, for when you don’t, your decisions will always lead to chaos and a lack of peace.
To know the good, perfect and pleasing will of God for you, you need to do these 3 steps in order. It may not seem good, perfect or pleasing to us, but it will be for us. Trust God today for the future He has for you and be prepared to fully follow His leading. Today, ask and seek God for what He has planned for you and what He is calling you to do or be.
Overcome your fears -for your future, that you aren’t good enough or that God doesn’t care about you and start choosing to trust God instead. Throw yourself at the mercy of your loving Father who is waiting to share His purpose to you.
When you stop conforming to the world and allow God’s process of transformation to take place, you WILL be able to clearly hear from God and prove His genuine will for your life, for therein lies the power and peace of a purposeful life. Living the abundant life God has marked out for you will be better than you could ever imagine and will be the difference between just surviving life and actually loving it.