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Whats Gods Will When No One Agrees

reynaldo reynoso (admin)

Some time ago, I was contemplating the issue of knowing God?s will in our lives. I wound up touching on the source of ?closed doors? and made mention of progressing the thoughts to an experience in Paul?s life.

In Acts 21, we see Paul on his way to Jerusalem. We know from other texts that he carries with him a gift for the Jerusalem saints, gathered by those in Macedonia and elsewhere. During these particular days, Paul and company (one of which was Luke the Gospel writer) were housed in Caesarea, the house of Philip the evangelist who was one of the seven originally chosen deacons (Acts 6:5), the preacher to the Samaritans (Acts 8:5), and the baptizer of a certain Ethiopian (Acts 8:37,38). Philip?s four virgin daughters are described as being prophetesses (Acts 21:9).

As if this great cloud of witnesses is not enough, up comes Agabus the prophet from Judea?a prophet who by his words, speaks like God?s oracles of old. If you recall, this same Agabus stood in the midst of Antioch and spoke (by the Spirit) that there would be a great famine?and this occurred (Acts 11:27, 28)!

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church

Knowing Gods Will in the Work

reynaldo reynoso

Now, some time ago I posted an article on knowing God’s will. In all honesty I side-stepped the heart of the question by focusing on the foundational issue about actually obeying God in what He has already explicitly said. In that article I merely touched on the idea that God would entrust more of His will to those who are already faithful with what He has entrusted them with thus far.

Marvelous. God will entrust us with more of His will if we are faithful. That’s simply wonderful. The thing is that there are times when Christians are going about trying to do the will of God (or what they think it to be) and things happen which prevent the completion of the task.

The question that inevitably comes up in a faithful believer’s mind who is genuinely trying to do God’s will is this ?who is doing the blocking??

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church pray

Pleading With God on Behalf of the Next Generation

I look at my son, two and a half years old, and I see awe and wonder every time he looks around. We go outside and see a plane, he beams, tilts his head all the way back and points. We go to the park and walk a winding path and he’ll spend most of his time positioning himself, adjusting then jumping up and landing with a dramatic “boom!” as if he has crossed a tremendous chasm. He’ll chatter to people in the park and even break into song if he’s in the mood, dead center of a supermarket.

It’s that complete and unadulterated innocence that really tugs at the heart strings. Pearl Jam had a song a few years back with this lyric that stuck in my head: “If I knew now what I knew then”. That innocence, that sense of awe and wonder, to be grasped today by my (almost) mature mind and tainted thinking–man that would be great.

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church worship

Evolution of the Altar 5: Carelessness towards the Altar

Let us once again enter into the Temple made from the pattern of the tabernacle that was made from what was shown to Moses on Mount Sinai. Years have passed since God?s commandment on how He is to be worshiped. Years have passed since Nadab and Abihu?s sin of the strange fire, doing that which God had ?commanded not?. Years have passed since Jeroboam?s sin of degrading what God had commanded concerning the altar to convenience by setting up worship centers in the North. If we recall, there was also a certain King Ahaz who set up two altars in the Temple, one based off of man?s pattern, offering a choice to the approach to God.

In this temple that we enter we may quickly note some things. It is not as glorious as the temple of Solomon?s day but it is also imageless. Some years have passed since Israel had polluted the land with their idolatry, eventually getting sacked by the Assyrians and subsequently the Babylonians. Some years have passed since Cyrus? mandate to rebuild the temple and here we are, sacrifices are being offered up and the priests are doing their duty. From this distance in the outer courtyard, everything is as it should be. Israel has learned his lesson and now is worshipping as he should.

Yet, as is often the case with appearances, there is something wrong that we cannot see from this distance.

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church

Knowing the Will of God

Everyday I am bombarded with decisions and doubts. What’s worst is that even though I don’t know what I should do, I should be thinking what God wants me to do. In any and all of my decisions I should be looking for God’s Will, but I have a problem. I don’t think that I have ever seen a shaft of celestial light illuminating the correct decision. How do I know the will of God for my life? After all, it is a great concern in Scriptures this ?knowing the will of God?.

When Jesus makes such strong statements as those who do the will of God being the ones who are actually his family (Mk 3:35 ) what are we left to think about those who do not do the will of God? We have an account of a certain prophet who knowing the will of God by direct revelation, ran the opposite direction because he didn’t want to deliver the message. The account of his tale closes with this prophet scowling in the hot sun, the smell of fish permeating his flesh and a cruel enemy unscathed and saved (Jonah 1-4).

We also have Paul telling the Roman believers that they are to offer up their bodies as living sacrifices which is their reasonable service of worship and in thus doing they must separate themselves from the world by a transformation. Concerning this transformation he points out that these believers will be testing and approving the good, acceptable and perfect will of God (Rom 12:1-2 and emphasis mine).

What will of God?

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