Article by Dr. Les Hollon, Pastor, Trinity Baptist Church

 

God’s Promise:  The following 25 words from Romans 8:28 can change your life:  “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to His purpose.”

 

Central Truth:  What is God’s will?  God’s will is God’s best hope for us and our world.  As the maker of heaven & earth, God is always working to bring about His very best from any given situation.  As the One who lovingly made you in His image, He desires for you to experience the very best for your life.

 

An Example:  “First things first,” were the words I recalled when Super Bowl champion quarterback Kurt Warner announced his retirement a few days ago.  Shortly after his team won their first of two National Football League’s championships, the reporter said to him, “first things first, tell us about that go ahead touchdown pass you threw with a minute and fifty seconds left to go in the game.”

 

Showing the composure of a champion, Warner responded, “with first things first, I want to thank my Lord & Savior Jesus Christ who made all this possible.”  Then he went on to thank his teammates, his coaches and the fans for their winning contributions.  Five years earlier Warner had been stocking groceries in Iowa.

 

To many, it seemed like he had been shelved.  But all of that would dramatically set the stage for a remarkable turnaround.  Who would have thought that on that day he would be accepting awards as the Most Valuable Player of the NFL and the Super Bowl?

 

Before his retirement Warner would lead two more teams to the Super Bowl and, three weeks ago, his team played for the NFC championship.  After that game, having accomplished what he believed God had wanted him to do in the NFL, he chose to leave the football field in order to pursue other fields for playing out God’s will.

 

An Explanation: During World War II a pastor from London, Leslie Weatherhead, emerged with clarity about God’s will among a people who were regularly being bombed by Hitler’s military forces.  The people were hungry for guidance in making life & death decisions.  The following is my version of understanding the four levels of God’s will.

 

1. Intentional – God has basic best ways for us to live and we are to live them in such a way that we help others to live also from God’s best for their lives.  There is a God-provided best vision, vocation, people and legacy that each of us are to pursue.

 

2. Permissive – God’s best for us includes free will.  We are free to make our life decisions and to experience the consequences.  Within God’s best for us, we are given a lot of room to roam by making decisions about matters which express our personality and preferences.  For instance, God’s best for us is for us to help our bodies be healthy.  However, God may not be particularly concerned about what you choose to eat for today’s lunch, but He does want your choice to give your body the best shot at being healthy.  God empowers your free will to decide what that is.  We are to satisfy our needs and tend to our wants in ways that strengthen us in God’s best.

 

3. Circumstantial – God works to recreate the best available life for each person in light of that person’s current circumstances.  Grace is how God recalculates our lives in the aftermath of harmful decisions.  Whether the sin is what someone else did to us or we did to ourselves, God does not leave us in lost circumstances.  Sin, in the Hebrew, means to “miss the mark.”  God can work to help us to get it right after we have gotten it wrong.

 

4. Ultimate – God eventually wins over evil.  By our free will we can choose to be in God’s ultimate will.  Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”  Which is why God’s perfect love has the power to cast out fear if we will trust Him in any and all situations.  Hell is where there is no hope for God’s best to happen.  Ultimately, God does not want us to live in hell.

 

Reinhold Niebuhr, a good friend of good friend Wayne Oates, prayed it this way – “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can.  And the wisdom to know the difference.”

 

Let God’s best be your life pursuit in knowing God’s will for your life.

 

Pastor Les Hollon

 

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.      And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

More Than Conquerors

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.  And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.  Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.   For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

-Romans 8:26-39 (NIV)

 

This article was written by Les Hollon, Pastor of Trinity Baptist Church.  For more information about God and your place in His world, contact Dr. Hollon, click over to Trinity Baptist Church.

 

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