9)
For this cause we also, since the day we heard it,
do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the
knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
10) That ye might walk worthy
of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing
in the knowledge of God;
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t
would be hard to find anyone who does not think that he has substantial
knowledge of at least one subject. What proves to be true in most cases is that
one's knowledge need not help him for him to take pride in it.
What
is most needed by the individual is an understanding of God's righteousness;
for when Man is ignorant of what God requires, he will generally establish his
own standard. Unfortunately, when this happens, the standard set for oneself is
usually less strenuous than that set for others. In contrast, God sets one
standard that all individuals must meet.
Even
in giving us responsibility, the Lord's point is to get us to draw others. Therefore,
He requires us, once we are saved, to first follow what we know to be true and
what we know to work. Just like catching more flies with honey than with
vinegar, one will "snare more sinners" with joy than sorrow. Obviously
not all those around you will come to the Lord. However, you can be sure that
when your change becomes evident, those knowing you will become curious about
your "transformation," leading them to salvation.
Since
we have entered the life that He has authored, how can we not seek "the
knowledge of His will? As improbable as it may seem, there are those who, even
after salvation, never do seek this. One who seeks, and consequently accepts,
manifests that acceptance by his own preferences becoming unimportant.
Accepting
that God, indeed, has a will to be carried out lends purpose to the saved life.
The concept of "purpose" has largely been lost, today. How else would
one explain the seeming aimlessness present in our churches, today? This, of
course, is what the devil wants - to have us with no vision; for we know that,
according to scripture, this leads to death.
Understanding
that the Lord does, indeed, have a divine will for the life of every individual
born to Him enables us to withstand any test. For, you see, anything is easier
to bear when one knows that it has a positive purpose. From the viewpoint of
the flesh, it would be nice to "skirt" some situations, but it would
be absolutely impossible to learn anything spiritual this way.
Knowing
God's will is not an automatic signal for us to begin to worry about how to
accomplish it. When it is time to do something, we can rest assured that the
Lord will make it quite clear what we are to do.
We
cannot afford to forget that perhaps the greatest issue of our salvation is that
of control. The Lord must have it over us if we would be productive for Him. Because
of this, Man must be saved, for God has no chance of gaining control over us
except through the Holy Ghost.
To
every be truly happy in the Lord, one must be able to "see"
His goodness. What does this mean? That we must have personal experience wit
the One Who delivers us from trouble. His delivering power must be a reality in
your life; His ability to heal must be something that you know to be fact, not
theory.
We
need never be afraid to trust the will of God for us, for if we know nothing
else, we know that it is perfect. It is through the perfection of testing that
we are to gain wisdom and spiritual understanding. Our God wants us to acquire
as much of this as we can, for only in this way are we prepared and equipped to
fulfill our predetermined purpose.
It is a fact of the spiritual life that difficult situations will come. The key to survival is 1) knowing that the situations are not ours, and 2) knowing that the victory is gained only through praise, never through complaining.
One
of our biggest mistakes and greatest impediments to progress is in viewing
tests as things that we just do not like. When we do this, we are already
deceived, for it will be impossible to then recognize any benefit it may bring.
Tests must be viewed as the "property of God" and as such, that their
purpose is for Him to show us exactly Who He is and what He can do. No matter
how hard a time one might have with testing, there is no way that one will be
able to get to the "top" without them. To succeed, Jesus must be our
Foundation, and there is no better way for Him to prove Himself to us than in
establishing Himself for us.
It
is by standing in the midst of the test that God roves to us that He will
bring us out. This is our assurance that no matter what, we can and will make
it. And "making it" is that much sweeter because the Lord is constant,
never letting us down, but always doing the same thing the same way all of
the time. "The knowledge of His will" is the knowledge that He never
changes and therefore, neither need we.