Facing The Future With Confidence Series

Facing the Future with Confidence

May 29, 2005

Series: Letting God Guide You, Esther

Read Rom.12:1-2… The question we ask all the time is, “How do I know God’s will for my life?”. Which is really a great question, because it means that you’re tired of living life the way you want, and you’re open to finding out how God wants you to live it. Because God made you, He’s got a pretty good idea of what He made you FOR. So, in reality, there’s nothing more important than finding out why God put you here in the first place. Someone has defined success in life as, “Knowing God’s will and being right in the center of it!”

Believe it or not, God WANTS you to know His will for your life. He’s not playing hide and go seek with you, and He’s not trying to make it difficult. You say, “So if that’s true, why is finding God’s will so difficult?” I’m curious, how many of you have been, (or currently are) confused about knowing God’s will? (may I see the hands?)

The problem with finding God’s will, too many times is that we’re looking in the wrong direction. In fact, discovering God’s will isn’t difficult at all once you begin to put the 3 principles that I’m going to share with you, into place. In the passage from Romans 12 we just read, the Apostle Paul lays out the principles that we need to follow… if we’re going to find God’s will (not just for a specific situation), but on a daily basis.

Read 12:1 again with me because it’s there that we find the 1st principle. (READ) Paul is saying that …

1. Finding God’s will for my life requires total DEDICATION

In otherwords, if you want to find God’s will, 1st of all, you have to commit your entire life, totally to Christ!

See, the secret to knowing God’s will is to be willing IN ADVANCE to do whatever He asks you to do! So many times we’ll approach God with the attitude, “God, if you’ll show me what your will is… I’ll decide whether I want to do it or not” NO! It doesn’t work that way! You have to decide ahead of time, that you’re going to follow His will, before He gives it. Say “YES” to God… and then He’ll tell you what He wants you to do.

Now why does God ask for our total dedication in the 1st place? Notice what Paul says… “I urge you brothers, in view of WHAT?

“I urge you brothers… in view of GODS MERCY!” Why should I dedicate my life to God? Because of everything He’s done for me!

In vs. 1 of Romans chap.12, Paul uses the word, “THEREFORE”. Now… whenever you see the word ‘therefore’ in the bible, stop right there, and look to see what it’s there for! It’s there, because Paul just spent chapters 4-11 explaining to us (in detail), the wonderful, amazing things God has done for us when we simply accept His gift of eternal life. See, once you truly understand how good, God really is… you’d have to be dumb and stupid to reject Him!

Refusing the gift of salvation is like having the American Sweepstakes “Dream Team” show up at your door with 10 million dollars, and saying, “Excuse me… but apparently you can’t read! The sign on my door reads… NO SOLICITORS! That means YOU! Now beat it before I call the police!” I’m convinced that most people aren’t stupid… they’re just ignorant when it comes to the gift of salvation. But that can be remedied! It’s our job to get the word out, that God’s not mad at you… He’s mad ABOUT you! He’s come to save you from your sin, save you from yourself, save you from an eternity separated from God!

Paul says, “Since God’s been soooo good to us… and since He gave His life for us… then isn’t it the natural thing to do, to want to give our lives to Him!??? To make that kind of TOTAL dedication, Paul tells us to “offer our bodies… as living sacrifices”. I always wondered, “Why didn’t Paul say, “offer your spirit” OR… “offer your soul to God”…Ever wonder that? Some of you are thinking, “Why would God want this body? I don’t even want it!” Well, the reason is… when God has your body… He has everything else with it!

Ever heard somebody say, “Hey, I can’t make it to the meeting… but I’ll be with you in spirit!” Now even though that might seem like a nice thing to say, it’s totally worthless! God doesn’t want our nice sayings… He wants US! ALL of us! In fact, everyone who takes this step this morning and dedicates their body as a living sacrifice will receive a free T-shirt that says, “This BOD belongs to GOD!” (just kidding!)