Title: Faith to Discerning the Will of God
Contents
Faith to discern God's will
<Romans 12:1-2>
Romans 12:1 Therefore, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, which is good and acceptable and perfect.
The most important thing in life to serve God is to know God's will. Because it is God who decides the life and death of all of us and each individual. Because if it is God's will, we may live, we may die, we may prosper, or we may perish. However, many people in the world today are living without knowing the will of God that has such an absolute influence on our lives. Therefore, no matter how much I hope for happiness, I am living without real happiness. Knowing what God's will is, that is, God's good and pleasing will, and living worthy of it is the way to success and happiness in life.
The same is true when it comes to trusting and serving God. You have to know and serve God's will properly. If you misunderstand or misunderstand God's will and do not believe it, you will commit more sins than you believe if you believe hard. The more you believe in heresy, the more you become a sinner. Those like the goats in Matthew 25 believed in their own zeal and thought they would be saved from the judgment seat of the Lord, but the Lord told them, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25: 41), he says. Those who do not know the will of God and believe in this way are unhappy.
If you look at heresy, most of them are zealous. However, since heretics are very passionate, at first glance they may seem like they really believe in God, so it is easy to fall for them. Once upon a time, there was a very zealous young man in my church who went into a cult. Looking at the church they attend at the time, they don't seem to have much zeal, but they pray a lot, have a lot of experience, and look very hot, so they fell in love with it and went there.
Of course, zeal is very important in faith. This is because faith without zeal makes it difficult to experience God's grace even if you believe, and you cannot experience the thrill of faith. However, the first thing to do before zeal is to know God's will properly.
The church to which we belong is called the Reformed Church. “Reformed Church” means “a church that follows the traditions of the Reformers.” At the time of the Reformation, the reformers were those who studied the Bible, the Word of God. As they studied the Bible, they realized how far the church was at that time from the will of God. Therefore, they came to demand that the wrong be corrected. However, the main powers of the church at the time did not tolerate it, but also drove it out and persecuted it. Thus, the so-called ‘Protestantism’ emerged.
The position of the ‘reformed church’ is to always properly examine God’s will to make ourselves and the church right. In other words, instead of resting on the knowledge and belief of the truth we currently know, we must constantly learn the word of God and examine ourselves to reform our wrong faith and believe. This is the position of the Reformed Church or those with Reformed faith. Therefore, we who belong to the Reformed Church must constantly strive to know God's will through the Bible, and also strive to reflect on ourselves and stand in the right faith.
People have a tendency to believe what they feel comfortable with without realizing it. But if we believe what we are comfortable with, this is the most dangerous thing that distorts our faith. This is because if you believe what is right in your own opinion, you will not realize your wrongful behavior of faith.
If you want to know the good and pleasing will of God...
(1) We must understand God's will through the Bible.
Thankfully, God has revealed His will through the 66 books of the Bible. God made the Bible to be written in order to make known His will toward people through His servants. If not, how can we know the infallible will of God? God made it possible for people to understand God's will for our lives when they read the Bible.
However, Catholics claim that, in addition to the 66 books of the Bible, what the Pope has proclaimed through the Church Council, including the Apocrypha, is God's revelation. The problem is that the will of God revealed through the 66 books of the Bible has been greatly damaged or altered by this. We need to know that adding or subtracting anything from the 66 books of the Bible will damage or change the will of God.
(2) You must interpret the Bible well.
The faith of the Pharisees and Sadducees, who were the spiritual leaders of Israel at the time of Jesus, were also seriously deviated from knowing the will of God. These were Bible teachers who studied the will of God through the Old Testament and taught the people. However, as already prophesied in the Old Testament, Christ came among them, but they did not recognize him, and on the contrary, they became those who rejected, hated, and killed Jesus Christ. This is because they misinterpreted the Bible, the Word of God. This is because they trusted the teachings of the people (the inheritance of the elders) more than the Bible itself. Therefore, they have become a vicious group that opposes God.
So, how can we interpret the Bible correctly?
In fact, the correct interpretation of the Bible is written in the Bible itself. First, God's will is clearly expressed in the expression of the Bible itself. Therefore, you can find out its meaning by examining the Bible grammatically and in its context. And if you read all 66 books of the Bible, you will find that each book has a close connection with each other. It was written by about 40 authors over a period of about 1550, but it is written as if written by one person, supplementing each other or making certain things uncertain.
The Reformed Church confirms the will of God, which has been clearly known through the Bible, as so-called 'doctrine'. ‘Doctrine’ refers to the truth about God or the will of God clearly revealed through the 66 books of the Bible. However, Reformed churches do not establish doctrines with insufficient explanations in the Bible. You only believe in what the Bible explains. Because more and less is dangerous.
Therefore, in order to know what the good and pleasing will of God is, it is important to first lose as much of the Bible as possible and understand it as objectively as possible, that is, grammatically and contextually. Second, it is important to understand the Bible with the current situation in mind. Because the records of the Bible were written very anciently. Therefore, if we look at the records of the Bible based on the current culture, it is misunderstood. It is important to know the position of that era. And the third is to have the help of the Holy Spirit. The Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16). Therefore, the illumination of the Holy Spirit is necessary to properly interpret such texts. The Gospel of John says, “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit reminds us of the Word of God and makes us understand. Therefore, we must strive to know God's will through the Bible through the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
(3) We must practice the will of God we have realized.