Understanding God’s Will

Paul’s second admonition knowing that the hour is closer than expected, tells us that we need to understand God’s will.

“Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” (Ephesians 5:17)

The word “understand” carries the idea of assembling facts. It’s taking bits and pieces of information and making sense out of them. It’s looking at life’s circumstances and seeing God’s work through them. It’s seeing the big picture of God’s purposes and putting our circumstances into that context.

You’ve heard the saying, “You can’t see the forest for the trees?” Well that how most people live their lives. They only focus on the event, the tree so to speak, and don’t see the larger picture, the forest, or God’s bigger purpose.

The New Living Bible translates what Paul said in Ephesians saying,

“Don’t act thoughtlessly, but try to understand what God wants you to do.” (Ephesians 5:17 NLT)

Look beyond the tree and see the forest. Look beyond the event and see God’s bigger purpose. We need to understand that God’s working in all of our situation and circumstances, whether they’re good or bad.

“We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose,” (Romans 8:28 NKJV).

And so if you want to know and do God’s will, then see what He is already doing and join Him.

To help in this process let me make the following suggestion.

Establish Godly Priorities.

When you make God and His word number one, then everything else will begin to fall into place, and only then will you start making a difference for Christ within your sphere of influence.

Someone said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re making plans to do something else.”

God’s will isn’t somewhere in the future, it’s right here and right now.

Tomorrow we’ll look at Paul’s last statement, a command actually, that will help us in this endeavor.