The will of God
The following passages are taken from Anne Graham Lotz’s book “God’s Story,” published in 1997.
As you look around at the people in our world today, what evidence of defiance toward God’s will do you see?
God has said it is His will that all men should repent.1 Are the majority of people today obeying God’s will or openly defying it?
God has also said it is His will that we be thankful in all things.2 Are the majority of people today obeying God’s will or openly defying it?
God has said it is His will that all men receive Christ, believe in Him, and be born again.3 Are the majority of people today obeying God’s will or openly defying it?
God has said it is His will that we serve others sacrificially.4 Are the majority of people today obeying God’s will or openly defying it?
God has said it is His will that all people abstain from sexual immorality.5 Are the majority of people today obeying God’s will or openly defying it?
We don’t even have to look around in the world today. We can look around in our own families and churches to find that the vast majority of people right across the board are living in open defiance of the will of God. In fact, many people today don’t even know what God’s will is, even though He has stated it clearly again and again and has written it down in black and white so there can be no misunderstanding. (241-242)
Notes from NKJV
1. 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”
2. 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
3. John 1:12-13 “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
And John 3:3 “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’"
4. 2 Corinthians 8:5 “And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to us by the will of God.”
And Matthew 25:35-40 “whenever you did this for one of the least important of these followers of Mine, you did it for Me!”
5. 1 Thessalonians 4:3 “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality.”