Scripture Reading: Ephesians 1:17-20
When we want to know God’s will for our lives, often we’re dealing with very specific issues: where to live, what job to take, whom to marry, where to go to school, and so on. We want to know what God wants us to do in a particular situation, and we want to know it now. To be sure, there are times when God makes his will known without question and in the detail we prefer. But, most of the time, God doesn’t work his way. Rather, discerning God’s specific will for our lives is a matter of wrestling with God in prayer and discovering how his general will ought to be worked out in our lives.
We need to understand what the Lord’s will is, not just in our lives, but in the whole cosmos. Understanding is more than superficial recognition. For example, from Ephesians 1, we know that God’s ultimate purpose is to unite all things in Christ. You and I can easily know this if we read Ephesians 1:9-10. But do we understand it? Does this truth expand our minds and shape our hearts? Does it move us? Does this truth begin to give order to everything else we think and do?
The more we understand, truly and deeply understand, God’s will for the cosmos, the more we internalize God’s will for every individual, the more we grasp his will for the church, the more we will be in a position to discern his specific will for our specific lives. Our story will be shaped by God’s own story, our purpose by his own purpose, our heart by his own heart.
Video: Watch the short video “Does My Career Matter to God?” with author and editor, Andy Crouch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB3SGoRjP9U
Prayer: I pray for myself as Paul prayed in the book of Ephesians. Please give me a spirit of wisdom and revelation so I can get to know you. I pray that my heart would know the hope you’ve called me to, the riches of your glorious inheritance in your people, and the greatness of your power.
Author: Theology of Work Project
Theology of Work Project Online Materials by Theology of Work Project, Inc. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.theologyofwork.org
You are free to share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work), and remix (to adapt the work) for non-commercial use only, under the condition that you must attribute the work to the Theology of Work Project, Inc., but not in any way that suggests that it endorses you or your use of the work.
© 2014 by the Theology of Work Project, Inc.
Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, Copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. All rights reserved.
