How to Know God's Will for Your LifeSample

The Character of Christ

For many years, I have been a writer. I especially like composing stories for children. The hero of most of my tales is a boy named Spindles (because he has skinny legs) who lives in the fictional Dusty Range in Outback Australia. He has an adopted sister named Freckles and many animal friends.

Spindles often gets into trouble. He sometimes does silly—even mischievous—things. But he never does anything malicious or cruel or nasty. And Freckles is a tease and an annoying tomboy, but she is also brave and caring. If I were to write a story now in which Spindles deliberately hurt one of his friends or Freckles was scared over nothing, my readers would be saying, ‘Spindles wouldn’t do that!’ or, ‘That doesn’t sound like Freckles!’

In some ways, that is what happens to us when we become followers of Jesus. We become new creations and we take on the character of Christ. To act in a way that is inconsistent with this would be wrong. The Bible says we are to bear fruit in every good work (Colossians 1:10).

Or to put it differently, we would become, in the words of Jesus, blind guides, blind fools, whitewashed tombs, in short, hypocrites (Matthew 23:15-28). Wow. That's strong stuff.

As we grow in Christ and get to know him better, finding and doing the will of God becomes second nature. As we live in his kingdom, many actions become automatic. We don’t even think about them. We pray or give thanks or sing a worship song, often without even realising we are doing it. We greet people with a smile. We try to help someone in need. We keep the road rules. We tell the truth. We don’t steal. We don’t get drunk. We forgive those who wrong us. And so on. At one time we may have found it necessary to ponder over whether or not to do these things, but now we don’t even hesitate. This is who we are now.

So unless a situation is unusual or perplexing in some ways, we simply go ahead. To give an extreme example, if you were to see a small child wandering on to a busy road, you wouldn’t stop to pray, ‘O God, please show me if it is your will that I should do something to save this little kid? Here I am just waiting quietly to hear your voice.’ By that time, it would be too late. You would just spring into action.

Do we get it wrong sometimes? Of course. Do we fall sometimes? Naturally. Just as in normal human development, we have a lot of learning to do. But like little children learning to walk, as we grow in Christ, these become exceptions rather than the norm.

Remember how Jesus said, ‘I come to do your will, O God.’ By his grace, most of the time, so do we.

What next?

·Keep a record of today’s activities. Note how often you have spontaneously taken actions that reflect who you are in Christ.

·Memorise 1 Cor 6:11 (including the reference.)