In response to Lora

What God wants us to know of his will he has already revealed; what we ask to know concerning our calling he has already given. The problem is that we do not take seriously what he has revealed to be his will, and we often do not recognize the freedom that we have to use what he has given.

If anyone wants to know God’s will, read I Thessalonians 4:3; “For this is the will of God: your sanctification; that you abstain from sexual immorality;” and it goes on to talk about self control and other aspects of sanctification.

To be sanctified means that you are set apart from others in the way that you relate to God and man. Of course that is to be set apart by the fruit of the Holy Spirit, for only the Spirit can make a person holy. This uniqueness of relationship comes about by cultivating a close relationship with Christ in prayer and the study of his Word.

In fact, all of the commands in the new testament about how we are to relate to God are his revealed will. Try Romans 12:1. His will is that we be ready in all circumstances to give of ourselves out of love for the support and service of others as a sacrifice to God. If you really want to know God’s will for your life, this is where it has to start. Otherwise nothing else will work right, no matter what your vocation is.

Now within this relationship there is freedom to apply the talents and loves that he has given us according to the opportunities presented to us. This takes wisdom. Finding out what your calling is is not done by trying to decifer God’s will–for we have already seen what that is–but by applying godly wisdom to make good choices. Certainly God has a plan, but since it is not a blue print that he has revealed to us, it is only by faith that we believe that he will work his will. Our job is not to try to figure out how he is going to do that.

In the parable of the talents the master’s will was that they use what they had been given in a profitable manner. The foolish servant was the one who was so scared of doing the wrong thing that he did not recognize the freedom that had been given him to use the money in whatever way that would gain a profit.

In the kingdom of God the talents are righteousness peace and joy (in Righteousness is summed up the relationship that we have with Christ that produces love and good works; peace and joy flow out of that righteousness). Our privilege of having been given this in Christ is to exercise the freedom he has given to apply our gifts of skills, interests and loves in whatever ways are open to us in order to spread and multiply that capital.