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1 Thessalonians 4:3
“This is the will of God, your sanctification.”
Pastors and elders in the church commonly receive this question from members in their congregation: “How can I know God’s will for my life?” It is an important question, for Scripture tells us in many places that obeying God’s will for us is an essential fruit of our salvation and that if we do not strive to follow God’s will, we should question whether we actually know Jesus (e.g., 1 John 2:17). Those who love Jesus want to follow the will of God.
To discern God’s will for us as individuals, we must pay attention to the different ways that the Bible describes God’s will. Scripture distinguishes between the hidden and revealed wills of God (Deut. 29:29). By His hidden will, also called His sovereign will, will of decree, or decretive will, the Lord has ordained whatever comes to pass in history. He has not told us what is in this will in advance; we know it only in hindsight. For example, you did not know for certain that you would be reading these words at this very moment. Even if you had made plans to read this study at this time, many things could have prevented it. In hindsight, you know that it was God’s sovereign will for you to be reading these words right now because that is what you are doing.
We cannot know God’s will of decree or hidden will in advance, and thus the Lord does not expect us to try to direct our lives by it. Instead, we are called to live according to the revealed will of God, which is also known as God’s will of precept or His preceptive will. The revealed will of God consists of those things that He has told us, most especially His moral law. We find the Lord’s revealed will summarized in the Ten Commandments and applied throughout Scripture. In today’s passage, Paul tells us directly what the will of the Lord is for our lives: “This is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thess. 4:3). From the perspective of what God has revealed, the Lord has one will for all of us: our growth in personal holiness.
Of course, usually when people ask about God’s will for their lives, they want to know things such as whom they will marry or which vocation they will pursue. Such information, however, is found in God’s hidden will. To make choices that honor the Lord in areas such as marriage and vocation, we are obligated to apply principles from His revealed will to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We can choose what we want in such areas as long as the choices are wise and are in line with God’s moral law.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
God gives us freedom in our vocational and marital choices. We may pick what we want as long as the option is God-honoring and wise. A Christian man may not marry a non-Christian woman, but there are many Christian women with whom he may be compatible and among whom he may choose to marry. Christians may work in any vocation for which they have competence as long as it is not contrary to God’s law.
For further study
- Deuteronomy 27:26
- Micah 6:8
- John 14:15
- 1 Peter 4:1–11
The bible in a year
- 1 Chronicles 6–7
- John 8:21–38