Found: God's Will

John MacArthur, Jr.

• Publisher: David C Cook
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780781403603
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Religione

Does God have a path for me? How do I make the right choices in life? Why is it so difficult to uncover God's will? Trusted pastor and teacher John MacArthur answers these vital questions and more. Found: God's Will shares six powerful principles that will give you direction, fill you with purpose, and give you the confidence to live out His plan for you.

Chapter 3

THE FIZZIES PRINCIPLE

As believers—people in God’s family—if we do not know God’s will, what are we? Uninformed? No. Searching? No. We are being foolish.

“That’s pretty rough,” you say. “The Bible doesn’t talk like that.”

Oh? Try this. “Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Eph. 5:17).

Furthermore, the preceding verse tells us we have to get on with it; we don’t have much time. We are to be “making the most of [our] time, because the days are evil” (v. 16).

You say, “But I am looking for God’s will. Maybe I am foolish, but can I help that?”

Yes, you can help it. Otherwise, the Bible would not command you to “not be foolish.” The way to avoid being foolish is covered in the very next verse. “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit” (v. 18).

First, if you want to know God’s will, you must be saved. Second, you must be Spirit-filled. That is the teaching of the Word of God.

Many Christians say, “I don’t understand why God hasn’t revealed whom I am to marry.” Others say, “Why doesn’t He show me what job I should take, what business deal I should enter into, what I ought to purchase, whether I ought to move to another home, or what I ought to do about some specific problem? Why doesn’t God do something for me and show me His will?” And all the time these people are not even Spirit-filled, which is clearly revealed as His will. Why should God show a person something if he or she is not even fulfilling that which God has already clearly stated as His will?

What does it mean to be Spirit-filled? Let me give you a short theology lesson. We will call it theology of the Spirit-filled life. When you were saved, the moment you received Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit came to live within you. There is no Christian who does not possess the Holy Spirit. “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him” (Rom. 8:9; see also 1 Cor. 6:19; 12:12–13). Yet it is amazing how many Christians think they do not have the Holy Spirit.

I have sat in church and heard sincere people pray, “Oh God, send Your Spirit,” and I’ve thought, No, He is here. He is here! I have heard people pray, “God, give me more of Your Spirit,” as if He comes in doses.

The Holy Spirit is a person; He lives within you. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you?” (1 Cor. 6:19). So many times we ask for what we already have! We pray for the Holy Spirit, and He is already here.

Have you ever analyzed your prayers?

You pray, “God, give me more love for so-and-so.” The Bible says the “love of God has been poured out within our hearts” (Rom. 5:5).

You say, “God, I need more grace.” God says that the grace He has already given you is sufficient (2 Cor. 12:9).

You cry, “Oh Lord, I need more strength.” The Bible says you “can do all things” through Christ, who strengthens you (Phil. 4:13).

“Oh God, guide me,” you say. But He has already given you His all-sufficient Word to light your path (Ps. 119:105).

Complete in Him

When will Christians realize that they have everything? Peter wrote, “[God’s] divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). You do not lack anything! But so many emaciated Christians go around and say, “Well, I just don’t have the power to do this or that.”

The apostle Paul said to the Colossians, “In Him you have been made complete” (Col. 2:10). Complete! What are you looking for? What are you asking for? James told you what to ask for—“wisdom” (James 1:5)—and that is the sense to know what you already have and not to ask for it! By the same token, we do not need to ask for the Spirit; He is in us already.

Since we have the Spirit, we also have power, as Jesus told the apostles: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). The word for power in the Greek is dunamis, from which we got our word dynamite. It is a type of power that is massive and explosive.

You may say, “Oh yeah? I’m not sure; I think I’m a dud. I don’t exhibit explosive power in my life; I don’t even fizzle that loudly.”

But the power is all there. What is so often not there is the release of that power. It is one thing to possess the Spirit; it is something else to be filled with the Spirit.

Fizzies are small tablets used to make soft drinks. They were wildly popular in the 1950s and 1960s, and they’ve recently tried to make a comeback. The tablets are basically like flavored Alka-Seltzers. Put one in a glass of water and its flavor is released. This concentrated, compact power pill is no good as long as it sits on the bottom of the glass. It has to release its energy to fill the glass, and then it turns the water into something new. If it is a grape Fizzie, you get a glass of grape drink. The flavor of the tablet determines the flavor of the water.

In a measure, that pictures how the Spirit of God operates in a human life. He is in the Christian all the time as a compact, concentrated, powerful, and personal force of divine energy. The question is, has He ever been able to release that power, to fill your life so that you can become what He is? A Christian not yielded to the Spirit does not manifest the Christ life. The Spirit of God has to permeate a life if that life is to radiate Him.

We cannot do anything apart from being filled with the Spirit.

I have a glove. If I say to the glove, “Play the piano,” what does the glove do? Nothing. The glove cannot play the piano. But if I put my hand in the glove and play the piano, what happens? Music! If I put my hand in the glove, the glove moves. The glove does not get pious and say, “Oh hand, show me the way to go.” It does not say anything; it just goes. Spirit-filled people do not mumble and stumble around trying to find out what God wants. They just go!

People often ask, “How do I know my spiritual gift?” The best way is to live a Spirit-filled life, see what God does through you, look back in retrospect, and say, “Oh, that’s what I do when God has control of me. Apparently that is my gift.” There is no need to get analytical. The whole point is that we need the Spirit of God to be released in our lives. This is simply a matter of decisions. When you get up in the morning, you decide what you are going to wear. Next, you decide what you are going to eat for breakfast. And so it goes through the day—one decision after another. The Spirit-filled life yields every decision to the control of the Spirit.

Peter’s Experience

An illustration comes from the life of the apostle Peter. When Peter was near Jesus Christ, he had amazing power. Thus he ...