Discovery and Examination of the Will of God
Back to reading Romans 12 - Trying to determine what other goodies that the Lord wants to bring out in this passage for me. The word for Test here means to test, examine, discover, interpret, discern, approve, prove, demonstrate. So it looks like it's more than just testing the Will of God, but it involves discovery and examination. Looks like the passage in Proverbs 2 comes to mind here.
Proverbs 2:7-9 (NASB) [7] He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, [8] Guarding the paths of justice, And He preserves the way of His godly ones. [9] Then you will discern righteousness and justice And equity and every good course.
One of the things that is important about this passage is the key phrases, "way" and "course." These indicate a path of life, following in the will of the Lord (as it indicates further on at the end of Pr 4. It also indicates preservation of that way for the ones that the Lord holds in regard. Just before this section there is a list of things about crying out and calling on the Lord to reveal hidden things so that they may be made plain, in order to follow the right path. This involves work and there is just no way around it. I am fearful that Christians have started down a path of letting others determine for them what they are to think and believe. That is wrong, the Lord wants us to develop a close relationship with Him in which we reach out to learn more and more about Him each and every day. Right now most Christians are sponges, simply soaking up what is said from the pulpit or from the televangilist without digging in to see if it is true, much as the Bereans did with Paul in Acts 17:11. I am sure that the members of the class that I stopped teaching study the scriptures. They are well rounded and seek out more learning from the material in class than what is given from the pulpit. The problem with preaching today is that the pulpit messages have become watered down because we are trying to reach the lowest common member of the congregation. Most preachers don't want to scare off anyone who comes through the door either, hence the watered down message. The Lord desires us to be ever growing in our faith, something we cannot do without getting deep into the Word of God. It is a personal thing also, one in which we individually must participate in diving into the word to determine what the Holy Spirit would bring to mind. Each person is different in his/her walk with the Lord, but even then we must be ever growing in our knowledge of the Lord. It says in Hebrews:
Hebrews 5:12-14 (NASB) [12] For though *by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the *elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. [13] For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. [14] But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
Notice the training aspect in verse 14 here. It gives us the ability to discern between good and evil. That is key to being able to continue in the will of the Lord. We can fall easy victim to someone's clever speech without really knowing that we are falling into a trap. It indicates that we must get into this word of righteousness and practice it in our daily walk. Otherwise we are still babes in Christ and cannot be effective for the kingdom of God. What say you? Do you wish to remain as you are? Or, do you wish to dig deeper to gain as much as you can, to be exceedingly effective for the Lord, and to be able to discern what is right and what is wrong? I think the answer is obvious.
Proverbs 2:7-9 (NASB) [7] He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, [8] Guarding the paths of justice, And He preserves the way of His godly ones. [9] Then you will discern righteousness and justice And equity and every good course.
One of the things that is important about this passage is the key phrases, "way" and "course." These indicate a path of life, following in the will of the Lord (as it indicates further on at the end of Pr 4. It also indicates preservation of that way for the ones that the Lord holds in regard. Just before this section there is a list of things about crying out and calling on the Lord to reveal hidden things so that they may be made plain, in order to follow the right path. This involves work and there is just no way around it. I am fearful that Christians have started down a path of letting others determine for them what they are to think and believe. That is wrong, the Lord wants us to develop a close relationship with Him in which we reach out to learn more and more about Him each and every day. Right now most Christians are sponges, simply soaking up what is said from the pulpit or from the televangilist without digging in to see if it is true, much as the Bereans did with Paul in Acts 17:11. I am sure that the members of the class that I stopped teaching study the scriptures. They are well rounded and seek out more learning from the material in class than what is given from the pulpit. The problem with preaching today is that the pulpit messages have become watered down because we are trying to reach the lowest common member of the congregation. Most preachers don't want to scare off anyone who comes through the door either, hence the watered down message. The Lord desires us to be ever growing in our faith, something we cannot do without getting deep into the Word of God. It is a personal thing also, one in which we individually must participate in diving into the word to determine what the Holy Spirit would bring to mind. Each person is different in his/her walk with the Lord, but even then we must be ever growing in our knowledge of the Lord. It says in Hebrews:
Hebrews 5:12-14 (NASB) [12] For though *by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the *elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. [13] For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. [14] But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
Notice the training aspect in verse 14 here. It gives us the ability to discern between good and evil. That is key to being able to continue in the will of the Lord. We can fall easy victim to someone's clever speech without really knowing that we are falling into a trap. It indicates that we must get into this word of righteousness and practice it in our daily walk. Otherwise we are still babes in Christ and cannot be effective for the kingdom of God. What say you? Do you wish to remain as you are? Or, do you wish to dig deeper to gain as much as you can, to be exceedingly effective for the Lord, and to be able to discern what is right and what is wrong? I think the answer is obvious.