God's Will For Us

What is God's will?  was a question that made me very unsettled for a long time.  I wondered, "if God cares about and has a distinct choice I am to make to be in His will then this must encompass every single decision.  This includes from which path to take to work and what shoes to wear.  It literally liked to have drove me nuts.  I eventually through a pretty long and painful process figured out by I believe God's help that He is interested in our heart's attitude.  He will direct our steps if we fix our eyes on pleasing Him.  I just summed up in a couple sentences what took about two years for me to come to and I am still having to correct my thinking all the time.  

I am convinced so many christians are wasting their time worrying about following 'God's will for their lives' instead of seeing what Jesus says is important and incorporating those attributes by His help into our lives.  Many christians including myself have thought of God's will as either your in it or out of it.  The truth is if you are His child your in it.  What many of us have prescribed to in trying to follow God's will is a type of fortune-telling.  God has not, nor do I believe will tell us the specific future.  We are to place our hearts before Him to please Him and stop worrying about miniscule things.  You see, one problem with the either in or out way at looking at God's will is that it will make you unable to learn some really valuable lessons from people.  We may be afraid to question whether or not it is wrong to live luxuriously in this world of poverty because of a pastor that we know is a Godly man lives this way; or we may judge that a pastor is not in 'God's will' because we believe him to be living in overboard luxury.  The truth is throughout the day each of us can be in or out of God's desired will for us by where we have our hearts set.  This is the will we ought to all seek to follow. 

Man, I have been awakened again to the awesome news that being a christian means trusting and following Jesus.  If I do this I think I will find myself following the will of my Father.  If I started worrying more about seeking out the lost and hurting and helping them and loving my wife and little boy and students I wouldn't worry so much about the next career step.  Yes the career steps may change and surely I will have to make some decisions but the most important things will be set in place and make the other decisions have the right light on them.  

Anyway I have been greatly encouraged by a book I am reading called 'Searching for God Knows What' by Donald Miller.  Thanks to Allison Rouss for the Christmas gift.  I would recommend it to anyone.  

Question

Which of the following does faith in Christ look like, or are both faith?

Person #1  "If I choose to follow Jesus and live the christian life and then die one day and find out that I was wrong, I haven't really lost anything.  In fact I still would have made a good decision because if you follow what the Bible teaches you will live a good moral and happy life.

Person #2 "If Jesus Christ is not God and has not died for my sins and is not going to give me a place with Him one day then I have wasted my life.  If I don't get to go to heaven with Jesus after this life on earth then I am the biggest fool of all.  If it is true that this life is all there is then let us eat the best all the time at every meal, let us drink to a drunken stupor every chance we get, let us do everything we can to make our bodies feel happy, because in a sense just in a few short days we die.

I have heard quite a few people say something like person number one when defending why they choose to be follow Jesus, and when I hear it it always terrifies me.  It may not be the exact words as what I used to describe the thought process.  I heard one man say, "you know I'm just not willing to take the chance."  By this he meant, the chance that there actually is heaven and hell and that if he hadn't 'got saved' he would go to hell.  It sounds like insurance to me, and I don't think Jesus deals like that.  The New Testament followers looked to Him as the life boat, not a life jacket to wear in case your boat wrecks.  This is not over-analyzing either.  It only takes about two minutes of honest reading in the New Testament to see that there faith was not casual.  Paul said near the end of 1 Corinthians that if we have hoped in Christ in this life only we are of all men most to be pitied.  He said if Christ is not raised let us eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.  There he was quoting the secular Greek philosophy of his time, and was affirming that if this faith in Jesus does not turn into sight one day then we all that have chosen follow Him are pitiful fools.  If Jesus has not died for us and rose for us then we are idiots who have chosen to give up our agendas for His will.  

Anyway, as always I appreciate any of you who take the time to read this.  I know I am choppy at times.  I am trying to get better and better at getting these ideas out.  These are all rough drafts from my head.  

Ryan