What’s God’s Will for You? (Part 3) By Babatunde Olugboji
Let me start by wishing our fathers Happy Father’s Day!
This week, we will conclude our discussion on the issue of God’s perfect will for his people, starting where we stopped last week.
The Bible says in Proverbs 24:16, “For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.” When we’ve messed up, when we’ve sinned, when we’ve done things that go against God’s instructions and seem to have missed God’s perfect will, we should trust God and do the following:
1. Confess all known sin, knowing that God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Living a life of unconfessed sin is a dangerous thing.
2. Ask God to reveal to you where you went wrong and to show you what was in your heart, in line with what the Bible says in Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” There may be offensive ways in you that you are not aware of, and there may be things lurking deep in the recesses of your heart that may not be visible to you. God’s Holy Spirit can bring those things to light. The Bible points out that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
3. If your actions involved a sin against another person, genuinely seek forgiveness and make restitution. The story of Zacchaeus, the tax collector who repented of his sin, is a good example in this regard. Zacchaeus promised the Lord, “If I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount” (Luke 19:8). This speaks to the “fruit in keeping with repentance” that John preached (Luke 3:9).
4. Find your way back to the Lord and seek to glorify him in all you do (1 Corinthians 10:31).
5. Rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to guide you (John 14:26; 16:13).
God is omniscient, and he knows what he will accomplish in and through us. He has made crystal clear his perfect will for our lives. God’s plans and purposes for every believer are for our good and his glory (Romans 8:28). In many situations, God doesn’t usually provide a lot of details, meaning that we may not have every little detail of every situation in advance but the Holy Spirit always provides us with enough information to obey the Lord. When we sin, God calls us to return to him (Jeremiah 15:9; Zechariah 1:3) 
Even if we have “messed up” in any way, if we have fumbled or stumbled, if we have missed our way in respect of what we perceive as God’s plan for us, God is happy, willing and able to “ turn again; he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities. And Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.” (Micah 7:19 ) We can still know and follow the truth as we live in obedience from that point on.
Once again, Happy Father’s Day!
Have a great week.
Questions or comments?
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