God’s Will For His Children

To Prove What Is That Good, and Acceptable, and Perfect, Will of God

This is the reason for the admonition in Romans 12:1,2, which reads:

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…”

This marks the beginning of the fifth division of Paul’s letter to the Romans; the first being Paul’s salutation, greeting and purpose of the letter (First half of chapter 1); the second being the indictment of the human race’s inability, because of its inherent sin, to justify itself (last half of chapter 1 through the first half of chapter 3); the third being the remedy for this condition, and God’s promises to those who accept the remedy (last half of chapter three, through chapter eight); the fourth being the past, present and future disposition of the nation Israel, and her relationship to the church (chapters 9,10,11).

This fifth division is the beginning of what I call the “where-the-rubber-meets-the-road” section of Romans (there is a sixth division; the valediction, final greetings, and instruction). By explanation, this is where Paul begins his discourse on the behavior and call to service of those who have been enjoined to the church, through belief of the truth of the gospel. He begins it with the phrase, “I beseech you therefore..” Paul uses the word beseech twenty-one times in his epistles.¹ It implies a much stronger call to service than mere encouragement or making a request. It means, literally, to implore or exhort; to incite to action, and to warn against the consequences of failing to do so.

He follows this confrontational word with the word “therefore,” meaning “because of this.” Because of what God has done for you– which He was under no obligation to do, nor were you deserving of it– laid out in the third division of the letter, it is not at all unreasonable for Him to ask you to do something for Him. He gave you this great gift of salvation, by the sacrifice of His Son, now he desires you to tell the rest of the world about it. But there is something you must first do in order to be effective at doing this. You must be able to prove it. And to enable yourself to this task, you must cease conforming yourself to the ways of the world, but at the same time become transformed by the renewing of your mind.

I am a part of what has come to be known as the “grace community,” which is comprised of folks who adhere to the teaching that the Apostle Paul had a ministry and message distinct from that preached by the Lord in the four “gospels”, or that of his disciples in the Acts and the later writings of Peter, James and John and the letter to the Hebrews. The teaching of this community majors in the presentation of what Paul referred to as “the mystery”², aka, “my gospel,”³ and the doctrines and promises to the spiritual entity that is a part of it, the body of Christ.⁴

Most preaching and teaching in the grace community majors in what Paul referred to as “the preaching of the cross,”(1 Cor. 1:18), “the gospel of…. salvation”(1 Cor. 15:1-4; Eph. 1:13), the lost condition of mankind (Rom. 3:10-18; 3:22; 5:12), the futility of observing the law to be justified (Rom. 3:19,20; Gal. 2:16-20),

and the universal reconciliation/forgiveness of sins, (2 Cor. 5:19),i.e., the doctrines of justification, redemption and salvation. I believe this is as it should be. The hopeless condition of mankind, God’s remedy for this and unilateral blessings and promises to the body of Christ should always be placed first and foremost in preaching and teaching, as Paul always puts this first in all his letters. However, this by no stretch means that this part of Paul’s gospel should be taught to the exclusion of the “behavior” modification sections, which consumes about a third of his letters. In my experience, this is more often than not the case. As I see it, the reasons for this are as follows:

1. People coming out of the religious system that pounds them relentlessly about “repenting” of their sins don’t want to hear about it anymore.

2. Anytime there’s a new face in the crowd, preachers don’t want to “run them off” with any kind of behavior modification teaching.

3. Grace preachers shy away from teaching the need for believers to change their ways out of fear that they’ll be tagged with the dreaded “legalist” label.

4. Preachers don’t want to “dig up” any “dead bodies,” so to speak, among their congregants, and therefore adopt a “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil of” (except for lambasting the religious system⁵) posture in their preaching.

    

I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that I’m recommending preachers set up a confessional booth for folks to come confess and be absolved of their sins. I don’t believe the body of Christ is under 1 John 1:9, or any other part of kingdom church doctrine that requires confession and repentance.⁶ Nor am I promoting the reformation of the flesh. Our flesh, i.e., our human nature, is not going to be reformed, but, as the Apostle admonishes, it is needful that it be put under subjection:

.1 Cor 9:25-27

And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

26 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air:

27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

When one puts this together with Romans 12:1,2, one can’t help but conclude that, if one wants to enter into God’s service,⁷they must: a. stop conforming to the ways of the world– the religious and the secular world; b. put their flesh into subjection, and c. become transformed by the renewing of their minds, i.e., the way they think. In Ephesians 4, figurative language is used to describe this process:

Eph 4:22-24

That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;

23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

“Put off… the old man”, and “put on the new man.” This is like having a new change of clothes in your closet. It’s saying to put off the ones you have on (the old man), and put on the new ones(the new man). While salvation is an event, this is a process⁸ of renewal that goes on for the remainder of your life.

Please don’t misconstrue this as a call to literally change your appearance, living arrangements, dietary habits, etc. This is the stuff of religions and religious cults. Perhaps, in certain circumstances, this might be advisable. For example, if you drink (alcohol) excessively, then stop.⁹ If you are in an intimate relationship that is outside the bonds of holy matrimony, get out of it¹⁰ . If you are enjoined to a religious institution that teaches things contrary to the doctrine given to the church by Paul, disenjoin yourself from it¹¹ . But don’t do any of this because I, or some other authority figure tells you to. Do it because you believe, from your own study of God’s word and his will for your life as a member of his body¹² , that it is detrimental to your walk of faith and growth as a Christian to not do it. Do it because you recognize that continuing in it brings a reproach on you and your testimony, and will ultimately cause you to suffer loss. Do it because it is God’s will that you do so.

God’s Will For His Children

There is one thing that I believe identifies all people who have experienced a salvation event. While everyone who gets saved gets saved under different circumstances and at different times in their lives, I believe every person saved into the body of Christ, from the apostle Paul forward,¹³ has a desire instilled in them to do God’s will. The second question—after he inquired, “who art thou, Lord”– that came out of the Apostle’s mouth when he, as the Pharisee, Saul, was confronted by the Lord from heaven on the Damascus road, was; “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”¹⁴

The apostle confesses in this phrase that, a. Jesus is his Lord (master); and, b. that he is now at the Lord’s service, and desires to know His will for his life. The only difference between Paul and us is, Paul got it (God’s will) by revelation from heaven;¹⁵ we get it from that revelation, as recorded in his 13 epistles, rightly divided.¹⁶ Our salvation gives us the Holy Spirit, who serves to reveal truth to us in the written word as we seek it out,¹⁷ and the gift of ministers of the word as helpers in the building up of our faith.¹⁸

While we have this desire instilled in us by the Holy Spirit to do God’s will, and have these tools at our disposal to aid us to do it, it still remains up to us to employ them. We still must “present our bodies, a living sacrifice.” We must “work out our….salvation with fear and trembling,”¹⁹ because we will all appear before the Lord some day, and have to give an account of what we did and said on His behalf.²⁰

While it’s true that we who are saved are “sealed unto the day of redemption,” and cannot lose our salvation through our behavior, it is also true, that we can “quench” God’s purpose²¹ for our lives by refusing to submit to the proccess, by simply going on with life just as though we weren’t saved.

This isn’t a forced program. We freely accepted God’s offer of salvation, and we must also freely work it out. Which path, brother or sister in Christ, do wish to take? The one the world²² says you should be on, or the one God calls you to in his word?

Mike Schroeder

Please feel free to re-print or distribute this essay as you see fit. All Scripture references are from the King James Bible.

Post Script

Living a good life, or being a member of a church or religion will not save anyone. Only those who have believed on Jesus Christ—“who knew no sin”—and his sacrificial death on the Cross having paid for all their sins, are saved. History has shown that whatever peace man has achieved in the world can only be temporary. The Bible says that individual men and women can know, beyond a doubt, that they are saved and bound for heaven, and therefore have absolute and permanent peace, regardless of what is going on in the world, by trusting Jesus Christ and his death on the cross for their eternal salvation. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved…Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Have you done this? If not, why not now?