What does God want?

Gentle Reader, A dear friend has written something you need to read so allow me to introduce my friend


What Does God Want?

By Jerry Bernard

In the current evangelical / fundamental Christian circles, the leaders, for the most part, are searching for messages and/or songs around the benefits of becoming a Christian. These same leaders are placing man as the center of God's intention and purpose. The pastor-teachers usually center their "pulpit" around the conversion of the sinner. Many listeners are thrilled and impressed listening to this message, but they are not converted. Many are left cold, empty and dissatisfied as they leave the service(s). Not until the Church leaders fully understand Romans 8:28.


All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.


. Do they understand What God Really Wants? This verse is often used as an enticement for dedication on the part of the saved. In the opinion of this writer, the pastor-teacher should move from a self-centered ministry to a Father-centered existence that is all "according to His purpose." They need to understand that Romans six teaches that all things, that is, ALL THINGS are/were brought about "according to His purpose." They should declare with Paul that "All things are of God." (2 Corinthians 5:18).

In retrospect, as an evangelist, I now understand what Paul meant when, from his new heavenly viewpoint, he related all to God:


I would that ye should understand brethren, that the things which have happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.

(Philippians 1:12 KJV)


What a wonderful freedom, knowing that The Father is in me, and I have no need to hunt for Him. He is in me.


.energizing me to have the desire and the power to do His will.

(Philippians 2:13 KJV)


This emancipation will help you to understand What God Really Wants. You will stop using God and begin allowing Him to use you. You will stop working for God and take a look at what God really wants to do in and through you. He wants you to be occupied with Him and He wants to work through you. That is what God really wants! You, in essence, have become His dwelling place.

As a "Christian community," we are on a "slippery slope" as we try to learn how not to work for Him and allow Him to work out His Purpose in and through us. As individual desires are examined in the matter of serving Him, do we detect the desire of obtaining a profit that this kind of service will bring to us? Is it for our sake and the sake of others that we labor? Or is it, first of all, for His sake? How do we live in His will and purpose so that everything will be done primarily for His sake?

This is a new occupation for many. In this selfless occupation, we are to be occupied with a Person and purpose outside of personal benefits. Or, in simple words, worship firstly and work secondly. If we are to be adjusted to The Father's intention and living in harmony with Him, what and how is the adjustment from a self-centered life to Father-centered existence made?

From the pulpit we hear the message, "Be ye reconciled to God." And, in addition, we hear Paul's words:


.God, reconciled us to Himself (into harmony) and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that by word and deed we might bring others unto harmony with Him.

(2 Corinthians 5:18 KJV)


We walk away from the church service and ask, "Am I fulfilling or falling short of God's purpose in my life?" It seems the response is always, "I have no idea." Do you want the same thing as God? To learn how to see things as God sees them, you must turn to Ephesians 3:4, and there read "knowledge in the mystery of Christ." This mystery that Paul mentions is a corporate Body through which The Father can express Himself. This mystery is "Christ in you."

In Colossians, The Father's desire is for Christ to be the Head of The Body. It is in this way that The Son has pre-eminence in our lives. It is in this way that The Father is revealed and expressed throughout the heavens and earth by the lives of those in His Body (Colossians 1:18). If we can begin to see through the eyes of The Father, we will see His intention to make His Son the center and gathering point for all things in heaven and earth. "to sum up all things in Christ" (Ephesians 1:10). Then it is easy to see that all things were not only created "by Him," but also "for Him" (Colossians 1:16). When this is realized, we see what The Father intended all along -- to make His Son the center of His working. If His Son has preeminence, I am no longer the center. Christ, The Altogether Lovely One, is the center of my life and ministry. If we fall short, it will be because we are not looking out from the Heart of the Father. The Father has not changed from what He purposed in Himself from counsels of eternity past.

This is the design of heaven. It is the divine rule. It is the Heart of the Father. He invites humanity to embrace this divine purpose and philosophy of life by knocking at our heart's door. When the door is open, it is the desire of The Father that the eyes would be opened also, to see The Father's ultimate intention. that "God may be all in all." This is what God Really Wants!

Moving beyond what God has done for us to what Christ realized for God is the "deeper truth" of The Scripture. Fromke, author and pastor, pointed out in his writings that Romans 3:23 has a deeper meaning than what most evangelists give it. The KJV version reads: "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God."

In the considered opinion of some theologians, "glory" means the true estimation of a thing. Hence, the verse would read:


All (without exception) have sinned (against the Law) and have dropped out of and away from God's estimation of what humanity should be.



a.. J. B. Phillips put it this way: All have sinned and missed the beauty of God's plan.

b.. Ferrar Fenton translated it thusly: Ferrar Fenton translated it thusly: All sin and are in need of rectification.

Paul knew that humanity needed more than to turn over a "new leaf" and "do the best." He knew that humanity should be brought back into God's earliest intention, before God began on His course of redemption, The evangelist has lost sight of what Romans 3:23 is saying. God's glory or estimation of what man should be is the mainspring of all service, and if we work from another standpoint, all else is wrong. The believer's aim should be to work in The Father's fulfillment of the divine intention.

The center of our message is a Person, Jesus Christ, Who is the estimation of what God wants all men to be. This is "the glory of God." God knew that humanity would need to know what God's intention was, so He wrapped Himself up in flesh and demonstrated His divine intention that existed before all creation. Now we understand Paul's message of "Christ in you, the hope of glory," and God as "all things in all." Oh, may God help us to see What God Really Wants.


To conclude this study, please consider F. Fenton's interpretation of Colossians 1:25-27. He writes:


.of which I became a minister by appointment given to me for you from God, to accomplish the Divine intention, the secret hidden from the ages, and from the nations, but now made manifest to His saints by whom God has decided to publish amongst the heathen what is the wealth of that mystery of the rectification which Christ is to you-- the hope of the rectification - which we proclaim.


Paul is overwhelmed with the desire "to accomplish The Divine intention" of The Father. It was after Paul met The Risen Christ that he lived without man-centered vision of all the things that God was doing through him "among the heathen." Paul did that.


.warning every man, and teaching every person in a perfect philosophy, so that we (Paul) may present each one perfect in Christ; to which object I vigorously strive with His mighty energy working in me (Colossians 1:28-29, F. Fenton).


Problems did not change Paul except to bring him closer to Christ. Paul did not in any way look for an escape. The hardship and suffering was considered the Will of the Father. Hence, Paul did not indulge in self-pity and self-centeredness. He gives us the example of a life viewpoint with The Father's ultimate intention as the center. It was Paul's desire that God may show us "the glory" or how The Father sees things. By contemporary application, may our lives be centered "in Him!"

In this newly found occupation of living "in Him," we see the "Cross of Christ" as an eternal thing, something we must not get away from. We see ourselves "crucified with Him." We see the great humiliation of Christ as He descended from His exalted, heavenly position to the lowly cross of a criminal.

In this, we learn of What God Really Wants! Those who humble themselves, God will exalt. The Proud will be brought low. However, as we enter into His humiliation, we are carried away, through Him, into His great exaltation. This is God Really Wants. This is what we should see and understand as the Will of God for us individually.


I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of The Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)


There are interesting theological and pragmatic questions that concern our forefather Adam, who stood at the crossroads as he looked upon the fruit offered to him by his true and only sweetheart, Eve. The question now arises, How much did Adam know of God's intention for him? It is clear that God wanted Adam to begin at the place of obedience and, as time passed, learn more obedience until it became a way of life for him. Adam was to learn that the exercise of the first moral choice would develop into a life of giving, serving and sharing.

God would progressively reveal His wonderful Will to Adam as Adam obeyed. As God's purpose and plan unfolded before Adam's eyes, would Adam choose God's intention or pursue a private goal? The Scripture reveals that he chose to satisfy his limited vision of what was good for him and Eve. This was the issue in the Garden of Eden. Adam chose his own way to feed on knowledge and the development of his natural life, exercising his own rights to freedom and pursuing his own private goals. So, just as the first Adam stood at the gateway of choice, we too must choose to accept or reject God's call to embrace the divine rule of action and allow the "Tree of Life" (The Cross principle) to be wrought in us. We must choose to do one or the other. There is no neutral ground for this decision. Should we live for our own purpose and thereby reject God's ultimate intention and purpose? Or can we get glimpse of What God Really Wants for us and make the right choice?


Conclusion


If Christ was the flesh that God dwelt in and was to be the focus of our attention, observe what He ultimately did.


And when all things shall be subdued unto Him (The Father), then shall The Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:28)


Christ subjected Himself to the Father -- so that "God may be all in all." THIS IS GOD'S ULTIMATE INTENTION.to be all things in all people. So therefore.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore, God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God The Father.

(Philippians 2:5-11)