Hebrews 13:20-21 “ Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in you that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” This Episode is about how important it is to take the time to listen to God and ask Him what His will for your life is. Also, it is important to trust that He will equip you for all that He tells you to do. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Discerning God’s Will
Hebrews 13:20-21 “ Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in you that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
This is a prayer that is found in Hebrews. I love that it reminds us of what God did for us. God raised Jesus from the dead for us. I also like how it says that our Lord Jesus is the great shepherd of the sheep. I love picturing Jesus as our shepherd. To me that seems so loving and tender. Jesus looking over us and guiding us to where we need to go. Then the verse reminds us the God sealed our eternal covenant with the blood of Jesus. God sent His only son down to die on a cross for our sins. A reminder of just how much the Lord loves us. Next the verse is asking the Lord to equip you with everything good that you may do His will. We are praying that God will work in us so that we do what is pleasing in the sight of Jesus Christ for the Glory of Christ.
This seems like a pretty tall order. The first hard part is knowing what is the will of God. This is something prayer can help with. We can pray daily that our will conforms to the Lord’s will. We can also pray that the Lord show us what His will is and to give us the strength to follow His will. You may be wondering why we would need strength to follow God’s will. Doesn’t God want what is best for us? If so, why would we need strength? Yes, God wants what is best for us. However, it is not always an easy road to get us to where God wants us to get too. We do a lot of things along the way that are not what God wanted us to do and sometimes God lets us feel those consequences before we can get back on track. Also, sometimes the way to get to where we need to be is filled with suffering. We need strength to make it through that suffering.
There are two main things that I can see would be tough for us to understand in this prayer. The first one is knowing what is God’s will. What is it that God put you here on this earth for? This is something that I think we all want to know the answer too. Sometimes in life we feel as though we don’t have a sense of purpose. We don’t feel great about ourselves because we don’t feel we are doing anything with our lives, or we don’t think we are doing enough. This is something I think we all go through at some point in our lives and some of us go through more than once. We can struggle at each new stage in life. Every time we start something new it takes us time to figure out what we are doing and time to get into a routine with a new normal. During this time it is important to lean into God and to spend time sitting with Him and asking Him what He wants you to do.
We often complain that God is not talking to us or that we don’t know what He wants us to do. However, we also don’t spend time just sitting with Him and listening to all He wants to tell us. God does talk with us, we are just usually too busy to hear it. Even if we spend a lot of time in prayer, it doesn’t mean we are spending time listening. Do you ever get to the end of a long prayer time and notice that you did all the talking? I know I do. I will spend 45 minutes spilling out all I have been up to and all my needs to the Lord and then sometimes I don’t have time to listen to what He wants to say. Other times I do listen, but certainly not for as long as I talked for. If we want to know God’s will for us in our lives we need to spend the time with Him listening and letting Him lead us. Our sense of purpose if found when we are doing what we were created to do. My favorite quote is from St. Catherine of Sienna and she said, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” I want to set the world on fire for Christ and so I try to remind myself that I can only do that if I spend time listening to what God wants me to do and then do what He says.
Doing what He says is the second thing we may struggle with when we read this prayer. This prayer is asking the Lord to equip us with everything good to do His will. When you sit and listen to the Lord and ask Him what He wants for your life you find out He wants incredible things for you, especially if you turn over your life to Him and tell Him you will do whatever He wants you to do. It can be scary to hear what He wants you to do. I have heard a lot of people say that you shouldn’t invite the Holy Spirit into your life half heartedly. If you give the Holy Spirit permission to have free reign in your life, you never know where it will take you. You never know what He will help you do. The only thing that is for sure is that it will be an amazing ride, so buckle up and enjoy it!
It can be very intimidating to hear what God has planned for you. I think this is why he often times doesn’t reveal your whole life plan at one time. We usually just know a step or two and once we step out in faith and take that step, the next step is revealed. I think why it is usually scary for us is because we forget that we are not doing it alone. We look at what God is asking us to do and we know we aren’t qualified. We know we can’t do that on our own. God may be calling you to do something that you don’t even know how to do. I remember one time a few years ago, I was asking the Lord, why I was the only one in my family that couldn’t write. I have two brothers that have self-published books, my dad has self published books, my sisters write the most beautiful poems, and yet when I tried to write a poem all that would come to mind was roses are red, violets are blue. So, imagine my surprise one day when I felt God calling me to write a blog about His word. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I trusted God to help me. Then He asked me to write a book about how I grew in my faith. I said yes, but I was honest with Him and told Him that I didn’t know what I had done and also I didn’t know how to write a book. I explained I would show up to write each day, but He would have to give me the words to write. He did and I wrote that book in just a few months. Each time I sat down to write it wasn’t a struggle. He showed up in a big way every time.
God isn’t calling you to do anything on your own. He will equip you to do whatever He is calling you to do. I know a Catholic speaker and singer. She said she was sitting in her car in college and she saw a sheet with words to a song just appear in mid air right next to her. She thought she was crazy, as that is not a normal occurrence and she ran inside and hid under her blankets. However, the next day she woke up with a different voice. God gave her a voice so she could spread His message through song and through speeches. That is an extreme example, and that is the point. Whatever it is God is calling you to do, He will equip you to do it. You are not doing it on your own, with your own strength and with you own talents. The Lord will give you all that you need and He will be there every step of the way as well so if you get stuck you can call out for help and he will be there. Spend some time this week sitting quietly with the Lord and ask Him to lead you. Ask for your will to conform to His will. And if you are brave enough, give the Holy Spirit free rein in your life. Commit to saying yes to the Lord no matter what He asks of you. It may be scary, but the amazing life you will have when you do far overshadows any doubt or fear you may have.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we love you and we are so grateful that you equip us for your call. Today we ask you to give us strength to answer that call. We ask that you help us find the time to sit with you and listen to what you are calling us to do. We ask that you help us trust that you will equip us for that call. Lord, you are so amazing. We have so many examples of those that you called to great things and then helped them achieve them. When we doubt we ask that you put these examples on our mind, help us recall these examples when we need them the most. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus holy name, Amen.
Thank you for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!