Luke 11:2 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.

So how can you choose to do the will of the Father if you do not know His will? The one question that I hear coming out of the mouths of young disciples is, “How will I know….?” The end of that sentence will change depending upon the disciple and his concerns for the moment. The basic element within each question is knowing God’s will for their lives.

The answer to all those questions is by faith. They have not yet learned to hear God so I give them basic exercises in order to develop their hearing by faith. God is faithful and if they are earnest in what they seek, He will speak to them in the faith they have, in a way they will understand.

I cannot control what they hear. All I can do is listen to what they have discovered and evaluate their words as being the quality and character of the God I know. If what I hear does not sound like my Lord, then I ask them to explain in more detail how they came to this conclusion. Sometimes it comes down to their desire to interpret what they heard rather than repeating what they heard.

Past experiences and teachings can influence understanding. We all want to make sense of our discipleship experience but running it thru another man’s filter isn’t hearing the Lord for yourself.

A young man loved a fair maiden but was so shy he could only talk to her thru the help of a friend. He should not have been surprised when she fell in love with his friend and they got married.

I cannot do this for you. You must speak to the Lord for yourself.

Ezekiel 36:26-27 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

Real change is what God does to you and in you. That is something that you cannot do for yourself. You cannot decide this sounds right and claim it by force of will. No amount of willful knowledge will result in a change that is acceptable to God. It does not work that way.

God demands in all His Holiness, Love, Mercy, Grace and Justice that our rebellion must end and that we surrender our will to His. We must accept Jesus Christ as Lord before He will becomes our Savior.

We spoke about the broken heart and the contrite mind. That is the position in which surrender can happen, but it does not mean it does happen. At that point you have to surrender your own will and subject yourself to the will of God.

All the promises are contingent on surrender. Have you surrendered? If the answer to that is yes, then allow me to ask the next difficult question. Do you still make the decisions?

I would venture that the majority of earnest Christians answer that question yes. There is a difference between making decision and making choices. God gave us free will to make choices but those choices are contingent upon knowing God’s will for our lives.

Psalm 27:4 One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple.

Psalm 63:1 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;