Last week, in AT THE POOL OF BETHESDA, Part 3, we learned two things: The God never stops working, and whatever He is doing trumps whatever might be standing in the way! And secondly, we learned that just like Jesus never did anything by Himself, but only did what He saw the Father doing, we, too, should always be seeking God’s Will instead of striking out on our own.
But just how can we know what that will is?
Jesus doesn’t leave us in the dark:
“For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does …” (John 5:20a NIV)
And there you have it: Jesus’ secret to knowing God’s will! He knows God’s will, because God reveals it to Him!
Pretty neat, isn’t it?
But wait. How does that help US? I mean, Jesus IS God! Of course God loves Him. Of course God will reveal His will to Him!
So do Jesus’ next words shed any more light on the subject?
Let’s look: “… and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.” (John 5:20 NKJV)
There you have it: The secret to the dilemma! God will continue to reveal things to Jesus so that WE may marvel!
Uhh … Well, it IS wonderful that God will continue to reveal things to Jesus so that we can all marvel, but it still doesn’t tell me how I can know the will of God!
Perhaps a trip back into history will help us here. How did God speak to people before Jesus? “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets …” (Heb 1:1-2 NKJV)
There is our answer, He spoke through the prophets. And we have proof of this throughout the Old Testament, with literally hundreds of prophecies, warnings and promises.
And that text goes on to say that God didn’t STOP speaking to us: “… has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds …” (Heb 1:2-3 NKJV)
Wait a minute: Did you catch that? Because I almost missed it just now …
We know from John 5 that Jesus KNOWS the will of the Father because the Father reveals it to Him: “For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does …” (John 5:20a NIV), and this text in Heb. 1 states that God speaks to us “by His Son”!
Remember John 5:19? “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.” (John 5:19-20 NKJV)
The prophets of old, friends, did NOT know EVERYTHING God was up to! They only knew what God revealed to them, but Jesus knows EVERYTHING the Father is doing! And in our day, Jesus speaks to us “By His Son” who knows EVERYTHING the Father is up to!
This relationship is even better than when God spoke to the prophets of the past, friends!
But this still doesn’t help us know how WE can know the will of God, does it?
Let’s look at what Jesus says later in His ministry: “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.“ (John 15:15-16 NKJV)
In other words, God loves Jesus enough to reveal everything to Him, and Jesus has called us His Friends, for everything that He knows from the Father, He has made known to us!
Now that is pretty neat, isn’t it?
But how can we hear that voice that will make known to us the will of God?
The same way we can know what any of our human friends are trying to tell us: By spending time with Him! By getting to know Him! By working on a friendship relationship with Him!
That’s the secret to knowing God’s will, friends! Why not try it today? Do not wait, for spending time with you is the Father’s #1 priority!
Please join us next week for the next lesson to learn from Jesus’ discourse: AT THE POOL OF BETHESDA, Part 5: Jesus the Judge!
In His love,
Lyn
Lyn Chaffart, Mother of two teens, Speech-Language Pathologist, Author and Moderator for The Nugget, a tri-weekly internet newsletter, and Scriptural Nuggets, a website devoted to Christian devotionals and inspirational poems, with Answers2Prayer Ministries.
* Taken from commentary given in The Archaeological Study Bible, New International Version, Copywright © 2005 by the Zondervan Corporation, pages 1728, 1729.
(To access the entire “At the Pool of Bethesda” mini-series, please click here.)