Bible Verses About Understanding God’s Will
You’ve probably faced a big decision in life a few times. Have you ever considered what God’s will for you life is? The Bible tells us that God’s will doesn’t automatically happen. Even though God is in control, He isn’t controlling. God gave us free will to make our own decisions in life, and He won’t force you to do anything.
God does have desires for your life, but He won’t force you to do what He desires. It needs to be a conscious decision that we make. God gives us the choice to follow Him or reject Him. It’s our responsibility to seek God, listen to His whisper, and understand what His will is.
If you’re unsure of what God’s will is for your life, the best thing you can do is seek Him by reading the Bible and prayer. God doesn’t hide His will from us, but we need to pay attention or we can miss it.
In simple terms, a “will” is something that you want or allow to happen. In some cases, God’s will happens and there’s nothing we can do to stop it from happening. At other ties, God needs our obedience and participation for His will to happen.
Here are a few Bible verses that can help us understand God’s will for us.
Bible verses about God’s sovereign will
God’s sovereign will is what He wants to happen and it will happen no matter what. God is the supreme being in the universe, so He has the ultimate say.
“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”
Job 42:2 NIV
"The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has spoken— who can change his plans? When his hand is raised, who can stop him?”
Isaiah 14:27 NLT
"Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails."
Proverbs 19:21 NIV
Bible verses about our will and God’s will
Is everything that happens God’s sovereign will? I don’t believe so.
The Bible makes it clear that things happen when God doesn’t want them to, and things that God wants to happen don’t always happen. There are certain circumstances when God steps in and enforces His sovereignty, but that’s not always the case.
For example, if you decide to wear a blue shirt today, it’s not necessarily God’s will for you to wear a blue shirt. It’s a simple decision that you made. When you look at all of the evil that happens in the world, it wouldn’t make sense that a good God would want evil to happen. The evil we see in the world is a result of our free will and the devil trying to influence people.
In the Garden of Eden, God made it clear that He didn’t want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. God specifically told them “don’t eat from that tree” so His will—what He wanted to happen—was for them to avoid eating from the tree. Satan showed up and made his will clear. The devil wanted Adam and Eve to eat from the tree.
Both the devil’s will and God’s will are clear. So what happened? Ultimately, Adam and Eve made the choice to eat from the tree.
This can be difficult to understand, because we can be unsure of what is God’s will, what is our will, and what is the devil’s will. If we’re not careful, we can actually limit God by choosing our own will instead of following His will.
"Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief."
Matthew 13:58 NKJV
"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
Matthew 6:33 NIV
"For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother.”
Mark 3:35 NKJV
"For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
John 6:38-40 NIV
"In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."
Proverbs 3:6 NIV
"And He has made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ."
Ephesians 1:9 NIV
"Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to reckless indiscretion. Instead, be filled with the Spirit."
Ephesians 5:17-18 NIV
To understand God’s will, we need to begin with prayer and seeking God. We need to pray for God to lead us in His ways, and pray for us to have a clear understanding of God’s will.
We also need to read the Bible to understand God’s will. There are some things that we don’t need to pray about because they’re made clear in the Bible. It’s clear that God’s will is for us to love people, to be planted in God’s house, to resist the devil and flee from sin, and to imitate the life that Jesus lived.
I’ve found that when I spend more time reading the Bible, I have stronger faith to trust the plan God has for my life, and I can hear His voice more clearly. Reading the Bible in a year is a great way to develop a consistent Bible reading habit.
Thirdly, once we know God’s will, we need to take action. You can pray all day for God to reveal His will and plan for our life, but we need to submit to God’s will and do what He tells us. When God tells us to do something, we should be quick to take action and believe that what God told us is the best thing we can do.
