Having the full knowledge of God’s will issues in walking worthily of the Lord as He strengthens us with might for us to live Christ (Col. 1:9-11).
We all need to know the will of God – not only His will for our life or His will for our future and what we should do, but the great, eternal will of God.
God created all things because of His will, and because of His will we all exist (Rev. 4:11), so what is the great will of God?
In Col. 1:9 Paul prayed that the believers would be filled unto full knowledge of God’s will; this will is not the will of God concerning minor things in our human life but concerning what He wants to do, what His purpose and desire is.
For us to have the full knowledge of the will of God is for us to have the revelation of God’s plan so that we may know what God plans to do in the universe.
We may be believers in Christ who love the Lord, love the Word of God, love the church, and are living a normal Christian life and church life contacting the Lord and meeting with the saints, but we may not know what is the great and eternal will of God.
God’s will is related to Christ; His will is focused on Christ, for in His plan God wants to make everything in the divine economy. This means that to God Christ is everything – He is the center, the first, the last, the circumference, the beginning and the end, and everything that God has, is, has done, is doing, will do, and has accomplished.
But this all-inclusive, extensive Christ needs to also be our everything, that is, He needs to be enjoyed and experienced by us to become our everything in a practical and real way, and we will become the church as the fullness of Christ, the Body of Christ.
We need to have the full knowledge of God’s will, and when we do, we will have more experience of Christ.
How can we have more revelation of God’s will? How can we know the will of God, the great and eternal will of God?
It is not merely by studying the Bible or listening to sermons; it is by our spending time with the Lord in His word, having His light shine upon us to enlighten us, so that we may apprehend God’s plan with our spirit and understand it with our renewed mind.
This requires our exercise; we need to pay the price to daily be in the word of God, contacting the Lord, and allowing Him to renew our mind and speak to us; we need to let the Lord work Himself into us so that we may experience Him as the all-inclusive, extensive One.
And above all, we need to pray this to the Lord, asking Him to give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him.
Having the Full Knowledge of God’s Will Issues in Walking Worthily of the Lord
When we have the full knowledge of the will of God, we will walk worthily of the Lord; such a walk is one in which we live Christ (Col. 1:9-10; Phi. 1:19-21).
First, we need to receive the knowledge of God’s plan and then, based on that knowledge, we walk worthily of the Lord.
First comes the knowledge, and then comes the experience and walk based on that knowledge. Having the full knowledge of God’s will issues in walking worthily of the Lord.
We cannot walk worthily of the Lord unless we first have the full knowledge of God’s will, for knowing the will of God and the eternal plan of God will enable us to walk worthily of the Lord.
This confirms the spiritual principle that our revelation directs our walking, and our walk is under the control and guidance of the revelation that we have.
How can we have the full knowledge of the will of God? We need to spend time to read the Bible, meditate on the Lord’s word, and pray concerning these matters until we are filled with the truth and with the full knowledge of God’s eternal plan.
When we are filled with the knowledge of God’s will, we will have wisdom in our spirit and heart, and spiritual wisdom in our spiritually enlightened and renewed mind.
Mere knowledge of the doctrines in the Scriptures doesn’t work; we need to contact the Lord, be in His word, and exercise our spirit, and He will renew our mind little by little, He will give us the spiritual wisdom, and we will have the spiritual understanding of His will.
When we have the knowledge of the will of God – not in our natural mind with its natural concepts but in our renewed mind that has been given understanding by the Holy Spirit in our spirit – our living will be according to this knowledge.
When we have the knowledge of God’s will we will walk worthily of the Lord, for what we know will control and direct our daily walk.
To walk worthily of the Lord is to live and walk according to spiritual wisdom and understanding; in this way we grow by the full knowledge of God.
On our side, we need to spend time with the Lord in His Word and be renewed in the spirit of our mind, and when we get the revelation of His will, we have to walk according to it.
After we receive the revelation and vision concerning Christ, we will walk worthily of the Lord and partake of the Lord more and more.
This is the way for Christ to increase in us – by our receiving spiritual wisdom, understanding, and revelation concerning Christ, and by walking according to the spiritual revelation of Christ that we have received.
In this way we gain the real knowledge of God, which is a subjective and experiential knowledge of God; by this we grow with the increase of Christ.
To walk worthily of the Lord doesn’t mean that we obey some rules and regulations, trying our best to do what the Lord has told us to do, and imitating Christ in an outward way.
To walk worthily of the Lord is a spontaneous issue of our having the full knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding; in this way we gain God, we grow with the increase of Christ, and we have the experiential knowledge of God.
Lord Jesus, we want to spend more time with You in Your word with the exercise of our spirit and under Your shining so that we may have the full knowledge of God’s will. Grant us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Christ as the will of God so that we may have the spiritual wisdom and understanding. Amen, Lord, may there be a spontaneous issue of our knowledge of God’s will, which is to walk worthily of the Lord by living Christ! Amen, Lord, we want to know You in such a real, experiential, and subjective way!
Receiving the Revelation, Walking according to it, and being Strengthened by the Lord with His Power
We should not be presumptuous to think that by our reading the Bible and praying over it we will automatically receive spiritual wisdom and understanding and we will be filled with the full knowledge of God’s will.
Receiving revelation and having a vision is of the Lord, and He does the unveiling, the shining, and the enlightening; He imparts spiritual wisdom and understanding into us.
So we need to pray like Paul in Eph. 1:17, asking the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, to give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him.
We receive revelation from Him; only He can give us revelation, and He does this when He pleases.
On our side we seek Him, we ask Him for revelation, and we deal with the things that He shines on in our being so that revelation may come. When the Lord is pleased to give us the revelation and vision in our spiritual understanding, we need to not stop here but make the decision to walk according to that vision.
This doesn’t mean that, once we receive the vision from the Lord we now work it out on our own, or that we try to work out what the Lord has revealed to us.
No, we merely make the decision, and then He comes in to strengthen us with His power for us to have a walk worthily of the Lord.
We cannot have a walk worthily of the Lord in ourselves, and having a revelation of the Lord’s will merely gives us the vision and base for us to have such a way.
We need the inner empowering from the Lord, the empowering according to the might of His glory (Col. 1:11); this is not merely to have revelation in our understanding but something more.
The Holy Spirit within us strengthens us, energizes us, and imparts the might of God’s glory into us for us to walk worthily of the Lord.
The way for us to live Christ to have a walk worthily of the Lord is therefore first to have the revelation and vision in our spiritual understanding, then make a decision to walk according to that vision, and look to the Lord to strengthen us with His power.
Our walk is not something deliberate – it is something spontaneous, coming from within, an expression of the life and person within us.
Our walking worthily of the Lord is not something we work out by ourselves or we put on as a show for others to see; it is a spontaneous issue of our seeing the revelation of God’s will, making the decision to walk according to this vision, and allowing the Lord to strengthen us with His power for us to have such a walk.
May the Lord show us mercy and grace that we may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God (Col. 4:12) by walking worthily of the Lord in our daily life.
Lord Jesus, grant us Your mercy and grace that we may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God by walking worthily of the Lord in our daily life. Grant us the revelation of Your will and strengthen us with power according to the might of Your glory that we may walk according to this vision. Lord, we choose to live Christ according to the revelation You showed us concerning Your plan; may the Holy Spirit within us strengthen us, energize us, and impart the might of God’s glory into us so that we may walk worthily of the Lord!
Read this article in the Romanian language / citiți acest articol și în limba română la următorul link, Să cunoaștem voia lui Dumnezeu și să umblăm vrednic de Domnul pentru a-L trăi pe Cristos.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, CWWL, 1964, vol. 2, “A General Sketch of the New Testament in the Light of Christ and the Church, Part 2—Romans through Philemon,” p. 341, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing and Experiencing the All-inclusive, Extensive Christ (2019 Thanksgiving Conference), week 1 on the topic of, The Will of God concerning the All-inclusive, Extensive Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Grant us spirit of wisdom and of revelation, / Strengthen us, Lord, with power into our inner man, / Your economy then may become our vision, / And You may make home in our hearts to fulfill Your plan. (Song on, Two Greatest Prayers of Paul)
– As for the church, I need / Thy revelation more, / The Body-life to know, / Thy wisdom to explore. / I long to be unveiled, / In everything made clear, / No more to be deceived / Or to my pride adhere. (Hymns #426)
– I beseech you brothers as a pris’ner in the Lord, / To walk worthily of your calling, / The calling with which you were called, / With all lowliness and meekness, / With long-suffering, / Bearing one another in love, / Being diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit / In the uniting bond of peace. (Scripture song)
About aGodMan
