“And he answered them, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?'” Luke 13:2
October 19, 2022
Some Christians struggle “to find God’s will.” Such a quest can become quite difficult and confusing. For example, a bride gets sick on the day of the wedding so she thinks (wrongly) God’s doesn’t want her to get married. On one occasion Jesus was approached by some who believed in the common misconception about the relation of suffering to sin. It was assumed that misfortune was the result of sin in the life of the group or the individual. Jesus responds by making it clear that a tragedy is not a divine verdict on the guilt or innocence of a person. We must not attempt to determine what we should do (God’s moral will) based upon what happens (God’s sovereign will). When a tragedy takes place we should ask, “What lesson is there in this for me?” Jesus told his interrogators that the proper response to a disaster is to repent and turn to Christ. Seek the Lord while He may be found. One day the opportunity to be saved will be withdrawn. This whole episode (Lk. 13:1-7) is a reminder that we are not commanded to “find God’s will,” but to do God’s will. Much paganism and superstition can be bound up in “Christianized” forms of divination (use of promise boxes, flipping open one’s Bible, relying on the first thought that comes to one’s mind after prayer). This is a mark of immaturity. There is no command in the Bible to seek special revelation. Christians who are young in the faith often resort to reading into circumstances God’s revealed will. It is as Jay Adams has said, “circumstances are not like a can of sardines. They don’t come with a key attached.” We must train ourselves to be wisdom seekers, not sign readers. H
A time to pray: “Lord God, give me a biblically guided mind so that I might live by faith and not by sight.”