As believers, I think it is safe to say that all of us want to know the will of God. We all want to know what His desire and His intentions are in every area and in every situation. Many times we cry out to God asking Him to reveal His will to us, and we preface our prayers with “Lord, if it’s your will...”, and we pray this way because we do not know His will… we are unsure of what His will is. However it is very difficult; some would even say impossible, to act with boldness and confidence if we are not sure that God is backing us up. It’s very difficult to step out in faith if we are uncertain whether God’s will is for us to do that. The good news is that He knows that we want to know – and He has not left us wondering what His will is. God has given us the perfect image and example of His will. And as we look at the living image of God – Jesus – we will know what the will of God is, and not be in doubt or uncertainty any longer. This is what we will be studying today.
Many times when trying to determine the outcome of a situation, we look to our past experiences. I find that this is true in many places, but especially in Christian circles, and often in prayer as well. I have been in prayer groups, where we would pray for someone who had a debilitating condition, and we would pray, but then someone would say, “you know, there was a great Christian who had this condition, and they died”… and the moment that was said, it was as if it sucked all of the belief out of the room. People’s thoughts were moved from, “Yes God is a great Healer”, to, “Well if that great Christian died, I guess God doesn’t heal”. We tend to allow our experiences to determine our future, even without being consciously aware that we are doing it. And we also are influenced by all of the negativity floating around from all of the other people who do the same. So today we will be looking at what God Himself says about your future, about His outlook and forecast for your life… unlike the weather, His forecast is always one-hundred percent reliable and trustworthy.