what is the will of God? How many people have wondered that? God, what is Your will? Oh God, what is Your will? There's so many decisions we face - God, what do you want? You don't know what He wants, because somehow it's very quiet. Paul in Colossians 1:19 says he was praying that we'd be filled with knowledge of the will of God, so clearly it's God's plan you know his will and two, that you actually be filled with understanding and have a sense of knowing what to do at any point in time. Yet that's not what most of us experience, so I want you follow - so how can I find the will of God?
Why don't we just turn in Ephesians, Chapter 5. I'm full of the Holy Ghost today, absolutely, up praying, getting full of the Holy Ghost. It's good to be full of the Holy Ghost, otherwise you're full of something else usually, you know, depression and heaviness and fears and anxieties and worries. God wants us to be full of the Holy Ghost! Full of the Holy Ghost! I hope before you go out today you get filled up. You'll open your life and get filled up, and we've been doing a series on desire and destiny, but there's one more thing I had just burning in my heart that I just wanted to share, and I want to talk about the Holy Ghost and the will of God, because all of us want to know well, what is God's plan for my life? So we're going to go searching all our desires and whatever, and we want to find out what God's plan is.
Of course you'll notice if you read the Bible you can't get answers for everything you want. It's just like there's some things He didn't talk about, so kind of left there, so we need to get some help on that. We're made for God's pleasure, and God has wired certain things into our heart, so one way of finding God's purpose for your life is to connect with the desires of your heart. Now one of the things we have to realise though is we live in a culture which is very, very self-centred. Had you noticed? It's [laughs] and it's fuelled by instant everything, so I want it all and I want it now! This is not a good culture, a good environment, to be a godly person, because God doesn't give it all, and He doesn't give it now. He gives it all, but not now, and that's the dilemma, because in the world you want it all up front, so there's a challenge that the generation arising has, that in the west it's all a very 'me' centred culture, that community and responsibility - community is broken down, and actually the prevailing culture is, what about me? It's all about me - what do I get? What do I want? How can I get ahead?
So even in the universities the flow of education is towards what's in this for me, what do I want? How can I get ahead? Then that overflows to well, how can you help me get ahead? I will have connection with you while you help me get ahead, and after that then, if you don't help me get any further ahead, goodbye. This actually totally violates kingdom culture, so there's a spirit operating in the world today, that affects us without even thinking, that it's all about me, and my fulfilment, and my desires, my destiny, but actually it's not about that at all. The Bible says we're made for His pleasure, and so just following your desires isn't enough. It's a great way to identify things that God's put in you, but left to that alone, you'll be caught in the spirit of the world and the spirit of the age, just do what you want to do, and you'll find yourself very, very far from what God has planned for you, which is much better.
I won't go into all these. The Bible talks very clearly in the last days, in 2 Timothy 3, it says challenging or difficult times will be in the earth, and one of the reasons is because people love themselves. They're wrapped up in themselves. It said that they're truce breakers, or in other words, they don't enter into committed relationships easily. They're ungrateful and unthankful, and have got issues with their parents. Sound familiar? It's very true. We're having a breakdown in culture which is very well described in the Bible. It says, God calls those days perilous days, and so when people are wrapped up in a culture or in a mentality that it's about me and my fulfilment, then what happens is, we miss the best part of God's work, which is always concerned with something bigger than just ourselves.