Some random thoughts...about God's will, etc.

I don't even know how I started thinking about this subject, but I was just sitting here eating my lunch, and I had these thoughts in my head and decided that I should put them to good use somewhere. So, I'll just post it here on my blog... and let you all see it and tell me what you think.

I'm pondering the roles of a pastor, the Bible, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit in our lives in relation to God's will for our lives. To many people, "God's Will" is such a mysterious concept, but it is so important. It should determine who we marry, how many children we have, and basically everything we should be doing with our lives. Since God's will is different for every person (except for one part - salvation), we must have some kind of guide to determine what really is His will (as opposed to our own will). Here are some of my thoughts on the subject...

The Guide to God's will in our lives is without a doubt, the Bible. Without the Bible, we'd have no standard to measure our lives by. It would be like trying to build a house without a ruler or measuring tape. Everyone involved in building the house would be measuring materials by his own idea of what an inch is, and the house wouldn't be very sturdy. I don't need to go into a whole lot of detail about why we need the Bible to guide our lives, because most people reading this blog know that already.


Jesus Christ is the Mediator between us and God. It is through Him that we communicate to God in prayer. We get to know Him by reading the Bible.

The Holy Spirit guides us as we read the Bible, helping us understand it so that we can apply it to our lives. That is one of the reasons it is so important for each individual Christian to obey 2 Timothy 2:15. If we don't study the Bible ourselves, we'll either follow a man or be tossed about by every wind of doctrine.

Now I've come to the part that started this whole thought process. The role of the pastor. His role is not the same as the Holy Spirit's role. He is not to tell you what God's will is for your life. His job is to keep a close relationship to God (through prayer and Bible study), and share truths from the Bible from the pulpit. He is not a prophet or a priest. He is only a godly man, given the responsibility to edify the saints. Any pastor who goes beyond this role and tries to control how you live is stepping out of his boundaries and trying to do the Holy Spirit's job. The pastor's only authority is in the church, and that is an administrative role necessary for keeping things "decent and in order".

The reason I started to think about this is because I have seen situations where a pastor tries to control the lives of people in his church, and it makes it a rough situation for anyone attending that church. I just wanted to remind everyone that a pastor that does this is wrong, and you should never feel obligated to let him be the "Holy Spirit" for you. I believe that some pastors do this because they don't know better, and it's just the way they were taught by someone else. There are some that do it just because they're power-hungry and want control. Only God knows the heart of these men.

I hope this was an encouragement to someone. I normally don't post on subjects like this, but I felt like it was important for some reason.