What Does God Want?

I used to consistently wonder about God’s will for my life. What if I miss it? What if I do one thing and he had something totally different in mind for me? How do I know what God wants?

Back then I wasn’t regularly in the Word and I’ve had major changes in my understanding regarding this subject. As we read the Scriptures, we see God’s heart. We see what he wants for us as his people. One key figure we should pay attention to as we try and live for God is the Apostle Paul.

Why? Paul loved what God loves. He desired what God desires. Paul unlocks one of God’s desires for us in Colossians 1:27 when Paul begins, “God wanted” (CSB). As followers of Jesus, that’s a statement that should really perk up our ears! We have been loved by God and we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. If we’re being told he wants something then we should pay attention because we should want what he wants and what he wants is far better than anything we could want for ourselves.

“God wanted to make known among the Gentiles”—that’s the majority of us reading this—“the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

What a desire from God! We know Jesus’s work on the cross to save sinners was a mystery for ages. If we read our Old Testament, we constantly see the promise of a coming Savior who would set things right! We see the promise of a King who would restore God’s people to God’s place. This was the mystery. Who would this person be? When would he come? But the Jews were God’s people and they fully expected this promised one to restore Israel and the Jewish people. It was absolutely mind blowing for even Peter when God shows him in Acts that the Gentiles will receive the promise too! 

That’s us! This is the best news for us! Notice how Paul describes this… the glorious wealth of this mystery! Paul is saying that God is also lavishly giving riches to us Gentiles who were far off. We were not his chosen people and now he is bringing us in! Paul fleshes this out even more so in Romans 9-11, but here he gives us a beautiful statement that we need to latch onto as those who have been bought by the blood of Jesus.

The glorious wealth of this mystery is Christ in you, the hope of glory! What is glorious is that Christ would dwell in any of us!

Take a moment with me and let’s think about ourselves. Think about yourself, personally! Specifically, think about your sinfulness. I don’t know about you, but I sin every day! I certainly have sinful thoughts. I am naturally bent toward selfishness. When I’m tired, I’m prone to get angry when I shouldn’t. Those things are just the tip of the iceberg. The older I get, the more aware I seem to become of how sinful I really am. Think about your own sins for a moment.

Now, let’s consider the fact that because of just one of these sins, we deserve to be in hell, separated from God and receiving the punishment for this sin forever! That’s what we deserve. God is holy and eternal. Sin is an offense to him because it is rebellion against him.

Now, can we marvel together at the fact that this holy and eternal God would have been perfectly right and good to send us to hell for our sins, but instead, he sends his own Son to live perfectly in our place and then sends him to a cross to take on God’s wrath for our sin! He punishes his own Son—the only innocent one—instead of us! 

Jesus defeats death and Satan and raises from the dead three days later and the promise for us is that if we turn from our sin and believe in Jesus, he will dwell in us. He will dwell in sinful human beings that he died for! Christ in you, the hope of glory! Can we agree that this is the most glorious wealth that our God could give us?

Christ literally in us! Jesus is the hope of glory! He is our seal that we have been adopted into God’s family and can live with him forever! How amazing is God that he would desire to bring us into the family?

How does God accomplish his desire to spread the gospel to both Jews and Gentiles? Through us! We must tell people about Jesus! We must teach them to follow him! Paul says in verse 28, “We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” Our desire should mirror God’s desire to make Christ known so others may experience the hope of glory.