Finding God's Best For You: Keys For Unlocking His Plan

By Mark Avery Reed

In Finding God's Best For You, Dr. Mark Reed explains a practical way of figuring out what the Lord probably wants us to do at many points of decision. The Lord wants us to make choices which reflect what is most important, vital, and best. Unfortunately, many of us lack the ability to consistently and accurately hear God's whispers. Yet, as we are trying to better learn to hear from Him, we still have a way to discern His best will for us in the various situations of life.

Finding God's Best For You shows that the way a lot of us typically discern what is best is through a process of examining different factors and appropriately weighing them. The Lord has very precise things He wants us to do in life far beyond our general mission statement to evangelize, make disciples, serve, be in fellowship, and worship. God has a detailed best for each of us. Learn the six key ways to determine His best and how to further evaluate apparently conflicting messages as we seek to accurately understand God's particular assignment for us each day.

Finding God's Best For You will help you make decisions such as:

-Should I marry this person?
-What career and job should I have?
-Where am I to live?
-If I go to college, which one is best for me?
-What am I to do in ministry?

This book, offers a workable way to more clearly discern God's best for us. It shows that we all will make mistakes but these are not catastrophic. Indeed, God is pleased with our effort to know and do what is His best for us. The Lord always does what is best and expects us to try to be like Him by pursuing what He deems to be most important in the particular situations we face each and every day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Reed Publishing Co.
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780997367621

Mark Avery Reed

Mark Avery Reed is an ordained minister with a Master’s degree in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. He also holds two Master’s degrees in Education and Marriage, Family, and Child Therapy plus two Bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Political Science.He has a number of teaching credentials and experience as a chaplain, counselor, and developer of curriculum on spiritual warfare, biblical doctrine, and healthy family living. Mark seeks to enrich God’s people by examining aspects of biblical truth which are largely ignored today.

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Copyright © 2019 by Reed Publishing Co. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by means or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Published by Reed Publishing Co.

We hope you enjoy this book from Reed Publishing Co. Our goal is to provide high-quality, thought- provoking books and products that teach valuable truths, ideologies, and practices, that you may live out the fullest of God’s calling for your life. For information on other books and products written and produced by Reed Publishing Co., feel free to reach out by either mail, email, or by typing in the web addresses below.

Special thanks to Lion’s Branches and Christian Massey for designing the cover and formatting the interior of this book for print. For more about him and his company, go to lionsbranches.com or reach out directly at christian@ lionsbranches.com.

Reed Publishing Co.

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Printed in the United States of America

First Edition: 2019

Reed Publishing Co. Edition: 2019

ISBN: 978-0-9973676-2-1

Table of Contents

Abbreviations

Introduction

Chapter 1 – Does God Have a ‘Best’ Plan for You?

Chapter 2 – The Lord Does What is Best and So Should You

Chapter 3 – Make the Best Use of Your Time

Chapter 4 – Do Your Best

Chapter 5 – Preparation for Learning God’s Best

Chapter 6 – Using Scripture and the Supernatural

Chapter 7 – Using Your Conscience and the Advice of Others

Chapter 8 – Using Circumstances and Godly Logic

Chapter 9 – Prioritizing the Ways to Find God’s Best

Chapter 10 – Making Mistakes in Determining God’s Best

Chapter 11 – Questions to Ask to Find God’s Best

Conclusion

Appendix 1 – Topics Which Suggest God Has A ‘Best’ Plan For You

Appendix 2 – The Example of Jesus

About the Author

Bibliography

Endnotes

Abbreviations

AAT = An American Translation

ANT = Aramaic New Testament

ASB = Annotated Study Bible

BAGD = Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, Danker Greek-English Lexicon, 2nd edition

BBE = Bible in Basic English

BDAG = Bauer, Danker Greek-English Lexicon, 3rd edition

CCB = Christian Community Bible

CEB = Common English Bible

CEV = Contemporary English Version

CJB = Complete Jewish Bible

CSB = Catholic Study Bible

CW = Clear Word

EBC = Expositor’s Bible Commentary

ESV = English Standard Version

EVD = English Version for the Deaf

GW = God’s Word

HCSB = Holman Christian Standard Bible

ISV = International Standard Version

IVPBBC-NT = The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament

IVPBBC-OT = The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament

JB = Jerusalem Bible

KJV = King James Version

LAB = Life Application Bible

LB = Living Bible

NAB = New American Bible

NASB = New American Standard Bible

NBV = New Berkeley Version

NCV = New Century Version

NEB = New English Bible

NET = New English Translation

NIV = New International Version, Study Bible

NJB = New Jerusalem Bible

NLT = New Living Translation

NLV = New Life Version

NRSV = New Revised Standard Version

PEB = Plain English Bible

RSV = Revised Standard Version

SFLB = Spirit-Filled Life Bible

TCNT = Twentieth Century New Testament

TEV = Today’s English Version

TNT = Translator’s New Testament

TNIV = Today’s NIV

WPNT = Word Pictures in the New Testament

WSNT = Word Studies in the New Testament

YLT = Young’s Literal Translation

ZPEB = Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible

Introduction

Are you experiencing God’s best for your life or are you simply choosing from a list of biblically acceptable choices? In Isa 48:17, the Lord tells His people that He wants to direct them into what is best – not into an experience of merely acceptable or even good choices.¹ When you reach key points in your life, and many seemingly less critical ones, God does have a choice which is best for you. Does it matter if you go to one school rather than another? Does the Lord care who you marry, where you live, what career you have, or in what type of ministry you walk? Yes. The Lord wants to tell you what is best for you in all areas. This involves far more than simply trying to apply Scriptural principles.

While He was on earth, the Lord Jesus always did what was best. He always listened to the Father so He could say and do exactly what the Father wanted said and done.² In addition, He always looked for and tried to discern, in the everyday events of His life, what specific things the Father wanted Him to do.³ He heard and saw perfectly. This is a strongly prophetic, intuitive, right-brain way of hearing and discerning.

However, since no one hears and sees perfectly, having a more structured, rational, left-brain approach can be helpful when you are trying to learn how to better hear and see as Jesus did. Both can be valuable. Hence, while the ideas in this book for finding God’s best are not a step-by-step approach, they do offer some helpful ways of sharpening your ability to accurately listen and discern what God wants for you in each situation.

The Bible is full of passages about ‘the best.’ You become more aware of this as you read the Bible in a variety of translations. Hence, I refer to numerous translations throughout this book which actually use the word ‘best.’ In many cases, I have italicized ‘best’ so you know it is rendered that way by that version.

The Lord expects His people to choose and do what is best. Enjoying the intimacy of loving union with Him is what is truly best. Yet, you reach that point by increasingly listening to Him and cooperatively following Him in all the specifics of your life. Why settle for what is biblically acceptable when, instead, you can move toward having the kind of relationship which Jesus had with God? Merely settling for decisions which are consistent with Scripture is not walking under the guidance of the Holy Spirit as all believers are required to live. So aim to live more fully. Know His best for you as an individual and, thus, become more intimate with Him. In such a relationship, you ideally do nothing, absolutely nothing, on your own initiative but are fully surrendered to doing all the specifics of His will.

Chapter 1 - Does God Have a ‘Best’ Plan for You?

In life you will frequently have to answer questions such as ‘With what ministry should I be involved?’ ‘What career should I pursue?’ ‘What job should I take?’ ‘Where should I live?’ ‘To what church should I belong?’ and ‘Which of these believers should I marry?’ You will have to decide whether you believe that such decisions are a matter of indifference to the Lord or whether your heavenly Father may have a plan for your life that is specific enough to include such choices. If He does have a preference on these kinds of decisions, then you should try to discover His preference – what He sees as being best.

Does the Bible teach that God has this kind of best for you? I believe it does. In part, this is suggested by passages which indicate that the Lord has a specific destiny for each individual, that He has a perfect and detailed will for His people, that He has appointed particular tasks for individuals, and that activities which represent our own will, however well-intended, are wrong. The example of Jesus also points toward the Lord having a detailed plan for each believer.⁴

Matthew and Luke-Acts, which were originally written as one book, contain the Lord’s Prayer and many instances of His guidance.⁵ In that prayer, Jesus taught believers to habitually ask that God’s will be done. If these books show that God’s will includes specific details in the lives of His people, then you should seek to determine, pray for, and live out the particular details of His plan for your life.

Since God so often directed particular individuals to do specific things, it seems apparent that He has a preference on such issues. Keep in mind that the Lord only had some instances of guidance recorded in the Bible. Yet, given the brevity of the recorded accounts, even some occasions of specific guidance very likely indicate that He directed them in particular ways at other times as well. Hence, if there is a pattern of such guidance in Matthew and Luke-Acts, then this is probably how the Lord normally works.

Specific Examples of Guidance

Where To Go⁶

There are a number of occasions when the Lord directed an individual to go to a specific place. Thus, a star led the three wise men to the general area of Jerusalem so they could meet the King of the Jews. This star also led the three wise men from Jerusalem to the exact place where Jesus was.

It was important that these individuals went where the Lord wanted and when He told them to go or they would have missed His will for their lives. Joseph’s family would have been endangered had he not moved where and when God directed him. Failure to follow His specific guidance also would have kept the wise men from seeing Jesus and giving needed assets to Joseph and Mary for their move to Egypt. Had they not been obedient to the Lord’s precise guidance, the shepherds, too, would have missed the life-changing event of beholding the Messiah.

Likewise, the Holy Spirit guided Simeon to just the right place at precisely the right time so he could see Jesus. This fulfilled what the Spirit had previously told Simeon about seeing the Messiah before he died. Had Simeon not gone where he was prompted to