Paul thought it was important for the believers in Rome to know what God’s will was for their lives. Paul spent most of his letter explaining the gospel to the Romans and making it clear to them that receiving God’s gift of salvation was the first and most important step in the life of a Christian. Paul went on to explain how God’s plan of salvation was intended to make salvation available to everyone (Romans 10:5-21) and how Israel had been used to accomplish this goal (Romans 11:1-24) and would eventually be brought back into God’s family through faith in Christ rather than through the Law of Moses (Romans 11:25-36). Paul then talked about believers becoming a living sacrifice, the gifts of grace and the marks of a true Christian. Within this section of Paul’s letter was hidden a key biblical truth that could easily be overlooked if not for the fact that Paul emphasized this point so strongly, it was like a knockout punch that left the reader wondering, why didn’t I see that coming. Paul introduced his point with the statement, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). Paul made note of the fact that spiritual worship involves a sacrifice, but instead of this sacrifice involving death, a living sacrifice had to be presented to God. Paul stated:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

Paul indicated that God’s will is revealed to believers by testing. The Greek word that is translated into the phrase by testing you may discern in Romans 12:2, dokimazo (dok-im-adˊ-zo) means “to make trial of, put to the proof, examine by any method (G1381). The New Living Translation version of Romans 12:2 says it this way: “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” According to this translation, the goal is to develop a new way of thinking and the way that believers get there is by learning to know God’s will. God uses testing to teach believers lessons about how he works. God said in Isaiah 55:8-9, “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts…And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts” (NLT).

The process that Paul associated with discerning the will of God is not identified in Romans 12:2, but in his first letter to the Thessalonians Paul said, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. (1 Thessalonians 4:3-6, NKJV). In this passage, Paul stated plainly that for a believer, the will of God is your sanctification. In other words, God’s will = sanctification. Sanctification is the process in which a believer is transformed by the renewing of their mind into the image of Christ. Paul gave us the details of this process in Ephesians 4:22-24 and Colossians 3:8-14. Paul indicated in Colossians 3:10 that the model used for the renewal of the believer’s mind is “the image of him that created him (KJV). It says in Genesis 1:27 that God created man in his own image, but when sin entered the world, that image was marred. Sanctification results in the restoration of the divine image. Paul said in Romans 8:29 that believers were predestined by God “to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

Paul described the will of God in Romans 12:2 as that which is “good, and acceptable and perfect.” Each of these words conveys a different aspect of God’s character that can identify someone as a Christian or more specifically, as a child of God. Good refers to someone or something that is profitable or useful (G18). When a rich young ruler asked Jesus, “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16, NKJV), Jesus pointed him back to the source of goodness, God: “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God” (Matthew 19:17, NKJV) and then, Jesus added, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21). The Greek word teleios (telˊ-i-os), which is translated perfect, means “finished, that which has reached its end, term, limit; hence, complete, full, lacking nothing” and is used in a moral sense of persons (G5046). Something is acceptable when it pleases the person or satisfies the need for which it was intended. Paul said that believers are to be a living sacrifice, “holy and acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1).

Jesus modeled for us what it means to do the will of God and told his disciples, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Later Jesus told a parable about two sons to make it clear to his disciples and others what doing the will of God looked like. Jesus asked:

“What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.” (Matthew 21:28-32)

Jesus indicated that believing sometimes requires you to change your mind and linked this effort to doing the will of God. According to Paul, changing your mind involves a complete transformation, what he described as a renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2).

Renewing your mind so that you can discern the will of God is a lifelong process that brings you closer and closer to Christ. Moses is the only person in the Bible who had face to face communication with God before Jesus entered the world. It says in Exodus 33:11, “Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. Because of the intimate communication between Moses and God, it says in Exodus 34:29 that the skin of his face shone. The people were afraid to come near Moses so, “he put a veil over his face” (Exodus 34:35). Paul explained in his second letter to the Corinthians that for those whose minds are hardened, “that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away” (2 Corinthians 3:14). Paul went on to explain that turning to the Lord results in the veil being removed. Paul said, “But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:16-18). The phrase turn to the Lord refers to conversion or what Jesus described as being born again (John 3:3). When this occurs, Paul said “the veil is removed” (2 Corinthians 3:16) and we are able to discern the will of God from that point forward.

Being able to discern the will of God does not guarantee that we will do it as was illustrated in Jesus’ parable of the two sons (Matthew 21:28-32). Jesus made a conscious decision to do his Father’s will rather than his own in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). Jesus didn’t want to die on the cross, but in obedient submission to his Father, he did what was necessary to accomplish God’s will. Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25). Giving up our will in order to do the will of God is comparable to losing our life because the will is what drives our daily actions. The Greek word that is translated deny, aparneomai (ap-ar-nehˊom-ahee) means “to disown and renounce self, to disregard all personal interests and enjoyments” (G533). After Jesus had discussed the concept of being united with Christ, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” (John 6:60). John went on to tell us, “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him” (John 6:66). Knowing that they had doubts about their commitment to follow him and to doing God’s will regardless of the personal sacrifice, John tells us, “Jesus said to the Twelve, ‘Do you want to go away as well?’” (John 6:67). Jesus’ direct question resulted in a declaration by Peter that “we have believed, and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69), and yet, when Jesus was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane, “then all of his disciples left him and fled” (Matthew 26:56).