How To Know God's Will?

·26 min·2 clips

After watching his father die in poverty, Paul built businesses and planned to fund ministry from behind — then God told him 'I don't want your money, I want you,' leading him to shut down everything and enter full-time service.

1. Raj Prakash Paul opens by referencing a previous week's teaching on watchfulness, positioning this sermon as a continuation focused specifically on understanding God's will. 2. Paul is the sole speaker; no guests or co-host are present; the episode appears to be delivered to a live congregation and distributed as a podcast. 3. The sermon's core argument is that knowing God's will requires three things: asking God directly, recognising one's natural gifting, and submitting to the process of service as a means of self-discovery. 4. Paul opens with a personal testimony: after watching his father die in poverty, he resolved to build businesses and support ministry financially from behind, believing that was his calling. 5. During a night vision, he heard God say 'I don't want your money, I want you' — a message he initially questioned, wondering if it was his own dream, until the vision repeated itself a second time. 6. He then shut down all his companies, left everything, and entered full-time ministry service — describing this as a decision made on the basis of two confirming visions rather than a single experience. 7. Paul spent 11 years as a servant in someone else's ministry, working under accountability without a public role, describing this period as 'equipping myself, preparing myself' and discovering who he was through practice. 8. He cites Hebrews 10:7 — 'God, I have come to fulfil your will, as written about me in the scroll' — arguing that God has pre-written a purpose for every person before birth. 9. Drawing on Jeremiah 1, Paul focuses on the verse 'before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you and ordained you as a prophet to the nations,' using 'sanctified' to mean the process of separating gold from stone — identifying what is valuable in a person. 10. He uses the analogy that Bethlehem (birthplace) represents a starting point, not a destination — 'Bethlehem is to be born, not to die' — arguing that humble beginnings are part of God's design but not the final story. 11. Paul addresses a central question directly: 'How do I know what God has placed in me?' and answers that natural instinct — what comes without being forced — is the indicator of gifting. 12. He challenges the assumption that 'gifting' refers only to creative or ministry roles, using an eye surgeon he personally knows as his example: that surgeon's cataract technique requires a one-second hand movement of precision no current medical technology can replicate. 13. He extends this to architecture and engineering, arguing that all professional domains contain the possibility of God-given gifting and that people limit themselves by thinking only certain roles count as 'calling.' 14. Paul argues that 'service is your training' — that the 11 years he spent as an unseen servant were not wasted but were the process by which he was equipped and by which he discovered his own capacity. 15. He addresses a group he describes as young people who come to work, saying that he can identify their gifting by watching how they respond under pressure — 'when there is a need, your head will come out; when there is no need, your head will not come out.' 16. Paul draws a direct parallel between his own 11-year servanthood and the example of Jeremiah, who initially resisted his calling by saying 'I am a child, I cannot speak,' and received the response that God would be with him wherever he was sent. 17. He returns to the theme of this year being a moment of decision, urging listeners to write down their gifts, spend time reflecting, and identify what they can do naturally. 18. A middle section of the sermon shifts into Telugu, the speaker's first language, addressing the congregation directly in that language before returning to English. 19. The closing prayer asks God to help each listener discover their purpose, live as 'children in freedom,' and receive healing for anyone who is sick. 20. The episode suits Christians who are at a crossroads in their career or calling and are asking questions about purpose; listeners seeking general self-help content without a faith dimension will find the framework unfamiliar.

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