When we talk about the adversaries of God, everyone thinks about Satan and his demons. But the painful reality is that, sometimes, the ones that claim to follow God put themselves in a position that creates opposition to His plans.

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One of the most painful experiences I had in the church was facing opposition inside the church against something that I was positive that God had instructed me to do.

The Bible gives us several examples of people who had good intentions, they never meant to oppose God’s will, but in fact they did.

These people were in a position to, somehow, help God’s purpose be achieved, but they inadvertently ended up fighting against it. Check out some of them:

• The friends of Job criticized him, judged him, preached to him, but they were wrong. God Himself told them that, and in the end they depended upon Job’s prayer to be forgiven (see Job 19:19, Job 42:7-9).
• King Saul, who was originally chosen by God to be Israel’s king, tried to kill David, who was anointed and chosen by God to be his substitute (see 1 Samuel 16:1-13, 1 Samuel 19).
• The pharisees persecuted Jesus and planned to kill Him, even though there were hundreds of prophecies in the Bible that proved Jesus to be the Messiah they waited for (see Mark 3:6, Matthew 12:14).
• Saul (who later changed his name to Paul) persecuted and killed the early christians. He believed he was defending God’s cause. Jesus Himself showed him how wrong he was (see Acts 8:1-3, Acts 9:1-9).

Why did all those people made such a great mistake?

They did it simply because they made up their minds, they decided what they wanted to do based on their own experiences and preferences, but they didn’t consider God’s will. They didn’t pray and ask God about it before taking action.

And although it is easy to look back on these well known characters and judge them, I now realize how easy it is to make such a mistake.

Human beings are prone to create pre-defined rules, and live by them. “You can do this, you can’t do that” kind of rules. And they make decisions based on those rules. But the problem is that most of the times, those rules are not based on the Word of God, they are based on human experience and preferences.

But what about the will of God? That’s the key.

Before taking action, for or against something, we need to figure out what is the will of God.

How do we do it?

Searching for basis in the Bible and praying about it.

Does the Bible says anything for or against it? Is there biblical evidence to approve it or reject it?

The more important the issue, the more we need to be sure what is God’s position about it, and take it ourselves.

It’s not about our personal preference, about what we think is right, what we think works. It is about God! The moment we become christians, it all becomes about Him.

It has to be about Him, or we may find ourselves in the wrong side of the matter, in opposition to God’s will. I am sure that none of us wants to ever be there.