Living in God's will. Part III

So far I have danced around the issue of knowing whether you 'in God's will' or not.  Firstly I have said we are all out of it to some degree ala the 10 commandments and other moral standards.  Secondly there is the consideration of specific will and how far it's detail extends.  Sufficed to say that whatever level you subscribe to, you will probably be aware that you are unable to perfectly live up to it.  So I have gotten away with being able to say that we are always out of God's will to some degree but that would be such a dualistic view.

Accepting that we aren't perfect and will never perfectly live as Christians does not excuse us from following Jesus to the degree we can, and it is this degree that I now want to make the focus of the question of living in God's will.  

First we should note that the possibility of our ever being perfect is totally ruled out by I John 1 so the issue is not perfection, the issue is where we are pointing - what pilots would call attitude, what yachties would call heading, what John Mitchell would call journey.  Boiling it all down to the moment - is what you are choosing taking a step toward Jesus or not?  Here is where it gets interesting because this is where people have different views on WWJD and therefore what we should do.  I will discuss some of the tools we have to judge whether we are stepping to Jesus or away and will also refer to views of what is holy and what is not.