Beware the Trap
January 24th, 2008 | Michael Q. Pink
Did you know that you can be so obsessed with knowing God’s will that you can be trapped in paralysis? Afraid to step out because you are not sure if it is God’s will. I would wager that nearly everyone reading this post has struggled or is currently struggling with this issue and it’s something we need to revisit now.
Some people are so obsessed with knowing God’s will for their life they ask God what clothes to wear or what restaurant to eat at today. Can you imagine having adult kids that checked with you daily over simple matters like that? Now thankfully most of us aren’t stuck in that rut, but still we wonder if the dream we have is of God or not. We want three signs, a prophecy and advance payment just to be sure! Where is your sense of adventure?!?!
When Solomon dedicated the temple, he quoted God who had previously said that He had “chosen no city from any tribe of Israel in which to build a house that My name might be there, but I chose David…” (1 Kings ch.8) Solomon goes on to explain that it was David who had it in his heart to build a temple for the name of the Lord God of Israel. This was not something God ordered, but it was in David’s heart and David perhaps more than any Old Testament figure delighted in God’s presence and God delighted in him - and blessed the building of the temple.
Want to know if the dream you have or the work you are doing is God’s will for your life? Do like Augustine suggested… Love God, and then do as you please. When you delight yourself in the Lord, He will give you the desires of your heart. The key is to truly love God, and then your desires will be in line. To be continued…
Digg This Share This
January 24th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Yes - this is so much more simple than we make it. We can be so conditioned by “religion” and doing the right thing that we forget about just “being” Being with Jesus, being in His presence, and being filled with His Spirit - this is not something we work up. After all, we love Him because He first loved us.
Great points! I like to rephrase the KISS principle to - Keep It Simple Saint.
Love and devotion, that grows through relationship is powerful. He has made us free, it is not about bondage, it is not about works, it is about love and it is about being changed and being made new in Christ.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Wow, did this really help me!! You were talking about me exactly!! This article is an answer to prayer! Thank you so much!
January 24th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Thank you Michael, this is a timely word because I’m in the process of making the decision to go back to school for my Masters in Business. I thought to myself just last night, is this God’s will? Personally I feel like I need to continue to grow and move forward, or else I will stagnate and not position myself for better job opportunities. I think that is excellent thinking, and how can anything excellent not be God’s will? If I don’t dive in now, then when? I just need to go for it. In the past I have agonized over career moves and fretted about not knowing if it was God’s will or not. But I will tell you, I had made a career move at one point that was like jumping from the frying pan into the fire, but down the road, God used that terrible experience in my current position - when I had not even added it to my resume, but it came out in a conversation that I had been an Air Force recruiter and that was a definate asset to my current position. God used for good what I thought was a failure. To God be the Glory!
January 24th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Amen to that I believe every word of this. The issue is to step out in water ,that is what i call faith. Surely to be honest someone once said the graveyard is the richest place under the earth , so full of unfulfilled dreams and visions ! Yes the issue is to get lost but in the presence of The Lord and my question is how can I get lost in His presence no way so lets lose it bros and sisters lets get in water ie step out in faith glory!!! very small we are but with a very big God on our side mmmm the sky is the limit
January 24th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Thank you Michael, I have always struggled with this and was so afraid of being out of His will and like Maureen said I now see how over my life every job he has placed me in has served a purpose even the ones I questioned “Why me, Lord?”. I just started real estate in the Florida market and it has always been my desire since I was young, I am now in my mid 50’s but I still find myself scared and not having the confidence to pursue my heart’s desires, I plan on purchasing your materials so please any insight anyone can give me will be greatly appreciated. At this point I fell overwhelmed with what to learn and where to start. My flesh says I am crazy but my spirit says to trust in the Lord….several years ago I went to an seminar you had in Fort Lauderdale and was very impressed with your ministry and materials available and pray God’s continued blessings on your life and your family.
January 24th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Proverbs 3.5,6 Trust in the Lord wilth all your heart,lean not on your own understanding,In all your ways acknowlege Him and He shall direct your path.
Bible says His sheep hear His voice
Augustine suggested..love god and do as you please.
Do we wait to hear his voice(direction) or do we do as we please?
Please help!
January 24th, 2008 at 10:48 am
I believe that God “uses all of it”. A so called right decision or wrong decision — God will use it in your life to bring you where He wants you. Pray without ceasing (meaning talk with God, share with God, commune with Him in your mind all the time) and then DO. If you are saved then you have a Godly heart and mind. Granted there is “the flesh” and the devil, but if you are in relationship with God through Jesus the desire of your heart are Godly desires. Pick something! God will use it for His good purpose even if the outcome of your choice may not be what you had hoped for!
January 24th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Hello Michael,
That was a wonderful article. I like your premise, that being that if you delight to know the Lord and and are trying to please Him then just by its very nature you are in His will. In other words if you are in such a close relationship with the Lord and you woke up with a strong desire to call a long lost friend, you seem to be saying that that is the will of God because you are so closely intertwined with Him that His desires becomes yours. I like that notion, because in order for the Lord to physically hug me it is most likely going to come from another human being. God will direct some other person to hug me. Therefore, if God in His infinite wisdom and power can orchestrate a simple hug, couldn’t He also orchestrate the development of a multi-billion dollar business which in turns will be used to further the kingdom? Feeling led to give someone a hug and doing it can be a little scary, but to feel led to start a multi-billion dollar corporation can seem down-right impossible. We tend to forget that we are talking about the creator of the heaven and earth. Jesus even commented on this notion when He asked the scribes “which is easier, to say ‘your sins be forgiven,’ or to say ‘arise, take up your bed and walk’? (Mark 2:8-11) The answer, of course, they are both easy for the Lord. However, which is the greater blessing to have ones sins forgiven or to have relief from a physical/mental condition? And of course the answer to that is to have ones sins forgiven. We human beings tend to be stuck in the size or the results of an event, rather that in the fact that to God all things are possible. We would rather the small scraps from the table rather than to sit at the table and enjoy the main course. Your article really opened up my eyes to the fact that if we are seeking the Lord with a pure and whole heart then His will becomes our desire. Thank you very much Sir.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Recently I have felt that my life has come to an end, that my usefulness to God is over. Having been a Christian since the age of eight and serving Him faithfully all my life I question the financial difficulties He is allowing me to suffer due to my life savings being defrauded from me by two men who are now in prison for twenty years. I have had to sell my beautiful home and am now looking for a rental. My prayer is that God would give me a rental close to my mother (she is 90 years young) so that I can get to her quickly when needed.
Your message today encourages me to go forward. A home for rent has just come available… within walking distance of my mother’s home. the rent is more than I thought I could afford but I am going to go forth in faith knowing that God placed it there just for me. I will trust Him for the necessary funds. Thank you Michael for your encouragement. God is good.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:49 am
What a confirmation!!! I had just read this very thing in Bill Johnson’s/Kris Vallotton’s book “The Supernatural Ways of Royalty”! I just read it this morning, and then receive this email saying the very same thing about the very same scripture! God is so good!
January 24th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
First of all, Gail I pray everything works out for you and you find a place by your dear Mom. My mom is elderly and I praise God I live so close, it really helps.
Second, I am really enjoying these messages.
Now, my spouse started two businesses, and has lost all confidence in his ability to grow them. I am not the one who does the outside marketing, I do the web marketing. He is a huge people person and he is the one so very very good at getting out and selling. But he doesnt want to do it anymore, and we desperately need a couple more good accounts so we can pay our taxes etc. He is not a believer, he is Jewish, but he knows God answers my prayers all the time.
It is my desire to get things busy again, so I can put in my days in the office but then go out and spend one day a week in church ministry.
I was holding the want ads the other day, worrying about taking a job. If I did, we might have more income, but my spouse would not be motivated and would really let all go. Long story short, something happened with my church to change my mind.
So now I do believe I am not meant to go out to work outside the home business.
Somehow, I have to have faith that God will help our business and give my spouse enthusiasm and confidence again. I really need help,, and I pray God gives us answers, but I know I need to trust.
January 24th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Fantastic! Having been in the mortgage business for over 17 years, 2007 was quite challenging. But it’s in my heart to continue. That’s exactly what we’ll do. The marketplace needs our light!
January 24th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I will await more on this teaching. But there is a very thin line here. It is easy to say, “truly love God and your desires will be in line.” But there is the human condition which can color this. There are many examples of this in the Bible. John the Baptist loved God & Jesus, yet he sent his disciples to challenge Jesus to get on with the agenda (get rid of the Romans). But John truly didn’t understand the agenda. This was John’s self will that wanted this course of action. The Kashrut laws are another example. There was a “showdown” between Paul and several other disciples on this. They were sincere in feeling the converting non-Jews should follow the Kashrut Laws as well as get circumsized. To say follow your heart, love God and all will work out is bad teaching.
There are several ways to confirm that something is from God, a passage or scripture you run across in the Bible (not Bible roulette) that confirms, a dream (The same dream back to back MEANS SOMETHING IS IMMINENT. WITNESS JOSEPH), A prophecy or word of knowledge, a teaching from the pulpit. All of these are legitimate ways to confirm.
Bill
January 24th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
There are Godly desires and self desires.Check your motives and you will know the difference!.
Please read 2 Samuel 7…a discussion between David and the prophet .David tells the prophet what is on his heart and How God gives directions with regards to the temple!
January 24th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Right on NK, What is all of our desires that made us write these posts? Did God tell us to???
Pride and/or trying to separate good vs. bad teaching (anything good can be mis-used or misunderstood, like the Bible), or helping others fulfill their calling.
We are commanded to do all in Christ’s name, in His will, and thus, in love, for God is love.
January 24th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Praise the Lord! This is so true. I have been talking with my sister on this very subject. She wouldn’t budge, but finally I told her that the Lord gave us logical minds and when He put Adam on the earth He told Adam to tend the garden. He didn’t say, pull these weeds here and pull those over there and….. He said, go and ……. I called my sister and read this to her and she has made 3 decisions that she had been fretting over for weeks wanting to know God’s will for her. Thank you for sharing this.
January 24th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Thank You!! I needed to hear this today. What divine timing. I take it to hear and move forward as needed. Thank You!!
January 24th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Great comments everyone. I want to drill down on what Michael said :The key is to truly love God, and then your desires will be in line.”
What the Love of God Is Not
So what does it mean to love God? How can you know if you are in this number? The best way I can think to make the answer clear is to say three things that love for God is not. At least the essence of love for God is not these three things.
Loving God is not meeting his needs. The way we love man is different from the way we love God. In Acts 17:25 Paul said, “He [is not] served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.” God is radically different from us. He is the source of all things and has no needs. He cannot be helped or improved. There are no defects to reverse or deficiencies to supply. We cannot love him by supplying his needs. He has none. Therefore the essence of our love for him must be an experience of receiving. (And I do regard joy as essentially receiving pleasure from the object of our delight.)
That leads to the second thing that love for God is not. Loving God is not, in its essence, love for his gifts – gifts like forgiveness, justification, escape from hell, resurrection to a pain-free life, wealth, prestige, power,etc. Indeed if we love God, we will cherish these gifts and be thankful for them, because we would not have God without them. But loving God is treasuring God himself revealed in his gifts and treasuring God himself beyond his gifts. His gifts are precious to the degree that they bring us to God and show us more of God. When you love God, God is central in your affections, not his gifts.
This word “affections” leads us to the third thing that love for God is not. The essence of loving God is not the things that love for God prompts you to do. Love for God may prompt you to leave mother and father and forsake all that to declare his glory among the nations. But leaving mother and father and forsaking all are not the essence of love – they are the fruit of love. Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” This does not mean keeping his commandments is love. It means love is the kind of heart that prompts you to keep commandments.
In John 21:15-17 Jesus illustrates this connection when he asks Simon Peter three times, “Do you love me?” When Peter says, “Yes,” Jesus does not say, “Good, that must mean you are obeying my commandments, because obeying my commandments is love.” No, he said, “Feed my sheep.” In other words, if you love me, act like it. Love my flock and feed them. Feeding sheep is the fruit of loving Jesus.
In other words, what I am saying is that love for God is a matter of the heart’s esteem for God before it produces anything else. It is something internal and involves spiritual emotions. It is not, in essence, a deliberated choice or a deed. It is more like a reflex of the heart to the perfections of God revealed especially in Christ. If you equate the deeds of love with the essence of love you will produce hypocrites – people who imitate the deeds and claim to love God when their hearts are far from him. If you equate love for God with love for his gifts, you produce hypocrites – people who are very glad to feel forgiven and declared righteous and delivered from hell and heaven-bound, but have no pleasure in God himself. They don’t love God. They just don’t want to have bad guilt feelings or go to hell.
What the Love of God Is
Therefore I think it is absolutely crucial that we clarify what the essence of love for God is. Let me grasp for the kinds of words that I think will help us know if we love God. Loving God is desiring God himself beyond his gifts. Loving God is treasuring God himself beyond his gifts. Love for God is delighting in God himself beyond his gifts. Love for God is being satisfied in God himself beyond his gifts. Love for God is cherishing God himself beyond his gifts. Love for God is savoring God himself beyond his gifts. Love for God is valuing God and prizing God and revering God and admiring God beyond his gifts. All these words are grasping for that essential response of the heart to the revelation of the glory of God, especially in Christ through the gospel. It is a glad reflex of the heart to all that God is for us in Christ.
A Catch-22 Effect for Some from Romans 8:28
Do I love God in this way? Let me explain by exploding a certain Catch-22 effect that Romans 8:28 has on some people. Suppose you come to this promise in Romans 8:28 and feel yourself excluded. You say, “This promise must be true for me so that I can love God in response.” But you see that this won’t work, because the promise is not true for you unless you love God. “The promise must be true for me,” you say, “so I can love God. I must love God so the promise can be true for me. Catch 22.”
This is the trap of many people who think that the love of God is essentially gratitude for his blessings. I will love God when he treats me well enough, because, they say, love for God is essentially a response to receiving his gifts. There is no way out of that trap and that Catch 22 in Romans 8:28 if you hold on to that meaning of love for God. The promise must be true for me so I can love God in response; and yet I must love God for the promise to be true for me.
The escape from the trap – is to look through the promise to God himself first, before he applies the promise to you, and behold God himself in and through his promise. Look first at all that he has done in history to reveal himself. Look especially at Jesus Christ and the glory that he had before he came, and the glory of his sacrificial coming and his servanthood and suffering. Look at the mercy and wrath and justice of God mingled on the cross for utterly undeserving sinners. Look at the power and righteousness of God in raising Jesus from the dead. Look at new-covenant, promise-keeping faithfulness that pours out the Holy Spirit on sinful people. Look at the triumph of God’s grace to change hostile God-neglecters into humble God-lovers.
God make me a God-lover.
Blessing
Kern
January 24th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
N.K. You seemed to have missed the main thrust of the article. What was presented in the article was that if one seeks to know the Lord with a true heart, his desire will be to please the Lord. If one is so focused on pleasing a loving and holy God do you really think that he/she will have a desire for something harmful? Of course not. Do you think that they are going to want to engage in immoral activity? Of course not. There desire is to be holy as their Father is. The bible even tells us that we should love the Lord with all of our heart, soul and strength. That is the first and greatest commandment. If that is done the other part will follow. Not necessary riches, but fulfillment in this life.
Take a father/son relationship for instance. If you had a son who really loved you that son would know what your desire is for his life through constant interactions with you. That son, for instance, will know that he should not do a certain thing if he knows that you would not be pleased. He will know what makes you happy and what makes you sad by spending time in your presence. This the same with the Lord. By spending time in His presence (reading His word and talking with Him) we learn what pleases and displeases Him. There is no way that a person truly seeking to know the Lord with a pure and true heart will have “check your motives” as your desires will become interwined with His desires. We are branches connected to the vine. The vine that we are connected to is holy and perfect. Jesus is love and so are those truly His. We are all striving to be more like Him.
January 24th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Percy you said:
“If one is so focused on pleasing a loving and holy God do you really think that he/she will have a desire for something harmful? Of course not.”
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness like a chain
Bind or Chain my wandering heart to thee:
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O, take and seal it;
Seal it for thy courts above.
Make your goodness like a chain—that binds my wandering heart to you. Oh God, Seal my sinful, deceitful, wondering heart with an unbreakable bond for the courts of heaven. Father: Keep me! Preserve me! Defeat every rising rebellion! Overcome every niggling doubt! Deliver me from every destructive temptation! Nullify every fatal allurement! Expose every demonic deception! Tear down every arrogant argument!
Shape me! Incline me to fear you! Hold me! Master me! Do whatever you must do to keep me trusting you and fearing you till Jesus comes or calls.
Am I, are you, prone to wonder, prone to leave the God we love.
The answer from this text is yes. That kind of singing and praying is rooted in the new covenant promise of sovereign, sustaining grace. Let’s read it. Keep in mind: this is one of several Old Testament promises of the new covenant that Jesus said he sealed with his own blood for all who are in him. It is not just for Jews, but for those who are true Jews by virtue of union with Jesus, the seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:7, 16). Jeremiah 32:38–41 says,
And you shall be My people, and I will be his God; 39 and I will give him one heart and one way, that he may fear Me always, for his own good, and for the good of his offspring after him. . 40 And I will make an everlasting covenant with him that I will not turn away from him, to do him good; and I will put the fear of Me in his heart so that he will not turn away from Me. 41 And I will rejoice over Kern to do him good, and I will faithfully plant him in this land with all My heart and with all My soul.
Thank you God for yur Sovereign, sustaining grace.
Amen and Amen
Kern
January 24th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Deu 4:29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find [him], if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
I believe this sums it up. Each of us know if we love the Lord and if we are wanting and seeking Him with all our hearts. If so REST in that and Trust God with the rest. If we make a mistake He will not throw us away. Just stop and turn and go the right way. Don’t make this hard it is so simple.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
We are not discussing immorality here!The question is, which son having spent a lot of time with his eartly father not have a desire of his own!The simple thing the son has to do is this ask the father is this your desire?
Unless,the father does not speak.
Percy,Striving is exactly the problem..works and religion!
Soak in His presence. Listen, and you will be surprised what He will say to you.Without Christ we can do nothing….revelation and empowerment comes from Him!
unless,God who made mans’ mouth does not speak!!!
January 24th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Amen! What a beautiful and absolutely true statement. When we keep our eyes on Jesus, everything else falls into place!
January 24th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Elizabeth,
The logics of Abraham produced an Ismael!!!
January 24th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Thank you NK. I agree with that to a point - however, that is another sermon on its own. That was sin and disobedience. I’m talking about day to day activities. I told a lady one time when she didn’t know what to do about a situation to look at it logically - when you go to that place you sin, but when you go to the other place you are with people that help you grow in the things of the Lord and you are not sinning. Now logically, which do you think the Lord would want you to do?
This will be my last comment on this post.
January 24th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Elizabeth,
We are not discussing sin (immorality). Abraham’s desire was to have a son but there was a problem his plan did not fit God’s plan.
Did Abraham Love God or not? He did!
If loving God means having Gods desires only. Then what about Ismael!
Self desire is nothing but self exaltation!
Humility is dependency on God!
Lean not on your understanding(Logics etc) …. Proverbs 3;5,6
January 24th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Kern,
You really misread my post. Of course we are prone to wonder from the true way from time to time. It’s no accident that the Lord often compares us to sheep. Sheep are prone to wonder and are not the brightest animal out there, as you may know. What I said was that if one was focused on pleasing the Lord he would not desire to please the flesh. I did not say that he would not wonder. Please re-read my post. David, a man after God’s own heart, committed adultery and murder. He nevertheless had a desire to please the Lord. He did not go out seking to commit adultery. We are not perfect yet so we are going to slip every now and then. The issue, however, is what is our heart’s desire? The bible indicated that David’s heart’s desire was to know and please the Lord. Even Paul stated that that which he would do he did not and that which he did not want to do he did. This, he said was due to his sin nature.
January 24th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
N.K.
First you mis read (or misunderstand) Michael’s article now you are attributing words to me that I did not say. Please re-read my posts and find any mention of “works and religion.” You seem to have your own agenda. What I said was that if one truly loved the Lord they will desire to know Him more. Their love for the Lord will cause them to hunger and thirst after Him. Please tell me how ‘Striving’ to know Him ‘is exactly the problem’? Paul tells us to press toward the mark. David said that as the deer pants for the water brooks so his soul pants after the Lord. Jesus even prayed to the point that his blood was as drops of blood. Yes we need to seek the Lord with a whole and pure heart. And yes it is hard work to seek the Lord. The enemy does not want us to spend time in His presence. It’s a struggle which involves a lot a grit and determination because the stakes are very high.
I Love in the name of Jesus.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Thanks - I needed these words of encouragement.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Percy,
Please read my last post to Elizabeth and meditate on it!You will get the point i.e Abraham and his love for God!
The hard work that you speak of in this post is striving it means to exert oneself vigorously. It is same as works and religion trying to do,do do,,,,,and not be. Soak in His presence and recieve from Him wisdom,revelation(His will etc)) and feel His love!
We are called to operate from a postion of rest …
He leads and directs.
The children of God will be led by the Spirit of God!
He is more than willing to lead because He loves us! It is His will that His will is done!
January 24th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
A brief comment on Abraham/Ishmael. I’m no scholar, but I was reading these passages in Genesis the other day, and a couple of things stuck with me. First, God never abandoned Abraham because of Ishmael. I read how Hagar and Ishmael’s presence made Sara uncomfortable. I can only image the “character building” that was going on! I read how God also made Ishmael the father of many nations. Of course, the chosen people came from the line of Abraham and Sara. God didn’t abandon His plan just because Abraham misread the signals! And the biggest “I love You” that Abraham could demonstrate to God was his willingness to sacrifice Isaac even after all of that! Incidently, I feel that is God’s plan for giving us all free will…otherwise telling the Lord you love Him would have no meaning.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
To all of you who have posted… The discussion has been lively and clearly many have been helped. For this I am grateful. As you can imagine, I cannot fully stake out any position in the short email that I send out so it is natural and even frequent that I am misunderstood. That’s OK. I will be posting more on this next week. In the meantime, pursue Him. And remember, the reason I don’t beat my wife and kids isn’t because it’s against the law. There are plenty of laws telling me what I cannot do to my wife and children. None of which I have read, nor do I need to because I love my wife and children and the law has no effect on me. Because I love them, they are treated with love, respect and great dignity. Be blessed and sleep tight… (o-:
January 25th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Some of us like to include the Father (Holy Spirit) in all of our decisions.
We know of a Christian woman who asks the Father what to wear and she felt strongly the Holy Spirit was telling her to wear a leather skirt one mornning and when she got to work at her church office (Lakewood Church, Houston) there was a piple bomb in the mail and it expoded in her lap. She survived the explosion without a scratch. The room was destroyed and the emergency and bomb experts that arrived on the site told her it was because of her leather skirt that she did not recieve any shrapnel wounds. Thanks, but I think I will stay in the “rut” with the Lord.
January 25th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Ahhh… Nick… You jumped the gun on me… As you will see next week. I have had the Lord tell me what to wear one day and it changed the course of my life too. He has also directed me to a specific restaurant to eat. That had life chaning effects, but that is different than asking God everyday where to eat, what to wear, etc. He does want us to grow up.
Having said that, when necessary, He will redirect as with the woman you cited and certainly in my own case. It’s a matter of remaining sensitive to His leading at all times, but not feeling the need to ask Him what color popsicle to eat. I walk in faith knowing He will lead me and intervene at times.
January 25th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
How does one remain sensitive to His leading at all times?Is it when ones spirit man is dominant over the soul and the flesh!
January 25th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
THe NRSV Bible says in Proverbs 16:9 “The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps.”
January 25th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
A plan is defined as a scheme or method of doing.
Proverbs 16.9 “The human mind plans the way,but the Lord directs the step.
Who’s steps the Lord will direct?
Proverbs 3:5,6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,and lean not on your own understanding;in all your ways acknowledge Him.
AND He shall direct your path.
What is leaning on one understanding?
Nicks post tells us of a lady who was asked to wear a leather skirt.She heard the word from the Lord,and acted on it by faith even though it may not have made sense to her she wore it anyway,and the result it probably saved her life.
How were her steps directed?
“Wear a leather skirt”
When was faith exercised?
When she was putting on the skirt.
The Lord guides and directs those who’s motives are pure.Those who are willing to live an obedient life.
How can one’s steps be directed if one does not hear His voice?
January 26th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I suppose it all boils down to this:
If a leather skirt can save a life(Nick’s post).Clothes can change a course of one’s life (Michael’s post) then what about the color of popsicles!
The author in his post says “The key is to truly love God,and then your desires will be in line”
Is he saying that one can reach a level of maturity where one can have only Godly desires or is he saying when one truly loves God then all desires equal Godly desires!
Somewhere in his post he says:”Do like what Augustine suggested Love God and do as you please”….wow!
Is there a difference between truly loving God and loving God?
Are there Godly desires and Self desires
Luke 22:42 saying,”Father if it is your will,take this cup away from me:nevertheless not my will,but yours be done”
Is there not two desires here? to do God’s will and take the cup away!
Did Christ love God?Yes!Yes! and Yes!
But what about:Love God and do as you please!
What would have happened if Christ called in His angels and said”take away the cup from me my desires are Godly desire as I have spent a lot of time with the Father.I delight in Him and He delights in me!”
I would be heading for hell!
Oh!What about my dreams and doing as I pleased!
Is it possible to reach the level of maturity where one can INSTANTLY tell what is a self desire and a Godly desire.I believe the answer is yes!
Finally,I have enjoyed the communication!I trust it was taken in the spirit in which it was meant!Bless you all!!
January 31st, 2008 at 12:09 am
To Percy L Ealy,
I have reconsidered my response to you!Please do forgive me for my response was not appropriate!May the Lord bless you and your family!!
January 31st, 2008 at 5:59 pm
God is even interested in the details of what we wear some days and it would be wise to ask if He has anything to say. Many people have had the Lord give them a vision with people wearing specific clothing and that is how He signals them out to others. Sometimes he really does care about little things. Let’s keep an opening for the Spirit to reveal such things. I understand what you are saying but let young readers also understand the need to be sensitive to His leading in all areas of their life.