The Certainty of Doing

There are countless matters in our life with God that we do not understand and mostly it is because we have not done the one thing He has told us to do.  We hem and haw, complain about the difficulty, ignore it and pretend like it was never there but it was there and until we do the thing, we will never get any closer to God.  We might sound spiritual to everyone else, seem to be religious in all the public ways but at our core, we will know that we are mostly faking it.  We have not actually heard from the Lord in any tangible way and it makes us bitter, depressed even.  We become tightly wound, like a screw that has been turned one too many times.  We flinch at the point of real love, curse under our breath the troubles we face and get perturbed by the frustrating people we have in our life.  All the while, it is the one thing that we have rejected that keeps us from knowing the joy and peace of Christ at the points of certain supernatural contact.  The Holy Spirit waits for us to bend our will to that of Christ and we don't and so He waits longer.  He frustrates us to get us to turn and we won't, all the while blaming everything and everyone but ourselves for the dryness of our spirit.  The promise that out of Christ will spring gushes of Living Water is not fluff...it is what actually happens when we turn to Him for help.  Moses could not "get on" with his life until he marched down to Egypt and met his pharaoh and Hebrew family.  Jacob could not "get on" with his life until he returned to the land of his fathers and settled matters with his brother.  Peter could not "get on" with his life until he walked away from his fishing business.  You can not "get on" with your life until you take heed to the last matter you had before you when you faced God squarely.  No one can help you adjust your life to God but you.  He will not push you along, give you a bolt of nerve or take matters into His own hands and absolve you of your duty.  You must get up, get out of bed and push yourself.  It is only then that the Lord will energize your determination and heal your woundedness so that you will be fit to handle what is before you.  God's will is never confounded; your will in Him can be though if you wait too long.  We are to take matters into our own hands only in this one place; to do what the Lord tells us to do in the strength He gives us.  Keep your mind fresh and alert to all the ways the Savior meets you and many will drink from the living water spilling out of you at every turn where the Holy Spirit brings you.

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."   John 7:38 NIV

The New Year Resolution...Biblical?

Try as you may, you will be hard-pressed to find a single man or woman of God in Scripture making New Year's Resolutions or goal setting.  They attempted the impossible but not as some long term plan.  Perhaps Solomon alone would be classified as a goal setter but this flowed more out of his love of the world order than any developed affinity for God.  Jesus had one goal in mind and it began before birth--go to the Cross and die there.  This is a far cry from the goals and resolutions we hear bandied about in Christian circles and meetings.  Ask a Christian worker or church attender what his or her goals may be and they will never sound like what Jesus settled upon as His clear direction.  If anything, the normal way of Christ was simple day-by-day dependence upon the Father to guide you in what He had where He was.  Jesus  stayed in a town until the Father directed Him away from it, healed those the Father brought Him and taught whoever He was given at the moment.  He didn't set goals for attendance at His Sermon on the Mount and made no resolution to quit drinking or cut down on His calories.  He remained so close to the Father that He just did as He was directed and trusted in the process of Life working within Him.  Nothing frustrates the will of God more than the determination of a Christian to accomplish his set goals without regard for the still small voice entering His world in real time.    Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34 NIV

What Do I Do?

The problem with Christianity is not that it is too difficult to practice, it is that Christianity is too easy to believe.  Nothing is simpler than following a GPS turn for turn and the allowance of the Holy Spirit combined with the clarity of the Bible to direct each step is just as effortless. Where we stumble out of the gate is the frozen unwillingness to do what we are told.  "Turn right!"  We turn left.  "stop!" We go.  The grace of God is too astounding to believe, the fact that Christ really died for us is nearly unbearable.  How can that much love be poured into us?  We simply do not in the crunch of time accept it.  Otherwise, how can we explain the knee jerk response to bear outside the lanes of God's clear directions.  Don't complain any more about not knowing what the Lord wants you to do.  Simply do what you know He has said and let Him work out for you the instantaneous flow of your momentary actions.  The one who keeps His eyes fixed upon Christ is the will of God.