From Biblical record,we see Israel portrayed as the richest,most powerful and favored nation(by God)worthy of envy by neighboring nations because the hand of God was on them.They followed God with a deep sense of dedication(they worshiped God) to His counsel.Yet each time they began to follow their ways,God left them to their reprobate minds.Each time God left them,they were exposed to enemy attacks,their territory would be raided and their hedge broken down hence they face famine,confusion,captivity or exile and all sorts of havoc.They would cry out to God in repentance and God would forgive and bring them victory,deliverance,restoration and God's reign returned...
We are the spiritual Israel(God's people), and if we must claim such a position(of sonship),we must loose our plans.Yes i repeat loose ourselves,our consciousness,desires,and our lives to God.When a man says "I have given my life to Christ",it doesn't mean "I have now become one of those church people",yet he holds unto his life as if it is his.It means surrendering all and dying to self,becoming like Christ and allowing God trail the way.We become totally dependent,helpless(like symbiotic organisms) and relatively clueless.In our helplessness,we stay in God till He issues a command(Israel in Moses' time learned to follow the cloud till it was ready to move.They lived in temporary tents and at any given time,God could tell them to move camp...other times they wait till He gave further instructions).
Let me digress here,some of us are on careers,in schools,doing businesses and planning relationships God never approved of.We have hyped up "mickey mouse"activities all around town bearing an artificial seal of God yet He's so absent.Our investments,property and the likes are as a result of struggling to join popular trend not in the will of God.We had gone ahead to do what seemed right in our eyes as obtainable in the society we live in(do not get me wrong for I know God wants us to invest,buy and sell and have great jobs and relationships).I bet you,the world will applaud,award and associate with your achievements and call you;"Big boy and Big mama" but it is vain,worthless and unrecognized before by God-if God does not recognize our achievements,we are above all men most miserable,living a wasted life.
God is looking for a people who will defy societal opinion and stand for Him.Does God not want us to excel and be rich in this life?Yes He does but we must be sure that like Noah,we wait for Him to instruct and command(Noah was so unpopular to the men of his generation yet He obeyed the One that judges all men).Noah as historical reports say built the biggest ships of all time not even Titanic could measure up with it.Can you beat that?Abraham went against popular demand and we see the result of His obedience?God will never fail if Only we keep to our part of the agreement.
Did Israel miss God?Yes,a lot of times and the consequences were enormous.And one time in our lives we also miss God and by His grace,he saves us.Let's bear in mind as we return that God is looking for a people who will trust in Him and not lean on their understanding,His thoughts for us are good.perfect and trustworthy without an iota of evil,failure or a crash.With God,we can never crash land.He will make a way through the sea,paths through the deepest waters and a footprint for us to follow.God truly wants to rule our Government-our heart and lives-,he wants to decide when we attack the "Philistines"(like David consulted God) and when to refrain from "taking a census"-David's show of pride over an army that belonged to God.He went against God's command for some personal aggrandizement-God wants to be the C.E.O and director of our every detail of our lives(from dusk to dawn).Above all,He wants to decide when we attack the "Philistines"(like David consulted God) and when to refrain from "taking a census"-David's show of pride over an army that belonged to God.He went against God's command for some personal aggrandizement-God wants to be the C.E.O and director of our every detail of our lives(from dusk to dawn).Above all,He wants to give us the power to excel and make wealth.
Did he not successfully lead the Israelites across vast waters?even the seas could never with stand such great power,they were subject to His command for He created the seas and demarcated them from dry land.
They bowed to His decree and a path was created.
Yes the Israelites panicked as the Egyptians closed in on them.?yes.Though they shouted out in fear because they doubted that GOD could really rescue them from those skillful,vast army of Pharaoh(undoubtedly, the Egyptians were known warriors,they were very rich and influential)but God needed to prove to both parties that HE alone remains The Almighty,the Greatest of all,The Commander of the Hosts of Heavens and the only Invincible warrior.
God permits circumstances to rock us so we honor Him alone.
We as well fret and panic(at some point in life),we have times and hours we feel God has forsaken us but God wants to prove he has us in the hollow of His palms.
He knows us from the day we were conceived till the day we are six feet below.He is the same God who said to Israel; "do not be afraid,stand still and see my salvation."As God discomfited the Egyptians of yester-years,He is the sasame today saying;"remain calm and let me fight for you."if it took God alone to create the world then He can order our path through life-without your help.
Do men plan?Yes but in our well carved out plans,may we allow the counsel of the Lord prevail.Most times,His plans are contrary to ours so we need to ask him and allow Him decide.
If you truly know God,you will act like Jesus who lived on this earth like man.He learned to say and do;"my meat(will)is to do the will of my Father and to finish it." He never had his plans,he did only the Fathers will that is why he could go to the cross.It was a painful one for Him to die like a criminal yet He said;...Lord not my will but thine."True siblings of Jesus are they that do the will of the Father in Heaven.Weigh your plans with that of Heaven and see if they really fit,if not it is null and void.
God wants Sons like Jesus!
An unruly earthly Son is termed recalcitrant by his father because the former refuses Dad's advice.How much more the All-knowing?God requires that we obey Him to the latter.God's standards are high and the stakes will not be compromised for any unruly son unwilling to listen to Him.
Initially,God's purposes for our lives seem unfavorable,stringent and cruel but if we are wise,we will follow through for He has our best interest at heart.
God will surely give us an expected end(be reminded that men give themselves an expected end which could be myopic even the devil gives men an expected end and we know what that means).In God the end is "Yea and Amen",a glorious,fulfilling end Heaven and earth will celebrate.
We can only say we know God or we are following God when we "learn"to follow and lay down our lives for Him.When we totally depend on him,He will take us across,over,through and under every fork,curve and bend life poses.Well,i particularly believe we do not need to envy any man outside of God's will for such a life is heading for a disaster.Man is mortal and frail,systems fail,and we are so insecure without Him.Our plans will face a depression outside of His will.
Dear,God is our safety at a time as this.let's truly rest in Him.
The counsel of the LORD,that shall stand.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Wait For God(Part One)
Can i truly say I follow God? Can I boldly say i Know how to trust Him without consulting my feelings, my friends and job and my senses?
God intended through Moses to teach His sons(Israel) to follow Him to a place they'd never known. Moses did not know the end of the journey but He obeyed God's instruction. Not even did he know there was a road in the Red Sea, he didn't have prior knowledge on the path to follow and God who reveals in bits only said to him to take the Israelites to a place of worship...
Most times God only issues a command, ours is to obey to the latter.He may never unveil the end of the matter(I am sure He doesn't)because He wants us to learn complete and total-without figuring out alternatives-dependence on Him.The journey will always look clueless,long,lonely and dark.On that path if God-led is a God trailing and blazing ahead,making road marks and solving the labyrinth ahead.
We can never say we know Him till we learn to wait, stay quiet and follow as He's instructed.God hates to see his sons with other options especially when He has given directives and issued a command-to wait.We have become a people wired by the world's standards to subtly say;"Heaven helps those who help themselves" and we overly conclude that a man who puts all his eggs in a basket is not only lazy but unwise.
In the principles of God's kingdom,the above quote is erroneous and worldly.The world will never follow God for his ways are senseless and past finding.His word knows to say'"those who wait on Him will never see shame"...it takes a "learner" to follow God.A learner is one willing to depend on someone with more knowledge to teach him,a learner is ready to look "unintelligent" just to acquire and garner information,he learns patiently. A learner always runs back for instruction,he is desperate and knowledge savvy.
Isn't it the way God desires all His sons should be?A servant will not know more than his master so will mankind never exceed God.Our entirety is from Him and because he made us-never forget we are the sheep of his pasture-,he requires that we acknowledge Him as the All-knowing,a God that sees the end from the beginning.
It's interesting to note that we have a Father who permits our choices,he watches us make decisions we feel are right and harmless in our eyes and if we are sincere,most of our choices have driven us out of God's plan...Selah.
I pray you stop and ponder...you will and can never force God into your plans,Never!You can only coat God on it,you can make all your plans look plush and seamless(godly as well) but I bet you,God is not present.You can erect towers like Babel,you may claim you prayed and God spoke but I assure you they are fleshy,human-orchestrated projects.
God desires-no doubt- that we excel and be masters of our vocation and purposes.It was His original plan to see man rule,dominate and become masters over the earth until man fell beneath the plan(to sin).But with or without the fall of man,God did not create(even the first Adam)man to be his decision maker outside of Him(God).No man should say;"It's my life and i decide what goes on here."From Genesis till now,God wants to be and He remains the Only final say over all things.God will never share his glory with a selfish intention because he knows the heart of man.As beautiful as the tower of Babel seemed,as magnificent as the wall of Jericho were and as influential and powerful as Egypt was,GOD knew that none of them could bear His glory neither were they erected to glorify God but man.We are too fond of charting our path,building our thing and making a way for our selfish ego then we claim "God said"or "To God's glory,i did this".
Take a deeper look at the million inexperienced Israel leaving a plush land(Egypt)to the unknown,we'd perceive a complete reliance on a God that spoke years before to Abraham,Isaac and Jacob(Israel),we'd see that God heard their anguish and came speedily to their rescue.These millions are like a throng of us today faced with loads of pain,burdens and fears also crying out for His promises to be fully accomplished in our time-but our biggest problem with God is our "smartness"(so we think).We always have a Plan-B as we wait for God,we figure out our jobs,marriage,aspirations and then we try to drag God along-he can not be pushed.
The Israelites left Egypt like "zombies".They initially were like "cowards" without a road map,like an old blind man with a cane waiting for a guide to help him trace his steps.Not that God planned for them to look foolish or vision less,No,he only used the Exodus march to prove to them that He is the author of their lives,their Father,a faithful guide and the Almighty whose government can neither be challenged nor overthrown.
God made the heavens and the earth and all things(even the age old devil was created by him)on the surface of the earth not to mention the things beneath.God knows what we will never know and he sees ahead of time(never forget times and seasons are with men for God sees a thousand days of man as a day).God is Omniscient-no scientific evolution can define His existence-.He is Omnipotent-He is here and now,he is everywhere,he is all things to all men,He is much more than we can define Him to be,He existed before the world was formed,he creates one today and takes another off the earth in split seconds.He has the power over man's breath even animals,He can over throw kingdoms and thrones in a day and He can shut the devil out of our plans.He is also the same God we take for granted,what a pity!
He is a God that looks on mankind in love,very slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and he says to one come and to another go.He is matchless and powerful.Why will we not submit to a God that can withdraw our resources in a day if he had to?we joke with a God that kills and makes alive,a God that can topple a nation's economy in a day and make the poorest of nations rich.He is that God we must revere.Not even Moses knew the end yet he wisely obeyed.That obedience
leads to trusting God alone above human pressure.Trusting God requires shelving our substitutions and eliminating our plans.We may seem stupid to depend on God when "your peers"are ahead of you but I believe in a God that can eventually make a man a head over a people(you can overtake you mates if God wants that for you) that started the race of life...
Does God intend to make us look clueless?No.But we will only know his plans for our lives when we his Sons learn to wait,remain still till he gives a GO-Ahead-then our plans will be wrapped up in Him when we allow Him make the plans.
God intended through Moses to teach His sons(Israel) to follow Him to a place they'd never known. Moses did not know the end of the journey but He obeyed God's instruction. Not even did he know there was a road in the Red Sea, he didn't have prior knowledge on the path to follow and God who reveals in bits only said to him to take the Israelites to a place of worship...
Most times God only issues a command, ours is to obey to the latter.He may never unveil the end of the matter(I am sure He doesn't)because He wants us to learn complete and total-without figuring out alternatives-dependence on Him.The journey will always look clueless,long,lonely and dark.On that path if God-led is a God trailing and blazing ahead,making road marks and solving the labyrinth ahead.
We can never say we know Him till we learn to wait, stay quiet and follow as He's instructed.God hates to see his sons with other options especially when He has given directives and issued a command-to wait.We have become a people wired by the world's standards to subtly say;"Heaven helps those who help themselves" and we overly conclude that a man who puts all his eggs in a basket is not only lazy but unwise.
In the principles of God's kingdom,the above quote is erroneous and worldly.The world will never follow God for his ways are senseless and past finding.His word knows to say'"those who wait on Him will never see shame"...it takes a "learner" to follow God.A learner is one willing to depend on someone with more knowledge to teach him,a learner is ready to look "unintelligent" just to acquire and garner information,he learns patiently. A learner always runs back for instruction,he is desperate and knowledge savvy.
Isn't it the way God desires all His sons should be?A servant will not know more than his master so will mankind never exceed God.Our entirety is from Him and because he made us-never forget we are the sheep of his pasture-,he requires that we acknowledge Him as the All-knowing,a God that sees the end from the beginning.
It's interesting to note that we have a Father who permits our choices,he watches us make decisions we feel are right and harmless in our eyes and if we are sincere,most of our choices have driven us out of God's plan...Selah.
I pray you stop and ponder...you will and can never force God into your plans,Never!You can only coat God on it,you can make all your plans look plush and seamless(godly as well) but I bet you,God is not present.You can erect towers like Babel,you may claim you prayed and God spoke but I assure you they are fleshy,human-orchestrated projects.
God desires-no doubt- that we excel and be masters of our vocation and purposes.It was His original plan to see man rule,dominate and become masters over the earth until man fell beneath the plan(to sin).But with or without the fall of man,God did not create(even the first Adam)man to be his decision maker outside of Him(God).No man should say;"It's my life and i decide what goes on here."From Genesis till now,God wants to be and He remains the Only final say over all things.God will never share his glory with a selfish intention because he knows the heart of man.As beautiful as the tower of Babel seemed,as magnificent as the wall of Jericho were and as influential and powerful as Egypt was,GOD knew that none of them could bear His glory neither were they erected to glorify God but man.We are too fond of charting our path,building our thing and making a way for our selfish ego then we claim "God said"or "To God's glory,i did this".
Take a deeper look at the million inexperienced Israel leaving a plush land(Egypt)to the unknown,we'd perceive a complete reliance on a God that spoke years before to Abraham,Isaac and Jacob(Israel),we'd see that God heard their anguish and came speedily to their rescue.These millions are like a throng of us today faced with loads of pain,burdens and fears also crying out for His promises to be fully accomplished in our time-but our biggest problem with God is our "smartness"(so we think).We always have a Plan-B as we wait for God,we figure out our jobs,marriage,aspirations and then we try to drag God along-he can not be pushed.
The Israelites left Egypt like "zombies".They initially were like "cowards" without a road map,like an old blind man with a cane waiting for a guide to help him trace his steps.Not that God planned for them to look foolish or vision less,No,he only used the Exodus march to prove to them that He is the author of their lives,their Father,a faithful guide and the Almighty whose government can neither be challenged nor overthrown.
God made the heavens and the earth and all things(even the age old devil was created by him)on the surface of the earth not to mention the things beneath.God knows what we will never know and he sees ahead of time(never forget times and seasons are with men for God sees a thousand days of man as a day).God is Omniscient-no scientific evolution can define His existence-.He is Omnipotent-He is here and now,he is everywhere,he is all things to all men,He is much more than we can define Him to be,He existed before the world was formed,he creates one today and takes another off the earth in split seconds.He has the power over man's breath even animals,He can over throw kingdoms and thrones in a day and He can shut the devil out of our plans.He is also the same God we take for granted,what a pity!
He is a God that looks on mankind in love,very slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and he says to one come and to another go.He is matchless and powerful.Why will we not submit to a God that can withdraw our resources in a day if he had to?we joke with a God that kills and makes alive,a God that can topple a nation's economy in a day and make the poorest of nations rich.He is that God we must revere.Not even Moses knew the end yet he wisely obeyed.That obedience
leads to trusting God alone above human pressure.Trusting God requires shelving our substitutions and eliminating our plans.We may seem stupid to depend on God when "your peers"are ahead of you but I believe in a God that can eventually make a man a head over a people(you can overtake you mates if God wants that for you) that started the race of life...
Does God intend to make us look clueless?No.But we will only know his plans for our lives when we his Sons learn to wait,remain still till he gives a GO-Ahead-then our plans will be wrapped up in Him when we allow Him make the plans.
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