Lena's Discipleship Journalin' to Acts 22 Today

This should be the cry of every person, to live a life honorable to God. Yet there is coming a day of reckoning. The Day of the Lord is close, it is at hand. God will have His way, whether we participate or not.
Many times in all of our pursuit of God, we pursue Him how we want to and in the measure of how much we have time for. We’ve sort of been telling God, “Hey, come on, take what you can get, just accept what I choose to give”. It’s funny, He does, for a time, but there is a day, He’ll just have His way and those who chose their own way will miss out. That day it will be clear who is all in for Him and who is all out for themselves.
This day had come upon religious Paul. You do understand that Paul (Saul) was a religious man, right? He was seeking God, His way. The way he’d been taught to. He really, really thought what he was doing was right before God! So do we!
The Holy Spirit is giving us grace in our day right now, to wake up, take off the cloaks of religious bondage by following an excuse laden, man made gospel, and to turn from working our own righteousness by works to turn into a personal obedient love relationship with Him.
God placed each of us on earth for the furtherance of His work. He wants it done a certain way. He has accepted the amounts we were willing to give Him, but He’s been waiting for the day when we’d choose growth and do it His way, no matter what that entails.
There is a way that seems right to men, but that way only leads to death (of God’s true purpose being fulfilled through them).
Do we regularly ask God what He wants us to do for Him today? Or do we just wake up with a religious plan to fulfill in order to fill our Godly scoreboards?
What about what He’s already asked of you through pastoral leadership and the prompting of the Holy Spirit? If we ignore those small words, we won’t hear the will when it’s read to us.
This past Sunday at church, our pastor offered an invitation to receive the Holy Spirit. This was the 3rd Sunday in a row he’s offered help to anyone who would receive Him. He told us that the Lord told Him that He wants to fill us all!
There was one girl who stood in the fear of God, believing that that was God’s word on her matter, and rather than taking it as a good suggestion that she has the prerogative to take or leave, she stood there before God, saying, “I have to receive Him or I can’t leave here!” Guess what? She received Him!
There are always reasons we do not see, that God knows for us and the direction He gives us are to prepare us ahead of time. When we do not do what He says, in as serious an acknowledgement as this young girl, we’ll find tragedy and pain later on, with a great amount of regret.
We live by faith, not by sight.
Our Faith pleases God! This is the only thing we do that pleases God! All our good works are nothing without having faith in God displayed in action by doing the small things He says to do quickly.
We are never exempted from obeying His word. Never.
If He says love, but a person is unlovely and we want an excuse, we can make one or take one, but He didn’t give it. We did what we thought was right in our own eyes instead of believing in faith for the strength and the ability to go ahead and love the unlovely.
If our pastor asks us to come together, everyone come on a Wednesday night to take communion, and we decide to stay at home and take communion, thinking to ourselves that it is the same, we are deceived. We’ve done it our own way, and we’ve disobeyed and dishonored the living voice of God that He’s set up in our lives in a tangible form, to test our faith level. Do we have enough faith to do words men of God give us? What about donkeys? Do we have enough faith to believe even the words of “donkey’s”? (What we consider stubborn mules, who we think are rebellious ones.)
Even the enemy knows how much power we carry in how much we obey. Obedience is a mighty weapon against him. He hates it when Christians obey God and especially people. He loves when Christians live independent of God’s appointed rule and do their own thing and justify their own actions, etc. He has victory there and no problems handling that persons life, they lay willingly play right in to his hands.
God’s and our enemy (if we are God’s ) likes for us to place ourselves above the laws of the land and consider ourselves too high to listen to and obey mere humans. That’s his characteristic personality. That is exactly what he did in heaven. He exalted his own opinion. He raised his own desire before God’s. He placed himself above the laws of God, and he was brought down quicker than you can say, “Jack Robinson”!
WHY would we think it would be any different for us???
I wonder, how much we are willing to suffer for the gospel message? How big is our longsuffering, enduring gage?
The biggest suffering some us will ever experience is the suffering of our own souls. The battle within, of our own rights, and being free to live our own ways.
We struggle with others leading us. We think we know the way fine ourselves. The Bible says we think we know the way, but when we refuse to follow Him, we fall into a pit! Are we willing to extend our souls to grow up and spread the good news? Can we willingly submit to the direction and decisions others make for us? Do we trust and rely on God that much? Can we put any faith in that at all?
I mean those who lead us will be humans, imperfect humans who are walking like we walk. I mean what if they might decide to go their own way and if we follow them? We too could go down into a pit!
This is true, but as we follow others, we demonstrate we are following Christ. We are demonstrating our faith in the impossible and in a God who is far greater than ever a circumstance that comes our way. We are proving our love for Him and for His people no matter what! I mean is God great enough to rescue us out of a pit, even of our own digging? If we never dug it, our leader may not have one to fall into!
That takes faith, in God!
Ahh, new concept, faith in God!
Isn’t that what we are, is faithful to God and His word?
Amen!