Discernment arising from relationship

Do you ever ask yourself this question: "I hope I'm not asking God for something that is wrong."

Think about this:


  • Saul--was doing the LORD'S work--arresting all those evil followers of Jesus--when Jesus knocks Saul off of Saul's horse and basically asks Saul, 'Hello Saul--guess who?  It's me Jesus!'
  • Think about the Israelites who cried and cried for a good meal of meat--which God gave them...and then God judged them and killed a bunch of them!
I just don't want to be asking the wrong thing--especially if God happens to grant it!

I've been thinking about the storms of life--which we all face.  In the gospels Jesus does one of three things to/in storms:


  1. He slept through them.
  2. He walks through them.
  3. He calms them. 

Now, for me--I like option three--calming storms. But what God needs me to sleep through them--or walk through them?

All of this then requires relationship and walking with the Lord.  This requires me to prioritize intimacy with God--and walking daily with the Spirit. Spirituality is not a form or a set of rules--it is an on-going growing relationship with God the Father, through the mediation of Jesus the Son--by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning to hate your sin

Image
   John 5:13-15 (NLT) 13 The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14 But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” 15 Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.   Lord give me grace, power, and effort to maintain a resilience against sin.  Sin is ALWAYS a dark path. It ALWAYS pays wages.  The wage of sin is death.  Sin will always hurt, always destroy, always wound—you, relationships, stuff, goals, etc.  It is a killer.  It is a wound-er.  It is a consumer of all that is healthy, strong, good, and perfect. Learn to hate sin. Learn to fear sin. Learn to run as fast as you can away from sin. Search deeply for hidden sin. Be disgusted with your sin.  Repent, repent, repent daily for your sin. Be afraid of your sin. Be petrified of your sin. Be worried ab...
Read more

R.I.P

Image
About a week ago I had breakfast with a dear friend of mine who is a missionary in Russia.  He told me the following interesting story. His daughter was involved in street evangelism in Russia.  She, along with other youth, carried clipboards and were doing surveys.  One of the questions they asked was this: “Do you believe in heaven and hell, and if so, where will you spend eternity.”  Ninety-five percent of the people interviewed responded along these lines:  ‘Yes I believe in heaven and hell!  I will spend eternity in hell because I am such an awful sinner.’ Now this same daughter moved to Canada and organized the same kind of outreach doing the same thing, asking the same question:  “Do you believe in heaven and hell, and if so, where will you spend eternity.”  Ninety-five percent of the people interviewed responded along these lines:  ‘Yes I believe in heaven and hell!  I will spend eternity in heaven because I am a go...
Read more

Growth in your spiritual life will be commensurate with your lack of confidence in yourself.

Image
One of the many paradoxes of the Christian life is this thing we call ‘self-confidence.’  As little children our parents would encourage us to be confident.  And, to a certain degree they were correct.  A child scared of her own shadow—will probably not grow to up to be emotionally healthy.  So there is a realm of self-confidence that is necessary and needed, in order to function in this world.      However, there is another realm of self-confidence that could be a boat anchor in your spiritual life.  The Apostle Peter, made the mistake of trusting in himself.  You will probably recall that when Jesus prophesied that the Apostles would all desert Him (Matthew 26:31) Peter boasted: “Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you!”  Yes!  Boast on Peter. Jesus drops the bomb on Peter’s self-confidence: “I tell you the truth, Peter—this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times t...
Read more