Your Plans...Aren't Necessarily God's Will

Your Plans...Aren't Necessarily God's Will 

I often wonder what to do.  Some look at indecisiveness as something to be abhorred. To be avoided.  I, on the other hand, look to try to make the best choice possible, with what I know at the time.

I was looking at a Spiritual gifts survey of sorts this week.  In regards to filling it out, I couldn't do it for lack of understanding it. A passage that comes to mind is the one where it says let your yes be yes and your no be no, anything else isn't from God.  I just don't know how to think in what I call gradient levels of 0 to 5 in answering questions about things. 

My reasons for completing it were a lead in towards this coming Saturday where our Church is having a time to showcase, in a way, opportunities to serve.  I am looking to be more involved in our Church but would like to be where God wants me. Not where I necessarily gravitate to.  

This caused me to ask some at the Church who helped us get plugged into a Bible Study group questions about the survey.  

Was told talents and abilities are also part of determining where to serve.  This, you might think, would help matters in figuring out God's plan for me.  It actually complicated matters. As I told this person, not to toot my own horn, but if it can be called a hobby, I have always liked to learn things. So I have a great many things that I have learned to do.  From sewing to cake decorating. Carpentry to electrical. Electronics to computers. Writing to computer programming. About the only big area that I have never delved into would be sports. Never had a use for that.

My conflicts within are still there. Still awaiting Saturday and figuring out where to serve.  In Romans 12 we read of something along the lines of my mode of thinking.  If you know your gifts, then indeed be all in, in that area of serving. 

In case you aren't noticing, there is no bench on the sidelines in God's work in this world. If you are sitting on one, then you are sitting on a borrowed one from Satan. That didn't come from God. 

Jesus rested, Jesus prayed. Jesus slept like we often do. Jesus never sat around doing nothing for the Kingdom of God. He said on several occasions that He has work to do. He's got the Father’s will to obey.  His parting words were to go and make Disciples. Teaching them all that the Disciples were commanded. 

In our lives we have to choose to either obey God or obey our sin nature. Our sin nature wants to serve itself. It wants nothing to do with serving God. 

In our lives we will be deceived into self-serving ideas and choices.  

We know that we are attempting God's way versus our ways when indeed we face various trials and temptations.  Satan has no problems with believers who live for themselves.  He has no reason to add fuel to the fire when the fire is already going well in his favor. Satan will indeed attempt to interfere with believers who strive to live the way that Jesus commanded. Satan's a believer in adding that small pebble to the beginning of the river in order to redirect its path. He introduces small thoughts or ideas in order to twist Scripture even to get believers to not live fully towards a life in Christ. 

Look around your house. Look at what you might be driving. Look at what and where you spend your money and time. The evidence is probably right under your nose as to who you are living for.  It's going to show whether or not you are living out your plans for you or if you are living for Jesus. 

You and I cannot do both.  This world is full of amazing things. Amazing opportunities. It's also heading for an amazing series of judgments over 7 years after the Rapture of the Church happens.

I struggle with balancing what my mind wants to do with what I need to be doing in Christ Jesus.  It's a battle. 

We, at least in the United States, have a penchant for wasting time and money as well as energy on fruitless endeavors. We would rather deal with dietary problems with pills vs making an industry that does not require them. We waste hours at events that do nothing to help our growth in Christ yet struggle to give Him a few hours a week in devotion. We sit for hours in front of all kinds of devices and are not using that time or device to grow in Christ.  We would rather go and do without thinking rather than to stop and consider our ways as the Bible says. We look towards fame and fortune rather than seeing others learn how to come out of the darkness of this world into the light of Jesus. 

We face many such things and aren't even aware that we should be probably fighting them. 

Look around your life and you decide. 

Are you living a life honoring God or are you keeping yourself busy not thinking about God, living out your excuses to do your own thing rather than being where God really wants you to be, doing what He really wants you to be doing?  

Time is short.  Jesus IS returning. What good is it going to do any of us if we really got everything in life we always wanted and it means delaying His return because we lived for self first?  When we live for Him, and His plans for us, we hasten His return. We speed it up by finding those who are ripe for harvest in Christ Jesus. When we are all in for Jesus we further His Kingdom.