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I Think I want that Thingamabob Part 2
Power your Plan
In the last blog we discussed self-control. There is power in your self-control even though when we first start controlling our lives it feels like we are powerless. Matthew 5:37 tells us that anything other than self-control is from the devil. Self-control is born from being able to say “yes” when appropriate and “no” when that is appropriate. We must learn to control the impulses we have, so when God speaks to us revealing our direction, we are not controlled by the world. We must be committed to following Jesus, steadfast at the cause and patient when it looks so far away. The power that sets your self-control on fire for that thingamabob depends highly on your planning skills. A goal is one thing but the plan can make or break a goal. Our God is not just about us being there He is about how we get there as well.
Picture your desire (God’s will for you) as a mansion on a hill. God has given you a picture of what that looks like. For me, it is the Hope Devoted, Life Skills Center for Women. For you, it could be the book He wants you to write, a house big enough to be hospitable, a ministry at your church or whatever thingamabob God wants you to have. Picture that at the top of the hill with nothing but trees between you and it. The only way there is a dirt road designed just for you. You get on your ATV and go praying for a safe journey. The Almighty has empowered you with His tenacious voltage (ATV) and He is lighting your way with it. As you continue you realize the road behind you has been paved. You are making it easier for others to follow the same road. What you cannot see, for the trees, is the monstrous ditches coming up on both sides of your dirt road, the absence of filling stations and the washouts. Your ATV has enough power to get through each of these but you must hold onto it.
Your Plan is your Power
The Almighty’s tenacious voltage (ATV) is your power to get to your mansion. His vision for you is what you are striving for. It is that mansion on the top of the hill you want bad. For you to reach that mansion you MUST hold fast to the ATV. There are going to be seasons of cold and seasons of hot while you are driving on the dirt road. Hold fast, for you will reap the benefits if you do not give up.
To hold fast to the ATV you must know your God. His voltage can only be felt when you are in constant contact with Him. If you do not know Him you will not feel His voltage. His voltage can be found in the Word of God. You read it. You know it. You ponder it. You understand it. You do it. You feel it. That is the order in which the voltage travels. You have this Powerful generator inside you to use but it needs fuel. The Word of God is your fuel for this generator. The less time you tap into this filling station the shorter the distance you will be able to travel. The more you more you fill the further you can go. This picture is the same for every Christian and the fuel source is also the same. Let us plan our travel down this dirty road.
Plan Your Ditch Dwelling
You are driving on the dirt road comfortably with no obstacles. You can see your desire at the top of the hill but you are still miles away. You know if you hold fast to your ATV you can make it in no time. You hit a pot hole in the road, lose control and fall straight into the ditch. You try to push your ATV up the side of the ditch but don’t have enough strength. You decide to get onto your ATV and drive through the ditch. The weeds, the soupy water and the mud are slowing you down to a snail’s pace. What a nightmare? There are snakes, frogs, cattails, green goo and scanky smelling fogs along the way. You are deep in the valley.
Did your plan include ditch dwelling? There is a reason you are in the ditch. We ditch dwell to build strength. The mansion we have been given by God has to be built by us. It has to be defended by us. The Israelites spent forty years wondering in the dessert until the second generation built up enough strength to do what God has told them to do. When it was time to go into their promised land God told Joshua three times in Joshua 1:1-9 to be strong and have courage. God will keep us in the ditch until we build the character traits He needs us to have to be able to build our ministry and defend the position we have in our ministry. Our plan for what will happen while ditch dwelling has to be implemented while on the road because our overall plan is hard to see when we are in the ditch. Planning to gain enough strength to hang on to the ATV tightly while in the ditch will ensure we exit from the ditch each time.
Plan the Power Loss
You have finally exited the ditch. Your strength is gaining so maybe the next ditch won’t be so deep or so long. The road is being paved again behind you and all is well in your world. You lose sight of it. Where did it go? Your mansion, it’s gone. You have lost the power needed to stay on the road. You put your foot on the brake to stop. You look around. There are no filling stations anywhere. The filling stations are your lifeline to traveling. They consist of Christian teachings, Christian friends, and your self-help books. They are all gone. You are all alone.
If your fuel is from people this will be a rude awakening. The fuel used to power ourselves cannot be people it has to be the Word of God and His revelation for our life. If we rely on people to tell us what to do and how to get to our mansion we will spend much time in the ditch and on the wrong road. God has revealed to us the dirt road that WILL get us to His mansion. The power of the vision God gave us can fade. We will not be able to see it nor tap into it as easily as we could when we first saw it. The long passage of time and ditch dwelling can cause this to happen. If we don’t plan to refuel ourselves with the Word of God we will lose our connection to the constant power source. Staying plugged into the Word of God has to be part of our plan on the road to our mansion.
Plan to Portage
You are out of the ditch and have your mansion in sight again. You put the ATV in drive to travel. You are aware of the ditches and of the chance still remains to run out of gas. You are building strength and keeping fuel in your generator. Then you see it, water over the road. The road is washed out and there is no way for you to continue unless you lift your ATV onto your shoulders to wade through it. The water is rushing so fast at times you have to stand still because moving will push you off the path. Sometimes, it gets higher than your mouth and it takes all your strength to jump up for a breath. You are drowning.
The world is one weight on our shoulders and to lift the will of God up there too is enough to make us feel like we are drowning. Sometimes, the will for God for our lives feels like a burden to us. The dirt road looks good to us compared to this washed out road covered with rushing waters. We compare the burden of carrying the world on our shoulder with carrying God’s plan for us too. There is no comparison. God’s plan for us is self-sufficient. He planned it for us and He will bring it into fruition. He is filling in ditches, revealing the fuel and parting waters for us to get to that mansion. We don’t have to pick up the ATV it is already on the other side waiting for us.
The Power in the Plan
There is no work we can do to get us closer to our mansion before God wants us there. The mansion we see at the top of the hill is the desire God has for our life. It is not our desire or someone else’s desire for us. The Almighty’s tenacious voltage is our power to get there. The road is being paved to our mansion. To pave a road it first has to be made level and graveled. Ditches need to be dug and rest stops with filling stations added. Drains need to be placed in low lying areas to avoid wash outs. The fulfillment of His plan for your life is what paves the road behind us. Others may travel on our paved road for a time but they have their own dirt road to travel, their own ditches to get out of and their own water to wade through on the way to their own mansion. The generator used by us is not the same one used by others. The dirt road we travel is designed specifically for the windy, hilly path to our mansion. It is designed to make sure that by the time we begin building our mansion it is built on a sturdy foundation. The foundation must be on the Rock, Jesus Christ. The path that is being paved must always lead people to Jesus. We are preparing the way to Jesus, for many people, by obeying God’s will for our life.
We need not wonder why God tells us where we are going but doesn’t show us the whole sorted path. Learning to believe Him and trust Him will always put us on the path of teaching others to do the same. If you want that thingamabob, you shall have it.
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What Will it Take? Part 3
I have asked you what it will take to get you to read the Bible – what was your answer? I have also asked you what it will take to get you to study the Bible – what was you answer to that question? Now a new question if you can handle it. What will it take for you to memorize the Bible? I am not asking you to memorize the whole thing just parts of it. What is your biggest excuse for refusing to memorize Scripture? Actually, no matter what the excuse, there is no excuse for not knowing the Word of God. In Proverbs 1:7 Solomon says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and that fools reject wisdom and instruction. I am going to tell you on this day that memorizing Scripture is part of this knowledge because memorizing Scripture makes us ponder what it means to us right here, right now and it give us something to hang onto for future use. Shall you present yourself to Jesus mature in the things of God or not?
I hear all the time that people have “life verses” that they have memorized but I am confused about what exactly that means, or more so, what does it mean to them. They memorize a verse like Romans 8:28 but miss the verses before and after where it says that we are predestined to do good works. They memorize Jeremiah 29:11 but skip the fact that God said seek me first and you shall have this. Seeking Him means knowing everything that He says not just what we want to know at that moment or even for life. Has our soul been so spoiled by what we have been feeding it that we want to have life verses that tell us that we are only going to have good things for the future. What about memorizing Hebrews 4:12 or Psalm 149:5 or Isaiah 49:2 or even Jeremiah 23:29 and John 12:48? We are going to be judged by the Words of Jesus when we stand before Him and if we have never buried them in our soul we will not even know what we will be judged by. This is what the Word means to us right here and right now. It is not about our soul here on Earth it is about our soul in Heaven. Paul said to bring your soul into submission (1 Corinthians 9:26-27). Do not run aimlessly through life only putting fluffy verses into your soul, run to win this race to Jesus. Put verses into your soul that change you, encourage you to keep going and keep you on the pavement. Since our life is constantly changing so should our “life verse or verses” change. Challenge yourself and your soul to memorize a whole Psalm this week. Some good ones would be Psalm 8, Psalm 91, Psalm 100 and the all-favourite Psalm 23. Bring your soul into submission so that in the future you will be able to continue running through that desert.
A time is coming when you will not feel the Father around or Jesus or the Holy Spirit because your soul is inundated with worldly woes. Are you prepared for that? Will your whole Spirit come to a stand still? Will you wish you had prepared yourself? Yes, you will unless you let your soul whining take over. Will God be to blame if life happens and you have not prepared your soul to handle it with dignity? You won’t be alone. There are many Christians out there who have not prepared their souls for what is about to happen but that is still no excuse for them to be unprepared. What is it that you are preparing for? Are you preparing for financial disaster, a death in the family, kids coming or kids moving out, job or job loss? Jesus tells us that where our heart is, that is where our treasure is (Matthew 6:21) but our heart is supposed to be in Heaven and we are supposed to be preparing ourselves for when Jesus comes again. We are being sought after by a roaring lion to be devoured and the only way to beat him at his game is the Word. He will continue to come after us but if we know the Truth it shall set us free from the oppression that he has laid upon us. We are not without power but it is not our power that can beat the devil it is the power of God that beats him. The power of God is His Word and it is sharper than a two-edged sword piercing even to the separating of soul and spirit (Hebrews 4:12).
If you know the things of God you shall present yourself to Jesus mature in the things of God! Is that not what we want? Therefore there is nothing in this world that should stop us from becoming mature and running the race well. Memorizing Scripture will give us this knowledge we need to present ourselves mature because memorizing Scripture makes us ponder what it means to us right here, right now and it give us something to fight the devil with in the future. I cannot say this enough – reading the Bible, studying the Bible and knowing the Bible is the only way to mature in the things of God. It is disappointing to find Christians who are not hell bent on knowing God. Yes, it is work but how well do you know how to search the Internet or run your computer? Do you think that will give you a free pass into the New Jerusalem? How many songs can you sing from memory? What is stopping you from singing a Psalm instead of a song? Can you see how weak your current excuse is, if you just ponder that excuse for just one moment? When Jesus comes He will take no excuses, only the Truth and His Word will judge us! Ignorance of His Word will not save us, it will kill us. We are to bring our soul into submission and make it do what Jesus wants us to do! Unless you read, study and know Scripture you will never know what that is! What will it take for you to understand that God’s will for us will not be thwarted by stubbornness? He knows what you will and won’t do and He will pull you along kicking and screaming if He has too so why don’t you just do what He wants! He wants you to know Him and to know Him you need to read the Word, study the Word and know the Words.
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Guard those Pieces with Your Life!
Joining the pieces of information together that God gives us takes time and knowledge to accomplish. We all use different methods to join those pieces together. To follow the will of God we need to be able to put those pieces together. Putting these pieces together takes a steadfast mind on the task. If we are keeping these pieces in our mind we cannot allow ourselves to be caught off guard. We need to guard these pieces with out life. Each of those pieces keeps us alive in Jesus so when we do not guard them we will lose them. Keeping guard of these pieces with your life will lead to two rewards, more pieces and growing up.As we learned from the last blog, pieces are bits of information that the Holy Spirit places in our heart/mind to help us stay in the Fathers will. As we guard the pieces we already have he will supply us with more. Jesus said in Matthew 13:12 that those who have will be given more but those who do not guard their pieces will lose their pieces. This applies to all knowledge and wisdom given us by the Father. We are gathering information because it helps us to get into position to fulfill the will of God in our life. Some of these pieces of information include how we are gifted, who Jesus is inside those gifts, how we can use those gifts each day and what other information we need. No information is complete by itself so we need to gather more to fully understand all the pieces. Guarding all the pieces information results in more and our growth as well.
With each piece of information we gather and guard we will grow in our faith of Jesus Christ but what is more important is that we will grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. When we grow in our knowledge of Jesus Christ we begin to grow up in Him too. It does not take a rocket scientist to learn Jesus Christ it takes someone dedicated to learning Him and dedicated to growing up in Him. We can spend our whole lives warming the bench at church but once we leave our hope, our faith, and our stamina fail to continue as we go to work, parent our children, submit to our husband and follow our leaders. Gathering pieces together to grow is imperative to being who Jesus wants us to be.
It is all about who Jesus wants us to be. He gives us pieces of information so that we can keep doing what He has created us to do. He has created all things and all things hold together because of Him (Colossians 1:16-17). It is His great pleasure to give us more pieces and it behoves us to grow with those pieces. To live in ignorance about who Jesus is, is to live in ignorance about who you are. We are defined by who Jesus is which is why we need to guard those pieces with our lives and He will surely reveal the rewards to us.
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Let Him Choose!
Elijah, the prophet of God Almighty, killed 450 prophets of Baal and believed at this time that he alone stood for God (1 Kings 18-19). He was exhausted and ready to give up. He went up to the top of carmel and put his head between his knees waiting for the rain to come. It came but it poured down more than just water. Elijah had to run for his life to Bersheba. God ministered to him there but he was still running under the impression that he was the only one. It is a great encouragement to know that God has a plan and you are not the only one working it but until you know you are still alone. God asked Elijah what he was doing in Horeb. He told God he alone is zealous for Him. God, before He told Elijah about His plan first showed him His glory then He informed him he is not alone.
Elijah built his ministry by himself. He walked by himself in the zeal of the Lord! He alone went against Jezebel. He looked around and listened but there was not anyone with this same zeal. I feel like this sometimes. I feel like I alone am filled with the zeal of God and it is draining sometimes. Over this couple of weeks I have seen that Jesus has spoken the same words to others as He has spoken to me. He is training me with the same instruction He is using with others. He is showing us His glory before He chooses our fellow workers for His cause. When we are ready He will unite us!
Sometimes we feel we are alone but when God tells us that He is going to do something He does it. We CANNOT do God’s works on our own and if He has shown us that we will join with others He has those others already chosen. He is moving them into place just as He is moving us into place. God knows exactly what we need in a partner worker to accomplish His Word. I am finished trying to pick my fellow workers I am going to let Jesus do that for me and see the wonderful people He adds to my life for the glory of God. He definitely has revealed to me that He can do a better job choosing His workers than I can!
Action Plan: If you feel alone you are in a good place because your aloneness will make you available to view the glory of God from the place where you can see it best. This week open you eyes and ears to what others are saying so you can hear how God is working just for you. Sometimes you have to reveal God’s plan for you even though you have discounted it out of barrenness. That is when God will reveal to you the work He is doing!
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Watch Your Language!
I am more aware today of language than I have ever been in all my life. I am learning American Sign Language and I am learning the Bible in its original language. The translations of the Bible play a key role in how we understand what God is actually saying to us. I am sure that at least one questionable religion has used the word translation to explain their existence. Are they right? No because the translation of the Bible is our responsibility to make. I am English speaking so I must research the Hebrew or Greek word and what it means in English if I am to discover exactly what the Bible is saying to me. Scholars translated the Bible into English but unfortunately the English language is not as easy as the Hebrew or Greek language because we have so many words. An example of a misunderstanding based on translation is Psalm 8. It has a couple of complicated things to look at such as verse 1. NKJV says O Lord our Lord with the first Lord being YHVH (H3068). If you spend 10 minutes researching this word you will know why it is so perplexing to all of us. Then if you go to verse 5 it says that we lack a little from Elohim (H430) but most translation say we were made a little lower than the angels. If you look up the word for lack it is specific to our person.
This being said from just one Psalm you can imagine what the whole Bible has to offer in the way of language. We know that every Word in the Bible is planned and has meaning in its language. The original language is Hebrew in the Old Testament and Hebrew in the New Testament. If context is a great issue for you, as it is for me, than you aught to own an Interlinear Bible of English/Hebrew/Greek. Then you can see how God originally intended His Words to look and to taste. His will is in His Word and He will reveal all of it to you if you ask.Action Plan: this week buy yourself an Interlinear Bible of English/Hebrew/Greek and start looking at those words that perplex you. There are some on the net but I am partial to the touchy feely kind of books. If the web is where you want to read it you can search it out but do take some time to stop and listen to Jesus explain Himself to you in a language only you understand.
