Reality #3 Part 2 God's Ways

Isaiah 55:8-9
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

God has created us and He knows us better than we know ourselves. He desires that His people follow His ways! He knows our world, past, present, and future. When God's people do not follow His ways the consequences can be very damaging. God's ways are always right and best.
God offered Israel great fulfillment, but they failed to follow Him and the cost was great!
Psalm 81:10-12
"I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels."
God's ways would have been so much better for Israel to follow!
Psalm 81:13-14
"Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! I would soon subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes."
God wanted to provide and care for His people, but they would not follow Him. God wants us to adjust our lives to Him so He can do through us what He wants to do. God is not our servant, He does not adjust to our plans. We are His servants and we must adjust our lives to what He is about to do and to His way of doing it!
If we will not submit, God will let us follow our own choices, and through them we will never experience what God is waiting and wanting to do in our behalf or through us for others.
You would think that Israel, being brought out of Egypt with miraculous sings and wonders like walking on dry ground through the Red Sea and seeing the Egyptian army destroyed by the sea, and bread from heaven (mana) as well as flocks of quail to eat and fresh water to drink flowing from a rock. Not to mention God's presence leading them in a Pillar of Smoke by day and a Pillar of Fire by night.
However when they got to the Promised Land, they didn't trust God to deliver the Promised Land to them. And for not trusting God, they spent the next 40 years wandering through the wilderness. And Psalm 81 is God reminding Israel that He would have conquered their enemies quickly if they had only followed His plans rather than their own.

You need to know what God is about to do!
God always gave His prophets a two-fold message. First the desire of God always: "Call the people to return to Me." And if the people failed to respond the second message was: "Let them know that they are closer to the moment of judgment than they have ever been."
When God was prepared to bring a terrible judgment to Jerusalem and destroy the entire city, was it important to know what God was about to do?
Understanding what God is about to do where you are is more important than telling God what you want to do for Him.
You need to know what God has on His agenda for your church, community, nation, and yourself at this time in history. Then you can adjust your life to God, so that He can move you into the mainstream of His activity before it is too late. God most likely wont give you a detailed schedule, but He will let you know one step at a time as to how you can respond to what He is doing.
Martin Luther: What was God doing when He started to tell Martin Luther that "The just shall live by faith"? He was about to bring the people of Europe to an understanding that salvation was a free gift ant that each person had direct access to Him. God had started the Great Reformation. As you study great movements of God in church history, you will notice in every case that God came to someone and the person released his life to God. Then God began to accomplish His purposes through that individual.
John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield: God was preparing for a seeping revival in England that saved England from a bloody revolution as France had experienced, when He began to speak to John and Charles Wesley. They along with George Whitefield, through whom God was able to do mighty works and turn England completely around.

In your community there are some things that are about to happen in the lives of others. God wants to intercept those lives. Suppose He wants to do it through you? He comes to you and talks to you. But you are so self-centered, you respond, "I don't think I am trained. I don't think I am able to do it. And I..."
You see what is happening here? The focus is on self! The moment you sense God is moving in your life, you give Him a whole list of reasons why He has got the wrong person or why the timing is wrong. That is just what Moses did. You need to seek God's perspective. God knows that you can't do it! But He wants to do it Himself, through you!

All through Scripture, God takes the initiative. He come to a person, reveals Himself and His activity. This revelation is always an invitation to adjust your life to what He is doing. No one that God has ever encountered could remain the same after the encounter. They had to make major adjustments in their lives in order to walk obediently with God.
God is the Sovereign Lord! You must keep you life God-centered, because He is the One who is the Pacesetter. He is always the One to take the initiative to accomplish what He wants to do. When you are God-centered, even the desires to do the things that please God come from God's initiative in you life because "for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." Philippians 2:13
What often happens when we see God at work is we immediately get self-centered rather than God-centered. Somehow we must reorient our lives to God. We must learn to see things from His perspective. We must allow Him to develop His character in us. We must let Him reveal His thoughts to us. Only then can we get a proper perspective on life. In doing this you will immediately put your life alongside His activity. When you see God at work around you, your heart will leap within you and say, "Thank You, Father. Thank You for letting me be involved where You are." If you see God working, you should always assume that He wants you to join Him!
Caution: You must be careful to identify God's initiative and distinguish it from your selfish desires! A self-centered life will have a tendency to confuse its selfish desire with God's will. Circumstances cannot always be a clear direction for God's leadership. Open and Closed doors are not always indications of God's directions. However a sure fire way of seeking God's direction is; checking to see that Prayer, the Scripture, and circumstances all agree in the direction you sense God leading you.
The key is not a method, it is a relationship with your creator.
"I never remember...a period...that I ever sincerely and patiently sought to know the will of God by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, through the instrumentality of the Word of God, but I have been always directed rightly. But if honesty of heart and uprightness before God were lacking, or if I did not patiently wait upon God for instruction, of if I preferred the counsel of my fellow men to the declarations of the Word of the living God, I made great mistakes." George Mueller

These are the things that helped George find God's will:
1. He sincerely sought God's direction
2. He waited patiently on God until he had a word from God in the Scriptures.
3. He looked tot he Holy Spirit (Ghost) to teach him through God's Word.

These are the things that lead him to make mistakes in knowing God's will:
1. Lacking honesty of heart
2. Lacking uprightness before God
3. Impatience to wait for God
4. Preferring the counsel of men over the declarations of Scripture

Here is how he summed up the way he entered into a "heart" relationship with God and learned to discern God's voice:
1. I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter. Nine-tenths of the trouble with people generally is just here. Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the knowledge of what His will is.
2. Having done this, I do not leave the result to feeling or simple impression. If so, I make myself liable to great delusions.
3. I seek the Will of the Spirit of God through, or in connection with, the Word of God. The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions also. If the Holy Ghost guides us at all, He will do it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them.
4. Next I take into account providential circumstances. These often plainly indicate God's Will in connection with His Word and Spirit.
5. I ask God in prayer to reveal His will to me aright.
6. Thus, (1) through prayer to God, (2) the study of the Word, and (3) reflection, I come to a deliberate judgment according to the best of my ability and knowledge, and if my mind is thus at peace, and continues so after two or three more petitions, I proceed accordingly.
For futher reading on George Mueller, see Answers to Prayer from George Mueller's Narratives, compiled by A.E.C. Brooks, Moody Press, and George Mueller by Faith, Coxe Bailey, Moody Press.

In Christ,

David