9 minute read
DO WHAT GOD REQUIRES
Jesus Christ told us in John 14:26(NLT), “But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.” This should be our greatest occupation, to learn the Spirit’s language, to understand how he uses visions and dreams to communicate with us, and to move according to His directives and guidance. Jesus said in John 16:13(NLT), “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.” Do you trust this magnificent Word from the Lord? If you don’t, now is the time to get to it, because never has there existed a more pressing urgency to learn to walk by God’s Spirit. Many people have not used their ability to dream and imagine as an instrument to follow God through the Spirit. They have used them to follow their own agenda instead of yielding their imaginations and dreams to God for the Spirit’s guidance. Some of us go for what we want with gusto and determination. If we have the tenacity and boldness to pursue our own dreams and aspirations, we should have even greater faith to pursue the dream God has for us. He’s the One to tell us what to do, not the other way around. If we truly desire to please Him, God will tell us His agenda. Through His Word and through the Holy Spirit that indwells us, Heavenly Father will reveal His purpose for our lives, and we must know that it is our greatest privilege and honor to line up our agenda with His.
n His Word, God tells us many times that He doesn’t want us to be ignorant. He doesn’t want us to be in the dark about the extraordinary rights and privileges He’s given us through Jesus Christ. He doesn’t want us to be ignorant about our authority and power in Christ, and He doesn’t want us ignorant regarding the evil devices, plots, and tricks that satan will use to attempt to blind us so we will not know the reality of who we are and what we have received. Coming into the light is coming into an understanding of who we are in Christ. We are lost without this understanding. Genesis 1:26 teaches that God created us in His image. We have free-will, and like Him, we are selfgoverning and free to make our own choices. The history of our existence has proven that we are indeed intelligent beings, capable of extraordinary resourcefulness and creativity. Because of God’s masterful design, we are thinkers, and what we think about is of extreme significance. Our thoughts have a profound impact on the quality and substance of our lives. They can lead us into more light where love, liberty, and life increase; and this is the place where we choose to think like Christ. We think thoughts that are lovely, pure, true, and of moral excellence. On the flipside, we can also choose to think the opposite of those things. We can think thoughts that keep us on a path of darkness, death and despair. This is not what God wants. He wants us to line up our thoughts and actions with what He says we can have, be, and do. Then we will achieve our purpose in His plan. This is what each of us is here on this earth to accomplish.
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Many believers are feeling lost and bewildered. They complain about not knowing what God requires of them. In frustration, they cry, “Lord, what do You want from me?!!!” They feel they’re doing all they know to do, and that life isn’t cooperating with their best efforts. This is how Gwendolyn felt. She had not realized that the season upon us is like no other. Whether we realize it or not, through the circumstances of our time, God is communicating the shift that He is requiring His people to make, and we must do what He requires. 1Corinthians 6:19-20(NLT) tells us, “19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.” We don’t belong to ourselves; we belong to God. He purchased us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ when Jesus gave his life on the cross for our sins. So, the answer to the question regarding what God wants from us is that He wants everything. God wants and deserves all that we are. Romans 12:1 instructs us to present our entire lives to God as a living sacrifice, the kind He will find holy and acceptable. He tells us that this is the very least we can do for all He has done for us. We are very quick to put up excuses as to why we can’t do this, but those excuses will not work with Heavenly Father. Ephesians 1:3 tells us that He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings, and Colossians 2:10 informs us that we are completely complete through our union with Christ. So not only has God called us according to His purpose, but He has equipped and qualified us in every way to carry His purpose forth to completion. I once heard an actress say that acting was her craft and her everything. She said, “I will sacrifice all that I am for my craft.” This is the sentiment of many artistic and creative people. The truth is that we were created to give God our everything, and all our sacrifices should be given to Him alone. As we sow into His Kingdom, He will bless us with more than we can imagine. He tells us in Hebrews 11:6 that He is a Rewarder to those that diligently seek Him. Jesus Christ declared in Matthew 6:33 that blessings will be added to us when we seek God first, but make no mistake, they will be subtracted when we seek any other thing or person first or put them before our Heavenly Father. God created everything in life, including you and me, to cooperate brilliantly with His Will and Plan. His Will and Plan creates the boundaries of our peace, joy, fulfillment, and satisfaction. Whenever we’re outside of those boundaries, the enemy will attack and very often he does so vehemently.
Through our Lord and Savior’s sacrifice on the cross and through his resurrection from the dead, we have received new life! Our minds and hearts are the receivers by which our existences are activated in this new life. Our human spirit was regenerated through the new birth experience, but our souls are under our free-will, and it is our privilege and responsibility to bring our souls, hearts, and minds in alignment with the new life we have received. We’re living in a different season and our Lord is soon to return. Micah 6:8 (ESV) reminds us, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Our Heavenly Father hasn’t changed and neither have His requirements. We are to love what He loves, and to walk humbly with Him. The key is walking W I T H God. Walking with Him requires that the Word is planted in our hearts and minds. When this happens, things internally shift and transform. The Holy Spirit works within. He cooperates with the truth that you and I walk out in our lives. Jesus Christ said in John 16:13 that the indwelling Holy Spirit will guide us into ALL truth. He will tell us what he hears from our Master Jesus. Many believers complain that they aren’t hearing from God. Well, the issue isn’t that our Heavenly Father isn’t talking. The issue is that we’re not hearing Him. Our actions do not convey that we are totally on board with where God is guiding us, so we are not exactly cooperating with the move of the Holy Spirit. Instead, we’re still trying to lead ourselves and spearhead our own agendas. Our relationship with God is a partnership where He guides, we follow. This is how the partnership works. But make no mistake, a partnership requires the investment of both parties. So, we have a part to play. Many of us have it in our minds that this earth experience is given so we can get all we can get and do whatever we want to do. That’s not life’s purpose. We are here to be transformed into the very image of our Master Jesus. We must follow the pattern and example he set for us. In John 4:34 (NLT), he said, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” And in John 6:38(NLT), Jesus Christ teaches us, “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” This is our mandate. It is not to do our own will, but to do the Will of the Father. We will not find our soul’s satisfaction in the world’s agenda. We won’t find it in doing things that are outside God’s Will and plan for our existences. The only fuel that will move us forward is carrying out our Father’s agenda. This is where our gifts, talents, and abilities are mobilized and activated. It’s when we witness how we fit into God’s plan. 2Peter 1:5-7 tells us to make every effort to respond to God’s promises and to supplement our faith with moral excellence, knowledge, selfdiscipline, patient endurance, and Godliness. 2Peter 1:10 tells us to work hard to prove that we are really among God’s chosen ones. Time is running out, and many of God’s elect are lagging far behind. Heavenly Father has shown us tremendous patience and grace, but now is the time to do as Christ instructs in Revelation 3:2(NLT), “Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead. I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my God.” He commands us to go back to the Gospel, hold to it tightly, and repent. We must be attentive to do what God requires, especially now. The hour is upon us to become extremely diligent about the things of His Kingdom. He holds us responsible for doing all we can to carry forth the mission of Christ. So, wherever we are in life, no matter how dissatisfied we are with our conditions and circumstances, we must turn our hearts and minds to our Lord and Savior. God is working in us through His Holy Spirit, and if we allow Him, He will transform us so that we will be ready when Jesus Christ comes.■
