How Can You Know God’s Will and Recognize His Timing?

One of the biggest things that keeps people from fulfilling their destiny is what they THINK they can or can’t accomplish.

It’s dangerous to rely on your own strength to bring about change in your life, and pursue your destiny. God needs to be the source of your strength. Yet you need to balance that with taking focused action, being proactive, and moving forward, or you run the risk of getting bogged down and staying stuck.

How do you decide what to focus on at any given time?

There may be periods in your life when God is teaching you lessons to help you grow in spiritual maturity. In those seasons it might seem as though there is a hold up when in reality God is training and maturing you!

You need to learn to recognize those times so that you can work WITH God rather than striving to accomplish something before its appointed time.

There will also be times when God is testing you and wants you to press on and move forward.

And there will be times when you ARE on target but the enemy is opposing you and trying to hold you back from pursuing the next steps. So being able to discern what is happening with timing is crucial.

I hope you know that racing ahead trying to get whatever you want and assuming it is God’s will for your life is unwise and likely to result in great disappointment. Your destiny will unfold over time, and it will happen in God’s timing.

Getting it right isn’t always easy! Trying to rush ahead and make things happen NOW will result in frustration and discontent, YET you need to be sure that you ARE doing your bit by actively pursuing your destiny.

I meet a lot of people who are afraid to move forward because they don’t want to make a mistake or do things outside of God’s timing, so they end up doing NOTHING.

If you ARE afraid to move forward it could be lack of faith, fear of failure, unbelief, or an array of limiting beliefs that are holding you back, or immobilising you by leading you to believe that may be you haven’t really heard God, or you’ve made a mistake, or it isn’t God’s timing.

Dealing with those negative thinking patterns involves work. It’s like training for a sport or learning to play an instrument. You can’t reasonably expect to do it well if you’ve only had a few lessons. To become good at it you need training and lots of practice until it became natural.

Think for a minute about something you want to accomplish or have in your life. Maybe you want a promotion, need a new car, want to train to be a counsellor or coach, feel led to attend a ministry training school, or write a book, or … fill in the blank.

Whatever it is, decide on ONE thing then follow the steps below.

Pray about your ONE THING every day for a month. Ask the Lord what He wants to say to you about it, be sure to listen for His answers, write down what you hear, and put it somewhere you will see it.

Steps to Doing Things God’s Way and in His Timing

1. Develop your relationship with God through Jesus and regularly spend time with Him in prayer and study. It will be out of your relationship with God that your prayers will be answered.

   Learn to recognize God’s voice when He is speaking to you.

2. Ask the Lord to show you whether what you are asking for is something that HE wants you to have or do. Ask for wisdom and for His timing.
3. Once you know that what you want is within God’s will for your life, ask God to show you the way forward, have faith and believe that God will answer you one way or another, He WILL answer your prayers.
4. Pray and ask God for the things that you want and need. Be sure to watch for answered prayer and keep a record to strengthen your faith.
5. Be prepared for His answer to come in a variety of ways. God’s answers to your prayers may look different than you expect.

I hope you find this helpful.

Remember

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God,” Philippians 4:6

What is your TRUE focus in life?

Jesus lived in constant awareness that his Father had a special purpose for his being here, and that he must always be about his Father’s business.

I must be about my Father’s business– Luke 2:49

What is the driving motivation of your life? Whose “business” are you usually and primarily concerned with? Are you mostly working toward your own ends and purposes, toward the pleasure and admiration of your colleagues, toward the fulfillment of your friends’ expectations? Jesus determined that his Father’s business was his one driving, overruling interest.

You may excuse yourself as being too young or too new to the faith to make such an all-encompassing, single-minded resolution. But do you know how old Jesus was when he uttered these words? He was twelve years old!

It is never too soon to give your life to the service of the Lord, to dedicate your time and energy and labors to his glory and pleasure. Can you hear the urgency in Jesus’ words, at the age of twelve, to accomplish this purpose in his own life?

You, also, are here for the glory of God. Like Jesus, you must determine to pursue your Father’s purpose for you now, no matter what family members or coworkers or classmates might say or think. Sadly, Jesus is here having to remind his own parents, in a gentle and respectful way, of the God-centered nature of his calling and life.

Christian, you must be about your Father’s business! Do not let any personal ambition or conflicting counsel get in the way of that great purpose. Give it some serious thought today.

Stick to the plan

We often develop strategies, game-plans, life-plans – and then, at some obstacle or critical point, we say – “Just stick to the plan!” It’s usually good advice.

Life is always sending unexpected surprises, but praise God, nothing takes Him by surprise. He’s the master planner. Our family might turn against us, our friends let us down, illness, afflictions, problems and “situations” on every side…God still has a plan, for you, and for me.

Joseph is a prime example of life’s surprises. It took 13 years of endurance and character-building for him to fulfill this part of God’s plan. Sold as a slave into Egypt by his own brothers, betrayed and imprisoned, he must have wondered a lot where God was and what He was doing. But finally, as a prepared vessel, Joseph was placed in the highest position in the land, second only to Pharaoh, and commissioned to execute God’s plan for saving the world from famine. So the Lord had surprises of His own. Revealing himself to his brothers, Joseph summed it up beautifully: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, in order to bring it about as [it is] this day, to save many people alive. .” (Genesis 50:20)

When our situations are difficult to handle and downright impossible to explain, we need to remind ourselves that God said, “I know the plans I have for you.” Through these situations we discover how faithful and sovereign He truly is. He knows what we can handle and He will never give us more. When the test is completed, we come out with character, stronger in faith, more in love, more useful to Him, and ready……….. for our next test. 🙂 (Oh yeah…)

The fact that we have problems is a sign that we also have a promise. It’s only a matter of time before God reveals His good intentions – so until then, let’s stick to the plan! His !!!

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

Are you tired of your appearance?

The other day I heard someone say that when they passed a mirror, all they could think of is, “That can’t be right.” It’s funny in a way, but unfortunately, in today’s world, there’s a lot of emphasis placed on what we look like on the outside rather than what we look like in our hearts.

Psalms 90:17 And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

Charles William Eliot, former president of Harvard University, had a birthmark on his face that bothered him greatly. As a young man, he was told that surgeons could do nothing to remove it. Someone described that moment as “the dark hour of his soul.” Eliot’s mother gave him this helpful advice: “My son, it is not possible for you to get rid of that hardship…But it is possible for you, with God’s help, to grow a mind and soul so big that people will forget to look at your face.”

Yes, it’s true. All of us have things we’d love to change about our bodies. And many of us tend to spend an awful lot of time and money trying to change, fix and cover those things up. But I think there is much truth in Mrs. Eliot’s words. When we are shining boldly for the Lord, I don’t believe anyone sees them!

Do you REALLY want to make a drastic difference in your appearance today? Let’s stop focusing on our outward issues today and start focusing on what really counts — walking uprightly and wholeheartedly with the Lord — a spiritual extreme makeover! We will glow like never before, at a low low price and 100% guaranteed!

Where’s your heart?

Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

When a Michigan man entered the hospital for tests one day, he never would have guessed what the doctors would find. A routine chest x-ray revealed that the man’s heart was on the wrong side of his chest! Because of a rare reversed-organ condition, his heart was in the wrong place. This is a strange story indeed, although I think some of us suffer from this condition in a spiritual way.

Do you ever find yourself thinking you’re in a good place with the Lord? I haven’t done this sin or that sin in a long time. I’m doing much better in this area of my life than so and so is. I am in leadership in my church or ministry and and I think I’m a better Christian than the people I lead. You know what I’m talking about? We get to thinking we’re in a good place — a safe place — home free.

This safe place is a dangerous place! The reality is that Satan wants us to be content in where we are. He wants us to compare ourselves to others and feel we’ve arrived! But we haven’t! God wants us to continually strive to be more like Him! It is only when we come to a place of humility and dependence upon the Lord that we can have a heart that’s truly in the right place.

We need to daily examine ourselves to see if our hearts are where they need to be. Are we depending on God in every way? Are we constantly acknowledging that all we have and are is by His hand of mercy and grace? Let’s stop comparing ourselves to others and our pasts and strive for God’s perfection today!

What is Atheism?

Atheism is the view that God does not exist. Atheism is not a new development. Psalm 14:1, written by David around 1000 B.C., mentions atheism: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” Recent statistics show an increasing number of people claiming to be atheists, up to 10 percent of people worldwide. So why are more and more people becoming atheists? Is atheism truly the logical position atheists claim it to be?

Why does atheism even exist? Why doesn’t God simply reveal Himself to people, proving that He exists? Surely if God would just appear, the thinking goes, everyone would believe in Him! The problem here is that it is not God’s desire to just convince people that He exists. It is God’s desire for people to believe in Him by faith (2 Peter 3:9) and accept by faith His gift of salvation (John 3:16). God clearly demonstrated His existence many times in the Old Testament (Genesis 6-9; Exodus 14:21-22; 1 Kings 18:19-31). Did the people believe that God exists? Yes. Did they turn from their evil ways and obey God? No. If a person is not willing to accept God’s existence by faith, then he/she is definitely not ready to accept Jesus Christ as Savior by faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). God’s desire is for people to become Christians, not just theists (those who believe God exists).

The Bible tells us that God’s existence must be accepted by faith. Hebrews 11:6 declares, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” The Bible reminds us that we are blessed when we believe and trust in God by faith: “Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed’” (John 20:29).

The existence of God must be accepted by faith, but this does not mean belief in God is illogical. There are many good arguments for the existence of God. The Bible teaches that God’s existence is clearly seen in the universe (Psalm 19:1-4), in nature (Romans 1:18-22), and in our own hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). With all that said, the existence of God cannot be proven; it must be accepted by faith.

At the same time, it takes just as much faith to believe in atheism. To make the absolute statement “God does not exist” is to make a claim of knowing absolutely everything there is to know about everything and of having been everywhere in the universe and having witnessed everything there is to be seen. Of course, no atheist would make these claims. However, that is essentially what they are claiming when they state that God absolutely does not exist. Atheists cannot prove that God does not, for example, live in the center of the sun, or beneath the clouds of Jupiter, or in some distant nebula. Since those places are beyond our capacity to observe, it cannot be proven that God does not exist. It takes just as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a theist.

Atheism cannot be proven, and God’s existence must be accepted by faith. Obviously, Christians believe strongly that God exists, and admit that God’s existence is a matter of faith. At the same time, we reject the idea that belief in God is illogical. We believe that God’s existence can be clearly seen, keenly sensed, and proven to be philosophically and scientifically necessary. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world” (Psalm 19:1-4).

Will you stand by and watch someone’s spiritual house burn, or grab a hose and save it?

I have a lot of friends in the Fire Service, and spent some time as a Fire Fighter myself, so I don’t want anyone to be offended when I bring this story up. Back East, due to budget cuts, some volunteer Fire Departments have been forced to either charge an advanced fee to receive fire protection, or to shut down the Department all together. Unfortunately, it’s been recorded where a few Departments have responded to a fire, but when they found out the homeowners were not covered, they stood by while the house burned down. Now let’s not get into the right or wrongs of their actions, there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. I bring this up because I consider this to be a fine example of  how many Christianslook at non-believers, they better pay for the protection first, or we’ll just watch you burn.

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog written by a young man who had grown up in a Christian family, but turned Atheist. In his blog, he asked a very simple and well put question, “If Christians are so concerned about my spending eternity in hell, why don’t they do more to try to save me from that Hell they describe?” I thought is was a very logical, as well as a Biblical question (I was also impressed with the fact that he was so polite about asking). I was surprised at what I saw when the responses started coming in.

Most of the responses that I saw were rather sharp and angry, blaming him for being in that spot rather than gently and lovingly explaining it to him. Now to an extent, this is true, but it doesn’t mean that we should give up or ignore him when he’s asking for help. I would never want to be known as someone who would turn their back on someone when their Spiritual house is on fire. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is: Matthew 4:19, “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” If you notice in this verse, the key word is a VERB, GO. It doesn’t say, “Let’s tell them about Jesus and let the Holy Spirit do the work. If they don’t respond, then it’s their fault.”

OK, I admit that it may appear that I am angry over this response, but it’s more of a confusion. I cannot understand how anyone can read the story of how Jesus gave His life for us, asked us to do the same, yet be so unwilling to do whatever it takes to see a person come to repentance. The Holy Spirit uses us to do His work, if we sit on the couch and leave it up to Him, then we are letting a lot of people burn.

I see so many other faiths putting Christians to shame in their evangelistic efforts. The Mormon Church is growing at a very fast pace because their followers GLADLY reach out to others and practice what they preach through actions. The Muslim faith is passionate to the point of being fanatical about what they believe, Yet we know the truth, and leave it for someone else to to. To me, this is as much of a betrayal to Jesus as the kiss of Judas. My apologies for being so blunt, but if you’re passionant about something, then you tell it like it is…:)

TEN REASONS I’M NOT AN ATHEIST (AND NEVER WILL BE)

Here it is, folks! The world’s first ever non-atheist manifesto! Feel free to spread it online to as many people as you like. Just click “share” on the button below and the article will pop up on your page. Blessings…!

1.- I shall not be an atheist because something doesn’t come from nothing.

2.- I shall not be an atheist because there is no way such harmony, order and perfection could exist in the universe without an intelligent mind behind it all.

3.- I shall not be an atheist because a mere chance explosion cannot explain how the structure of my brain is able to understand the laws pertaining to the universe’s harmony, order and perfection.

4.- I shall not be an atheist because I am much more than a rational bio-chemical machine. I am full of love, desire and hope. And I also recognize beauty when I see it.

5.- I shall not be an atheist because I have a moral conscience. I can tell the difference between good and evil. I believe in objective moral values.

6.- I shall not be an atheist because every tribe and tongue on the face of the earth has a religious consciousness and the idea of a transcendent (or supreme) something or someone.

7.- I shall not be an atheist because I whole heartedly believe my life has a purpose and a meaning.

8.- I shall not be an atheist because although I am imperfect, I have the idea of an insuperable perfect being within me. Such a sublime concept cannot stem from little old me.

9.- I shall not be an atheist because the fruits of practical atheism are- for the most part- ugly, wicked and downright perverted. And much of intellectual atheism is nothing more than an exercise in insoluble contradiction(s).

10.- I shall not be an atheist because the Holy Spirit abides within me. I know God‘s alive. I spoke to Him only five minutes ago.

Just a quick thought for some reason

My life may be hard now, and I may have to slave like a dog to get a scrap while others do nothing and get fame and wealth. I may not have the money to eat anything but ramen noodles while others eat out every night, but one thing is for sure. I have eternal life, and one day this hard life and poor health will be replaced with a glory that cannot be described to those who are worldly rich, but spiritually poor. I will have so much joy that I won’t remember a thing from the past while those who neglected their spiritual life will be begging for a second chance as they face eternal hell. I can accept this pain and junk that I face daily because it’s just a down payment for a rich prize that awaits me. Thank you Jesus.

Jesus, is He your Genie in a bottle or your life? Are you a warrior or a side-liner?

I’ve been watching the events in Egypt unfolding recently, and it makes me wonder why Christians are not as dedicated to their faith as the Muslims are. I am glued to the TV watching this group of unarmed people who are willing to take on an army because they feel that the leaders are threatening their faith. They are so intense about their God, that their are laying down their lives in his defense. Wow, if the Christians of this world would just show a sliver of that dedication, then we wouldn’t be losing the battle for Jesus.

How much do you love Jesus? Do you love Him just enough to expect Him to be your Genie in a bottle, or do you love Him enough to lay down your life for Him?To dedicate your time to Him and to the cause of Christianity.  I don’t think wes ask ourselves these questions often enough. We see people and governments all around us that are threatening our religious freedoms and beliefs, yet all we do is complain about about the situation rather than doing something about it.

What would happen is we were to become a political force to be reckoned with. To mobilize a Christian Army that showed we would not allow abortions.To organize enough to boycott companies that support gay rights. To show the world that we are willing to be the Christian David’s against the worldly Goliath’s. People like to rattle their sabers and say YES, but when it comes time for the march they sit back down. I know that what I am about to say will be controversial, but I don’t care. The heck with the separation of Church and state, it’s time we become a true Christian nation governed by the laws of the Bible not man.

There it is, I said it. Let the nations of the earth arise and become the modern day Israels. Let the Lord punish us when we stray from His Word. Even though the people of Egypt are following the wrong faith, I do respect them for being so dedicated to their beliefs. If we as Christians were to become that dedicated, then there would be no Muslim, Buddhist, LDS, Jehovah Witness, we would all be under the banner of the one true God, Jesus Christ. There would not have to be any more protests, only peace. But that time will never come until we get off of our seats and start fighting. To lay down our lives if needed.

Now ask yourselves, are you motivated by these words, or convicted. If you’re motivated, then go out and do something. Organize, overcome, and oppose what doesn’t align itself with the Bible. If you’re convicted, then pray on it and ask yourself to become a warrior for Jesus not a side-liner.

 

Colossians 3And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.