1 - Will I Trust God?
Whether you know it or not, the temptation to Backslide is a subtle process and we need to be alert and resist all its stages!
This is what the writer of Proverbs advised us:
Proverbs 3:
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart;
do not depend on your own understanding.
6 Seek his will in all you do,
and he will show you which path to take.
(New Living Translation)
There are 3 things that God expects us to do:
1. Trust the Lord with ALL our heart - not just a nominal belief in God. This is the "all your heart" kind of faith.
2. Don't depend on my own understanding of the state of my life. I need to know for sure that I DON'T know everything, and there are areas of the situation that I am blind to. I must never think I know it all.
3. I need to continually seek the Lord for what I should do next. I must not assume that my next great idea will necessarily take me in God's direction for my life. The Lord Jesus promised that if I seek, I will find. Therefore if I diligently pursue the Lord to find His will for every situation of my life, then He will show me which path is the right one for me.
Then we need to remind ourselves of the Apostle Paul's warning:
1 Corinthians 10:
12 If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall.
13 The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.
(New Living Translation)
Paul begins by filling us in on what happens when we forget to put into practice the three keys from Proverbs 3. We begin to think that we're OK, and we aren't as diligent in trusting, depending and seeking the Lord as we should be.
Then things begin going downhill fast!
First, when the temptation comes to backslide - or to return to the old way of living that God has taken us out of - we begin to believe that we're the only person experiencing temptation: that usually leads to a "poor me" attitude.
If we fall for the temptation to think we're the ONLY one, we begin to feel isolated, which is not the right response to temptation.
One of the things we absolutely must do in this situation, is to get hold of a friend who can listen as we describe our temptation. If this person is really a friend, they'll remind us of all the temptations they have faced and overcome and the encouragement of our friend will help our own resistance.
Having been encouraged like this, we can then go back to diligently trusting, depending and seeking the Lord and humbling ourselves before Him.
Prayer:
Father, today I want to trust You, depend upon You fully and seek You with all my heart.
I commit myself to fitting in with Your plans for me, so I thank You for directing my path,
in Jesus' precious name,
Amen. |
Hope we can get together again tomorrow, God willing.
Meanwhile, have a great day walking with the Lord!
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