TAKE HEART: Take The Lead (Week 7)
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TAKE THE LEAD
Hebrews 12:12-14 NLT: 12 So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.
God’s Word and God’s ways offer us a gift: the freedom of direct instruction.
Galatians 5:22 NIV: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
One part of the Spirit’s fruitfulness is (you) controlling, or leading, yourself.
Acts 15:28 NIV: It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements:
Psalm 42:5 NIV: “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
Romans 8:6 NIV: The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.
When in doubt, always listen to your feelings, but also be ready and willing to rebel against your feelings.
Set your course by what is always fixed, not by is easily flustered. (You) lead in setting the course, so that God can lead you on it. (Mark out a straight path)
When your feelings (flesh) protest the loudest, that’s the moment—the opportunity—to plant a “God’s way” seed. Leading yourself to choose God’s ways when you least feel it is solid evidence of God’s leadership in your life.
Luke 18:1-8 NLT: One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. 2 “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. 3 A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ 4 The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, 5 but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’” 6 Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. 7 Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?”
Faith itself is the highest outcome, and it is not wasted. Faith itself is an answer, the one He is forming within you as you struggle and wonder if it’s there and how He will answer other requests. Are you still standing, crying out, taking steps, leading yourself back to Him again and again? That’s the widow’s faith—real faith!
When in doubt… Psalms
I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you,
exalted for you or brought low for you.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine, and I am yours.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
- John Wesley
