People cause unnecessary trouble for themselves because they think the wrong kind of thoughts. They start out trusting God, then when nothing seems to change, or things don’t go their way, or it doesn’t happen fast enough, they start trying to figure out how they can bring it about on their own. That’s not trust! The Bible says to commit your ways unto the Lord, trust (rest) also in Him and He will bring it to pass (Psalm 37:5).
Trying to do things on our own is a perfectly human way to react. The only trouble is God isn’t human, but He is humane.
When human desire gets in the way of God’s will in a person’s life nothing but trouble comes about; it started way back in the Garden of Eden.
Man was not made to do his own will—he was created to do God’s will. That’s why Christ said, “Not my will but Thine be done.” He admittedly came to do His Father’s will—not His own. That too is the heritage of every believer.
God doesn’t think the way a man thinks. He says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts nor are your ways my ways.” He said, “As the heavens are higher than the earth so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts and my ways higher than your ways.”—Isa. 55: 8-9
If a man is to follow God’s will, then he must learn the ways of God. This does not come natural for him; because according to the Bible, he was born in sin and shaped by iniquity.
Man has learned the ways of the world, but the ways of the world are not the ways of God.
In order for a man to learn the ways of God, he must first have a Spiritual birth and then he must be deliberate in his search for truth. God doesn’t reveal Himself to those who are merely curious or just religious It takes an intense hunger in the heart of man to come into the knowledge of God.
That’s why trials are good for us. They bring us to the end of ourselves and we eventually have to turn from the ways of the flesh. We then find a New Life in the Spirit of God. Jesus said, “Narrow is the way and few there be that find it.”
God knows what it takes to conform us to the image of His dear Son--an obedient image! God has had only one purpose since the beginning of time. He revealed that purpose when He said recorded in Genesis, “Let us make man in our own image and likeness.” He began His plan with Adam but He completed it in Christ! Once a man is in Christ, he takes on a new identity. Old things pass away and all things become new.
The Bible says he becomes a new creation. It also says that all things in this new creation are of God. Can you imagine that?
When a man really believes this truth in his heart, he will never again claim the things of the old. He will not identify himself with the lie of the old but with the truth of the new.
The problem: The carnal mind which is of the flesh, has been completely steeped in the lying deceptions of the evil one. That’s why the Bible tells us to “diligently” renew our mind with the Word of God.
Christ divided good from evil when He said, “Thy Word is truth.” But the truth of God is not clear to our natural reasoning. That’s because the mind is not made to understand the things of God. We cannot look to it for Spiritual validation. It is of this world and Christ said His Kingdom is not of this world.
When it comes to receiving the things of God, the Bible simply says, “Confess the word with your mouth and believe it in your heart.” No one will possess the things of God without doing this. Your mind cannot help you here and it cannot recognize the truth of God. The only way to enter into these things is the way the Bible prescribes.
We enter into the things of God by faith or we do not enter. The simple description of faith would be to believe in something you cannot see. You cannot see with your senses the truth and reasoning of God’s Word. God’s realm is hid from the eyes of the world.
The book of Hebrews says that faith is the proof of things not seen. Normally, when one thinks of proof, he refers to things he can see. But the Word of God deals with a different realm, the realm of the God of the unseen. This realm is a Spiritual realm and you can’t see Spiritual things with physical eyes.
The Word of God and faith are actually synonymous. That’s because it is through faith and by the Word of God that we are made aware of the things of God. To believe that Word is called faith. The Word becomes proof or evidence of things not seen.
There can be no faith without the Word. That is why it is called the Word of faith. This Word and this faith come from God; that is why it is called the Word of God.
One would think then that if we truly accepted it as the Word of God we would believe it. Could it be that the reason we often do not believe it is because we are not convinced within ourselves that it is indeed the Word of God. Can you imagine someone not believing what God says? No wonder the Bible says, “Let God be true and every man a liar.” If you can’t believe God, who can you believe?
Warren D. Rogers