Experiencing God

Chap Eleven-God Reveals Himself, His Purposes and His Ways

Question 1. What aspect of God’s character have you experienced recently that has been particularly meaningful to you?

God is the living bread. We are all sinners and even though we try to do the right things, we will eventually mess up. Even if we accomplish the near impossible and live perfect lives, if we do not believe in God and his son Jesus-who died on the cross for our sins-we cannot have eternal life in heaven.

I have known this for over twenty years. It is good to remind myself of this every once in a while with the sinner’s prayer.

God is not just an invisible entity. While I believe in him by faith, when he reveals himself it increases my faith. However, I will have to believe it is God when he reveals himself and believe in him.

Question 2. What has God shown you about what he is currently seeking to accomplish in your life, someone else’s life, or in your church? How did God make His activity evident? How have you responded?

The main thing I have to do is schedule my time better. I work a seven day work week before I get a day off. Since I work nights, when I get home-especially if I do overtime-I do not have the energy to do anything when I get home. I wait until my days off to do everything I need to get accomplished. Then it is not physically possible to do everything I want to get done. To get some things accomplished, I have to neglect other things.

This is what I need to do. During my work days I have to schedule at least an hour a day to work on my smaller tasks. House cleaning is a never-ending chore which I usually reserve for my days off. If I can motivate myself to work on one room at a time, when it comes to my days off, I can have more time to concentrate on my enjoyable activities.

By being involved in different Bible Studies and even by reading Christian books, I am learning by examples of how others reach out to people.

I am currently reading The Left behind Series written by jerry Jenkins and Timothy LeHaye. In the book Tsion Ben Judah-to make a long story short-is in hiding. He uses the Internet to reach out to millions. Since I am more of an introvert, the Internet can be used to my best advantage. While I am involved in blogging and several writing websites, I am currently researching more ways to reach out to people.

As I mentioned that I need to schedule my time more effectively, I know I need to make a time line to stretch out my activities for the week.

It can be something like this:

Monday and Tuesday-Blogging

Wednesday and Thursday-Reading two chapters of the book my group is currently discussing

Friday, Saturday and Sunday-Write (while I blog, I also like to write fiction at times)

By doing this a little at a time, when it comes to my day off, I am not so overwhelmed.

Question 3. What is one of the ways of God have you learned recently? How have you been applying what you learned?

God is the planner, I am the dreamer. Sometimes I think I know what I want to do for God. Then I make plans and set priorities. After that is all done, I pray to God and ask him to bless my plans. Since I am doing everything for him, I should be successful. However, that is incorrect.

Take a look at the following verses:

Psalms 33:10-11

(vs. 10) “The Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.”

(vs. 11) “But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.”

Proverbs 19:21 “Many of the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

If I am not on the same wave-length as God’s, he will not work through me. His timing is right and when he says so, he will reveal to me what he is going to do. That is when I can join him in his plans. His plans always succeed.

When we try to make plans and attempt tp carry them out before God tells us what to do, we are relying on our own wisdom. We must remember to follow him and get guidance from him. If we try to do things on our own wisdom, we may forget about our need for a daily intimate relationship with him. While we might reach out to people with our own plans, if we do not have that love relationship with God, we will be outside his will. We may not be able to Experience Him as fully as we are capable.

I must remember that God’s plans never change. I must allow him to redirect me whenever he wants me to change.

Question 4. Has God’s revealing of Himself to you increased your faith to trust Him in other areas of your life as well?

Words cannot describe what he has done for me. Asides from being loving, compassionate, redemptive, forgiving and cleansing, He builds up my spirit while at the same time, makes me humble.

Reference:

Bible verses are taken from The Holy Bible New International Version

Questions are taken from Experiencing God Knowing and Doing the Will of God. Henry and Richard Blackaby.