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Beginning A Spiritual Walk (Part 2)

          Thank you for joining me in this conversation about beginning a spiritual walk.  ‘Beginning’, is always the hardest thing to do!  If you’re like me, it’s possible for an idea or thought to germinate inside my head for months before finally making the necessary steps to ‘begin’.  Even when I’ve felt that it was the leading of God, it was still difficult to get started.  Since I haven’t heard from you yet, this is where we’ll start our conversation today; talking about how God leads us and why it’s so hard to begin.

          By now, you may have already heard someone use the phrase, ‘the leading of the Lord’.  If you haven’t, as time progresses and you become connected to other believers, it’s sure to be said by more than a few.  This speaks of the process that God uses to capture our attentions and direct us into the many phases of our lives.  It includes the ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘who’ and ‘how’ that He uses to get us from where we are to where He wants us to be.  God will never force you to do anything, go anywhere or be anything that you don’t want to be, go or do.  What He will do is use someone or something to point you in the direction that He wants you to go and then it will be up to you to follow or resist. 

          Up until now, you may have gone most of your life unaware of the divine plan that brought you through sicknesses, sufferings, situations and circumstances for the purpose of getting you to the place where you’re now ready to hear what God has to say.  Maybe you can already see some of the times where if it wasn’t for ‘that’ one thing, ‘this’ other thing wouldn’t have been possible.  He doesn’t take us anywhere, He gently leads.  This is one of the great things that I love about how God leads us; He has a way of doing it so smoothly that we usually don’t even know it’s happening until after it’s already done.  Then we look back and marvel at the wonder of His work. 

          That’s how it happened when I first began!  At the age of 20, while serving in the US Air Force and stationed in Las Vegas, Nevada, I had come to a crossroad in my life.  I could continue trying to live life on my own terms and suffering the consequences or return to my spiritual roots and embrace the faith that I had denied.  After a few more months in attempts to court Lady Luck on the Blackjack tables and smoke, snort and drink myself into social acceptance, it became clear that I was on the wrong road.  After overcoming my fears of beginning, I informed God that if He wanted me to live for Him, He was going to have to get me out of Las Vegas!  In one short month, I received orders that relocated me to a small town in Germany named Hahn.  Within the remaining nine months of my four year enlistment, I was drawn, by process of elimination, to the Gospel Choir.  That’s because I had a great desire to sing and all other avenues dead ended.  The very first night that I sang with the choir, the sermon of the out of town guest preacher brought me to tears and I accepted Christ as Lord of my life.  From there, I was inducted into a small but mighty men’s group that maintained high accountability and was later discharged from the military after feeling the call and voluntarily enlisting as a minister of the Gospel.  It wasn’t until many years later, that I recognized how God had orchestrated every step that led me right where He wanted me to be.  It really gave meaning to what Isaiah wrote in Chapter 42 and verse 12, “And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.”

          When you take that scripture and combine it with what Paul wrote in the 8th Chapter and 28th verse of Romans, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”, we can see that God doesn’t hide the fact that it has always been a part of His plan to use every opportunity and situation, (the good and the bad), to lead us out of darkness and into the light of His love.  For most of us, the defining moment of our willingness to hear what God has to say, comes during yet another one of those bad situations; a death or loss, sickness, a financial disaster, a failed relationship or the like.  God has a way of using them to lead us to the realization that we are powerless without Him.  He always has a way of taking our bad and making us the better by it. (cf. Genesis 50:20)

          So don’t ever fret about the roads of life you had to travel in order for God to lead you to where you are now.  If you keep going, you’ll soon be able to look back and see the blessings in those things you once thought were curses.  Solomon said there is a season and a reason for everything that happens (Ecclesiates 3:1 paraphrased).

          I’m going to end our conversation today with a word about what makes it so hard for us to begin this spiritual walk we want to take.  It goes to one of the things that I said last week, Satan’s plan is to steal, kill and destroy every ‘God thing’ in your life.  He can’t stand the thought of you becoming a friend of God!  All this time, whether you knew it or not, you belonged to him.  He thought he was calling the shots for your life, and now you want to stop listening to him and start listening to God!  No way!  The more you talk about walking with God, the more active he gets with plans to change your mind.  You know how it is, we don’t give a thought to the money that’s in our pocket(book), but let someone try to remove it and we immediately become defensive.  It the same way with Satan!  The moment he thinks he’s going to loose one that he had, he puts roadblocks, detours and dead ends all in the way.  And remember, nothing’s sacred with Satan!  He’ll use anything, anybody, any way to turn you around.

          Just remember this, Satan has power, but God has All-power!  He never could defeat God and he never will.  He tried to upstage God in Heaven, but he was fired from his position and thrown out with all of his followers.  He tried to destroy God’s ultimate creation, humankind, but instead received a promise of his own condemnation and humankind’s salvation.  Then he thought he had killed God’s only begotten Son, but that only lasted three days, because God raised Jesus from the grave and gave Him all the power of Heaven and earth.  He never has and never will be a match for God, and the scripture says that he’s no match for you.  According to James 4:7, all you have to do is “Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.”!  It’s as simple as that, just resist him and he’ll leave you alone.  Resist him like you would me, if I tried to take your paycheck out of your hand.  You can do it, remember God has given you His spirit of Power! (cf. 1 John 4:4)

          Well, I’ve done all the talking so far!  I’d love to hear what’s on your mind.  Drop me a line at pastor.wof@sbcglobal.net.   Until later, be blessed and be assured – you are on the right road now!

 

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