Tag: <span>God’s purpose</span>

Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 2 Corinthians 3:5 (NIV)


The only way you will fulfill God’s destiny for you this decade is to rely on God’s strength. And that means you have to confess ‘I can’t’ before you can agree ‘God can.’

Otherwise, we’ll just keep thinking there’s still some ability (competency, sufficiency) in us that will allow us – independent of God – to do the things he expects of us during this Decade of Destiny.

We’ll continue to believe, wrongly, that we can do some things, perhaps all things, apart from God. We’ll keep applying the pretzel logic that we can make decisions disconnected from God that somehow keep us connected to God’s plans for us.

And when we make choices disconnected and independent from God, there is little difference between the way we live our lives and the way non-believers live their lives.

But people who aren’t Christians can’t understand these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them because only those who have the Spirit can understand what the Spirit means.” (1 Corinthians 2:14 NLT)

You have the Holy Spirit inside you. You have the ability to understand when God is telling you to take steps toward his goals for your life. Ask him to teach you to hear his still small voice and to help you take the steps he tells you to take. Then, look for the ways he guides you through the decisions and details of your life.

For the next few weeks, keep a list of all the times you sense God giving you direction. This will help you to see that he is at work in your life and that he has a constant interest in the details of your life.

by Jon Walker
Used by Permission

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Further Reading

•  I Can’t Stand it Anymore  by Sue Braid

•  Learning to Give Control to God – by Helen Lescheid

•  Salvation Explained


thoughts by Jon Walker Thoughts by Men

Do you sometimes get irritated with the detours in your life?


Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before me, but right away I departed to Arabia, and then returned to Damascus.” Galatians 1:17

Recently while on a multi-state trip in my newly acquired vehicle, a notice appeared on the navigation screen advising me of a traffic jam caused by an accident ahead on my route. It asked if I wanted to be re-routed around the accident and I verbally said yes and instantly a new route screened and I was able to avoid the delay and be on my way.

At first I was irritated because the alternate route took me off the interstate highway I was on and took me through rural roads with small towns with lower speed limits, but in the end, I still saved time.

Do you sometimes get irritated with the detours in your life? Do you realize that sometimes God has a purpose?

Look at some prominent detours in the Bible. Detours, when we get off the main road, can be frustrating and time consuming. Yet in the spiritual life, God seems to allow us to be detoured. One of the longest detours of all time happened to the children of Israel in the wilderness. What should have taken them eleven days to enter the Promised Land turned into a forty-year detour in the desert.

That detour was due to their deplorable lack of faith in God’s conquering power. On the other hand, there were those who may have thought they were being detoured by God, but who later found they were on God’s perfect road of blessing all along.

Consider: 1) Moses was detoured into submission. Those forty years in the wilderness tending sheep were not a waste, but actually a training ground for tending Israel later on. The desert experience took all the trust in the arm of flesh out of Moses.

Consider: 2) Paul was detoured into learning. “I went into Arabia…then after three years I went up to Jerusalem” (Galatians 1:17,18). Those years were good for Paul, so that he might learn of Christ and be trained for service.

Consider: 3) Philip was detoured from many, to one. He went from winning multitudes, to winning one man, the Ethiopian eunuch; from a great revival to a singular witnessing experience. This story shows the Lord’s estimation of the value of one soul.

Consider: 4) Enoch and Elijah were detoured into heaven (Genesis 5:24, II Kings 2:11).

Is today the day we will experience an unexpected and seeming inconvenient and direction changing experience in our lives? If so, remember that God sometimes gives us detours for us to grow and be strengthened for work in His Kingdom.

by John Grant
Used by Permission
John Grant is a former Florida State Senator and is a practicing attorney

We Welcome your comments.

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Further Reading

•   The Package! Dealing with Unexpected Circumstances

•   Life’s Lessons can Come from Unexpected Places

•  Salvation Explained


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thoughts by John Grant Thoughts by Men