Bible Prophecy and Inspiration

Over the years I have seen this from many Christians.  The attitude is I’ll do it all by myself Lord and when I get into a pickle, I’ll call on you.

What’s the reasoning for this?

Some of the reasons I see is this:

1. God’s pretty busy.  I don’t want to bother him unless I have to.
2. I believe God wants me to do everything my way since He gave me my own brain.
3. What kind of a weak person am I if God has to cater to me all the time?

All of these things couldn’t be further from the truth on what God’s want from our lives.

John 15:1-8 –   ¹ “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Why do we need to remain in the Lord?  Because we’re fallen creatures that don’t think of the things we need to apart from God.

Isaiah 55:8 – ⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.

Proverbs 14:12 – ¹² There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

It’s not about what you can do.  It’s about letting Him do through you.  Turn your eyes upon Jesus.  Let the Holy Spirit work through you so God’s work can be accomplished.

You’ve seen it happen many times and possibly in your own life more than once.  You just got knocked down in life doing your own worldly thing and hits you like a ton of bricks.  You cry out to God, “How could I have acted so foolishly?  How could I as someone who loves the Lord, do something like that or ended up where I am right now?” 

So you throw your problems and cares upon Jesus and everything starts getting taken care of.  Wow.  We feel so much better now.  So we go back to the same things that got us there in the first place. 

“I got it!  I got it now Lord!  Wow, I’ll be more careful next time.  Thanks.  I’ve got it from here.”

God doesn’t want to be just your bail bondsman.  The Lord wants an everyday relationship with you.  He wants to be your everything.  He wants you to branch into Him and now anything can happen.  Instead we tend to want to do things our own way, until of course the road gets rocky or it becomes chaos again.

Jeremiah 17:7 – “But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.

Apart from God you haven’t got anything.  You weren’t made to be that way anyway.  Jesus is the light and without Him, you’re working blindly and in the darkness.

Submit to the Lord and listen to what He has for your life.

The only thing we should be concerned with now is the things we will be concerned with when we stand in front of the Lord.

Many people are caught up in worrying about things, that when they die all the sudden aren’t that important anymore.

On the other side of the coin, there are going to be people that are going to think to themselves, whoops, if I knew this was going to die so soon I would have done more of this or that for the Lord.

We need to look at it that way now!  We are going to have to give an account and are reminded about that many times.

Matthew 12:36 – 36 But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken.

Romans 14:12 – ¹² So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

Hebrews 4:13 – ¹³ Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

1 Peter 4:5 – ⁵ But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

We have responsibilities in this world.  It’s a busy place and everything will never get done.  Don’t allow those things to drown out the most important thing.  Here is one of my favorites concerning this.

Luke 10:38-42– ³⁸ As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. ³⁹ She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

   ⁴¹ “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴² but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Many things need to be done while living in this world.  However, don’t ever let the most important thing suffer when prioritizing.

There is this misconception that if God just revealed Himself that man would all fall in line and serve Him.

Has man’s heart been like that in the past?

No!

One of the most important things we learn in the book of Exodus is that man can have the awesome and mighty God reveal Himself to them and they still rebelled and grumbled against Him.

Exodus 14:10-12 – ¹⁰ As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. ¹¹ They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? ¹² Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

This is right after the ten wonders He performed against the Egyptians and yet saved the Israelites from harm.

After parting the Red Sea, allowing them to pass on dry ground and drowning the Egyptian army, they do it again.

Exodus 15:22-24 – ²² Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. ²³ When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) ²⁴ So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”

Soon after that we read.

Exodus 16:2-3- ² In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. ³ The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

The Lord does another miracle and rains down manna from heaven.

It goes on and on.  The people, who saw the most awe inspiring events from God, often rebelled and went against Him.  Made a golden calf, tried to save the manna for the next day, and didn’t gather enough for two days concerning the Sabbath.  Tried to go out and find some on the Sabbath. 

This generation of adults that saw the most and greatest miracles all died, but two of them, before being able to enter the Promised Land.  Why?  For disobeying God.

God did so much for them and He wanted them to trust Him.  Time after time again, they didn’t trust Him, they grumbled about their misfortunes.   

It’s not about proof.  God’s proof is already all around us.  It’s all about the heart.  God knows our hearts and He wants us to trust Him.  He wants us to seek Him and live by faith.