FEBRUARY 15 "SO GLAD WE DON'T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS ANYMORE...OR DO WE?"

     WOW, imagine having to live like this??? I'm so glad we don't have to live like this anymore....imagine having to wait on God to move.  In our text we read that "...in all the travels of the Israelite s whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out-until the day if lifted".  I mean, how restrictive is that?  Well that was the Old Testament and now we are in the New Testament and I can come and go as I please, I can go here and there and God will just follow me around like a lost puppy dog, so glad "I am free in Christ" and not under oppressive legalism of the Old Testament. Of course that was all just facetious talk...The principles of God are forever enduring.  Jesus himself reiterated in the Gospels, "do not say tomorrow I will go here and do thus....". This principle is very, very applicable to the Christian life today. Wait on God, don't move a head of God and don't lag behind either. No we don't have a cloud hanging over our lives to guide us, we have better, we have the Holy Spirit to guide us. We do have the liberty to motion forward, but always remember when the Holy Spirit checks you, stop in your tracks, you have either gone a head or are going in the completely wrong direction.  The Apostle Paul writes, "we were going in one direction but the Holy Spirit forbade us and we went in another" (paraphrased by me).  In the normal on goings of life it's not so much about praying whether or not I should have Captain Crunch or Frosted Flakes for breakfast, but it is more in keeping an open heart and mental disposition towards God that when we are moving a head, lagging behind or going in a completely in a different direction that He can check us and we will halt in our tracks. Be very careful about thinking you can just get up and leave and go and do whatever you want when ever you want, if you believe that, you have missed the principle being taught here and enforced through out the N.T.  Our life is not our own, it has been bought with a ransom and God really does have a divine plan and though we do not have to stop and pray at every decision, we must be open to his will, his place, his timing and if ever there's a conflict, that we would yield and either cancel our plans or rearrange them, even as the Apostle Paul did.  Nobody has a blue print laid out before them that maps out God's perfect will and direction; it is a matter of decision from day to day, move when God moves, wait when he does not and be sure, he will get you to that intended destination!!!

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