To know and do God’s will you must deny self and return to a God-centered life
p.32
Share to the group a statement or scripture that resonates with you from today’s reading and a responding prayer…
To know and do God’s will you must deny self and return to a God-centered life
p.32
Share to the group a statement or scripture that resonates with you from today’s reading and a responding prayer…
The sentence that stood out to me was the one talking about God-centeredness being a daily task of dying to ourselves and submission to God. It reminds me that this is not something done once and then it is accomplished and I can move on but instead is something that must be done every single day because if we don’t then we will become self-centered. I pray God would grant me the strength and fortitude to constantly die to myself so that I can be God-centered in my life.
The meaningful statement that stood out to me today was “We do not sit down and dream what we want to do for God and then call God in to help us accomplish it. The patten in Scripture is that we submit ourselves to God. Then we wait until God shows us what He is about to do, or we watch to see what God is already doing around us and join Him.”
I pray that I may be patient and learn to wait upon the Lord. I pray that I can fully deny my self and submit myself to God and Scripture. May I be attentive of what God is doing around me.
Wow, I don’t know how many times I’ve been trying to ‘dream God-sized dreams’ for God and then praying for Him to help me realize those dreams for Him..and today realizing how unbiblical that is..how self-centered that approach was!
It’s not about my dreams for God..it’s about His agenda! It’s about waiting to see what He is about to do or already doing and heeding his invitation to join Him in that endeavor!
God cause me to repent of my self-centeredness and wait upon what YOU’re doing.
It’s kind of like surfing…we wait with patiently with our eyes on the horizon, feeling for the swell that we can’t see yet..but at the first sign as the wave starts to appear, we spring into action, maneuvering and positioning ourselves to meet that wave exactly where the impact will be!
The great reminder for me is to seek God’s perspective in the situation rather than my own. Rather than reacting I need to pause. I need to pray for peace, His power and strength. I want to fully say “some trust in chariots and some in horses, but I trust in the Lord our God.”
From Ciara – I must focus my life on God’s purposes, and not of my own plans. God wants us to know that we must wait until He shows us what we should be doing. Dear Lord, thanks you for this bible study today and please help us to focus on your purposes instead of our own. And we should wait until you show us what we should be doing. -Amen
“To know God and do God’s will, I must deny self and return to a God-centered life” It’s not always the easiest thing to deny ourselves. A lot of times, I put label on myself either positive or negative based on my own perspective of self. Living out a God-centered life, makes us a true warriors. It is every time, when God calls me out for something, I trust and obey regardless of past experiences. I go out to the battlefield fresh and confident because I know I’m not the person manipulating the situation and the one who is behind the scene would never mess up. It’s just such a wonderful reminder
“To know God and do God’s will, I must deny self and return to a God-centered life” It’s not always the easiest thing to deny ourselves. A lot of times, I put label on myself either positive or negative based on my own perspective of self. Living out a God-centered life, makes us a true warriors. It is every time, when God calls me out for something, I trust and obey regardless of past experiences. I go out to the battlefield fresh and confident because I know I’m not the person manipulating the situation and the one who is behind the scene would never mess up. It’s just such a wonderful reminder
Perspective is what stood out to me tonight, namely the difference between our perspectives and God’s perspective. Now, I’m not suggesting we try and divine exactly what God wants us to do or see what He sees, because that would be counterintuitive to “waiting and watching” as we would be jumping the gun and trying to take control of God’s plan by acting first. What I am learning tonight, instead, is that sticking to one flawed perspective instead of trying to consider God’s is like purposely having tunnel vision. And it’s not like God is leaving us in the dark, as shown through how God reached out to Noah before going through with flooding the earth. God shows us what He intends to do for us before He does it, we just need to wait and hear when He needs us and then have faith that what He calls for us is part of a larger thing. Like with Noah and flooding the Earth. If you think about it, the act of the Earth flooding seems ludicrous enough that you would think that building a giant boat months in advance would seem silly. But Noah knew God enough to go through with the plan despite mockery and scorn from his neighbors because He trusted that the boat would work out in the end. It’s nearly impossible to see eye-to-eye with God, otherwise life would be so much easier, but what’s more manageable to do is to consider His perspective in relation to our own flawed perspective as it’s the realization of our flawed vision that holds us back from faith in God.