September 25, 2008

• Knowing God’s Will by Pastor Don

  Pastor Don told us that there were junctures in life where we are not sure what to do.  We want to know the Will of God and act accordingly.  What is God’s will?  Our feelings can give us misinformation.

  Matthew 26:36 Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.”

  In order to fulfill God’s will we have to hear from God.  We have to separate from people.  We cannot hear God’s will in the midst of people.  We can hear confirmation from people.  But at times we have to get away from people to hear God’s will for us.  Proverbs 11:14 Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.  After we hear from God it is good to hear confirmation from people.  After we hear what to do from God, seek godly counsel from people who we can trust to have our best interests at heart. 

  1 Corinthians 12:8  for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit,

  The Word of Knowledge gives us information about something.
  The Word of Wisdom tells us what to do about he Word of Knowledge.

  These are spiritual gifts.  So many come to Pastor Don about their situation before going to the Lord.  We are to ask God for a word of knowledge about our situation, and then come to Pastor Don, or your spiritual leader, and tell him what we heard from the Lord.   Pastor Don, or your pastor, can help confirm if you have heard correctly from the Lord.  But seek God first.

  Jesus went to the Garden to pray, separating himself from people because he had a difficult problem. He was going to be going through an ordeal that was distasteful to the max, not just the crucifixion, but also being abandoned by those who were closest to him.

  Matthew 26:37 And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed.

  There is nothing wrong with a spirit filled believer being deeply distressed and sorrowful.  Jesus was not sorrowful about going to the cross, He had fixed His face like flint to go to Jerusalem.  The problem was that He wanted peace concerning the human experience He was going to face, abandonment and desertion.

  Fear of abandonment destroys most ministries.  We run to people, often the wrong people, because of the fear of abandonment.  That is why God hates divorce, it leads to a person feeling alone, abandoned, and destructive behavior.  We are to be perfected so we can be one with Him.

  We want the mind of Christ so we can hang out with God.  It took 6,000 years to get to this point.

  Jesus took with Him the disciples from His inner circle. What was He asking for?

  Matthew 26:38 Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.”

  He was not afraid of the Cross.  He was sorrowful, so sorrowful that he could die of a broken heart. He wanted the disciples to stay and watch with Him.

  It is right and our responsibility to ask for people to provide prayer support so that we can get a Word of Knowledge.  So often we lack proper prayer support for what we are seeking.

  Jesus needed prayer support.  Today, what we call prayer support is often no more than casual gossip.  Proper prayer support is asking, “What do you want me to pray for?  I will pray for that.”  The prayer of agreement is not a prayer of agreement if people are praying for different things. The disciples knew that Jesus was going to go to the cross, the prophesies about striking the shepherd, and Jesus had told them they would flee.  His disciples said that they were not going to go anywhere, but Peter denied Jesus three times, the disciples ran away when the soldiers came, etc.

  They were to pray in agreement with Jesus, but they did not listen to what He said.  They didn’t take Him seriously, didn’t look at the heart of the matter.  They were not in agreement.  They did not feel the weight of the gravity of the situation that Jesus was facing, and they fell asleep.

  A question was brought up about what if the person does not specify what they need prayer for, how can we know what to pray?

  Romans 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

  To know God’s will we have to be led by the Spirit of God about the direction we should be praying.  Our words and intellect can get us into a mess if we are not led by the Spirit.  God can be sending angels in one direction and our words can mess that up.  Sometimes God does not tell a person to deliver a word to someone, but they go up to the person and say, “I have a Word for you.” They will receive correction because it is pride that when God shows them something they want to get the information out before someone else does – but sometimes God does not give you a word to share, sometimes it is a word for yourself or for your information only. We have to ask God if that Word is a Word for ourselves.  The Holy Spirit could be bringing a Word to you – say a word of correction, and instead of receiving that word and changing your path, you assume it is a word of correction for someone else. 

  We need clarity to correctly hear the Word of God and clarity about when to tell or when not to tell the Word.  If God wants you to tell the Word to someone, you will know this is the Word go tell it to ______. 

  No prophet can deliver a Word that He can’t walk in.  You need to be able to walk in that word before you deliver it to someone else.  If not, you will be judged harshly.

  How do we know we are saved?  We believe the Word of God in this, it is the same with the Spirit of God.  When the Word tells us that we will receive the Spirit of God, we need to believe that we have received the Spirit of God, and that we are sons of God.  When God speaks a word of correction from the pulpit, often we think that that message is for someone else, not for ourselves.

  Pastor Don said that with his years of ministry, with all the teaching and preaching that he has done, filling the rooms with the Word of God, he has a lot to abide by, for he must abide by what he teaches.

  We are God’s children, and we are acceptable to God.

  Romans 8:15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”

  Abba means “Daddy.”  It is not the formal title of Father.  It is more akin to Papa.  We are His children and adopted into His family.

  Romans 8:16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

  We ARE the Children of God. He leads us by our Spirit, not by our head (intellect) or eyes.

  Romans 8:26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

  In prayer we want to know and speak the Will of God.

  Amplified Romans 8:26 So too the [Holy] Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up in our weakness; for we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it worthily as we ought, but the Spirit Himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance.

  This talks about our weakness and inabilities.  Our spirit is in a physical body, and we are weak in our ability to hear from God.  We can get interference from hearing the clear Word of God. Pastor Don compared this to a radio, with static.  If we are out of range or we are not tuned properly into a channel we get static.  Our physical bodies can provide static from receiving the clear Word of God, we are weak and need a stronger signal to pull in the signal more clearly.  It is like having a 10 watt radio, but we need a 50 watt radio.  So we go and look for a coat hanger to plug into the radio to try and get a better signal. 

  The Holy Spirit can help us to receive the clear Word of God.  We decide how much Word we take in to help us be a receptor.  The more Word of God we have in us, the better our reception.

  Jesus went with just three to pray – to strengthen the signal from God and be a prayer support.  So often we pray the prayer of agreement for people but we don’t ask the people what they can believe for.  We can be praying at odds with what the people are praying.

  Romans 8:26 AMP So too the [Holy] Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up in our weakness; for we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it worthily as we ought, but the Spirit Himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance.

  We can end up with a weakened signal due to distractions.  People imply that we OUGHT to know, but we are in the flesh and don’t know.  We want to get the Will of God but we can’t because we are in the flesh.  Sometimes you think God is doing one thing and he is doing another thing.  We can miss it completely or not hear it loud enough.

  How come in Acts, Paul wanted to get to Macedonia. He was told not to go.  Paul tried several times, and finally the 3rd time he had a vision of a person dressed as a Macedonian.

  Had Paul gone earlier than God wanted things would not have been in place for him.  God will not send anyone where He can’t support them.  He had to get people in place so that Paul could minister.

  We want to not be AHEAD or BEHIND God’s will for us.  We want to be in God’s will at the time He is sending and directing.  What if he misinterpreted the vision?  It could mean the loss of opportunity and people missing things.

  When King David was on the throne, he wanted to build a temple for God. The prophet told him to go ahead and build the throne.  God came and spoke to the prophet and told him to tell David NO, there was too much blood on his hands.  The prophet of God at first did not give an accurate prophesy, and God corrected that.  Not all the time will prophets get the message of God accurately.  The Prophet of God misinterpreted God’s will.  There was a time and a season and a purpose to God’s will, and David was not to build the temple, his son was.  Notice, the prophet did not die from this wrong statement.

  Present day prophets also miss stuff.  They don’t have all the information.  We need to be careful judging them before their time though, for just like some of the prophesies in the Bible are still awaiting fulfillment, the prophesies may not be in the season of fulfillment.  We also need to be careful how we share what we learn from God, don’t say, “Thus said the Lord,” if He did not say so.

  We need to be like the Bereans and take time to judge what we are hearing to see if it lines up with the Word of God.

  This is a longish Bible study so I am going to break here, and continue the rest tomorrow.

  Praying your day is blessed.

  Heather

  • 6:26 am
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