Good Tuesday morning! A little slow today, I'm starting the devotional over from right after "morning!" Some days we try to take off without God. Not waiting on Him and doing His will, but taking off on our own and trying to do our will in our time. Today was one of those mornings for me, and I think it best to just delete all that stuff that I had written and start over again. What does God have to say to me today: "Whoa there!" Pastor Adrian Rogers used to explain the four things we hear when listening for God's answer. I'll probably not get this exactly the way he said it, so no quotation marks here. The answers we hear to a prayer request are Go, Slow, No, and Whoa. Go is for the times when God says to get going on something, the plan is in place, we are in God's will, and the time is now. Slow is for those times when we are to get started, but perhaps God does not yet have the entire way prepared for us; we are to go slowly. No is for those things that we ask for that are bad for us. We think that it sounds good, but God knows better and the answer is "no". The last one is "Whoa!" for the times when we took off without checking with God before doing something; the thing we are doing is not good for us or flat out wrong and the whoa means stop. Or we may have God's approval for something, but we are trying to do it too quickly; whoa is the slow down command at that time.
Today, I began with some clever opinions that really don't mean anything for each of us. You and the Holy Spirit will have already made your opinion about the stuff in the media and the guidance of the Spirit is much better than my own. Most days the Spirit speaks through my writing, but today I had taken off on my own and got the "Whoa!" from God.
Have you ever seen a glimpse of the heavenlies in a dream? I don't mean that you saw the throne of God or the emerald rainbow, but perhaps you looked carefully at a dream and saw some quality that you didn't expect. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and other fruits of the Spirit may begin to appear in our dreams where we haven't seen them before. As the Holy Spirit works on our hearts, it follows that our dreams will change. I must be on the right track; the devil has sent a sneeze attack in an effort to stop me. Okay, back in action here. The fruits of the Spirit will show up more and more in our waking life and in our sleeping dreams. The war between our fallen nature and the new creations we are becoming in Christ will become more apparent as we look at our thoughts during the day and our dreams at night.
Oops, someone is late. I heard a "honk,honk" from across the street. The devotional is certainly late this morning, perhaps the tootling is for me? The war in us is a sign that the final end time or tribulation has not yet arrived. I read in a book yesterday about how God will not always strive with man. At some point near the very end of this world, God is going to withdraw his Spirit. Many kind of half-jokingly call Las Vegas "Sin City". Can you imagine a "Sin Planet"? That time will come, but don't worry that God is giving up. Many will come to believe during the final and dreadful days that will take place in the Tribulation. That is wonderful, but how much better would it be for many to believe in Jesus now? We have a message of good news to spread!
Have a nice warm day in Christ today!
Bucky
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