The Trap

Many of us do this.  We stop paying attention to God and start paying attention to our "own understanding."

 

We exchange the Truth, "God has absolute authority, sovereignty over me," for a lie, "I know best how to be happy, succeed in life, pick out a life partner," etc.  We only fit God in to our lives when it is convenient and works with our lifestyle.  This kind of "God" becomes okay with pursuing the things of this world.  After all, "God wants me to be happy, right?"  Wrong.  God wants you to be holy.  God wants you to remember its all about Him and not about you, at all.  Happiness is not our motivation, pleasing God in all we do is.

 

Proverbers 3 reminds us, (Proverbs 3:1-8) My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; (2) for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. (3) Do not let kindness and truth leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. (4) So you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and man. (5) Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. (6) In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. (7) Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and turn away from evil. (8) It will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones.

 

At best, we play a game about living the Christian life.  We focus on looking good for each other and measure our "spiritual" growth based on others.  We've bought the lie.  The only perfect example we can compare ourselves to is Jesus Christ. 

Are you living out Proverbs 3:5-6 in your life or have you bought into the lie that you are in control and know best how to plan your future? 

PlanetWisdom.com Devotionals

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Good Reasons to Disobey God? Posted: 04 Jun 2009 01:56 PM PDT "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother.' . . ." "But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition." (Mark 7:9-13) I wonder if the Pharisees regretted bringing up the issue of Jesus' disciples not following the "traditions" by washing their hands before they ate. Jesus turned their own smug question against them, demonstrating here how they had elevated good intentions into traditions with the force of Law -- and ended up missing God's heart by a mile. Even if we don't think of ourselves as legalists, we're all capable of hiding behind "the good" to keep from doing what God really wants for us. We can use the good idea of protecting our character by not associating with people of low character to avoid ever having to make relationships with unbelievers and tell them about Jesus. And we can do the same in reverse, using the good idea of evangelism as an excuse to lower our standards for personal holiness. That's just one example. It takes brutal self-honesty to avoid falling in line with the Pharisees by using "good" rules to serve ourselves instead of God. Think: Can you think of other ways in which we use good-sounding, well-intentioned, man-made rules to avoid doing what God really wants for us, to avoid obeying Him, even? Pray: Ask God to give you the courage to be brutally honest with yourself about your real motives for doing "good" things. Ask Him to help you to never come up with good reasons to disobey Him. Do: Notice this week what reasons people in your life (or in your media consumption) give for doing wrong things. How often do they point to their good intentions? Visit PlanetWisdom.com for more great resources!