In this article, we will examine some of the ways that we hinder God's blessings on our lives through sin and the works of the flesh.
We forget that God is sovereign.
We forget that God is sovereign.
If you watch any global news channel, you can quickly become overrun with visions of war, genocide, famine, pestilence, natural disasters, and government corruption.Thanks to the theory of evolution, man is worth no more than a bug or a cow or a dog, in our world. When he dies, it's no more shocking to those in-charge than a pod of whales beaching themselves or the killing of so many chickens in a factory farm, and sometimes even less so.We get the sense that people don't care about us... the government, the media, Wall Street... especially as Christians, but does that mean they can deprive us of the things we need? We see earthquakes, tsunamis, disease, persecution, and the threat of nuclear war closing in.
Do we have cause to fear? Will this stop God's blessings from shining upon us? Will the fulfilling of God's promises be hindered?
The Bible tells us plainly in Luke 12:6-7 just how valuable we are in God's sight. It should comfort us to know that God sees everything and can see all of our fears and hurts.
We know from Romans 8:22 that the entire creation... the rocks, the trees, the animals, the stars... all of it, is miserably groaning to be released from the curse of sin, suffering, and death. God knows this and his Holy Spirit, as laid out in Romans 8:26-27, intercedes before God on our behalf, to say those things that are too painful, too secret, or too unspeakable for us to even say.
God is working in the background to make all things, that is... ALL things... work together for the good of his servants, according to Romans 8:28.
And also, we are told, in Jeremiah 29:11, that God wants us to be able to expect what kind of end that all matter will come to. When we see these things happening around us, we need to remind ourselves that nothing surprises God. There is no secret evil waiting to ambush us that God has not already seen and is already working it for the good of his children.
Do we have cause to fear? Will this stop God's blessings from shining upon us? Will the fulfilling of God's promises be hindered?
We let our ambitions override God's will.
We're all guilty of this one. We all have that small business we've been meaning to start, or that goal of finishing school, or a nagging need to travel across Europe, or big plans to start a mission overseas. [Insert your long wished-for dream here]. Then family, or work, or just life in general “gets in the way”.
We think to ourselves, “I want this so bad. It's all I've ever wanted. Why is God punishing me this way?”
The Word makes clear in James 4:13-15 that we need to remember to make plans only as they can be fit into God's will. There needs to be a flexibility in our thinking that allows for the possibility that our plans may not be a part of God's will for us, and whatever God's will is, it will be better for our life and well-being than our own plans could ever be.
We simply do no know where our ambitions may lead us. We could be led, of our own desperately wicked heart, as spoken of in Jeremiah 17:9, straight into all kinds of temptation. Even a noble ambition could lead us into pride. We could be in the wrong place at the wrong time to speak God's Word to a man who is to be saved, but because we disobeyed God's will, that opportunity was lost for us. That is why we must submit ourselves to God's will. Think of the infinite number of possibilities that each path holds before you try to walk down it. Those infinite possibilities could be an infinite amount of mistakes. Let all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful God lead you where you need to go. After all, wouldn't his plan for you bring Him the most glory and bring you into his service as He sees fit?
We think to ourselves, “I want this so bad. It's all I've ever wanted. Why is God punishing me this way?”
The Word makes clear in James 4:13-15 that we need to remember to make plans only as they can be fit into God's will. There needs to be a flexibility in our thinking that allows for the possibility that our plans may not be a part of God's will for us, and whatever God's will is, it will be better for our life and well-being than our own plans could ever be.
We simply do no know where our ambitions may lead us. We could be led, of our own desperately wicked heart, as spoken of in Jeremiah 17:9, straight into all kinds of temptation. Even a noble ambition could lead us into pride. We could be in the wrong place at the wrong time to speak God's Word to a man who is to be saved, but because we disobeyed God's will, that opportunity was lost for us. That is why we must submit ourselves to God's will. Think of the infinite number of possibilities that each path holds before you try to walk down it. Those infinite possibilities could be an infinite amount of mistakes. Let all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful God lead you where you need to go. After all, wouldn't his plan for you bring Him the most glory and bring you into his service as He sees fit?
We rely on man's opinions rather than God's Word.
“Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation which is unthinkable.” Now, that sounds a lot like the dogmatic belief in an anti-God mythology that evolution-ism actually is, and a lot less like the “proven fact of science” that popular media would have you believe.
This is a telling thing. Mr. Keith only believes in evolution because the idea of God creating the universe is "unthinkable" to him. He doesn't believe it because of any scientific evidence. Consider a few more of these statements by evolutionists about the so-called "proven fact" of evolution:
"Evolutionism is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless," (Professor Louis Bouroune, former President of the Biological Society of Strasbourg and Director of the Strasbourg Zoological Museum, later Director of Research at the French National Centre of Scientific Research, as quoted in The Advocate, March 8, 1984.)
It's a pretty big statement for an evolutionist to say that evolution is a fairy tale for grown-ups, but it isn't surprising. In I Timothy 4:4 we are told plainly that many will turn to fables instead of the truth. Why believe in fables when God has offered us the Gospel truth?
“It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological ‘clock.' The uncertainties inherent in radiometric dating are disturbing to geologist and evolutionists...” (W.D. Stansfield, Ph.D., Instructor of Biology, California Polytech State University, The Science of Evolution, Macmillan, 1987.)
There are many more statements just like these by evolutionists if you take the time to Google it.
We are told in I Timothy 6:20 to avoid these oppositions of false science. And yet this "science so falsely called" is behind the government policies we vote for, the medical theories and concepts that we use to treat our illnesses, and the public school doctrines that drive our children away from scripture.
It's not shocking to me in any way that man hasn't caught up with God in terms of knowledge. We NEVER will! So, I wouldn't let man's opinions shake your faith in God or your belief in the accuracy and historicity of scripture. Most of them aren't worth the time it took to make them.
