The Danger of Getting Ahead of God!

Click Here to Read or Listen to the One Year Daily Bible Readings

Warning about Self-Confidence

13 Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” 14 How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. 15 What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” 16 Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil.

Sometimes we make our plans and then ask God to bless them. While there is nothing wrong with planning for your future, we need to hold our plans "lightly". Our circumstances may change, or God may have a new assignment for us. 

 “There are two great certainties about things that shall come to pass – one is that God knows, and the other is that we do not know.” (Spurgeon)

There is a helpful phrase we can use to keep us from thinking that we know everything. Just say, "The Lord willing ... ". I think we all have experienced times when we have gotten out in front of God's will for our lives. We often presume to know the will of God, or we substitute our wants and desires and think God must want this for me. After all, he wants me to be happy right! 

Jesus' fundamental call on his disciples was to follow Him. He calls us to do the same. This basically means dying to self and submitting to His plan for our lives. He is our Good Shepherd and He leads us out into the green pastures and beside the cool waters. The Shepherd leads the sheep, not visa versa.

A pastor I used to work with always said, "Jesus goes ahead of us!" Jesus is always guiding us to the place we need to be, if we keep our eyes in Him. 

When I left the Midwest where I had lived for 27 years to move out to Southern Calfornia and go to seminary it wouldn't have been my plan for my life. I didn't know a single soul in California and wasn't even sure about the "pastor thing", but I knew if God called me and He would provide. And God did in countless ways. There have been countless people I have met over the past 35 years and now served in 4 different churches.  

Which of your future plans do you need to submit to the Lord and be able to say, "If the Lord wills it, I will follow"? It is much better to wait on the Lord than get ahead of him.  

The prophet Jeremiah speaks for the Lord when he says to the Israelites who were in exile, "I know that plans I have for you. Plans for a future and hope!" Jeremiah 29:11



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