Words from Peter

"Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.

So don't lose a minute in building on what you've been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can't see what's right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.

So, friends, confirm God's invitation to you, his choice of you. Don't put it off; do it now. Do this, and you'll have your life on a firm footing, the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ."

2 Peter 1:3-11 (The Message)

Denied

In reading through the New Testament Challenge here at Northridge, I read through Acts 16 this morning.  In this chapter Luke writes of Paul and his companions and the journeys they went on.  In two instances it is noted that Paul and company attempted to do something and were stopped by the Holy Spirit.  It doesn't go into great detail, but those phrases jumped out at me this morning.  It certainly speaks to following the vision of God's leading, but it also speaks to being spiritually connected to God enough to hear His voice.  Paul's ambition (and what he perceived as vision) led him to two places, but they were not where God wanted Him to be.  Paul and his friends were obedient enough to the Holy Spirit that they could see that they were being led somewhere else. 

Is that true of us? Many of us have a vision of where we should be going and how we should be doing things, but are we in tune with the Holy Spirit enough that we can hear when it is time to change direction?  Are we faithful enough to His call to be willing to walk away from a place or to not do something that we have planned because God has something better for us?

It's only when we realize that it's not about us, but about Him is this possible.