God's Will is not Selected Cafeteria Style
There seem to be many Christians who believe that they have a choice of what parts of God's will they want to do. They have what I call a cafeteria style approach to doing God's will. They read through the Bible, and they learn about the commands of God's Word. Then, they simply choose which ones they like, and they leave out the distasteful ones. This is a serious sin. God's will is absolute. It is His will all the time for everyone.
I have seen one particular way this happens. Certain believers say that some of God's commands are not in line with their gifts so they do not have to participate in those. They choose only the commands that are in line with the way they have been gifted by the Spirit. This sounds reasonable at first. However, I challenge all of us to search God's Word. Look up all of the gifts of the Spirit mentioned specifically in the Bible. Then, get a concordance or run a search on those words. The result will be that there is a command for all Christians to do all of those things. The gifted people are just able to do them better and have more fruit, but none of us are left out. All believers are to teach the Word, even if we don't have the gift of teaching. All are to share the gospel, even if we don't have the gift of being an evangelist. We are all to show mercy, even though we do not have the gift of mercy. Now, this is not my opinion. This is the Word of God.
I pray that we will start trusting God to empower us to do the things that are very difficult for us, because He is Lord, and we love others enough to be God's hands and feet. I believe we will all find that this all-inclusive style of following God's will contains many more blessings, too. He loves it when we trust Him in a way that He gets all of the glory. Then, He rewards us for our great faith.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Jeremiah 19-22.
I have seen one particular way this happens. Certain believers say that some of God's commands are not in line with their gifts so they do not have to participate in those. They choose only the commands that are in line with the way they have been gifted by the Spirit. This sounds reasonable at first. However, I challenge all of us to search God's Word. Look up all of the gifts of the Spirit mentioned specifically in the Bible. Then, get a concordance or run a search on those words. The result will be that there is a command for all Christians to do all of those things. The gifted people are just able to do them better and have more fruit, but none of us are left out. All believers are to teach the Word, even if we don't have the gift of teaching. All are to share the gospel, even if we don't have the gift of being an evangelist. We are all to show mercy, even though we do not have the gift of mercy. Now, this is not my opinion. This is the Word of God.
I pray that we will start trusting God to empower us to do the things that are very difficult for us, because He is Lord, and we love others enough to be God's hands and feet. I believe we will all find that this all-inclusive style of following God's will contains many more blessings, too. He loves it when we trust Him in a way that He gets all of the glory. Then, He rewards us for our great faith.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Jeremiah 19-22.