Classic Christian Quotes From Classic Ministers

 Classic Christian Quotes From Classic Ministers

How God Views the Self-Directed Man

Luke 12:16-21

 

We've all heard jokes about men who refuse to stop and ask for directions. But in reality, there's probably a good bit of truth to the stereotype, and it isn't limited to males. Plenty of men and women in this world zoom along without slowing down to ask for guidance.

 

If you were to look at the situation from a spiritual perspective, you'd see a world of lost souls desperately trying to save themselves. They think  they can earn their way into heaven through hard work and the accumulation of good deeds. But they're wrong.

 

Today's passage from Luke describes a wealthy person who makes a lot of plans based only on his own thoughts, desires, and experience. Take the time to look at the passage again, and notice how many times he used the words "I" and "my." What you'll see is that his focus was squarely on himself. This parable is a sad picture of the self-directed man trying to make his own way and secure his own future with no help from anyone--including God.

 

The Lord didn't mince words: He called the man "fool" (v. 20). Worldly wisdom amounts to nothing in the eyes of our omniscient, all-wise Father (1 Cor. 1:20), and He expects His children to request and follow His guidance.

 

The message for us today is clear: When we figure out our own plans and take action with no thought about what God would advise, we are behaving like fools. The Lord has a plan for your life. He knows where you'll succeed and where you'll fail. Be wise and ask Him for directions.

~Dr. Charles F. Stanley~

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Listening and Believing

We have been looking at heart attitudes that are conducive to receiving God's blessings. Today we will discuss a few more.

• A listening heart.  Luke 5:15 says, However, the report went around concerning Him all the more; and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities.

The people came to hear and then be healed.  Some did not want to take the time to listen, they just wanted the blessing so they could be on their way.

Listen to what the apostle Paul said to some people in Acts 28:27, For the hearts of this people have grown dull.  Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.

We must have listening, receptive hearts if we are going to experience healing or any other of God's blessings.

·        A believing heart.  Proverbs 3:5 says, Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and lean not on your own understanding.

Many years ago I was hiking up a canyon with one of my sons.  He was about eight years old at the time.  We reached a place where he could only get up by trusting me.

I dropped him a rope and pulled him up to where I was.  He needed to believe that I would not let go.  Because he did, and put actions with his belief, my strength was made available to him and he reached a place he could not have gotten to on his own. 

God's strength is made available to the believing heart, and as we believe He brings us to places we could never reach on our own.

~Bayless Conley~

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And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day (Genesis 32:24).

God is wrestling with Jacob more than Jacob is wrestling with God. It was the Son of man, the Angel of the Covenant. It was God in human form pressing down and pressing out the old Jacob life; and ere the morning broke, God had prevailed and Jacob fell with his thigh dislocated. But as he fell, he fell into the arms of God, and there he clung and wrestled, too, until the blessing came; and the new life was born and he arose from the earthly to the heavenly, the human to the divine, the natural to the supernatural. And as he went forth that morning he was a weak and broken man, but God was there instead; and the heavenly voice proclaimed, "Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed."

Beloved, this must ever be a typical scene in every transformed life. There comes a crisis-hour to each of us, if God has called us to the highest and best, when all resources fail; when we face either ruin or something higher than we ever dreamed; when we must have infinite help from God and yet, ere we can have it, we must let something go; we must surrender completely; we must cease from our own wisdom. strength, and righteousness, and become crucified with Christ and alive in Him. God knows how to lead us up to this crisis, and He knows how to lead us through.

Is He leading you thus? Is this the meaning of your deep trial, or your difficult surroundings, or that impossible situation or that trying place through which you cannot go without Him, and yet you have not enough of Him to give you the victory?

Oh, turn to Jacob's God! Cast yourself helplessly at His feet. Die to your strength and wisdom in His loving arms and rise, like Jacob, into His strength and all-sufficiency. There is no way out of your hard and narrow place but at the top. You must get deliverance by rising higher and coming into a new experience with God. Oh, may it bring you into all that is meant by the revelation of the Mighty One of Jacob! There is no way out but God.

At Thy feet I fall,
Yield Thee Up My ALL,
To suffer LIVE, OR DIE
For my Lord crucified.

~Streams In The Desert~