Now read these 5 important and practical steps that will help you Go! (To Subscribe to the Elijah List subscribe here.)
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It is easy to trust the Lord when everything is predictable and all is under your control. The real test comes when you don't understand everything that is going on. The fact is, God does not let us know everything. He is the only one who knows it all, otherwise He wouldn't be God. The following are 5 important things to remember when God tells us to "Go."
1. Just Know You Are Going
Genesis 12:1-2: "Now the Lord had said to Abram: 'Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.'"
If you don't have it all figured out, realize you are in good company, because Abram did not know where he was going, all he knew was that he was going! When God shows you what you are to do it is not your job to get everything figured out. Rather, we are called to trust that He knows exactly what He is doing.
In Isaiah 55:12 it tells us that we are "led forth with peace." Trust in the peace of God that He gives when you hear His voice. The fruit of hearing and obeying the voice of God is the peace that accompanies your act of alignment with His will. Just know that you are going – and going to follow after His heart. He will take care of everything else.
2. Know God is Good
Romans 2:4, "Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and long suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?"
With a good foundation of understanding the nature of God in your life, you learn His ways. There is no need to fear or fret for He has created you for His purposes. As you learn to trust Him and continue to lay down your agenda at His feet, it shows. God is good. Sometimes He even blesses us with the things we would like to have. Then other times He chooses something that He knows is best for us. To know His nature and what He is like is to know that you can trust what He is doing. He who has begun a good work in you will complete it.
3. Stay Flexible
There is a blessing in being flexible with God. God is the one who tests us, refines us and makes us after His image. As we learn to be flexible with God and compliant to His desires He will take us from glory to glory by the Spirit.
Ephesians 5:10, "And try to learn [in your experience] what is pleasing to the Lord [let your lives be constant proofs of what is most acceptable to Him]."
This is true in the general context of bearing the fruit of the Spirit: learning how to recognize what pleases and grieves the Holy Spirit. It equally has meaning in the specific tasks that God assigns to us. The deeper we follow the Lord in surrender, the more He entrusts to us for His glory.
4. Find His Heart
There are two things that can happen when difficult times come. We can either draw closer to God as our source of help, or we can run from Him thinking He is against us. The latter would be an issue of not truly knowing His nature or not having experienced the reality of who He is. God is love. He wants to take us deeper and deeper into a life of love and relationship with Him. He opens doors, reveals His secrets and even the things He is doing in the earth. These are things He shares with those He calls "prophets." In essence, a prophet is someone who walks close to the heart of God. A prophet is also someone who typically is not treated all that nicely. As Jesus essentially said, "They did it to Me – don't be surprised if it happens to you as well."
One person in the Bible who you might not have considered a prophet, although he is specifically pointed out as such, is the psalmist, David. You really don't have to wonder why David was mentioned in this way because you can see that his intimacy and devotion to God was clearly evident. In a nutshell, we see that his love for vocalizing his worship to God was a key in developing his ability to hear God personally. But what made his worship complete, just like Abram, was that he chose to follow God sacrificially. Just like Abram was willing to sacrifice his only son, David was willing to suffer much just for loving God, as he had to hide until his time would come to be king of Israel.
5. Remember You Are a Living Sacrifice
In our life with God, there will be times when we sacrifice. We will experience difficulties and there will be hard decisions that we will have to make. All of these things happen as we follow the Lord. Just because we follow God does not mean that we get everything easy.
Romans 12:1-2, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
Jesus told us the road that leads to life is "narrow" and there are few that find it. He told us to take up "our cross" and follow Him. This does not come off as very "seeker-sensitive" but rather seems to be an approach that would eliminate the "half-hearted."
God is into whole-hearted devotion. David would not offer to the Lord something that cost Him nothing. He understood the price and how it pleased the Lord. In our society people are always looking for a deal or want something for nothing.
Christ paid the highest price for us. Arm yourself with this same mind, with your life hidden in Him. Give God all you are. Just say, "Where You lead I will follow...I will go." As we surrender all that we are to Him He pours out blessings that we cannot even contain!
John and Brandi Belt
Overflow Global Ministries
Email: office@overflowglobal.com
Website: www.overflowglobal.com
John and Brandi Belt are the leaders of Overflow Global Ministries. The heart of their message is that God's greatest desire is to indwell His people with His presence. They believe that man was created to be inhabited by God through His Spirit. With a sincere devotion to God through the Holy Spirit, people can live in a place of overflow in His presence. This overflow translates into touching the lives of others through living encounters with God. When John and Brandi minister, the intimate presence of God is manifest – being accompanied with demonstrations of God's power to heal, revive, and restore.
John Belt's Itinerary:
June 21, 2019
Presence & Power Night
John & Brandi Belt
Cincinnati, OH
July 26-27, 2019
Prophetic Summit
Dr. Clarice Fluitt, John & Brandi Belt
Cincinnati, OH
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Our friend John Belt offers us very practical keys in his recent article, "5 Steps to Help You When God Says 'Go!'"
