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Doing What God Tells Us to Do

by Jerry Ousley  
6/14/2008 / Christian Living


I've gotten into a lot of trouble with this over the years. Many have been the time when I really thought God was telling me to do something only to find out, usually the hard way I might add, that it wasn't God at all but only me feeling like God was giving His blessing to something I wanted to do. For instance, many years ago I felt with all my heart that God wanted me to quit my job and begin preaching full-time. This has been a big one for me over the years. I was overjoyed when it came to me that this must be God. I reasoned that I felt the call to preach the word of God, that I was young and strong, and that I really wanted to do it, so it must be God.

What really got me going was when I was able to get an old tent for the fair price of nothing! Now I knew that God wanted me to go full-time in tent meetings. I did it. I gave notice to my employer, quit my job and started trying to fix up that old tent. It was rugged and ragged and needed sewing in more places than it was together. It didn't take a lot of hours poking that big needle into that tough, thick canvas to ask myself if I was really listening to God or not.

In John chapter 2 we read the incident of Jesus turning water into wine. This was His first miracle. He, along with His disciples and His mother, Mary, had been invited to a wedding feast. They hadn't made the proper provisions of wine to accommodate all their guests and the servants began to get very nervous as they drained the last drops from the wineskins. What were they going to do now?

Mary spoke to her son, Jesus about it. The point I want to make isn't about turning water into wine, or the discussion Mary and Jesus had, but in the fact that after she had talked to Jesus, she told the servants to do whatever He told them to do. They did and the result was that they not only didn't run out of wine but it was commented that they had saved the best wine until the end of the feast.

I firmly believe that God tells us things in His word. Those things should be no-brainers. We read the Bible and do what it says; it's as simple as that. But then God takes our personality, our emotions, our will, and the things that interest us and uses them for His glory. I do believe that He speaks to our hearts from time to time but we sometimes hear one-sided. We tend to hear what we think is good for us and tune out what we don't want to hear. Come on now, I know I'm not the only one who's tempted to do that.

God will prod us by way of His Holy Spirit in our lives. But He'll never tell us to do something that is wrong, will hurt others, or leave a smudge on His reputation. He doesn't tell us one thing today and then the exact opposite tomorrow. We'll know if we really search deep in our hearts and be truthful with ourselves. We'll know by how it compliments and agrees with what He's already told us in the Bible.

When we are sure of what God is saying then we should follow up by doing whatever it is that He's told us to do. Sometimes this can be a very pleasant chore and sometimes we dread it with everything in us.

However, I guarantee you that if we are really doing what God tells us to do, we may sweat bullets like those serving water changed to wine at the feast, but in the end it will bless us and those affected by it as well.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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