Do you believe that your life is based on luck? Do you believe that forces beyond your control have brought you to whatever lot in life you now have, and whatever is going to happen, is going to happen anyway?
Many people feel as if their lives were like empty bottles floating on the vast sea of life. They are being tossed about by powerful, unknown forces that they believe are in control of their lives. Some live as if nothing controls their lives at all––not even themselves. Whatever happens happens! They live each day in meaningless ways.
Some people believe that they are not intelligent enough for God to want them because they did not go high enough in school; therefore, they cannot have a close personal relationship with an all-wise, all-intelligent God. Others may use the excuse that they are too poor, as if God were a respecter of a person’s wealth or social status.
In God’s Church there are members who feel that they cannot have a really close relationship with God. They develop the feeling that they are not good enough or important enough to be truly close to their Creator.
People have a host of irrational reasons as to why they cannot develop a close personal relationship with God: I’m too young; I’m too old; I’m not married to a Christian; I’m too worldly; I can’t get the Sabbath off from work; I don’t have the time; I’m not sure that there is a God; I don’t know how to study the Bible; I don’t know the proper way to pray. Choose an excuse; someone has used it!
How about you? Do you feel that your life is going nowhere––that you are helplessly trapped by circumstances beyond your control? Do you feel that you could not be a Moses, a David, a Daniel, or a Paul? If you feel that way, then you need to understand!
The only person who holds you back from having a truly close, satisfying, deeply personal, and constantly growing relationship with God IS YOU! You are a free moral agent, and with God’s help you can be as close to God as any of the patriarchs or as close as any person has been or ever will be to his or her Creator. Your relationship with God doesn’t mean that you will be famous or as outstanding as David or Moses. God calls people for different positions in His over-all Master Plan. But your relationship with God can still be a meaningful, close experience for you––as close as YOU want it to be!
Are you standing in your way? Your spiritual life is under your control. How much effort are you putting into it?
If you really want to grow spiritually strong and have a close personal relationship with your God, you must follow the sound, basic principles of the Bible. All the spiritually successful people of the Bible followed those principles, and you should, too.
Why do you feel that you cannot be a spiritual winner? Is it because you have not been a physical winner in this life?
Notice 1st Corinthians 1:27-28. These scriptures rule out most of the excuses that people use. “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen.”
Most people tend to look at themselves as physically inferior people––people not highly successful in material ways in this world. Therefore, they irrationally conclude that they cannot amount to anything spiritually.
If we “…compare ourselves with some that commend themselves [the seemingly successful people in the world]” (2nd Corinthians 10:12) we tend to see ourselves as inferior––losers in our own minds, and we conclude that we cannot be winners spiritually.
In James 2:5 we are told, “…Hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom which He hath promised to them the love Him.” He basically points out that our present “lot in this life” does not have any relevance to our potential according to His purpose.
God looks on the heart, just as He did when He picked humble David to be king over all Israel instead of his more physically appealing brothers (1st Samuel 16:6-7).
Read James 2:1-4, where God condemns those who look on the outward appearance and become respecters of persons because of their material possessions or status in the community. Do not compare yourselves to them, but rather compare yourselves to God, and strive to emulate Jesus Christ.
Some people have decided that they cannot be spiritual winners because if they can hide behind “circumstances beyond their control,” it gives them an excuse for not living up to their potential. That excuse takes the responsibility from them so they are not at fault for what happens.
People have used this excuse since Adam and Eve. They used it in the Garden of Eden. When God confronted Adam about his sin of eating the forbidden fruit, Adam blamed it on Eve, and Eve blamed Satan. Neither accepted any responsibility for his or her own actions. They implied that they were “victims” of someone else’s misdeeds–– the “circumstances beyond their control.”
You are responsible for your own actions. It is YOU who will have to answer to God for every word uttered and every deed done. You have the power to say no, to refuse to sin, and to reject evil deeds. It is YOU who will be held accountable for your actions. Take control of your life, obey God, and live! Stop blaming others for your shortcomings or misdeeds. Take responsibility for your own actions because YOU have the final say, and you are the one who makes the decisions to take wrong actions or commit misdeeds––to sin. That others may have tempted you is irrelevant.
Blaming someone else for your actions is not acceptable to God. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4).
You need to gain control of your spiritual life. You need to make sure that you reach your spiritual potential. There is a way to do just that.
Quit blaming others or “circumstances beyond your control” for your actions. Take charge; control your life. You are a free moral agent and have the ability to CHOOSE–– to make right decisions. Nobody can take that away from you. Next get rid of all your flimsy excuses for not being able to get close to God. There is only ONE excuse for not being able to get close to God – that is YOU! You are the only one who can stand in your way!
Only you determine how much you pray, how much you study the Bible, and how much you get involved in the Church of God. You alone determine if you pay your tithes or give offerings to further the Word of God. You alone determine how you use your time: to fast, to meditate, or to spend time with God. You determine you how much good works that you do. You choose whether or not to sin.
Come on, people – WAKE UP from your spiritual slumber!
Do you really want to be close to God? Then DO IT THROUGH THE POWER OF GOD’S HOLY SPIRIT WITHIN YOU!
God commands you to obey Him. You must realize that if He commands it, He will also give you the ability to do just that, IF YOU SET YOUR MIND TO WANT TO!
God commands you to make a choice, “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).
Would God command you to “choose life” if He knew that “circumstances beyond your control” would make it impossible for you to do that? No! You just have to make the decision. Firmly fix it in your mind that you are going to choose life and strive to do just that. Determine that you will not let anything stand in your way!
God tells us plainly that once He calls us, His truth is right before us, and we can acquire it if we really want to. “For this commandment which I command thee this day, is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, who shall go up to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it” (Deuteronomy 30:11-14, emphases mine).
Many people make the mistake of thinking that God’s way is impossible to follow. But God does not command someone to do something that is impossible. In Acts we are admonished to; “…seek the Lord, if haply they (or we) might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us” (Acts 17:27).
Once God has called you, the rest is in your hands. You determine how strong or weak your relationship is with God. God takes the first step, and then we must learn to walk with Him from then on, with His help, of course. But we must seek His help from the heart, and He will help us every step along the way!
Never think that you are better than others, just because we were called in this life and others were not. Remember the parable of the pounds in Luke 19:12-27. We are to use the Holy Spirit that has been given to us by measure and grow with it. The more we grow, the more of the Holy Spirit we are given. If you do not grow, you will quench the Holy Spirit that was given, and you will end up rejecting your calling.
The way is very clear if we will only hear and heed. We can have a truly close, strong, meaningful relationship with our Creator if we really want to. But no excuse is acceptable to justify doing otherwise. God does not accept excuses.
So, again, I ask, what’s your excuse – your reason for not being closer to your God?
Are you too young? Read about the child Samuel in 1st Samuel 2:26, “And the child Samuel grew on, and was in favor both with the Lord, and also with men.” Too young can’t be an excuse!
Are you too old? You should about the prophetess Anna who, though she was “of a great age,” served God diligently (Luke 2:36-38).
How about the old excuse that you come from the wrong background, having spent too many years using bad and foul language? Do not feel alone. Isaiah also proclaimed that he was “a man of unclean lips” who dwelt “in the midst of people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). But that did not stop God from using him in a mighty way. Isaiah grew to become truly close to God, and you can, too.
Well, what about education? Surely that is a good excuse. Study the life of Jeremiah, and you’ll soon learn that being uneducated is not a legitimate excuse either. Jeremiah considered himself so inexperienced and untrained that he thought of himself as “a child” in learning (Jeremiah 1:6).
All right then, I am a poor speaker. I KNOW that has to be an acceptable excuse. “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither therefore, or since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and slow of tongue” said Moses in Exodus 4:10. God did not accept his excuse.
I am certain there are a host of other excuses that people use that can be proved invalid by the Word of God. Instead of looking for excuses, why not heed Paul’s admonition: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword” (Romans 8:35)?
Remember, not your mother-in-law, not your boss, not your education, not your age, not your height, not your looks, not your IQ, not your background, and not your previous religion CAN SEPARATE YOU FROM THE LOVE OF CHRIST.
So stop making excuses! Start making an effort to put your heart into your relationship with God, and you WILL see amazing progress in your spiritual growth.
Do as David or Moses or the prophets did. They prayed earnestly, studied God’s Word for answers and truth, and fasted often. You must pray, study, and fast. You must meditate, obey God, and do good works. If you do these things how can you not have a close relationship with your Creator! Nothing or no one can keep you from it, except YOU!
God promises that those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness…shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6). God loves you and wants you to have close, personal relationship with Him. “For I know the thoughts that I have toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:11-13 emphases mine).
What’s your excuse?
Are you standing in your way?