There are many occasions when we find ourselves standing at the crossroads of indecision. Indecision is related to the fear of making a mistake. If I do what I do, as unto the Lord, (whether I stand or fall in men’s eyes), I cannot make a mistake. God has seen the motive of my heart as I learn sensitivity to Him. Sensitivity to the Holy Spirit is not learnt overnight in a one off experience, but incrementally, like patience.
If I am in fear, I am not living to God. 1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” As I lean and trust in the “Everlasting Arms” fear is cast out by my Father’s perfect love to me.
Luke 9:62, Jesus challenges us: “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” “Looking back” causes indecision. When we begin something in God, we continually go forward. We may make a mistake along the way, but God is greater than our biggest mistake, and with repentance He will set us on the right path with Him again. Jesus is our Redeemer and Restorer! Praise God!
God requires me to come to Him just as I am with all my faults and failings. I cannot clean myself up, only the blood of Jesus can cleanse and make me whole again. When I come to Him in my nakedness, He will clothe me with His righteousness and I find my every need is met in the treasury of the all sufficiency of Jesus Christ.
There is great diversity in the gifts and talents our Heavenly Father has bestowed upon every member of the Body of Christ. God gives gift to all men and yet some have not yet recognised what God has given them. Let us encourage one another to identify, enjoy and operate in our gift, but for His praise and glory, not any man’s. As we do this, we will enjoy the gift He has given us and it will flow as we offer it back to the Lord for “His good pleasure”. This is worship.
Jesus identified with our humanity. Hebrews 4:15 declares that Jesus “…was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Such was His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, He was tempted with indecision. He prayed, “O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me….(Matthew 26:39), but then He made His choice, “….nevertheless not as I will, but as You will.” He chose His Father’s will above His own, knowing that the crucifixion lay ahead for Him. His choice was such that when the soldiers came to arrest Him, Peter drew his sword to defend Him, but Jesus told him to put his sword away. He had made His choice to “drink the cup His Father had set before Him.” The consequence of His choice was His crucifixion, but He saw beyond the cross to His resurrection.
We are all living out the consequences of our choices in life. When we choose rightly at the crossroads of indecision, there are positive consequences. When we make wrong choices, we have to live with negative consequences. My “turning back” results from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, (Genesis 2) instead of hearing and obeying what God has said, (the Tree of Life.)
Along the road to maturity and fullness we all experience challenges. These are our opportunities in God, our learning curves in the School of the Spirit. The Apostle Paul demonstrates his rising to maturity through his epistles. If you consider that the engine in a certain car has the potential of reaching 120 miles per hour, but it will not reach that speed in a low gear. When Paul remarked, “Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil, the Lord reward him according to his works,” 2 Timothy 4:14, Paul was in first gear. When Paul declared “And we know that ALL things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose,” Romans 8:28, Paul had gone up into a higher gear and his “engine” was running at greater speed. However, Paul reveals he is finally in overdrive when He declared,”If God be for us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:31. Now He’s cruising along life’s highway!
There are times when the Lord will challenge our believing to see what gear we are in. We may need to embrace the fact that we are only in second gear and need to embrace a higher revelation from God to move us onwards and upwards, by faith in His word, for only what God says is true. First gear is necessary to begin with, but an engine will never reach it’s full potential until it reaches overdrive! Do you hear the tenderness in the Master’s voice as He calls you?……”Rise up, My love, My fair one, come away…”
