His Works or His Ways?
Do you want to see the works of God manifest or would you rather know the ways of God? This is quite the question for some. There are many out there in the body of Christ that are seeking after a sign, seeking to see His works and displays manifest on the earth. Although at first glance this may seen righteous but when we look a little deeper into the issue we find a conflict. This conflict is between man and God and the conflict is over whose way is the better way or whose way will lead to the Tree of Life. Let us look firstly into the Old Testament.
Psalms 103:7 He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the sons of Israel.
The children of Israel saw the works of God (the external manifestations) but Moses knew the ways of God (understood God through relationship). The children of Israel had no personal relationship with God; in fact the only way they could relate to God was through Moses. The result of this lack of personal relationship was that the only way the Israelites knew that God was on the scene was by way of external works or a sign.
The problem here lies in the fact that you can have the works of God manifest in your midst and still have your life unchanged and even uneffected. God is not after a show or display of who He is on the external rather He is after an intimate relationship through the workings of His Spirit within you. This journey with God is the only way we can even begin to understand Him and His ways. Now let us look into the New Testament to shed even further light on this issue.
Mattew 12:38-39 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet;
Matthew 16:1-4 The Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Jesus, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. But He replied to them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ “And in the morning, ‘There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times? “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” And He left them and went away.
Jesus called these sign seekers “evil and adulterous” because all they wanted was the external things to stimulate their senses and they were not willing to invest in the time and effort it takes to build a relationship. Their “god belief system” was about living a spiritual life in the confines of their own understanding and they were not willing to step into that which they did not understand.
1Corinthians 2:14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
The more we try to control our own spiritual journey, the more we try to live in our own understanding, the more we try to base our lives by what we see with our eyes, the further away we find ourselves from a relationship with God.
Mark 16:17a And these signs shall follow them that believe;
We do not seek or chase after signs; signs will seek and chase after us as we seek and chase after God and His ways.
Remember that our job as a believer is to live a life of journey and discovery with Father God through Jesus Christ; getting to know Him better each day thus finding ourselves understanding God and His ways. The result of this journey is God living His life through us and then and only then will we see the purpose of God manifest in the earth and His signs will then be seen in a miraculous way.
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