Don't Go with the Flow
Many people have adopted a ‘take it as it comes’ lifestyle. They figure whatever happens to them happens, and they just go with the flow. As a Christian just starting out, I too thought my life was on autopilot—that whatever was supposed to happen, would happen, and nothing I did or didn’t do would alter God’s plan. This is a very subtle way of thinking that has crept into the Christian psyche. God is not a puppeteer. He is not moving us about like puppets so that we will fit into His perfect Will. His Will is perfect, and there’s nothing that anyone can do to alter it, but it is completely and unequivocally up to us as to whether we will operate within it.
From the very beginning of the bible,
in Genesis, God made it very clear to us that He doesn’t
interfere with our free-will choices. Adam, the first man,
and his wife, Eve, the first woman, disobeyed God; and it
severed their holy connection to Him. Their disobedience is
known as the ‘Fall of
Man’. It is aptly titled, because the distance between
the perfected state of where they began, and the devastated
state of where their disobedience landed them, was
catastrophic to their relationship with Heavenly Father.
At any point, God could have slapped
that apple out of Eve’s hand. He could have obliterated it,
made it disappear, or nullified every apple tree on the
planet; but He didn’t do any of those things. He made us in
His image. He gave Adam and Eve, and us, the gift of
free-will choice. Romans 11:29 (NLT) tells us,
“For God's gifts and
his call can never be withdrawn.” God is perfectly
supreme, holy, and omnipotent. He doesn’t need do-overs, or
take-backs. His Word will prevail. His Will goes forward, and
His promises are guaranteed.
2Corinthians 1:20 cosigns this by
telling us, “For all
of God's promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a
resounding “Yes!” And through Christ, our “Amen” (which
means “Yes”) ascends to God for his glory.” You and I
have been given the great privilege and honor to say “YES!”
to the promises of God. Jesus Christ has already done the
work, and we’re the receivers and witnesses of it.
We’ve made saying “Yes!” way more
challenging than it should be, because we don’t want to
follow God’s Will. We have our own agendas, and many of us
refuse to admit that God always knows best. Before sin
entered the picture, Adam and Eve painted a perfect picture
of what it looks like to walk with God. They communed with
Him intimately through the Holy Spirit. There was constant
conversation and dialogue—God speaking excellence and them
responding with “Yes.
Understood. I’ll do it this way, Lord. Thank You!” They
weren’t robots. They were His beloveds, walking in lockstep
with His Will because they chose to. And when they chose not
to, they didn’t.
You and I determine what results we
want to achieve. The earth is our playground. We can play
God’s way, or we can play our own way. We can operate within
His Will, or we can operate outside of it. Heavenly Father
makes it clear in His Word that there are supreme benefits
to operating within His Will. He tells us so in Hebrews
11:6(NLT), which tells us,
“And it is impossible
to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him
must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who
sincerely seek him.”
Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes
by hearing, perceiving, ingesting the Word of God. Faith can
hear, and God designed faith to come when it hears His Word.
If you’re endeavoring to receive the results of your faith,
and the truth of God’s Word holds no authority with you, or
you’re not believing God's Word rightly, then faith is not
moving in your direction, because it goes where the truth of
God’s Word is spoken and believed.
Jesus Christ gave his life because He
chose to, not because he had to. He had a will of his own,
just as you and I do, yet, in Luke 22:42(NKJV), he said,
“Father, if it is Your
will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will,
but Yours, be done.” God’s Word is His Will, and His
Will is His Word. If we believe and trust in the Word and
Will of God, we’ll see the results of it manifest in our
lives. This is God’s promise. It’s why it’s impossible to
please God without faith because when we don’t have it, we
won’t see the fruition of God’s Word coming to pass in our
lives. We won’t witness God’s rewards, and that’s why He’s
not pleased when we don’t have faith.
Jesus Christ said in John 6:40 (NLT),
“And this is the will
of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and
believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise
him up at the last day.” People who simply go with the
flow make a choice to neglect the work of Christ and their
responsibility to engage it. As God’s children, we’ve been
called to be different, to walk by faith and not by sight. Faith requires us
to train our minds by renewing them to God’s Word—by
believing what God says over what’s right in front of us.
This is why we should never just go with the flow, but
instead actively and intentionally set the dial of our minds
and hearts to faith. This pleases Him, because He absolutely
adores rewarding us. ■
Scripture taken from the New King
James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used
by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations
marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living
Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale
House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights
reserved.
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