January 10, 2025
Everyone goes somewhere every day. We’re always deciding where we will go and what we will do. And those decisions determine the course of our lives and what will be accomplished through us. They make a life.
WHO LEADS YOU?
Early in the life of the first followers of Jesus, they had heeded a simple two-word command: “Follow Me.” Christ meant that, and they not only pledged to do so, but He committed Himself to lead them.
Soon we read this bit of travelogue.
Jesus sent out these twelve after giving them instructions: “Don’t take the road that leads to the Gentiles, and don’t enter any Samaritan town. Instead, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near. (Matthew 10:5-7)
“Don’t take the road … instead go.” They were directed by Christ. We don’t have to go everywhere and we shouldn’t. And, our decision to follow Christ and NOT go someplace is as spiritual as the opposite. Spurgeon said it like this:
The gospel is now to be preached to every creature in all the world, but in those days, it was to be proclaimed first to the Jews, then to the Samaritans, and afterward to the Gentiles as a whole. The largeness of our commission to “preach the gospel to all creation” need not prevent our following providential directions to make it known in one place rather than in another.
It is well for the servants of Christ to always ask their Master where they are to go. It is recorded in Acts that Paul and Silas “tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them” (16:7). We must ask the Lord where we should work, as well as what our work will be, for our Master knows how we can best serve him.
A MODERN EXAMPLE
Henry Blackaby was one of the most remarkable men of God in our generation. He once told me that he had received over 350 invitations to speak the previous year. “How did you decide where to go?” He simply said, “I just asked Christ. If I sensed Him saying' no, 'I didn’t go, and vice versa.” His decision was not based on location, size, or reputation but on following the Spirit.
Where does God want you to go this week? To whom does He want you to speak? Jesus knows, and if you cultivate the art of asking and listening, He will lead you. And wherever you go, He wants you to tell people that the Kingdom of heaven has now come, and they can know Christ, just as you have come to know Him.
February 20, 2025
If you have questions about how real, how present, how personal and intimate the Lord is, then just read six words of travelogue in Luke’s journal as he traveled with Paul.
February 18, 2025
I have known many people who have had great joy and power in the midst of great suffering. It is humbling that the slightest inconveniences deter many of us from following God. We have not gotten to the bottom—settled the issue. Most often, we live for our comfort, reputation, or gain. When any of those goals are touched, we are troubled and discontent.
February 17, 2025
The repentant who finds God gains everything. “He who has God and everything else,” said C.S. Lewis, “has no more than he who has God alone.”
