1 Corinthians 2:9 “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him” This episode talks about how God has amazing things for those that love Him. How can we be counted among those that love Him? Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The Easy Path or The Harder To Travel Path
1 Corinthians 2:9 “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him”
This is pretty awesome when we think about it. God has prepared something so amazing for those that love Him that no human heart has conceived it. No eye has seen it and no ear has heard it. I definitely want to sign up for that. How do we sign up for that? The verse says that God has prepared it for those that love Him. It might be easy to think that we automatically qualify because of course we love God. We have talked about this before in another episode about how we may feel like we love God, but does God feel like we love Him? What are we doing to show God that we love Him?
If you are listening to this episode then I am sure that you love God. You wouldn’t go out of your way to spend 10 minutes of your day listening to me talk about a scripture verse if you didn’t want to grow in your faith, grow closer to God, or learn how to walk boldly with Jesus. I am not questioning if you love God. I am sure that you do. I do wonder how we could show God that we love Him even more than we already are. I would like there to be no question in God’s mind whether we love him or not.
I feel as though God has been repeating a few things to me lately. Does this ever happen to you? You feel as though God is telling you something and then every where you look it seems to be a similar message? This is a thing, I know it is. I have heard many people talk about it. I heard a story once of this woman who had a big decision to make. She didn’t want to move, but she really felt like God was calling her to move. She told God that if he wanted her to move He would have to make His will very clear to her as she really didn’t want to hear it. She was in church on Sunday and she heard a verse that confirmed that she was supposed to move. She passed it off as coincidence, or maybe she was reading too much into in. The next day, a friend called her up and said that she didn’t know why, but she had a feeling she was supposed to call and give her this certain scripture verse and it whatever it was confirmed that she should move. Again, she tried to ignore it and explain it away. The next day, a delivery man dropped off a package to her door and after she signed for it he was walking away and then he turned and gave her a scripture verse, out of the blue. It was not someone she knew, he just said, I am not sure why this is coming to mind but what does this mean to you and gave her the scripture verse. She finally agreed to move. God is funny how he works sometimes. If He has a message for you, He will get it to you, no matter how many times you try to ignore it.
This is what the Lord has been doing to me lately, or I should say he has been doing this for me lately. There seems to be a few messages that keep coming up over and over again. One of them is the one I talked about the other day. God has been telling me through Bible verses and through conversations with people that He really wants us to just be still with Him. Another message that seems to keep coming up is that the road to God is the narrow one, the road less traveled. The scripture Matthew 7:13-14 keeps coming up. It says, “Go in through the narrow door. The door is wide and the road is easy that leads to hell. Many people are going through that door. But the door is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life that lasts forever. Few people are finding it.”
This message has also come up at my prayer group. Someone today had a vision of a path that we were walking down and then the path split and you could choose which path to go down. One way looks smooth and easy to travel and the other is all rocky and hilly and harder to travel. The Lord says, “So many times we chose the path that is the easiest because we don’t want to have a hard time doing anything. We want things to go smoothly constantly. But on the other road, where it is hard to travel, that s where He is. It is in the rough traveling, it is in the hardships, it is in the hard times going, trying, fighting, to get to the Lord, that is where the purities come. That is where your heart becomes more like His because He struggled constantly. As we walk the road, we get tired and we say, “Lord, I don’t want any more of this. I’d rather just walk the smooth road. And He constantly calls us with the eyes of Love. “Come, just a little bit more, just a little bit further. For I am waiting, don’t worry about the roughness it will not hurt you for I am your God and I travel with you.”
This is something I feel He keeps reminding me. Sometimes I want to do something am I am not sure if I should. For instance, my husband and I started watching a tv show that was an interesting show, however, it was very graphic and had a lot of sex in it. There were times when I felt very uncomfortable watching it. I felt as though the Holy Spirit was convicting me that I shouldn’t be watching it. I would try to rationalize that it was a very popular show and I knew plenty of other people that watched it. This is when I felt very strongly that the Lord showed me Matthew 7:13-14. I felt like the Lord was telling me that He knows a lot of people have watched it, but He is calling me to more. He is calling me to take a different road.
The Lord is not just calling me to take a different road. He is calling you too. He is calling all of us to examine our behavior and see if we are loving Him through our behavior? If we were to look at our lives would we know just by what we see that we love the Lord? Would we see that we put God first, or everything else first? We would see that our lives are lived any differently than anyone else’s? God is telling us in Matthew 7:13-14 “Go in through the narrow door. The door is wide and the road is easy that leads to hell. Many people are going through that door. But the door is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life that lasts forever. Few people are finding it.” Are we part of the few people that are finding the narrow door? Are we even looking for the narrow door?
When I was watching the show and I felt convicted that I should stop, I didn’t want to. It was a good show and I was enjoying it. I was trying to convince myself that God didn’t really care if I watched it. I was afraid of missing out on something enjoyable. Then one day I thought about how amazing Heaven is going to be. I though about how I may be sacrificing some enjoyment in the here and now, but I will be gaining eternal enjoyment. I say that I will give anything to be in heaven with the Lord for eternity, however, I couldn’t even stop watching one TV show when I felt the Lord was asking me to. So, it looks like I still have lots of work to do. And you know what, that is ok. The Lord doesn’t need me to have it all figured out right this second. All He really wants is for us to be seeking the right answers. He wants us to keep trying to get it right. He knows we will fail a lot and He still loves us anyway.
Let’s all take a look at the path we are on and figure out if it is the easy path, the one that feels good, but doesn’t lead anywhere good. Or, are we on the difficult path, the one less traveled, that leads to the Lord. I love in the vision when the Lord said, “Come, just a little bit more, just a little bit further. For I am waiting, don’t worry about the roughness it will not hurt you for I am your God and I travel with you.” I love that God is traveling with us and that He is protecting us. If you are traveling down a really hard road right now, I hope the Lord’s words will bring you comfort. “Come, just a little bit more, just a little bit further, for I am waiting.” He is there waiting for us, we just have to keep choosing the right path to walk down. It isn’t one decision and we are done. It is a series of decisions every single day and if we get it wrong, we can always course correct. He just wants us to keep trying to get it right. Remember what is waiting for us when we get it right. “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him”
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to choose the narrow path, please keep guiding us. Please keep sending the Holy Spirit to convict us when we are heading in the wrong direction. Please keep turning us around and directing us back to the correct path. We love you Lord, we love you above all things, help our behavior to reflect that. Help us to put you above all things. Help us overcome our temporary desire for pleasure here on earth so we can enjoy eternal happiness living in your presence. Lord we want all the amazing things you have planned for those that love you. Help us be counted among those that love you. You are so amazing and we are so grateful that you still love us even when we mess up. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to seeing you on Monday. Have a blessed weekend!