Connect the Dots

Remember those mind teasing puzzles, connect the dots? If they weren't numbered you would never begin to tell what the picture was going to be. Success was predicated on following the correct order. Some looked very involved, and were a little intimidating. If you jumped ahead, made assumptions or just plain wouldn't follow instructions, it was easy to mess up (you wonder how I know). It seems really easy, and it is, until you got impatient, until you did it "MY WAY". Being a successful Christian is much like that puzzle. You think you know the end so you jump ahead. Sometimes you may be correct in you assumption, but have a few extra dots, blemishes on your record. Some times you leave portions undone and complete the outer frame only, not being impressed with the fine detail, leaving the picture undone. Some times others would see your mistakes and try to help, but you wouldn't have any part in correction, it just wasn't that important to you. YOU!

There is a right way to come to God. Oh, sure we come from different directions, needing different things, but we all go in the same direction. Don't YOU? Line builds upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little, soon we can see the end product, the frame of what we will be. After all the Word says, seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness and He will give you everything else, right? He will withhold no good thing from them that walk uprightly, right? I get to have my cake and eat it too, right? After all, there are different offices, different gifts, and I get to choose, right?

Salvation is our first step. True we love Him (God) because He loved us first, and we were drawn by His Spirit (no one can come unless they are). We take Jesus' yoke upon us , as He is meek and lowly and that burden is oh so light. We are like babes desiring that sincere milk of the Word. We grow in wisdom and strength, we mature. Can you see the dots connecting? We come to the adolescence stage of our life, a stage mirrored in life. We begin to realize who we are, what we will be. We have accepted the Holy Spirit and see value, but He, is like our parents, we want our way. We don't want to wait, be told no, or accept a curfew. After all we are almost old enough and are capable of making up our own minds, aren't we. (I don't really need to finish this puzzle, I know enough.) At this point in our young lives we are tempted to make many mistakes, just like a teenager. The fleshy mistakes made at this point can reflect on our entire life, as it is in the Spirit. Feeling old enough to decide but really not wise enough to realize the long term ramifications of our actions. Waiting on God is one of the most difficult things a Christian has to do.

Waiting on our ministry is tough. Losing our faith because we ran ahead of God is tougher. Making a wreck of our lives is even tougher. Part of the "Being Transformed By the Renewing of Our Minds" is acceptance of waiting. The development of discipline, becoming a "Disciple". The temptations of the flesh, what we do during this waiting period, will define who you will be. Learning to wait on a command from God or spending this time in pleasing ourselves will set your heart in a direction, a pattern that you will follow until you cannot. Developing "Ears to Hear" by overriding lust of the flesh (anything that gives pleasure) is one of the most important goals of God for your life during this time. We hear the words, " Sons and Daughter", and apply our youthful understanding and assume, we have arrived. The concept of being an adult, wisdom applied with faith and understanding of consequence doesn't even cross you mind, we don't count the cost. Those areas some where in the middle, between babes and mature adults, actually brings definition to our Christian being. It's the habits we follow, waiting on God for direction and understanding, or rushing ahead like lambs to the slaughter. Your choice, just connect the dots.

These are the dots of this puzzle. Which can you do without?

1 Corinthians 3
1And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
2I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
3For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?

Revelation 1:6
6And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 2:6 6And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

Romans 12
1I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

1 Corinthians 12:31
31But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.

1 Corinthians 14
1Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy.

1 Corinthians 14:31
31For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted.

1 Timothy 3
1This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.

Philippians 3
7But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
8Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

Matthew 13:46
46Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.

Luke 18
17Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.
18And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
22Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.
23And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich.
24And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!

1 Kings 13
9For so was it charged me by the word of the LORD, saying, Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest.
11Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel; and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel: the words which he had spoken unto the king, them they told also to their father.
14And went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak: and he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am.
15Then he said unto him, Come home with me, and eat bread.
16And he said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place:
17For it was said to me by the word of the LORD, Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest.
18He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the LORD, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him.

Exodus 4
10And Moses said unto the LORD, O my LORD, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.
11And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?
12Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.
13And he said, O my LORD, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.
14And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart.

24And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him (Moses), and sought to kill him. (Becaused he had not circumsized his son according to the covenent with Jacob)
25Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his (Moses) feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.
26So he (God) let him (Moses) go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.

2 Kings 14:25
25He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the LORD God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gathhepher.

Jonah 1
1Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,
2Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.
3But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Hebrews 5:14
14But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

When the Word says,"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" it doesn't mean that God doesn't have an outline, a complete picture, for your life. It means that you get to connect the dots. Be patient, do it right the first time. Be anxious for nothing. Connect all the dots. then you will be complete, fully established to every good work.

L,J,P&HG
Dave