God's Game Plan (Chapter 3)

The Balance:

100% God + 100 % Me

"You must be even more careful to do the good things that result from being saved, OBEYING GOD WITH DEEP REVERENCE, SHRINKING BACK FROM ALL THAT MIGHT DISPLEASE HIM. For God is at work within you, helping you WANT to obey Him, and then helping you do what He wants." (Phil 2:12-13 TLB).

God's Holy Spirit will be at work in me helping me to want to do what He wants and enabling me to do it. (eating right, loving Nate, doing chores, etc). A motivation towards godliness.

Think about what God has done in your marriage this year. Where have you seen His faithfulness to you as a wife? (Answering my prayer to get over the past. O God, You are good!)

During difficult times go away alone and make a list of all God's faithfulness of the growth in my marriage relationship, all I have to be thankful for. Remember what God has done and get His perspective on my present circumstance.

God won't leave me:

"I will not, I will not, I will not in any degree leave you helpless, nor forsake you, nor relaz my hold on you, assuredly not." The only triple Negative in the NT! So cool!

Christlikeness:

possesing the fruit of the Holy Spirit in one's life.

Give God my concerns - He wants them!

My Part:

"Moreover it is required . . . that one be found faithful (1 Cir 4:2). The world says, "it is required that one be found successful, rich, famous, and attractive," but God only requires one thing: that each of us is faithful."

Trust and Obey.

Trust.

We are to place our trust in Him for what He has already done and what He promises to do. Relating every circumstance and situation to His promises. In order to base our life's view on these promises, we need to MEMORIZE them.

Examples: Giving thanks in everything because it's God's will in Jesus for me.

Verbally claim the promise to God, thanking Him for it, and expressing trust in Him that He will fulfill the promise in His good and perfect time.

Obey

"Jesus asked the people to do all the things the could do: show Him the grace, roll away the stone, unwrap the graveclothes. And Jesus did what they could not: raise Lazarus from the dead!"

God does give motivation and feelings, but usually they come as a RESULT of our obedience to Him. We must first act.

Repetition and Discipline.

"Your trust comes from a certain knowledge of your own inability to live it; your obedience comes from the confidence that if you obey and trust, He will fulfill his promise, and His Spirit will mold you into His image."

It takes a while! A lifetime!

IF God wants to grow a cabbage, He can do it in a few weeks, but if He wants to grow n oak tree, He has decreed that it will take Him a lifetime. God is trying to produce oak-tree Christians - Christians who have deep roots who have learned obeidence, who have strong trunks that are not easily swayed by winds or trials."

He is at work in your life, molding you, changing you, encouraging you, helping you.