Don't Limit God Series

DON’T LIMIT GOD

By: C. Mason Davis

There is a story of a man who really believed he was close in his relationship to God. The town he lived in was being deluged by rain. The flooding was getting so bad that the townspeople were told to evacuate. This man decided that he would pray to God for help and guidance and would wait for a sign. Soon after, the last vehicle was leaving town for higher ground and stopped to offer this man a ride to safety. This man told the driver that he was waiting for a sign from God and that God would take care of him. Again, he prayed. As the flooding worsened, a boat drove up to his house, but he turned the boat away as he waited for a sign from God. The flooding continued to worsen and drove the man atop his roof. Shortly after, a helicopter flew up to his house, but he waved it off. Again, he prayed for help and a sign. Finally, the flooding rose higher than his roof and the man drowned. The man was now in heaven in front of God and asked why He let him drown. God became angry and said, “I didn’t let you drown, I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter and you turned them all away.” This man did the right thing by praying to God for help and a sign, but his mistake was in not being open to His way of help.

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE

Psalm 78:41, “Yea they turned back and tempted God and limited the Holy One of Israel.”

Do not put limits on God in your life. I’m not just talking about believing in Him, but also not keeping limits about His ability to serve you in your walk of life. Perhaps you need to open your heart and your mind more to God, but also in how you ask for His help. I pray that when you leave today, you’ll be more open of His will, than to yours. That you come to understand that His will is to come in His time and in His way. Perhaps you need to show Him unconditional love and accept that His way is the only way, even if it’s not your way or in your time. Without realizing it, we limit God’s will in just about everything we do, everything we say, and everything we think and pray for. We are all too set in our ways, in our habits, in our thinking, and in our selfishness. Ask yourself…Are you open-minded enough to follow God’s will? Holding onto the God given dreams and thoughts that He’s put into your heart is sometimes quite a challenge. We sometimes have blinders on as to our path to realizing and accomplishing those dreams. When we dream our dreams, we tend give up on them when they’re not realized instantly. With blinders on you may not see God’s way for guiding us to our dreams. Afterall, He is the author of them. He is the one who put them there. In Psalms 37:4, it says, “Delight thyself also in the LORD: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”

Some of the ways we limit God is by doubt, negativity, unbelief, and close-mindedness. You need to quit your “one-way,” directional thinking and instead be open to another direction in life because it may just be His will that you do. If you become filled with doubt and unbelief, you may not realize that there have been signs of God’s blessings in your life the whole time. Proverbs 3:5-8, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord and part from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.” The blessings will be there, but you must trust in Him to see them to put them to use. Therefore, lose the blinders.

Another way we lose our connection with God is by thinking or believing that any help or signs from Him will only come in particular ways. In other words, we’ve got blinders on again. We need to remember that God works in mysterious ways. If we can learn this, we won’t have any limitations when it comes to Him, and we’ll be better able to see the signs and follow His lead in our lives. Being able to do so would be like re-opening the valve, allowing Him to shower us with His blessings.

In the book of Exodus, chapter 5, it tells us about the children of Israel when they were enslaved in Egypt. It was a pitiful situation to live through. They were very mistreated, working day and night, and it seemed that they had no way out. But then God began to intervene. Exodus 8:1, “And the Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, thus saith the Lord, let my people go, that they may serve me.” Pharoah was the King of the people of Egypt. God told Moses to tell Pharoah to “let My people go.” Well, Moses did what God had told him, but the Pharoah said, “Who are you, Moses? I’m not listening to your God. I don’t care who Jehovah God is. Go back and work.” This really made Pharoah mad and in turn he gave the slaves from Israel much harder tasks to accomplish. When the slaves didn’t fulfill their daily quotas, he’d have the Egyptian officers beat the foremen of the Israeli slaves. The people of Israel began to complain to Moses by saying, “Moses, ever since you spoke to Pharoah things have become much worse.” But the Lord gave words to Moses, and they said, “Listen, you tell the people of Israel that I’ve seen their affliction, their sorrow, and their suffering. I’m going to come down and I’m going to deliver them by My power and by My outstretched arm.” They had a promise from God that He was going to see them through.