Are You Getting God's Best?

Last week, we talked about surrendering to God because we believe that God has our best in mind.

• When we honestly confess our willingness to submit to Him as Lord, He steps in and guides us in ways we do not expect and we will experience His greatest blessings.

• We believe it because God has our best in mind and at heart, and He does not “guess” what is good but knows it as a fact.

But we need to open up our hands in order to receive from Him.

• We need to learn to let go of what we are clinging on to – the second-bests in life, the things we thought best – and allow God to show us His best.

• Obedience to God is the best policy.

We closed last week with the mentioning of Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899), an ordinary man who came from a very humble beginning, without proper schooling, but was fully surrendered to his God.

• God made him into a great evangelist who made a great impact in America and England - started schools, a church and a seminary – and touched millions of lives.

• You cannot tell what God can do with a man who is fully surrendered to Him.

I was just reading about him this week and these are some of the words of Moody:

• Character is what you are in the dark.

• If I take care of my character; my reputation will take care of itself.

• Some people think God does not like to be troubled with our constant coming and asking. The way to trouble God is not to come at all.

• The Christian on his knees sees more than the philosopher on tiptoe.

• God sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves

• Small numbers make no difference to God. There is nothing small if God is in it.

• There are many of us that are willing to do great things for the Lord, but few of us are willing to do little things.

• I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And that which I can do, by the grace of God, I will do.

• Temptations are like tramps. Treat them kindly, and they will return bringing others with them.

• Sin will keep you from this Book or this Book will keep you from sin.

• If I walk with the world, I can't walk with God.

• Forgiveness is not to bury the hatchet with the handle sticking out of the ground, so you can grasp it the minute you want it.

God has given him great insights and wisdom. A surrendered life is a blessed life.

• I believe many Christians want to follow Christ, but they are too distracted by this world; too tempted by what this world has to offer.

• Listen to what Paul has to say in Romans 12:1-2 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will.”

To truly experience the BEST of life there is – to know and experience God’s good, pleasing and perfect will for us, something needs to be changed – our thinking.

• What do you usually think about, on a regular basis? What preoccupies your mind? What is your mental diet?

• We are what we think. If we do not guard that, we will naturally and slowly conform ourselves to the pattern of this world.

• John describes it this way - 1 John 2:15-17

15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world - the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

Transformation starts with the renewing of your mind.

• NLT: “Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.”

• Our behaviour will change when our thinking changes. And our thinking can only be changed by the truth of God’s Word.

• JESUS: “… you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32); “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matt 4:4)