Let's Check Your Reading Skills Of God's Gps Series

INTRODUCTION

We have studying the last several weeks how God gives direction in our lives. And I showed you that Scripture from Proverb where you and I like to know the destination, but God shows us the steps. Proverbs 16:9 (NIV)

9 In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

And so, I stressed that we better learn to read God’s GPS for our life, or we might miss the steps that God is taking us down and that will make our lives difficult.

And so, we began looking at the steps God’s GPS will take us on. We first saw how God takes us on upwards steps moving us from the plateau we are on to a higher level. Sometimes you must get rid of some things in your life that are weighing you down so that you can move to the higher level. And last week, we talked about sometimes you must take forward steps in faith to see God do something great in our live.

Today, I want to check your skill in reading God’s GPS. Not everybody can read a GPS correctly. I am guilty sometimes of not reading it correctly because my GPS talks to me and says: “Recalculating”. That is just a nice way of saying that you did not read me correctly! But I am not the only one that misreads my GPS because a lot of times my patients will put my address in their GPS and I still must get in my car and find them somewhere in Magnolia.

So, I think it is important to make sure that we are reading God’s GPS for our life correctly. And thankfully, the Word of God tells us how to check. If you got your Bibles turn with me to Philippians 2:4 and Psalm 37:23-26.

SCRIPTURE:

Philippians 2:4 (NIV)

4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Psalm 37:23-26 (NIV)

23 If the LORD delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm;

24 though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand.

25 I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.

26 They are always generous and lend freely; their children will be blessed.

POINT #1

MY GOD’S GPS READING SKILL IS OFF IF EVERYTHING IS ALWAYS LEADING BACK TO ME.

Philippians 2:4 says that there will be times that God’s GPS will be leading me in a direction to take care of me. The Scripture says to take care of your interest. But there will be times that God’s GPS will be leading my steps so that I can take care of someone else. We know that because the same verse says take care of the interest of others.

Psalm 37 says there are times God’s GPS leads me through a tough patch in my life. It is about me. But then it goes on to say that there are times that it leads me to help others out by being generous to others. It is about others.

So, I got to ask myself the question, when I read God’s GPS does it always lead back to me? How do I know if that is the case? What are the signs that it is always leading back to me? Let me share with you some ways that you can know.

1. WHEN I LOOK AT MY RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER PEOPLE, ARE THEY FILLED WITH CONFLICT?

James 4:1-3 (NIV)

1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?

2 You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.

3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

When I have desire to make everything about me and what I want and what I desire, it is always going to create conflict. That type of attitude will always produce conflict because others will not always agree with it being your way. Sometimes people just get tired of that and it produces conflict.

Now I understand a certain amount of conflict is inevitable. However, if everywhere you turn, your life is characterized by conflict, then I can tell you that you are not reading God’s GPS correctly.

If you walk into a church and sense that there is conflict in that church, I can tell you that someone or some group of people are not reading God’s GPS correctly. If you are reading it correctly there is unity not conflict.