How To Miss God
Proverbs 19:2
In the sport of archery the objective is to score as many points as you possibly can, and you do that by hitting rings on a target a distance away. Now the target that is used in archery of course has rings that get smaller as the point totals get higher. The ultimate shot is to hit the center of the target which of course is called a bullseye. The way that archery experts aim for the bullseye is that they figure the distance, take into consideration the weather elements.... And always aim high to do gravity. The only way to hit what you want to hit is to aim high. Aim anywhere else and you will miss.
The word of God points out that we can miss the way.
how many of you know that you can miss God. One of
the worst things that we can do is miss God in a
situation. No one who wants to please God wants to be
outside of his will. I have never heard anyone say I sure am glad that I missed God on this one, I have never been happy knowing that I am outside of his will. We always say thiings like, man I can’t believe that I missed God, I hate to be out of his will, becasue it feels real lonely. I guarantee, that is the feeling of anyone who has missed God. And if you are breathing this morning, at some point you have missed God. Some Christians make it a regular habit and live miserable lives because of it.
We don’t have to miss God!
Four Ways to Miss God
1. Don’t listen to the Word
Ezra 7:6
The hand of the Lord was on him: This is important
here. Three times in this chapter it says that the hand of the Lord was on Ezra. The reason?
Look at verse 10 - What a model for us today. If you
want the hand of God, ie. the blessing, the will of God in your life then you have to be devoted to the word of God.
Imagine, if you will, that you work for a company whose president found it necessary to travel out of the country and spend an extended period of time abroad. So he says to you and the other trusted employees, "Look, I’m going to leave. And while I’m gone, I want you to pay close attention to the business. You manage things while I’m away. I will write you regularly. When I do, I will instruct you in what you should do from now until I return from this trip." Everyone agrees. He leaves and stays gone for a
couple of years. During that time he writes often, communicating his desires and concerns. Finally he returns. He walks up to the front door of the company and immediately discovers everything is in a mess--weeds flourishing in the flower beds, windows
broken across the front of the building, the gal at the front desk dozing, loud music roaring from several offices, two or three people engaged in horseplay in the back room. Instead of making a profit, the business has suffered a great loss. Without hesitation
he calls everyone together and with a frown asks, "What
happened? Didn’t you get my letters?" You say, "Oh, yeah, sure. We got all your letters. We’ve even bound them in a book. And some of us have memorized them. In fact, we have ’letter study’ every Sunday. You know, those were really great letters." I think the president would then ask, "But what did you do about my
instructions?" And, no doubt the employees would respond, "Do? Well, nothing. But we read every one!"
We have to do more than just read the word of God we
must listen to it, in other words obey it.
Ezra didn’t just read it, it says in verse 10.....
Sometimes we might not like what we see in God’s word.
There might be something in our life that we are doing
and never thought anything about it and all of the
sudden we are reading the bible and there it is. We see it with our own eyes. Now it might takes us back
moment but now we know, guess what the Holy Spirit is
going to start doing? We have a choice to make.
Are we going to listen to the word or not?
2. Listen to everyone else’s opinion
Luke 9:34-35
Prov. 18:2
It has been said that opinions are like noses everyone
has one. Too often when we are facing something
important in our lives instead going to God with it, we
turn to everyone around us.
I knew a young man at the church where we were
associate pastors. A great young man who felt like he
had a call of God on his life. He prayed about the
situation, but also talked to people about what he should do. The problem was that he talked and asked advice from so many different people that he had so many opinions he couldn’t sort them out. He actually became more confused as he went along than at the beginning. He was told to go to bible college, he was told to go to Christ for the Nations, he was told to stay home and do correspondence courses. Needless to say in his confusion, he chose Christ for the Nations which is in Dallas, Texas. He went there for one semester and came home very disheartened and discouraged. Feeling like he could not make it in the ministry. Now he is doing nothing towards working in the ministry. He wonders if he was truly called.
Was he called? I believe so. The problem stems from
making the wrong decision or missing God in this
situation. I am sure Satan is very pleased with what has happened. Where he went wrong was going to so many
people and asking what he should do. If we are facing a big decision our first priority should be to seek God’s face then if necessary go to one or two people that we trust hear from God and see if God confirms what he has placed in our heart.
3. Lean on Your own Understanding
Joshua 9:3-6, 14-15
By not inquring of the Lord, guess what the Israelites
were doing. They were leaning on their own
understanding. And by doing this they ended up
allowing the ungodly within their midst. Something
God had forbidden in Deut. 7. The Israelites ended up
going through alot of sorrows and troubles because they
were out of God’s will.
Prov. 3:5
Our own understanding is limited, fallible and subject to error. Therefore we have to be enlightened by God’s
word and led by the Holy spirit.. We must pray for his wisdom and will in our decisions and goals in life.
4. When God Speaks to you Ignore Him
In some stores you have to wait on yourself and in others they hire sales people to ignore you.
We all been there haven’t we? You go to a store and
you wait and wait for someone to help you and the
workers just ignore you. When we were passing out cans of pop a couple weeks ago. Some people in their cars acted like if they didn’t look at you, you didn’t exist. They basically ignored you as best they could.
Is there anyone who likes to be ignore? Of course not, no one likes to be ignored. And yet many us of will do that very thing when God begins to speak to us about a situation. I have heard people say I just don’t hear God. In most cases it’s not that don’t hear, it’s that they don’t like what they are hearing and choose to ignore what he is telling them.
Jonah...
There are so many illustrations in scripture of those
who listened to God when he spoke to them we don’t
have the time even name them all... But what was the end: Victory!!!!!
During the Revolutionary War, a loyalist spy appeared at the headquarters of Hessian commander Colonel Johann Rall, carrying an urgent message. General George Washington and his Continental army had secretly crossed the Delaware River that morning and were advancing on Trenton, New Jersey where the
Hessians were encamped. The spy was denied an audience with the commander and instead wrote his message on a piece of paper. A porter took the note to the Hessian colonel, but because Rall was involved in a poker game he stuffed the unread note into his pocket. When the guards at the Hessian camp began firing their muskets in a futile attempt to stop Washington’s army, Rall was
still playing cards. Without time to organize, the Hessian army was captured. The battle occurred the day after Christmas, 1776, giving the colonists a late present--their first major victory of the war.
If we ignore what God says it will surely bring defeat in our lives by the hand of the enemy and it will be the first of many more as long as we try to do things our own way.
Close:
Do you like to miss God? Do you like to walk in defeat
and mediocrity? I’m hoping the answer is a resounding
no. We do not have to live in fear that we will lose the battle. God has given us every weapon and advantage we need to live victorious.
