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c) DOING THE WILL OF GOD

God has a plan and purpose for every one of our lives and He gives us grace to fulfill that plan and that is why it is important to do His will.  If you are trying to do something that God hasn’t called you to do then the grace won’t be there to do it.

Ephesians 4:7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.      

Colossians 2: 6-7 My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving. (The Message Bible)

Illustration: When Kevin asked me to go with him to Kyrgyzstan I said I would pray about it. In my mind though my answer was already no, for a few different reasons.

First: I hated to fly because if I am honest I was afraid of crashing and we had to fly with the Russian airline Aeroflot which had a bad reputation. 

Second: Kevin’s stories of his visit to Uzbekistan were scary, being stopped by the police all the time, what if we were arrested and our kids would be back in the States without us?

Third: The food would be very different and the bathrooms left a lot to be desired.

When I prayed about it though I felt impressed that God wanted me to go so I agreed to ” DO IT AFRAID” as Joyce Meyer says. Before we left, people would ask me if I was excited about the trip and I would say no, I was going with trepidation. Praise God He responds to our obedience. The three flights there went smoothly, even Aeroflot had a new fleet of planes. The food was fine I coped with the bathrooms. The bible school where we taught was raided by the KGB but God took care of the situation and we were able to continue our ministry there. On the journey home I had such a peace that I didn’t experience the usual fear of flying God delivered me.

When you step out and do the will of God you find that God’s grace meets you at your point of need.

CONCLUSION

DON’T BE SATISFIED WITH THE GRACE YOU HAVE

You can grow in the grace of God as you grow in the knowledge of God.

2 Peter 3:18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen

2 Peter 1:2 May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.

As we trust in the Lord and grow in our relationship with Him, He will continue to work in us by His Spirit of Grace until we see Jesus and our salvation will be complete.

Philippians 1:6  And I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you.

b) HUMILITY

Paul knew about humility and the grace of God by personal experience. After an amazing revelation from the Lord he received what he calls “a thorn in his flesh” we are not told what this thorn was but Paul asked the Lord to remove it.

2 Corinthians 12:8-9 Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.

We shouldn’t be afraid to admit that we are weak or that we are having struggles because that is where the grace of God comes in.

Humility attracts the grace of God, pride drives God away.

James 4:4-6 (The Message) You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn’t care? The proverb has it that “he’s a fiercely jealous lover.” And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you’ll find. Its common knowledge that “God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble.”

Notice this scripture says that God gives grace to the willing humble, some of us are stubborn, don’t wait until you are humbled before you come to the Lord for His empowering but surrender your life to Him willingly.

Psalm 32:9 Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.

This scripture goes on to say that “he who trust in the Lord mercy shall surround Him”

Hebrews 4:14-16  So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

 

Galatians 2:19-21 For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God. My old self has been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.

Grace isn’t just for salvation grace is for living when we trust in God He empowers us to live a full and effective life.

How can we live by His grace?

a) FAITH

We live by depending or trusting in the grace of God by faith. We have to believe that His sacrifice is sufficient and take Him at His word. We have to stop thinking that we can sort out every problem ourselves and humbly ask the Lord to live through us by His Spirit.

The difficulty we have is that we live in a self sufficient society where weakness (especially for men) is seen as a negative thing and not being able to handle our problems is unacceptable. So we suffer quietly instead of turning to God, until we are absolutely desperate and there is no other alternative. There is another way; Jesus wants us to see that without Him we can do nothing that all our best efforts are not good enough, if we will just depend on Him, He will work out everything for our good.

John 15:4-5 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.

This way of living is not about striving it’s about remaining in Christ. Just as the sap in the vine flows through the branches and contains all the nourishment that is needed to produce a bumper harvest of grapes, so the Spirit of Grace fills us to overflowing to produce in us all that God has purposed to do in our lives.

2Peter 1:3 By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.

On our arrival at the bible training center we were introduced to the 24 students who were all from differerent parts of Central Asia. We heard their stories, many of them were tragic. A story of a mother committing suicide to escape the terrible treatment her husband put her through. Then the children being abandoned by the father to live out in an open field in the winter until they were taken in by a Christian Pastor who raised some money for the daughter to come to this center.

Our seminars on marraige were very relevant because many of these young men and women had no concept of love and tenderness. Women were mostly treated as second class citizens and often like animals. We focussed for the first 2 or 3 sessions on the unconditional love of Christ and submitting in love to one another. Then we had opportunity to pray with individuals and to share God’s word with them. Some of the young men were a bit suspicious of us and the teaching we were bringing as it was totally new to them.

That evening we heard music coming from the courtyard, so we went to check it out. One evening a week the students were allowed to play their music through the sound system outside. It was cool to hear Kyrgyz pop music they were all dancing a mixture of traditional dance and disco and beckoned for us to join them, Kevin declined but I jumped in. What fun we had the differences in language and culture were all stripped away, dancing under the moon and the stars 6,000 miles from home.  It was a great end to a wonderful day.

The reminders of yesterday’s grace filled moments melted away as we paced up and down the living room floor wondering if our ride to the churrch meeting would ever show up. It’s amazing how quickly we can move from faith to fear. Isn’t He the same God today as He was yesterday, didn’t He say He would never leave us or forsake us? Finally the knock on the door and off we went to church, to a group of people we had never met before.

The words to the worship songs were projected onto the wall and now I was wishing that I had learned the Russian alphabet as there was no way to understand the songs. Kevin preached with the help of an interpreter and then after the service we chatted to some of the people there who could speak English. Amazingly there was a team visiting from the States and one of the team members was a friend of the youth pastor back at our church. It really is a small world. We had the opportunity to pray with a few people and afterwards all went to a local restaurant to eat lunch together.

This was a great experience because our hosts were able to explain what the different meals were on the menu and they ordered a variety of dishes so that we could try a few new things. We were only to be with this church for one day the next day we were due to travel to another city to the bible training center where we would be speaking on marriage. We were sensing that God had some amazing things in store for us at our next location and we were not to be disapointed.

We took a much needed nap after  30 hours of travelling then freshened up in cold water as there was no hot water ( we later found out that the hot water was off for the whole month of May). We decided to venture out to the money exchange and to find a restaurant for dinner. It was obvious that we were foreigners so we were so encouraged when a person in the line spoke English and told us what the exchange rate was and how much fee we should be paying. God always takes care of the details when we trust ourselves into His care. So with our wallet full of som we looked for a restaurant full of locals (food must be ok if the local people eat there) we found a likely place and sat down to be greeted with an unintelligible menu totally in Russian. Kevin looked at me and I at him then we looked around to see what others were eating and directed the waitress to the plates on the next table and ordered the same as them. I must admit I was a bit concerned but needn’t have been because the meal, a meat stew with rice, was delicious.

Our first day in Bishkek was over and God’s grace had certainly helped us but I would never have experienced His grace if I had stayed at home. As we step out in faith God comes through for us.

I have always been scared of flying so when my husband said that we had been invited to Kyrgyzstan to do some marraige seminars at a bible training center, it was with trepidation that I agreed to go.

I hardly talked about the trip when anyone asked me but I did alot of praying and looking back now I realize that God’s grace met me at my point of need. The three flights to Bishkek were uneventful and smooth and someone was there to meet us at the airport. The car had seen better days and belched out fumes which filled the vehicle. It was a shock for  me to see the poverty as we travelled to the city center this was as far east as I had ever been. We were taken to the apartment where we would be staying for a couple of days, after having someone point to where the money exchange was. Then he left saying he would return in the morning to take us to church. Our only contact in Kyrgyzstan had gone, we had no phone and no idea where he lived we were well and truly on our own. But GOD’S GRACE IS SUFFICIENT when we are weak he is strong. To be continued…………….

One good thing about being English in the USA is that everyone loves your accent, the downside of that is some people don’t hear what you say they are just enraptured by how you say it. This is a disadvantage when you are teaching a bible study.

Another thing I’ve noticed living here that I wasn’t exposed to in the UK is that the whole year is divided into themed seasons, when the logs appear outside the gas station it must be winter, when the mulch appears it must be spring, in the office at church the flower arrangements are green for St Patricks day even the Screen savers are changed to tie into the season. What wonderful marketing has been employed in this country and everyone buys into it. People buy so much stuff which they rotate during the year and then companies sell containers to store the excess.

What about clearing and bagging up all the leaves from the yard which the city collects and proceeds to spread on the fields as fertiliser while we go to the gas station or garden centre to buy mulch for our yards. I can’t ever remember clearing leaves in England. Oh well it keeps us busy. I am sure by the time I return to England the marketers will have caught up I noticed Halloween was getting bigger there about 3 years ago.

I have had a very positive experience living in America, people are generally very kind and friendly and it is a beautiful country with such diverse landscapes to visit.

It’s so exciting to see and feel the sunshine this morning. Is Spring really here at last?  Winters for an English person in Illinois are so hard. I’m looking forward to getting out into the yard and getting rid of loads of leaves so I can see the bulbs beginning to bloom. I love gardening it helps me to feel close to God and He always speaks to me through the seasons in nature.

I am hoping to come out of a winter season too, not that I haven’t been praying or reading my bible but some of the excitment and vitality in my relationship with the Lord hasn’t been there like I’ve known it in the past. I don’t let it get me discouraged though because I have been married to the same man for 34 years this year and not every day is full of excitement and passion but we love each other more than ever.

There are times you have to persevere and endure and times you rejoice and celebrate, that’s life. The wonderful thing though is that you always know that God loves you and accepts you and that He will never leave you. So I am believing God for a Spring season of revelation and breakthrough, where I understand His word and apply it to my life so that I become more like Jesus.

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