Love Your Neighbor: Outreach, One Step at a Time نموونە
God Is with You
You cannot walk by faith and seek security at the same time. There is no reason to ask God for something if you will not act on what you hear from Him.
When He stirs your heart to do something, He Himself will be with you. When Jesus’ disciples, who were not rabbis or professional teachers, first went out preaching, God helped them and worked through them (see Mark 16:20). They needed God along the way because nothing was safe; what they were doing was dangerous business.
How wonderful it is to know that we, too, can have total assurance of God’s help. When we set out to do God’s will, He will work with us along the way.
Tune out the over-cautious voices from your mind that will hold you back from taking a risky step of faith. Give God a chance to do something. Remember the faith of Noah. God told him to build a ship on dry land in preparation for a flood that he could never have imagined. He obeyed, saving not only his family but also all of the animals that he took on board. (See Genesis 6–9 and Hebrews 11:7.)
Noah did something bold that to him surely seemed uncertain. He believed every word that God spoke and worked hard to follow through in blind, courageous faith. He had an aggressive nature, yet he did not trust his own instincts. Instead, he trusted a crazy-sounding word about building an “ark” (which he had never seen before) and stocking it according to exact specifications. He worked for years without seeing any results. He faced ridicule, fatigue and doubts, but he carried through anyway. Noah found that the safest place to be is in the will of God, and he has been remembered ever since as an exemplary man of faith.
To pray about: Confidently, you can lean all of your weight (including your fears and doubts) on God, knowing that He who has initiated a good work in you will carry you through to completion (see Philippians 1:6). God will be with you to both start and finish His good work.
We adapted this plan from another resource. Learn more at http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/one-small-step/398820.
About this Plan
Reaching out to your neighbors can be a counterintuitive thing to do. Most people who consider themselves Christians do not even think about stepping outside their ordinary responsibilities to follow the quiet nudges of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and He wants to show you the way—one small step at a time.
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