Living Wholeheartedly for GodSample

DAY FOUR – GET WILLING

Over and over again I’ve seen someone ask God for help, get an understanding of the plan, and use their faith to receive it —but also have certain areas where they are hanging back. They have conditional limitations that they themselves have set. In other words, there are places in their heart where they aren’t willing.

For example, I know one man who wanted to get married. He was in his forties and had been divorced for years, but he just didn’t want to spend the rest of his life alone. He’d prayed and asked God for a nice Christian woman to marry, but nothing had happened. It turns out that he had put a condition on his prayer. He had said, “Lord, I don’t want to marry anyone who has children.” So time went by, and he remained unmarried.

Then one day after spending some time in the Word and prayer, he was getting ready for work, and the thought suddenly dropped into his spirit that he wouldn’t mind having step-children. So he said, “Ok, Lord, I would marry someone who has children.” It was only two or three weeks later that he met a woman at his gym who had two children. He liked her, started dating her, and was married to her within the year.

I think that sometimes we have little caveats that prevent God from bringing His plan to pass. I’ve known people who’ve said, “Yes, I’ll obey God, but I’ll never move there; marry them; go back ; spend that much; own a car like that; or [insert your own phrase here].”

Sometimes when we say “never” like that, we’re looking at the decision from outside the grace that would enable us to do it. I like to call grace, “God’s power beyond our ability.” 2 Corinthians 12:9 says that His grace is sufficient in every situation.

If we are willing to consecrate ourselves, step outside those boundaries we’ve set (maybe do something we said we’d never do), we would find that God gives us the grace—His power beyond our ability—to do it. Just as He gave Jesus the power beyond human ability (grace) to go to the cross and bear our sin.