God Speaks I Listen

….humble yourself … you’ll be blessed.

Mathew 19:16-22 Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”

¹⁷ “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”

¹⁸ “Which ones?” he inquired.

Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, ¹⁹ honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”

²⁰ “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”

²¹ Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

²² When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

In Verse 20 it says: All these I have kept,” the young man said to Jesus…..”What do I lack? Really? He said he was keeping the commandments…all of them! Was he trying to impress Jesus with that foolishness? Didn’t he realize who He was talking to? The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords!!! The thing He should have done was to fall on his knees and beg Jesus for mercy for His evil soul!!!!!!!

Do you know there is NOTHING that we can do to impress God at all? When I first became a committed Christian…I tried hard to impress God. Look God… I’m in church today. Look God… I’m helping people. Oh God look…I’m feeding the poor. God I’m doing lots of good things for you! God…aren’t you proud of me? Thank God for the Holy Spirit who has broken this thing down to me over the years? His instruction and teachings have been life changing for me. I’ve also had plenty of good godly trials and testing’s that have straightened me right up over time.

Because of the low self image I had as a child…I tried to please/impress everyone my whole life and so I guess I thought I needed to impress God also…..but all that did was take away His glory from Him.  That made me feel bad  because I was ashamed of being prideful.   We just can’t impress God!!! He’s not impressed by anything we do or anything we have.  God Himself is the most impressive being in the universe so  how can we possibly impress Him?  ( But we can please Him though!!)

Peter tried to impress in Jesus by using his little security guard skills to protect Him.

John 18:10 Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. NIV

What was he thinking? Really Peter?   Were you really going to impress folks all by yourself and defend Jesus against a gang of men who came to capture Him. It wasn’t impressive at all…it was…foolish!

DUH!!  You know… I was going to say…men!    A woman wouldn’t have done that…we would have tried to talk these men out of it LOL! But I’ll step away from that one!

What does move God is our obedience, our forgiveness and our love for one another. The most powerful thing we can ever do to touch Gods heart is……drum roll here….is to believe in His Son Jesus Christ. God is also moved by our worship of Him.  So… God can have reactions to things we do…but I believe He draws a blank if we try to impress Him…and  I think He would say something like…speak to the hand… I’m not impressed!… kind of thing.  Well really …that’s what I would say not God.  God would  just tell the Holy Spirit to correct us and we would probably get a trial to bring the point home.

I can tell you from my experience….IT IS ALWAYS BEST TO BE VERY HUMBLE IN DEALING WITH THE LORD! This will serve you very well in your walk with God!   Now here is a very spiritual statement…. We are not all that and a bag of chips because we’re God’s child!!!  Yes we are heirs to the throne but we must know our place! I would do anything for my children…but if they thought they were all that with me….that mothering would come out in me!   I have personally seen God bring men down who tried to impress Him…..and I want to add that He does this out of love because the results are life saving and life changing….for our present and for our future with Him.

I personally have learned to put my face into the floor (humble myself) in my walk with God. (Learn to be prostrate in your spirit) There are times I feel the devil encouraging me to stand up….you know the pride thing…look what I’m doing thing….but I feel those thorns and I go…”ouch ouch!” and I get myself back down on that ground in humble adoration and respect for my Lord and Savior.

Satan did try to impress God and you see where that got Him and he tries to get us to do that too so that God will be very ticked off with us. He does get the non-Christian to act impressively and say they don’t need God for eternal life and as a result they don’t get into heaven.

I’m sharing this information today because I want Gods very very best for you. You don’t have to impress God because Jesus did all the impressing for all of us…… on that cross!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

Proverbs 3:5 Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the LORD and turn away from evil.NLT

Proverbs 26:12 Do you see a person wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for them. NIV