Word for the Day January 15

By: Evang. Cascille Hammack

"I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites."  Exodus 16:12

Nothing hinders what we are doing as greatly as to be longing for something else.  It is impossible to have both hands on the plough and at the same time be looking back with our thoughts and hopes elsewhere.  This is a waste of time.  To look at what we do not have, or to neglect to look thankfully at what we do possess brings about two very different types of character. 

James 4:1-4 says, "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God."

Listen quietly to what the Lord has to say.  He will mend the depths of your heart and set the course of your life.  Proverbs 19:21 says, "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails."  All anxiety and striving cease when we commit to surrender our wills to His sovereign hand and rest following the direction He leads. 

He made each person unique with an individual path chosen just for them by Him. Romans 12:4,5 says, "Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others."  We are all one body under Christ as the head, but each member of the body has a specific function given just to them by God. You can not come to know who you truly are until you come to know Him.  In giving Him your will and surrendering yourself to Him, He will reveal to you who you are created to be and your specific function and gifts.  Only in living in Him and using the special gifts He has given specifically to you will you be fulfilled.  James 4:8 says, "Come near to God and he will come near to you."