HOW DO I FOLLOW GOD?

So, I know I haven't written anything in while but I have always wanted this blog to be about what our Heavenly Father wanted me to write about or share and it not be of myself.  So I try to wait for Him to direct me on when to write things and what to write about, which is actually really hard for me, because my personality is to be organized.  Writing something every now and again and sporadically posting blogs is not my personality at all but in total contradiction to it.  If it were up to me, I’d be posting something once a week just so that the blog was organized, and in fact, my fingers are constantly itching to write something, anything all the time!  But I wait, because I don’t want it to be of me.  So that's just a little background as to why my posts are sporadic, which I'm sure is for my teaching benefit anyway. Ha ha.  I'm not sure if anyone reads these posts or not or if they are just for me but it doesn't matter because its all His and how He wants to use it is totally and completely up to Him.  That being said, I really felt an urging from Him to write this post about FOLLOWING HIM and my experiences of late regarding what He's been teaching me in this.  So, here it goes.

Am I following God or am I running ahead of Him?  The scriptures tell us that we are to follow God.  But, how do we follow Him?  There are foundations to this that we must fully understand and begin to experience.

The First Foundation:  CONTINUALLY HEARING HIS VOICE.

We must ask the Father to make us an ear so we can hear Him. "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” John 10:27 

Continually hearing His voice is exactly what He's been teaching me for a long while now. Recently, I was struggling with something I really felt the Father had told me to do regarding a situation in my life. And just as I was in the process of doing this, He then stopped me and had me going in a completely different direction. Since then (which has been a couple of months now) I've been chewing on this experience wondering if I had heard wrong initially in that situation or if it wasn't even His voice. But what He recently showed me was that I didn't hear wrong and it was His voice.  He was teaching me to continue to hear Him. You see, one of biggest issues concerning following God in our lives is our propensity to hear Him on something and then take off with it on our own instead of continuing to hear from Him throughout the entire course.  For example, a professional race car driver is trained to hear the directions being given to him through the earphones he wears throughout the entire race. He doesn't just listen for the first few laps then take the earphones off and continue the race all alone. He is directed by the boss the entire race and in that direction is backed up by an entire crew, never having to do anything alone. Can you image if a race car driver had to do everything on his own?  That wouldn’t be a race worth watching.  The scripture says that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses and to set aside every weight and sin and to run with endurance the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1).  Another example of this is in our own military.  Our military teaches individuals in the armed forces to hear and follow commands in much the same way as my recent experience.  They will order you one minute to do one thing just to turn around and order you to do the opposite the next minute.  This is an exercise that teaches immediate obedience to the command and it has its purpose.  Its saves lives.  Aren’t we considered God’s army?  Then in order for us to save lives, we must be able to obey His voice immediately at all times without question.

The Second Foundation:   DENYING YOURSELF AND TAKING UP YOUR CROSS THROUGHOUT THE DAY.  

 We must deny ourselves (our wants, our desires, our needs, all of our flesh) all day every day.  “Then He said to [them] all, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.’” Luke 9:23  (This verse is repeated two other times in the New Testament in Matthew 16:24 and then again in Mark 8:34.)  According to the Strong’s Concordance, the Greek words for daily in that scripture are “hēmera” which means the day, used of the natural day, or the interval between sunrise and sunset and “kata” which is a preposition that means “throughout”.  So in other words, Jesus is saying to take up your cross throughout the day.  Does He mean for me to do this ALL DAY LONG?  Yes, He does.  And, it is necessary, as our flesh (our wants, our desires and our needs) get in the way of following Him throughout the entire day.  It would probably be true to also say our flesh gets in the way of our hearing Him throughout the entire day as well.  Taking up our cross throughout the day is of such importance its recorded three separate times (do not think this is a coincidence), and in fact, Jesus states that if we do not do this then we are not worthy of Him.  "And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.” Matt 10:38   I so desire to be worthy of Him, don’t you?

The Third Foundation:  SERVING GOD.

We must be about serving God, not ourselves.  "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him [My] Father will honor.” John 12:26    Webster’s Dictionary defines “serve” as “to be of use” and “to be worthy of reliance or trust” and “to be favorable” and “to hold an office”.  I had no idea of the vastness of this word until tonight.  WOW!  I can’t even begin to elaborate on this yet (maybe this will be for another post).

So, in conclusion (for now), if I am hearing Him, taking up my cross all day long and serving Him then I AM FOLLOWING GOD and guess what?  Not only is He before us, but He is behind us too!  HE’S GOT YOUR BACK!  "For you shall not go out with haste, Nor go by flight; For the LORD will go before you, And the God of Israel [will be] your rear guard." Isa 52:12  So, if I am following God and He’s got my back, then I have nothing to worry about!  “. . . If God [is] for us, who [can be] against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Romans 8:31-32

ISAIAH 51 - "Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness, You who seek the LORD: Look to the rock [from which] you were hewn, And to the hole of the pit [from which] you were dug.  Look to Abraham your father, And to Sarah [who] bore you; For I called him alone, And blessed him and increased him.”  For the LORD will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places; He will make her wilderness like Eden, And her desert like the garden of the LORD; Joy and gladness will be found in it, Thanksgiving and the voice of melody.  "Listen to Me, My people; And give ear to Me, O My nation: For law will proceed from Me, and I will make My justice rest as a light of the peoples.  My righteousness [is] near, My salvation has gone forth, and My arms will judge the peoples; The coastlands will wait upon Me, and on My arm they will trust.  Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look on the earth beneath. For the heavens will vanish away like smoke, the earth will grow old like a garment, and those who dwell in it will die in like manner; but My salvation will be forever, and My righteousness will not be abolished.  Listen to Me, you who know righteousness, You people in whose heart [is] My law: Do not fear the reproach of men, nor be afraid of their insults.  For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool; but My righteousness will be forever, and My salvation from generation to generation."  Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD! Awake as in the ancient days, In the generations of old. [Are] You not [the arm] that cut Rahab apart, [And] wounded the serpent?  [Are] You not [the One] who dried up the sea, The waters of the great deep; That made the depths of the sea a road for the redeemed to cross over?  So the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness; sorrow and sighing shall flee away.  "I, [even] I, [am] He who comforts you. Who [are] you that you should be afraid of a man [who] will die, and of the son of a man [who] will be made like grass?  And you forget the LORD your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth; you have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, when [he has] prepared to destroy. And where [is] the fury of the oppressor?  The captive exile hastens, that he may be loosed, that he should not die in the pit, and that his bread should not fail.  But I [am] the LORD your God, Who divided the sea whose waves roared--The LORD of hosts [is] His name.  And I have put My words in your mouth; I have covered you with the shadow of My hand, that I may plant the heavens, lay the foundations of the earth, and say to Zion, 'You [are] My people.' "  Awake, awake! Stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of His fury; You have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling, [and] drained [it] out.  [There is] no one to guide her among all the sons she has brought forth; nor [is there any] who takes her by the hand among all the sons she has brought up.  These two [things] have come to you; who will be sorry for you?--Desolation and destruction, famine and sword–by whom will I comfort you?  Your sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, like an antelope in a net; they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.  Therefore please hear this, you afflicted, and drunk but not with wine.  Thus says your Lord, The LORD and your God, [Who] pleads the cause of His people: "See, I have taken out of your hand the cup of trembling, the dregs of the cup of My fury; you shall no longer drink it.  But I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you, who have said to you, 'Lie down, that we may walk over you.' And you have laid your body like the ground, and as the street, for those who walk over."