II Chron. 18:4 Then Jehoshaphat added, “But first let’s find
out what the LORD says.”
Ahab and Jehoshaphat were joining forces
to go to war. Ahab had sought the
counsel of those who wanted to please him.
They had a track record of always saying what Ahab wanted to hear
instead of what he needed to hear. Since
Ahab was not living in faith, it worked well for him. On the other hand,
Jehoshaphat was a man who lived in faith.
He sought to know God’s ways and do them. So, before he joined forces with Ahab in war,
he wanted to first seek the mind of God.
Are we like Ahab or Jehoshaphat? Do we first seek the Lord’s guidance before
we act, or do we do what it pleases us to do?
It is not okay to act and then ask the Lord to bless our actions. If the Lord does not bless our actions before
we do them, He cannot be expected to bless them when we do them. Things may very well work out okay for us,
but it will be not because the Lord was in it.
It is arrogance to think that we know the will of God without first
waiting before Him and letting Him reveal it to us.
We do it a lot, don’t we? We plow ahead in our lives and assume that
the Lord is pleased with us. We assume
that because we are His children that we have His blessings on all we do. We often try to justify ourselves by imposing
our will on God’s will. We expect the
Lord to honor us with little real regard for whether or not it is okay with
Him. We spend little time in prayer and
meditation before God to get His direction for our lives.
We need to be careful in this. Let us first strive to find out what the Lord
has to say about our plans. Let us wait
before Him and not jump into things unless we have peace that it is permissible
for us to act. If the Lord gives us the
okay, then fine. But if He says no, let
us change our plans. The Lord knows what
is best for us. Following His lead will
spare us from a lot of unnecessary foolishness, grief and pain.
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