Qualifying to Work With God (Criteria for Divine Partnership)Sample

LEARN THE PRINCIPLES NOT THE METHODS (2)

Yesterday, we saw that God wants us to have a “Person” relationship with Him and not treat Him as an “it.” We also saw that when a child of God has a contrary experience to our positions in Christ or the Bible, there is always something responsible for it, and a wise believer should seek to find out.

In 1 Samuel 4:2-3, the children of God were smitten before their enemy, which was an experience contrary to Deuteronomy 28:7, which says, “... they shall come out against thee one way and flee before thee seven ways.” They were smitten before the enemy, and they asked the Lord “why” because they knew it wasn't the enemy that defeated them but the Lord. The enemy could not have defeated them because the only thing that could defeat God's people was anything that could defeat God Himself. But if somehow you saw God's people defeated, it means God allowed it to draw their attention to something.

In this case, they didn’t wait for God to give them an explanation; they just concluded, “Let us force the hand of God, let us do something,” and this is where you see the dangers of teachers who tell you methods to use without telling you the principles of God that back it up. God is a Person, and there are many things that we can do or that we have seen people do in the Bible that moved God. However, someone else can do the same, but God refuses to move, and then the person begins to wonder, is it that God is partial? No! God is not partial; God is a Person.

Instead of looking for the Person to find out where they missed it, the children of Israel sought the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD from Shiloh. They related the ark to an inanimate object, forgetting that it was God Almighty who chose to dwell in the Ark of the Covenant. Our relationship with God is not an “it” relationship because God is not an “it.” He is a “He.” It is not an “it” that saves us or blesses us.

PRAYER: I will not replace God for an “it” in my life. I will seek to know Him as a Person. Amen!