Thursday, January 8, 2009

Follow Your Dreams, Follow Your Heart, or Follow Jesus?

Unless believers have been trained by the Word of God, they will not be able to discern the will of God. And it is so easy for an immature or ignorant believer to presume that God’s promises are tailor-made to give him everything he desires. Equating these dreams with the “promises” of God, without knowing God, without knowing His Word, without walking with Him is not faith; it is presumption. God’s “rewards” are for those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6) and He will only “fulfill the desires” of those who fear Him (Psalm 145:19), that is, followers of Christ that have no will of their own, who only want to please Him.
In my years of counseling and pastoring, I have known too many people who followed their dreams right into a ditch of destruction—singles who convince themselves premarital sex is OK because found the person of their dreams; women who have divorced their husbands because they (their husbands) were not godly enough. One woman I knew believed that God was calling her to go to seminary and become a preacher. Her husband objected, so she divorced him. I don’t know how many times single people have come to me and said God told them to marry a certain person that they didn’t even know. Thankfully, it never happened. Too many people are thinking they hear God when they are really just hearing their strong desires.
Rather than encouraging people to follow their dreams, we need to help people follow Jesus. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God..."

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