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The Israelites were to be a nation unlike any other. Every other nation had a king or ruler, but Israel’s king was to be God Himself! Still, the Israelites complained that they wanted to be like other nations and have an earthly ruler! As we read about the Israelites, we marvel at their foolishness. Yet we are prone to make the same mistake, choosing our human wisdom over God’s leadership.

There is much discussion these days about leaders and managers. According to popular teaching, leaders have the vision and set goals for people or organizations to follow. Managers handle the day-to-day marshaling of resources under their charge. In the Christian life, God is the leader of our lives, our families, and our churches. God sets the direction; He establishes the priorities; He provides the resources. We are the managers. We take what He gives us and do with it as He directs.

The biblical term for leader is Lord. As our Lord, Christ has the authority to reveal the direction for our lives. As Lord, He chooses our careers, leads us to our marriage partners, and helps us set our daily priorities. We are to be good managers of the mind, body, and spiritual life He gives. He is the Lord of our families. He knows what is best for our children. He knows how to make marriages strong. Our responsibility is to obey Him as He leads our families to Christlikeness. Christ is the Lord of our church. He takes responsibility for expanding it (Matt. 16:18; 1 Cor. 12:18). Only He knows what is best for our church. Our task is to faithfully perform the role He assigns us.

Do not foolishly trust in human wisdom and leadership as the Israelites did. Follow your Lord and trust Him alone.

Human strength is a strong deterrent to trusting in Christ. When we rely on our own strength, resources, and knowledge, we assume we can handle situations without help from God. We tend to divide problems into two categories: problems that we know require God’s help and problems we think we can handle on our own.Paul had a tenacious personality and an exceptionally strong will. He courageously faced angry mobs as he traveled far and wide to promote the cause of Christ. He had spent the first half of his life serving God in his own strength. However, once God gained his attention, Paul had to learn to rely on God’s strength and not his own.

Paul was afflicted with a thorn in the flesh (2 Cor. 12:7). Whatever this was, it humbled him. He had performed incredible miracles, even raising the dead, but he could not remove the affliction that God had given him, an affliction that made him depend on God. The world had seen what Paul could do in his own strength, and it was horrifying! Now God wanted to exercise His power through Paul’s life. When Paul thought he was strong, he neglected to rely upon God’s strength. Only in his weakness did Paul trust implicitly in God.

If you feel strong in an area of your life, beware! Often your strength, rather than your weakness, hinders you from trusting God. God will bring you to a point of weakness if that is what it takes to bring you to trust in Him. Do not despise your weakness, for it leads you to trust in God’s strength.

The fundamental premise of Christianity is that God knows what is best better than we do. When we are experiencing God’s blessing, it is easy to believe that God knows what is best. But when God allows sickness and sorrow in our lives, we may be tempted to question His wisdom.

The Lord told King Hezekiah that his life was coming to an end. God advised him to prepare himself for death and to make arrangements to turn over the kingdom. Instead, Hezekiah pled for his life, begging God to spare him from death (Isa. 38:3). God loved the righteous Hezekiah and, in His grace, granted him an additional fifteen years to live. Those fifteen years would prove that God’s wisdom far exceeds human wisdom. During those added years, Mannasseh was born, and he eventually succeeded Hezekiah as king of Judah. Mannasseh, who reigned for fifty-five years, was the most evil king ever to rule over Judah (2 Kings 21:1). Mannaseh encouraged the worship of idolatry throughout the nation. He passed his own son through fire according to the abominable practices of idolatry. He shed much innocent blood during his reign; every part of the nation suffered from his cruelty. Manasseh’s wickedness provoked God to anger, but Manasseh ignored God’s warning (2 Kings 21:16; 2 Chron. 33:10). All these hardships were caused by Manasseh, a king who would never have been born if Hezekiah had accepted God’s will for his life! Furthermore, Hezekiah’s extended reign led to Judah’s eventual defeat by the Babylonians (2 Kings 20:12-20).

So much suffering resulted from Hezekiah’s unwillingness to accept God’s will for him. God knows what is best. Whether your circumstances are easy or difficult, you can completely trust His guidance.

Job was a righteous man who, from a human perspective, did not deserve to suffer. He lived a blameless life and followed God’s laws to the letter. As he was experiencing great tribulation, Job cried out in frustration and questioned why God was allowing him to suffer. God came to Job in the form of a whirlwind with His answer. As soon as God spoke, Job recognized that he should not have challenged God’s wisdom. God turned to Job and asked him several sobering questions: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Where were you when I set the oceans in their place? Where were you when I put the constellations of stars in position?” God’s questions humbled Job and reminded him that his own wisdom did not begin to compare with God’s.

When God finished asking His questions, Job replied, “I have uttered what I did not understand, / Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (Job 42:3). In a moment of despair and frustration, Job had challenged God’s wisdom. God had firmly reminded Job that He was still sovereign and that this truth was enough for Job. Whether Job ever knew that his life had been the focus of a cosmic struggle is unclear. Perhaps Job never realized that his experience brought glory to God in the face of Satan’s challenge (Job 1:8-12). But Job was satisfied to know that God’s wisdom was flawless.

A times you may not understand why a loving Father would allow you to suffer as you are. You may question the wisdom of God’s direction for your life. Learn from Job. Review the awesome power and wisdom of almighty God (Job 38-41). Have confidence that this same God is directing your path.

Prayer is not designed to change God, it is designed to change us. Prayer is not calling God in to bless our activities. Rather, prayer takes us into God’s presence, shows us His will, and prepares us to obey Him.

Moses climbed Mount Sinai and spent forty days communing with God. God showed him the wickedness of the Israelites (Exod. 32:7). Moses had not known their desperate condition, nor had he realized the imminence of God’s judgment upon them until God revealed it to him. As God made Moses aware of all that was at stake, Moses felt the same compassion for the people that God felt. Moses became willing to sacrifice his own life for his obstinate people. In a compelling and selfless prayer of intercession, Moses offered to have his own name blotted out of the book of life if God would spare the people. In Moses’ time with Him, God had formed a mighty intercessor for His people.

God will use your prayer times to soften your heart and change your focus. As you pray for others, the Holy Spirit will work in your heart so that you have the same compassion for them that God does (Rom. 8:26-27). If you do not love people as you should, pray for them. If you are not as active in God’s service as you know He wants you to be, begin praying. You cannot be intimately exposed to God’s heart and remain complacent. The time spent with God will change you and make you more like Christ.

Your heart’s condition will be expressed through your life. It will be evident by your attitudes, your words, and your behavior. Jesus said that you can clearly see others only when your own eyes are unobstructed (Luke 6:42). If your vision is hindered by sin, you will not look at others properly.

If your heart is pure, you will approach life without malice. You will not question the motives of everyone around you; you will not doubt the truth of everything others tell you; you will not look for fault in others. Instead, you will look for the good in others, finding what is praiseworthy. You will not be naive or gullible, but you will seek what is good rather than what is evil. If your heart is pure, you will see others the way God sees them (Matt. 6:22).

If your heart is defiled, everything with which you are involved will seem corrupt as well. You will assume evil motives in others because you know what you would do given the same circumstances. You will be cynical about what you hear because your own words are deceitful. You will be drawn to evil people and evil things.

How do you look at the words and actions of others? Are you critical of them? Are you judgmental? If so, ask God to purify your heart. Once He has, you will be free to see yourself and others as God does.

David was certainly an optimist! Regardless of his circumstances, David could always see God’s activity! A pessimist focuses on the problems, concentrating on the reasons why something cannot be done. The optimist sees those same problems, but he sees them from the perspective of God’s presence.

David was just a young boy when he faced Goliath, an intimidating veteran warrior who frightened even the bravest Israelite soldier. As he prepared for battle, David saw that Goliath was a giant. He heard his boastful taunts. He could not fail to notice his enemy’s weapons: a sword, a shield, and a javelin. David did not barge into the battle unprepared for a fight. He armed himself with five smooth stones. David was prepared for God to grant him victory with the first stone he hurled at the giant or the fifth. David was ready to accept God’s victory, whether it came easily or with much effort.

Optimists do not ignore the difficulties, they are keenly aware of them. But the knowledge of God’s presence prevents them from becoming discouraged or giving up. It is impossible to stand in the presence of God and be a pessimist!

The account of David and Goliath vividly pictures the source of the Christian’s faith?not our own size, strength, or resources, but the power of almighty God. If we focus on our opposition and problems, they will seem gigantic. But as we focus on God, we will see our situation in the proper perspective and be assured that all things are possible with God (Phil. 4:13).

Christians do not live in isolation. When we sin, there are repercussions throughout the Christian community. When a brother or sister suffers, we are affected. Our calling is not to be solitary Christians but to be members of a priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9).

It was impossible for Paul to remain unmoved while there were believers in Corinth who were spiritually weak. When he learned that false teachers had caused Christians in Corinth to stumble in their faith, Paul burned with indignation. Paul told the church members at Corinth to rejoice when a church member rejoices and to weep when a fellow member weeps (1 Cor. 12:26). We depend on one another, and this influences everything we do. Jesus said that even when we pray, we are to begin by saying “our Father” (Matt. 6:9). We must do everything with our fellow Christian in mind (1 Cor. 14:12).

It’s possible to become so preoccupied with your own spiritual journey that you do not get involved in your church. You can become so focused on what God is doing in your own country that you are oblivious to the suffering and persecution that your fellow Christians face in countries around the world. If other believers around you are rejoicing or hurting, and you are unaffected, you have become desensitized to the people of God.

Ask God to place a burden on your heart for fellow believers. Make yourself aware of their needs. Pray for them and adjust your life to God’s activity in their lives.

The greatest moments in a Christian’s life come through prayer. When Jesus prayed, heaven opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him. The Spirit came upon the disciples as they gathered to pray on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 1:14; 2:1). When the disciples prayed together after Pentecost, their gathering place was shaken, and they were emboldened to proclaim the gospel throughout the city (Acts 4:31).

Prayer is not a substitute for hard work–prayer is the work! God does things in and through our lives by prayer that He does in no other way. As we pray and as our attention is turned toward God, we become more receptive to aligning our lives with His will. God will not equip us with His power while we are racing off to our next appointment! His Spirit will not empower us if we are oblivious to what He is saying. He requires our complete attention before He will fill us with the powerful presence of His Spirit.

If you want to learn how to pray, use Jesus as your model. Jesus did not always receive what He asked for, but His prayers were always heard and always answered (Mark 14:36; Heb. 5:7). If you do not sense the Holy Spirit’s power in your life, you may not be spending adequate time in prayer. Perhaps you are pursuing your own agenda rather than seeking the Father’s will. You may have abandoned the place of prayer before God’s answer came. If you will commit yourself to spend sustained time in prayer, asking for God’s kingdom on earth, God will work in your life just as He did in the lives of Jesus and His disciples.

God has many ways to deter us from sin. One is to provide reminders for us so that we never take disobedience to Him lightly. Before his conversion, Paul assumed that he was righteous before God. In reality, Paul was so disoriented to God that he arrested and executed Christians in order to please Him! Paul was so blinded to God’s will that when he watched Stephen being brutally murdered for his faith, Paul’s heart was hardened, and he became even more determined to imprison other Christians.

It is significant that there are two occurrences of stoning mentioned in the New Testament?Stephen’s and Paul’s. Was it coincidence that God allowed Paul to be stoned in the same manner as Stephen had been? God had certainly forgiven Paul for his involvement in Stephen’s death, but God also left him with a reminder of what his arrogance had led him to do. If pride could blind Paul to God once, pride could do it again. Perhaps Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was a direct result of this stoning. It may have served as a visible reminder to Paul, and to others, of the terrible consequences of sin.

God is absolutely just. He loves, and He forgives, but He does not compromise His righteousness. God deals with us uniquely. He draws upon our experiences to teach us about Himself. God will forgive us of our sin, but He may provide stark reminders of the ugliness of sin. Let us thank God that He loves us enough to remind us of the destructive consequences of sin in our lives.