Word Of The Day - March 5, 2024
Shape
So then, prepare your hearts and minds for action! Stay alert and fix your hope firmly on the marvelous grace that is coming to you. For when Jesus Christ is unveiled, a greater measure of grace will be released to you. As God’s obedient children, never again shape your lives by the desires that you followed when you didn’t know better. Instead, shape your lives to become like the Holy One who called you.
For Scripture says:
“You are to be holy, because I am holy.”
(1 Peter 1:14-16, TPT)
These verses talk about an aspect of being holy (set apart) that is connected to the way we perceive things. We talk about shaping our lives. We want to shape our lives to conform with God‘s will, not just His general will, but His specific will for each one of us personally.
The basic difference I see between the way I might shape my life and the way that God wants me to shape my life, is that when I shape my life, I expect things to not change. When they do change, I often don’t know what to think. The question comes to my mind, “Did I really hear correctly from the Lord?” The assumption is that I must not have heard from the Lord correctly, because things are now not the way I expected them to be.
But the way God shapes us is all together different. That’s why we need to think of us as being set apart. It is not like the way we have been thinking. God says, “My ways are not your ways.”
Someone may say, “Why does God keep changing his mind? Why does He keep changing the circumstances? Why is He driving me crazy?”
When really, the correct way to discern what God is doing is to wait for Him to show you in His way. Allow yourself to be uninformed. Allow yourself to learn as things are progressing. Accept the fact that when we allow God to shape things for us, it can look different to us over time. But to God, it has always been the same.