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Q11. Spirit


Pastor Ralph

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  • 3 months later...
On 8/29/2021 at 6:57 PM, Pastor Ralph said:

Q11. (Isaiah 11:1-3). Why do we resist letting the Messiah govern our own lives? Why don’t we seek his counsel more often? Why is surrender to his wise leadership so difficult for us? What can we do about this hardness we find in ourselves?

Q1.The world tells us to be self sufficient and look after number one and so often this is what we do. We don’t understand how to allow the Messiah to govern our lives. 
Q2. Maybe we don’t spend enough time in prayer and submission. We don’t realise the power available to us.

Q3.We are full of pride and constantly want to be in control. We don’t appreciate the benefits of being under the Messiah’s wise leadership because we have not fully experienced them.

Q4.We need to make time to be alone on a regular basis with God and humbly seek His face. We need to study His word and learn  more about Him and pray for humility and understanding of the ways of God.

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Q11. (Isaiah 11:1-3). Why do we resist letting the Messiah govern our own lives?  I think it is part of our sinful nature to want to be fully in control of our lives. As a former temperament counselor, I know that it is an aspect of our temperament. For some of us, the need for control is great. I have one of those temperaments and the Lord has had to work on my heart to help me to see my need for him and to humble myself before him everyday.  

Why don't we seek his counsel more often?  Because it is part of us, there will always be a battle within us of wanting to take control or allowing the Spirit to lead us. It takes humility that we must have each day. 

Why is surrender to his wise leadership so difficult for us?  Because it makes us face our need for him and the fact that we cannot do it alone even when we think we can. 

What can we do about this hardness we find in ourselves? The Lord has his ways of making you humble but without daily admitting to your need for him that you aren't all that and can go it on your own then you will find the pride creeping back in. It has to be a regular part of our prayer life to seek humility before the Lord. 

 

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How is it that I resist letting the messiah govern my own life.  When Im not in the word, not fellowshipping with him. This causes me to lack wisdom,understanding, receiving his counseling and the knowledge of his power and might and the overall knowledge of Yahweh himself.    Reading the word convicts me of my wrong doings and reminds me of all His attributes.  I’m reminded of who He is and all that He is capable of doing. I’m reminded that he is Holy and  that he should be feared above all things, revering Fear!!

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Why don’t I seek his counsel more often?  Faith or Time, do I have the faith and do I Trust enough to wait for His answer. 
Why is surrendering to his wise leadership so difficult for me? Because it goes against the grain of society, if I’m not in the word and bein constantly reminded of who he is and all that he is capable of doing I fail to follow his leadership. 
What can I do about the hardness I find in myself? I must pray for a constant filling and refilling of the Holy Spirit that I may be open to him in faith and trust and surrender all to him. 

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We resist letting Messiah govern our lives because:

1)We may think He is not guiding us in the way WE think our lives should go. 2) We may not think He is not concerned with the every day details of our lives 3) We forget to ask for His guidance especially when things are running smoothly. 

#2 & 3 above are reasons why I may not be seeking His counsel. 

Surrendering to wise leadership may be difficult because we guide ourselves by our own self-will. It is hard to humble ourselves to the leadership of others.

To overcome this hardness I need to submit to God through prayer and meditation on the Word. I can study passages that teach about Jesus' humility.  I can pray over them and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal wrong attitudes in my heart. Confessing my sin to God and asking for His help to correct my wrong attitudes is how I should be living. 

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Why do we resist letting the Messiah govern our own lives?

Pride.

Why don’t we seek his counsel more often?

I do seek His counsel, often, but not enough. I think one of the reasons why we don't seek his counsel is that we're competent in ourselves. When we can actually make good decisions, most of the time, I do wonder if we're supposed to bring to Him what we can do. To come to Him at turning points in life, or when the path forward is obscure, makes sense, but does Jesus really care about what I eat for breakfast?  Is there a sliding scale of decisions in life from meaningless to significant, and somewhere on that scale we flip from self-competence to dependence?

Why is surrender to his wise leadership so difficult for us?

Lack of trust is an obvious reason, but not knowing for sure where He is leading is also a factor.

What can we do about this hardness we find in ourselves?

Submit and confess. Ask to be softened, to change within, to develop a character that is deferential and submissive. 

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Q11. (Isaiah 11:1-3). Why do we resist letting the Messiah govern our own lives? Why don't we seek His counsel more often? Why is surrender to His wise leadership so difficult for us? What can we do about this hardness we find in ourselves? 
If we continue in sin without repenting, our hearts become hardened, our fellowship with our Lord Jesus weakens, and gets progressively worse. Our Lord no longer governs our lives. Setbacks and disappointments in life can also precipitate our resistance. Jesus has both the wisdom and the understanding to be a perfect counsellor! Yet, we don’t often come to Him for advice, because of our pride, our lack of trust/faith in His ability, or just plain ignorance/stupidity. Because of our sinful nature we don’t easily submit to any authority, even to His wise leadership. We are self-centred, and selfish and will not be told what to do. This rebellion is also the result of a hardened heart. If we only would realise, that each area of our life we surrender to Him, the more space there is for the filling of the Holy Spirit. And of course, we will start exhibiting fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22), the more our selfish nature changes and starts resembling that of our Lord Jesus; we become a new creation (2 Cor 5:17). To negate this hardness we find in ourselves, we must come to the realisation that “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). The life which we now live in this human body, we live by faith, by continual dependence on Christ, and by yielding to Him. We do not cease to live as a personality or as an individual, but this life of surrender results in the greatest human fulfillment, and we will reap ultimate rewards in heaven (Luke 6:22-23). 
 

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On 8/29/2021 at 2:57 PM, Pastor Ralph said:

Q11. (Isaiah 11:1-3). Why do we resist letting the Messiah govern our own lives? Why don’t we seek his counsel more often? Why is surrender to his wise leadership so difficult for us? What can we do about this hardness we find in ourselves?

This lesson is reckoning time!  I keep saying tomorrow I will spend more time with the Lord and tomorrow comes and its gone, another day of not spending time with the Lord, feeling bad, but not enough to change my ways.  I have enough time, but I guess I choose other things and get busy with other things.  When I first came to the Lord how exciting i was and how i wanted to tell everyone about the Lord.  Over the years I have cooled off and let my heart get hardened.  I welcomed Dr. Wilson's Bible study and another Bible study because it disciplines me, Bible memory has also helped because it puts the Word in my spirit.  It also makes the Word come alive. Realizing how important God's Word is and the revelation it brings.  I asked the Lord, why don't I hear your voice like some other Christians and I got the thought, like you spend time with your family and friends, you build a relationship and get to know them, by spending quiet time with Me, you build a relationship with Me and get to know Me.  He is working on me.  Its in the choosing. He did give us the gift of choice. Thank you Lord.

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On 8/29/2021 at 2:57 PM, Pastor Ralph said:

Q11. (Isaiah 11:1-3). Why do we resist letting the Messiah govern our own lives? Why don’t we seek his counsel more often? Why is surrender to his wise leadership so difficult for us? What can we do about this hardness we find in ourselves?

Always seems to be something else that takes my time, I start and read the Bible everyday then time enters and night I blame being tired.

Every time I'm in pain I'll go to my bible which makes me feel even worse because I feel guilty, there is always excuse for not spending time in the word. 

Seeking Good first thing!!

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Of course we are born into sin, therefore, we automatically think like the world and not like Jesus. It seems easy to do what we think is right versus what we should do according to God. We tend to emulate what we see. We tend to not fully give in to Jesus. We want to but the strong hold of the way of the world takes over. When you think about it, going to church teaches us about the scriptures but we are not taught how to overcome. In other words, according to scripture, we are not to worry and take all our cares/problems to God. We get that, but how do you go on without worrying how the bills are going to get paid, etc? What are the steps to get pass the worrying? The problem, I see for some of us, is being led by God's leader in the church to teach us how or the steps of what to do in the process.

 

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Q11. (Isaiah 11:1-3). Why do we resist letting the Messiah govern our own lives?

Why don't we seek his counsel more often?

Why is surrender to his wise leadership so difficult for us?

What can we do about this hardness we find in ourselves?

For me the answers to the above questions are very much entertwined. Our resistance to Him taking complete control of our life, I believe is because there is still some kind of hidden sin that we are guarding and not letting go of. This too makes us resist total surrender to His leadership as it would mean exposing the hidden sin and totally surrendering to Him. He does not reign with sin. The answer to victory is full surrender and letting go of the reins as it were. (Letting go of the steering wheel.) Allowing Messiah full governorship and control in our life. Once this is so it is much easier to seek His counsel because nothing is hidden anymore and we don't need to fear He will expect us to expose a hidden secret sin for it is already dealt with. 

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Q11 Why do we resist letting  Messiah  govern our lives?

We think we can do it on our own

Why don't  we seek his counsel more often

We've got earthly counselors whom we think will give us best advises , which are quick rather than seeking God

Why is surrender to His leadership so difficult for us?

Fear of being exposed of our sinful nature 

What can we do about this hardness we found in ourlives? We need to repent and seek God earnestly 

 

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Q11. (Isaiah 11:1-3). Why do we resist letting the Messiah govern our own lives?

Generally many people want freedom and thus do not want to be governed by anyone, even Jesus the Messiah.

But for me, I desire so much to be led and directed always by the Holy Spirit that I often ask God not to allow me to decide what to do. I prefer to be governed by him without being given the option to choose what to.

Why don't we seek his counsel more often?

I do usually seek his counsel that is why I have a note book that I jot down ideas that come to my mind. Thereafter, I pray for about three days and ask God to lead and guide me to know if it is well for me to go ahead to execute the idea.

Why is surrender to his wise leadership so difficult for us? What can we do about this hardness we find in ourselves?

Just as I have said above, people generally want the freedom to do what they want. But it is wisdom to allow the Lord to lead, counsel and give us His wisdom to do things to his glory.
 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Why do we resist letting the Messiah govern our own lives?  Why don’t we seek his counsel more often?

I think we resist because we feel we can do things on our own.  Also, we are people with a sinful nature and will struggle with doing what's right unless we let Jesus guide us.

Why is surrender to his wise leadership so difficult for us?

We feel that no one can guide our lives better than we can.

What can we do about this hardness we find in ourselves?

Acknowledge Christ, reverence him and respect him.

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  • 11 months later...

Q11. (Isaiah 11:1-3). Why do we resist letting the Messiah govern our own lives? Why don't we seek his counsel more often? Why is surrender to his wise leadership so difficult for us? What can we do about this hardness we find in ourselves?

As for me, I desire that the Messiah would govern me up to the extent that I do request God to programme me to do only what he wants me to do.

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Q11. (Isaiah 11:1-3). Why do we resist letting the Messiah govern our own lives? Why don’t we seek his counsel more often? Why is surrender to his wise leadership so difficult for us? What can we do about this hardness we find in ourselves?

We are in the flesh and feel as if we know what to do. 

We want to do it our way. We are afraid that we will not like what God tells us to do.

We have not surrendered as we should. Thinking that we can do things with the help of others that are in agreement with us. We don't have enough faith in God.

We can completely surrender and give everything to God. Make no decisions with out him.

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  • 1 year later...
  • Why do we resist letting the Messiah govern our own lives?
    • I think its that battle of the flesh and the spirit. Very often we succumb to instant gratification 
  • Why don't we seek his counsel more often?
    • Probably just our stubborn nature of wanting to try it o our own
  • Why is surrender to his wise leadership so difficult for us?
    • I would want to surrender all to Him, but again often I fail because of human desires
  • What can we do about this hardness we find in ourselves?
    • The best I suppose is to put extra effort to deny our carnal pleasures
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We resist letting the Messiah govern our lives because we are more familiar with the things of this world than we are the things of God, so we prefer the familiar rather than the unknown.

We don't seek his counsel more often because we are a stubborn and rebellious people who prefer to do it our way rather than God's way.  We do not adjust easily to change .  Until we have a change or heart and a change of mind we are reluctant to seek His counsel.

Surrendering to wise leadership is so difficult for us because we see ourselves as wise, knowing what is best for us so we don't seek the leadership of a wise all knowing God..

In and of ourselves we can do little, if anything about the hardness we find in ourselves for it is a hear  problem and only God can change our sinful hearts.

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On 8/29/2021 at 2:57 PM, Pastor Ralph said:

Q11. (Isaiah 11:1-3). Why do we resist letting the Messiah govern our own lives? Why don’t we seek his counsel more often? Why is surrender to his wise leadership so difficult for us? What can we do about this hardness we find in ourselves?

We resist letting the Messiah govern our own lives because we think we know better, but what we don't know is how wonderful God is and what He has done to redeem us and teach us of how great He is and all He has for us.  Even more that we can think or conceive.

We need to seek His counsel more often as He is Counselor, all Wisdom, Understanding, all Knowledge. He is God - ruler and upholder of every living thing.  We have got to get to know Him.

Surrender to His wise leadership is difficult for us because we don't take the time to do it.  We need to spend more time with Him and less time on the things of this world. 

We need to pray and ask the Lord to give us a soft heart, receptive to the things of God.  When we spend more time on the things of this world our hearts become hard.

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