Road Gold

God Gold of the day

 

Golden Points 

• “Help us to stay obedient and in your will Lord, because that’s ALWAYS the best place to be!”
• God is our GPS, without His direction and guidance, we will drive in circles, lost, going nowhere.
• Take a moment to sit, be still and quiet before God, look back at all those benchmark moments He’s brought you through in your life!!!

Golden Word

‘ Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.’

-Proverbs 3:5-6

‘for we walk by faith, not by sight. ‘

-2 Corinthians 5:7

Simple Will

God Gold of the Day

“1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

-Romans 12:1-2

Had the opportunity to sit down with a pastor today and received some extremely helpful and wise council. It’s crazy how God sets people in front of you to speak the words of encouragement and words that you are in great need of hearing. Today, these words I received were words that broke through a lot of my own weakness to see the awesomeness and freedom in this life with God.

I had mentioned to this pastor kind of a rundown of the last few months of my life. Facing bigger decisions than I’ve ever made before I can honestly say I struggled but in the struggle were great lessons to be learned. I kept trying so hard to seek God’s will, find out what God’s will was for me in these decisions and the next steps I needed to take. I looked so hard to see where God wanted me to go and what God wanted me to do that I overlooked the simplicity in God’s truth. In Romans 12:1-2. this pastor referred to these when speaking about God’s will today. Of course most Christians may have heard these verses, I mean I’ve heard them a bunch and even wrote God Gold messages about them but today I heard it explained in a little different way, a simple, and straight from God way.

If you haven’t learned yet, we as humans can be our own worst enemies at times. If you would have asked me what these verses meant or ask any other believer, you would probably get a wide range of answers because most would be based off of our experiences instead of GOD’s simple and literal truth. During my time seeking out God’s will with all of these big decisions, I have had so much of me in it that I made God’s will extremely hard to see. Pastor Mike today mentioned how we so often see God’s will as this big mystery where we have to uncover the truth out of it’s mysteriousness. We see it as a mystery because from my example, I couldn’t seem to figure it all out so I kept trying harder and harder to decipher this special code or formula that is God’s will but in my effort it only led me to be more blind from seeing the simple truth in front of me. We do things our way, we choose what we want, we try to make God’s will fit the desires we have and then trying to actually see what God’s will is, we’ve made it so hard wrapping it up in what it isn’t that we look right over the SIMPLE TRUTH. We over complicate it, we over analyze, we do this so much that in my case I spent months scared to commit or take a next step because I wasn’t completely sure what God’s will was. I guess I thought that this miracle or heaven opening experience would happen where God speaks out probably in a super low voice. Well that’s just how I imagined it but He would say, “Jordan go here, Jordan do this, Jordan this is my will.” Hate to say that never happened. I was far from impulsive but that caused me to live scared, live stuck in the mud, bogged down to make any step out of my comfort zone for God.

On the other end, people are so impulsive that we don’t care to know what God’s will is, we just act in whatever seems best or whatever is more enticing in the moment, never praying about or seeking guidance from God’s Word just doing. Both can be harmful and leave some nasty scars between a person’s view of “God’s will.”

What Mike told me today was that God’s will is not a mystery and in these verses, God’s will is shown so simply and true to us. Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, don’t live for self but live for God in every way. That means to find out what is pleasing, perfect and good, you have to get yourself out of the way. Don’t over complicate it or not care enough but seek what is good, pleasing and perfect to God. You find that all over God’s Word and when dug into, you seek what God wants, what God says is good, what God wants you to do, how God wants you to live. You see I said God, not Jordan right?

And instead of over analyzing this “mystery” just stay grounded in scripture, constant in prayer and watch how God works in your life on the daily. Pay attention to all that God is doing in  your life, it’s not a heaven opening momemt but it’s literally just God placing you in situations He wants you to be with opportunities that move you farther into His will for your life. Attack what God has placed in front of you. I saw this so true the last couple of months as I made such a mess of things. I made the big decisions and I know without a shadow of a doubt it was in God’s will because I didn’t think too much I just stayed more constant in prayer, more active in His Word and God placed things in front of me. I just did it, I attacked them and honestly had no idea I was until after the fact sitting there with such a peace about me. I became so fearful to mess up during this time but learned that God’s will isn’t meant to confuse us or scare us, it’s every day making decisions that honor God and moving in what God places in your path. Before you know it God has moved you so much farther down the road than you would have ever been by doing it your way.

So simple but we make it so complicated. Don’t be conformed to this world is simply telling us not to listen or declare that anything is truth unless it’s from God in His Word. We can easily be swayed to think we’re supposed to be a certain type of person, do a certain thing or told different opinions on what God’s will is but don’t buy in. Buy in to what tells you throughout the pages of His Word, through moments of prayer growing deeper with Him, through what He has placed right in front of you in your life. You can easily go a million different directions but God gives us the tools and the power of His Spirit within us to decide what is He saying and doing compared to outside and personal influence tells us. A million different options, but only ONE option is good, perfect and pleasing to God, only ONE option truly brings us to freedom of fear, freedom of doubt or worry, only ONE option leads us to LIFE and truly LIVING, that ONE option is God’s will and He’s told us so simply what His will is. Walk in it, live it, and love it! God just made our rocket science into a kindergartners homework. Have fun today in God’s will!

 

 

God’s Word

God Gold of the Day

“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience,”

‭‭Colossians‬ ‭1:9-11‬ ‭

Hope everybody is having a Tuesday filled with so much daggum awesomeness!!! I was feeling so much of it that I’m going to do something never done in God Gold history, write from the SAME verses as yesterday! There is just so much Gold in these verses and in the book of Colossians I’m feeling like the richest man alive! I pray this Gold from Colossians is helping you in some big ways too in your daily walk! I’m going to try and post some reminders and the verses ahead of time so you can read through Colossians with me this week so I’m jacked to see what God has for us!

This letter coming from Paul to the believers at Colosse, Paul is writing this to help these believers grow in their relationship with God and in strengthening their daily walk with God. He’s practically telling them how to live as true born again Christians. Why does Paul take the time to do this? Well the church is undergoing some big time attacks from the world around them, people teaching them false ideas about God and they are being literally attached just for being a Christian. Let’s see the truth that is written here to strengthen us in the same way today!

Paul states how he is constantly praying for them but what is he praying for? “We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,”(v.9).

Paul being more of a seasoned veteran in his spiritual walk with the Lord and in God’s Word. it’s awesome how he tells these believers what they desperately need to hear because he’s been some things with God, he knows God and he knows without God these believers don’t stand a chance. I want to note real fast too, look at Paul’s example of love for these people. You know I read earlier that Paul never even met these people. Paul never even met these people and he still is praying for them, writing them letters to help them grow in their faith and attack the mission we have as followers of Christ to get the gospel out to others and live as an example of Christ in each thing we do. Paul prays for people he’s never met in this way, that made me question myself. How often do I pray for others and their needs with this much love? Do I ever pray for anybody I haven’t even met? The answer to the first is not nearly enough and the second, no. Something to think about and learn from Paul here.

Let’s look at what Paul does say though. Paul prays not just for these believers to have knowledge of God, but that God fills them with the knowledge of His will. Paul states this before ever saying do this or do that because without knowledge of God, who He is, what He’s capable of and what He wants, how could we ever please Him? Shouldn’t we desire deeply to know what pleases God before we run off trying to please Him? We can try to understand God and His will in a ton of different ways but the only true way to know more of God and His will is through God’s Word. God gave us His Word to see His heart, who He is and how He feels about us. We also see there what pleases God, what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong. It’s a lot more fun to talk about Christian living, being stronger, more courageous, beating tough circumstances we have in our life, living this life of freedom and victory that God has given us. But to do that we must first completely immerse ourselves in God’s Word, it’s the knowledge and wisdom from God’s Word that changes our lives, that changes the way we live, the way our minds think, the way our mouths speak. It’s God that’s given us life in the first place, so why don’t we go to Him first and more constantly to live this life in a way that pleases the God who gave us everything.

I’ll be honest, majority of the time in my life I talk a big game about wanting to be better, impact more people by the way I live but I feed myself with junk and turn my dependence to things of this world to live the life God wants me to live. To simply live in His will. The most awesome part about this is we don’t have to rely on our experiences, other people’s opinions, or worldly things to find out what God’s will is and how to live it. God has given us HIS WORD. His literal Word as a map of where to go and what to do, a biography almost of who He is and what He’s about. That’s why Paul’s prays for these believers to learn through the power of the Holy Spirit within them, giving them discernment and understanding to what God is telling us in His Word, He is showing us Him and His will. It honestly makes me sick to think about all the times I go other places, leaning on things or what I hear another person say when I’m struggling with something and seeking an answer, when I’m hurting and need help, when I don’t know what to do and need guidance and wisdom. WHYYY????? WHAT’S THE POINT???? This is what I ask myself but as humans we all do this. Ask yourself the same question. It may not feel great to be wrong but daggum does it feel a whole lot better to be on God’s side being right in His eyes!!!

I love how Paul says this foundational truth that these believers can go to, fully immersing themselves in the Word of God to transform the way they think, eat, and sleep. That big SO going into verse 10, to live a life pleasing to God, pleasing to God in EVERY way, even the ways that pleases us that may hurt to give up. Understanding better who God is and the fullness of LIFE He’s given us isn’t it worth it to lay down our opinions and our wants to live a life pleasing to Him? Bearing fruit in every work we do, being an example to other’s around us who may not know God, or His will, who may not have experienced life in this magnitude. Who honestly may not even know of the doom that awaits them after death or the possible eternity that God gives us freely instead. Bearing fruit in every good work!!! Fruit is the change God brings into our lives that overflows out of us into the world around us. Once again how do we know if a work is good or bad if we don’t know God and dig deeply into His Word?

Continuing in the results that come from better understanding God’s will by diving head first into His Holy Word. To grow in knowledge of God, to experience God more deeply in each moment of our days, to see how God takes seemingly impossible situations in our lives and makes them possible, and so many other moments. The more we grow in knowing Who God is we see just how capable He is, how much He deeply loves us and works everything for our good. And so we are strengthened with His glorious power, me and you are strengthened with God’s glorious power!!! God’s power! Think about that?? The same God with the same power that created the heavens and the earth and everything we  see around us!!!! And also so we can run this race of life with great endurance and patience. If you haven’t figured out, we face some tough days in this life, we face hard decisions and we face hard battles. And as Christians we are constantly being hit by the schemes of Satan because He doesn’t want us to live this way or grow in the knowledge of God because with that knowledge comes LIFE!!!! When we dig deeper into God’s Word, learning more of who He is and what He wants, like I mentioned earlier our thinking changes completely. The things that used to get us down and hurt us, we know see through God’s will that we stand in confidence of who God is and in the reality of the life that is to come outside of this world. We see struggles different and we handle them different. People of the world who don’t know God handle them differently than children of God do so don’t fall into the surrounding example. God shows us how to have joy in trials, how to attack the daily grind no matter what comes our way, God is growing us and strengthening us. We know better of who God is so we are able to be patient in our trials, run the race with peace and security knowing that yeah, to the world this may not look that great but God is working things for our good so we can keep on keeping on knowing that our current experiences are nothing compared to the power of God and the eternal glory that awaits.

Wow, all that from just seeing what happens when we don’t just pick up God’s Word to say we did it or read for cool facts, but when we pick up God’s Word to deeply seek Him through it, grow in our knowledge of Him and His will, living a life that pleases Him, living a life that makes people turn their heads and ask questions. Live a life in the fullest and most awesome ways. Yep. All that from God’s Word. And don’t pat me on the back for this gold, it didn’t come from me, it came from God’s Word!!!!! Stinkin blows my mind.