Greetings;
Last week I addressed an eighth test in our journey of life. That test is the test of meat. I believe that the test of meat is a very relevant test in the body of Christ in the present season. Today I want to include an excerpt from my book, Hearing the Voice. It is pertinent to passing the test of meat.
If we are willing to do God’s will, we’ll know. When we are hesitant to ask God for His direction it is an indication that we don’t really want His guidance. If we are defensive to our way, we are resisting His way in our lives. If we fight with Him, we are not seeking to hear Him in a way that will give us His divine guidance. We are hindering His divine guidance through our own selfish attitudes and actions.
God’s direction in our lives will often invoke a willingness to yield on our part. That willingness is inspired by faith that only works through a revelation of love. Loving God is testified by seeking Him, but when we love things more than Him those things can sway our hearts to look in the wrong direction concerning His love. It is a matter of self-focus and self-seeking. Selfishness will only empower our hearts and minds to resist His direction in our lives. When we resist what God is saying to us, we begin to justify why we resist Him. We become defensive towards His instruction and often substitute His direction for ideas of our own. We try to convince ourselves that our ideas are something that God has placed within our hearts, or He has given to us in some way. When we insist on our own way, God’s cure may be an overabundant supply of what we are asking for, until we wish we never had it.
Numbers 11:18-20 “Then you shall say to the people, ‘Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wept in the hearing of the LORD, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt.” Therefore the LORD will give you meat, and you shall eat. You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have despised the LORD who is among you, and have wept before Him, saying, “Why did we ever come up out of Egypt?”’
In this story, the children of Israel were complaining in their hearts towards the present situation of only eating manna in the wilderness. Their hearts desired the things of the past and God was allowing them to have their own way in the matter.
Numbers 11:32-34 And the people stayed up all that day, all that night, and all the next day, and gathered the quail (he who gathered least gathered ten homers); and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was aroused against the people, and the LORD struck the people with a very great plague. So he called the name of that place Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had yielded to craving.
God caused the wind to blow and the quail to be within the reach of the children of Israel. Just because God allows something to be accessible doesn’t mean He wants us to take hold of it. When the children took the meat, it was death to them. They had insisted on their own way and God had allowed their own way to be an easy possibility. God wasn’t trying to trick them. He was revealing their hearts to them.
James 1:12-15 Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been proved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is fullgrown, brings forth death.
Is there anything in us that is willing to compromise in our character to receive what we want? When we put the end as more important than the means, we are willing to compromise in the means by which we attain the end. God’s promises are not more important than God’s character. Being children of God that exhibit His character, nature, way, power, and authority is a testimony to the likeness and the image of God in the earth. God’s promises, or our perceptions of His promises, are not more important than Him.
If we insist on our own way, we are going to get it! As I have presented, God is not trying to trick us. He wants us to know what is in our own hearts. Selfishness is a hindrance to receiving God’s guidance in our lives. Hearing God includes the aspect of responding to Him. If we are practicing not responding, we are practicing not hearing Him.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
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