Do I need God’s permission, or His direction and/or revealed plan to do good to others? Yes, and no? Here is another question then: can I, in doing an act of goodness towards another, get in the way of God? I am a very logical person and yet I really try to allow God and His Word to direct me and the direction I take. Do I need God to always confirm for me to do good to others? This week through a few different situations I have found myself really wrestling with these questions.
Jesus gathers His disciples. Simon (also called Peter), then Andrew (Peter’s brother), James (son of Zebedee), John (James’s brother), Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew (the tax collector), James (son of Alphaeus), Thaddaeus, Simon (the zealot), and Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed him). He sends these guys out. He commissions them. He gives them authority. They’ve been spending all this time following Christ, the Messiah, the Savior and in Matthew 10 Jesus calls them together and gives them His seal of approval to go & do…He gives them authority to cast out demons, to heal people, to raise people up from the dead…to give as freely as they have received.
Jesus Himself told His most loyal men to go and give as freely as they have received.
Has the Lord ever set me free from “demons”? Yes. Has the Lord ever healed me? Yes, physical hurts as well has heart-hurts. Has God raised me from a dead-end life? Yes, absolutely. I’ve received so much, and as a respond to what I have been given I am called to give as I have been given.
So, do I need to permission from God to go and do? And if I go and do, can I get in way of God’s plan?
Later in Matthew 10, Jesus says this: And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.
Jesus tells these men that regardless of what you do, just do something, in His name and for His glory and then, you can’t be wrong. See a need and respond.
But that doesn’t really answer the question I’ve posed and the question I have been wrestling with this week myself (about getting in His way) but I think Jesus answers that question when He says that He has called us to a large work. The Kingdom of God is near. And God is sovereign and He has promised that when we step out, regardless of getting His “green light” to go, that we, as His followers are going to come across the sick and the needy and that we have been given His authority to act on His behalf.
If we in our going, come across a need, we don’t have to worry that we are affecting the work of the Holy Spirit. Simply said, God is God and He has control. For when we act or speak in a way that God would, the Spirit of God is speaking through us and will use that act.
Go and do what God has called you to. More then likely, where you are when you see the need is exactly where He has lead you to be already. He has given us the authority to go and serve and to show the World God. He is with you. He believes in you. Just go…
reflections of hope 