GIG278 Walking With God Is Doing

Growing In God Podcast

Program Number: GIG #278

Title: Walking with God is Doing

 

Web Description: How do we walk with God? By taking steps to act on what God is telling us to do. The Scriptures are more than ideas to learn about and discuss. They are a way for God to speak directly to us what He wants us to do. We can know His will for us in the Scriptures when we are willing to do His will. And we can know the blessings of a walk with God when we find the way to do His will as He makes it real to us in His Word.

 

Show Notes: There is an abundance of material available to us for Bible study. We can do a great deal of Bible reading. We can memorize Scriptures. We can consume many Bible teachings. And God can speak to us through that. But if we never do anything about what God speaks to us, how beneficial is our study? Yeshua (Jesus) said, “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” The Scriptures are examples for us to live by. More than just studying them and discussing them, we are to take steps to walk in them.

 

That is what a walk with God is all about. It is learning what God wants you to do and then taking steps to do it. If a Scripture touches your heart, or the Lord makes something real to you, then meditate on it with the purpose of doing something about it. Seek the Lord about it and ask Him, “What do you want me to do with this? How do I express this in some type of action?” This is how we appropriate the Word in our lives. It becomes real to us when we are doing it.

 

Yeshua said that we will know if His teaching is from God when we are willing to do His will. And we know that God is at work in us to will and to do His good pleasure. The purpose of Him working in us is not to learn more about His will or to talk more about His will, but to be driven to do His will. Let us begin to apply this to our Bible study. One way is to keep a notebook of action items that we can do in response to what God is showing us in His Word. Whatever method we use, let us strive to see the will of God accomplished in our lives.

 

Key Verses:

 

•       Genesis 17:1. “Walk before Me, and be blameless.”

•       Psalm 116:9. “I shall walk before the Lord in the land of the living.”

•       John 13:12–17. “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”

•       Matthew 22:35–39. “LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD … LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR.”

•       Philippians 2:12–13. “It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

•       John 2:5–10. “Whatever He says to you, do it.”

•       Hebrews 13:20–21. “Now the God of peace … equip you in every good thing to do His will.”

•       John 7:17. “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching.”

 

Quotes:

 

•       “It's not knowing the Scriptures. It's doing the Scriptures. It's not knowing the things of God. It's doing what He's commanded us to do.”

•       “We're not to read the books or listen to messages and then sit around and just discuss them. If we're going to sit around and discuss the Word and what God's saying, let's start discussing what we're going do about it and how we're going to do it.”

•       “He is working in you because what He is asking, or what's needed as a response to His Word or the teaching, may be a difficult thing to do. And so you have to draw on His strength and His enabling in order to go do that.”

 

Takeaways:

 

1.    There is a tendency for us as Christians to consume a lot of material in our study of the Scriptures. But the concern is what do we actually do about what we are learning from the Scriptures?

2.    It is important to develop some methodology that helps us do something about what God makes real to us in the Scriptures.

3.    We have a greater grasp of Bible teaching when we have the heart to do it. And not only when we have the heart, but when we actively find the ways to do something about what God shows is in the teaching.