God’s Plain pathway
by Pastor Bryan Coelho
Eccl.7: 13; Acts 13:8-10
Joel 3:14 says that Multitudes of people are in the valley of decision. Many of us are in the valley of making decisions everyday of our life. But Eccl 7:13 –can we bend the arm of Omnipotent God?
God has a very unique plan for every believer and His plan is different for every believer. And so we acknowledge the Sovereignty of God in every little detail of our life and if we don’t do that we will try to make straight what God has made crooked! Today, people want to be in control of everything that happens in their life! Eccl.7:13 relates to the individual while Acts 13:8-10 relates to the message. God, from the beginning of time wanted to reveal the riches of His grace. Eph.3:7-9 – this is a mystery hid in God. This mystery was communicated to the Prophets - I Pet.1:10-12 by the Holy Spirit but could not see the period of the fullness of the mystery revealed - Jn.1:16, though it was always God’s desire to reveal the fullness - Rom.8:30-34. But man always questioned the sovereignty of God in the details of life without seeking Him in the everyday practical detail of life! God created man in a perfect state and man chose to go against God – made a decision to sin and God did not prevent man from sinning because He knew the provision that was available for it! So we need not be afraid of taking steps of faith if we know God. We are not afraid of failing when we know about God’s provision for our failure! In the details of life the grace of God is given as a provision. That is why in the Bible disobedience and unbelief is a terrible thing. And so God breaks things but the world tries to straighten what God has broken and made crooked. God is supposed to be in charge of everything but how then things are crooked when He is around? God has allowed it to be so because He has manifested His straight way.
Acts 13 – Elymas – he was Satan’s man and Paul discerns that. He was hostile to the Gospel and he was full of deceit and fraud. He was an enemy of all righteousness and says “will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of God?” Satan wants to destroy the message of God. He does not want people to have an understanding of the way – Jn.14:6 - so that when people are broken they would never have the option of walking in that way. As we are broken it is important for us to walk in that “way” where God has broken us. If we do not have the “way” then there is a serious problem for us.
When the fall took place, man sinned and he began to experience various things. He felt guilty, unclean and was filled with condemnation and so he looked for a covering. And God intervenes in Gen.3. Can we think of what it would be if God did not intervene and make a provision? Man then would have been completely broken and would be walking in the “wrong way”. But God gave a way though man was broken. The believer today does not treasure what God has appointed for him to walk on. The believer thinks on the things that work on and try and work out situations for himself, when in reality God is using a situation or a detail of life to break him. But man never gives God an opportunity to be glorified in that area that which God has ordained for him. So Satan has distorted the way of God! Separations in the family, confusion, etc., are all permitted by God but He has also made a provision for them. But Satan comes in to distort the work of grace in that person’s life. Imagine living in this cosmic system and everything going against me and I try to reverse it as I walk in a way that is my own!!! Can a wounded man help himself? He needs another person to help him and to cover him. This was so beautifully reflected in the life of Christ!
In the incarnation of the Son of God, He came down to this earth and He let God work in His life – which was foreknown by Him in eternity. All that was permitted by the Father to happen to Jesus Christ caused Him to be broken but that did not ever cause our Lord to deviate from the pathway, which was ordained by God! That is the sign of a matured believer – if I understand this I will rest in every detail of life because the sovereignty of God is involved in choosing things for my life.
Eccl.7:14 – people praise God when things go well and in the day of adversity we panic!!! God is not the God of the mountains alone but He is also the God of the valley. He is as much there in my prosperity as He is in my adversity! Many people pass the ‘prosperity test’ but they don’t pass the ‘adversity test’! So man makes his own plan and begins to pray that God would honor his plan.
In Gen.32 we see Jacob running away from Esau. He does not know how to confront Esau. Jacob always found a way to manage God! As a believer, we are like that sometimes – trying to manage our life. But Jacob now does not know how to manage Esau and so he lives in self-preservation. He came up with a perfect plan - “I will die with you but you die first” J. He divides his household into 2 groups and let them go ahead! If the first group is attacked then the second can disappear and with that he could run away, he thought. But in Gen.32:9-10 he prayed! He prayed a prayer of faith! Vs. 13 is very important. But then Vs. 14 & 15 he goes on the knees and prays and then expects God to use his methodology! Actually Jacob’s deliverance was in God and not in his gift! We go to God for a plan and then we make our own plan. We then want God to bless it! If Jacob had trusted God, he would not have the gift! We use the methodology and hope that God will bless it, which is not based on faith but on unbelief and we expect God to bless it!
Gen.32 – later in v24 – Jacob was left “alone”! When we are alone with God, spending time with God, letting God be Omnipresent – there is a wrestling match taking place and I am trying to win against Omnipresence!!! Jacob was given an opportunity to wrestle with the man of God. Jacob just went at it and he was not able to pin the man down. God let him come down till he could not do anything. The man of God touched his thigh and at once there was no strength. God found a way that which was straight and strong was now made crooked and weak because God needed someone in the limp and walk in His way! When we have the natural strength, we outrun God and so God brings us to a point of dying in the natural strength so that we become weak and that is the place man is afraid to be in. The weakness is a pre-requisite for God’s character to be formed in me. In order to direct my steps, God breaks me so that I can walk in the way! As Satan inflicts people, they can’t walk in the way that God has established for them. Jacob was a type of believer whose natural ability had to be brought under the control of the Holy Spirit. So God used a process to bring him to a place where the Holy Spirit could use him! That is what is God making my way crooked so that I can get to know how to walk in the way of God! God is interested in the pathway and not in the limp! From then onwards, Jacob started using a staff. God takes away the natural ability and lets His plan to conform him and then he is found resting on the staff – which is a walk of faith! It is an amazing place for a Christian to be here! Somehow Theology and Obedience does not align down the line and so God in His plan uses various things to break us. The expositions cannot tell me about the pathway but my life in the local assembly, in the specific geographical call of God reveals that to me! People are trying to fix things out but we are not to fix them – let God deal with it. And God is with you! You are not to be worried about the limp because God carries you. God uses ways in which He brings us and breaks us so that we can walk in the plain pathway!
So today, who are the people that God can use? It is the “crooked” people – those people that God has broken so that they can now walk in His strength!!!
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