God is speaking, am I really listening?

We are rapidly heading towards 2015 with so many issues facing the church, our country, and other nations globally.  We want to talk about the latest news or what is going on in other countries.  If something is happening in our own back yard, than that will be the talk of the town.  But what is God saying to you?  And what are you doing about it?  Here are a few things God has been dealing with me over the past few weeks.

1.  Stop living by the flesh and live by My Spirit.  My ordinary week is a mix of walking and thinking and feeding what my flesh wants rather than listening, learning, and living by the Spirit of the Living God.  If God has taught me one thing this year, it is we all can live a life in the Spirit every day if we continually surrender our lives to him fresh each day.

2.  Quit being distracted by the enemy and keep your focus on Me.  This is a lesson we think we learn and then the enemy turns right around and throws something at us and like Peter in the Bible, we look at the waves and wind and sink rather than walking on the water keeping our eyes on Jesus.  Satan is not always trying to tempt us to sin.  Many times His goal is just to get our eyes off God and onto anything else so that we will not walk out our purpose that God has for us.

3.  God reveals the secrets of our hearts and that is not to shame us but to challenge us to depend on Him more.  My baggage is stuff is being revealed by God rather I like it or not.  God will not let me stay where I am but God is preparing us for greater things and that means we must be changed more into His likeness if we are going to accomplish the things God has for us in the future.

4.  Worship Me in the moment and make time for worship.  I pray, I read God's Word but I struggle spending that quality time in God's presence.  I find my life filled with so many good things that I miss the greatest thing and that is to spend time in God's presence experiencing heaven on earth.  God is calling us into His presence, will we come?

5.  It's not about our goodness but it is about the goodness of God.  Everything is about surrender to God because He is the only one good.  Even Jesus challenged people of his day when people used the word "good" loosely.  Only God is good!  Every day is another opportunity to live in gratitude of God's goodness or miss it for something that distracts us from the only One who is truly good.