Integrity- People of God

PLANS ARE THE ULTIMATE ACTS OF FAITH

God gives us important and vital truths about Himself and then He tells us how to live in light of those truths so that we and our families may live the abundant life. God tells us to hear and listen, that the Lord our God is one, there is none other. We are to love the Lord with all our hearts, souls and strength and keep this in our hearts. This is a vital truth for us to understand and we must teach this to our children. There is One God who is the true and living God. He is revealed in three persons and personalities, but they are one in Spirit, Mind and Action.

Deuteronomy 6: 4-9   Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart.

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

God even gives direction on how we are to communicate these truths to our families. We are to talk to them about God when we are sitting around in the house, talk to them about God when we go walking outside, talk to them about God when we are lying down and when we get up. We should give our families writings, drawings, songs anything that can be set before them to show them to show God and His word is all around them. This is an everyday commitment to show our families and training them as well as ourselves about the mind and heart of God and His ways. It is not just a Sunday and mid-week ritual.

Exodus 17:14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this for a memorial in the book and recount it in the hearing of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.”

We all make plans but not all our plans are written but when we write things down they becomes a memorial or a tribute to what we believe will happen. The same principle applies with teaching our families about God. The things we give them are something that we can refer to and celebrate those specific moments or ideas God gave to us when they are written. When God gives us a promise and we believe in this promise, we will start taking steps and action to help us move toward that promise. This is how plans become the ultimate acts of faith. The plans we make and the actions we take show that we believe the promise will happen. Our plans and designs will help move us closer to the outcome or the promise we will receive from God.

A very wise man once said, “The weakest ink is better than the strongest memory.” We write down the things that are important and we want to remember, it helps to engrain those thoughts into our minds. It is more than just a thought that may fade, it is a documented point something we can look forward to and when it is done we may refer back to see the faithfulness of God. Faith without some type of plan or action expressing it is just a distant dream or idea. It does not move into reality without a plan. Faith without works is dead.

James 2:18-20 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?

Some people will say “Oh I believe in God!” yet, they do not take any actions toward their belief in God’s word. They may speak it because they have head knowledge of God and they may think that is sufficient. The Bible says demons believe in God and they tremble! Because they know God and His word is truth. They know what God has promised will be their end so they tremble at the thought of Him. We should believe and respond with actions related to the knowledge and promises we receive from God. To say we have faith and do nothing is no faith at all. Because we are do nothing to give energy to what we believe that faith has no life and is dead.

The book of Habakkuk God shows us an example on how we are to operate in faith when He spoke of His promise to avenge Israel from their enemies. God told Habakkuk to write the vision and make it plain on tables. God wants us to be able to go back to His word when the world and people attack or speak against God’s promise. With a written vision we will have a plan or process we may look at and refer to that will help us when the world tries to get us off course and to give up on God’s purpose for our lives.

The vision should be simple and plain so that anyone who believes and reads it so they may run with it. Anyone that takes God’s word as truth and moves toward that truth may believe no matter what problems we face, God has spoken it. Though it may linger or may be delayed we are told to preserve. God tells us to wait for it, for it will surely come, and once it begins it will come and it will not hesitate. God’s plans are for an appointed time. Only He knows the timing but we can be confident of the action and the outcome according to His word.

Habakkuk 2: 2-3 Then the Lord answered me and said: “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.  For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

God is our example of how we should act. We were created in His image to look and to act like Him. God writes those things that are important to Him. In Malachi it says, God listens to the people who respect, fear and revere Him and those who speak to each other about God. God has a book written to remember all those who fear Him and think on His name. What a revelation! God actually takes time to listen to our conversations when we talk to one another about Him. He not only listens but He writes then down so they can be remembered as a testimony. Just as He instructed us to write the vision and make it plain, He documents those things, which are important. He has given us His written word, the Bible.

Malachi 3:16 Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them; so a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who meditate on His name.