Each of us must make our own choices. We need time alone with Father God daily, just as Jesus did. We need to let the Holy Spirit lead, guide, and teach us. My book Alone with God at Christmas was published in 1976 and contains the word perfect in many places.
As I’m aging, I am asking more and more for the Holy Spirit to be my perfector. That’s because he is the encourager of all who come to the Ark.
He encourages us to do Romans 12:1-2: “So then, my friends, because of God’s great mercy to us I appeal to you; offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him. This is true worship… let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind, then you will be able to know what is good… pleasing to Him and is perfect.”
I use the English Version for the Deaf and numerous other Bible translations to see and hear more clearly how His Holy Spirit gives answers to life’s questions. James 5:15-16 states, “…the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”
There must be no doubt! With all that’s happening in 2020-2021, Satan wants us to doubt. Sometimes God uses suffering to confirm His words or as Jesus used it, to learn obedience. Some tests require us to endure; others ask us to make right decisions.
In Matthew 15:31 Jesus says, “Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
When we don’t doubt, we are learning life lessons. Sometimes we must see the seed Jesus plants and wait for the blossoms on a gloomy day. Conflict within us by flesh and Spirit is spiritual warfare. In the struggle, we realize we can win a spiritual war. Still, the truth is, we cannot wander too far, or exceed Christ’s forgiveness.
Jesus desires “men to pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.” (I Timothy 2:8) Jesus, through his Holy Spirit, is teaching us to “Ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.” (James 1:6)
We must live righteously and according to the principles contained in God’s Holy Word to honor the life Jesus gave up for us. We must do it to show our gratitude for His resurrection and promise to return for us.
