"And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul." Deuteronomy 10:12
Our life mission is to love and have relationship with God. With all of our heart. Right??
Have you ever had a little bit of a smooth time in your life as a Christian. Your walking along, and you think to yourself, "the favor of the Lord is with me. My life "feels" so smooth and blessed right now." Then, BAAM! Something jumps on our smooth path. Someone or something decides to mess up the blessing, the favor, the comfort you have been "feeling". (The question I want you to have for yourself now is, "Was I feeling good because my life was going so smooth, or did my self control in certain areas of my flesh become easier by that time of my life?)
Maybe there was tactics that the enemy was using before through people or circumstances that really didn't phase you. Satan will try to get his foot in the door constantly though. Just as it is our mission to love God with all of our hearts and soul. It is Satan's life mission to keep our souls in disarray so that we feel that we cannot handle the issues of life.
So back to our story about walking on a smooth path and then something steps in your way and tries to trip you up. What are you going to do? Are you going to keep walking and focusing on the fact that God has brought you through difficult circumstances before and he is still the same God now as he was then? Or are you going to allow it to trip you up?
This path that you are on is quite wide when you first step on it with the Lord, right? If you don't know scripture or the nature of God then what you can do it pretty vast because you are ignorant. But the word tells us through out it that we should find wisdom. We should desire it. As you do this and continue to walk with God, if you are truly seeking a relationship with him, then the path will get narrower. Wisdom and understanding causes this path to get narrower.
At the beginning when you are walking and something tries to trip you up I almost feel like you can step around and it doesn't quiet phase you yet. It is because the path is wide. But then you continue to walk and the daily reading of the word sinks in. The daily transformation of your heart and soul takes place. Where you can step becomes less and less. This narrow path is not easy. It is not for the faint of heart. It is not for the weak. It is for the strong. These strong ones are the ones who rely on Jesus alone. Not in their own strength. The worlds own strength consist of things like stealing, killing, anger, frustration, envy.
Allowing the strength of Jesus takes giving him something. Give him an outlet to work. He works through us. He works through our heart. He works through our soul. One of my favorite scriptures is 3 John 1:2. "Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers." Come on someone. This is good. It specifies that we can do good in all things, even our health. It is as our soul prospers. Remember, soul is our mind will and emotion. Right. It is how we choose to think. How we choose to act. How we choose to react. It is our how we live our life.
Now prosper is an interesting word. In todays culture prosper is seen as having a lot of money. Having great fortune. But prosper in the Greek is "euodoo". Euodoo comes from two words. Eu meaning well or good. "Hodos" is the second word. It means a journey on a particular road.
We are talking about the path ("road") we choose in life. We are talking about God wanting our hearts and the more we have relationship with him the more narrow our path gets. That narrow path is where God can work because our soul is prospering. Our mind will and emotion is laid out on the table for Jesus to take it and make it something even better then we could ever imagine. You thought you can do good and might things by taking everything on your own shoulders. By having a wider road to do whatever you want to do and when you want to do it. But Jesus can bring things to pass that is beyond our natural abilities. Beyond what our little minds can fathom. That narrow path where Jesus transforms your heart is where the things within it, the dreams you had, can come to pass.
God wants your heart. He wants your soul. He wants them so that he can work through you. So that he can be with you daily. You prosper just as your soul prospers. As you lay down your life completely.