GPS Guide – January 27, 2020
FIVE YEARS FROM NOW SERIES
This Weeks Introduction: When we set lifelong spiritual goals for ourselves, we must understand that our lives will not always be the way that they are currently. We will experience a variety of seasons that come and go. Through every season we are called to seek after sanctification. Sanctification is the idea that each of us has a potential that we can reach. Each of us can become who God designed us to be. This journey towards sanctification does not happen by only pursuing Christ sometimes. Each season of our life presents unique opportunities to learn something unique about what it means to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. This week’s GPS guide will help you to think and pray about faithfully pursuing your spiritual goals through the ups and downs of life. ~ Pastor Adam Ricks
Monday
Read: Psalm 83:1, Isaiah 64:12
1 O God, do not remain silent;
do not turn a deaf ear,
do not stand aloof, O God.
2 See how your enemies growl,
how your foes rear their heads.
3 With cunning they conspire against your people;
they plot against those you cherish.
4 “Come,” they say, “let us destroy them as a nation,
so that Israel’s name is remembered no more.”
5 With one mind they plot together;
they form an alliance against you—
6 the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,
of Moab and the Hagrites,
7 Byblos, Ammon and Amalek,
Philistia, with the people of Tyre.
8 Even Assyria has joined them
to reinforce Lot’s descendants.
9 Do to them as you did to Midian,
as you did to Sisera and Jabin at the river Kishon,
10 who perished at Endor
and became like dung on the ground.
11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb,
all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna,
12 who said, “Let us take possession
of the pasturelands of God.”
13 Make them like tumbleweed, my God,
like chaff before the wind.
14 As fire consumes the forest
or a flame sets the mountains ablaze,
15 so pursue them with your tempest
and terrify them with your storm.
16 Cover their faces with shame, Lord,
so that they will seek your name.
17 May they ever be ashamed and dismayed;
may they perish in disgrace.
18 Let them know that you, whose name is the Lord—
that you alone are the Most High over all the earth. (NIV Psalm 83)
” 12 After all this, Lord, will you hold yourself back? Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure? ” (NIV Isaiah 64:12)
Study: We must faithfully pursue sanctification in dry seasons. Dry seasons are the times in life when God is silent. During the book of Isaiah the people of Israel are still in exile in Babylon. God will eventually deliver the people, but during this time they feel as if God has abandoned them. Sometimes God is silent. Sometimes no matter how much we pray, and hope, and work, God will remain silent for a season. However, even when God is silent, God is at work. Because God is always at work, we too must faithfully pursue our sanctification during times of silence. What do you do when you can’t hear God? How can you be faithful during those difficult times of silence?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, give me the courage to be faithful even when I can’t hear you. I want to become the person I have the potential to be, please help me.