Do You Want to Experience God?

O.T. 25  "Do You Want to Experience God?"
April 15, 2013
Review of Noah

LET IT GLOW

How desperate are we to experience God working in our lives? Isn't it exciting to have Him use us to accomplish His will?
I didn't go with my husband to the Dominican Republic on the first two mission trips. Then I saw what a group of volunteers were doing in Haiti on a Bible study blog. The teacher went. My heart was touched as I saw the children in need. I knew it was time for me to go to the D.R. So I said yes and trusted God to provide all that was needed. You know what? He did. I made the adjustments and sacrifices necessary. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done, sharing a part of my life that I had never shared before. I also taught a Bible story to children. The Lord blessed all of our efforts and over 100 adults and children were saved that week. Everyone on the mission team experienced God working through us, in us, and around us. We will be going again in June, to a different area. Please pray for us in preparation.
That's my example of how I applied the following principles and experienced God. Do you want to experience God?

Henry and Richard Blackaby and Claude King, authors of Experiencing God, taught these principles for the Christian Knowing and Doing the Will of God. I wanted to apply these principles to the life of Noah.
Here are the seven realities of experiencing God:

1. God is always at work around you.
    In chapter 6, God saw the wickedness of men, their evil hearts and thoughts. He was sorry to
    have made them. His plan was to destroy them, all but one family, Noah's. Noah was a preacher of
    righteousness (2 Peter 2:5).

2. God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that is real and personal.
    Noah walked with God, which means God walked with Noah, too. He was a just, perfect, and
    righteous man. Noah lived 950 years on earth. He found grace in the eyes of God. God loved Noah
    and picked his family to preserve mankind through the Flood and to replenish the earth.

3. God invites you to become involved with Him in His work.
    What was God about to do when He asked Noah to build an ark? He was about to destroy the
    world with a great flood when he approached Noah. (Gen. 6:5-14)

4. God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to
    reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.
    When God came to Noah, He didn't ask, "What do you want to do for Me?" he revealed what He
    was going to do. It really didn't matter what Noah had planned to do for God. It was far more
    important to know what God was about to do. He was about to destroy the world, and He wanted
    to work through Noah to accomplish His purposes of saving a remnant of people and animals to
    repopulate the earth.

Am I watching for God at work in my little world? Do I see and hear Him? How's our love relationship with God? Are we listening for His invitation to join Him in His work? What is God using to speak to us today?

LET IT GROW


5. God's invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires
    faith and action.
    Noah was faithful as he worked on the ark 120 years, believing God will do what He says. He
    showed faith in God as he stepped into the ark.

6. You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.
     Noah changed jobs, being a full-time carpenter and preacher.

7. You come to know God by experience as you obey Him, and He accomplishes His work
    through you.
    How did Noah experience God? He experienced God as all-powerful, omnipotent, El Shaddah,
    who spoke the rain to flood the earth; as provider Jehovah Jireh; as ever-present, omnipresent God,
    always with his family;  as all-knowing, omniscient, instructing the right dimensions of the ark.

Is God calling you to do something, but it requires faith? Are you prepared to make adjustments in your life in order to do His will? How long will you wait in order to obey God and experience His working through you? Will you join me in applying these 7 principles so we can experience God?

LET IT GO

Watch to see where God is working in my world and those around me.

Listen to His invitation to join in His work.

Keep believing that God can do all things, provide all things needed.

Make the adjustments needed in order to accomplish God's will.

Obey God. Don't wait.

Give God the glory for what He does through me.