2008-03-17

Let Go & Let God - Spiritual or Just Plain Lazy?

There are many so called 'grace-based' preacher that preach men should not do anything and let God do it. There is this nice phase that say "Let go and let God". They see that any effort on man part is of the flesh and men should just lay back and wait to receive from God. Such teaching without clearer explanation is very misleading and wrong. It resulted in people just plainly waiting for God.

It is clearer to say "God initiates and man respond". Man duty is to discover God's plan and then follow accordingly by faith. God has initiated in speaking to man in the past through His prophets and His son Jesus (Heb 1:2) . We are to respond in faith by receiving Jesus as our Savior and Lord. That was the 1st step. Subsequently, we have to discover more of Jesus and God and follow accordingly. The discovery is through the study of God's revealed Word (the Bible) and communication with God. We have the static Logos word and the dynamic Holy Spirit inspired Rhema word of God. This discovery (of the spiritual laws at work) will increases as we experience the working of the spiritual laws through our application by faith.

We can see this in the natural world which are governed by natural physical laws. To do well in the physical world, we need to understand the natural physical laws governing this universe. We understand gravity easily enough to know that we could not fly. However, when we understand fluid dynamics, we learn about the 'lift' as air flows through a wind-shaped object, and then we could build plane that fly. By understanding and application of natural laws, we can do thing that seems to defy natural law. Actually, we did not. Our ability to fly still follows the natural laws, except that we use the law of lift to overcome the law of gravity. Both laws are at work when we fly. We can never defy natural laws.

Similarly, in the spiritual world, if we want to have good success, we must understand the spiritual laws and apply accordingly. Without application according to the spiritual laws, we will not have any benefits. So don't be fooled. We need to do work - work of faith - of discovering God's will and spiritual laws - and putting them to work.

If we are hurt by someone, we are to rely on the Love of Christ and to forgive the person causing the hurt. It is very hard on our flesh. But we must put our trust in God's spiritual laws - love our enemy with the love that Jesus has given me.

If we are out of job, we spend the time discovering God's will, preparing and learning new skills and getting new jobs, trusting God will bring the right job at the right time to us. But we are not to just wait lazily. We are to occupy till He comes Luk 19:13.


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