Wait for Guidance

All Christians have gifts and talents of some kind. We have special areas where we excel. However, we need to be careful when we display these areas, lest we make our own strength our god (2) and fail to rely on the Lord.

When Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit (3), He had been without food for forty days and nights. The devil came to Him and began to tempt Him (4). Jesus responded in humility. Even though He is the Son of God, He recognized that God’s instructions through the Word are the mandate by which man is to base his life. “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Remember, Jesus was God in a human body, so He had the power within Himself to overcome His hunger, but He was waiting for God the Father to supply His needs. Over and over throughout the Gospels, we read that Jesus would do nothing without specific instruction from the Father, because it was the Father’s work that He came to accomplish (5).

Our entire life is to be based on the guidance and direction from the Father. No matter how much we can do on our own, we are to humble ourselves and wait for the Father to lead us into His perfect will.