direction – ThrivingBranch

How To Recognize God’s Leading (part 3)

July 17, 2022June 22, 2022Leave a Comment

Welcome back to the third installment of our series on recognizing God’s leading and His voice.

A lot of people are looking for guidance and good direction… who better to ask than someone who truly knows everything?

God has perfect knowledge and can see the end from the beginning… but we often have trouble hearing or recognizing his voice from the multitude of messages we receive every minute.

Some have argued that if God is so perfect, why can’t he make it so everyone hears him all the time?

Well, that’s a fair question. Would it surprise you to learn that the instructions for hearing Gods voice have been in the scripture all this time?

In the previous two parts of this series, we laid the crucial foundation of grace in the new covenant through Jesus Christ; if you haven’t yet seen those two segments, please watch those before watching this part, as we will be building onto what we learned previously, as we explore the application of hearing God’s voice.

Let’s get started!

How To Recognize God’s Leading (part 2)

July 10, 2022June 18, 2022Leave a Comment

Welcome back to the second part in a series exploring how to recognize God’s leading and direction. There are many theories floating around in Christian communities regarding God’s leading, ranging from the common to the obscure, causing a lot of confusion, but the only thing we’re interested in here is what the scripture says. Because to know what God is saying to us, we first need to know how He communicates. If we don’t understand the basics of this, then we are left wide open to all manner of deception.

In part one, we touched on the subject of “placing God in a box” unduly, and also how God placed some restrictions on Himself based on His covenant promises. The scriptures teach us the proper way to communicate with God and how to recognize His leading in our lives, so let’s dive into these ideas further and let the scriptures instruct us on how this works.

How To Recognize God’s Leading (part 1)

July 3, 2022June 18, 2022Leave a Comment

We all have GPS apps on our smart devices these days. Our phones, watches, tablets, and cars all tell us exactly how to get from one place to another. Modern GPS not only guides you from point A to point B, but also helps you avoid delays, hazards, tolls, and even warns of speed traps. Without a GPS, many of us would be left wandering around aimlessly in unfamiliar territory.

GPS today is similar to the ancient idea of a shepherd, guiding their flock to a particular destination and guarding them from traps and harm. But what happens if you don’t hear or understand the directions?

A lot of people find God’s leading confusing or indecipherable… and that can be extraordinarily frustrating. However the scriptures and Jesus Himself give straightforward instructions for clearly identifying the directions of our divine shepherd. The trouble is that typical religious thinking and indoctrination has clouded the issue and muddied the spiritual waters, making things more complicated and mysterious than they truly are. So today we’ll be cutting through all of that to see the where God is directing, without religion getting in the way.

God Has Spoken to You Through Jesus

April 19, 2020October 12, 2019Leave a Comment

One of the things which I repeatedly hear people express is that they do not know the will of God. They don’t know what He actually wants to do in their current situation, or sometimes even on a day-to-day basis. And when we are unsure of the will of God, it often leads us down a spiral of confusion that can sometimes be very deep, and very discouraging and fear-inducing. After-all, how can we be sure of anything, if we are supposed to follow the will of God while simultaneously not knowing what His will is? This very question in-fact has led many to abandon God altogether.

Well, as you may have already deduced from the title of today’s study, things aren’t as mysterious or complicated as they may seem. And the truth is that God has actually revealed His will.

Today we do not need to guess at His will… nor do we need to pray in uncertainty and desperation, hoping to hear Him speak – because He has already spoken to us, and His will can be clearly known to us.

Divine Wisdom Leads to Growth in Grace

March 22, 2015December 17, 2014Leave a Comment

Continuing our series on the Wisdom of God. I once many years ago, heard a Christian express that Grace is all well and good, but that he wanted to move on to “deeper things”. I didn’t think much about his comment at the time, but since then I have noticed that this idea is actually quite common. Over the years I have witnessed many people come to Jesus Christ with great optimism and joy as they realize the truth of what He has done for them, and they are filled with His Divine Joy and Peace, and then it sets in… the idea that “now that I’ve received Jesus, I have to work”. I must do this and this and this and that to “grow in Christ.” Now I do believe that there is a growth process for believers, however this growth process is not what some today think that it is.

So today as we continue to study the Wisdom of God, we will be examining how growing in the Divine Wisdom of God actually leads to growing in Grace; and I believe that as we see this truth in scripture, chains will be broken and the joy and peace of God will be loosed again for some that have lost sight of it.

Jesus: The Meaning, Purpose and Strength of Life

March 8, 2015March 8, 2015Leave a Comment

Jesus is the meaning and the purpose of life. I want you to meditate on that statement for a moment… take it in, digest it. We have previously studied on how without Jesus, life is empty; this is not an over-exaggeration. People who follow after other things may experience a type of joy for a season, but it is not the true joy that can be found in Christ. I use the term “true joy” because I can tell you from my own life there was a time before I knew Jesus, that I experienced something that I thought was happiness, but it always left me feeling empty. There was a secret sadness, an internal pain that I could never quite fully define. I simply knew that there had to be more to life than what I was experiencing.

Furthermore, Jesus is also the strength of life. This means that Jesus is the source of effectual power that manifests, sustains and maintains life – we know this from Colossians 1:17. Yet this is more than just a grand theory or a pleasant idea for believers to ponder. This is in-essence, the key to unlocking true life in Christ. If we fail to understand the truth that Jesus is the center and supplier of life, then we will continue to life apart from that life, wondering and wandering from one thing to the next with no direction and no source. Is it possible for a believer to miss-out on the abundant life of Christ? Oh yes! So today, we will be studying in detail how to life in new life in Christ Jesus.

Effective Ministry When Led By the Holy Spirit

February 8, 2015February 8, 2015Leave a Comment

All across the world, ministers are studying hard, stressing and struggling to lead the flock and come up with fresh food to feed the sheep, usually multiple times per week. This term “fresh food” can be a bit confusing, in that it is not that parts of the Gospel are stale – no, God’s Word is always fresh, but that the Holy Spirit has a specific word for the people at that specific time, and there are many ministers today who find it difficult to know what that word is and how to deliver it to the people; or worse, they have utterly given-up.

So today, as part of our series on leadership, we are going to be studying how to have an effective ministry that is led by the Holy Spirit (which is the only way one can be truly effective). This applies not only to pastors, but also to every minister and indeed each one of us as well as we go about our day and encounter areas to minister and share Christ with others as well.