11/19/17 Show Me Your Ways
“Show me thy ways, O Lord, teach me thy paths”
Psalm 25:4
In our Christian walk we all will come to understand that it is vitally important that we establish a relationship with God just as we do in our human relationships to learn His ways. When we enter into a relationship with a person and begin to spend time with them, we begin to learn their ways; how they do things, what they feel about certain things, what moves and motivates them. So it should be in our relationship with God. First, yes we should establish a relationship with Him and not try to follow that old customary way of being just affiliated with a church and attending occasionally, maybe giving a little money, and spending no time reading His Word. We must come to know Him intimately if we desire to have success in this Christian life here on earth.
This word “ways” in our text and the others that we will share in this article means figuratively a course of life, or mode of action. A synonym of this word is manner; which means the way something is done or happens, and the characteristic way in which somebody behaves. This is what David was crying out to the Lord to know; the way He thinks and feels about things so that he could understand God’s mode of action in our situations and circumstances. David quoted in Psalm 103:7 the answer of Moses cry to God in Exodus 33:13 when he said to God “now therefore , I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight”. This was after Moses had seen the many miracles of God; the deliverance and all the provisions, the parting of the Red Sea, water from a rock, and quail and manna from heaven. He still needed to understand God and his ways. A few verses before this the bible said that “the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to a friend”, and Moses still needed to move into a place of intimacy with God so that he understood the anger God now displayed towards His people in that text. It takes an intimate relationship with someone before you can understand them. The bible said in Psalm 103:7 that “He made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel”. It took this personal intimate relationship with God before he could understand His reasoning’s, motivations and principles that caused Him to act as He does. This will not come from a casual once a week church attendance, a glance over my bible occasional relationship with Him. We need God to show us His way of doing things, the “why” of the things He does as well what He allows in our life. This comes only through an intimate relationship that is developed through our time alone with Him. Jesus told us in John 14:21 that “he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him”. This is God showing Himself to us as He is, to exhibit Himself to us and cause us to understand His ways. This is because we through intimate fellowship with Him will come to know and understand Him and His ways: The course of action that He takes as He shapes and molds, and transforms us according to our response to His guidance in our lives. We can then understand some of the “why’s” in our life because we understand His reasoning’s, the very principles that cause Him to act as He does towards and for us.
In our text the Psalmist asked God to show him His ways, to make him understand how He relates to us. This is a state that we will find ourselves in on this Christian journey if we neglect to spend that quality time with God and become acquainted with Him personally. You can’t please God and walk according to His ways if you don’t take the time to know Him and what they are. We must seek to understand His will and know the ways of our Almighty God. God desires to make Himself known to us if we will spend that time in His presence. He wants us to understand His ways so that we can best serve Him, and understand how He wants us to do it. The people in your life whom you have come to know and understand, what they like or dislike, how they respond to things, and what motivates them, came from you spending time with them and getting to know them. We today won’t treat God with that same attentiveness. We think we can casually know God and understand what He wills for our life, but you will never know God, nor understand Him until you allow Him to show you His ways. David knew that in order to experience the fullness of God that he needed to know and understand Him so that he walked pleasing to Him. Throughout the Psalms David constantly asked God to teach him. He wanted to know this Awesome God so that he could please Him in everything that he did. We today should realize that it is vitally important that we get to know God and allow Him to speak into our lives. This can only be accomplished by spending quality time with Him daily. Don’t neglect to experience the goodness of God by not getting to know Him and His ways. We have been given “the mind of Christ” (I Corinthians 2:16), so we have the capacity to know and think like God if we just spend the time in His presence and become personally acquainted with Him. Ask Him today, Lord “show me your ways”.
The VICTORY that Jesus obtained for us can only be experienced by knowing and understanding the one who made it possible. Spend time with God daily, get to know Him and walk in your VICTORY!