Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart, and DO NOT lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. (Prov. 3:5-6)

This is something that has been grieving my spirit tremendously lately as I look at my brothers and sisters in the faith. So many times we tend to only look at this verse from a carnal standpoint. When you are in trouble, turn to God and He will order your footsteps. But the context is regarding wisdom, revelation & understanding. We get to a place where we become comfortable with our understanding of Scripture and then we get complacent. We no longer seek the Spirit's revelation. Limit God by attempting to figure out Scripture in our heads. Try to understand the Word based on human logic or personal experience. Then we think we are walking in truth. We mistakenly believe we understand who Jesus is. How God operates. But we are LIMITING the gospel to the constraints of our mind. When in reality it is the responsibility of the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. (John 16:13) When Jesus was dedicated at the temple as a baby, the high priest fulfilled all the Scriptural requirements for the dedication of a newborn. Performed the proper sacrifices because he knew what the Word said he should do. But the high priest did not have the REVELATION from the Holy Spirit to know that he was holding God in infant form. Simeon and Anna knew, because they were dependent on the Holy Spirit for truth and understanding. (Luke 2:22-38) This us what happens when we rely on our own understanding. We may have read the Bible. We may have done our research. But the moment we sit back and become satiated by our own knowledge, we miss out on the revelation and forfeit the opportunity for God to move mightily in our lives as He would have. The Pharisees scoffed at the masses who believed in Jesus, because they didn't understand Him to be the Messiah, & after all, they were the ones who knew the law forwards and backwards. (John 7:45-50) The Pharisees understood the Scriptures with their head knowledge, but missed out on the Messiah standing in front of them because they were leaning on their own understanding. I pray that we would cease constraining Scripture to our own minds and logic, so that we never miss the revelation God has for us.