can do that; but if you look to yourself,
anger and revenge will fester when the
Bible says, Put off all these; anger,
wrath, malice (Colossians 3:8). You
have to turn your enemies over to God
and let Him take care of them. Dearly
beloved, avenge not yourselves,
but rather give place unto wrath:
for it is written, Vengeance is mine;
I will repay, saith the Lord (Romans
12:19).
Anger and malice are not included
in the fruits of the Spirit. You must let
the Holy Spirit produce His nine fruits
within you and flow them through you
to others. But the fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith,
Meekness, temperance: against
such there is no law (Galatians
5:22,23). You will never get those fruits
by looking to yourself.
Reason with God
When God called Paul, he didn’t
look to himself or to anyone else. He
looked only to the Lord, and the Holy
Spirit taught him what God wanted
him to know. But when it pleased
God, who separated me from my
mother’s womb, and called me by
his grace, To reveal his Son in me,
that I might preach him among the
heathen; immediately I conferred
not with flesh and blood: Neither
went I up to Jerusalem to them
which were apostles before me; but
I went into Arabia, and returned
again unto Damascus (Galatians
1:15–17). Paul was alone with God,
and he was looking only to Him in the
desert of Arabia for about three years.
When you look to yourself, you will
never get God’s thoughts. The Bible
says, For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah
55:9). If you start reasoning with
yourself, you are apt to talk yourself
right out of God’s divine will. That is
why the Bible says, Come now, and
let us reason together, saith the
LORD (Isaiah 1:18).
Have Faith in God
When God called Gideon to save
Israel from the Midianites, Gideon
first looked to himself and said, Oh
my Lord, wherewith shall I save
Israel? behold, my family is poor
in Manasseh, and I am the least
in my father’s house (Judges 6:15).
Gideon was very humble, and he
didn’t think he could do what God was
asking; but he still obeyed the Lord.
When Gideon humbled himself
before the Lord, God took him step by
step and showed him exactly what to
do. God told Gideon to gather together
an army, and he ended up with
10,000 soldiers; but when God was
finished weeding out all those who
were not yielded to Him, there were
just 300 left. Then God used those
300 men armed with only trumpets,
clay pitchers and lamps to defeat the
great army of the Midianites. And
they stood every man in his place
round about the camp: and all
the host ran, and cried, and fled
(Judges 7:21).
When God called Jeremiah to be a
prophet unto the nations, he said, Ah,
Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak:
for I am a child (Jeremiah 1:6).
Jeremiah was looking to himself, and
the Lord was not pleased with that;
so He told Jeremiah, Say not, I am a
child: for thou shalt go to all that
I shall send thee, and whatsoever
I command thee thou shalt speak.
Be not afraid of their faces: for I
am with thee to deliver thee, saith
the LORD (Jeremiah 1:7,8).
It takes faith in God to bypass
the flesh when God calls you to do
something you think is beyond you,
and you can only learn to use your
faith like that by doing it again and
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