Bible Study with the Cincotti's - Right Alignment with God - 04/30/2023

 Today's Bible Study, Authored by Arthur Cincotti. 04/30/2023

Listen to our Bible Study Discussion at: Right Alignment With God Bible Study

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Right Alignment With God

“Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.” Ps. 119:133

God has created an ordered universe.

Ps. 8:3,4 says, “When I consider your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?”

In these two Psalms the words “order” and “ordained” are the same word in Hebrew: “kun”

We would have to read the entire Bible to reference how often God is establishing order. And I suspect we would be shocked, as I was, as to how vast its usage.

Paul states this in I Cor. 14:33, “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace…” NIV (NKJV uses “confusion”)

Sin has caused chaos and disorder, but even in and through our crazy world we sense and see evidence of a steadfast and unchanging order.

Though forces are tugging at us to remain in a state of confusion, God’s order is always available to us to come into alignment with. Consider this statement in the backdrop of Is. 40:3, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the LORD; Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”’

Some examples leaped out at me from Scripture.

         In I Sam. 8-16, it seems clear that it’s God’s intention to set a king in Israel in the person of David, but the elders of Israel’s intention was different from God’s; “Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” 8:5

God’s order for Israel was that they would be set apart, and not “like the other nations.”

By Jer. 19:15 the prophet speaks, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Behold, I will bring on this city and on all her towns all the doom that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their necks that they might not hear My words.’”

So much for set apart 

Our aim is always to come into alignment with God’s plan and will for our lives. It’s obvious, when sin is present, that we are out of alignment, but when sin is not evident it doesn’t always mean that we are on mission.

God’s grace keeps us in alignment.

We use several vehicles to get into alignment:

Reading God’s word; “Your word I have hidden in my heart

                                      That I might not sin against You.” Ps. 119:11

                                    “Keep my commands and live,

                                    And my laws as the apple of your eye.

                                    Bind them on your fingers;

                                    Write them on the tablets of your heart.” Pr.7:3

Listen to God’s word: “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the                               word of God” Rom. 10:17

Prayer: As we have said before, prayer is a conversation with God.        Let us be mindful that in this conversation, what God has to        say is far more important than what we have to say.

Our prayer is the key element that must align with God’s will and His word. Rom. 8:26, “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

Fasting is a vehicle that can bring us into alignment with God.

         Ps. 69:9,10 “Because zeal for You house has eaten me up,

                           And the reproaches of those who reproach You

                                    have fallen on me.

                           When I wept and chastened my soul with fasting,

                           That became my reproach.

Jesus prayer in the garden is a model for this, “nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”

We can be very capable of using God’s word to fabricate all sorts of goofy prayers, but when we humble ourselves, and engage with the Holy Spirit, God’s perfect plan will manifest. That’s alignment.

The two men on the road to Emmaus were confused (disordered). Jesus brought them into alignment as He “expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Lk. 24:27

This episode always reminds me of Amos 3:3, “Can two walk together, except they agree?”

Agreement with God is synonymous with alignment with God,  and alignment is not always the easy path. 

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