If we recognize that Christ is our mediator, our advocate, then we can be confident that when we approach His throne, with our hearts right, seeking to be cleansed and forgiven for our sins, then we can experience God's presence to help us change course and get on track with His plan for us. If we are eager to encounter the wisdom of God to set our course, then we can experience the power that it takes in order to make that course correction - maybe you're experiencing stagnation in your walk with Christ...He may be calling you to go in a different direction.
The apostle Paul testified before King Agrippa about the transformation that Jesus had brought about in his life. Here's what Acts 26 relates to us, as Paul recounted the words of the Lord to him:
16 But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. 17 I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you, 18 to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.' Paul's life was changed by Christ, and he was appointed to preach the gospel, so that the lives of others would experience a holy course correction.
Today we celebrate the discovery of the New World, the landing in the West Indies by Christopher Columbus, a seafaring man who was driven by a number of factors, including his passion for doing the will of God. He wrote:
“With a hand that could be felt, the Lord opened my mind to the fact that it would be possible ... And he opened my will to the desire to accomplish that project ... The Lord purposed that there should be something miraculous in this matter of the voyage to the Indies.”Of course by the "Indies", Columbus was referring to the area of and surrounding what we know as India, a land full of gold and other riches - but the way for traders had been blocked by the growth of the Ottoman Empire, which made the land routes to the east inaccessible and made the sea route, toward the Red Sea, quite hard to access. So, Columbus had a different plan - sail west! He convinced the Spanish monrachy that this was a viable plan, and so he organized a voyage and set sail. He did believe, as an increasing number did in that day, that the earth was round; he just didn't know what was standing between Spain and India if he sailed west.
I think there is a lesson here, beside the fact that Columbus did have a religious, even an evangelistic motivation in undertaking his journey. The way had been blocked to European merchants as the Ottoman Empire grew - instead of initiating a conflict with the Turks, Columbus said basically, let's go in a different direction.
Do you feel stuck in your life? Do you pray and pray but sometimes feel your prayers don't get above the ceiling? It may just very well be that God is calling you to go in a different direction. Sometimes we get frustrated because we try and try to see improvement in a particular area, or we attempt to implement a particular strategy, but we just keep failing. Maybe a change is in order - perhaps we sail in a different direction; where conventional wisdom would say go east, maybe the Holy Spirit is directing us to go west. Perhaps our own sin is keeping us in bondage, unproductive in our spiritual life - repentance means to make a change, to correct our course, to turn away from the sinful patterns of our past, seek and accept God's forgiveness, and take a different direction. If we need wisdom on how to make a course correction, we have the assurance that we can ask for it.
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