{"id":1732,"date":"2010-05-10T06:24:13","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T14:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wordpress\/?p=1732"},"modified":"2010-05-10T08:59:49","modified_gmt":"2010-05-10T16:59:49","slug":"take-the-initiative-5-10-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=1732","title":{"rendered":"Take the Initiative 5-10-2010"},"content":{"rendered":"
Take the Initiative<\/div>\n
. . . add to your faith virtue . . . \u20142 Peter 1:5<\/a><\/div>\n

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\n\"\"<\/a>We cannot save nor sanctify ourselves\u2014 God does that. But God will not give us good habits or character, and He will not force us to walk correctly before Him. We have to do all that ourselves. We must \u201cwork out<\/em>\u201d our \u201cown salvation\u201d which God has worked in<\/em> us (\u00a0Philippians 2:12<\/a> ). Add<\/em> means that we must get into the habit of doing things, and in the initial stages that is difficult. To take the initiative is to make a beginning\u2014 to instruct yourself in the way you must go.<\/p>\n

Beware of the tendency to ask the way when you know it perfectly well. Take the initiative\u2014 stop hesitating\u2014 take the first step.Be determined to act immediately in faith on what God says to you when He speaks, and never reconsider or change your initial decisions. If you hesitate when God tells you to do something, you are being careless, spurning the grace in which you stand.\u00a0\"\"Take the initiative yourself, make a decision of your will right now, and make it impossible to go back. Burn your bridges behind you, saying, \u201cI will<\/em> write that letter,\u201d or \u201cI will<\/em> pay that debt\u201d; and then do it! Make it irrevocable.<\/p>\n

Perhaps we are reluctant to take that first step because we are afraid of the unknown,\u00a0or of the potential for failure and disappointment or because the steps we know we must first take do not fit our notion of what we would like to do or believe should be our next steps. Or maybe we just need to “get around to it”. Our next steps are normally little steps\u00a0 that <\/em><\/p>\n

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will ultimately add up to giant growth and accomplishment. God normally will not ask us to pick up thousand pound rocks. We are to take it one step at a time….If we can become distracted or wounded and diverted the enemy knows we may not be focused or connected enough to take the first steps of a journey that will take us to life and life more abundantly. JDV\/DJR<\/em><\/p>\n

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We have to get into the habit of carefully listening to God about everything, forming the habit of finding out what He says and heeding it. If, when a crisis comes, we instinctively turn to God, we will know that the habit has been formed in us. We have to take the initiative where we are<\/em>, not where we have not yet been.
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Take the Initiative . . . add to your faith virtue . . . \u20142 Peter 1:5 We cannot save nor sanctify ourselves\u2014 God does that. But God will not give us good habits or character, and He will not force us to walk correctly before Him. We have to do all that ourselves. We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1732"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1771,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions\/1771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}