Doing Things God's Way - BY Scott Marques

"So what is God's Way?" Wrong Question........
"Who is God's Way?" Right Question............

Scott Marques, Zimbabwe's Apostolic Leader, explains to us about God's Way

The Solution Outlined
No Prize so far…..

Left to his own devices, all Man’s actions inevitably culminate in futility, vanity, barrenness, unproductively and emptiness. Man’s way essentially leads to death. The disaster trail of poverty, sickness and a myriad of other calamities in Africa’s immediate wake is sobering evidence of this.
We clearly need to do something differently. A sure sign of madness is trying to do the same thing, the same way, and expecting a different result!
Perhaps God can help!

If we cannot look to ourselves for the life and joy and abundance that we long for, then surely the only other place we can look is to God.

Creation is FULL of the demonstration of His nature and characteristics. In fact, Romans 1 v20 tells us

‘By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have been always able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse.’ (Msg)

Rather than flogging a dead horse, let’s look at doing things

GOD’S WAY !

So, what is God’s Way?

Wrong question!

‘Who is God’s Way?’, right question!

1) JESUS is THE WAY.

Jesus said, I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE.

Jesus claims that He himself is the WAY, He himself is the TRUTH, the answer, the source of all LIFE!

Amazingly, God does not give us a formula to get out of trouble, he does not give us a procedure to follow, but gives us Himself in the person of Jesus Christ.
God believes that the essential problem for Man is sin and that without the sacrifice of a perfect substitute for the sins of Man, there will never be anything other than sin, sickness, destruction and death for him.
God sees every problem of ours as essentially a spiritual problem, with its remedy essentially in the transforming power of Jesus Christ.

Step 1, we need to give-up our thrashing around in pride, greed and selfishness by humbly receiving the lordship of Christ in our lives. We need to come to Jesus for help.
2) The CHURCH is THE WAY.

Jesus identifies himself in the most personal of terms with the Church, and in this sense it was most fitting that in Acts 25, the Chuch was called ‘THE WAY’.
Again, God chooses to shine the light of his solution to the world in flesh-and-blood rather than in formulas-and-billboards.

God’s design is that through the church, even more than through original creation, his glory and wisdom should be demonstrated to a searching world and to the heavens! The mandate on the every person who knows Jesus is the most far-reaching and most awe-inspiring commission in the universe – to demonstrate to character and nature of God to all creation.
3) The WORD is THE WAY

Jesus is called the ‘Word made flesh’ in John’s Gospel. God’s being and God’s Word is inseparable. In God’s Word, his WAY is loving penned by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit for our life and joy. The Bible gives us God’s blueprint for life, the owner’s manual, the parameters within which we will either thrive or capsize in the challenging journey of life. His ways are to be lived out by us in the overflow of vibrant relationship with himself, in much the same way as the requirements of a marriage certificate are best lived out through the overflow of loving relationship between a husband and wife.
4) The WORLD is the WAY

The Way that Jesus has told us to go is essentially on a mission to people, rather than a mechanism to prosperity. God’s way is to ‘Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded.’

The WAY we are to go is to people, the world, who will come to know Jesus and live in such a way as to perpetuate and expand the knowledge of Christ through the Church with the demonstration of His Wisdom in everything.

So, in summary, God’s WAY is
His Christ, His Church, His Commands, His Commission

Heart-Change -> Behaviour-Change -> Situation-Change -> Exponential-Change
When we do things God’s Way,

1) we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, trusting no longer in our wisdom for our lives but rather trusting totally in His wisdom for our lives. Our hearts are changed, no longer hard and arrogant and self-sufficient, but rather humble and able to be changed by the Holy Spirit.
2) we are added to local churches. Our salvation is worked-out in corporate unity with other believers. With the same fervor that we commit to Christ, we commit to other believers. In growing in our relationship with Jesus and with others, we change in everything we do, to more clearly reflect the character of God. We apply what we learn to every area of our lives with an increasing passion to glorify God in everything - from who we are in secret, to who we are at home, at work, in the market place and in the social space.
3) we see the effects of God’s wisdom and grace in our lives. Galatians speaks of ‘the evidence of the grace of God’. The tangible and intangible fruit of God’s transformation should be evident in relationships, life, productivity and transformation in many areas.
4) we have a burning passion to share the Good News of Jesus with the everyone, everywhere – taking the wealth of what God has given us to fuel the extension of the Gospel into all the earth.