“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”, declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  (Isaiah 55:8-9)

One of the greatest needs of God’s people has been and always will be godly perspective which could be defined as “understanding the times and knowing what to do.” (1 Chronicles 12:32) or “seeing what the father is doing.” (John 5)
Too often we assume that God is a God of habit with a regular weekly routine and His ways for us are always predictable. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Consider Paul’s second missionary journey with Silas when they were jailed in Philippi after delivering a slave girl from an evil spirit. (Acts 16) While they were singing and praying to God in jail a violent earthquake shook the prison, and the prison doors flew open. When it was daylight Paul and Silas were released after it was found out that they were Roman citizens. The power of God had miraculously been at work setting them free.

Some ten years later Paul was again in prison in Rome, but this time God had a different agenda and plan for him. There would be no earthquake or prison doors flying open, for he wrote in his letter, “that I am put here for the defence of the gospel. What has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel.” (Philippians 1:10,12)
Paul’s imprisonment this time helped him to advance the gospel among the palace guards. (Philippians 1:12-13) It caused the Christians in Philippi to overcome their fear and courageously share the gospel (Philippians 1:14-18) and even if he died, Paul could say that this too would be gain for, “to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21)

Just think, if there had been a prayer meeting for the purpose of releasing Paul out of jail, not knowing that Paul had been put there with specific purposes in mind. God’s ways are not always our ways, so beware of assuming.

The story of Philip is another example where it would have been quite possible for Philip to assume upon God and in doing so fail to align himself with God’s higher ways and the advancement of the gospel to another nation. Acts chapter 8 is a helpful reference to God’s higher ways. It was because of a great persecution that broke out against the church in Jerusalem that all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria, with amazing results.
“Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. Philip went down to a city and preached the Messiah there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralysed or lame were healed. So there was great joy in that city.”  (Acts 8:4-8)

I wonder if Philip may have considered the possibility of settling for a period of time in this town to establish a strong foundation with the great crowds that had responded to his preaching ministry. That would seem to be the obvious thing to assume. But we then read that God intervened by way of an angel who came to Philip and said to him, “Go south to the road – the desert road – that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (Acts 8:26)

It didn’t take long for Philip to learn that God’s ways are not always our ways. On the surface it didn’t seem logical for Philip to go from a city where he had been powerfully used to preach the gospel to great crowds, to travel along a lonely desert road to encounter a solitary Ethiopian who had gone to Jerusalem to worship God.

It didn’t seem logical except that this Ethiopian man was a high-ranking official in the Queen of Ethiopia’s government, and he happened to be reading from the scriptures which led to Philip telling him about the good news of Jesus and then baptising him.

And so, the great commission of Jesus “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8) was rapidly unfolding, because Philip never assumed what seemed logical to assume. Instead, he was obedient to the prompts of God through an angel that took him from a city in revival to a deserted dusty road to meet a man with a prepared heart who would take the gospel to his country.

In Romans chapter 4:18-21 Paul writes about the amazing story of Abraham and Sarah, who didn’t assume and got to experience how God’s ways were higher than their ways and this time at a very old age.
“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead – since he was about a hundred years old – and that Sarah’s womb was dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had planned.”

Paul and Philip and Abraham and Sarah teach us – Don’t assume…..God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours.

The practice of not assuming God’s ways is a timely reminder for us to beware of not making decisions based on :

• LOGIC for God’s ways are often far from logical, particularly when we are required to walk by faith and not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7)
• TRADITIONS for Jesus warned against putting the new wine of the Holy Spirit into old wineskins. (Matthew 9:17)
• WORLDLY WISDOM “for the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight.”
  (1 Corinthians 3:19)
• PRECEDENCES – Paul’s different experiences in jail confirm this.
• SELF INTEREST for “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Not only is it important not to assume of God and His ways, but it is equally important not to assume who is the person God uses. It has been my experience to see how God takes ordinary people who make themselves available to Him in order to do extraordinary things. It is a person’s availability more than their ability that God is looking for. “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10)

A.W. Tozer said, God is looking for those with whom He can do the impossible. What a pity it is when we plan only the things we can do by ourselves.”
I have learned to never assume that God can’t use a person because that person, in his/her own strength, lacks the ability to make an impact for God. In fact, it is often that we find as Paul did that the Lord’s power is made perfect in weakness for it is when we are weak, then we can be strong. (2 Corinthians12:14)

Paul told the Corinthians, “I came to you in weakness in great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.”  (1 Corinthians 2:3-4)

Without God’s power, it would have been possible to assume that Paul was ill equipped to fulfill his calling. On another occasion he said of himself to the Corinthians, “For some say, ‘His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speech amounts to nothing.’” (2 Corinthians 10:10)

Peter and John suffered from a similar weakness as Paul. It was only when they were weak that they were strong because it was then that they learned to speak in the power of the Holy Spirit. Following their release from a time in jail after preaching in Jerusalem it was reported, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realised that they were unschooled ordinary men, (the original language can be interpreted, ‘ungrammatical idiots’) they were astonished and took note that these men had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13)

Thank God that when He calls a person, He equips and gifts a person for that calling. When God called Moses at the burning bush, Moses responded, “I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” To which God replied, “Who gave human beings their mouth? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who give them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.” (Exodus 4:10-12)

Time and again God’s purposes in the events of this world and in the lives of His chosen servants require us not to assume, for God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours. For it is God who is the sovereign Lord of our world and our lives and it is God who does not necessarily call the qualified, for He is able to qualify (equip) the called.
“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him.” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29)

Soon after Sue and I were married, we received an unexpected phone call from a pastor in another state who felt led to invite us to resign our jobs, leave our home and families and come and join his ministry team as pastor of youth and young adults. I told him that we had our future lives planned and that we were honoured that he called us, but that we could not accept his invitation. Amazingly, four months later we contacted this pastor and shared how God had clearly spoken to us about accepting this call in spite of the fact that I had received no formal training and had limited experience in ministry and preaching. One morning in my daily devotions, God spoke to me about our life’s purpose as I read Colossians 1: 28-29;
“He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.”
I had wrongly assumed! I hadn’t considered that God’s thoughts and ways could be higher than ours. I hadn’t reckoned with the possibility that God takes ordinary people who make themselves available to Him so that he might do extraordinary things in and  through them.

Ever since that day God has had all of us that there was to have and has used us in a life that has been above all that we could have ever imagined, a life that has taken us all over the world to equip a generation of people. And He has not finished with us yet. Our writing ministry is still equipping leaders in a number of nations.

I close with five steps to living a DON’T ASSUME life, that are taken from an article I wrote called, The AEIOU of Living Your Life Like Jesus.

To live a DON’T ASSUME life ………

A     Be AVAILABLE by surrendering your life to God and being unconditionally available  to Him.

E      Be EXPECTANT and sensitive to the prompts of the Holy Spirit even if they are unpredictable, illogical and even intrusive and confronting.

I       Communication with God flows out of a growing relationship of INTIMACY with Him.

O     Following the prompts will require you to walk by faith and take steps of unconditional OBEDIENCE knowing that God has a right to interrupt your life whenever He chooses to.

U     As we experience God at work in our lives we grow in our UNDERSTANDING of God’s character which results in an ever-deepening relationship of trust and intimacy with Him.
I close with the words of Jesus who was questioned by the Jewish leaders when He healed a man who had been disabled for 38 years.
“Jesus replied, ‘My Father is always at His work to this very day and I too am working …….The Son can do nothing by Himself; He can only do what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does. Yes, and He will show Him even greater works than these.’”
(John 5:17, 19-20)

In doing this Jesus is saying to us ……….

DON’T ASSUME – GOD’S THOUGHTS AND WAYS ARE HIGHER THAN YOURS.

And it all began for us, when the leader of the largest Baptist Church in Australia,
DIDN’T ASSUME.