God Gives Advice Through Other People

CURRENT TEACHING SERIES Can You Hear Me Now?

God Gives Advice Through Other People By Rick Warren — Mar 1, 2015 “The godly give good advice to their friends; the wicked lead them astray.” (Proverbs 12:26 NLT) God speaks to you through friends and family, particularly if they are believers. Proverbs 12:26 says,“The godly give good advice to their friends; the wicked lead them astray” (NLT). We all have blind spots. You have things in your life that you’re never going to see that need to be corrected, so God puts people around you to tell you the truth. Everybody needs somebody in their life who loves them enough to tell them the truth. Do you have anybody like that in your life? Do you have godly friends who don’t just tell you what you want to hear but love you enough to level with you and say, “You know what? You’re blowing it right now. You’re making a big mistake. You’re full of pride. You’re going the wrong direction”? None of us see it all clearly. I’ve got about a dozen people in my life who have permission to get in my face and say, “I don’t care if you are the pastor of Saddleback — you’re blowing this. You’re wrong. Have you ever thought about ‘this’?” If you don’t have anybody in your life who loves you enough to do that, you need to find them. You also need to be that kind of person for someone else. Are you a friend like that to anybody? If you just let people get away with it when you see them going in the wrong direction and you don’t say, “What are you doing? Don’t you see what’s wrong with this?” then you have a problem. One of the primary benefits of a small group is feedback and counsel. These should be people who you get to know so well that you can trust them and give them permission to speak into your life and you have permission to speak into theirs. God wants to speak through you and use you to help others grow, but it takes courage. And God wants to speak through other people to you, but it takes humility. Some of you know somebody who is headed down the wrong path. They’re getting involved in an affair or some kind of an addiction. Or they’re walking away from the Lord. You can see it, and you have kept your mouth shut. You’ve used the 21st-century cop-out, “It’s none of my business.” It is your business if you love them. Love cares. Love says, “I love you enough to not let you do this. Don’t blow your life. I care enough about you to risk the relationship.” When you do that, God will speak through you. “Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy” (Proverbs 27:6). Talk It Over Why does it take humility for God to speak to you through other people?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKuuScgnlDE Who in your life can get in your face and tell you when you’re wrong? Why do you trust that person to give you godly advice? If there someone you need to confront with godly truth? What do you think is the best way to do this? Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 1:26     There is one large question that looms over the creation story: Why? Why did God create the material world, and create us in His own image? He had to make a decision to spend six days creating all of this, so what was His reasoning? I think that first and foremost, God created us for His pleasure. It pleases Him to have a relationship with us. It’s not that God was lonely. He has hosts of angels worshiping Him. And He is self-sufficient, so we don’t give Him anything He lacks. But God delights in having a relationship with us. I also believe that God made everything for His praise. The Bible states in many different passages that all of creation praises Him. Every man, woman, and creature praises God either here on earth or eventually in His presence at the gates of heaven. Besides His pleasure and His praise, God also made us for a specific purpose. The Bible says in Romans 8:28-29 that we were created and redeemed so that we might be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. I want you to keep this in mind today as you go about the activities of the day. Remember that the God of the universe desired so much to have a relationship with you that He created you to be like His own Son! Thank God today that you are known and loved by Him. You were created for the pleasure and praise of God; fulfill His purpose.