Don't stop God's plan for you.
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Don't stop God's plan for you. When God speaks, respond first by listening. Stay perceiving and stop any premature evaluation of what His words might lead to. Or else you run the risk that a tender spiritual seed will die.
After listening fully you must overcome fear. Fear comes by considering the absurdity of what the revelation might look like if it were to become reality. I can even now hear the words of the reasonable mind whispering to some and insisting to others, "It's impossible that God could be asking me to do this? I've deceived myself. Isn't this wishful thinking or fantasy?" Resist this natural and normal reaction to the supernatural suggestion. And unless you resist, I'm certain that nothing new, dramatic, or untested will happen. Tasks, assignments, projects, and initiatives of God's oftentimes defy logic and reason at their beginning.
After fear you must pass the test of obedience. Obedience requires a deeper commitment level than the disciplines of listening fully to God and not listening to the voice of fear. Obedience means there's the possibility to choose something else beside what God has spoken to you. And you can be sure that this "something else" is a lot more comfortable to do than what God's path asks of you. Yet the more I've experienced God using me to advance His kingdom, the more I'm convinced that the most crucial part of having spiritual success is being obedient. Are you willing?

42. The whole realm of heaven is open to us at all times.
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The whole realm of heaven is open to us at all times. God never withholds any revelation though at times He might ask us not to look or listen. An employee, doesn't expect their boss to tell them everything that's going on in the company. They expect to hear those things that the boss feels are relevant to their jobs and tasks at hand.
Jesus came as servant to His master, God. Everything that God told Him to do, He did. Obedience is the appropriate response of a servant to their master's orders. Yet Jesus desires a different relationship with us – He is both an intermediary to God and a friend. He's clear about this: He is not running the show, God is. We are at the same time servants of God and friends of Jesus. We hold two simultaneous yet different relationships with God in His fullness.
God is our master. He is not our employer. Yet at the same time, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are both our master and friend too. The comforter, the Holy Spirit, promised to give us full disclosure of the heart of God. With this possibility lay a great call to obedience. Because all has been opened to us, we must know when not to listen to the voice of revelation. The crux is knowing when to shut off hearing. It can only be learned in your prayer closet.

Breaking bad habits.
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Breaking bad habits. Habits are learned behaviors--the automatic doing of something without thinking about it. They take time to form and lots of hard work and time to break. Typically, habits form and are broken by the will--our decision making organ.
Spiritual habits add another quality to our definition--the power of God. This is not just an abstract conception. Habits birthed under an anointing of God's Spirit are tangibly different from natural habits. Spiritual habits contain the same power that created the universe and have the capacity to free us from any bondage caused by a bad natural habit.
God's desire for us is continual growth, an upward trend toward the spiritual, a deepening daily walk and personal maturation. All who desire a deeper spiritual experience must form new spiritual habits and break old soulish ones. We recognize bad habits by considering whether something or someone has too much control over us. Perhaps it is our appetite or the way we respond to those who love us. These habits of the soul compel reaction; we find ourselves doing the very things that we've decided we don't want to do. Most find their desire to break a bad habit insufficient to bring victory. Our hope is simple. We overcome the bad, not by battling it, but by adding the good. I've found there's only so much room inside your will that's allotted for habits. If you form a sufficient number of new spiritual habits, the old soulish ones vanish--displaced because there's no place left for them. Try it.

71. Vain words, vain speaking.
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Vain words, vain speaking. Vain speaking is calling something useless that has use. The most important example of this is "taking the name of the Lord in vain." The meaning of this expression has largely been lost to us. As we've devalued the spiritual and overvalued the natural, we've forgotten that God is the Creator of the universe. He made everything and today continues to uphold the creation by His magnificent power.
We easily understand the vain person to be one who thinks too much of themselves or their appearance. Yet vanity's original meaning of a thing or person being of no use, value, or importance can speak volumes to us. If you take God's name in vain you've committed a grave error because in essence, you're saying that God is not God, or at least He's no more powerful than any other elemental thing or spirit.

The supreme sacrifice
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The supreme sacrifice. Jesus tells us it is the man who lays down his life for a friend. Consider the preciousness of a gift, that unlike others, can never be repaid in kind. Yet history teaches that even such selfless acts can be monstrously corrupted.
Behind every suicidal terrorist is a handler who places the value of their own cause or creed above the value of the life of their victims. Ends justifying means – even deadly ones. I've no doubt that both terrorist and handler believe in the rightness and justice of their cause. Yet in any conflict with bloodshed, there is ultimately only one right party. I'm not saying they're perfect, but rather that there is a side of good and a side of evil. And God alone knows which side is which. Yet His past actions and future desire is something entirely different: He is not willing that any should perish ... so too should we.

A narrow gate.
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A narrow gate. An image appears in my mind -- a narrow gate on a hot summer day. Intense rays of sunshine beat down upon an unruly crowd. I see a sweat-drenched mob trying desperately to make it through the small opening between the gate's iron bars. Beyond it lay a peaceful, oak-lined, wide road. I understand that only a few fortunate ones will make it for there are far too many people for the width of the narrow passageway. I feel the shoving, hear the screaming ... and sense the panic.
Pondering the image, I know inside that this gate is about last chances. There's only one way out of this mess – go through the gate. Next, I hear an announcement: "The gate will shut in five minutes." What I thought was chaos now turns into a full-scale riot. I see the worst of humanity played out in raw efforts to survive. Terror in people's faces betray what they've always known: this unique gate, once shut, will never open again.

Will you go: The immense difference between theory and practice.
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Will you go: The immense difference between theory and practice. It seems that our excuses begin the moment God actually asks us to go somewhere new or do something we've never before done. Our usual first reaction says, "I can't go now. Maybe later when this project ends." Next comes doubt, "Did I really hear from God? Perhaps I'm confusing His voice with the excitement of the moment."
Yet I'm convinced that before He calls, most believe they'd react differently. They say of themselves, "Of course I'd go if I heard God Almighty speak to me." Right now, God is calling many to that new place yet few will answer and take action. Why? Because there's a vast difference between what we think we'd do and what we'd actually do. For most, our good spiritual intentions are a wish later proved by our lack of response to be far from reality. God's call demands a spiritual weighing not an earthly one. If you use His decision-scale, the weight you assign to spiritual revelation, vision, and calling must far exceed that of the demands and cares of your daily life. Answer God's call. Today it is available, perhaps tomorrow it will be gone.

Disruption is the shaking of the commonplace leading to the possibility of change.
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Disruption shakes the commonplace happenings of life and leads to the possibility of change. Unlike those sociologists who believe that man's nature progresses or evolves forward through disruption-induced change, I fail to see where history supports that mankind has progressed.
Yet there is good in it. For without disruption's seed the status quo remains entrenched. Disruption is the soul cry of the revolutionary but not the spirit cry of the true follower of Jesus. In revolution, society's foundations are shaken, often resulting in destruction and death. What the revolutionary plans as a strategy or tactic, the true follower understands as an unfortunate consequence of obedience to the promptings of God. In either case, that the sword will come is certain, yet the spiritual one is grieved to see its appearance. Only a callous soul would argue against mourning being the appropriate response to the devastation that typically follows the challenging of the status quo.

To compare is to err.
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To compare is to err. Many years ago, a bunch of people were boasting that they had been brought to faith by the great Apostle Paul. Others argued that their status was higher than these because their connection was with one more notable. Sound familiar? People certainly haven't changed much in nearly two thousand years regardless of their differences in culture or geography. Why? Because it is within human nature to compare. Yet God has a different way for us. All of us are naturally separated from God: This is the great equalizer of mankind. Standing before God, all are the same, whether famous or obscure, wise or simple. We are born naked with no possessions and it is certain that we shall die in the same manner.
I contend that it is absurd to live by an earthly standard that regards the distinctions people make as the penultimate--everything. Status is a transient myth kept alive by the powerful who use it to distinguish between the haves and the have-nots. Let's give it what it deserves: no place in our thinking, feeling, or living.