Guided by God's Eye

By Megan DeWitt

In the Old Testament, they were guided by the commandments, but Jesus said that God's going to write His law on our hearts.

There's a difference for my kids between them following the rules, and them having a heart to look to me and to do what I would desire them to do. Yes, they can do what I'm desiring them to do if they choose to follow the rules, but there's a difference between rule following, and their hearts being so submitted to me that what they do comes out of that place of looking to me to know what to do.

It doesn't mean that we don't do the things that He says to do, but it means that those are more of a measurement of how close my heart is to His heart. Instead of being a prescription where I don't have to be close to Him, and I just do what He says to do and then I can have my heart kind of far away from Him.

The Lord is bringing us to a place where our hearts are close to His heart, and sometimes, what I'm doing might not look like what He wants me to do. If so, that's a red flag to say, “I am not connected to Him. My heart is not close to Him.” So we can actually see where we're at.  

When we are guided by the list of rules only, and our hearts aren't close to His, we can think that we're aligned with Him, but there’s the verse that says, "These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me."  

We don't want to be a people that honor the Lord with our lips, and our hearts are far from Him.  

God's teaching us that He wants to guide us by His eye. Not following a list of the good to do, but instead following the One who is good, who leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. We have to trust that if we follow Him, He will lead us in the path of righteousness — but it's for His name's sake.

He will do it.  When we attach ourselves to Christ and abide in Him, we can trust that His life will produce life in us. It will produce fruit in us and fruit that remains.  The farmer knows not how.  

He Who began a good work that will bring it through to completion.  

This is not an action-less role on our part, just sitting and waiting. Goodness and mercy will follow me if I seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. He says “follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.” When He says “follow Me,” we’re the subject and what we do is follow. In the second part of that sentence (“I will make you fishers of men”) God is the one who is the subject and He's the one who's doing the action. In that part of the sentence, He says He's going to make us something — fishers of men.
   
He's the one who does the making.

It's for freedom that He has set us free, but we are guided more by rules and regulations than His eye.  Don't get me wrong. The law is a tutor that brings us to Christ.  

The freedom is in Him.  If I am in Him, I'm bounded by Him.  

We have been talking about alignment of heart and when our hearts are aligned with Him, our lives may not look perfect yet, but I can guarantee you that the things that He starts in us, He will bring them through to completion.

As we look to Him, we become more like Him.