Psalms 78:41 – Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.

Psalms 81:12 – So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels.

We often limit God’s power in our life through unbelief just like the children of Israel.  God knows we are flesh and frail.  Sometimes God is just looking for a little mustard seed of faith, a little smoking flax, a little ember of life, for us to move forward.  According to this verse the main way we limit God is by turning back to our old ways.  One way we turn back is trusting the arm of the flesh to get us through.  Sometimes it is easier to use worldly methods and just pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and move forward rather than take the time, effort, and humbling required to get a hold of God and have him carry us through.  His yoke is a lot easier than our yoke.

When we turn back and tempt God with our fleshly ways, we are limiting God’s blessing and provision in our lives.  Wanting God’s blessing is not carnal or lustful.  God’s blessing will not please the flesh.  It will have a spiritual component.  We do not want to limit what God can do like the children of Israel did.  They provoked God in the desert with desiring the things in Egypt they just left.  They could not see that God was going to bless them far greater than what they had in Egypt.  However, because of their carnal nature, they could not wait on God’s blessing to come in the promise land.  They wanted some meat and they wanted it now.

That is how we as Christian’s are.  We are not willing to wait on God’s provision and blessing.  As a result, it often does not come.  Because of our carnal impatience, we limit what God can do in our lives.  God then sends quail in the place of blessing and our carnal desires are fulfilled, but it comes at the price of God’s judgement.  God then has to withhold what he planned on giving us if we just would have submitted to his will.  We, through our dumb decisions made in the flesh, limit what God intended to give us.  When we walk in our own counsels or decisions, God let’s our own hearts lust win out.  We then have to live with those decisions.  Sometimes that is worse than God raining down fiery judgment.

Make sure you don’t react in the flesh.  You need to be prayed up today and ask God that he help you to control your heart and mind, that he would let the Spirit have control, and that he would manifest the fruit of the spirit in your life.  You want to make sure that you do not limit God!