CHAPTER 1: PARTNERING WITH GOD 2026
Psalm 19, in these words: The Heavens are the telling of the glory of God, the expanse is declaring the work of His hands, the vastness of it. He’s the only explanation.
How do you partner with God? Am I smarter than God? No. What do I bring to the table for God? Nothing. Does God need me as a partner? No. Scripturally speaking, God does not need me as a partner. He is sovereign and self-sufficient (Acts 17:24-25). However, He deeply desires a relationship with me and you, inviting a voluntary partnership to fulfill His purposes on earth, treating you as a co-laborer (1 Corinthians 3:9) and a beloved child. Partnership with God requires personal, daily, voluntary submission (Proverbs 3:5-6). How do I do that if I’m not smart enough, good enough, and gosh darn it people don’t like me that much.
Well, I ask that question a long time ago and have been working on it ever since. First stop, I learn who God really is. That too, is impossible. How do I explain to myself this huge Almighty God.
I mean it’s easy to say, He’s smarter than me and bla, bla, but let’s really look at it. How much smarter than anything and everything. Here’s an example, huge, mega-huge, huge, huge example of God’s tapestry. I love this example, maybe you will, too.
Did you know that you are 1.6 million miles from where you were yesterday? You’re moving through the universe that fast. The earth spins on a 24 degree tilt, on its axis at 1000 miles an hour. Earth has an orbit around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour. Our sun and our solar system is part of a long orbit through space at 490,000 miles per hour. Where are we all headed? Nasa says we are headed for “the great attractor.” And “the great attractor” is 150 million light years away. One light year is 6 trillion miles. The “attractor” as measured by Nasa is a mass 100 quintillion times greater than the sun, a span of 500 million light years.
It is made of visible material and stretches to the edge of infinite darkness and all of that is moving. You’re moving, if you could even calculate it, at 250 miles a second in the direction of a collision course with the constellation Leo. Now, …the solar system at a half a million miles an hour is in an orbit that will take 230 billion years to complete because it goes around the Milky Way. How is it that we are sitting still with all that going on? You’re moving at exactly the same speed. What kind of genius figured that out? And, oh by the way, guess what, the atmosphere has to move at exactly the same speed. If any of that was slightly out of calculation by even an inch, the Earth would spin out of control into the vastness of space and be destroyed or would’ve never been in the first place. Now, let’s read the following scripture and it may have a little more “gravity,” so to speak.
Psalm 19, in these words: The Heavens are the telling of the glory of God, the expanse is declaring the work of His hands, the vastness of it. He’s the only explanation.
Okay, how do I partner with God? This chapter used to be called, “making money with God.” In a lot of ways it’s easier to understand that title but it wasn’t entirely. First off, I had to lose nearly my life to understand that I didn’t understand anything. Key point. To accept and embrace that what I have done before partnering with God doesn’t amount to anything. I believed in God. Still, what I had done did not amount to a hill of beans. First, know this, these chapters are about believers only, non-believers don’t care, even if they believe in God. If you don’t believe in God, these 50 chapters are pointless, so how can I believe in God and fail completely, nearly costing me my life? Good question. The question of the hour for sure. Well, the point is, I can fail believing in God, so believing is not enough to partner with God, it might be enough to make some money, but you see, I can do that and not believe in God, at least for awhile, maybe longer. People do it all the time. So.., what is it that crosses over into partnership with God? First step, believing is not enough. Second step, there are two roads for a believer, a fool and Wisdom. Oh yea, a believer can walk their whole life with their “bestie” Freddie Foolishness. And where is Wisdom all this time?
Proverbs 1:20, “Out in the open wisdom calls aloud, she raises her voice in the public square; on top of the wall[a] she cries out, at the city gate she makes her speech: “How long will you who are simple love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? Repent at my rebuke! Then I will pour out my thoughts to you, I will make known to you my teachings.”
Okay. She’s there. Wisdom is available to you and me. Are we deaf, dumb and blind to it? Was I? How could I not see it, when morons in the bible could see it? Simon the magician was a trickster, a bamboozler, he witnessed the apostles “laying on of hands,” healing people and it blew his mind. He offered money to obtain the power so he could sell the service to his customers. Simon was nothing and he saw “partnering with God” in the apostles. And he was nothing more than just a guy, a fool, but he saw it.
Acts 8:18-20 When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money 19 and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!
Okay, more information. Money can’t buy it, either. Believing is not enough, money is not enough. I work everyday and that is not enough. I am grateful and that is not enough. What is enough? My first real prayer to God, I remember. “I do not know what to do with what you’ve given me, you show me and I’ll do it, put it in front of me and I will do it.” He answered that prayer and has everyday since. What’s that you say? Do I now understand? Did I stop making mistakes? No. Did I fail? Yes, temporarily, many times and still to this day. With his help, I continue to prevail.
Okay, so what is the bridge, what is the connection, what is Partnering With God? Nothing I have will honor such a partnership, then what did I pray and what happened when He honored it? Here is more information. Obedience. Is that enough? Not enough if you don’t understand…, let’s keep going.
Jeremiah 1:17, and verse 19 – “But you, dress yourself for work;[a] arise, and say to them everything that I command you.”
(Verse 19) “They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the Lord, to deliver you.”
“Everything I command you.” Partnering with God: Fellowship with God, Obedience to God, structure, commitment. We know that, His way, not my way, still the answer is not clear, right? Keep going.
To be Delivered from the hands of fate, into the hands of destiny.
Jeremiah 6:16 This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
You see, people have been offered the partnership and declined. What if they don’t decline? More information.
Joel 2:25-32 “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,
If you are a person reading these notes for the first time, your life is in the balance. If you have heard this lesson more than once, you are a Traveler, and the Lord is in you, and He has given you many gifts to be used for Kingdom work and you are aware of something you were not aware of before in your life. There is no other work for a Believer than partnering with God. Believe that and know there is a right way and a wrong way. Still I needed the one straight sentence to help me see my responsibility. I looked to Paul.
Galatians 1:11-13 New I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
Deuteronomy 6:6-8 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Luke 16:10 “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.
Yes, yes, I know these scriptures, but again, my partnership is part and parcel of all of them, but how do I serve the partnership, still there is nothing for me to offer. Obedience is the word, then what is the action to seal the deal? A promise? Promise to obey? Okay, to obey what, how do I know what to do? Scripture says about a promise to God, best you take it serious.
Ecclesiastes 5:4-20 “If you make a promise to God, don’t be slow to keep it. God is not happy with fools, so give God what you promised. 5 It is better not to promise anything than to promise something and not do it.”
Genesis 4:6-8 “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”
Failure here does not look good. I continue to investigate a promise to God that must be accurate. First I discovered promises made that were not kept. Unfortunately, there are those who make the promise, and failed. Will I fail? Will I know? Have I tried and failed to partner with God? Am I now a product of …
Proverbs 26:11 As a dog returns to its vomit,
so fools repeat their folly.
Chapter 1, Partnering with God. “Help me know, my Father, what is the direction, tell me. Speak in parables if you must?”
John 15:5 (NIV): “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
Okay, truly I’m knowing that making up a God who loves me and accepts me the way I am is not the God in the book. People do it all the time and I’ve come far enough to know, that’s a terrible idea. I have to make changes in my life to follow Christ. In the changes am I partnering with God?
True acceptance is paired with a calling to follow Jesus and turn away from a lifestyle of disobedience (Luke 6:46, James 2:17).
Ephesians 4:14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
Again, I know, I’ve read, I’m exhausted with the how? I am afraid, again, people who made the promise and failed. As the stories told, David’s Sin (2 Samuel 11-12): King David, known as a “man after God’s own heart,” committed adultery with Bathsheba and arranged the murder of her husband, Uriah. What hope do I have when David fails. Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1–11): lied to the Holy Spirit about the price of a piece of property they sold, pretending to give all the proceeds to the church and then keeping much of it for themselves. Dishonesty killed them both. Oh, wow.., there but for the grace of God go I. The Golden Calf (Exodus 32): Following their liberation from Egypt, the Israelites created a golden calf to worship, many died worshipping this false god. Three thousand the bible says, God’s wrath for his chosen people. Again, I’m going to fall short, right?
You see, all these guys believed they were partnering with God. They “thought.” Key word. “Thought.”
Thomas Payne, a leading atheistic writer cried out, “O Lord help. me! Christ, help me! For I am on the edge of Hell here alone. If ever the devil had an agent, I have been that one.”
Perhaps I give up, is God even real? Bad thought. People have died with that thought and I have studied them as well. Terror strikes me as I read the stories of atheists on their death bed realizing the mistake they’ve made all too late.
On his death bed, Dave Hume, a famous atheist/philosopher, cried out, “I am in flames!” In death, Sir Francis Newport, the leader of an English Atheist club cried out, “You need not tell me there is no God for I know there is one, and that I am in His presence! You need not tell me there is no hell. I feel myself slipping there. Wretches, cease your idle talk about there being hope for me! I know I am lost forever! Oh, that fire! Oh, the insufferable pangs of hell! Anton LeVey, the famous author of the “satanic bible”, cried out, “oh no, oh my, what have I done, there is something very wrong, there is something very wrong..”
Revelation 21:8, But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”
How to settle down with all this? Hard to do, but a good challenge and well within the boundaries of a loving God watching over me. And suddenly things start clearing up. All those guys didn’t have Jesus, including David, Ananias and Sapphira, the Israelites and the calf, all the atheists. Christ had not died on the cross yet in the Old Testament and the atheists simply didn’t take the deal Christ offered. Okay, good information, but who has successfully partnered with God. I’m still struggling. Who partnered with God perfectly? Who is my example and how do I know it can be done?Well, on goes the lightbulb as they say. Christ. Jesus Christ partnered with God. Period. Great, I’m not Jesus, and how do I know that you can partner with God based on Jesus Christ? I’m a idiot on two feet. Well, turn to scripture and let’s just start with Jesus as the example.
The Supreme Authority: While equal in nature, Jesus recognized the Father as greater in role, stating, “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28) and that the Father directs all things.
Perfect Unity: Jesus stated, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) and “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), indicating that He perfectly reveals the Father’s nature, character, and love.
Matthew 6:9 “…Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.”
Jesus is yielding to the Father. Finally the biggest example?
Matthew 26:39..
39Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
There it is. I’m not smart enough to know what God had planned for me, before time itself and even if I could know, I’m not capable of achieving it. For me to experience my destiny, the partnership with God is offered and what is required of me is total stewardship, absolute slavery to Christ to be His assistant in the creation of my life, …right in front of my face as evidence by Christ’s own obedience to the Father. So, now I pray? Yes “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done”
Luke 22:42 “Jesus, my Lord, Will I, with the free will awarded to me, choose to let you, completely run my entire life, every decision, every thought and every action being nothing more than your assistant, your slave to my own life?”
Can I do that? In Partnering with God, that is the offer and that is what is on the table and that is what Christ on the cross has allowed me to stumble through one day at a time.
There used to be a television show a long time ago, it was called Romper Room and it was for children. At the end of the show, the teacher would take a round hoop and look through it like it was magic camera and say, whose birthday is it today? Then she would look through, like she could suddenly see people, and say, “I see, Bobby and Billy and Janet and Fred and Alice..” Every birthday kid watching was waiting to hear his or her name.
How about if I do the same, “who partners with God, starting today…” I see “Johnny and Brenda and Susie and Donnie and Jackie and Nathan and Bob Magilicutty and many, many more including you.” Chapter 1, Partnering with God 2026. Nobody can do it until they can do it. The only way to do it, that I have found, is the prayer.
“I will, with the free afforded me by God, I choose you, Jesus to completely run my entire life and I ask that I be nothing more to you than your assistant, your slave in the building of my own life? I want no say in the matter. Only in this way will I ever see the Original BluePrint you have declared for me and then serve You with what you have made in me. In Jesus Name only can I do anything including this prayer…”
Amen
