On the 10 of January, 2013 I mentioned in my post that “we are living in a
time where anyone can be a pastor or teacher, because they feel like it or they
want to work for God.” This post will shed some lights on my comments. A short time after I entered the wilderness with God, I
heard the call like Isaiah did. Strangely, God called me at a time where I was
dealing with one of the biggest crisis in my life. It was also amazing to see
how my crisis did not matter. This personal call from Him brought pure joy and ecstasy
to the soul. When the vision and visitation stopped, I was back to myself, I
not only had the joy of what I experienced, but I also had a burning and
passionate desire and need to get involved in evangelism and saved souls.
Everyone around
me interpreted my passion as a need to go "now"…. Act on it now… God has spoken,
there is no need to wait, and you have your orders. I did not want to be
disobedient to God, so I started doing the preparation to go. Something was
terribly wrong inside of me as I started preparing to go. There was such a deep
sense of sadness within and if I had talked to anyone else they would have told
me that it was the work of Satan. I will spare you the details of what happened next. Suffice to say,
the sadness I felt was my moving forward to complete the vision on my own,
caused the Holy Spirit to grieve.
There were
times I was so disappointed with the waiting process that I wanted to take
matters into my hands. It turns out my interpretation of the call had nothing
to do with God’s interpretation. If I did not wait for Him, I would have been a
missionary overseas, thinking that I am doing something awesome for God. Yet, I
would have been out of His will for me. God wanted me right here in North America to deal with lost souls right in the
Church. At one point, I was disappointed that my calling was not for lack of a
better word “a bigger deal”. As I get to know God more and more I realize the
smallest and the most menial tasks has great values in God’s eyes, if
accomplished through Him.
In fact, to
help me through the waiting process after years in the wilderness, God had to
show me how someone working all his or her life on the mission field might not
be as pleasing to Him as someone doing the most menial task. He told me point
blank, “I would prefer that you work with me for three years than
having you work for me for twenty years.” He showed me the impact of
a lifetime spent working for Him is basically wasted away. The only nuggets
that He can use, are when He uses the person like He uses Satan to reach His
elects. –- Strangely, He showed me, even
when He uses someone in this manner, this does not mean he or she is not saved and that was not up to me
to interpret it in this manner. –- In this vision, He shared things that I could never share with any
human beings, and He did not have to tell me, I knew they were meant for me
alone. But keep in mind this vision did not happen until God called me a friend
of His. Notice I did not say I called Him friend, because He let you know when
you reach the friendship threshold. On a side note, when God really calls you a friend,
it comes with that built in awareness that He is not really your “buddy” so His
friendship will never cause you to lose your reverence for Him.
As I waited for
Him to make me one with Him, I not only understood even though the call is not close to what I thought it would be, I delight in doing His will. I also found out, a big chunk of the way He
wants to use me is through prayer, so He trained me to become a prayer warrior.
Prayer has no barriers when we walk in the Spirit and it has no borders. I also learned, when we are set to do His
will above all else, we do not have to worry about missing out on anything. If
there is an emergency, if we have to go right away, on the spot, He will let us
know. While we are rushing to complete what is really “just a stirring in our
hearts” we rush ahead of Him with an attitude that it is our job to complete
what He started, so we forge the path. In reality, in God sight, that is
disobedience, lack of trust, lack of reverence and lack of walking in the
Spirit.
Sadly, some of
us have gone so far ahead of Him, we have spent so many years being in the
wrong fields, and some have been so financially successful in a field that He
really did not choose, i.e. those building their television and books empires,
we cannot go back. So we lie to ourselves, and convinced ourselves that He will
be happy with it…….Wrong! Just the fact that we say it is His mandate does not
make it so.
I am leaving
you with Oswald Chambers devotion for today which complement this post!
The Voice of the Nature of God
When we talk about the call of God, we often forget the most important thing, namely, the nature of Him who calls. There are many things calling each of us today. Some of these calls will be answered, and others will not even be heard. The call is the expression of the nature of the One who calls, and we can only recognize the call if that same nature is in us. The call of God is the expression of God’s nature, not ours. God providentially weaves the threads of His call through our lives, and only we can distinguish them. It is the threading of God’s voice directly to us over a certain concern, and it is useless to seek another person’s opinion of it. Our dealings over the call of God should be kept exclusively between ourselves and Him.
The call of God is not a reflection of my nature; my personal desires and temperament are of no consideration. As long as I dwell on my own qualities and traits and think about what I am suited for, I will never hear the call of God. But when God brings me into the right relationship with Himself, I will be in the same condition Isaiah was. Isaiah was so attuned to God, because of the great crisis he had just endured, that the call of God penetrated his soul. The majority of us cannot hear anything but ourselves. And we cannot hear anything God says. But to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed.
Courtesy of http://utmost.org/
Click the link here: because tomorrow's devotion is equally important to this post
No comments:
Post a Comment