Service and Discipleship God's Way!

As I was reading  today’s Oswald Chambers devotion of March 5, something that I read recalled to mind my post of February 28 entitled “What Is Disciplehsip?” which was a courtesy of the Ransomed Heart devotion book.  I am reminded how I used to find what I thought was joy as I worked for God. This kind of joy used to come with such great emotions of accomplishment and contentment accompanied with a tiny glimpse of pride, all of it was because I was being used by God to reach other souls. Personally, I felt I was living the Christian life. As God started dealing with me, I heard the call and it was such a great time for me. So much joy and serenity accompanied me day in day out as I kept singing “Here I am Lord, this is I, Lord, I have heard you calling in the night.” Once the experience subsided, there was complete silence from God. So once again, I started helping God by trying to get involved in ministry, thinking that I knew exactly what God was calling me for. I had encouragement through a pastor in my Church who wanted to use me in his ministry and he got me involved. Even though I was good at what I was doing, but I kept feeling the nudging of the Holy Spirit. While I could not understand what was wrong, but I certainly felt I was not quite following the path He had in mind for me. But in my stubbornness, and ignorance, not to mention the culture the Church has fostered when it comes to service to God, I felt, it was better to be doing something for God, than to be inactive. 

It was discouraging when God showed me that the pastor was not functioning in the Spirit, since I did not know God better, I still believed that I could make things work. Suffice to say that I found out the hard way that I was WRONG BIG TIME, because God always has a waiting and a training process. This training process comes directly from God and takes us through a period of time in the valleys, or ditches. This training will be directly related through those things that make up our lives, such as financial lost, personal tragedies, life changing moments and so on. Sometimes He uses the result of our own insecurities to get our attention and train us. No matter what, God uses to get us through His University, our soul will always identify with John Bunyan when he wrote The Ebb & Flow of Perception. John said “it seem strange that sometimes God visits his soul with wonderful blessed things. Yet sometimes, afterwards for hours at a time he is filled with such darkness that he could not even remember the comfort that had refreshed him before.”  

I learned through my training process with Him in the wilderness, those wonderful, blessed moments are there to strengthen us and also bless us. It also feels as if God is giving you a bonus, which is an extra dose of grace to see more of Him. The moments of darkness soon after, are there to test us, to work His life through us and to teach us. In those moments of darkness that your soul is soaking in, you have a very tiny idea what Christ’s agony in the garden of Gethsemane must have been like. Those moments of darkness, although extremely agonizing to the soul, build your character, take away your idea of what Salvation is about as your loyalty and understanding shift gears. They make you more spiritual and bring you much closer to God. Best of all, you realize through those dark times, how this Christian life and all that God has put in us through the regeneration process has been a deposit and He uses those moments of darkness and training to impart His life to you. 

The result is that, His life is no longer something dormant in you. You are infused and infected full blown with Salvation as you watch your heart being captured by Him. You know without a doubt that, Salvation is being worked out in you and right before your eyes, every word of the Bible is becoming alive and real within. You KNOW you will never be the same again. You KNOW that you know something other Christians on the sidelines cannot even begin to imagine, unless God takes them there too. Then all of the sudden, those words “FEED MY SHEEP” becomes your mission, your vision, your call, your reality and your very life. No one can take that away from you because your soul KNOWS what Gods KNOWS. Feed my sheep is not just about evangelism; it is not about discipleship, it is all that and much more. It is the Gospel that cost everything to God and Christ, it is a lifestyle and it is for Christians and unbelievers alike.

Christ is no longer a personal savior, He is no longer your master or something here and there. He is so much more as you are watching Him taking over your life as He merges His life with yours. The more He is merged with you, the more you wish He could swallow you up completely so that no trace of what used to be your life would remain. It makes sense because you have tasted something out of this world and you want to become HIM. Through this process, calling yourself His bondservant brings honour to you and it is the best thing you can have for now, until you see Him and serve Him up there. Without Christ becoming much more to us, we go on offering people something that we do not even possess for ourselves. We only have our empty words with our human emotions to convey what we are offering. Without knowing Christ in the depth of your soul and not truly knowing who you are offering to others, you find no problem manipulating people. You feel justified and have no shame in bribing and pushing people toward Christ thinking you are doing Him a service. 

I smiled today while I was reading what Oswald said in today’s devotion. I remember how much I did not understand the call and I was forcing things to work out instead of waiting for God, I was disappointed because I truly believe there was some sort of campaign of service with my name on. I never forgot how God brought me back to reality on March 5^th 2006 when I read this bit of today’s devotion. God was talking to me directly as I read “This does not imply that there is a campaign of service marked out for you.” By the time God put the implementation of the call on my life, in motion, I learn, if one did not learn loyalty to His cause which can only be acquired as He shares with one His corporate vision of Salvation, one would easily say no to the call.

One thing for sure, through this training, “FEED MY SHEEP” takes on new meaning because He equips you with the truth and boldness. Here, I am referring to the type of boldness that comes from being broken by Him, not the one that comes with arrogance because we are unbroken.  You gladly feed His sheep His way, because you know Him, then, you know there is no room for compromises. You learn to feed the sheep not with fancy footwork, but by calling things exactly like you see them.  When we do not know God enough, we have our own idea of what it means to say things in love, to a brother or a sister and we have our own idea what it means to encourage others. They come from a worldly interpretation. We translate those things with our own mind instead of the Spirit’s mind. Through the training, you learn when you feed God’s sheep, your loyalty to who God is and His requirements never leave you because you have been merged with Him. So, feeding His sheep becomes an opportunity to glorify God. 

As I learned to flip things around and make it about Him, I no longer get caught up in managing someone else insecurities and expectations. This is the Holy Spirit’s job. As I learned through my training with Him, it is utterly important to die to our own ambitions so that we no longer feel the need to please Him and do things for Him. As we die to ourselves, the Holy Spirit rises up and takes His place to move us to do things for Him. While what I said might sound weird, but it makes the difference between an offering in the flesh and in the Spirit. It makes a difference between what is accepted by God and what is not.  So, besides dying to self, we also need to keep walking in the Spirit. If these things are in place in our lives, then we need not to worry about peoples' expectations, insecurities and fragilities, because everything we do will flow out of Christ and from a place of Agape love. Christ Himself, will set the tone and touch the one who has ears to hear and glorify Himself through it all. 

Sadly, today’s Church model is way too busy doing things their ways to stop and smell the coffee. In a way I understand them, most Churches have become a business and a way for people to rise up in their career path. So, they have to keep bringing money in, and they have to keep bringing more bodies to fill up the pews, at any cost. Through it all they convince themselves God will sort things out because they are working for Him. Christ lived this earth and showed us how it was done. He was never after quantity, but quality. If God was after quantity, then there would not be a need for Salvation the way He put it forth, and everyone on earth would be a shoe-in right away.

As I compared the joy of doing things when I did not know God and the joy of doing things after getting closer to Him, these are completely two different kind of joy. One is man made with our own emotions and the need to somehow pat ourselves on the back. The other one is the Joy of the Lord that is brought on by faith, dependence, love, obedience and living a righteous life before Him for His Glory. It is Heavenly joy that’s why Oswald used the work “perfect fulfillment of that for which I was created and regenerated, not the successful doing of a thing”

Until We Are Broken, Our Lives Will Be Self-Centered

Right at the onset of my wilderness with God, He made it a point to break my will to His. Because I knew very well what the brokenness process was about and the difference between someone who is broken and the one who is not, I could not understand why God broke me so early in the process.  In addition, I was able to see with my spiritual eyes, several well known authors, pastors, even Christian Scholars who were not really broken in their walk with God. But they were so eloquent in their speeches. They knew so much about God and the history of all that was written in the Bible that one would never dare think they were not broken yet, unless the Spirit showed you. I needed answers so I decided to ask God, if it’s that important for my will to be broken until it becomes yours, then why is it so many Christians are so deep in their ministry before being broken by you?

The reader digest version of what God taught me is that according to His process, it is ideal that we are broken very early in our walk with Him, because it was easier to follow Him. But, if it cannot be done, because of our willingness to let Him do things in us, He proceeds with doing various things in our lives until this person is ready to accept the full process of brokenness which usually takes at least two years. (Anyone who has gone through the process knows about the length of it) God went a few steps further in showing many things about this issue. Such as, sometimes He takes matters into His hands if they are not getting it. He also taught me about how He restrains us once there is a tiny will in us. In any case, the one thing that remains so vivid in my heart is when He taught me, how those who force Him to change the process around, lose rewards in terms of the depth of how they experience Him right here on earth while we walk with Him. This does not mean that this Christian would not experience God, but it certainly means that they experience less of Him.

Do you know why this part of the teaching is so important and so vivid in my heart? Because my heart was getting conceited and God had to warn me to watch myself. As He warned me, I then learned, this “experiencing God thing” is also His grace at work, not of anything that I did  that made me better than someone else.

Here is the post by Ransomed Heart

Until We Are Broken, Our Lives Will Be Self-Centered

True strength does not come out of bravado. Until we are broken, our life will be self-centered, self-reliant; our strength will be our own. So long as you think you are really something in and of yourself, what will you need God for? I don't trust a man who hasn't suffered; I don't let a man get close to me who hasn't faced his wound. Think of the posers you know—are they the kind of man you would call at 2:00 A.M., when life is collapsing around you? Not me. I don't want clichés; I want deep, soulful truth, and that only comes when a man has walked the road I've been talking about. As Frederick Buechner says,

To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do—to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst—is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed. (The Sacred Journey)

Only when we enter our wound will we discover our true glory. As Robert Bly says, "Where a man's wound is, that is where his genius will be." There are two reasons for this. First, the wound was given in the place of your true strength, as an effort to take you out. Until you go there you are still posing, offering something more shallow and insubstantial. And therefore, second, it is out of your brokenness that you discover what you have to offer the community. The false self is never wholly false. Those gifts we've been using are often quite true about us, but we've used them to hide behind. We thought that the power of our life was in the golden bat, but the power is in us. When we begin to offer not merely our gifts but our true selves, that is when we become powerful.

Devotional and Practical Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes

"I said, 'I am determined to be wise' — but this was beyond me." Ecclesiastes 7:23

READER, how often have you, how often have I, experienced this! A greater one than you or I, expressed the same: "I have the desire to do what is good — but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing!" (Romans 7.) My soul, how is it? Within you dwells the Holy Spirit — the Lord of life and power. None can resist His will. And yet, the evil that is in you gains the day; strength becomes weakness; and wisdom is turned to folly.

Which is the greater wonder — that, being foolish, you are ever wise; or that, at times so wise, you ever should be foolish? How often, on your knees, you have seen the way so straight, the light so clear, God's grace so strong — that you have felt wisdom were your forever — that folly never would dwell in you again? And yet, my soul, what tales of after-folly have you had to tell!

In your better moments, wisdom is near; so near, that it seems a part and parcel of yourself; it seems the eye you see with, the ear you hear with, the air you breathe, the framework of your thoughts, the substance of your mind — your very being seems suffused with wisdom.

At other times, wisdom is far from you — so very far — as far as innocence from sin, as man from God, as earth from Heaven. In truth it is so. Wisdom has no part in you. Between you, and your better self, is fixed — an impassable gulf; an unmeasured breadth; an untold depth! On either side the gulf are you — and wisdom. On this side wisdom — on the other side are you.

Oh, what a mystery! Your days are spent on one side, or the other; either in wisdom, or in folly. Now flesh is uppermost, and now the Spirit — no union can there be between the two. Each moment of your life you live, either to yourself, or to God.

My soul, bless God for your experience; in mercy is it given. It is not for nothing that wisdom seems to elude your grasp — that

you have known the fitful nature of your frames and feelings:
the bitterness of broken purposes;
the flimsy nature of your best resolves;
the lightning speed with which sin comes between you and your vows;
the wondrous ease with which you pass . . .
from wisdom — to folly;
from thoughts of good — to deeds of evil;
from meekness, humility, and patience — to petulance and pride; from all the virtues of a saint — to all the sinfulness of fallen nature.

It is not for nothing that you are mortified — to see yourself so fickle, and so vile. It is to bless, to teach, to humble you — that when you would be wise, wisdom is far from you.

Why Does Paul Seemingly Ask For More Afflictions

Excerpt From The 3rd Chapter Of My Newly Released  Christian Book

 "Apprehended & Apprehending"

W

hen you really think about it, it appears that Paul’s desire in Philippians 3:10 to know God in the fellowship of His sufferings was a strange one. Since his life was already plagued with sufferings, why would he want more of it? This is the reality of being truly Christian. Paul’s desire is the fruit of his faith in Christ, His love for Him and part of the true meaning of working out your Salvation with fear and trembling. Before we can get to a real desire of the fellowship of His sufferings, we have to learn obedience to the point where suffering with Him and for Him becomes natural to us—as natural as it was for Christ to obey His Father! Jesus left Heaven and His position as His Son and made Himself a nobody for our sake and the glory of His Father. As His ministry advanced Christ said in Matthew 26:38

“…My soul is exceedingly sorrowful…”

While I have no doubt no one can ever experience the depth of His sorrow—not even Paul—mimicking Christ and Paul also means getting through this very path of suffering. Christ will decide the intensity of the sorrow in our soul. Scriptures made it clear to us that Christianity is about persecutions and afflictions. Christ could not say it clearer when He said in Mark 8:34,

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Paul also said in 2 Corinthians 1:5,

 “…we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ…" 

It is important to understand first of all that it is not our idea of what the cross might be  but Christ’s idea. The cross in this verse is simply Christ’s Cross we have inherited through our identification with Him. As we move forward with Him, the deeper we go, the more sufferings within our sufferings is to be expected if we wish to be prepared for His purpose in our lives. Paul is not just talking about sufferings in this realm. There is a kind of suffering that we go through within our suffering that is so heavy, we literally have a hard time walking and talking in this realm. We go on with a  heavy sorrow in the soul and it is not up to us to say when it is enough or when we get out of it. 

In the meantime God is having His way with our soul. We know beyond the shadow of a doubt that death is being worked in us—we are dying to self, inwardly, as we learn to take up the cross of Christ, not our man-made cross. This kind of sufferings can never be explained, only except experienced. There is no earthly pain to match it.  The first time I experienced this kind of pain was when I went through the biggest crisis in my life. My life was falling apart completely, and I was losing everything. Only then did God feel it was time to bring on that pain. Even though I was new to this kind of spiritual training and sanctification process, I  knew the sorrow in my soul was spiritual. After He confirmed that I was regenerated, He explained what the pain was about a few days later. This exceedingly heavy sorrow in my soul was Him dealing with my soul while using the Word as a double-edged sword. To that revelation I replied, “Wow! You made provisions for everything in the Bible!” It was that day He illuminated my mind to understand what He meant when He said, “His word will not return void.” I started understanding how precious each word in the Bible is to our soul and to our Salvation, here and now.

Amazon.ca has Apprehended & Apprehending on sale

Your Spiritual Life Matters To God!

Review of Apprehended & Apprehending - A Christian book

This review on Amazon captured my vision, my goal, the attitude, the motive of my heart and all that the book embodied!

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Revealing "Must Read" Book Concerning The Christian Church October 27, 2012

By Margaret Lukasik

Author M. J. Andre has just written this much needed commentary of the Christian church. It's also a loving contribution of self-help, that if followed, will apprehend the hearts of Christians to live their lives according to the work of Jesus Christ on the cross rather than the man-made doctrines floating about many of our churches.

Sadly, many Christians have been left on their own after salvation, not realizing that they've only taken the first step into God's will for their lives. They have yet to fulfill living the truth of God's Word and obeying the purpose for their lives that has been set for them by God since before the beginning of creation.

This very deep and sensitive information, written from the author's heart and His active knowledge of God's Word embraces the true doctrine of Jesus Christ, dispelling the idea that we can live Christianity by our own actions rather than identifying with Christ in order to achieve full confidence in who we are and what we can accomplish by the power of God.

So many Christians are left to take up their own cross by trying to achieve God's will through "self" instead of "denial of self" through Christ. As M. J. Andre so profoundly wrote in Apprehended and Apprehending, "we have to stop living as if Christ had never been resurrected and ascended to Heaven where He can see everything. Christ never meant for something as important as the foundation of our faith to be mere head knowledge. No wonder those that have assumed a position of growth without Christ have become so sinister when it comes to experiencing God.

I wish I could say that M. J. Andre was incorrect in stating that some Christians have become sinister. But I've seen it, I've been abused by it and I've made sure to stay in a position with Christ where I cannot be touched by it. We must remain close to Christ to avoid the influence of "ego" and "pride" and the damage they can do to the Christian church. However we learn through M. J. Andre's writing that with Christ we can walk with God through the power of humility by yielding to the complete truth of God's Word. This gives us the assurance that we'll be exalted in due time as told in 1 Peter 5:6 without having to go against God's will to move forward.

1 Peter 5:6
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.

Pride and ego can only lead us to our own conclusions for what path we'll take in life, but Apprehended and Apprehending gives us the antidote of humility that will take us from our own works to the power of the cross of Jesus Christ to insure that we follow God's will in it's entirety. We've been blessed with forgiveness, so we take it and then begin fresh with God this moment. This is not something we can intellectualize, but take only from a spiritual standpoint.

If you're questioning your salvation or your calling in life, I implore you to get more understanding from this powerful book that will help you approach the things of God not by your head, emotions or your body, but by your heart or spirit as you allow the living Word of God to transform and renew your life through Christ.

Please visit my site www.apprehended.ca and download the first 

chapter of this book for free

Or  go to Amazon to buy the book

A Child-Lile Attitude

The Scriptures say in Matthew 11:25 & Luke 10:21: "At that same time Jesus was filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit, and he said, "O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way.

 When I did not have intimacy with Christ yet, I assumed Jesus was referring to all of us His followers as those with child-like attitude. I assumed if you received Salvation, you automatically have a childlike attitude and those who make up the corporate Church could not be among the wise and prudent Christ was referring to. Knowing how a child-like attitude pleased God and even though I did not know what it meant to have a child-like attitude I set out to work on it, on my own. I recalled after the Holy Spirit asked me to surrender all that I am to Him, two major things happened to me inwardly. One was that He opened the eyes of my heart. The second one was the need to ask myself a very important question, something that was all of the sudden embedded in me. It was as if I knew what I was talking about yet I had no idea where this knowledge and wisdom came from. This nagging question was "why do I need to work out Salvation on my own, if He is the one who opened my eyes to see it when I was in pure darkness?" With a confidence, I knew the answer was, since you showed me when I was totally ignorant, then I can trust you to continue showing me more. But, make no mistake about that, it was hard to live out this revelation because when life sets in, you forget.

 It turns out that a childlike attitude is obtained through Him lavishing His grace on you. It is like you are watching yourself believing and walking with Him like a child. Not only you cannot stop yourself, but as time goes by, you get deeper and deeper into it. Through that, I learned the Church is filled with wise and prudent (it is almost like they are too smart for their own good). You see, the bigger is your God the more of a child you become.  The bigger is your God the more you are able to humble yourself before Him. You have no problem humbling yourself in front of man or God because you know there is a God and it is not you. 

When you acquire a child-like attitude, submission and obedience to God become natural to you because you have acquired an inner disposition that is not even yours. It is Christ's disposition toward the father that you are living out while abiding in your union with Him. There is no room for anything else in your life if it does not pertain to the light of God. Things have to be cleaned and nothing is hidden.

Of course this subject goes so much deeper than that, because God has to break you, cleanse you, teach you, you have to unlearn things you learned on your own, He has to take away your spiritual ignorance and so on. You can read more on the process in my book Apprehended & Apprehending". But, it is a process where you are learning to decrease while He increases, Through my surrender and complete submission to Him, I am amazed at how there is a Christianity that is completely automated and practical that we will miss out on if we insist on using only our intellect to provide people with explanations and definitions. The spiritual component is always reserved for the babes.

PRAY: Father I pray that you would teach us how to work out our salvation with fear and trembling without having to do it on our own, but through you in grace, faith, and dependence like babes. I pray that you would open the eyes of all those who have received your Salvation they can learn to see you, experience you and live for you alone my Lord, Savior Master & Redeemer! I love you daddy!

In His Agape Love & Service,

M. J. Andre

Click here to go to Amazon for a  copy of my book "Apprehended & Apprehending"