UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER, PART 3 - PASSION FOR THE MISSION

What are your motives for ministry? A good friend of mine was telling me recently how he went from unsaved skeptic to fired up leader for Jesus Christ, being now, on a variety of media just going full bore with the Gospel of Life. When he was in college, a well-known fire and brimstone evangelist at the time visited the church, to which my friend was invited. 

At this time, my good brother was close to giving his life to Christ, but if he was not at the very door of salvation, he would have walked away from the Church. This preacher proceed to hit him over the head with the Bible, telling him he would be going to hell now, if he didn't say "the Prayer". Obviously, if the preacher's tactics had worked, he would have a good story to tell at this next stop, to make HIMSELF look good to the people listening.

This is absolutely not biblical and wrong way for the surrendered Christian to evangelize and make disciples. Unconditional Surrender to the Will and Ways of God extend even to this aspect of our lives. When Christ rescued us from the pit and brings us into the right relationship with the King of Heaven, we want to tell someone....or a whole bunch of people. However we have to do according to Biblical principles, to be an effective witness for the Gospel, which would be pleasing to the Lord. Pride is an abomination to Him.

This is how the Lord teaches, through Paul. This is how it works, remembering at all times, to be mindful to Whom we belong and to WHOM we owe everything. Before reading this passage, please pray for the Lord to open our minds, give us wisdom and then give someone to whom to share the Gospel. 

1 Thessalonians 1:3-8 New American Standard Bible (NASB):

3 constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father, 4 knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you;5 for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.

6 You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8 For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything.

As we pray and commit current and future opportunities to witness to others for Jesus Christ, not the following methods God's Agent of Change the Apostle Paul used:

  -  In verse #3 always be aware of your surroundings and the people to whom we are ministering, or potentially reaching. Take nothing for granted. What worked in one place, may not work in another. Then pray this opportunity up to the Lord, give it to Him, and then go do the work in Love. 

 -  Reread verses 3 and 4 above and it will become evident to us, that the Power and Presence of God MUST be in present in our evangelistic opportunity for conviction of sin and turning to Christ to be the result. 

  -  Be not like that self-absorbed evangelist I mentioned at the beginning of this post who was just trying to get another notch in his belt. Be like the sold-out apostle of Christ here - Paul - who bore his burden for the people of God, with love.

  -  As we surrender the opportunity before us, into the Hands of the Holy Spirit of God, any pushback we get (and we may most likely get more pushback in the beginning, than a welcome sign). Verse 6 talks about tribulation. This world hates us, hates our Faith and are enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ. There will be more obstacles than welcome signs. But remember, this is not about us, but the One Who has rescued us. At the same time, be aware of the joy of being counted as one who is worthy to be persecuted for Jesus, just as all twelve of Jesus' real disciples were.

Wisdom, Godly wisdom, is allowing God to do His Work, through the Holy Spirit and His Word, rather than us attempting things in our own power, for our own satisfaction. Trust God with our evangelistic opportunities and watch Him work, for His own glory. This is the only pathway to pure Godly passion for the mission.

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PRAYERS OF THE BIBLE SERIES: THE BOOK OF JOB, Prayer #5 - GOD RESPONDS...UNEXPECTEDLY!

As we observe the personal, emotional and physical angst of a man in spiritual agony – Job – it is becoming obvious that the lessons of his life are meant for all mankind, for all time.  Everything Job has experienced said, prayed or complained about, has been done by just about everybody alive now or forever! As we move on towards the end of the prayers of this amazing chronologically first book of the Bible,  Chapter 30 of Job and verses 20-23 shows us a very desperate man who is about near the end of his “rope”.

I chose this passage in the New Living Translation which accurately translates it directly into understandable modern language:
“I cry out to you, O God, but You don’t answer. I stand before You, but You don’t even look. You have become cruel to me. You use Your Power to persecute me. You throw me to the whirlwind and destroy me in the storm and I know You are sending me to my death – the destination of all who live.” (Job 30:20-23).

This is one bold prayer! Not just that, but it is almost a blasphemous accusation against God! Job says “I have been going in and on, crying out in pain and suffering for so long, but You (God) will not even pay attention to me….Here I am God…it’s me…You are not even trying to look at me and it is almost as if You don’t care about me or my troubles….deep, deep troubles and loss. In fact God, I think You’re trying to destroy me and send me to the grave!”

Have you ever prayed something like that? Let us hope not and may it never be! Just eight chapters later, when God has had enough of this and finally responds to Job with the most intelligent flurry of facts on His side, the Almighty Himself uses Job’s own words to challenge his incorrect doctrines, rants and ramblings! Here is the LORD Himself as He throws the full force of His Wisdom, His Whereabouts at His Creation of the World and His Withering verbal discipline of Job at this great hero of the Bible. By the way, before we think that Job deserves and we don’t – think again!

What is absolutely incredible about God’s response to Job in Chapters 38-41 is in His Own  Mighty Way, HIS Creation Account! The Holy Spirit of God Who had Moses wrote down the Genesis account of the DAYS of Creation some 500-700 years after Job, had Genesis written that way for a reason- so as to get directly to the Fall of Mankind (Sin in the Garden), so that the Redemption plan of God, through Christ could have been immediately presented to the world in Genesis 3:15.

The filling out of the Creation story in full scientific details – from the galaxy systems to details on animals and physics of the earth’s axis – is an amazing thing to behold, in the readings of Chapters 38-41. What God the Almighty did there, in His own way, set Job’s obviously horrid problems, in perspective. The God, the Creator, Who can set all of this in motion, is powerfully demonstrating this modus operandi about how He answers prayer.

We examined this particular Book of the Bible and its prayers for a reason - they are difficult prayers and full of human contradictions in such a way, which is both hard and easy to comprehend. In a sense, the prayers of Job are "everyman's" prayer and "only one man's" prayer.Both would be correct but there are applications for us who are looking at this ancient text, over 4000 years after it was written for our edification in Truth. As we will see in the Final Prayer of Job (upcoming from Chapter 42), all error and blasphemy should point us urgently towards repentance!

God answered Job's ramblings, aka prayers, not in the way Job expected or we would expect, but in the grandest way possible.  God answered Job as God would - by talking about God; re: His Power, His Purpose, His Perspective and His Presence.
--- HIS POWER: There is no denying His omnipotence after reading His almost angry response "where were you when I....and where were you when I....etc". He is the Most Powerful Being in the Universe, EVER!
---HIS PURPOSE: By answering insolent questions with unanswerable questions Himself, God shows His plans for EVERYTHING He created, from the hail for battle and the behemoth (dinosaur) or Leviathan, the great fish of the sea.
---HIS PERSPECTIVE: God actually gives us a glimpse of how He thinks and actually created every living thing...and actually embedding in them personalities and even quirks (see the Ostrich)!  Those chapters of Job (from 38 to 41), literally gives us planet earth from God's point of view and we are seeing, observing and in wondrous amazement at just HOW He viewed the landscape before He created in detail. This belies HUGE the falsehood of random explosions and all the big bang fiction!
---HIS PRESENCE: There was no doubting God's Presence as He showed up suddenly and with awesome and fearsome in a mighty whirlwind and out of the storm. This is a picture of us at times, when we are in the depths of despair, trial or tribulation, God is in the storm with us. He will never leave us or forsake us and He is ever present, as Job discovered.