The Church of Jesus Christ consists of gifted people but there is something about the miraculous that is so attractive to mankind – of course! It is the supernatural hand of God extending His power, for His glory, through an earthen vessel for the extension of His kingdom, and not man’s glory or kingdom.
The gift is never about the vessel God chooses to use, but many miss this important fact. The Spirit of God “divides His gifts severally as He wills,” 1 Corinthians 12:4-12. We are all gifted in the Body of Christ, we all have function in our ordinary lives. When we recognise our calling, we also recognise God’s unction on our function, it is all of Him. Do I recognise my gift or seek another’s? There are no superior individuals. If God chooses a person to display His miraculous gift through them, they are just a vessel He is using for His kingdom purposes – that is His sovereign and divine right!
Sadly, some people trade on the miraculous: They state that if you do certain things such as pray more, fast more, worship more, read the word more etc. that we can move the hand of God by our works. God’s gifting is nothing to do with man’s performance – that is works! The manifestation of the miraculous and supernatural through a man does not relate to a wonderful man, it is our wonderful God displaying His awesome power through them. The power is OF God, working THROUGH the man, TO the glory of God for kingdom purposes and God’s glory.
Do I understand what worship really is? It is not just a physical posture of kneeling or singing, it is in ALL that I do in everyday life. It is the choice of my heart. My life and my body are God’s temple. With each new day I present myself to the Lord, in all that I undertake daily in spirit and in truth. This is true worship as I venture in to the world and the workplace, secular or Christian, working, eating, relating to the whatever and the whosoever in stewardship of all He has given me of earth’s temporal blessings, but also demonstrating from the divine deposit of “Christ in me” a lifestyle that glorifies God in the ordinary or the extraordinary, as He directs.
Is it a challenge or a joyous choice to me?…..”Whether you eat, drink or whatsoever you do, DO ALL to the glory of God,” 1 Corinthians 10:31 It is a lifestyle.
Our Lord Jesus had the highest position in the kingdom as the Son of God, yet He taught and demonstrated that it was important to be the servant of all – He took a towel and washed the disciples feet, knowing who He was and where He had come from, John 13:3 – 5. Have you washed anyone’s feet lately?….not literally but in the mundane, every day tasks of servanthood. God sees. I can glorify God with an ordinary life. As the hymn writer so beautifully put it, “Let our ordered lives confess the beauty of Thy peace.”
If what I do in life does not come from my rest in Jesus then I am on a treadmill of performance – trying to do good works and earn validation. A wheel does not go round to become a wheel, it goes round because it is a wheel!
Not all Believers attend Bible Schools but we are all in the School of the Spirit and He is teaching us to allow Him to access every moment, every situation of our daily life, that Christ may effectually live His life through us spontaneously, which directs and connects us to people.
When our lives are “hidden in Christ” then His gift in us will manifest, maybe not to the world like a Heidi Baker, but that should not concern us if that is not our calling. My prayer is, “Lord, help me to be what You have called me to be, rest in You and operate in my function.”
Many have wrongly thought that being a preacher is “arriving”, but letting Christ live in me is the goal, letting God be true and seeing all else as “filthy rags.”
Am I so enchanted by some revelation yet so unchanged in my personal life and walk with the Lord? (quoted from Oswald Chambers). God seeks to change me, not others, by replacing me with the life of His dear Son, “Christ in me.” If I am unchanged I am without excuse, because Jesus finished the work on Calvary. It is my choice to allow Him to live His life in me.
Several verses in Deuteronomy 16 declare that “there is a place that the Lord thy God shall choose, to place His name there.” If I allow Him to place His name on every area of my heart and life and give Him full sway, there is a Royal Exchange that takes place in my heart of His rest and full release.
