In order to go to a new leadership level, we have to take the limits off. We must stop allowing the environment to speak to us, causing us to fear, and we must speak to the environment. What God has made us is who we are, not what we do. For instance, we might work as a mechanic, but we are not a mechanic, but a child of God. We are called to do His work. If we do mechanic work, that is what we do, but who we are is leaders in the Kingdom of God. As pastors, God gives us responsibility as gatekeepers of our city. That means we allow certain things in and we refuse entry to those things that would harm the people of the city. That is our authority. When we know what we are called to do, we can push to take the city for the Kingdom. Taking the city for His Kingdom will eventually affect the nations. We need to be praying that God will rise up missionaries to the nations, but our focus must be on the city as pastors. If we will keep the focus, taking the limits off, we will find ourselves going to a new leadership level. We must place a demand upon God for what He has put within us. We do this by being hungry for God and seeking His presence. Matthew 6:33 tells us that we are to seek His Kingdom and His righteousness, and everything we need will be added to us. Far too many pastors are so concerned with the things that they never seek God’s Kingdom and righteousness to the point that He can give them what they need. If we will set an atmosphere of His presence, especially at home and in the meetings with the Body of Christ, we will find He will meet with us and change not only our life, but the lives of others too. This will cause us to take the city. Listen to Paul’s words in modern language; So heres what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2 Dont become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. Youll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. 3 Im speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, its important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him. 4 In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. 5 The body were talking about is Christs body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldnt amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christs body, 6 lets just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we arent. If you preach, just preach Gods Message, nothing else; 7 if you help, just help, dont take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; 8 if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you dont get bossy; if youre put in charge, dont manipulate; if youre called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, dont let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face. 9 Love from the center of who you are; dont fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. 10 Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. 11 Dont burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, 12 cheerfully expectant. Dont quit in hard times; pray all the harder. 13 Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. 14 Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. 15 Laugh with your happy friends when theyre happy; share tears when theyre down. 16 Get along with each other; dont be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; dont be the great somebody. 17 Dont hit back; discover beauty in everyone. 18 If youve got it in you, get along with everybody. 19 Dont insist on getting even; thats not for you to do. Ill do the judging, says God. Ill take care of it. 20 Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if hes thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. 21 Dont let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good. (Romans 12:1-21; From THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language) I know this is a long passage of Scripture, but it is very pertinent to what we are talking about. When we take our ordinary, everyday life and give it as an offering to God, focused on what He intends for us to do, we will find that we begin to accomplish what He desires. We must refuse to be fat, lazy and satisfied. We have to fix our attention on God, keep a smile on our face, and refuse to burn out. We must keep ourselves fueled and aflame. As we equip people for future growth, God will release additional people to us. If we settle down in “works”, we will face burn out. But if we will keep ourselves aflame with the Holy Spirit, we will run the race with the torch, as they did in the Greek Olympiads, crossing the finish line with the flame still lit (Heb.12:1). If we get caught up in works and just going through the motions, boredom will set in, and soon it will become a labor to do what the Lord wants us to do. But if we flow together in His Spirit, He will empower us, fueling us to make it to the finish line. Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass, that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. (Jos.1:1-9) There are no limits to the person who will do just three things. Those three things are contained in verse eight: 1) speak the Word; 2) meditate on the Word; 3) observe to do all the Word. God’s dream is eternal and He is looking for those who will catch the dream, which is exposed in His Word. God watches over His Word to perform it. Notice how many times He said to Joshua, “. . . be strong” and how many times, He said “. . . be of a good courage”. We have to get the fear out of our lives. Actually, God will walk us through any place that is fearful. Success is on the other side of those fearful situations. Situations will often look fearful, but we do not manage risk; rather, we take a risk. If we try to manage risk, we are trying to be in control instead of allowing God to be in control. Many people have great ability. It is obvious that Joshua was a person of ability, but his success did not come because of his ability. Obedience is far more important than ability. Joshua obeyed God’s voice and he did not look to his own questioning or trepidation. Joshua spent so much time in the presence of God, in the Tent of Meeting, that he knew where he was going and what God’s purpose was for his life. When trouble came, such as the kings who came against Israel, Joshua simply went out and defeated them (Jos.10:7-26). Joshua had learned to do those three things noted above. Far too many pastors are spending so much time trying to prepare a message, instead of studying in order to build themselves up. If we will learn to study in order to build ourselves on the inside, when the time comes to preach, we will speak out of the overflow of our spirit. This will happen because the Word of God has become alive on the inside of us (Heb.4:12), and it will have a great impact upon the people. Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2Tim.1:6-7) The gifts God has placed within can become stagnant- they have to be stirred up. The gifts God has placed within are like ingredients that are to be used for effectiveness. God’s ingredients require stirring in order to be effective. It is strange how chemical reactions take place when there is a stirring. We can take cold, sweetened milk, and unless it is supercooled, reaching the potential of ice cream, it just remains cold sweet milk. But when it is stirred with ice around it, and in a salt mixture, it becomes an incredible dessert. So when we are stirred on the inside by the Holy Ghost, those attributes God has placed within us become extremely effective. The gifts God has placed within us can be stopped by fear. The spirit of fear comes from the thought life. If we are not controlling our thought life, we will become paralyzed and never take the risk of doing what God wants us to (2Cor.10:4-5). This means we need to learn to defy the odds, staying extremely close to God and yet staying out of His way. As we learn to stick close to Him but not getting in the way of what only He can do, we will win and we will finish strong. In Matthew chapter 14, Jesus came walking on the water to His disciples. They became afraid, but when Jesus declared that it was He, Peter made a strange request. He said, “Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water” (v.28). Peter had seen no one walk on water before Jesus came walking that way. It was a great risk to get out of the boat and walk on the water, yet Peter asked the Lord to command him to come to Him on the water. We need to learn to pray, “Lord, command me.” Why do we say that? Really, all it takes to complete God’s purpose is our desire for Him to command us. It is His power and His plan, so all we have to do is get inside of it to be successful. The other disciples in the boat had the perception that it was too dangerous to get out of the boat. They would not take a risk. Peter’s perception was, “I want to what the Lord is doing.” If we will learn to do what the Lord is doing, there is really no risk in what we are doing. The attributes that Peter showed in the Book of Acts were not developed in one day. Leadership develops on a daily basis. As we develop as leaders, we will help to lead others to accomplish more. We will influence them, affecting them for good, and help them to be successful in God’s purpose too. And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: (Eph.4:11-12) As a pastor, or other ministry leader, our responsibility is to equip the saints that they might do the work of the ministry. Far too often, the idea is that, “That is what we pay the preacher for.” Absolutely not! God has called the preacher, pastor, evangelist, teacher, prophet, and apostle to equip the saints. There is no way that a single minister can do all that needs to be done in a church. That is the reason we must equip others to help carry the load. Of course all of this has to be done out of love, for that is the only way that faith will work. Love operates by looking out for others, rather than looking out for self. If we will look to help others accomplish what God intends for them to accomplish, we will find that the thing God wanted us to accomplish will be accomplished. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Php.3:13-14, NIV) There are many things behind us that we need to forget about. When a person gets offended, it is critical for them to take care of it as quickly as possible. Jesus said we should not expect to bring our gift to the altar and have God receive it if we are offended at our brother, or if he is offended at us. Even if someone is offended at us, we are to leave our gift there on the altar, go and make it right with them, so that we can offer the gift and it be accepted by God. If we are offended, we are thinking of ourselves, and we will never go to new levels of leadership in that condition. This is also a critical matter for husbands and wives. We open ourselves up to the enemy when we refuse to forgive, and especially so if it is our mate we are offended at. The situation here is that husbands and wives who fail to forgive are blocking their own prayers. If we will not let go of what we are holding onto, we cannot grasp hold of what God has for us. But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. (Matt.5:22-24) Not only must we be careful about being offended, but even good things can keep us from going on to what God really wants. Too often we have a victory, and we get puffed up to the point that we did it. We get a sign painted, “Healer, Turn in Here”, just because God used us to lay hands on someone and they received a miracle. Even that good thing can stop us from God’s best. Turn loose of the past, the hurts, the goals reached and missed, the victories, and the defeats. We need to turn our “I should have” into “I must.” If God told us, He will uphold us. Peter proved that when he walked on the water, as well as when Jesus calmed the storm though the boat was filled with water. If people cant see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed. (Pro.29:18, from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language) The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose. Purpose will cause us to do things out of desperation. We must hook up with the purpose of God. God always uses people who connect with His purpose. Still, anyone selected out for life has hope, for, as they say, A living dog is better than a dead lion. The living at least know something, even if its only that theyre going to die. But the dead know nothing and get nothing. Theyre a minus that no one remembers. Their loves, their hates, yes, even their dreams, are long gone. Theres not a trace of them left in the affairs of this earth. Seize life! Eat bread with gusto, Drink wine with a robust heart. Oh yes — God takes pleasure in your pleasure! Dress festively every morning. Dont skimp on colors and scarves. Relish life with the spouse you love each and every day of your precarious life. Each day is Gods gift. Its all you get in exchange For the hard work of staying alive. Make the most of each one! Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily! This is your last and only chance at it, For theres neither work to do nor thoughts to think in the company of the dead, where youre most certainly headed. (Eccl.9:4-10, from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language) Do not miss your season! You are never too old to do what God has called you to do. Therefore, seize life. Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised. For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. 2 We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside Gods throne. (Heb.11:39-12:3, NLT) If we study the Hall of faith, Hebrews chapter 11, we can see that in every major event, one person made the difference at any turning point. This can be seen with David and Goliath, Moses and the Red Sea, Peter at Cornelius’ house, etc. There is risk in doing what God calls us to do, and there is great reward in the obedience. Are we moving because someone is pushing us, or are we moving because of God’s purpose? Patience is what wins the race. This word patience, in the old Bible, is translated “endurance” in the New Living Translation quoted above. It means to push and stretch, so as to go to a place that we can carry a greater load. It means we will move to a new leadership level. Knowing what race we are to run is critical. This is a race of perseverance, of enduring even though there are times that are very hard. God’s race is a place of safety, provision, and ease. If we are running a race we design, there will be much labor in it. Remember; we do not react to the season we are in. We, through faith, establish the season. So run with patience the race the Lord sets before you.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 10:14:13 +0000
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