Acts 27:23
23 “For this [very] night there stood by my side an angel of the God to Whom I belong and Whom I serve and worship,” AMPC
One of the reasons Jesus died on the Cross was the forgiveness of our sins and to reconcile us to the Father. Another reason was to buy back our redemption from the fall of Adam and Eve. But one thing that many Christians have overlooked that Jesus also gave to us through His death, is the grace to walk in fellowship with the Father through Him to help us fulfill our callings and everything He planned and purposed for our lives and through our lives. Since these plans and purposes were established from the foundations of the world, their fulfillment cannot happen if we fail to recognize Him as our Lord.
When we ask Jesus to come into our hearts and become our Lord and Savior, we are asking Him to help us live the life in abundance He died to give us access to. However, we cannot forget the other part of this covenant we made with Him—that is—we cannot forget to allow Him to be the Lord of our lives. This means that we belong to Him and came to serve Him as the passage above states.
The word Lord is defined as: Someone or something having power, authority, or influence; a master or ruler.
Also, to help us understand God as a Sovereign Ruler and King over our lives, some synonyms of the word Lord include: master, ruler, chief, superior, monarch, sovereign, king, emperor, prince, governor, commander, suzerain, and liege, a name of God or Christ: God, the Father, the Almighty, the Creator; Jehovah, Adonai, Yahweh, Elohim.
Thus, we cannot live our lives presumptuously thinking that we can do and be whoever or whatever we want or choose. Our times of fellowship with God help us get to know Him and the ways of His Kingdom. But it also help us recognize how we are to worship and serve Him on this earth. Adam walked in this type of fellowship originally. He communed with God and co-labored with Him in the Garden of Eden to bring about the creation to be manifested on earth of the things God had already spoken of in the Spirit realm.
So, because God already has a plan and a purpose for human kind and for the universe He created, we cannot come and attempt to change His plans for ours just because we think we can be our own god or even worse, are trying to change our roles and God’s by making Him serve us instead. This is one of the things that provoked the fall of Adam and Eve. God gave a command to them to not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (See Genesis 2:17).
But when the serpent came and suggested to Eve that if she ate of the fruit her eyes would be open and she could be like God knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:5), he failed to tell her that her disobedience to God’s important command would bring about the influence and contamination of the wrong spirit—the Antichrist spirit—in her life and everything she touched would also be contaminated. This contamination was also passed down to Adam. One of the consequences of this contamination was that they started to see things in a twisted way and then they started to call evil good and good evil.
Therefore, because this contamination could not be tolerated in the Garden, they were rejected and expelled. Another consequence of their disobedience was that the grace and ease they were privileged to have in order to co-labor with God to bring about the supernatural manifestations of God’s creative power, was no longer there, and then they found themselves toiling and having to sweat to make things happen. So, instead of grace that brought fruitfulness, they had religious works to show for it.
Being influenced by the Antichrist spirit also kept them from partaking of the inheritance in the saints in the light of God’s glory. For partaking of the glory of God is what makes us who we are in Christ since we are to be carriers of it to extend its knowledge and help others experience it on the earth, instead of the contamination of the spirit that opposes this glory.
Colossians 1:9-12 says, “9For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and long suffering with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.” NKJV
That is because outside of our fellowship with God and our recognition that He is not only our Savior, but also our Lord, and that we are called to love Him above all things, worship, and serve Him only (Matthew 4:10; 22:37), where there is contamination with the spirit of this world, there is striving instead of thriving, and there is struggle in our acceptance that we did not come to serve our own selves but to be the conduits by which He brings heaven to earth. Our agendas and motives cannot be self-seeking, but God-reverenced given the fact that we were created by Him and for Him.
Colossians 1:16-18 explains it this way, “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they are thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers. All things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that in all things He may have the preeminence.” NKJV
Anything we do contrary to this is considered utter wickedness (twisted thinking and behaving). That is also why King Saul lost the kingdom (1 Samuel 15:22-23) that was passed down to David and David was called a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22). Everything God commands us to do is important to obey, whether we understand it or not. Through the grace Jesus died to give us access to, He also helped us to serve Him not as slaves, but as willing servants that obey out of our love for Him and the Father. There is no fear in this love (1 John 4:18), but only a reverence that makes us live for Him and die to our carnal desires because we see that everything He asks us to do is not only for our benefit, but also for the benefit of those around us and those we are called to influence.
This is another reason why our prayers cannot be witchcraft prayers—that is—rebellious, self-seeking, and self-serving prayers at the expense of God’s will and what was already ordained for us and to be done through us from the foundations of the world. We are to seek God’s counsel and will in addition to letting Him know what is in our hearts. What is in His heart should be our first priority and we bring it down to earth through our prayers. Not the other way around.
Doing that is called idolatry (lifting God’s creation above the Creator). And where God finds idolatry, He will shake those wrong foundations and lead us by His Spirit to spend time in the wilderness where we will learn to see Him as Lord of all and where we will learn to turn our every no into a yes because what He is asking of us fits in the scheme of What was already planned and purposed for us. This is necessary to live as believers of Christ where our influence can lead others to Him and not to ourselves.
Ephesians 2:10 also says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” NKJV
Now please join me in this prayer. Heavenly Father, we come before you in total surrender to recognize that you are our Lord, you are the Sovereign God, and everything was created by you and for you. For this reason, we ask that you open the eyes of our understanding and give us knowledge of your will, so that with wisdom we may live to please you and not ourselves. Create in us a clean heart that is after your own heart, so that we may be the conduits of what you have ordained from the foundations of the world to do in us, for us, and through us on the earth, and that way you alone may receive the glory due your name. Your will is to make the knowledge of your glory be known in all the earth, and we ask you to heal our hearts, and help us renew the spirit of our minds, and to know the depth, the breadth, the height, and the width of your love for us, so we can co-labor with you and extend the fruits of your Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) to those around us and those in our sphere of influence and authority. Lord, to you alone we belong; help us to love you with all our heart, mind, and soul for you alone we want to serve all the days of our lives. We ask this in the name of your beloved Son, Jesus. Amen.
To God alone be all the glory. ▪
Images by Google Images
No comments:
Post a Comment