These
set of principles help us understand our need to go deep in our walk with God
and demonstrate that we take seriously our maturity and our relationship with
Him, so that we can be used of Him in ways we did not know we could, but that
Jesus died to give us access to and help us fulfill as we follow the guidance
of His Spirit.
Congregate
with the local church–
This will hopefully unravel some mysteries and misunderstandings about why we
need to be planted in the church God assigns to us, and not just any place out
of our convenience or what seems to be the popular thing to do. Psalm 92:12-15
states,
12 “The [uncompromisingly] righteous
shall flourish like the palm tree [be long-lived, stately, upright, useful, and
fruitful]; they shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon [majestic, stable, durable,
and incorruptible].
13 Planted in the house of the Lord,
they shall flourish in the courts of our God.
14 [Growing in grace] they shall
still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap [of spiritual
vitality] and [rich in the] verdure [of trust, love, and contentment].
15 [They are living memorials] to
show that the Lord is upright and faithful to His promises; He is my
Rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” AMPC
The
first thing to know about this, is that those who are planted in the house of
God that He has appointed for them to grow and become strong believers in Him
are the ones that flourish in the courts of our God. This happens because they
are under the leadership of the person or leaders that God has appointed for
them and where they serve and help fulfill the vision of the house. The
blessings that come on the leadership will follow on the sons and daughters of
the house and where there is agreement and unity, Psalm 133 says there, the
Lord commands His blessing of life forevermore.
In this
place of congregation is where they give according to the leading of the Lord
in tithes and offerings, and first fruits for the needs of the people and of the house. It is also the place where they
receive the spiritual nourishment necessary for them to grow in the knowledge
of God and of the ways of His Kingdom that helps them fulfill their calling and
where that which they receive every time they gather, can be applied in their
spheres of influence and authority. Said in another way, God has appointed
blessings that only come to us when we are in a corporate setting.
These
anointings, mantles, blessings, deliverances, and breakthroughs come only when
we are part of a group that is gathered together to seek the Lord, call on Him,
worship Him, and where relationships can grow so that iron sharpens iron. In
this place, our focus is on Him and we are not afraid to have deep relationships
where we serve one another and are accountable to others for His glory alone. In
addition, there is angelic activity that only releases blessings to a group
that is gathered together like a church setting. These angels are only assigned
to work in this type of settings, so we want to keep them busy working on our
behalf when we are gathered together to seek the Lord.
This is
also a place where we should feel supported in times of trials and where we
celebrate each other’s victories. Without having a place to congregate, even if it is a house, instead of a church building, the
lone rangers do not fulfill God’s mandate for their lives completely, unless
they are in training and it is understood that God will sometimes give the
command to spend time solely with Him, but that is not a lifetime mandate.
After we have completed our time of training and solitude with the Lord, we
need to go with others where we can be a family and where we enjoy the
privileges of sonship God has given to all of us. For those of you who do not
know how God has given you these privileges outlined in Ephesians 1:3-8, which
include:
1. Being blessed
in Christ with every spiritual blessing (given by the Holy Spirit),
2. Chosen (picked
out for Himself as His own),
3. Be made holy
(set apart only for Him),
4. Been made without
blame (above reproach before Him in love),
5. Foreordained
(destined, planed in love for us)
6. Adopted into
God’s family (as His own children through Christ),
7. Accepted
(with favor and mercy),
8. Made to the
praise and commendation of His glorious grace (made to worship Him alone and
graced to fulfill His plan for us),
9. Redeemed (saved
and delivered through the Blood of Jesus)
However,
if there are any challenges that may keep you from making it to the church
physically, then at least join one and keep up with the services Online and do
everything you can to participate from where you are.
Don’t
knock, walk on in
– A few years ago as I was watching the motion picture “The Help,” when the
last song from the sound track was playing and I heard the words, “Don’t knock,
you just walk on in,” the Lord spoke to me. He told me that there are times
when we knock through our prayers to get answers from heaven, but there are other
times when the Holy Spirit will come upon us to make powerful declarations and
that is when we walk on in and see great results immediately. Job 22:28 tells
us,
“You shall also decide and decree
a thing, and it shall be established for you; and the light [of God’s favor]
shall shine upon your ways.”
AMPC
Acts 1:8
also says, 8 “But you shall receive power (ability,
efficiency, and might) when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be
My witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends (the very
bounds) of the earth.” AMPC
This
ability, efficiency, and might causes us to declare many times judicially on
behalf of our situations or on behalf of others. The results we see right away
after we have made those declarations is what Ephesians 3:20 describes,
20 “Now to Him Who, by (in
consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to
[carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above
all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers,
desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]—“AMPC
This is
not to say that our prayers do not give us this type of results, but what we
see when we partner with the Holy Spirit and make ourselves available to Him to
be overshadowed by Him like He did with the Virgin Mary, brings great
demonstrations of His creative power through us, and is something we should be
aware of and seek more understanding of because this is a promise from Him that
He wants to fulfill through us, His children, when we are willing to be used of
Him.
Luke
1:35 explains, “The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and
the power of the Most High will overshadow you...” NLT
One
thing is to know and walk by the Spirit of the Lord, but another thing is to know
and walk by the power of the Lord to do great exploits and where the Lord can
display His creative power through us who believe. Mark 16:17-18 also say, 17 “And
these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out
demons; they will speak with new tongues; 18 they will
take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt
them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.’” NKJV
Obedience – This explanation is out of
Deuteronomy chapter 28. As we read the chapter fully (Please do), we will see
that there are 14 blessings stated for those who obey. Verses 1-2 begin the
admonition with:
1“’Now it shall come to pass,
if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe
carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that
the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the
earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon
you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your
God:” NKJV
Now,
this means that we can pray a lot, fast a lot, worship a lot, confess the Word
a lot, but if we do not obey the commands of the Lord, we will not see the
answers we are seeking from Him. Instead, the result of living in disobedience is
to walk in what the rest of the chapter outlines as consequences. Verses 15 to
68 state the curses that come because of disobedience, so there are 54 consequences
of disobedience while there are 14 blessings for obeying the commands of the
Lord.
This
means that God takes our obedience seriously. One important reason is because
first, when there is obedience, we demonstrate that we receive His love for us,
and also give to Him our love and reverently make Him the only object of our
worship and adoration and our lifestyles reflect that to the best of our
abilities. Also, we let Him know that as He looks to and fro for His true
worshippers (John 4:23), we can be found seeking to know Him and the ways of
His Kingdom because we understand this is important for us to fulfill our
destiny in Him.
We are
called to be like David who had a heart after God’s own heart, and instead of
seeking to follow His own agenda (except for the time when he committed
adultery with Bathsheba and stole her from her husband by killing him which brought
serious consequences to him and to his family), David understood that God had
given Him a kingdom on earth that he could not run, had he not sought the counsel
of the Lord and obeyed His commands so he could win every battle and walk in
every victory obtained from using the strategies given to him while he spent
time in intimacy with His God.
Because
God deals severely with chronic disobedience and we can see how after reading
the outlined consequences in Deuteronomy 28, these consequences seem as if He
is being merciless, what He is saying is that disobedience comes from deep
contamination with the spirit of this world and, therefore, He will drive that
contamination out of us through testing and trial in the wilderness. We are
responsible to do our part and also not be afraid to allow Him to process us
and develop in us the anointing necessary to walk out our destiny. This will
require that:
1. We be
pressed like olives are pressed so they can release the oil in them. In the
same way, during our time of testing and trial, the pressing we go through
serves to develop in us and release the anointing that is in us that God brings
out not only to be able to fulfill our destiny, but also to walk in authority
and power from on high to see the enemy of our calling defeated at every level.
2. Another
thing we need to let go of during these times of testing is our reputation
because it is during these times that we will encounter a lot of gossip,
slander, and rejection so we take on God’s reputation for us (His approval of
us), and just bless and pray for those who use and spitefully abuse us.
This is
intended to work a merciful heart in us for the lost and also for those who are
members of the family of God but are not healed from the contamination with the
spirit of the world, and their lack of understanding of the ways of the Kingdom
of God, leads them to react unfavorably to us when we are being processed. But
as highlighted above in Ephesians 1:3-8, we understand we are loved, accepted,
chosen, and foreordained as His child and to be part of His family. That is why
Luke 6:35-36 says,
“But love your enemies, do good,
and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you
will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil.36 Therefore
be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” NKJV
3. The third
thing we need to be mindful of when we are going through our time in the
wilderness of testing is to let go of our dreams and promises from Him. This is
what we saw, as mentioned in other posts, that Abraham had to do temporarily, in
order to know God in ways he had not known Him before (Read Genesis 22:1-19
about how God tested his faith by asking him to slay his promised son, Isaac).
When we
let go of pursuing our dreams and instead take on every assignment and command
from the Lord on the way to our destiny, what He is doing is perfecting those
things on our behalf, and also working in us a steadfast endurance, patience,
and ability to see those promises sustained, and even multiplied when we reach
our destiny. This happens because we:
a. First
learned to worship the God who made the promises and not make idols of the
promises.
b. We learn
during this time how to work in partnership with God to walk in dominion and
establish through the fulfillment of those promises that we obtained in His
time and in His way, everything He wants to do through us to advance the
Kingdom in the sphere of influence and authority given to us and for His glory
alone. It is during this time that we learn to trust the Lord with our promises
and see that with Him all things are possible.
To Him
alone be all the glory. ■
Song Don't knock by Mavis Staples courtesy of YouTube.com
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