John D Rockerfeller made the point that if all you seek in life is wealth (or power or success), you will never achieve it.
Most who achieve great things in life, do not pursue success. Their goals are narrow and they serve the goal not the other way around. They put their backs into it over a long period, until their inputs derive a greater outcome.
Paul said, “I sowed, another watered but God added the increase” (1 Corinthians 6). He was an “inputs” man, who concerned himself with doing the right things and doing things right, whilst entrusting God to translate that into something significant.
Jesus was just the same, serving a narrow mandate, whilst entrusting the significance of that mandate to His father. Hebrews 10:5-7, confirms that He came to be a sacrifice, but the outcomes of that single act changed the course of history.
Galatians 5, which teaches on the fruits of the spirit, is often erroneously taught as an endowment, a gift dispensed by the Holy Spirit. But fruits are consequences, not gifts. They follow, never precede. As Jesus observed, we will be known by our fruits. An apple farmer sows and waters, but the proof of his labour is that it bears fruit in time. Similarly, our relationship with Jesus will bear fruit, to make us Christ-like.
Hebrews 2: 4 and Mark 16:14-18, amongst others, also imply that the evidence of God’s power will follow. It is wrong to follow spiritual signs and wonders or to regard them as a prerequisite for the gospel, although many preachers have gone to great lengths to evoke conditions for signs and wonders, even to the point of invoking mantras and formulas. Signs follow us, not the other way around.
God’s way is for us to add line upon line and precept upon precept, whilst entrusting the outcomes to God. The bible does not say we should follow signs, but that signs follow our witness. Jesus was wary of those who followed signs, saying in Matthew 7:7, “seek the kingdom and all those other things will be added”. Jesus is the essence of that Kingdom, so by implication we must put Jesus first and the Spirit will do the rest.
Don’t tell me the church cannot work without signs and wonders and don’t expect the church to be sustained by such signs and wonders. The church works because Jesus is in her midst and the shout of a king is amongst us. Not only that, but we will be sustained, because He will never leave nor forsake us. As such, neither angels nor demons, heights or depths, things present or to come, will ever separate us from His love.
So serve God and focus on what He has called you to do and in due time you will reap if you faint not (Galatians 6:9). I believe that God does great things, but we must focus on what matters to God, which is to build a Christ-centered kingdom. If we do that, we will see His witness confirmed in us.
(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net
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