Monday, May 2, 2011

I was getting ready to speak at a conference a few years ago, and at this conference I would be speaking in front of some people that in my opinion were more talented then me. All of a sudden I was feeling insecure and not qualified. I know we all know what that feeling is like. In praying I was asking God for a super powerful message. Something that would drop their jaws and flood the alters.

In praying the Holy Spirit spoke to me: "If you go in there as a communicator then it can go two ways really good or really bad. If you go in there as my daughter then every time you get up to speak it will be good."

This is total reverse of how I have always thought. I always thought if you could be a better speaker, with amazing illustrations and powerful points then that makes you a good preacher. Developing your gift is always something we should do as we go thru life, but that should never be our focus. So many times as leaders we fall more in love with our gift then we do with our Father. In these moments we take God out of our central reliance and put our reliance on the gift.

God calls us sons and daughters, no longer slaves we have been adopted in to the family. That means our development of our gift does not determine our position in Christ. Our position in Christ determines the development of our gift.

If every leader got real honest it is really easy to enter into a business transaction with God instead of a ongoing relationship with Him. The most powerful messages preached come out of a place of intimacy first, not from books read, or study time spent.

So I am saying all this to say
The earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.--Romans 8:19

The Earth doesn't have expectation for a better business man, sales person, preacher or evangelist. The Earth is waiting for a people to rise up as sons and daughters and thru that become a vessel for the Father's heart beat to be shown. Could it be that you aren't waiting for your destiny to come to fruition but rather your destiny is waiting for you to take your position?

Daniel in the Bible understood this as he kept close to God then God put the spirit of excellence on him. The best fruit in life comes in a place of abiding. After all Jesus said it best that you will produce no fruit apart from Him(John 15:5). You can have fish bumper stickers, head usher at your church, know scripture by heart and still not be in a place of abiding. Abiding happens as we get away and spend time with the amazing Father.

In closing the definition of insanity is doing the same thing time and time again expecting a different result. If what you are doing isn't working why not just try a place of resting in Him? I promise with Jesus you will get places you never dreamed possible.

2 comments:

Martie Abercrombie said...

I think so many of us spend so much time trying to perfect what we do in order to be better, when what we really need to do is perfect what we believe in order to be a better person. When we become Christ like then everything we do we will do with perfection.

Lawrence said...

It's so easy to work at bringing a good representation of ourselves instead of allowing Jesus to bring his own representation through our submission. This is something I constantly have to come back and remind myself before every ministry opportunity.

Great post.