Reality #4 Part 5 Devoloping Character
God's timing is Perfect and Helps to develop Character to Match the Assignment. He knows exactly what He is doing in and through your life. Don't rule things out that God may be saying because they don't match what you want to hear.
When God called Abram, He said, "I will bless you and make your name great" (Genesis 12:2). That means, "I will develop your character to match your assignment." Nothing is more pathetic than having a small character in a big assignment. Many of us don't want to give attention to our character; we just want the big assignment from God.
Suppose a pastor is waiting for a big church to call him to be pastor. Then a small church calls and says, "Will you come and be bivocational and help us out here on the west side of Wyoming?"
"Well, no," the prospective pastor responds. He thinks, I am here waiting for God to give me an assignment. I have done so much training, I can't waste my life by working a secular job when I can serve a church fulltime. I think that I deserve something much more significant than that. I've paid my dues.
This viewpoint is so self-centered! Human reasoning will not give you God's perspective. If you can't be faithful in a little, God will not give you the larger assignment! He wants you to adjust your life and character in smaller assignments in order to prepare you for the larger ones. That is where God starts to work! When you make the adjustments and start obey Him, you come to know Him by experience. This is the goal of God's activity in your life -- that you come to KNOW HIM!!!
Do you want to experience God mightily working in your life and through your life? Then adjust your life to God in the kind of relationship where you follow Him wherever He leads you -- even if the assignment seems to be small or insignificant. Wouldn't you rather hear: "Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord" (Matthew 25:21)?!
Now, you may ask, "Do I automatically assume that a request like the pastor received to the west side of Wyoming is from God because it is a small assignment?" No. Whether the assignment is large or small in your eyes, you will still have to find out whether it is from God or not. However, you always need to let God tell you that! You will know through the relationship with God. Don't try to bypass the relationship!
If you are God-centered, you will adjust your circumstances to what God wants to do. God has a right to interrupt your life. He is LORD! When you surrendered to Him as Lord, you gave Him the right to help Himself to your life anytime He wants. If you are not willing to be faithful in a little, God cannot give you a larger assignment. The smaller assignments of God are always used of God to develop character. God always develops character to match His assignment. If God has a great assignment for you, He has to develop a great character to match that assignment before He can give you the assignment. When God gives direction, you accept it and understand it clearly, then give God all the time He needs to make you the kind of person that He can trust with that assignment. Do not assume that the moment He calls, you are ready for the assignment. Consider David and Paul:
David: How long was it after God (through Samuel) anointed David king that David mounted the throne? Maybe ten or twelve years. God was building David's relationship with Himself. As goes the king, so goes the nation. You cannot bypass character!
Paul: How long was it after the living Lord called the apostle Paul on the Damascus Road that Paul went on his first missionary journey? Maybe ten or eleven years. The focus is not on Paul; the focus is on God. God wanted to redeem a lost world, and He wanted to begin to redeem the Gentiles through Paul. God needed that much time to prepare Paul for the assignment.
Its it for your sake that God takes time to prepare you? No, not for you alone, but also for the sake of those He wants to reach through you! For their sake, give yourself the kind of relationship to God we are discussing. Then, when He puts you in an assignment, He will achieve everything He wants in the lives of those you touch!
Specific Directions!
A popular teaching says God does not give you clear directives. It says He just sets your life in motion, then you try to figure out the directions using your God-given mind. This implies that a Christian always thinks correctly and according to God's will. This does not take into account that the old nature is constantly battling with the spiritual nature (see Romans 7). Our ways are not God's ways (see Isaiah 55:8). Only God can give you the kind of specific directions to accomplish His purposes in His ways.
After God spoke to Noah about building an ark, Noah knew the size, the type of materials, and how to put it together. When God spoke to Moses about building the tabernacle, He was very specific about the details. When God became flesh in the Person of Jesus Christ, He gave specific directions to His disciples -- where to go, what to do, how to respond! What about when God called Abraham (Abram) and said, "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1)? That was not very specific. That required faith. But God did say, "I will show you." God always will give you enough specific directions to do now what He wants you to do! When you need more directions, He gives you more in His timing. In Abraham's case, God later told him about the son to be born to him, the number of his descendants, the territory they would inhabit, and that they would go into bondage and be brought out.
The Holy Spirit gives clear directives today! God is personal. He wants to be intimately involved in your life. He will give you clear guidance for living. You may say, "That has not been my experience." You need to bring your experience up to the Word of God and not lower God's ways to match your experience! If you do not have clear instructions from God in a matter, pray and wait. Learn patience. Depend on God's timing. His timing is always right and best. Don't get in a hurry. He may be withholding directions to cause you to seek Him more intently. Again, Don't try to skip over the relationship! God is more interested in a love relationship with you than He is in what you can do for Him!
You may ask, "How can I know whether the word I receive is from God, my own selfish desires, or Satan?" Some people go to much trouble studying Satan's ways so they can identify when something appears to be a deception of Satan. I wouldn't do that! I am determined NOT to focus on Satan! He is DEFEATED! The One who is guilding me, the One who is presently implementing His will through me, is the Victor! The only way Satan can affect God's work through me is when I believe Satan and disbelieve God. Satan always will try to deceive you. Satan cannot ultimately thwart what God purposes to do!
Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Mounties, train men in anti-counterfeiting work. They never let a trainee see a counterfeit bill. They know only one genuine type of ten-dollar bill exists. The so thoroughly study the genuine bill that anything that does not measure up to that is counterfeit!
You can't imagine all the ways people can counterfeit money. But Mounties don't study how people counterfeit money. They just study the real thing. Anything that doesn't measure up to that is fake!
When you are faced with a sense of direction, you may ask yourself, "Is this God, me, or Satan?" How can you prepare yourself to know clearly a word from God? I suggest that you know the ways of God so thoroughly that if something doesn't measure up to God's ways, turn away from it! That's what Jesus did in the temptations. In essence Jesus just quietly said, "I understand what you are saying, Satan; but that is not the last word I had from My Father. The Scriptures say..." (see Matthew 4:1-11). Jesus never discussed it with Satan. He never analyzed it. He just kept doing the last thing His Gather told Him to do until His Father told Him what to do next.
As with Jesus' encounter with Satan, your spiritual warfare may involve being encouraged to do something that sounds good but is not God's best or God's way. Jesus knew clearly what His mission was an how the Father intended for Him to accomplish it. When Satan tried to get Jesus to go a different route for "instant success," Jesus recalled the assignment His Father had given and rejected the false counsel.
Seek after God! Adjust your life to His purposes and join with Him in His work!
If you have not bypassed the love relationship, you will be able to know if it is God, you, or Satan.
Cling to God and His Word!
In Christ,
David
When God called Abram, He said, "I will bless you and make your name great" (Genesis 12:2). That means, "I will develop your character to match your assignment." Nothing is more pathetic than having a small character in a big assignment. Many of us don't want to give attention to our character; we just want the big assignment from God.
Suppose a pastor is waiting for a big church to call him to be pastor. Then a small church calls and says, "Will you come and be bivocational and help us out here on the west side of Wyoming?"
"Well, no," the prospective pastor responds. He thinks, I am here waiting for God to give me an assignment. I have done so much training, I can't waste my life by working a secular job when I can serve a church fulltime. I think that I deserve something much more significant than that. I've paid my dues.
This viewpoint is so self-centered! Human reasoning will not give you God's perspective. If you can't be faithful in a little, God will not give you the larger assignment! He wants you to adjust your life and character in smaller assignments in order to prepare you for the larger ones. That is where God starts to work! When you make the adjustments and start obey Him, you come to know Him by experience. This is the goal of God's activity in your life -- that you come to KNOW HIM!!!
Do you want to experience God mightily working in your life and through your life? Then adjust your life to God in the kind of relationship where you follow Him wherever He leads you -- even if the assignment seems to be small or insignificant. Wouldn't you rather hear: "Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord" (Matthew 25:21)?!
Now, you may ask, "Do I automatically assume that a request like the pastor received to the west side of Wyoming is from God because it is a small assignment?" No. Whether the assignment is large or small in your eyes, you will still have to find out whether it is from God or not. However, you always need to let God tell you that! You will know through the relationship with God. Don't try to bypass the relationship!
If you are God-centered, you will adjust your circumstances to what God wants to do. God has a right to interrupt your life. He is LORD! When you surrendered to Him as Lord, you gave Him the right to help Himself to your life anytime He wants. If you are not willing to be faithful in a little, God cannot give you a larger assignment. The smaller assignments of God are always used of God to develop character. God always develops character to match His assignment. If God has a great assignment for you, He has to develop a great character to match that assignment before He can give you the assignment. When God gives direction, you accept it and understand it clearly, then give God all the time He needs to make you the kind of person that He can trust with that assignment. Do not assume that the moment He calls, you are ready for the assignment. Consider David and Paul:
David: How long was it after God (through Samuel) anointed David king that David mounted the throne? Maybe ten or twelve years. God was building David's relationship with Himself. As goes the king, so goes the nation. You cannot bypass character!
Paul: How long was it after the living Lord called the apostle Paul on the Damascus Road that Paul went on his first missionary journey? Maybe ten or eleven years. The focus is not on Paul; the focus is on God. God wanted to redeem a lost world, and He wanted to begin to redeem the Gentiles through Paul. God needed that much time to prepare Paul for the assignment.
Its it for your sake that God takes time to prepare you? No, not for you alone, but also for the sake of those He wants to reach through you! For their sake, give yourself the kind of relationship to God we are discussing. Then, when He puts you in an assignment, He will achieve everything He wants in the lives of those you touch!
Specific Directions!
A popular teaching says God does not give you clear directives. It says He just sets your life in motion, then you try to figure out the directions using your God-given mind. This implies that a Christian always thinks correctly and according to God's will. This does not take into account that the old nature is constantly battling with the spiritual nature (see Romans 7). Our ways are not God's ways (see Isaiah 55:8). Only God can give you the kind of specific directions to accomplish His purposes in His ways.
After God spoke to Noah about building an ark, Noah knew the size, the type of materials, and how to put it together. When God spoke to Moses about building the tabernacle, He was very specific about the details. When God became flesh in the Person of Jesus Christ, He gave specific directions to His disciples -- where to go, what to do, how to respond! What about when God called Abraham (Abram) and said, "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1)? That was not very specific. That required faith. But God did say, "I will show you." God always will give you enough specific directions to do now what He wants you to do! When you need more directions, He gives you more in His timing. In Abraham's case, God later told him about the son to be born to him, the number of his descendants, the territory they would inhabit, and that they would go into bondage and be brought out.
The Holy Spirit gives clear directives today! God is personal. He wants to be intimately involved in your life. He will give you clear guidance for living. You may say, "That has not been my experience." You need to bring your experience up to the Word of God and not lower God's ways to match your experience! If you do not have clear instructions from God in a matter, pray and wait. Learn patience. Depend on God's timing. His timing is always right and best. Don't get in a hurry. He may be withholding directions to cause you to seek Him more intently. Again, Don't try to skip over the relationship! God is more interested in a love relationship with you than He is in what you can do for Him!
You may ask, "How can I know whether the word I receive is from God, my own selfish desires, or Satan?" Some people go to much trouble studying Satan's ways so they can identify when something appears to be a deception of Satan. I wouldn't do that! I am determined NOT to focus on Satan! He is DEFEATED! The One who is guilding me, the One who is presently implementing His will through me, is the Victor! The only way Satan can affect God's work through me is when I believe Satan and disbelieve God. Satan always will try to deceive you. Satan cannot ultimately thwart what God purposes to do!
Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Mounties, train men in anti-counterfeiting work. They never let a trainee see a counterfeit bill. They know only one genuine type of ten-dollar bill exists. The so thoroughly study the genuine bill that anything that does not measure up to that is counterfeit!
You can't imagine all the ways people can counterfeit money. But Mounties don't study how people counterfeit money. They just study the real thing. Anything that doesn't measure up to that is fake!
When you are faced with a sense of direction, you may ask yourself, "Is this God, me, or Satan?" How can you prepare yourself to know clearly a word from God? I suggest that you know the ways of God so thoroughly that if something doesn't measure up to God's ways, turn away from it! That's what Jesus did in the temptations. In essence Jesus just quietly said, "I understand what you are saying, Satan; but that is not the last word I had from My Father. The Scriptures say..." (see Matthew 4:1-11). Jesus never discussed it with Satan. He never analyzed it. He just kept doing the last thing His Gather told Him to do until His Father told Him what to do next.
As with Jesus' encounter with Satan, your spiritual warfare may involve being encouraged to do something that sounds good but is not God's best or God's way. Jesus knew clearly what His mission was an how the Father intended for Him to accomplish it. When Satan tried to get Jesus to go a different route for "instant success," Jesus recalled the assignment His Father had given and rejected the false counsel.
Seek after God! Adjust your life to His purposes and join with Him in His work!
If you have not bypassed the love relationship, you will be able to know if it is God, you, or Satan.
Cling to God and His Word!
In Christ,
David
posted by Mark 1:17 at 12:22 PM
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