Here we are again in that last
month of the year which confirms that life is truly revolving like Solomon said
- whatever is, will be and has been. So very soon it will be January, the beginning
of another year which will yet get to December and it goes on and on. Sometimes
the thought that it’s December makes me sober; I start to wonder if I
accomplished all I was meant to and then I wonder if the unaccomplished ones
remain unaccomplished because of an act or omission on my part or because God delayed
it. There was also the fact that as a little girl, I worked so hard on
Christmas day clearing up after guests that I didn’t enjoy the day. Ah! I
forgot the weather, especially in the Northern part of my Country where I grew
up; it was terrible around Christmas. So, December was not always the most
exciting month of the year until I encountered The Son of God in a real way. Only
then did I begin to understand that at Christmas we celebrate the miracle of all
miracles; the miracle that is joy and hope of mankind - Jesus Christ. Of course, it is no longer that sober time it used to
be.
Luke 2: 10 “But the angel reassured them. ‘Don’t be afraid!’ he said.
‘I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior-yes,
the Messiah, the Lord- has been born today in Bethlehem.”
There is so much to learn about
God and His ways from this miracle that may help us ensure that we never lose
our own miracles. Though there are times when God moves to do things in our
lives inspite of us, there are other times when knowledge of Him plays a major
role in the manifestation of that which He does in our lives that our joy may
be full. For example, it remains puzzling to me why God would elect to come
down to earth and in such a humbling way just because He wanted to give us the
miracle of salvation. I am almost certain He could have found tidier and easier
ways to save us but he chose to get entangled with the reality of the lives we
live here on earth. He would rather follow due process and ensure that He meets
all His obligations so that on all fronts, He fulfilled “all righteousness.” Obviously,
He does not feel the need to throw His “weight around” nor does He upturn
process even if he could easily do so. Tedious as a process may be, He honors it.
It is then worrisome that in ministry, we feel the need to have due process
upturned for us because we have attained unto a certain office. This attitude
of mind may have caused some of us to unknowingly abort our miracles ourselves.
When God puts a man in an office, the unction that follows the office commands the
required honor. If you demand honor for a man made office, you will one day
leave that office, how do you then cope without the honor which is only upon
that man made office. It is best to wait on God’s honor.
Luke 4: 14 & 18a “Then Jesus returned to Galilee, filled with the
Holy Spirit’s power…The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for He has anointed me
to ….”
God carefully searched for the
right vessel; one who was fit and ready for what was on His mind unlike we
often think He does. If God took the
time to search for this vessel that was “fit and ready for His use, then we
must know that He would not use just any vessel so that we make ourselves
unusable by God, slowing down our own lives when we insist that God must use us
just the way we are refusing to be vessels “fit and ready” for His use. Our God
would not have come down to earth through just any vessel, the same way He will
not birth anything precious through just anyone. If our desire is for Him to
work wonders through us, then we must make ourselves “fit” for His use. It is
the responsibility of each vessel to make themselves fit and ready and God’s
job to choose the particular one required for an assignment. A vessel does not
choose His assignment, that is The Master’s job; but the vessel accepts the
responsibility and runs with the God given vision just like Mary did. I don’t
think anyone ever fully understands the extent of an assignment until it begins
to unfold as they run with it. The Holy Spirit is like the guiding compass
showing us which way to go but the decision to go is always ours.
2 Timothy 2: 21 “If you keep yourself pure, you will be a special
utensil for honorable use. Your life will be clean, and you will be ready for
the Master to use you for every good work.”
Since God would Himself follow
process, then we must know that with every assignment, He would be very
interested in the means and not just the end. He defines the way we are to
carry out this assignment and expects us to follow that path. We don’t please
God when we do it our way and expect Him to accept it because we completed the
assignment. We are to give Him acceptable service and the standard of
acceptability is set by Him. It is our job to find out “the how” and do it. The
Holy Spirit is given as our helper as we navigate our God given assignments. No
matter how difficult or burdensome God given assignments may be, God is
available to help us through. He often does not resolve the difficulties before
we encounter them but if we choose to press forward when we encounter them, He
goes ahead of us to resolve them. He did not speak to Joseph about Mary’s
pregnancy until Mary had the difficult conversation with Joseph and went
through the pain of thinking her engagement had been called off. He could have stepped
before that happened. Don’t abort your miracle because of the difficulties you
encounter; God will come through.
No comments:
Post a Comment