After the holidays are now basically over, I am on “re-group.” I don’t think I have ever prayed for so many meetings so hard in my life! But it’s a good thing and it was an assignment. The Lord had asked, “Do you really care?” and I felt I had to prove I did! I have assignments as an intercessor.
The Lord always wants to know if we really care. If we love Him, we deny our flesh and keep His Commandments. That is a full time job in this day and age as we are out in the world, making a difference, because we should be. But sometimes we can get so caught up in the work, that we miss the Holy Spirit and what He is saying and doing and even ministering to us.
It is possible to get weary from well doing, and there are challenges and obstacles along the way. But after a thrust of faith has been given and we know that our soul has extended itself in energies for God, we do need the balance of rest, but also of assessing the new place we are in because hopefully we have taken ground from the enemy!
Not only that, sometimes there is what we call “backlash” from the resistance of having taken that territory. We really are in a strategy mode for the Kingdom of God, and some of you who like games a lot really should start applying some of those strategies to the spiritual world, as you are instructed by the Lord.
Of course that first of all means you have to HEAR the Lord, and you have to get your own house in order (count the cost, as Jesus said) to move forward in God. (You can miss a lot if you don’t make yourself willing in the day of battle.)
In our early Christian days we are a lot on the “receive” end and we should be, but when that ministry is done, there should be new energies arising in you that have to be channelled for producing good Kingdom works – things like witnessing to people, helping people, praying for people, joining with people to accomplish varied good and necessary things! The Bible says we were predestined for those good works!
That being said, we then need to learn how to mature in it. And it’s not all drudgery works! The more effective we get, the more we will see victories and some defeats. But the biggest thing to remember as born again Christians is that those defeats are TEMPORARY!!!
As you get wiser and more sensitive, you will realize there is a channel or current of God flowing through you. It’s your job to keep the stream open when trials and tribulations and circumstances block it up. But besides tending your own soul, which you really must if you value it, you are going to get new assignments and understandings from God that you will need to apply to your life and then to others as is properly applicable. We need the different ministry gifts to help us in this.
You must realize that the enemy wants to take you out. Jesus told us that he (the enemy) comes to kill, steal and destroy, but that He came to bring life, and to overcome and even destroy the works of the enemy. Personally I wish there never was a devil in the first place but there is a counter force to the goodness of God. I could spend a long time crying about that, but God knows that counterforce reveals Him better. If we LEARN how to cooperate with God and if we learn the strategies of Spiritual warfare, we can find that our “wounds” and “hits” become much more managable and even instructional.
We need to learn HOW to cooperate with the Living Spirit of God. He says, “My sheep hear My Voice, and another’s they will not follow.” So that means we do need to learn to discern. But after learning to discern His Voice, we then need to learn how to OBEY His Voice! – because sometimes that is easier said than done and we need His Spiritual resources to do it.
Many young Christians will try to accomplish Spiritual goals with worldly systems. Now many of the successful sytems in the world have used Godly principles and succeeded. And we really should have churches full of accomplishing business people. Even Proverbs 31 will tell you that women are in the marketplace, supporting the causes of God and their family. They are not leaders alone but they are active and wise and contributing.
God’s Kingdom is built without compromises. Sometimes that is hard for us to see. Sometimes we don’t even want to see it. But it’s still the truth and try as we will to do things another way, we are only going this far and no further till we get it right. It’s so great once we catch on to that to learn that He has supernatural ways to lead and guide us and show us these great things. But we must become disciplined in the right ways of God.
What we learn as we move forward is that we don’t understand everything going on, but we do develop more faith and trust in His Voice. The Lord is developing our spirits and not only our minds. A right countenance goes a long way, along with right thoughts. And when you are in a war, that can be an art you will find important to learn!
So what am I saying here. Once you get on the right foundations, you can make great progress in your spiritual life. But after you make an advancement, you need to take the time to process where you are. Once you arrive in “new territory” you will also find that there are new opportunities but you can get distracted by those if you are not assessing what just happened. The great news is that God is working with you on all this. I am just saying, Don’t miss that!
The enemy is also looking to take his ground back if he can. If we don’t assess our situations, we may miss a counter-move that we should have seen or discerned. If the Word is leading you, you have a lot of clues that you already need. A lot of Christians have come to realize that “a lot of warfare” can mean that there is something really good that we are contending for in our assignment.
God will speak to us and when He does, He is not looking for our counsel. He does not mind a submissive spirit talking to Him, but sometimes He just wants us to obey. When we learn how to do that, it’s great to see later what He was doing and we really do develop a lot of trust in Him that way!
Once we arrive in our “next level”, we need to learn it and discern it until He says otherwise. He is looking for our hearts to connect with His Heart for the next big move, which could be sooner, or later. He has a big picture in mind! Remember when He assigned terroritories to the children of Israel, it was not just “four days later” and they had it all done. No, they had to “take the land” and then build the land. Even still, they are working on that!
When one territory had a problem, then the others were supposed to help. It was Family! We need to learn how to do the order of Family from a Kingdom perspective. If children, rather than wise men, rule a family, then when trouble comes, we are not prepared. There is a big world going on outside the four walls of our houses. Even if we work to get off the grid for our electric, and dig wells for our water supply, we are still dependent on each other and God has made it to be so that way.
But when we get in the order of Kingdom dynamics, we find that we are much more on the effective offensive and not the defensive. And where we go can become a Garden of Eden for those areas! If we develop our Spiritual tools and gifts, we have resources! And if we develop our worship, we have inspiration and hope – which are very necessary.
So take your advancements in the proper ways, but then be sure to rest, assess, and discern. Jesus said “I do the works I see My Father do.” Keep the connection of God’s Love for you flowing in your channel. Don’t take things for granted but be humble and teachable, because God has many more great things that we will not only want, but need.
WINGS in the WIND 