Where Are You Going, And What Are You Doing?

When I leave my first love, it means that I have gone somewhere else. If you leave one place, it signifies that you’ve entered another. From a spiritual standpoint, any time I leave my first love to go somewhere else, I should have just stayed home.

When I have left my first love, it means that I have chosen, willfully, to go in another direction. I am now going my way and am doing what I want to do. I’m going to do as I choose; I’m going to do what I think is best. I weigh my options and do what’s best for me instead of first consulting the Highest Authority, the Lord Jesus Christ. “What would You have me to do”? Oftentimes, what He would want me to do does not look exactly like what I wanted to do. In fact, it can be in direct opposition. What Jesus wants me to do can sometimes seem to make no sense at all.

In that moment of decision, what will I choose to do? Will I choose what looks best, most expedient, or most profitable . . . or will I choose to follow the lead of my first love? I always come out on top when I have followed God! It may take a little longer to get there by persevering, but it isn’t about “getting rich quick.” This is about obeying the Lord, following my first love, staying connected to Him, and doing what He wills and not what I want to do.

Let me make this very clear. He’ll let you do what you want to do. Just because you did it, don’t think you did the will of God. In making that judgment, the first principle to be applied is, “How does it line up with the Word?” If it is clearly NOT in alignment, then it is NOT the will of God. Let’s get that principle firmly established. The writer of Hebrews said that we ought to have our senses exercised in order to be able to discern what is good and what is evil.

We know that when we go our own way and make our own decisions without consulting the Lord that it comes back to bite us, and then we can’t figure out why things aren’t going well. Maybe it’s because we’ve wandered from our first love and have gone some other way.

Let’s look at Ephesians 4:11-15. “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.” What is the purpose of that five-fold ministry gift mix? It’s for, “the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” That is definitely another topic that I could delve into, but won’t at this time.

The whole purpose of the five-fold ministry is for equipping the saints for doing the work. In other words, the saints are supposed to be doing the work of the ministry, right? The apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers have been given to the church to equip believers to do the work of the ministry, not to simply make churches bigger and collect more money! No, the purpose is to equip, train, teach, and give individuals the equipment they need to serve. As I’ve said, that’s a whole other message, but listen: if I don’t help you succeed in being what God has called you to be, then I have not done what I’m supposed to be doing! The point is that we have a place wherein we can become equipped, then WE (meaning you and I), are able to do the work of the ministry.

“For the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴ that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵ but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ.”

We are continually being brought to completion/maturity. We are ALL involved in this process, and God is bringing us to this point through the knowledge of His Son and in the unity of faith until we are all being perfected in Christ-likeness.

Let us make a personal goal of examining our hearts and giving careful thought as to how much attention, deference, and obedience we give to our first love, and this will be very telling as to what place we give Him in our lives.

Grace and peace,

PG

Walking in God's Promises, Part 2

Every person in the Bible that you can think of that accomplished anything of significance had to go through a process whether it was Ruth, Esther, Joseph, Daniel, Gideon, or Paul. Even Jesus Himself had to go through and honor the process. Jesus didn’t do that simply by going to the cross. One of His means was by entering the world legally by being born of a woman. So throughout His life, you can see that Jesus honored protocol. Protocol is part of the process. The sooner we learn to recognize, understand, and respect protocol and process, the sooner we will reach the goal of fulfilling God’s purpose in our lives. It’s all based on the Word of God and upon personal experience.

In addition to personal experience, we can learn from the people around us who've gone through so we don't have to, that is, if we're willing to learn from them. I know that there are some young folks, who in your heart, you really, really believe that you know as much about life as the sixty-year old person sitting next to you. I have a six-year old, and I'm trying to take him through a process. Right now we’re still stumbling through, “Listen to your father because he knows more than you.” At six-years old, he’s convinced that he’s smarter than me in the ways of life. So whenever I tell him how to do something, he immediately tells me how he thinks it should be done. We’re talking six-years old! Oh, what a road we have ahead of us! I’m sure none of you have kids like that. Your kids probably commend you on how smart you are every day. If that’s the case, you’d better count yourself blessed.

Also, part of the process is going from faith-to-faith. You need to ask yourself, “Am I making progress? Am I moving from faith-to-faith? Having conquered, am I prepared to conquer some more? What’s going to enable me to conquer?" One of the primary ingredients to fulfilling the purposes of God--this is going to be deep--is to know what the will of God is! Did you get that? Because you’ll never know if you’ve accomplished His purpose if you don’t know what that is! You’ll go through life wandering and wondering and never really knowing.

The first thing we need is revelation. We have to have revelation of God’s purpose for our life. When revelation comes, by definition, it means that something is revealed; it’s uncovered. God makes it plain to us. It may or may not line up with how we think we had our lives figured out. I just knew in my younger days that I was going to be a rock and roll star. I mean, all those gigs we had making $20 a night; we were on our way! Well, it’s kind of funny how things changed. We had the ambition of being stars: sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll; isn’t that a great vision? I was a man full of vision. How do you go from that to having the privilege of going so many places and preaching the Word of God? The two don’t even compare.

I look at what God has done. was able to go back to my very first church, Christian Service Center, this past Easter Sunday. I wanted to honor my former pastor, Pastor Bill. It’s kind of like giving flowers before the funeral. They allowed me to give a message and share. Part of my sermon was that everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve taken a part of that man with me. That may sound strange to some, although in my heart, he infused me with something and imparted so deeply to me. I shared with him all the places I’d been around the world in order to preach the Gospel, and Pastor Bill was simply thrilled and excited. Everywhere I had gone, it was to take Christ, but I felt like he was going with me. Thirty years of this, wow!

In closing, as revelation of God’s will opens up, we can define our purpose. Some of you say, “Well, I’m just a carpenter, a laborer, a housewife, a doctor, a lawyer, a nurse, a dentist, or a garbage collector working with Waste Management. You know what I say? Number one: be the best garbage collector you can be. Find purpose in your work. Because I tell you what, I appreciate your work! I am so glad that we have garbage collectors. Just think about what your world would be like without them. When was the last time that you thanked God for the garbage man and spoke a blessing over him? You don’t have to lay hands on him unless you want to, but pray for him!

So, what has God called you to do? Whatever that is, get passionate about it! We’re only part way through what God has laid on my heart to share regarding, “Walking in His Promises.” Thanks so much for joining me on this journey, and we’ll see you next time!

~ pg