Lessons from 70 years of ministry: ‘What I have received I passed on to you as of first importance.’ (Part 1) Available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, YouTube.
I want to challenge you to rise up and do something for the glory of God in the Power of the Holy Ghost and in the Name of Jesus. We’re living in a time of real spiritual warfare; of not just saying, ‘Oh, I’m going to bind the power of the devil,’ but getting out there where the devil is and trouncing him head-on until we get the victory!
I believe in action. God has called us into the Kingdom, and if you are a born-again, baptised, Spirit-filled believer, God has done that for a reason. God doesn’t save you and call you so that you can sit at ease. We are saved to serve! Not just to have a wonderful life.
We don’t all have to be preachers, but the fact is that we are saved to live for God. He has called us, but we have to make it happen! I believe in prayer, and I believe in miracles, but miracles happen when God uses men and women to work the miracles. I hear people all over the world say, ‘Oh, it’s not the time for evangelism, and if God wants to save people, He will do it Himself.’ No, God sent His Son into the world to die on the cross to set the world free, but we’ve got to declare it! It’s no use just sitting there. God needs people.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus!
Moses in Exodus 3 was a very ordinary man, busy doing a job, keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law. And as he led the flock to the back of the desert, to Horeb, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. Moses looked, and the bush burned but was not consumed. Sometimes God has to do something unusual in our lives to attract our attention, to make us turn aside from the cares of the world, from the responsibilities that we have, from our problems: sickness, pain, financial difficulties. God wants us to turn aside like Moses and look at Him. If you want real faith, God may have to bring some major crisis into your life to get your attention. I thank God for the crises in my life because that’s how I have learnt faith, and how I have learnt to trust God. These problems become the very things that propel you into servanthood.
If God is going to deal with you, if God is going to call you, if God is going to use you - and God wants to use every one of you - if you’re not in a position where He can use you, then examine your spiritual life and ask the question: Why am I saved? Because you are saved to serve!
We are saved to serve!
Jesus said, ‘Let him who would be the greatest among you, let him be your servant.’ For those looking for honour and esteem, and those seeking position in spiritual life, let me remind you that ‘position’ begins with servanthood - ‘let them become your servant’.
I want to emphasise that God called me. I did not choose to serve God. Jesus said in His own words, ‘You did not choose Me. I chose you.’ He called us in order that we might serve Him, and I believe that He has called every single born-again believer to serve Him.
I remember the day when the Lord challenged me to serve Him. I was 15, on holiday on the South Coast of England, walking on the seafront with some young Christians, and I couldn’t enter into the fun that they were having because God was speaking to me - and the devil was speaking to me. The devil was saying, ‘Don’t listen. It’s OK, things are fine. You’re doing well. You got saved when you were 8, and you got baptised in water when you were 12. You started preaching at 13. That’s enough,’ and God was saying, ‘I want more.’ God was not calling me to be a preacher or an evangelist. God was asking me to give my whole life to Him. It was all or nothing.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. (Romans 12:1, NKJV)
That’s where we begin with God - it’s all or nothing. What are you called for? Are you called to live for God, or for yourself? To have a good time, a family and a big house, a car and a successful business and just go on until your pension comes? No, when God called you, He said, ‘I want everything, including your success.’
It all begins with a servant’s heart. We are saved to serve Him!
‘Come up Higher’ used by kind permission www.vinesong.com