What a difference Jesus makes!

Lev 16:2

The Lord said to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron that he is not to come whenever he chooses into the Most Holy Place behind the curtain in front of the atonement cover on the ark, or else he will die. For I will appear in the cloud over the atonement cover.

Hebrews 4:14-16

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. … Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

God’s work done God’s way will never lack God’s blessings

Exodus 40:34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

God’s work done God’s way will never lack God’s blessings.

When Moses did everything as was directed by God, the glory of

the Lord descended on the work. They needed not to pray or fast. 

Andrew Wommack said: "Once you know you are doing God's will, you will never have to ask for God's blessing. God's will is already blessed!"

This is not ruling out the place of prayer and fasting. There’s a time for them, but not for God to bless “His” work. If God gave an assignment, it would be wickedness on his part not to support the work. If I asked a child to do something for me in the house, it would be wickedness on my part not to give the child what he needed to accomplish the work. Otherwise that will be like Pharaoh’s taskmasters in Egypt who refused to supply the Israelites with the materials needed to get their work done. And God is not a taskmaster. 

This is the point I’m making: there will always be temptations to do things the way others are doing it, especially if God has not given you any elaborate or grandeur project to do for him. There will always be temptations to fill in the gaps; to “faith” for large buildings. We have this notion that God will always ask you to do what is beyond you. True but not necessarily. If you have to be begging and pleading with your “partners” and members or even threatening them, then we have to question that vision. 

A time came in the building of that tabernacle in the wilderness that the workers had to plead with the people not to bring any more materials. 

So all the skilled workers who were doing all the work on the sanctuary left what they were doing and said to Moses, “The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the Lord commanded to be done.” Then Moses gave an order and they sent this word throughout the camp: “No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.” And so the people were restrained from bringing more, because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work. Exodus 36:2-7

In the day of His power, His people shall be willing. 

God will give you assignment based on your capacity; based on what He knows you can handle, and based on the resources He has put around your life. 

Matthew 25:15
And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey.

According to Heavenly Pattern

Exodus 26:30 “Set up the tabernacle according to the plan shown you on the mountain.

Every divine assignment is accompanied by a divine blueprint. 

Every work of God is unique, and so has to follow a pre-determined plan and pattern. 

Many works of God have become carbon copies of others. 

There’s a way God wants His work to be done. We need to seek and depend on Him for the way He wants us to do the work. God's work must be done God's way!

Every work God wants done on earth has a prototype already designed and built in heaven. 

When God wants a work done on earth, he first reveals what he has planned for you in heaven. Until you receive that, you are labouring in vain. 

After he has shown you, then you can say you have an assignment. If you have not received that, you don’t have a ministry or a job yet.

So what do I do? Very simple! Keep waiting. Don’t be like the prophets in the days of Jeremiah.  

Jeremiah 23:21
“I have not sent these prophets, yet they run around claiming to speak for me. I have given them no message, yet they go on prophesying.

The Good Fight

I grew up hearing from my parents and everyone that loved me: Don’t fight! And so I grew up not knowing how to fight. 

But what they didn’t tell me was that there’s a good fight—the fight for my life; the fight for my future; the fight for my destiny; the fight for my health; the fight for my marriage; the fight for the good things of life! 

I discovered in life that you have to fight for every good thing. Spring is coming. Very soon it will be all green. Guess what you will find there? Grass. Weeds. Nothing more. But if you want vegetables, corns, and other good stuff, you’ve got to fight for them. You’ve got to plant, and fertilize. But then, you must be ready to fight—the weeds, the insects, the worms and every destructive thing that wants to fight the good stuff you have planted. 

Same with life. There are so many bad elements around. They want to stop you, hinder you and if possible, destroy you. That is why you need to fight. 

Fight the bad habits. There are things that are pleasurable but dangerous to your health. You’ve got to fight them. And the earlier you fight them the better. Otherwise they will fight you—your health and wellness, finance, fitness. They may even fight your relationship. 

Fight the bad attitude. You know them. Everyone is talking about them—your anger, gluttony, carelessness, laziness and so on. Unbeknown to you, those things are killing you—your relationships, performance, and your finance. 

Fight the bad company. They don’t mean well for you because they are going nowhere. They have no regard for your future. They’ve wrecked theirs, and want you to wreck yours too. They take you where you’ve vowed never to go again. They show you what you don’t want to watch again. The earlier you detach from them the better. 

Friend, to live you’ve got to fight! And to live well, you’ve got to seriously fight! It’s high time to take off the kid gloves, and fight with bare knuckle the stuff that are fighting your destiny. 

Seeing the Invisible

You are going to make a decision everyday how you want to live: whether it’s going to be by what you see or just trust that the not yet seen is much better. 

Sight is powerful but limited. 

Not too long ago, I was in a two day training on suicide prevention, and it’s amazing the statistics on suicide not just globally but even here in Canada. And this is what baffles me, the common refrain from survivors: I looked around and couldn’t see anything to live for again!

Helen Keller, blind and deaf all her life, was asked what could be worse than blindness and she answered: To have sight but no vision. She was the first blind and deaf person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. 

Eyes that look are many, but eyes that see are few. Vision talks about seeing beyond your present reality; seeing beyond the physical. It talks about seeing the invisible. 

Steve Job, the Apple giant, in his commencement address at Stamford University in 2005, made this profound statement: 

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path; and that will make all the difference.

To focus only on what you can see could be discouraging: the bills, the wrinkles, the tragedies, the pain, the misunderstandings, and so on. To focus only on happenings at the present could be demoralizing. 

Two days you shouldn’t worry about every week. One is yesterday, with all its wonders and blunders; with all its pleasure and pressure. Goodnews! It’s gone. Let it go! The other is tomorrow, with all its uncertainties. You just have to trust, like Steve Job, that the dots will somehow connect … tomorrow. Nothing more. 

The only important day is today! That’s not too much to handle. Someone said: “Any person can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when we add the burdens of yesterday and tomorrow that we break down.”

I take solace in the words of a great writer of old simply called Paul: 

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 

The Big Boss

A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And he said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves. Luke 22:24-27 

I was watching a TV commercial the other night talking about how to recognize the big boss. It says the big boss wears a big wrist watch, rides a big car, lives in a big mansion, and … just does everything big!

How do we deal with a scripture like the above in the body of Christ today? This is one of our greatest challenges in the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement. Our pastors and bishops have become lords and masters. People who are supposed to be servants now have a retinue of aides serving them. They go about with bodyguards, travel with security escorts, and are accorded rock star welcome everywhere. I know this can be explained as giving honour to whom it is due. Uhmm, ... so who is the honour due? I wonder how Peter was honoured? ... and Paul? (Pls read Acts 10:25-26; Acts 14:13-15; Rev. 22:8-9)

How did we fall this low? How have we become so much like the world in our orientation, mindset and attitude? Today, the pastor sits on the best chair in the church. In fact, his chair is specially designed and must be different from the others on the altar. He rides the best car. He lives in the biggest mansion. The pastor is the Boss! That is it! That is the message we are giving out.

To make matters worse, we now call him daddy. And daddy must be honoured, respected and served. Our problems become complicated. We have transposed our culture into the kingdom instead of allowing our culture to be transformed by the word of God. We have rendered the word of God of no use by our tradition.

But look at the verdict of Jesus: But not so with you!

Can we become biblical in our mentality? Can we return to the scriptures in the conduct of our dealings and affairs? Can we pull down all these human structures we have built to subjugate the word of God? Can we beat a retreat from competing with the world in a race we can never win, and to which God has never called us? And … can we tell our bosses that the Church has only one Lord and Master, and it’s not the pastor?

“Back to Sender”

I’m often appalled by this line of prayer from some of our prayer meetings and gatherings. Why are we so revengeful? Why are we so unbiblical in our reasoning? Definitely, that idea is not a New Testament one. Only in the Old Testament were they instructed to return eye for eye. In the NT, Jesus asked us to turn the other cheek, not to return back to sender. 

 

The great Indian Statesman, Mahatma Gandhi, said: An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind. And that is coming from a Hindu.  Jesus was dying on the Cross, and yet prayed: Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. Stephen, while being stoned to death, still managed to say a word of prayer for his killers: Do not lay this sin to their charge.

Many of us have shut the door of salvation to many potential heaven bound sinners through our revengeful prayer. Thank God Saul of Tarsus didn’t live in our days. We would have killed him a thousand times. How do you know if that person sending the arrow is not a candidate of the kingdom? God has promised that no weapon formed against us shall prosper.  I would rather pray that evil arrow should catch fire and be destroyed than praying for it to return back to the sender. Even David, operating under the Old Covenant is godlier than some of us. Twice he had opportunities to strike dead his greatest persecutor, and twice he refrained from doing so. He was more justified under the Old Covenant to kill him, yet he allowed divine prerogative to have its way. No wonder God called him a man after his heart.

 

The good news is that it’s not all our prayers that God answers. Many of our prayers are only “feel good” prayers. They don’t go beyond our mouth; because they are so rooted in unbelief and so contrary to the scriptures.

Friends, we are New Testament believers! Let’s adjust our mentality to comply with the new order. New wine in old wineskin will not work. That is why it appears Christianity is not working. We are presenting the wrong teachings to the people. And many get frustrated when they don’t get the kind of result they are expecting which God never promised in the first instance. God never said he would kill all your enemies. Even in the OT He only said they shall be as nothing. In other words, they will be so helpless over you because He would render them ineffective. So why bothering yourself over nothing? Like they say: Much ado over nothing!

God has said: Vengeance is mine, I will repay. Why not allow God to be God over your situation? Why taking laws into your own hands? Yes, I know the scripture in the NT says: it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you (2 Thess 1:6). So God knows what to do; and He will do it, when the right times come.