Understanding Yourself Knowing God Ways

8 Keys to Knowing God’s Will For Your Life

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We can never produce this life of God ourselves, even if we strive after it for a million years. It has to be given to us by God.

The Holy Spirit has come down to flood our hearts with this love Romans 5: Only one who is willing to live by this principle of sacrificial love can be used by God to build His church on earth. In 2 Chronicles 3: There on that mountain Abraham understood God's way as the way of sacrifice and submitted to it.

God sanctified that spot and determined that His house would be built on that very spot years later. And this is where God builds His house the church even today - wherever he finds those who have the spirit and the faith of Abraham. In Eden, Adam and Eve as it were, told God by their action of eating the forbidden fruit that created things that brought them pleasure were more precious to them than the Creator Himself.

And that is exactly what billions of human beings are saying to God even today. But on Mount Moriah, Abraham said the opposite: And he was willing to sacrifice Isaac in order to prove it. God will honour all who live by this principle of sacrifice. It is by those who have been gripped by this way that the true house of God is going to be built even today. On Calvary's hill, it was not only true that Jesus died for the sins of the world. There, Jesus demonstrated the principle of sacrifice by which God does all His work.

No-one can serve the Lord in any other way. Those who seek for a comfortable life in this world and at the same time want to build the church also, will only deceive themselves. Those who seek the best of both worlds have been deceived by Satan thoroughly. Many have attempted to serve God without sacrifice. Their labours however have been crowned with failure after failure!!

To build the church, we have to love the church in the same way. It is not enough to give our money or our time. When God wanted to describe His love to man, He could compare His love with only one earthly example - the love of a mother for her newly-born child See Isaiah If you observe a mother, you will see that her love for her baby is full of the spirit of sacrifice. From early morning to late at night and right through the night, a mother sacrifices and sacrifices and sacrifices for her baby.

And she gets nothing in return. She endures pain and inconvenience, year after year for her child, joyfully, expecting nothing in return. That is how God loves us too. And that is the nature He wants to impart to us. But it is impossible to find a fellowship anywhere in the world about which it can be honestly said that they all love one another like that. Most believers know only how to love those who agree with them and who join their group.

Their love is human and is far removed from the sacrificial love of mothers!! Yet Divine love is the goal towards which we should be striving. So each time we sing the above lines, we should not only honestly admit that our love is not yet like that, but also confess our hope and longing that our love will become like that one day. A mother does not care whether others around her are sacrificing anything for her child or not.

She joyfully sacrifices everything herself. In the same way, one who has seen the church as his own baby will not be bothered whether others around him are sacrificing anything for the church or not. He will sacrifice himself joyfully, and he will have NO complaint or demand against anyone else. Those who complain that others are not sacrificing for the sake of the church are not mothers but hired nurses. Such nurses have fixed working hours and will complain when the nurse for the next 8-hour shift does not come on time.

But a mother does not work 8-hour shifts each day. She works a hour shift daily - year after year - and she does not even get paid for it. Even when her child is 20 years old, the mother's work is not over!! Only mothers can have milk for their babies every day. Nurses cannot produce milk for the babies they care for. In the same way, those who are like mothers in the church will always have a word for their spiritual children - in every meeting. Many elders have no word for the church because they are nurses, not mothers. A mother does not expect any payment from her children. No child ever pays its mother for her service.

In fact, if you were to calculate the wages a mother should be paid, at the rate of Rs. Which child can ever repay such an amount to its mother? Now the question that comes to us is: Who is willing to work like that for the Lord and for His church - without receiving any payment, but giving oneself, day after day, year after year, until Jesus comes? If God can find just one person with that spirit anywhere, He will use him to build the church, much more than He can use 10, half-hearted believers who try to serve Him without the spirit of sacrifice. When Jesus returns to earth and you stand before Him, will you have any regrets over the way you lived, or will you will be able to look back over a life spent usefully for the kingdom of God?

During the 40 years that I have been a born-again Christian, I have learnt some important truths that have encouraged me and given direction and purpose to my life. I share them here with you with the hope that they will be an encouragement to you as well. This is the greatest truth that I have discovered in the Bible. It changed me from an insecure, depressed believer to one who has become totally secure in God and full of the joy of the Lord - always. Since there is no partiality with our heavenly Father in the way He loves any of His sons, He will certainly be willing to do everything for us, His sons, that He did for His firstborn Son, Jesus.

He will help us as He helped Jesus. He will care for us as much as He cared for Jesus. He will be as interested in planning the details of our daily life as He was in planning Jesus' life. Nothing can ever happen to us that will take God by surprise. He has already planned for every eventuality.

So we need no longer be insecure. We have been sent to earth with as definite a purpose as Jesus was. To walk in the light means first of all that we hide nothing from God. We tell Him everything, exactly as it is. I am convinced that the first step towards God is honesty. God detests those who are insincere. Jesus spoke against hypocrites more than He spoke against anyone else. God does not ask us to be holy or perfect first of all but to be honest. This is the starting point of true holiness. And from this spring flows everything else. And if there is one thing that is really easy for anyone of us to do, it is to be honest.

So, confess sin immediately to God.

Don't call sinful thoughts by "decent" names. Don't say "I was only admiring the beauty of God's creation" when actually you lusted adulterously with your eyes. Don't call "anger" as "righteous indignation".

You will never get victory over sin if you are dishonest. And don't ever call "sin", "a mistake", because Jesus' blood can cleanse you from all your sins, but not from your mistakes!! He does not cleanse dishonest people. There is hope only for honest people. Why did Jesus say that there was more hope for prostitutes and for thieves to enter God's kingdom than for religious leaders Matthew Because prostitutes and thieves make no pretence of being holy.

Many young people are turned away from churches because church-members give them the impression that they themselves have no struggles. And so those young people think, "That holy bunch of people will never understand our problems!! This is why God gives man total freedom - both before and after conversion, and after being filled with the Spirit. If we are like God, we also will not seek to control others or pressurise them.

We will give them freedom to be different from us, to have different views from ours and to grow spiritually at their own pace. The Holy Spirit fills people, whereas demons possess people. The difference is this: When the Holy Spirit fills anyone, He still gives that person freedom to do whatever he wants. But when demons possess people they rob them of their freedom and control them.

The fruit of being filled with the Spirit is self-control Galatians 5: Demon-possession however, results in the loss of self-control. We must remember that any work that we do for God that is NOT done cheerfully, joyfully, freely and voluntarily is a dead work. Any work done for God for a reward or for a salary is also a dead work. Any money given to God under pressure from others has no value at all, as far as God is concerned!! God values a little done cheerfully for Him far more than a great deal done under compulsion, or done merely to ease one's conscience.

The secret of godliness is found in the Person of Christ Who came in our flesh as 1 Timothy 3: It is through His Person and not through a doctrinal analysis of His flesh, that we become holy. Any amount of self-effort will never make a sinful heart holy. God has to do a work within us, for that to happen. Holiness eternal life is God's gift - and it can never be attained by works Romans 6: The Bible states that God alone can sanctify us make us holy entirely 1 Thessalonians 5: Yet multitudes of believers are struggling to deny themselves in order to be holy.

They become Pharisees instead. If we keep looking only at a doctrine we will become Pharisees. The purer our doctrine, the greater the Pharisees we will become. The greatest Pharisees I have met on earth were among those who preached the highest standards of holiness through self-effort!! We have to be careful that we don't end up as one of them! What it means to look unto Jesus is very clearly explained in Hebrews First of all we are to look at Him as One Who lived on earth "enduring His cross" daily - "tempted in all points as we are and yet without sin" Hebrews 4: He is our Forerunner Hebrews 6: Secondly, we are to see Him as the One Who is now "at the right hand of the Father", interceding for us and ready to help us in every trial and temptation.

It is impossible to live the Christian life, as God wants us to, if we are not continually filled with the Holy Spirit. It is impossible to serve God as we should without being anointed with the Spirit and receiving His supernatural gifts. Jesus Himself needed to be anointed. The Holy Spirit has come to make us like Jesus in our personal lives as well as in our ministry See 2 Corinthians 3: God fills us with the Spirit in order to conform us to the likeness of Christ in our character, and to equip us to serve as Jesus served.

We do not have the same ministry that Jesus had, and so we won't be able to do what Jesus did in His ministry.

Knowing God's Ways | cfcindia, Bangalore

All that is required is an adequate thirst and faith, on our part, for rivers of living water to flow out through us John 7: We must earnestly long for the gifts of the Spirit if we are to have them 1 Corinthians Otherwise we will never have them. A church without the gifts of the Holy Spirit is like a man who may be living but who is deaf, blind, mute and lame - and therefore useless.

There is no way for us to have the life of Jesus manifested in our body other than by accepting death to our Self-life in all the situations that God plans and arranges for us 2 Corinthians 4: We must "consider ourselves dead to sin" Romans 6: We must "mortify the deeds of the body through the Spirit" if we are to live Romans 8: The Holy Spirit will always lead us to the cross in our daily life.

We are sent by God into situations where we are "slaughtered the whole day long" Romans 8: In such situations, we must accept "the dying of Jesus" 2 Corinthians 4: When a man's breath leaves his nostrils, he is no better than the dust that we walk on. So why should we value man's opinion. If we are not rooted and grounded in the fact that the opinions of ALL human beings put together are only fit for the garbage-bin, we will never be able to serve the Lord effectively. If we seek to please even one man, we cannot be servants of Christ Galatians 1: Every man's opinion is worthless compared to God's opinion.

One who is convinced of this will thereafter seek only God's approval over His life and ministry. He will never seek to impress people or to justify himself before them. The things that are considered great in the world, not only have no value in God's eyes, but are actually an abomination to Him. Since all worldly honour is an abomination to God, it must be an abomination to us too. Money is something that everyone on earth considers valuable.

But God says that those who love money and long to get rich will suffer the following eight consequences sooner or later 1 Timothy 6: One of the main reasons why a prophetic word from the Lord is hardly ever heard these days in our land, is because most preachers are lovers of money. Jesus said that the true riches the prophetic word being one of them would not be given by God to those who were unfaithful with money Luke This is why we hear so many boring sermons and so many boring testimonies in church-meetings and conferences. One who has selfish ambitions cannot claim this promise.

But if we accept the will of God totally, we can claim this promise every minute of our life on earth. Nothing can harm us. Everything that others do to us - good or evil, accidental or deliberate - will go through the filter of Romans 8: This filter works perfectly every single time for those who fulfil the conditions listed in this verse.

Further, 1 Peter 3: Unfortunately this is not as well known a verse as Romans 8: But we must popularise it now. However, this promise too is applicable only to those who are zealous to keep their hearts good towards all people. It will be impossible for any demon or human being to harm such a believer. So whenever any Christian complains that others have harmed him, he is indirectly admitting that he does not love God, is not called according to God's purpose and has not been zealous for what is good.

Otherwise, whatever those others did to him would have only worked for his good, and then he would not have had any complaints at all. Actually, the only one who can harm you is you yourself - by your unfaithfulness and your wrong attitudes to others. I am nearly 60 years old now and I can honestly say that no-one has ever succeeded in harming me in my entire life.

So I can praise God for those people too. Those who have opposed me have been mostly so-called "believers" who have not understood God's ways. I am giving you my testimony only to encourage you to believe that this can be your testimony too - always. Long ago, when God chose us in Christ, He also planned what we should do with our earthly lives.

Our duty now is to find out that plan - day by day - and to follow it. We can never make a better plan than God's. We must not imitate what others do, for God's plan for each of His children is different. God's plan for Joseph, for example, was for him to stay in the palace in Egypt and to live in great comfort for the last 80 years of his life. On the other hand, God's plan for Moses was for him to leave the palace in Egypt and to live in great discomfort for the last 80 years of his life - in the wilderness.

If Moses had followed Joseph's example, through the love of comfort and ease, he would have missed God's will for his own life. In exactly the same way today, God may want one brother to live all his life in comfort in the USA, and another brother to toil all his life in the heat and dust of North India. Each must be convinced about God's plan for his own life instead of comparing his lot with that of the other brother and being jealous of him and criticising him. I know that God called me to serve Him in India.

But I have never demanded that anyone else should have my calling. We will, however, never be able to find God's will, if we are seeking our own honour or if we love money or comfort or the approval of men. Today, God does not want us to know Him second-hand through others.

He invites even the youngest believer to know Him personally Hebrews 8: Jesus defined eternal life as knowing God and Jesus Christ personally John This was the greatest passion of Paul's life and must be our greatest passion too Philippians 3: One who desires to know God intimately, will have to listen to Him always. Jesus said that the only way man could keep himself spiritually alive was by listening to EVERY word that proceeded from God's mouth Matthew 4: He also said that to sit at His feet and listen to Him was the most important thing in the Christian life Luke We must develop the habit that Jesus had of listening to the Father from early morning every day Isaiah Knowing God will make us overcomers in all situations - because God has a solution for every problem that we face - and if we listen to Him, He will tell us what that solution is.

Many Christians do not know that there is a fundamental difference between the old and the new covenants Hebrews 8: The new covenant is as much superior to the old, as Jesus is to Moses. Whereas the old covenant could purify only a person's external life through the fear of judgment and the promise of reward, the new covenant changes us from within, not through threats and promises, but through the Holy Spirit giving us the nature of Christ - a nature that is totally pure and loving.

There is a vast difference between a pig being kept clean through being restrained by chains fear of punishment under the Law , and a cat that keeps itself clean because that is its inner nature. That example illustrates the difference between the two covenants. Jesus told His disciples that in the world they would face tribulation, John The apostles taught believers that only through much tribulation they could enter the kingdom of God Acts Jesus said that if people had called the Head of the house Beelzebul, the members of His household would be called by worse names Matthew It is thus that we know we are faithful members of His household.

Some of the names that I have been called, by other "believers", have been: It has been a great honour to be identified thereby as a part of Jesus' household. All who serve the Lord faithfully will experience this. Jesus also said that a true prophet would not be honoured by "his own relatives" Mark 6: Jesus Himself was not accepted by His family members. Every true prophet of God will be rejected and dishonoured by his own relatives, even today. In the same way, a true apostle will also be "slandered and treated as the scum of the world and the dregs of all things" 1 Corinthians 4: Suffering and rejection have always been the appointed lot of God's greatest servants.

The teaching that the church will be raptured before the "great tribulation" is a popular one with most believers because it comforts their flesh to hear it. But Jesus made it very clear in Matthew This doctrine was invented by man in England in the mids. God has raised up men at different times in different lands to restore a pure testimony for Him. But after those men of God died, their followers have made their groups exclusive and cultistic. But the body of Christ is larger than any group. And we must never forget that. The bride of Christ is found in many, many groups today.

So we must seek for fellowship with all whom the Lord has accepted, even though we may not be able to work together with many of them, because of differences in interpretation of the Word of God. Any word or action that degrades a human being is never from God. It is always from Satan who forever seeks to demean and degrade people.

We are commanded to speak "with gentleness and respect" 1 Peter 3: All men must be treated with dignity. For example, when giving a gift to a poorer brother, we must do so, without robbing him of his dignity as a human being. We must be his brother and not his benefactor. Full-time Christian workers must trust God for all their financial needs and must reveal those needs only to Him.

God will then prompt His children to supply their needs. They must not live "by faith in God and hints to other believers", as many live today. So those who serve the Lord full-time are permitted to receive gifts from other believers. But they must never receive a salary. There is a vast difference between gifts and a salary.

Gifts cannot be demanded, whereas a salary can be demanded. Here lies the cause for the backslidden condition of most Christian churches and institutions today. We must however, never receive any gifts for our personal or family use from people who are poorer than us. If such people give us gifts, we must either give the money away to someone poorer than them or put the money into the offering-box for the Lord's work. I hope these truths will not only encourage you, but liberate you as well. If you are serious about your walk with the Lord and your ministry, you should take all these truths seriously in your daily life.

A message given to evangelical Christian leaders at the All-India conference on the church's mission and leadership training - December 17, I'd like to turn to the Word of God in Revelation Chapter 4. As you know, many of those churches were in a very backslidden state. Then the Lord said to John in Chapter 4: What a lovely word that is! When we see the state of things around us, and encounter problems for which we do not have a solution, it is good to hear the Lord saying to us, "Come up higher! Come and see things from My standpoint - and not from the low earthly level from which you have been looking at these things".

Paul said, "One thing I do - forgetting what lies behind, and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus". He had heard the call to come up higher and he was never satisfied, no matter how high he had reached.

The danger in Christian leadership is that we stand so much in front of people. We even have media coverage now. We have titles before our names and degrees after our names!! What more do we need! God did not create Adam because He needed a servant. He did not create Adam because He wanted a scholar. And He did not create you and me because He needs servants or scholars.

He already has enough servants in the millions of angels. He created Adam first of all that Adam might have fellowship with Him. That's why, for Adam, the law was NOT: That came through the Law of Moses later. Adam was created on the sixth day. It was from that day of fellowship with God that Adam was to go out into the garden and serve God for the next six days. And when we forget that order - when we forget that fellowship with God must always take precedence over our going out into His vineyard to serve Him - then we've missed the primary purpose of our creation and of our redemption.

We can be so taken up with the need around us - and especially in a country like India - that we have no time for fellowship with God. We may feel that's a waste of time, when there is so much need around us. But what is the result of need-based work? Perhaps plenty of work - but the quality will be poor. You've probably heard the statement that there are three types of lies - black lies, white lies and statistics!!

Everybody has statistics these days. But Jesus never bothered about statistics. There are times in my life when I have been through certain crises. One was very early in my life when I sought to serve the Lord and I found that although I knew the Word, I lacked power! And so I sought God for the baptism in the Holy Spirit - to be endued with power from on high. Now, I know there are different views on this - and I am not trying to convert anybody.

I am just saying that I was born again and baptized in water, but "rivers of living water" were not flowing out of my life. Yet I knew that Jesus had promised that everyone who believed in Him would have rivers of living water flowing out of their life - they'd never be dry. But I found myself dry, many times. Even though I knew the Word, and even though I was preaching, I was dry.

Very often my service for the Lord was like pumping a hand-pump. You know what that means - you pump and pump and a few trickles of water come out. It is certainly not like a river. Yet I saw the word of Jesus clearly: All I can say is that I sought God and He met with me. And that changed the direction of my life. I didn't join the Pentecostal church. I do not consider myself to be a Pentecostal or a charismatic. But God met with me and filled me with His Holy Spirit. And then years later, I came to another crisis in my life.

That was a crisis that dealt with the issue of reality - whether what I was preaching was actually true in my inner life, and whether the burden that I appeared to have when I spoke to people was something I really carried in my heart as well. I presented a paper there. I was young then - just 30 years old. And you know how it is when we are young. I wanted to impress everyone. And my paper was impressive, because I had worked hard on it. My ministry continued with travelling to speak at deeper life conferences in Australia and Singapore etc.

And everywhere, my aim was to impress people. Then the Lord spoke to me and asked me, "Do you want to impress people or do you want to help them? Then the Lord said, "Stop trying to impress them then". I came to a place then in my life, where I had to say, "Lord, my inner life does not correspond with what I am preaching". Externally, I had a good testimony.

But my thought-life and my attitudes - my attitude to money - were not Christlike. I was proclaiming Christ with my mouth but the Spirit of Christ was not ruling my thoughts. And I was honest about it with God. By then I was fairly well-known. I was writing books that had a wide circulation. I had a weekly radio programme. I was invited here and there.

One day the Lord spoke to my heart and said, "Are you willing to stand up in front of that congregation that respects you and tell them that you're not genuine, that you're not real". I said, "Yes, Lord! I don't care what people think of me. I want you to do something for me. I ask you only for one thing: That my inner life will correspond with what I preach". That's what I asked the Lord for 23 years ago. God met with me again. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. And the Lord said to me, "Come up higher".

Fellowship with God has now become the most precious thing for me - during the last 22 years. It has changed my life and taken away discouragement and depression from my life altogether. I have found the secret of walking with God. And that's made my service joyful! It is no longer dry! All your service depends on your personal walk with God. You remember when Jesus was in the house of Mary and Martha. He said to Martha, "You are worried and bothered about so many things".

What was Martha worried about? There was a need there. And she was serving the Lord, unselfishly and sacrificially, sweating away in the kitchen - not cooking food for herself but for the Lord and His disciples. What greater service could she do than that? It was totally unselfish! And she didn't do it for money or for a salary, as many Christian workers serve today. And yet the Lord told her, "You are bothered about so many things". She had thought that Mary was selfish, sitting there at the Lord's feet and not doing any work, but just listening.

And Jesus said, "That's the important thing. There is a beautiful paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 4: What am I to do when I see a needy world? Get all worked up with the need? There are plenty of manipulators in Christendom who are ready to work me up. But I say to the Lord, "I want to hear You". There are plenty of Marthas who will criticise me, saying, "Tell him not to waste his time listening, when there's a needy world perishing in sin. We must certainly look at the world's need. Jesus said, "Lift up your eyes and look at the harvest".

We must see the need and we must point out the need to others too. But the call must come from God - not from man. I have discovered that. Jesus sat in heaven for years while the world lay dying in need of a Saviour. Nobody could pressurise Him to leave heaven before the Father's time. But "in the fullness of time", He came. And when He came to earth, He sat making stools and benches for 30 years - while the world lay dying! He would not be moved by the need alone. But when the right time came, the Father said, "Go". The most important thing about a servant is NOT running around doing this, that and the other for God, but listening to Him.

It's difficult to listen. I used to be in an assembly in my younger days where we studied the Scriptures, and fasted and prayed regularly. Every morning we were taught to have a "Quiet Time" - a good habit that I would recommend to everyone. But in spite of all the hours apparently spent in the presence of God, people were still sour, bitter, hard-to-get-along-with, judgmental, critical and suspicious Something was wrong somewhere. I have known times when I have spent just 10 or 15 minutes with a godly man, and I have been challenged and inspired.

Can you imagine then what spending 10 or 15 minutes with God Himself can do? How is it then that all of us were not being changed? I was spending time with myself. I was just studying a book - whether the book in front of me was the Bible or a chemistry book didn't make a difference. I wasn't spending time with God - listening to Him. I was just studying a book! Jesus said concerning Mary, "One thing is needful From that flows everything else.

2) Surrender your will to God’s.

And that's a very efficient way of serving God because He can tell you what He wants you to do! The Father told Jesus what to do. Once Jesus was prompted by the Spirit to walk 50 miles from Galilee to Syrophoenicia, outside the borders of Israel. I don't know how many hours it took Him to get there - probably a whole day. There He met a Gentile woman, whose daughter was demon-possessed. He cast out that demon and pointed out to His disciples the great faith that woman had when she asked for just the crumbs that fell from the children's table.

Then He walked back to Galilee. That was how Jesus lived.

He went all that way for just ONE soul. That wasn't impressive - statistically!! But it was in the will of God. Had he met all the need there was in the world - in India, in Africa? But He had finished the work the Father gave Him to do. And He did not desire to live on earth for a single day longer The apostle Paul too could say at the end of his life, "I have finished my course". You have a different calling and I have a different calling in Christ's Body. But we must all understand what God wants us to do. The Pharisees could not hear what Jesus was saying because they were living a life of pretence.

They gave others the impression that they were godly. They stood up there in front of the people as the leaders and scholars of their time. If you had met Peter or John, before they had met Jesus, and asked them, "Peter, John, could you tell me the name of some godly man whom you know? Because that was their understanding - that people who studied the Scriptures, fasted, prayed, carried little boxes of Scripture-verses on their foreheads and looked so holy and pious, were truly godly people.

Then you can imagine the shock they got when they heard Jesus lambasting those elders in the synagogue as a bunch of hypocrites who were candidates for hell. When Jesus selected His disciples, he did not select even one from any Bible-school. There was a Bible-school being run by Gamaliel in those days in Jerusalem. But Jesus didn't go there to select His disciples. He picked them up from the lakeside in Galilee - uneducated men - and made them His apostles. And they wrote books, which Bible-seminaries now give to people to study, for a doctorate in theology!!

I think Peter himself would not have been capable of getting a degree from any of our seminaries. Perhaps only one of the disciples would have been able to get such a degree - Judas, the cleverest and smartest of the lot. Why did Jesus pick such people? They were simple-hearted and willing to listen to Him.

What a stir there was when these simple men went to any synagogue and preached. They did not preach the routine messages that the people there had always heard.

To Know Jesus You Have to Know Yourself

And people have never liked prophets. In the years of Israel's history, as Stephen said, "Which of the prophets did they not persecute? Those apostles were not diplomatic speakers. And I believe that our country could do with a few prophets at this time, so that we could hear what God is saying. God doesn't care for that which is big and great in the eyes of men. I am not against meetings like this.

But I stopped going to such meetings more than 20 years back. I turn down such invitations now. I know that such meetings can make you famous. You get media exposure. But I have discovered as I have travelled in the villages of our land - where most of my ministry is now - that the people who do the real work are not at a conference like this one. They are unknown and out there in those villages.

They can't speak English and they certainly don't know what it is to present a paper. But they are filled with the Spirit, they love the Lord and they go out and bring lost souls to Christ. Praise God for such people. Others organise their missions and become known as mission-leaders and get the honour. But many who are first now will be last when Jesus comes back.

So it is good for us to be humble. It is good for us to have low thoughts about ourselves. Perhaps we are not so great in God's eyes as other Christians think we are, because of our degrees and our titles. These may impress men, but not God. In fact they don't impress the devil either. The devil fears a holy man, a man who is genuine, a man who is the same inside as he is on the outside, and a man who never preaches what he does not practise.

People ask me, "Brother Zac, why don't you urge people to go to North India? I haven't lived in North India. So I cannot tell others to do it. I'm not saying that it should not be done. I'm only saying that I cannot preach what I haven't done. But then I'm not the whole body of Christ. I'm only one part of it. I am an imbalanced member of the body of Christ. I will always be imbalanced. The only balanced man that ever walked on earth was Jesus Christ. You are imbalanced and so am I. Let's not think that any one of us is more than just one part.

Every part is needed - the evangelist, the teacher, the shepherd, the prophet and the apostle - for people to be made members of the body of Christ and for that Body to be built. What is our calling? It is to make someone who is not a member of the Body of Christ a member of that Body. Isn't that our calling basically? I think we'll all agree on that. Since the Holy Spirit uses the word, "Body", let me use an illustration from the physical body. Let us say there is a plate here, with a potato representing an unbeliever , that has to become a member of my body.

How does that happen? It happens first of all through evangelism - the hand reaching out and taking that potato. Evangelism is always the first ministry in this task. That is why I never devalue evangelism. I value it very highly - and especially those who are engaged in this ministry in the heat and dust of North India. I am interested in reading their magazines - I get a number of them in my home - to read about the ministry of these dear brothers of mine who are labouring there.

I have been up there now and then to meet some of them too. Here then is my hand taking the potato from the plate. That potato will never become a part of my body if the "evangelist" my hand does not go out and do "evangelism" put the potato in my mouth. But is that all there is to it? If I just keep that potato in my mouth, will it become a part of my body?

After a while it will get rotten in my mouth and I will spit it out. That is how some converts get rotten in some of our churches! They are taken in and kept inside the mouth! But something more has to happen to that potato. It has to be chewed and crushed by my teeth. The potato can then imagine that everything is over. But all is not over! The potato goes down to my stomach, and there finds that acids are mercilessly poured on it. That is a picture of prophetic ministry in the church.

You know it's not comfortable when acid is thrown on us. The gentle ministry of being picked up from the plate was so nice. But when acid is thrown on us, that is far from pleasant. The potato is now broken down completely and it no longer looks like a potato.

Knowing God Personally

But in a few weeks, lo and behold, it has become blood and flesh and bones - a very part of my body! Now, whose job was the most important in this task. What ministry do any of us have that we did not receive? If we are humble, we will confess that we are imbalanced. The hand is not more important than the stomach. They complement each other. Unfortunately in Christendom there is this perpetual competition between the members - the hand building its own kingdom, the stomach building its own kingdom, and the mouth building its own!!

What do we have then? Not a body, but an "Anatomy Laboratory", with a mouth over here, a stomach over there, a hand here and a leg there. That's not a body! What do we need most of all? Yes, it is true we need instruction. But we need humility more than anything else. We need to recognise that we are all equally important - every member in Christ's body. And the great mission leader is no more valuable in this ministry than the poor brother who can't speak English properly, but who goes out and brings souls to Christ.

They are all part of the same body. What are the thoughts you think about yourself, when you are all by yourself? Are they thoughts of humility, recognising that you yourself are nothing? There are times when I sit outside and look at the stars. I know there are millions of stars and that the whole earth is just a tiny speck in this universe. And I say, "O God, how great You are! How great this universe is! I am such a small little speck of dust on this speck called Earth. And here I am claiming to represent You and preaching such great matters.

Please help me to have a sober estimate about myself. God gives grace to the humble. Anybody can have knowledge. But only the humble can receive grace. We need grace far more than we need knowledge. I have thought of the young people who come to the Lord and who are persecuted by their families for their faith. When such a person comes to one of our churches, what does he see? Does he see the spirit of Jesus Christ there? People around us have such a wrong impression of Christianity.

I've long believed that the first principle of all effective ministry - whether evangelism or whatever - is found in Hebrews 2: How can I serve others? I have to be made like them in everything. I have to descend to their level. Why is it that I cannot communicate with a little ant crawling on the floor? Because I am too big. If I go to that ant in human form, it will be terrified. The only way I can communicate with that ant is by my becoming like it first of all. The only way that God could communicate with us was by His becoming like us.

We can all understand that. But let us remember that in our ministry to others too - whether in a local church or in an unreached area - the first principle is this - to be made like them in all things, "to sit where they sit", as Ezekiel said Ezekiel 3: That means, for example, that we don't want to exalt ourselves above others in any way.

When John the Baptist saw the self-righteous Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he cursed them, saying, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance" Luke 3: The religious Jews were deceived, relying on their own goodness or righteous to reconcile them to God. Thus the command to "bear fruit in keeping with repentance" was issued, meaning turn from your unworthy and spiritually dead selves see Eph.

We are able to think of ourselves as being better than we are for several reasons. One, our conceptions of good and bad are often rooted in moral degrees rather than moral purity or holiness that conforms to the moral law of God in act, attitude, and nature. As such we can quickly survey our world and find others who are worse than we are and comfortably say "I'm not that bad. However, does that mean I was born morally pure or righteous before God while Hitler wasn't? Don't we all posses the exact same sinful nature as Adolf Hitler?

The only difference lies in the fact that he willingly acted in accordance with his nature to extremes. An accurate understanding of myself would recognize that I am just as capable of such wickedness and it is only by God's grace that I haven't given full expression to my capacity for evil.

As Paul said, "I know nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh" Rom. The whole theme of the Scriptures confirm, "None is righteous, no, not even one" Rom. Jeremiah confirms, "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick…" Jer. Every thought, every action, every inclination of the human heart suffers from a divergence from righteousness, being bent toward self and sin.

The full acceptance of this fact is essential to growing in the knowledge of and obedience to God.

Once again, Calvin is helpful on this point:. For what man in all the world would not gladly remain as he is-what man does not remain as he is-so long as he does not know himself, that is, while content with his own gifts, and either ignorant or unmindful of his own misery? How does one endeavor to become truly "displeased" with himself-truly mindful of his own misery-so he can live and rest in the righteousness of Christ? The Psalmist offers a simple starting point when he writes, "Search me, O God, and know my heart!

Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

2. God Delights in Honest People

One must understand the full power and consequence of this invitation to God. It is analogous to the movie hero, wounded and dying, who resigns himself to the hands of the medic to remove the life-threatening bullet. Absent any anesthesia, the would-be physician plunges his knife deep into muscle and past bone, working to locate and remove the offending object. All the hero can do is grit his teeth, knowing that the pain-albeit temporary-is unavoidable if he wants to live.

It is here-with remorse and humility-that we daily invite the Great Physician to probe the depths of our being, exposing our true sin nature in the hope of delivering us from its effect.

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