And what does it mean since generally folks really do not know?
I am SO glad you asked!!
Jesus preached the Good News of the Kingdom of God and also demonstrated it. He said if we had faith in Him, we would do the same. And He gave us, His disciples, the command to seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness. He not only gave us the command but lived the example for us. He did nothing on His own initiative. The initiative was the Father's. As His disciples, the initiative for us today is to be Jesus'. Upon Him do we wait all the day. Living in the Spirit like this, we will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Right there with Him, so near His rod and His staff, the wolves are far from us. Being under His authority, we exhibit not only fruit of the Spirit but also gifts; love and also love in action. After all, the Kingdom of God does not exist in words but in power and neither Jesus nor the Scriptures left any program for change before the end of the age.
"To the one who pleases Him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness. But to the sinner, He gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth only to hand it over to the one who pleases Him." Ecc.2:6 or so. And in Psalm 125 or so, "In vain you rise up early and stay up late toiling for food to eat, for while they sleep He provides for those He loves." And repeatedly in His Word, He has promised to love those who love Him, i.e., those who obey Him. This is no "sloppy Agape".
I used to sit under the ministry of a man who stated that "the only problem with a living sacrifice is that it is always crawling off the altar." We can chuckle at that because we know what that means but it really isn't valid for a disciple who has denied himself and must continue doing so daily. "I have set the Lord before me continually" the Psalmist said. Isaiah 64:4 has always meant a great deal to me in this context: "Since ancient times, no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides You who acts on behalf of those
who wait for Him."
In this connection, we are always telling our children to "live in the moment." They begin to ask all kinds of questions about what we're going to do in the future but "the wind blows wherever it pleases, you hear the sound of it but cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." And this Gospel by which Jesus becomes Head over all things for the disciple is the one they have heard since they were in utero. But we simply tell them that sheep don't tug at the shepherd's clothes asking about where they're going next.
We had a beautiful example of this principle last night at Bible study. When Scripture states "When you come together everyone has a hymn or a word of instruction, a revelation a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church." The fact that that's so alien points to the problem. If Jesus isn't Lord of all, He's not Lord at all. "The preacher" isn't the one who should "give the message". The bulletin, or "how we always do it" isn't what is supposed to be followed. The Holy Spirit is.
So we come together and wait for what song we should sing. After that, I was led to ask each person what their one prayer request for 2020 would be. And you can feel God's presence when His will is being done. He was in what we were doing. We felt we should write them down. Then when we go to the Word, we listen for where we should go. Psalm 61 was where we were directed and it is a Psalm that begins, "Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call to You, I call as my heart grows faint..." And they commented before I did that this was God. So I got to reiterate how we must live in the moment and that as we let Him lead that He is speaking to us, He is listening to us and His desire is to answer and we went again to Luke 18 and touched on the example of the widow and also of Elijah and what fervent prayer is like. And the requests weren't the kind asked with wrong motives so that they could spend what they get on their pleasures - no one was asking for a pony or stuff like that.
I believe in the Greek in the sermon on the mount, Jesus' statement that "You cannot serve both God and money" actually is "You cannot work for God and money". Like many of the Jews of Jesus' time, many Christians today are lovers of money, i.e. idolaters. I haven't had a "real job" since 1996 since the Lord began teaching me this. I haven't had a paycheck since that time. And yet we have abundance. Derek Prince stated, "Jesus didn't carry a lot of cash but He always had His Father's credit card and it was accepted everywhere He went." That's a good way of stating it. Obviously I work but the yoke I have on is not one put on for the purpose of getting money but for the purpose of doing His will.
What am I going to do today? I don't know. I'm going to listen to the Master. He is the good Shepherd. It's not a religion - it's a relationship.
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