Last BLOG I stated unequivocally that a person needs to take a serious look of God's call on their life to make sure it lies within the parameters of the marvelous ministry of Christ (specifically as outlined in Luke 4:18-19 and Matthew 20:18-20).
This BLOG I want to emphasis this: You have been called from conception to easily step into a uniquely expression of his grace.
Isn't it wonderful it is to be fully known, fully loved, and fully understood by God? He is
our great Shepherd and knows each of us by name. In those times when we are completely depressed, angry, or slimed by the world, he is there, nurturing, healing, loving on us like no one else can!
And why shouldn't he understand us like no other? Scripture tells us that he actually fashions us in the wombs of our moms, and from there (like Jeremiah and Isaiah) we are called to give a uniquely specialized witness to God and his purposes. This is such a unique witness because no one born before us, nor after us, can do it the way we can. It is a perfectly customized call, hand-crafted for us to walk in.
In other words: We have been hard-wired to fit snuggly within the beauty of our call.
Let that sink in. Your humor, your teeth, your clothing styles, your physical stature, your intellect, your emotions, your you.
You are the only person who has ever existed that can express the love of God to others in your unique youness.
I have a long time friend who is smart, left brained, intelligent, financially savvy, and completely logical in every decision and movement of his life. He is the opposite of me! I am right brained, intellectually challenged, still learning math, and tend to make random decisions subjectively based on how I feel the "Spirit is leading me." We couldn't be more different. I have prayed and prayed for him to give his heart to Christ but sometimes I get the feeling that he's looking at me and thinking, "I'd like to be a Christian, but if I become a Christian I will have to be like Bill. That would never happen. It's just just not who I am."
In a similar way, a sincere believer may have a heart-felt desire to share Jesus with others. They want to know how it's done so they turn on the TV to watch others doing it. Soon enough they turn the TV off in discouragement, perhaps even thinking, I could never do it that way.
And they would be right. But were you meant to do it that way?
Early on in my conversation I had a passion to display the supernatural power of God, specifically through healing the sick and deliverance. I had been delivered of so many demons that I knew the power of God and knew that no one was outside the redeeming arm of his grace. So I read books about the power of healing by a variety of theological perspectives. I learned a lot. But I often walked away thinking something like, I could never do it that way.
One night I was at my pentecostal Tuesday evening Bible study and on Tuesday nights for about a year down in the Miami area. I really liked the teaching and the leader invited some kid about my age up to the front of the room who had just been, in the words of our leader, "Wimberized out in California" and was going to show us a new way to pray for people.
Wimberized?
I leaned forward with fascination. The young kid was fairly unimpressive. Flip flops, a t-shirt, and shorts.
I can do that... So far, so good, I thought.
He invited someone up needing prayer and had them sit in a chair, facing all of us. He asked the man what the request was. When it was time to pray the young Californian said three words which initiated ministry in a way (and model) that would forever change the way I prayed. It was simple, to the point, and it didn't demand a lot of face-scrunching.
"Come, Holy Spirit."
That was it? That's all he said?
And, as he waited in silence, the Holy Spirit showed up and healed the guy.
I was driving home thinking, Now let me get this straight. You ask the Holy Spirit to come. You wait for him to show up, because you've invited him to do so, and he does the ministry he wants to do. And you just stand there saying hardly anything but on acciasional, "More Lord?"
Where was the bling? The fog machines and all the crazy contortion and trembling hands? No matter. That night I knew I had finally found a model of ministry that was more like the way I was hard-wired to do ministry more than any other models before. I praise God for that night because it reminds me, even to this day, that God's call to us can be the similar, but it will never be the same as the next guy. It's all about how he has hard-wired us uniquely from the womb.
So this is our thought for today: As you look around see people doing the same things that your heart yearns to do,take heart: you don't have to look, act, or even dress like they do. You can do his work your way.
God has hard-wired each and every one of us to do his work in our own special way. And, in the doing of the thing, we will reach people that could never have been reached otherwise, simply because we are being exactly who we were created be, before any one of our days even existed.
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