Preach the word! —2 Timothy 4:2
We are not saved only to be instruments for God, but to be His sons and daughters. He does not turn us into spiritual agents but into spiritual messengers, and the message must be a part of us. The Son of God was His own message— “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). As His disciples, our lives must be a holy example of the reality of our message. Even the natural heart of the unsaved will serve if called upon to do so, but it takes a heart broken by conviction of sin, baptized by the Holy Spirit, and crushed into submission to God’s purpose to make a person’s life a holy example of God’s message.
There is a difference between giving a testimony and preaching. A preacher is someone who has received the call of God and is determined to use all his energy to proclaim God’s truth. God takes us beyond our own aspirations and ideas for our lives, and molds and shapes us for His purpose, just as He worked in the disciples’ lives after Pentecost. The purpose of Pentecost was not to teach the disciples something, but to make them the incarnation of what they preached so that they would literally become God’s message in the flesh. “…you shall be witnesses to Me…” (Acts 1:8).
Allow God to have complete liberty in your life when you speak. Before God’s message can liberate other people, His liberation must first be real in you. Gather your material carefully, and then allow God to “set your words on fire” for His glory.
_________________________________________________________________
Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord,
The main thing I hear today is the confirmation to get authentic and that hypocrisy doesn’t work and I can’t hide. So as we are working the hypocrisy out of me, my message can become “receivable” by those who need to hear it. This authenticity has been coming through connection with you, but it isn’t instantaneous. It sometimes seems that the main thing I’m learning about connection is a list of all the things that don’t work!
That’s a valuable list for sure. Just dont use it to judge other people who are still relying on those formulas and lists. You still don’t feel connected all the time … but you must admit that it’s more frequent than in the past.
Yes, I suppose it’s a process…
Yes, like all growth. There are growth spurts and standstills. Setbacks and Quantum Leaps. When you can accept all of these and simply remain curious about your growth spurts and setbacks and curious about what I’m doing and how you can fit into it … then I can work fastest. Believe me, I want to take you places you haven’t imagined. It’s not being held up from my end. Give up your need for understanding and categorizing everything. Flow with me and be willing to be surprised. After a while, you will no longer be surprised by anything.
One of the hardest things to give up is the Never Give Up, Try, Try Again mentality that I was raised with. I find that I am with Paul in Romans 7:15
I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.
Look to the end of Paul’s discourse in Romans 7.
22 For dI delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from gthis body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Rom. 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.* 2 For the law of hthe Spirit of life ihas set you* free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
I struggle with struggling. Don’t I have to lift my leg up and step out of the boat in my own power if I am to walk on water with your power?
Yes, Of course, but you must hear or see when it’s me, and not just your own good idea to walk on said water. You will get that through connection just as I did with Father
John 5:19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father* does, that the Son does likewise.
OK, I get it. It is really kind of simple. It’s just not easy. It’s kind of a non-formula type of formula? Get and stay connected with you. Learn to hear and see what you’re about and just live out of that … And everything will be OK, even the things that don’t seem OK at first?
You could say it that way.
Click Image for John White's Original Vision For CO2's
