Wednesday, August 27, 2008

A Move of God?

and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
(2 Timothy 4:4 – ESV)

People get so hungry for a “move of God” when they aren’t satisfied with what they have got, and I am not talking about quantity, but quality. It isn’t that God hasn’t moved enough in their lives; it is that they have not submitted enough to His revealed will. They want new secrets but they won’t even obey the overt instructions. Spiritually speaking, they have wandered into wonderland and are on the vanguard of vanity, the cutting edge of charismania.

The Spirit is already moving. He is moving you to repent of sin, to worship Christ despite your circumstances, to feel His power even when your emotions are at a low flow. He is moving you to witness to that person when they are resisting even looking at you. He is moving when you are preaching about His righteousness and the saving work of Christ, no matter what ever else is going on, the light is coming into the darkness and that means He is moving, period. You want to see Him perform in the miraculous, well He wants to see you perform in the mundane.

What we need to hunger for is to hunger for righteousness, not revival. Now I do mean to say we need revival but not a renewal of excitement, but of commitment. If God does decide to show up and grant people repentance and we start witnessing again and sticking with the Word of God and prayer and holy living, then good, and until then we need to keep at it, not look for something more than that. I could look for something more and think it is God moving in my life, I could be looking for a bigger city, for a bigger church, for a bigger paycheck, for a bigger ministry or whatever, but what I want is a bigger heart for more of Jesus to be seen in my life, to me, through me, and in everything I do, to glorify Him. That is something more.

People say they just want to see God move, but what they mean is that they want to see God move in the way that they would like. They want Him to move to get them healed, or get them excited or to justify them before their unbelieving friends so that they can be seen as normal.

You want to see God move, well then you start moving, moving into a more sanctified life, moving on to more witnessing, moving into more church attendance, more fellowship, more giving, more bible reading, more bible study, more prayer, don’t worry He will be there moving in you to do all that, the question is, do you have faith that this is true? Is the fruit of the Spirit growing in your life? That is definitely the sign of the Spirit on the move. If He is moving in your life then you won’t have to move where you think He is, you’ll already be there.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

5 comments:

MrsEvenSo... said...

Amen!

and btw....

Happy Birthday!

Zoarean said...

Charismania- an apt summation of movement often led by emotion instead of the Word. As you said, the Spirit wants us to focus more on preaching the glory of Christ's cross than the glory of Christ's healings. I was always a person that just wanted to feel the Spirit like I thought those charismatics did, but I rarely felt that "move of the Spirit" before I started preaching about the magnificence of Jesus Himself.

It scares sometimes how much some charismatics resemble those Matt. 7:22 people. And especially how much I resembled those Matt. 7:22 people in my former motivations.

PS- Happy Birthday as well!

JoyfullyHis said...

Happy Birthday Papaw! Just fyi, your card is late...whoooops. But we left you a surprise (uh, is it just me or is anyone else getting flashbacks of doggie surprises left on rugs?); a great surprise, on your cell phone messages. :D
hope you had a great day.

Words on truth said...

i got to say sundays sermon was beyond the ability to feast upon, i'm am not only full but comtimue to gorge myself on it.

I know you get a thing about birthdays... but... happy 42nd!
I think your catching up?
love ya man

Even So... said...

Thanks everyone...