Thursday Musings March 21, 2013

Thursday Musings

Tonight as I sat reading a stack of emails that I had printed to "read later" I read the following from a well known Christian leader.  Please, because I comment about something he wrote, doesn't mean that I am criticizing him  or even that he really doesn't believe what I am saying.  But I do quote some words that were written just to bring forth a thought that is so pertinent in this hour as we move in to the season God is bringing us into.

I read: True discipleship will lead to being like Christ and doing the works that he did.  It will also lead to persecution just as He was persecuted. Even so, to do the works of Christ is the greatest experience we can have.  To love as He loved us and to demonstrate this love with our lives is our highest calling.

 The jist of the article on Discipleship I fully agree with but this first paragraph holds a common misconception which I have fallen into so much of my life.  No where does it say I will do the works that He did!  It says Greater works than He did.  I am not called, that I see anywhere in the scriptures to "do the works of Christ." 
Instead, I am to do the works that Christ IS doing.  Today Christ, the Anointed One, The Messiah is able to touch thousands in a group of people at once while in his day he was limited to touching people one on one.  Today as the Lord Jesus moves across a group of people by His Spirit, He touches groups and we are to walk and follow what He is doing, not doing them "ourselves." 

Jesus said he only did what he saw His father doing...he only said what he heard the Spirit saying.  If Christ is in me, the mystery hidden from the beginning of the ages then I am to be in process of working out that Life, learning to follow Him, walk where He is leading, move where He is moving, speak where and what He is speak so He can do what He wants to do and I will get to be a part of it!!

This is a far cry from what I was taught or learned in my years of church.  Does it mean the Lord didn't use me? Nope....even in my ignorance of his ways He chose to be who He is in and through me because He honors His name and His Word!!  But what this understanding allows is for me to be fully at rest in WHO HE IS and to have my eyes opened to What He is DOING, instead of being focused on what I am doing.   I am learning to see HOW HE LOVES and if I am in Him I will love as He loves...not as HE loved! It isn't a past tense thing...it is a NOW thing. GOD IS not was. The I AM not the I was.  He is doing works today...and I am called to walk in those works that were predestined for me to walk in IN CHRIST JESUS before the foundation of the world.   Outside of time....yes!  Now manifest on the earth in time by the Holy Spirit as He works in and through me!!

Recently listened to a message on YouTube on Faith and it too addressed the issue that it isn't about our faith any more than it is about our righteousness. It is His Faith, His Righteousness, His Healing, His Comfort, His deliverance....all flowing through me as I walk with HIm and see Him and yield to Him as He is doing what He has determined that He will do.  It is the day of proclamation!!

What does this mean?  It has changed the way I pray to begin with.  I seek the Lord and then pray as I see what He wants accomplished, what He by His spirit is doing.  Today I was called to pray about 11 am and again tonight about 7.  I "saw" what He was doing and was invited to be a part, a co-laborer with Him in what He was doing in a situation.  I don't know how to pray in many of the situations that are about me. I am learning to lay my self down at the cross, my inability to know and see and to understand anything.  He alone is the Light and He shines in the darkness and when His light shines in the darkness of my understanding I am learning to move with Him as He is doing something.  I desire to be a part of heaven coming into the areas here on earth that I know His Word says He cares about, into people's lives that are full of darkness that HE IS Lord over and HE IS Light, even those who blaspheme his name and know not the Truth!!  How much He loves is seen in His shining His light into the dark places that to as many as are willing, they can choose the light and to follow Him. 

Do I know how to walk in the Light as He is in the Light?  I trust I am his disciple and He is my friend and master and that He is leading me.  Recently He brought me out of a very very dark night by shining the Light of His Word so brightly into my heart that I saw the way and in the power and light of His Word was able to walk through the dark night of my soul and a dark situation. In the same Light I am learning to walk through this new ground called Retirement!  I think of it as getting a new set of tires for the next step of the journey...don't think they are retreads either!! But then there is a generation out there that wouldn't know what retreads are!!   We are all "working out" this life in our Saviour, in the process of being saved and saving. For He is our Life!!

Meri Ford