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"No Ifs, Ands or Buts!"
by Steve Countryman As maturing Christians you must realize who you are in Christ and who Christ is in you! At salvation you accepted Christ into your heart and life. That is when God deposited His Son Jesus Christ in you. Jesus is your built-in great potential. "I can do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens me." "I am the righteousness of Christ who lives and dwells within me." "Without Christ I can do nothing." All of these statements are true but it is the "natural" and our own "head knowledge" that gets in the way of fulfilling these truths. God is magnified and glorified through your weaknesses. To put it a different way is that if you knew everything with great understanding and power then you would have no need for God. Even Jesus, as perfect as He was on earth, still knew how much He needed the Father and the Holy Spirit everyday. We all have weaknesses that we would rather ignore, avoid discussing, admit to no one, blame others for, deny they exists and pretend that we don't have any. They are our faults, failures and flaws. Admit, submit and commit. First you must admit that you have them by accepting responsibility for them. Second, you must submit and commit them to the Father by placing them in His hands and trusting God to take care of them for you. By turning them over to God you admit that they can only be fixed with God's help. Third, do not try to take them back from God's hands. This takes faith, trust and expectation on your part. Expectation is your faith in action! Exodus 4:10- 14 10 Moses said to the LORD, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue." 11 The LORD said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say." 13 But Moses said, "O Lord, please send someone else to do it." 14 Then the LORD's anger burned against Moses and he said, "What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. Judges 6:14-16 14 The LORD turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?" 15 "But Lord," Gideon asked, "how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family." 16 The LORD answered, "I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together." Both of these mighty men of God suffered from what all of us do, the natural. When God spoke to them they both referred to their past, their faults, their failures and flaws. Gideon even blamed his family and his position in his family. But God made them mighty by working through them! Sad that we do have a habit of referring to our past mistakes and shortcomings when faced with a daunting task. The natural will keep you tied and trapped to your past. Becoming mature in Christ means that you can trust God to be strong in your weaknesses. You serve a God who is faultless, who never fails and who is flawless in every way. Getting your eyes off of your past that is full of your faults, failures and flaws and keeping your eyes on Jesus. "God qualifies the called, he doesn't call the qualified." I recently heard a preacher say "If you think you are being called by God into a ministry area that you are trained and qualified in then you are not being called by God." God calls people into ministries that they typically have little to no experience or knowledge in. God delights in your dependency on Him. It is your lack of experience, knowledge, abilities, wisdom and understanding that God shines the brightest in your life. It leaves no doubt in your mind and no doubt in others, who really know you, that it has to be God! Ifs, ands and buts is what you say to God when you keep bringing up the past. You take your past and place it as a block and an excuse between you and what God has for you when God asks you to do something. Anytime God asks you to do something that takes you out of your comfort zone and into the unfamiliar the ifs, ands and butts start. Stepping out with courage and boldness, stepping up in faith and stepping into God's supernatural in trust. The difference between a typical Christian and child of the Most High God Christian is that you leave the seen behind and let God guide you in the unseen and unfamiliar. Maturing in Christ is letting God shine brightly to you, with you, for you, in you and through you as you represent His Kingdom to others. Are you ready?!? Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |