| | I've already updated you about tent of meeting but I wanted you to update you on some other things God has been doing in my life. I wasn't quite sure how or exactly how much to share with you here. I only do this to encourage each of you to walk in obedience in the calling He is putting upon you. I want to give Him all the praise, honor and glory for being faithful to work in each of us so we desire to will and do of all of His good pleasure. To Him alone be all the glory!
Two weeks ago in the middle of the night I was reading in "George Whitefield's Journals."
Friday, July 25. ...In the evening I expounded, and thinking it was the Lesson for the night, read the last chapter of St. Paul's Second Epistle to Timothy, in which were these encouraging words: "But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry..."
Whitefield continued on in his journal with verses 14-19, for those words were a real comfort and source of encouragement to him for he had certainly undergone affliction and opposition for the Gospel's sake...
...but what hit me was the Scripture "do the work of an evangelist."
As soon as I read this I felt a call: "YOU do the work of an evangelist. YOU fulfill your ministry." Yes, it's true that God had impressed on me the phrase "fulfill your ministry" previously but I'd always passed over the bit about doing the work of an evangelist. But there it was now. In my ears and on my heart. No, there was no audible voice but the Spirit put them in my ears and wrote them on my heart. Yes, I know we are all supposed to be evangelists to some extent, we may not have the gift of evangelism or the calling of an evangelist, but as Christians we are all called to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. That's a general call, but this call was specific. YOU. YOU. I can't really describe how I felt at that moment except I was floored, taken aback, speechless, stunned. For the past several years I've kept asking God to show me what He wanted me to do and kept offering myself to Him, but this is not what I was expecting in the least! And not I what I would have chosen, but of course, we don't choose where we serve or how we serve our God. The clay never says to the Potter, "Mold me into such and such and put me here to serve You."
To tell you the truth, the idea of my being an evangelist freaked me out. (An understatement!) What do you think of when you hear the word evangelist? I think of George Whitefield or Billy Graham or the apostle Paul. I think I cried at the time. I really can't remember. All I remember is that I sat and then lie down on the living room floor for a long time and cried out in prayer to Him. I felt like a baby. I felt a bit like Abram in Genesis 15. Helpless. God was cutting the covenant. He had to. I could do nothing then and I can do nothing apart from Him equipping me and strengthening me.
After that I kept these things in my heart. I didn't share them with anyone but God. I think I was secretly hoping God was mistaken or I'd heard wrong. (Though deep down, I knew that wasn't really true.) I took a little jaunt to Tarshish in my mind and heart. But you can only get so far by ignoring God's call.
In the afternoon of the same day brother David (deepestrecesses@revelife) wrote this comment to one of my posts:
I encourage you to continue to speak the Truth that only the Father in Heaven can call us to speak! Just as Jesus said he did the good works prepared for Him to do by His Father (John 10)! John 17:1-21 Bring Glory to the Father in heaven for the great things He has done!
I read David's comment at first and initially zeroed in on the Scripture references having to do with the works God calls us to do because I was at a point of trying sort out the work God had for me to do. And I was encouraged. But later on when I went back and looked at David's words again, I saw right smack in the middle of his words was the mention of a call. The Father's call. The call to speak truth. David wrote those words just about 12 hours after the middle-of-the-night encounter; of course, he had no idea about what had happened to me – but God did!
I was tossing and turning and inwardly churning inside. That was the day I wrote my flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against my flesh. I wanted to do God's will but yet...I knew the idea of calling is a serious business.
For several days I said nothing to anyone but God, and I continued to mull over it and pray.
God continued pressuring me. His strong arm was upon me. I was sailing to Tarshish in my heart. I wanted some way out, mostly because I saw that the task and the calling as impossible and daunting. (Yes, Indeed it is!) (When I wrote asking prayer for discernment and wisdom prior to my retreat it was true that I was asking for wisdom, God's wisdom, because I knew my worldly wisdom was balking at and rejecting what He was putting on my heart. I'd been running and I was getting to the point where I knew I couldn't keep running anymore. The great fish was going to come sooner or later...so I needed faith to embrace what I was pretty certain God wanted for me because I knew God was slowly painting me into a corner out of which I couldn't escape. And I also know when you ask people to pray for you (thank you!) and you take that time to sit before God alone, God will do the business He needs to do with you and you can't help but be changed and come out a prince of God.)
A few days after that middle-of-the-night encounter I was sitting outside one morning reading more Whitefield, and I finally cried out in exasperation to God very much in the spirit of Moses at the burning bush or Jeremiah as God was commissioning him:
I am no Whitefield!
But I am the same God.
What can I do for You?
What can I do for *you*, Karen? Will you not trust all the promises I have spoken have come to pass and my word, all of it, will come to pass?
Well, what can you say to that really? What could I say? How can I not trust all His promises? Have I not seen they have all come to pass and will I not trust they will all come to pass just as He has said? How can I not trust Him? He is faithful and true. All His promises and yes and Amen in the Lord Jesus Christ. I've seen it time and again.
As I walked away from that place I looked back and this is what I saw:
I saw the huge evergreen in the background and the little one in the foreground.
No, I'm not that big evergreen, I'm the little one.
I'm not Whitefield, I'm Karen.
Okay, God. I get it. I get it. I sat down and wept. And in case I didn't really get it, God has given me several assurances and reminders. (I am so like Gideon. God is so patient and tender and forebearing with His children, is He not?) I got out a couple of my old journals and paged through them. I found this in my journal from almost three years ago (7/2/06): I have a passion to serve Christ. I wouldn't say I have a passion to share Him. That is something God must grow in me. I know it has been lacking and that I have confessed and lamented over....Help me, Jesus, to give You my all...
But then in contrast to that, just over a week ago I found myself in a period of fervent prayer asking God to unloose my lips and open my mouth so I might proclaim Him. I was desperate to speak and write for Him. I knew He needed to open my mouth, equip my fingers, and put His Word into my mind so I could do so. I will tell you I have prayed those things before and had begun to pray them with a greater sense of urgency recently but never like I did that day. I honestly almost want to say I wondered if I had ever really prayed before. How wonderful it is that God works in us to desire what we don't desire! His resurrection power which brings life from death doesn't stop there but continues to work in us to bear fruit to His glory. How He works to consume our desires and make our desires His desires! Praise His holy Name, He has given me the desire to will of His good pleasure! Praise His Holy Name, He doesn't just do that for me or George Whitefield or Billy Graham or the apostle Paul, he does it for all His children. If are you are His child, trust that He will do that for you. He takes our feeblest desires, our mustard seed of faith, our little love for Him and works exceedingly above all we can ask or imagine for His glory and for the furtherance of His Gospel! Amen and Amen. And in case I didn't get it, I got a couple more reminders in the past few days:
 Our pastor is preaching through Revelation and last Sunday he reminded us that the Church is the lifter of the light (Rev. 1:20). We're all lampstands. We're to be lifting the light of Christ. No, we may not be Whitefields or Billy Grahams or Pauls. And, in fact, by definition, none of us is! I am not a Whitefield or a Billy Graham or a Paul. And neither are you. But I am Karen. And you are you. And my God is the God of George Whitefield and Billy Graham and the apostle Paul. And your God is the same God. But I am the light of the world. We are the light of the world. Each of us is to place Christ on our lampstand and lift Him high for all to see. Just as Whitefield, Graham and Paul were lampstands. And the Light of the world dwells in me just as He dwelt in Whitefield and Paul and still dwells in Graham, and he dwells in you. God has given each of us talents to invest for His Kingdom just as He gave them to Whitefield, Graham and Paul. If we are His, He's given us the deposit of the Gospel. That, of course, is the calling and responsibility and stewardship of each Christian, a general calling to all the redeemed, but it is a specific calling to me, as well as to many of you out there.  And then earlier today a couple sisters shared with me about a sermon they'd just heard about our being light: "We are the light of the world" (Matthew 5:14). We may not be the 1000 watt bulb (like Whitefield or Graham or Paul), we may only be a 25 watt bulb but we can shine for Jesus in the world. We are responsible to shine the light of Christ to the world, however much light God has given us, be it 1000 watts or 200 watts or 100 watts or 40 watts or 25 watts or 4 watts. God calls us to be faithful with our five talents, two talents or our single talent, whatever he gives us. And we are never ever to hide our light or wrap up our talents and not use them.
As I've been reflecting on this more, God began to show me that I've already been doing the work of an evangelist, especially in the past several months with my blogging. Before that time I would speak and write of the Gospel but not in the same way I do now. I am now adamant to lift up Christ and not to have anything obscure and interfere and distract from the light of His Gospel. Anything that detracts from His Gospel grieves me. Many of you who have not been reading my blog for very long may not see the difference in my writing, but in retrospect I've seen it. I'm not quite sure exactly why that is, but one thing I do know is that not long before that time in His mercy and grace to me God gave me complete assurance of His love for me in Christ Jesus in a way I'd never had before. And since then my passion for Him and His Gospel has exploded and grown exponentially. He has burst my heart, my soul, and my mind with His love. Until I was able to fully embrace His love me in Jesus Christ and see myself as totally accepted in the Beloved, until I was no longer bound by my sin and guilt could I be totally bound to Him. Before that I did want to speak of Him and write of Him, but now it is a overbearing and overwhelming compulsion driven by the love of Christ.
So what does this calling mean for me? I long to preach to as many who will hear this glorious Gospel. But I especially still feel called to preach the Gospel to the Church. I've written on that previously (please read my deep concern for the churches). Why the Church? Because in so many churches we've forsaken the Gospel of justification by faith for justification by works. We've forsaken the Gospel of sanctification by Holy Spirit power for sanctification by willpower. We've taken up Ishmael for Isaac. Legalism for freedom. I find it interesting that Timothy was the pastor of the church in Ephesus yet he was called to be an evangelist. Why would a pastor be an evangelist? Because the church herself, and not only the unsaved, need to keep hearing the Gospel over and over and over. All the epistles are centered on the Gospel of Jesus Christ; they are rooted in the glorious truths surrounding Christ's redeeming work for us on the cross and His sanctifying work in us through the Holy Spirit. We can never let off preaching the Gospel in our churches!
The apostle Paul writes about going where the name of Christ is not named (Romans 15:20). In many of our churches today in the United States and in many of our denominations today in the United States, right in our own communities, I regret to say that the name of Christ is not really being named. Lip service is being given to His Name. The atonement is explained as cosmic child abuse. Works are elevated above grace. Church has become a place to be entertained rather than a center to make and train disciples. Self-help philosophy has replaced Holy Spirit power. Morality replaces "the life of God in the soul of man." O, that Christ be lifted up once again in His Church! Christ is no longer being lifted up on the lampstand! That's why we need to have people called to be evangelize right in the midst to our own churches. Yes, we must evangelize the lost outside our churches but we can't neglect the lost and underfed sheep right inside our churches.
In the meantime, I would ask you to continue to pray that I would be wholly obedient to His call for me and be clear about what specifically it means for me. I praise His Name that by His resurrection power working in me and equipping me I can do so!
To Him be all the praise, honor and glory. He has truly done great things and I expect Him to do greater things!
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Philippians 2:12-13.
Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Hebrews 13:20-21.
(As a follow-up to this post, you can read more here about how God has been reassuring and strengthening me through His Word...and how He desires each one of us to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of us...)
|
