His Ways
God’s directions frequently get us scratching our heads. We often turn His ways over and over repeatedly in the mind of the flesh, but our reasoning will always fail to see any sense in them at all. ‘The mind of the flesh is sense and reason but the mind of the Holy Spirit is life and peace’ Romans 8:5. Yet God knows exactly what he is doing!
Like an extremely shrewd Investment Banker, He has made a serious, vested interest in our fruitfulness, and has absolutely guaranteed an abundant yield by paying the expertly calculated, ultimate price for His interest; the life of His son Jesus Christ! ‘So shall my Word be that goes out of My mouth, it shall not return to me void but it shall accomplish that thing which I please and purpose, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.’ Isaiah 58:11.
As the Word made flesh, the crucified Christ became God’s seed in us in the form of the Holy Spirit when we were “born again”. This seed of immeasurable cost is God’s posterity upon the earth! In terms of His purposes for mankind, it’s actually all He’s got, and we are the carriers of it! Understandably, He is passionate about it bearing fruit.
His Seed
God is no absent Father! His seed deposited within you carries all the provision that the final crop will require. The emerging foetus within, nurtured by your intimate love relationship with the One who fathered it, brings about your change and refinement; purposefully transforming you as your time approaches. His seed, your relationship with Him, and this transformation process all working together, inevitably give rise to the birth of the forthcoming fruit. You are being prepared for the works without which your faith is dead. ‘For as the human body apart from the spirit is lifeless, so faith without its works of obedience is also dead.’ James 2:26.
Our actions must thus flow out of who we are and who He is in us, if they are to have a genuine impact on the world. God will stop at nothing to reorder our lives in accordance with this vital process. Your God must have the opportunity to water this very precious internal seed through His intimacy with you.
Therefore, His promptings may indeed lead us to a place where nothing seems to be happening at all; but as we continue to listen and to submit, His Word stirring within produces crystal clarity, eventually leading us to take that vital fruit bearing action. Nevertheless, the action you take on that Word within is not, of itself, its power! If God says for you to do a thing, His word is the power for you to action it and it is this same “word generated power” that renders it effective. Without a word from God to do it, the same action would be sheer hard labor; worked out of your own brute force. In other words, without the prompting and leading of the Holy Spirit your efforts become works of the flesh – devoid of anyanointing or enabling, bearing no Kingdom fruit for that all hard labor and sweat! But, as we learn obedience to what He says, we watch Him make something awesome out of our nothing!
Do Nothing?
The thing that the Holy Spirit prompts you to do may be something apparently meaningless, and externally speaking, it could indeed even be to do nothing! Literally, nothing! Nonetheless, in continuing to follow the promptings of the Spirit within us, our inner man is flooded with light, and what was apparently no-thing is revealed in truth to be a new thing in disguise! God wants you to learn to trust Him. If, for example, nothing is what God has said to do for a season, be sure the devil will tell you it’s really crazy…senseless…you’ll get poor… You surely have no reason, no justification for being alive if you go on like that. You surely have to do something!
If we are really going to look at “sensible” behavior, let’s consider Noah and Abraham. Was their behavior sensible? No. It was obedient behavior! They did it because God said to, and their actions impacted history, the nations and the future of mankind. Yet they were considered bonkers, misled. These men of God were desperately misunderstood, stigmatized and ostracized.
Nothing is something God can really do something with. He is the only one who can. He is the only truly uncreated one, speaking into existence those things that are not. Nothing gives Him all He needs to work with. When He is the one doing it all, the supernatural is manifested, the results all point to Him, and so His Glory is magnified.
There is in fact nothing we need to know about what we are doing or why…other than that He said to do so. This is our love for God…to obey His Word. This is also where our ministry is hidden…with Christ in God. It is indeed in this obedience to His promptings that we find ourselves given the privilege of walking in His divine power, doing the good works He has prepared in advance for us to do. ‘For we are God’s workmanship, recreated in Christ Jesus, born anew that we may do thosegood works which God predestined for us, taking paths which He prepared ahead of time, that we should walk in them.’ Ephesians 2:10.
These works are the works of faith…springing out of faith and giving faith its life. We often forget that the spiritual gifts and anointings that enable these works are given for the benefit of those whom he sends us to serve. Therefore, they cannot function to their fullest extent outside of the calling and destiny towards which He is drawing us. We will only ever experience dribs and drabs of His power and minimal results on the outside of destiny, so we must learn to recognize His voice and follow His leading even if there seems to be no sense or reason in it.
The Battle for your Nothing
What looks like nothing to you, may well be God’s new thing for you. The devil wants us to be stuck in what seems to be nothing and to blind us to the new thing that we will discover there. He does this by attempting to focus our attention on ourselves. He then compares us with others and asks incessantly:
“What are you doing? Look what everyone else is doing. Think what you could have if you just gave all this up and did something. This is far, far, too hard. Nothing’s happening so nothing will ever come of it.” You are vulnerable and can find yourself agreeing in the test and the trial!But the Bible says, ‘Then what becomes of our pride and boasting? It is excluded! On what principle? On the principle of doing good deeds? No, but on the principle of faith’ Romans 3:27.
You feel you are shrinking so small that you will totally disappear! You begin to doubt yourself. Great! At last! The devil intends this for harm, but stay fixed on Him, and God will use it! You are finally letting go of your own strength and achievements and giving Him room to take over! You are unconsciously being convinced by the devil that you have no identity unless you do something. “Get on with doing something and justify the space you take up! You will feel so much better if you just do something.” If you respond, you will temporarily feel some kind of purpose in your being here, and that your existence is justified.
The Bible calls this a works mentality. As a child of God you are not justified by works, but by grace! You do not need to do stuff to get God’s approval. You do not need to do anything toget Gods approval. (Abraham’s) ‘Faith was credited to him as righteousness’ Romans 4:22.You are called to do things out of your love for Him, initiated by His love for you, and out of whom he has created you to be. You are meant to be serving under obedience to the promptings of the Spirit in newness of life that is within you! ‘For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God’ Romans 8:14.
His Purpose
His divine purpose creates the action for your life. The action cannot create the purpose!
In the battle you may find yourself asking, ‘am I qualified? Why me? What makes me think that I am so special? Who am I to think that I can do this?’
God answers: ‘It’s not about you; it’s about Me. It’s my idea. I am responsible for causing it to come to pass - I am the Great I AM. It is not about your strength. It’s about My grace. So why not you? Are you so very different? Don’t flatter yourself. I am no respecter of persons. If I choose you, who is to say that I should not? Or that I cannot qualify you? I know what I am doing. Don’t question my selection. And don’t get full of yourself. My choosing of you makes you no better, no worse than anyone else. I have chosen you because I love you.’ In His Word He says, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed and qualified me to preach the Gospel of good tidings to the meek, poor and afflicted…’ Isaiah 61:1.
(An artist’s or a preacher’s power does not come out of his qualifications, his skill, or what he has done or failed to do. He is not qualified by knowledge, but by an experience of Truth that has changed and enabled him. In fact, his primary “qualification” may well be how very ordinary and representative of so many others he is, and yet how extraordinarily enabled by grace.)
Who are you now in your nothing?
What is your intrinsic purpose? Your pure-pose: your genuine-stand in God? You must do who you are!
Who are you? There are several levels to who you are. Naturally speaking, these levels are your genetic coding, your natural gifts and abilities, and your life experiences. (These things are often referred to as “nature and nurture”.) Supernaturally speaking, through Christ, they are your salvation, (or the recreation of your spirit by His Divine Nature) and your sanctification, which produces the likeness and character of Christ in your soul realm. Furthermore, there are your supernatural gifts and the anointing He has given you in order to activate and enable your calling.
Your Creator gave you a detailed, unique identity by designing you on all these levels. Having been redeemed by His resurrection power, as your actions flow out of your integral self in total dependence on Him, you will discover the reason why He created you! You will find your pure-pose, your genuine stand in God, and inevitably, fruit that will last. In that place there is rest. ‘Come unto me all you who labor and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’ Matthew 12:28-30.
Stay with God
Furthermore, if you stick to His way of doing and being right, nothing can withhold you from what the Lord has planned for you, and from walking fully into His calling and destiny - no unfairness, no discrimination. ‘Just think of Him Who endured from sinners such bitter hostility against Himself so that you may not grow weary, losing heart and fainting in your mind.’ Hebrews 12:3.Nothing can steal you from the destiny He has for you unless you let it. After all, ‘Many evils confront the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.’ Psalm 34:1. Promotion will come from Him when you are least looking for it. Do it His way and you will not need to knock on doors, seek to gain an entrance, or barge your way in!
A promotion can sometimes look like a demotion. This may mean a period of what seems like hibernation before you set out into the spring season. Even a field needs a fallow year in order to be fruitful!
In letting the dying that is going on within you take place, you will be drawn close to the Lord and His cross. You can repent for trying to do His great plan for your life without Him. Even in the midst of enormous pressure to give up, He will enable you rededicate yourself to Him. After all, you are ‘surrounded by a great a cloud of witnesses who have borne testimony to the Truth.’ Hebrews 12:1.
Perhaps in your independence you have gone down a wrong road and there seems no way back; or maybe you don’t even know why, but it seems that you will never again breathe the fresh air of His joy, peace, grace and presence. If your destiny seems further away than it ever has, simply take your “existence” to the cross of Jesus. Watch Him give you LIFE in return! He will unravel everything and give you counsel, comfort and direction. Bereft of any real expectation of Him, or unable even to pray, you can simply bring the condition of your heart before Him and cry out for Him to meet you where you’re at! The Holy Spirit within you will utter those groanings that words cannot express! Wordless sobs like Hannah’s are fine if they are all you can muster up. God can do more with a hungry heart than with all the words in the dictionary! ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled’ Matthew 5:6. (Interestingly, that righteousness comes by not by works, but by faith!)
One thing is certain, you will never reach your destination without obedience to the moment-by-moment promptings coming from the newness of Life within you.
Forsake your own strength, face up to your weakness and ask for His strength to be made perfect in it. Just watch Him make something awesome out of your nothing!
Debbie has also released an album called Thirsty. A mix of classical and operatic music that will stir any hungry heart for God; as she moves into a new phase of ministry visit her site and give her your support – see www.debbieholmes.com
email: debbieholmes@debbieholmes.com
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