Salvation Blessing or Responsibility?
It has been a while since my last blog post was released and interestingly enough it has been a season of a paradigm shift and perspective change for me. I have seen it on so many occasions where people as God for direction on a personal matter and wait on the Holy Spirit for His divine guidance. Although this is a noble approach I do believe that it should be the exception rather than the rule for the average child of God.
In our baby years as believers, we are so often taught that we should wait on the Lord so that we would have our strength renewed Isaiah 40v31. We are also taught to use phrases like “if it is your will” like we see Jesus use in the garden of Gethsemane when He asks His Father to let the Cup or burden of the crucifixion pass over Jesus. I do believe that Jesus was intensely aware of what he would be going through and His prayer is a sincere desire to avoid the pain and suffering even though He knew it was required for the liberation of mankind from the burden of sinful nature.
I am not saying that we should not ask the Lord for guidance. I would like to suggest though that God does not always want us to go the safe route when it comes to living our lives. Just like a gardener will some times guide a sapling to grow upright when it is young I believe that God gives us guidance as young Christians to help us find the right posture and foundations in our spiritual journey. There does however come a time in the life of every tree where it starts to bear fruit and extend itself in every direction as the Creator intended for it to do.
John 15v2 “He cuts off every branch that does not produce fruit in me, and he cuts back every branch that does produce fruit so that it might produce more fruit.
In John 15 Jesus teaches by using parables so that we are able to understand the idea behind the principles that He uses to manage His Kingdom. The example of pruning by association implies that there is a time where the plant will make every effort to produce its best fruit before the gardener will trim the portions of the tree that could be more effective and produce more and/or better fruit.
The parable of the talents in Matt 25 shows us that God encourages His children to make their own choices with the abilities and opportunities they have been presented within their lives. If I consult God on every choice that I face I will have a tough time owning my choices and how will I ever be a good steward if I never own my life or take personal responsibility for the trust and ability that He created in me.
As much as I believe that there is a time where we need to take a lot of guidance from God and those that He placed in leadership over our lives I also believe that God’s children MUST eventually grow up and take ownership of the lives they were given to live for God. I can only take ownership of the choices I make if they are my own. I can only give an account for my life if I am the one making the choices.
How often do we strive to avoid discipline and correction by God’s hand in our lives? At times He will push us to bend to His will. At other times He will allow us to grow in some areas and then prune some of it away. Not every setback or closed door is an attack from the Devil. Not every challenge in our life relates to God’s punishment. I honestly believe that the global body of believers have become victims of their own misguided beliefs that blessings mean success or wealth and that every set back is based on an attack from the devil.
Our Lord Jesus is infinitely more complex than we could ever imagine. To think that He would put us in a life that is so two dimensional where what makes me happy is from Him and what makes me sad is from Satan is an insult to His greatness.
Jesus taught about being trimmed to become more productive believers and of greater asset value to His purpose. When we are faithful servants He will make changes in our lives to give us greater capacity and empower us with greater responsibility. Being a Christian has very little to do with being blessed and a whole lot to do with being a healthy growing child of God that matures daily and grows from strength to strength in our Lord so that we are able to be called FAITHFUL SERVANTS.
It has been my recent experience that Gods plan and purpose is to make us strong fruit bearers for His household. In the words of the unfaithful servant in Jesus’ parable
Matt 25v24:” Master, I knew that you were a hard man, harvesting where you haven’t planted and gathering where you haven’t scattered seed”
Even though God’s gift of salvation blesses us it was not its aim. We were saved to become active participants in God’s Kingdom, building it and working in it to add to it for His glory. I believe we are meant to enjoy being part of His family and we should become more aware of the purpose of our salvation. It’s not to be blessed even though that does happen. We were
It has been a while since my last blog post was released and interestingly enough it has been a season of a paradigm shift and perspective change for me. I have seen it on so many occasions where people as God for direction on a personal matter and wait on the Holy Spirit for His divine guidance. Although this is a noble approach I do believe that it should be the exception rather than the rule for the average child of God.
In our baby years as believers we are so often taught that we should wait on the Lord so that we would have our strength renewed Isaiah 40v31. We are also taught to use phrases like “if it is your will” like we see Jesus use in the garden of Gethsemane when He asks His Father to let the Cup or burden of the crucifixion pass over Jesus. I do believe hat Jesus was intensely aware of what he would be going through and His prayer is a sincere desire to avoid the pain and suffering even though He knew it was required for the liberation of man kind from the burden of the sinful nature.
I am not saying that we should not ask the Lord for guidance. I would like to suggest though that God does not always want us to go the safe route when it comes to living our lives. Just like a gardener will some times guide a sapling to grow upright when it is young I believe that God gives us guidance as young Christians to help us find the right posture and foundations in our spiritual journey. There does however come a time in the life of every tree where it starts to bear fruit and extend itself in every direction as the Creator intended for it to do.
John 15v2 “He cuts off every branch that does not produce fruit in me, and he cuts back every branch that does produce fruit so that it might produce more fruit.
In John 15 Jesus teaches by using parables so that we are able to understand the idea behind the principals that He uses to manage His Kingdom. The example of pruning by association implies that there is a time where the plant will make every effort to produce its best fruit before the gardener will trim the portions of the tree that could be more effective and produce more and/or better fruit.
The parable of the talents in Matt 25 show us that God encourages His children to make their own choices with the abilities and opportunities they have been presented with in their lives. If I consult God on every choice that I face I will have a tough time owning my choices and how will I ever be a good steward if I never own my life or take personal responsibility for trust and ability that He created in me.
As much as I believe that there is a time where we need to take a lot of guidance from God and those that He placed in leadership over our lives I also believe that God’s children MUST eventually grow up and take ownership of the lives they were given to live for God. I can only take ownership of the choices I make if they are mine. I can only give an account for my life if I am the one making the choices.
How often do we strive to avoid discipline and correction by God’s hand in our lives? At times He will push us to bend to His will. At other times He will allow us to grow in areas and then prune them away from our lives. Not every setback or closed door is an attack from the Devil. Not every challenge in our life relates to God’s punishment. I honestly believe that the global body of believers have become victims of their own misguided beliefs that blessings mean success or wealth and that every set back is based on an attack from the devil.
Our Lord Jesus is infinitely more complex than we could ever imagine. To think that He would put us in a life that is so two dimensional where what makes me happy is from Him and what makes me sad is from Satan is an insult to His greatness.
Jesus taught about being trimmed to become more productive believers and of greater asset value to His purpose. When we are faithful servants He will make changes in our lives to give us greater capacity and empower us with greater responsibility. Being a Christian has very little to do with being blessed and a whole lot to do with being a healthy growing child of God that matures daily and grows from strength to strength in our Lord so that we are able to be called FAITHFUL SERVANTS.
It has been my recent experience that God’s plan and purpose are to make us strong fruit bearers for His household. In the words of the unfaithful servant in Jesus’ parable
Matt 25v24:” Master, I knew that you were a hard man, harvesting where you haven’t planted and gathering where you haven’t scattered seed”
Even though God’s gift of salvation blesses us it was not its aim. We were saved to become active participants in God’s Kingdom, building it and working in it to add to it for His glory. I believe we are meant to enjoy being part of His family and we should become more aware of the purpose of our salvation. It’s not to be blessed even though that does happen. We were saved to be a blessing to the Lord who has created us for His pleasure.
We are saved to be a blessing to the Lord who has created us for His pleasure.
Revelations 4v11: “You(God) created everything and it is for Your pleasure that they exist and were created”
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