God is bringing us to a new drive and motivation in the Kingdom, and it is very important for you to understand exactly where you are in this process and what is going to happen next.
At times a discouragement and a heaviness settles upon people, yet they are not discouraged. They worship the Lord with joy; yet the spirit of futility seems to assault them constantly, for they are in the battle.
They do not really know what God is trying to do in them. If they did know, they would say “yes” to God. They do not know whether they should be angry or joyful, whether they should submit or resist, or what they should do. Do you ever find yourself in that position? How important would an answer for this dilemma be to you?
God has put you in a corner and dried up many of the motivations that you have had in your life. You have seen them wither and die. Perhaps a few Scriptures will help you see what God is bringing forth in your spirit.
Let us look first to the book of Proverbs. A joyful heart makes a cheerful face, but when the heart is sad, the spirit is broken. Proverbs 15:13.
A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones. Proverbs 17:22.
Now let us read from the New Testament: “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33.
This is the period of the broken spirit and the heavy heart. Many will relate to the book of Ecclesiastes, in which everything is painted as vanity and futility. People will see what the world and life are really like. They will see the futility of human existence, apart from reaching in to become sons of God.
In this day you will be anxious to be out of the human realm and into the divine realm. You will not even enjoy the processes of everyday living. All the joys of a personal life will become abhorrent, as a futility looms up in it.
Let us look at Luke 9:24, 25 and begin to follow step by step the process God works in our lives:
Luke 9:24“For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?” In the verse preceding this passage we read, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”
In Luke 17:33, our Lord says, “Whoever seeks to keep his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life shall preserve it alive.” This reference occurs in a chapter in which Jesus Christ is speaking of the Kingdom of God and how it shall come. It also deals with signs which will be evident in the day when the Lord returns.
These Scriptures are a great key to what we are experiencing now. Jesus said, Remember Lot’s wife. Luke 17:32. She looked back to Sodom, and perished (Genesis 19:26).
There is a certain existence that people are clinging to in the world today. I am really amazed at the optimism of the world. Many believe that the economy is going to come up, that something will happen to make it turn out all right. However, the situation can only change if God intervenes; and God will only intervene if enough of His people stand in the gap to pray and change the tide. God will not move simply to prolong a motivation that you may have to be rich.
The self-preservation instinct is one drive against which God is contending
The first doctrine He made real to us was the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This does not cease to be our focal point.
The centrality of the Lord Jesus Christ still stands as the word that the Holy Spirit is bringing to the earth. The Lordship of Jesus Christ means that we find ourselves dethroned, so that the rule of self comes to an end. This means that even our will to live—on the human plane—is weakened.
The self-preservation instinct is put to the cross. Jesus said, “You are to take up your cross daily and follow Me. If you save your life, you will lose it, but if you lose your life for My sake, you will find it.” We must accept and live this word.
As the self-preservation instinct dies, you lose that sharp interest in all the various aspects of life.
You experience a period in which you abhor yourself and you feel utterly inadequate in the flesh; then a vacuum results.
The vacuum exists because the motivation for living is at a minimum. What motivation is there? In the world, men move up in politics because of ambition.
The same thing is true in the religious world, because it is basically a political system with men working up to a place of honor in the world’s sight that is very gratifying to the flesh.
But in a walk with God there is nothing like that. A man who walks with God does not do so for money, for great fame, or for any other selfish reason. Those motivations are just not present. A vacuum is being created. God is slowly but surely circumcising the heart, and the pride of the flesh is being taken away.
There are several scriptural examples of people who came to the end of any motivation and reaction to life on the human plane. It is necessary for us to see the new motivation that must take over in our lives. The real motivation is rather simple, but it is not a motivation that we have cultivated as much as we could.
First, we will look at the negative side of the picture to see what happens once a vacuum is created and people lose the normal human motivation to live.
In Genesis is the story of Rebekah and the disillusionment she faced at one point in her life. Rebekah was a beautiful woman, and I think she had a good spirit, for she was hospitable toward Abraham’s servant. She became the bride of Isaac, but they did not live happily ever after.
The Scriptures speak of the daughters of Heth, who came into her life. They were dirty and uncouth and were probably busybodies. No doubt they represented everything that Rebekah hated.
Rebekah finally said, “I despair of my life because of the daughters of Heth; and if my son Jacob marries one of them, my life will be no good to me” (Genesis 27:46).
We might think that after God had arranged her marriage, He would at least have given her a nice, happy old age. But God had to do something within her spirit that would cause her to send her son back to her people for the wife God wanted him to have.
Does God cause the daughters of Heth to bother you? Do you have any circumstance that just keeps harassing you? You keep praying for the problem to go away, but it does not go away. Instead, you come to the place where you have a broken spirit and a heavy heart and you are reminded of the Scripture in Proverbs 13:12 which says, Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.…
Everyone who tries to walk with the Lord has one or two nagging problems. If you do not have any, just keep worshiping the Lord and He will give you some.
I am convinced that God has to bring you to the place where the old motivations and responses that are enjoyable to you die. They have to die. Do I mean that God will bring you by the route of despair? Of course He will. The question is not, “Will He?” but, “Is He?”
Notice the prayer of Moses in Numbers 11:15, “O God, if you think anything at all of me, just kill me.” You may wonder why Moses did not count his blessings. God had spoken to him from the burning bush; the Lord had sent ten plagues against Egypt and given a mighty deliverance through the Passover. All the Israelites had been delivered so that they could walk in the promises of God. But those Israelites murmured and complained and had many problems.
With every deliverance that God gives His people, it seems He has to give the leader a deliverance, too. We pray for God to fill His house, but what will it be like when it is full? How many problems will the people have?
They usually do not come without problems. If they do, God gives them some, because we are learning to walk with God and our motivations must change. The level of our lives must change. Our awareness of things must change. Our sense of values must change. Everything has to change! How will we change? Sometimes God just has to blow on our lives. This is a principle in His dealings with men.
Elijah’s triumphs were tremendous victories. Do you remember the slaying of the prophets of Baal? Do you recall how the fire fell on the sacrifices at Mount Carmel? What a story! He prayed for the rain to come, and God ended a three-and-one-half-year drought.
But when Elijah heard that Jezebel was after him, he went into the wilderness; and after about a day’s journey, he sat down under a juniper tree and prayed that he would die (1 Kings 19:4). Why? He had no human motivation to live.
Why should Elijah want to live? He said, “I am not better than my fathers,” but he was reasoning from a human viewpoint. He had come to the place where he saw that there was nothing to live for on the human level.
However, the greatest works that Elijah performed were accomplished after this time. In my estimation, it was then that the prophet moved into a double portion. (Later, the prophet Elisha walked in the double portion, but I am not referring to that aspect. I am referring to the change in Elijah’s ministry.) Elijah doubled the anointing that he moved in. He moved in an area in which he controlled life and death, the crowning of kings, the choosing of his successor; all the important decisions came after his time of discouragement.
Elijah never died physically, but in a sense he did die. Even though he was translated without seeing death, Elijah had to come to the place where he wanted to die, where there was no motivation to continue living on his present human plane. This was more than a suicidal tendency. He died in his soul-life. That was what Jesus spoke of when He said: “He that would keep his soul-life will lose it; he that loseth his soul-life for My sake shall find it” (Luke 17:33).
One Greek work translated “save” is “sozo,” which means to keep sound or to keep everything in place. Will you have a nice orderly life? According to Micah 3:12, Zion shall be like a plowed field! There will be nothing in place, nothing in order. Your life is being disrupted. That is the way changes come.
God desires to bring an end to one motivation so that we will enter into another. We must come to the end of the old motivations which may be very much mingled with ambition or personal desire. Eventually, our lives come to the place where they are purely in God. We cannot avoid this if we want to be the sons of God, who will minister both mercy and judgment to the earth. We will have to be removed from the realm of human responses and have only a divine response to circumstances.
What about Job? He said, “I loathe my own life; I will give full vent to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. I will say to God, ‘Do not condemn me; let me know why Thou dost contend with me.’ ” Job 10:1, 2.
Job 3:20, 21: “Why is light given to him who suffers, and life to the bitter of soul; who long for death, but there is none, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures?” Did you ever feel like that? Another time Job said, “So that my soul would choose suffocation, death rather than my pains.” Job 7:15.
What happened to Job? God decided He wanted to give him twice as much as he had ever had before. Job had been quite happy and content. All the proper motivation was present, and his ways were perfect before the Lord (Job 1:1). Then why did God put him in such a mess that he cursed the day he was born and had to repent before the Lord? That is simply God’s way of doing things.
There are many cries of people throughout the Scriptures like the complaint of Jonah. Nineveh was delivered by great repentance, but Jonah prayed to die (Jonah 4:3). Why was Jonah discouraged? He was one of the most successful prophets of the Old Testament. He broke through the wall of the Assyrians and preached to the Ninevites, and a whole city of people repented and sought the Lord. Actually, Jonah never did have the correct motivation in his heart, and God kept dealing with him until he finally had to repent.
God uses many people who are not perfect. Many people who sing psalms and prophesy are not perfect. We are believing for a perfect word from God, but the channels are still imperfect. The channels are imperfect because there are still many things in the old human motivations that have to be removed.
We have established some examples of how God deals. Now we will turn our attention to a few Scriptures that dwell upon the utter futility of life. Then we will deal with the necessary new motivation that God brings. When we finish, we should be rejoicing in what God has put us through.
Usually people do not refer to the book of Ecclesiastes, but some portions of it are classic. So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind. Ecclesiastes 2:17. What a cheerful soul!
Ecclesiastes 4:1–3: Then I looked again at all the acts of oppression which were being done under the sun. And behold I saw the tears of the oppressed and that they had no one to comfort them; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort them. (Now note this next statement.) So I congratulated the dead who are already dead more than the living who are still living. But better off than both of them is the one who has never existed.…
When a person has no more motivation to live on the soul level, then the spirit takes over. There are desires of the human spirit that are in tune with God. Your spirit lives and survives by its focus upon God.
One truth is seen in both the Old and New Testaments: There must be a hunger after God in the way that you reach in to participate in Him.
This must be the new motivation for your life. God will deal with you until you hunger and thirst after the Lord more than anything else. That is one of the first statements in the New Testament: “Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6). Hunger is a blessed state. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33. You are to turn your focus away from everything that the Gentiles seek. It all has to die to you. You do not even want it or covet it; it means nothing to you as you seek first God’s Kingdom.
There will be people who will have millions of dollars laid in their hands because they do not care about having a million dollars; instead, they are entirely focused on seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. That was the reason Abraham was rich. He refused great wealth from the conquest of the Babylonian and Syrian kings. He said, “I will not take one shoelace lest you say you made Abraham rich” (Genesis 14:23). He was entirely a product of what God made him.
In Psalm 42:1–5 David sang: As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for Thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” (Is this your experience?) These things I remember, and I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God, with the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. (In other words, they were keeping one of the feasts, such as the Feast of Tabernacles.) Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence.
David is speaking about the despair on one level, but on another there is a hunger in his spirit for God. The two coincide.
As the living word comes, it has this unique quality: like a sharp two-edged sword, it pierces to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow (Hebrews 4:12). The soul goes through the work of the cross—a death process—but the spirit becomes separated from it.
The Word separates spirit from soul so that with a pure heart you are striving to serve God. Hence there is a coexistence of encouragement and faith along with the despair and depression that oppress you because of the spirit of futility.
The despair and depression are necessary, for the soul must die. “He that would save his soul-life shall lose it; he that loseth his soul-life for My sake shall find it” (Luke 9:24). Jesus described exactly what you are experiencing. But you must also understand the new motivation of spirit.
Psalm 84:10, 11 reads: For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside. (One day in the house of God is better than a thousand outside.) I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God, than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord gives grace and glory; no good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.
As long as people are quoting promises with the motivation to obtain all God’s abundance, they will never have it. But when the day finally comes that their emphasis is correct, then the promises will be fulfilled.
When the emphasis within your heart is leaping, “… seek first His kingdom,” it is an afterthought of God, “… all these things shall be added to you.” Matthew 6:33.
Delight yourself in the Lord (that is the area of emphasis); and He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4. It is difficult. The desire for blessings must end, and the hunger for the Blesser must increase. As a result, the blessings accumulate
As long as we are interceding for things, we do not receive them. But when we make the Lord the utter joy of our hearts and delight to do His will, then all the other things happen.
John 4 is one of the finest chapters written for hidden meanings and truths: Jesus answered and said to her (the woman at Samaria), “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink.’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” (oh, the deep symbolism—living water). She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again.” The fulfillments on the human plane will never bring a lasting satisfaction. “But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become (this indicates that there is a time process) in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty, nor come all the way here to draw.” John 4:10–15.
The woman was coming for water; and Jesus said, “If you drink this water, you will thirst again; but if you drink the living water, you will never thirst.” Simply because you may still have old motivations and drives does not mean that you have not had the living water of the living word.
The soul, with its thirsts and hungers on the human plane, goes through a death process. It is a unique experience, one which grows and expands until it reaches the full measure of all the instincts, drives, and hungers, and every desire that is in the heart.
However, when you drink of the living water, you never thirst again. A fulfillment comes to your spirit. When your spirit reaches out and tunes into Christ, it in turn becomes an artesian well of the same life. It becomes a spring of living water, springing up to eternal life. From your own belly, your own being, from your spirit it comes forth.
Do you see now what the Lord is trying to do? You must die. You must stop thirsting for the water that will only let you thirst again, and thirst instead for the water which will completely quench your thirst. Those seem to be just words, and I wonder how many times people have read them without realizing that they show a contrast between the thirst of the soul and the thirst of the spirit after God. It is the cry and yearning after God like a hart panting after the water brook: “When shall I come and appear before Thee?”
There will be frustration on our walk until the day we receive this new motivation in our hearts. This is the answer to futility. As long as we dwell in the soul realm, the spirit of futility will rest upon us.
The first manifestation of the sons of God is that they are delivered from the futility of the carnal or soulish appetites. That is their release from futility.
Then they come into the place where they never thirst. This is a step toward the manifestation of the sons of God. Can it be taken? Absolutely! We are taking it without even realizing it; but when our understanding is fruitful, we can move into it more readily. It helps when we take the blinders off. Then we can see where to go. God is pointing out the way to us through His dealings.
Do not back off from this word. It is very essential that you heed it. Amos tells us that there will be a time when there is a famine in the land. “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the Lord.” Amos 8:11.
Do you think that is happening now? Yes, there is a growing hunger for the living word. We do not have beautiful containers to drink the water from, only the humblest of earthen vessels. The living word is coming like water, and people are finding that it will cure their thirst.
“And people will stagger from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they will go to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, but they will not find it. In that day the beautiful virgins and the young men will faint from thirst.” Amos 8:12, 13.
Kingdom evangelism starts with the living waters. Find someone who is staggering from sea to sea, not because he is drunk, but because he is thirsty and searching. Sometimes he may not even know for what he is searching. Offer him a drink. That is the only way to bring people into a walk with the Lord.
Whatever you are doing in your own efforts, Babylon can do it better. They are the experts when it comes to building beautiful, expensive churches, each one trying to outdo the other. They have stocks and bonds, corporations and businesses to back them. You could never rival Babylon in those areas, but you do have something they do not have—living water. It is that for which people thirst.
People come into a walk with God because God is satisfying their deep hunger and fulfilling their great thirst. As God puts a hunger after a living word in their hearts, the things that formerly satisfied them no longer fulfill their deep thirst. They start looking around but are told to be loyal, to be a good sheep and not jump the fence. Yet they are very hungry and very thirsty. The walls of Babylon will never be high enough to keep in the hungry, thirsty sheep.
We have the answer in the living word. Oh, if we would only see this! Let the old die. Let us become the evangelists of the Kingdom. Let us become the people who can do the will of the Lord because we hunger and thirst after the Lord and after His living word. We cry for it with everything that is within our hearts.
It is good to die out to the motivations of the flesh, but you cannot live with that vacuum in which life has no meaning. You need the new motivation of spirit which hungers after God and reaches up to God with no other conflicting interest to pull you away.
When this motivation comes, there is no civil war between soul and spirit. Only one thing prevails: the hunger of your spirit after God. That alone will satisfy you. You have come this far, and you had better go on the rest of the way, because it is very dangerous to stop on this level.
We will either give way to the spirit of futility, to the depression and the despair until it is a rottenness to our bones, or we will reach up and drink of the living water, the living word. Death is working in us, but the flow of life is increasing (2 Corinthians 4:12). Whatever God is doing with us, we want Him to keep right on doing it until He finishes the job. Let Him truly be the author and the finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).