Neither do men light a lamp, and put it under the bushel, but on the stand; and it shineth unto all that are in the house. Even so let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:15, 16.
You don’t light a lamp and put it under a bushel. You are to so let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Everything in our services—the prophecies, the psalms, the messages, the worship—all must come forth with an anointing and a humility so that you automatically find yourself praising and glorifying God. There are activities which draw attention to the individual, but there is also the activity which liberates and looses a real revelation of Christ through you so that the Father is glorified by what you do and in what you say.
What we’ve been doing and endeavoring to do in the classes, the Bless-Ins, the services, etc. is a liberation move: an “Operation Bushel Basket.” We are to blow up the bushel basket which hides the light and the testimony: the word, the flow of life that must come forth from God’s people now. In the early church their limitations always gave way to the shining forth of the light of Jesus Christ. Philippians 2:15, 16 describes it and tells us how we can become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye are seen as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life … in other words, a living word—a very living word that brings life to people. We are seen as lights in the world. This is what God wants. It must begin in your thinking because you are the one who has imposed most of the limitations under which you labor. You say, “The devil did it to me”; but that excuse is as old as the Garden of Eden. Adam said, “The woman you gave me—she did it.” The woman said, “The serpent beguiled me.” Our first parents began to blame the devil for their problems too, yet they themselves were responsible for their actions. The devil can lie to you, but you are responsible if you yearn to believe it. If you are anxious to take hold of that lie, and believe it with all of your heart you will impose the limitations upon yourself. You are to believe the word of God.
Don’t say, “I can’t do anything for the Lord.” The Scripture says it is God who enables us. We are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God who also makes us able ministers of His new covenant (II Corinthians 3:5, 6). God does that—He said … my strength is made perfect in weakness … II Corinthians 12:9. He uses the weak to confound the mighty; the foolish to confound the wise (I Corinthians 1:27). Do we believe it? We believe it implicity until we’re put on the spot where we have to either make excuses for ourselves or get in and prove it.
You are to move that bushel basket of limitations that is darkening your testimony and witness and your flow of the word. You created it—didn’t you? in your thinking? “Oh, but circumstances are to blame! You see, what happened to me was all these things happened; and my psychoanalist tells me that they have so conditioned me that I respond to it and I can’t help it!” Would you make God a liar? Colossians 1:13 tells us God has delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love. You believe it, or you don’t!
Down through history people have lived the worst kind of lives—and when they believed God, they were suddenly loosed to do the impossible. It’s true how all the things that have happened to you can affect you. But it’s also true that God has happened to you; and He is greater than any experience or the sum total of all experiences you have ever had. God has happened to you—so throw away that bushel basket and let the light come forth. It is God who is working in you to will and to do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). Have faith in it.
What we’ve been doing in all of our schooling, experience, and reaching out, right and left, is very simple—we’re daring to tear up the bushel baskets. We’re daring to be what God wants us to be. We’re daring to say that which has spoken to our heart. We’re daring to go with a word that has been life to us; and it will be life to those who hear it.
This is “Operation Bushel Basket.” Do you have a bushel basket? Yes, you have. There are all kinds of bushel baskets: there are individual ones; there are family bushel baskets. We know in our hearts that we’ve hidden behind too many excuses too many times in the years of our lives. When we sit back and say “I can’t,” God give us the grace to say, “I can do all things through Christ” (Philippians 4:13).
It is a day that the Lord would say unto thine heart, Have I not brought unto thee much truth? Have I not brought unto thee much revelation? And when thou hast known the truth, has it not set thee free? Has it not been that which has liberated thy soul and caused thy spirit to rejoice in the Lord? Therefore the Lord saith unto thee: this shall be the day that thou shalt share that truth with those who are in bondage. It shall be as a knife that severs the cords that bind. It shall be that which smiteth off the fetters. The word of the Lord shall come unto them that are in darkness, and they shall come unto them that are in darkness, and they shall behold a great light. They shall be loosed from the prison-house. They shall be loosed from their fears. They shall no more accept their limitations, but they shall rise in the spirit and throw them off. It is the day of visitation that the Lord hath brought, that men shall be free and walk in the Lord. It is the day of liberation. Yea, it is a day of judgment, but it is also a liberation to the people of the Lord, that they should be free in the name of the Lord.
Thy light shall shine in the darkness, and the darkness shall overcome it not. For it is better that thou should bring forth the light of the Lord in the midst of the darkness that terrorizes the hearts of men than that thou should forbear. Arise, open thy heart. Let thy light shine forth, and it shall be glorious that the word within thy heart shall be like a light to the pathway of men—a lamp unto their feet—and they shall be instructed in the ways of the Lord. They shall rejoice with thee as ones who have found a great treasure for the Lord hath brought them light to walk in. Amen.
People don’t come fully into this walk unless it’s a revelation from the Lord. No amount of talking will bring them into it. This is the most unique move of God that has ever come forth in the history of man, and it is very definitely—different.
In the days of Abraham God was being selective and dealing with one man and his descendants almost exclusively. In the Old Testament God was dealing with Israel, and there didn’t seem to be anything except promises, and that in another age He would deal with the Gentiles. In the New Testament, God was dealing with certain ones, but everything just opened up for “whosoever will.” It was a “Go preach the gospel into all the world” (Mark 16:15). But you come to the end time, and again it’s specific and different than in any other age. God must bring a revelation of this walk to people’s hearts. And He will say of you as He said back in the days when He talked with Peter, “Blessed art thou, for flesh and blood did not reveal this unto you, but My Father which is in heaven (Matthew 16:17). That’s the way it comes now. God makes it a true revelation to your heart.