We may be assaulted again by waves of problems we thought we had overcome; so we should never take immunity from them for granted. Immunity is a victory that must constantly be maintained. We see this with our country’s liberties. Glorious liberties were once given to our country, but now we are watching these liberties erode away. Each new generation finds greater difficulty in maintaining these liberties. Sometimes the passing solution that is given by the government convinces the people that they need security more than they need liberty, and that they need the government to control society more than to develop its initiative. With these false assumptions, it is easy for liberty to disappear from the people.
In the same way, a flow of the Spirit cannot be taken for granted. A flow is a result of certain truths and blessings that are given to us by God, but maintaining that flow is a result of an eternal vigilance against the tactics of the enemy. Let us be mindful of what happens when the Word of God flows forth, as in the parable concerning the sower and the seed (Matthew 13:1–23). The sower goes forth to sow the seed, and then he enters into a great deal of conflict. First he has to contend with birds, then with the ground that is too shallow and the sun that is too hot. Then he contends with the thorns that spring up. Occasionally, the seed falls on good ground and will bring forth fruit, a hundredfold or sixtyfold or thirtyfold.
Maintaining a diligence to hear the Word of the Lord is a problem we often face. Whatever we can do to discipline ourselves, or one another, in order to keep a constant, consistent exposure of our hearts to the Word, is well worthwhile. In the long run, it will yield more liberty in the grace of God than it will ever take away from us. We need to expose ourselves to the Word. We need the Word! Not only do we need to hear it; we need to be in the flow of all that the Word brings.
The foes that we fight are not always the demonic harassments that oppose us. Sometimes we have to fight the impossible demands which the ministry itself places on us. Within every area of our responsibilities are things both good and bad that affect our lives. In order to keep a proper balance, our emphasis must always be on our best service while we always keep open to the Lord. Otherwise our place of service can become lifeless, as in the parable where the thorns grew up and choked out the Word. The thorns symbolize something that is sapping the life out of the soil so that the Word does not take root. That which God is bringing forth can be choked out when something else is sapping all the life and demanding all the attention. The thorns are comparable to the cares of life. Therefore, we must maintain a deep vigilance to be spiritual.
It is not easy for people to be spiritual when they have to drive many miles to work and are struggling to make a living. It may be more difficult for them to show up in a church service than it is for others with fewer responsibilities. Women who work may have to plan and prepare meals ahead of time. After work they rush home, put the food on the table, and then rush to church. Many know what that kind of pressure is like. People who have more time to be spiritual still must give diligence to do it. We tend to become passive and to exert no more effort than we have to.
The spiritual flow in your life does not automatically happen when you follow the easiest course. Being spiritual is always a matter of diligence. In the Old Testament, the Israelites were constantly warned to be diligent and to seek God with all of their hearts. In the New Testament, the same diligence was emphasized. Unless you press in to a spiritual way of life, you can lose out with God. The fastest way to fail in anything is to do nothing. The quickest way for a businessman to go broke is to do nothing. He does not have to make a bad sale or a mistake in his plans. All he has to do is sit back, and he will fail.
It requires diligence to be spiritual. You must be prepared to really press in. Maybe you have already experienced some real breakthroughs spiritually, but have you attained all that you can have? When you watch the people who are really pressing in, you realize that they are too few. The ones who would benefit the most by seeking God seem to drag their feet, and yet they find time for many other things.
In order to take the next steps into the Kingdom, we must seek every opportunity to participate in the flow of interceding, worshiping, and waiting on the Lord. Otherwise, we will settle for something inferior. If we do not find the guidelines of the Kingdom and move in them, we will have missed the best, even if we are as wise as Solomon in our ways of administration.
Satan will try to stop you by laying more responsibilities upon you, yet you may not realize that they are coming from him. Instead, you will think that you are very busy ministering. Therefore, learn to continually redeem and discipline your use of time. Every day that you live, discipline your energies so that you give priority to the most important thing, and take care of the other things as well as you are able. Even if you take care of only four or five of the most important needs out of a list of 100, going as far as you can, that day is successful.
One large corporation paid thousands of dollars to a man who guaranteed that he had a system whereby he could teach all the executives to be at least 100 percent more effective in the use of their time. Through this system the company became even more successful. The efficiency of the company was increased because important problems were not set aside. To use this type of system, begin your day by making a list of projects in order of their importance. Then start at the top of the list, working as undistractedly as you can. When you have finished that day, you will have done the most important things that had to be done, even though you did not complete the rest of them.
You will need to discipline your time in order to walk with God, to be a part of the army of the Lord, to become a prophet, and to be a part of all that God is doing. You need to evaluate what you are doing and where you are spiritually; otherwise you may reach a dangerous place in your life where you are not really walking with God. Then you will cease to be an asset to the purposes of God, no matter how efficient you are in your work. Eventually you will lag back spiritually to a level of less responsibility. In order to walk in mature discipleship, you must be a self-starter and evaluate yourself. You will go through hard things, and that is to be expected; but if you take your focus away from a spiritual emphasis, you will be in trouble, sooner or later, and become less involved with God. Then you will find yourself in a lower level of discipleship, if that is all you can fulfill.
People become casualties along the way when they lack the spiritual zeal and love in their hearts and that spiritual emphasis to maintain their walk with God. God will lead every one who is set to minister in bringing forth the Kingdom; He will have ministers ready to function the way He wants them to, and not necessarily the way they think they should function.
There must be the spiritual emphasis in your life. This will inevitably lead to your bringing your body under the subjection which Paul mentioned in I Corinthians 9:26–27. Your body must serve the spiritual purposes which God wants you to fulfill. Paul said, “I do not beat the air when I fight. I do not want to run uncertainly. I want to fulfill exactly the will of God for my life.” Therefore he brought his body under discipline.
This is important for you too, if you would walk in sonship. The discipline of your physical life is the key to the liberty of your spiritual life. This includes such things as getting to bed on time, getting up on time, being in the house of worship on time, working with all of your heart, and having a conscience about all these things.
Some think, “Well, the work will still be there tomorrow.” This is not to be our attitude. Let us get the work done as fast as we can, every day. We must strive for time to wait on the Lord and for time to fulfill what He wants. The Kingdom is coming! It cannot be another thousand years before it is established. We should move into it quickly; and this requires the right utilization of our time, which is as important a factor as anything else.
To use time well, you must discipline most of your daily life. There will be times when you must stop and rest. Jesus did this. He said to His disciples, “Come apart and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). Learn to balance your schedule. Always strive to reach into God and appropriate more, so that you will have a larger capacity and a greater ability to serve the Lord. Your capacity can be developed for greater ministry by constantly extending yourself beyond what you were able to handle yesterday. Spiritual growth comes by being pushed a little bit more.
We will never expand unless we keep working to your greatest capacity.” He gave me no sympathy at all. Work develops our capacity for work, even though it may not always be the preferable kind of work. As we walk with God more and more demands of God will be made, making us expand. But God will be doing it, not some program.
The following story of Isaac and the wells shows us how we must strive to keep a flow from God. Now there was a famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech king of the Philistines. And the Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands.… And I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands…” Genesis 26:1–4.
The Philistines were in the land then and would remain there for hundreds of years to come. But Isaac received the promise that he would be blessed. In verse 6 we read, So Isaac lived in Gerar. Gerar was filled with Philistines. Isaac had received an important promise for the distant future about that land. But rather than be satisfied by coexisting with the Philistines, he was trying to live with faith in the midst of a situation that was demonically inspired and controlled. He saw that everything which was to belong to his people after him was currently in the hands of the Philistines.
In verse 15 we read, Now all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines stopped up by filling them with earth. Even Abraham’s servants had dug wells in that land where the Philistines were living. Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are too powerful for us.” And Isaac departed from there and camped in the valley of Gerar, and settled there. Genesis 26:16–17.
Isaac was still in the country of Gerar. He could not stray too far from the place where God had told him to be, even though it was a place of conflict and difficulty.
The wells which Abraham had dug were now filled up with earth. This has a spiritual application for us today—that which is earthy is of the material, passing scene; and it fills up too many wells that have been dug for God’s people for the meeting of their thirst.
Then Isaac dug again the wells of water which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham; and he gave them the same names which his father had given them. But when Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of flowing water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with the herdsmen of Isaac, saying, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek, because they contended with him. Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over it too, so he named it Sitnah (which means enmity). The first well caused just a little contention, but over the next well the enmity increased. And he moved away from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he named it Rehoboth, for he said, “At last the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.” Genesis 26:18–22.
Do you grasp the analogy between what happened to the wells and what happens in your life personally? Whenever you dig a spiritual well, or when someone ministers something from God to you, you cannot count on the anointing always to continue to flow or your needs to be met through that particular source of supply. Do not count on receiving further ministry from someone who used to help you. God may cut off that ministry from you and bring another.
There is a continual war over the flow; and your fight for the flow determines whether you will be successful as a spiritual person, or whether you will drift away from it. No matter how diligent and efficient you are in many areas, your success in your walk with God does not depend upon that alone. It depends more upon the diligence with which you keep the wells flowing—the way that you continually enter into the spiritual battle to make sure there will be rivers of living water flowing. Isaac’s servants found a well of flowing water. God’s servants today must have wells flowing with living water.
If you give and extend yourself for God’s purposes, He will be pleased; but your efforts will be only part of the whole spiritual endeavor to bring forth the Kingdom. Giving your all is not enough; watch the spiritual flow in your life. Watch the flow! When something begins to squeeze it down or shut it off, do something about it immediately! And if you cannot battle it through, do as Isaac did when the well was taken away from him—dig another one. Isaac knew that his survival and that of his descendants and the flocks depended upon keeping an open flow of water for them—living water.
The same holds true today. God has purposed to see people come forth who are diligent to watch over the spiritual flow in the Body of Christ, so that some do not lose out. When you see someone going through testings, watch over the flow to him. You may face testings too, and seem to come through them successfully. You may even accomplish a lot of projects, thinking that God is supplying your needs. Suddenly you realize, “Where is the blessing I had? In the midst of it all, something took away the wonder of my communion with the Lord. The flow is not there!”
Watch the flow. Watch it! Watch it more than anything else in your life, if you would have your relationships in the Body of Christ be right for the Kingdom of God. If you refuse to know men after the flesh, there will be very little socializing or friendships on a human level. You may seem to be withdrawn on a human level, but you will be able to relate to your brothers more perfectly in the Spirit when you see them as prophets, as members of the Body of Christ, as the little flock. Relate to what God is doing and saying to them, rather than trying to meet them on a personal basis. Meet them in the way that God is seeing them.
Good spiritual relationships may seem almost impersonal, as if you are nothing but a computer, or a channel in whom God can put the blessings and answers that will actually meet people’s needs, in the spiritual flow. Your emphasis should not be on what you are, but on being a flow in the will of God to people. Constantly study relationships. You must become wholly and totally dedicated to watch over the flow.
Relationships are one demand in your life. There is also the demand of physical work as far as your time and efforts are concerned. The load of work to be accomplished is unbelievable. Yet you must give priority to that which is of first importance—walking with the Lord. To do this, you must also observe certain disciplines in your life. There must be a constant humbling of yourself and repenting before the face of the Lord. There can be no spiritual life without this. Continually and voluntarily humble yourself and repent before the Lord. The answers that come through aggressive faith-action are involved with repentance and humility. How can there be a pure expression of faith without those ingredients? True faith really looks to God and does not look upon one’s own self as being the answer. This involves total humility.
While everything else takes place, your emphasis must always be to keep the flow. If you do not maintain the flow, nothing else will work. The flow will stop whenever you become absorbed with yourself and your own problems, thinking that no one understands you. This focus on yourself can become a kind of self-psychoanalysis. A man who treats himself has a fool for a doctor. Paul even said, “I do not judge my own self.… therefore judge nothing before the time” (I Corinthians 4:3, 5). Neither judge anyone else. You cannot judge yourself in a deep sense; but you can judge yourself if you are open for the Holy Spirit to constantly reveal what you need, and if you are repentant and deeply seeking the Lord.
Keep the flow open. Keep the family spirit. Keep the spiritual growth you have gained. Keep watching out for one another’s welfare by reaching into the Spirit. Be diligent to do what you are supposed to do. Do not allow anything in any way to overwhelm or sidetrack you spiritually until you are off on another course.
Sometimes tremendous demands are placed on believers when their loved ones go through long illnesses and die. It would seem that a human being could not bear up under such ordeals and long vigils. Yet when a believer faces that responsibility, he wants to do it; and he does it by drawing from the Lord. He is brought through it by his priority of focus upon the Lord.
If you do not set the Lord before you, you will faint and fall by the wayside. You do not know what you will face, but God will help you face even the greatest of difficulties. The key to endurance is to focus on the Lord and keep the flow. You can endure anything, as long as you are in tune with the Lord and the flow is there. If you are not in tune with the Lord, it may not take very much to knock you out. You may already have experienced this. You may have even stumbled over a straw, by just one little thing bothering you. Nothing will bother you if the flow is there, but everything will bother you if the flow is not there. Without a flow from God, your capacity to adjust to things disappears.
Set your heart on the Lord and help keep your environment spiritual. Help your brothers when you know that they are going through difficulties, or are trying to get back into the flow. Help those who are on the fringe to come in as fast as possible. Constant vigilance is required to keep the flow going.
We can become confused over incidents that happen to us if we begin to think that our problems come from our relationships with one another. It is foolish to think this way. I John 1:7 says, But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light (with our eyes on Him, pressing in, keeping close to Him), we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. Our relationships with each other are based on our relationship with the Lord. Everything will be all right if we keep this in mind.
The minute that you begin to think that your problem is your schedule, or your work, or your relationship with others, your basic focus is off. Go back and sharpen up your relationship with the Lord. Fix your eyes on Him. Start walking in the light with a basic focus on walking with the Lord Jesus Christ. Although you must be concerned about your relationships in the Body of Christ, that is not your basic emphasis. The basic emphasis can be summed up in two sentences: Jesus is Lord! Wait on Him! “Well, I was called to be a prophet.” Jesus is Lord! Wait on Him! “I am called to be an apostle.” Jesus is Lord! Wait on Him! “I am called to be an elder; I must go and minister to someone.” Jesus is Lord! Wait on Him! Otherwise you will find your time being consumed in ministering out, and your efficiency and effectiveness will diminish, diminish, diminish. If you have the flow, you can accomplish a great deal, even in five minutes. You can never get away from this priority of keeping the flow. The key of walking with the Lord is found in Matthew 6:33: “Seek ye first His Kingdom and His righteousness.”