I don’t know of anything that I have ever taught which God has not first burned into my spirit. I have already experienced it deeply; and when you hear that Word, you know that. I could not and would not lead you into anything at all if I did not know it in the depths of my spirit.
The Lord is speaking concerning the things that are ahead of all of us; there are such great changes coming. We should study about the progressive nature of our discipleship, and about the tendency we have to define the limits of our dedication to the Lord. This tendency is so deeply ingrained in us and so carnal. We have built-in walls. We say, “I won’t go any further, Lord.” But you probably will. You may find yourself doing anything He wants you to do. When the Lord says He wants disciples, He means He wants disciples. And of course that is what He is going to get.
I did not anticipate all of the demands that God has put upon me. I only wanted to walk with the Lord and preach His Word. But I know that we have been brought to face the ever-increasing demands that the Lord is making on us as His disciples.
What makes people back off from their walk with God? They draw back when God says, “You intended to be a disciple; now be one.” It’s not easy to be a disciple. It takes dedication. There is a need for people to believe God and enter in, in spite of what is happening to them. You may be tested on finances, but still you are going to have to give. You are going to have to sacrifice. There is no way out of it. This is discipleship. During the days of the Depression, people would come to church and after the service they often did not have carfare home—they had given it to the Lord. People can stand on the sidelines and preach and give all kinds of advice; but when it comes to laying their life down, that is another story.
There must be that moment in which you say, “Lord, it is Your hand upon my life. It is Your demand upon me that I answer. I’m Your bondservant. Whatever You want me to do, that I will do. And You will help me to expand with it—that as Your demands upon me increase, I will live less and less for myself and more and more for You.”
I know that this is the pattern. Your personal dreams and expectations, things that you want in life—one by one you watch them disappear. And you are swallowed up by something more, until it is the ministry that you give, it is what Christ is doing through you that matters. Do you believe that? We can’t draw back. We have to give it all to Him. He bought us and we just are not our own. We belong to the Lord. I do not have any right to myself; neither do you.
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. I Corinthians 6:19–20.
Prophecy: O little flock, so little and so few—so much rests upon you to give and to bless and to proclaim the Word of the Lord to the ends of the earth. What marvelous beginnings have come from this people that God raised up in whom the Word of the Lord has rested. How precious it is. How many different peoples and different tongues will arise and bless you. And yet the Lord stirs each one of you out of your passivity. The Lord makes you realize what He has called you to be; He has filled you with the spirit of giving and grace in the name of the Lord. Let there be that which comes forth from you out of a heart that denies itself and forsakes all to follow the Lord.
Something beautiful will come out of what has happened. In much weakness and affliction we are moving into the greatest victories of our life.
“Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?” The Song of Solomon 8:5a.
This is the only way we are going to make it—in our weakness, in our devotion to the Lord, leaning heavily upon the Lord to come up out of the wilderness. Why doesn’t the Lord remove the pressures from us? Why does He demand a bride with a broken heart? Why does He crush His people after He has gone to such an extent to bring forth the bloom and the fragrance in the rose of their life? Who is this that comes up out of the wilderness—out of this wilderness of Babylon, out of generations of pressure? She is leaning on the arm of her Beloved.
I understand a little about the Lord’s demands. And I speak to you not about the flesh and the lust thereof, not about the lust of the eyes or the pride of life—those things are of the world which passes away (I John 2:16–17).
Rather, I speak to you about some deep thing in our spirit which refuses to comprehend or to accept the ever-increasing demands of God upon us. How many casualties have there been because God demanded a little more than He had before, something that He did not ask for yesterday, and people drew back from it?
We thought we had something that would provide us a very comfortable, rather fulfilling, rewarding life; and we watched Him by His Spirit erode it away until we were standing on nothing but pure committal to the Lord. He has been doing that to all of us.
I think of Paul’s statement, “Out of weakness God’s strength is made perfect” (II Corinthians 12:9). I don’t understand all that happened to Paul, but I know that the Lord kept laying more and more things upon him all the time. And he did not crack under it. Even right up to the last, when he was leaving to face certain imprisonment and the elders were begging him not to go, he said, “What do you mean by breaking my heart? I’m willing not only to be bound but even to die at Jerusalem for the Lord” (Acts 21:13). Only one thing moved him. The prophets in every city had told him that he was going to be bound in Jerusalem. Still he said, “I will allow none of these things to move me, so that I might fulfill my ministry with joy” (Acts 20:24, KJV). With joy? in a Roman prison? beaten? facing riots and mobs ready to tear him apart? Yes. Then he wrote from a damp Roman prison, “Timothy, preach the Word. Make full proof of your ministry” (II Timothy 4:2, 5). Of his own life, Paul said, … the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. II Timothy 4:6–7. May the examples of those in the cloud of witnesses strengthen us. Let us entreat the Lord that we all walk worthy in this hour in which we live, to be the disciples of His Kingdom, to do the will of the Lord.
“Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning on the arm of her beloved?” O limping saints, bruised and wounded, stripped—come on, fight the good fight! Finish the course! Keep the faith! Many of us are just beginning to realize that in the midst of this age of softness, the Lord is reversing all trends; He is producing a people who are becoming the strong sons of God in the world. And they persevere. God lays a Word on them, and they follow it.
This is discipleship come again. The Lord’s coming is close at hand (James 5:8). You who are so reluctant to give the Lord what He asks—come on, give out. What are you trying to prove? What are you trying to save? You cannot give Him anything less than what you are—everything you are.
What about the tendency of the human mind to define the limits of its endurance, the limits of the demands of love? Peter came to the Lord and asked, “How often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? until seven times?” Jesus replied, “Until seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:21–22). What is the limit of human endurance? How long shall we be patient? Shall we forgive others seven times? seventy times seven? Lord, increase our faith, because we have a tendency to define the limitations of our spirit and our mind. This is what we face now—the ever-increasing demands, and the reluctance that we have to accept that God can demand more of us than we believe possible. We come to the place where the mind shrieks out, “I can’t! I can’t! I’ve reached the limit, Lord.” But our spirit says, “Thy will be done” (Matthew 6:10). And then we know that we have to do a little more than we thought we could ever do.
Those demands come and they reach into our own self-interest. The prophet walks by and asks, “Will you bake me a cake?” and you say, “I have only enough meal for my son and I to have one little cake apiece, and then we die.” But he says, “Make me a cake first” (I Kings 17:8–16). There are demands in God. The human mind says, “If I give this to God, I perish. I lose myself. I lose my identity. What will become of me if I do what God wants me to do?” And He says, “If any man would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.”
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If any one wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it. For what will a man be profited, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” Matthew 16:24–26.
Is this Word making you heavy in your spirit? I trust that it is speaking to your spirit, speaking to your heart. When the Lord meets us and lays His demands upon us, it leaves us very much broken before Him. It is devastating.
What we feel is not a reluctance; it is just an overwhelming realization that we have to lay down the limitations we have imposed on how much, how long, how far, how deep. We just can’t put any limitations on our discipleship. How much shall we love Him? How long shall we love Him? How deep shall we love Him? It is so human for us to put limitations on ourselves and say, “I think I could go thus far.” You can go that far, and farther. And with His gentle wooing, you will go farther still—on and on. Those that follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth—they love not their lives unto death.
These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These have been purchased from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb. Revelation 14:4b.
“And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death.” Revelation 12:11.
Those of you who have been the withdrawn, uninvolved disciples—give Him your heart; please give Him all your heart. There was no limitation to what He did for you. And there seems to be no limit to what He is demanding of you either. “Who is this coming up out of the wilderness?” (The Song of Solomon 5:8.) O God, it’s us. And we’re leaning on You, Lord.
“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.” Luke 14:26.
Lord, most of all we hate our own life. We hate it for its selfishness. We hate it for its instinct of self-preservation. We demand of ourselves, “Give yourself wholly to the Lord. All my soul and all that is within me, yield yourself into His hand.” Let there be no reluctance. Let there not be among us a Lot’s wife who looks back (Genesis 19:26). Let there not be among us those who put their hand to the plow and look back, who are not fit for the Kingdom of God (Luke 9:62).
“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” Luke 14:27.
These ever-increasing demands of God upon us are a discipleship without reservation. Discipleship has a progressive nature. We know that tomorrow He will ask of us something to which we could not say “yes” today; but we know that tomorrow we will say “yes.” We say, “I am what I am by the grace of God,” and that is the way we prevail.
But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. I Corinthians 15:10.
It is so much our tendency to define, or to try to define, how far we will go. Consciously or unconsciously, we try to prescribe the limits, the boundaries. You can’t. You cannot know fully the worship that is going to come. You cannot describe the way that people will minister. You cannot know the extent of the things that God will demand of us. You cannot. You have no way of knowing. Only in the heart of God is the knowledge that He has of us and of what He is going to ask of us; of what He is going to do for us, what He is going to do through us, what He is going to expect of us.
O cheerful throng that may die as martyrs, O happy company that prevails over principalities and powers (and only God knows what those battles will be, though we know the beginning of them), which would you rather do—suffer the tortures of a martyr or remain and go through the battles and the pressures of this satanic warfare? It is not yours to decide anyway; God will choose it for you. He said of Paul, “I will show him what great things he must suffer for My name’s sake” (Acts 9:16). He told Ananias, “Go lay hands on him and heal him. Give him his sight back. He’s My chosen vessel” (Acts 9:12). “He will be whipped; he will be stoned. Many things are going to happen to him” (II Corinthians 11:23–29). “He’s going to fight a good fight. He’s going to finish the course. He’s going to keep the faith” (II Timothy 4:7).
Where are you, O children of such promise, who rejoiced in the Word of the Lord and knew that it was something unique in all the earth—but you left it? In hours of testing and pressure you said, “These are the limits. I will go no further.”
God forbid that we do that. And God forbid that we have in our heart that which under pressure will suddenly crack and draw back. How can we keep on going? What can we do? I found my heart crying out to Him, “God, give grace. I want to be a disciple. I want to with all of my heart. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matthew 26:41). O Holy Christ, intercede for us, that in this hour of grace You meet our hearts.” Can we come to grips with these limitations that we have in our minds? Can we? We can. We all have promises from the Lord that are very great. We rejoice knowing that they will be fulfilled, but that has nothing to do with God’s demands on our life. Those demands will be there just the same.
This progressive nature of discipleship is the thing that disturbs us all. How can you build a church when you cannot even tell the people what God will expect of them? How can you build a church when you don’t even know yourself what it will mean, where it is all going to lead? People say, “Come on, leader—tell us where you’re leading us.” I don’t know; I can’t define it. I don’t even know what God wants from me; how can I tell you what He wants from you?
I cannot tell you what God is going to ask of you. I know that year after year, from the time I was I got saved, I have walked with the Lord without ever knowing a spring to come, or a fall or winter, in which God was not putting me into something more than I was prepared for. I found myself lost until I would just say, “Speak, Lord, Your servant hears. What do You want, Lord?” (I Samuel 3:10.)
This is a move that has come by God’s Spirit upon the earth, and no man can tell you all that it will lead to. You do not know what darkness will come upon the earth. You know not what victories, what battles, what intercession.
And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. Galatians 6:9.
The Lord spoke to my heart, “Delegate. Lay responsibility on the people. Let go.” I will do it because the Lord has spoken to do it. I know that I am not letting go of a hard situation in order to pick up an easy one. I know what He has in mind—more of His ever-increasing demands. I will let go and bare my spirit before Him and say, “Speak, Lord.” Always He demands more faith. It is something that seems impossible. There are more demands for love. You say, “I don’t know how to love more.” And then He demands more strength. Where do you get it? How do you draw on it for more service? There are such great needs. But we don’t draw back.
It’s a new day coming. It’s a new thing in the earth. And we are not going to draw back, are we? God is going to give us the grace for these unlimited demands that He makes upon us. The demands to delegate, the demands on our time, the demands of more dedication, the demands of ability that we don’t have—all of these demands will increase. Sometimes that demand for ability which I don’t have puts me into a corner, but I don’t dare react to the pressure that others put on me for answers. Instead, I look to the Lord. In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). He will help me to come up with more—more ability, more wisdom, more of what I need.
Father God, give us the grace to not define the limits of our endurance. God, give us the grace to not define the limits of our love or our dedication to You. God, teach us how to say an unconditional “yes” to all that You say or will say to us.
A true disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ does not set a limit to his service or devotion to his Master.
Who can anticipate the ever-increasing demands of discipleship in the Kingdom of God?
It is not for the disciple to say how long, how much, how far, how deep, how high.
True discipleship must be without reservation, but with faith for sufficient grace.
Discipleship without limitations on our part gives us access without limitations to His Grace.
Zion shall be a city without walls; the Kingdom is discipleship without boundaries.