Very soon the hunger of people is going to be so great that they will literally demand leadership to enable them to walk with God. We can help create that demand.
There’s no point in backing off because we have a few problems. The best way to get rid of problems is to be dedicated to the things God has set before us and to do them. When we do this, we choose our own area of conflict. Satan can harass, but it is hard for him to hit a moving target. A moving target is one that escapes a lot of the moods and pressures.
A moving target is hard for the enemy to hit. Satan can’t pin a man, or woman, or a church down that is doing the will of God, because he has to shift the battle to the things that they are doing more than them.
As long as Satan can let things bog down by delaying you and distracting you, so that all you do is battle him and are not doing the will of God, he has it made. So you spend ten years and you overcome the devil; what happened in that ten years?
What happened to the people who should have been taught, the books that should have been written, the ministries and churches that could have been established? He has accomplished his purpose; he has distracted or delayed you. The job isn’t done unless you say, “I don’t care what the devil is doing. I’m going to worship the Lord and keep on moving ahead.”
Another device of the enemy is to distract you on a personal level with problems or feelings. Refuse the distraction. Say like Nehemiah, “I’m doing a great work and I cannot come down.” Nehemiah 6:3.
They wanted to distract him. They wanted to delay him: “Have a conference out here, because you should know what the enemy is plotting against you.” “Sorry, I can’t be bothered; we have some bricks to lay today. We are building the walls of Jerusalem again.” When we get that idea, we are going to go full steam ahead, even on a personal level.
“Well, I need to take a week off and fast and pray.” That’s great, but the time has come that we have to be mystics in motion. If we are mystics in motion, we make moving targets that are harder to hit than stationary ones. All the time we’re working, we are more effective in warfare and in getting a word and direction from the Lord. It is impossible to steer a parked car, but get the car in motion and you can steer it.
We are a warring priesthood—that is the prediction for the end time (Psalm 149). A priesthood is worshiping God, but at the same time taking territory for the Lord.
Did you ever go hunting and have a dog that would flush out the pheasants for you? You would never get those pheasants unless you had a dog to flush them out; then you got them.
You will not get the projects done unless you engage in some real action. It may be unrelated to what is going to happen, but as you start praying and moving in God, you start the fury of your own spirit in an action of faith.
God is anointing a remnant of people that will take the initiative to make things happen. They’ll make them happen. God is not doing them sovereignly, He is working through a many membered Body.
He has to work in you—as it says in Philippians, God, who worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13. And that will, that determination is very important. In fact, it can summon almost any emotion that you want to back it up.
When your emotions direct you, you can get into trouble, but when you have a strong enough will set on God, it’s surprising how all of the emotions contribute to it.
If any other person in Christ’s time had gone into the temple, carefully braided a whip and proceeded to make havoc of the money-changers; you’d have reason to think he was a victim of temper, but you can’t accuse Christ of that.
He made one statement, He said, My house shall be called a house of prayer. Matthew 21:13. It was that will within Him to do the will of the Father. The will of the Father was that God’s house should be a house of prayer, but they had made it a den of thieves.
The will of the Father within Him resulted in the reaction in His emotions. “We must move into God so we can deal with devil power. We must move into higher levels than we have ever moved in before. We must have the things God has for us.”
I see so many people going through deep, deep problems, but it’s surprising how quickly the pressure is minimized when they set out to do something that is directly involved with what God has set before this body of people. I believe there is an immunity in doing the will of God; but we will not get the immunity we are seeking unless we are in motion, unless we are actively doing the will of God.
The minute we set about to really do the will of God we are going to see something that puts a screen around us. People who become addicted to serving God have a lot thrown at them, but pretty soon they learn to put it aside and do what God sets before them, and they get along fine. The emotional pressure and everything that Satan brings against them doesn’t overwhelm them, because they are busy doing what God wants them to do.
Whatever you are doing to serve God, set yourself to be a blessing to the house of God, something that is a function of the whole Body. If you don’t do anything else but some menial tasks, do something; become a part of what God is bringing forth. It’s when you identify yourself with Christ in His many-membered Body that you are also identified with His victory.
We have talked about identification, but the Lord is going to give us real revelation on how it really works. For example, suppose you are a secretary in one of the front offices of a company. To you, it is a matter of doing your job: you type and do what you are told, you greet people and find out whom they want to see.
As a secretary you make so much money a week, but suppose that you become acquainted with the vice-president of the company. He takes you out to dinner. You see his intentions are matrimonally inclined and in due course of time you become engaged to the man.
The company takes on a different aspect because this man is a stockholder; he’s one of the big wheels. You become related to the company, because the company is the life expression of the man. It is no longer a company: it is something that you are identified with because it’s your future, too.
That illustration shows what God wants us to do in this Body. You’re not merely doing a job here, you’re identified with the whole move of God in the earth. You are identified with Christ as He is ministering in His many membered Body.
The more you are identified with Christ in His culminating victory in this generation, the more you personally will experience that victory, operating in your life. You become identified with what Christ is bringing forth in His victory.
He is coming to be admired in His saints, glorified in them and to be admired in all them that believe (II Thessalonians 1:10). When you see the greater glory of Christ coming forth and identify yourself with that, then you start having greater victory.
If you face this power on a personal level and say, “I’m having problems. It’s because maybe the devil doesn’t like me because of this, or So-and-so doesn’t like me because of that.” If you take it on a personal level, you will have problems all the time.
You are always going to have pressures, but the minute that you push your personal considerations aside, and become identified with what Christ is bringing forth, that moment you minimize the pressure that comes against you personally.
We should relinquish the pursuit of our personal interests, or at the very least, put them on such a secondary level that we begin earnestly to seek first the Kingdom of God. Because when we seek first the Kingdom of God, we become identified with that Kingdom, with the victory of that Kingdom, and with the glory of the King to come, our personal interests are easily taken care of from that level of authority and victory.
When we meet our problems down on a personal level and that is our pursuit, we do not have the authority and the power to overcome the adversary. This could make all the difference in the world with what you get out of one single service.
I’ll explain how it would work. Suppose when we start to sing and worship one might feel, “Well, I have to sing and open up my spirit, for I want to get a blessing, I want to worship the Lord and feel His presence.”
That’s good, but it will be better to forget yourself in getting a blessing and become completely concerned about the King and His glory, about His being magnified, about the will of God being done in His church, the Lord ruling over it.
“Oh,” you say, “is there a difference?” Yes, there is. In the first case, indirectly you are worshiping the Lord; you want the byproducts of that worship in your own blessing.
Forget yourself and that will take care of itself. Just say, “O Lord, let Thy name be praised, let this house glorify Thee. Let Thy will be done.” Begin to magnify the Lord and your own personal problems seem to fade into insignificance.
Another illustration: suppose I become identified with a brother’s problem. I begin to pray for him, and before the thing is through, I have a great deal of leverage because this is the Kingdom of God to deliver, break the yoke and set the captive free. I have forgotten my own need, but before I’m through I’m shaking the viper in the fire as far as I’m concerned, too.
Whenever we become really preoccupied with doing the will of the Lord, seeing the Lord glorified, seeing the other man met by God and God’s will being done in his life, we breeze through our problems.
In the days of Full Gospel ministry, we had what we called tarry meetings. People would seek for the baptism of the Holy Spirit and some would be so discouraged from trying to receive. You would say to them, “You don’t seem to be getting very far, tonight?” “No, I’m not getting anywhere tonight. It just doesn’t seem to be my night. I have been seeking for months and I’m so discouraged.”
“Well, maybe this isn’t your night, so why don’t you forget yourself? Come over here with another brother. He might receive the Holy Spirit with somebody praying for him. Take your faith and bless him. Pray for him.” As he started praising the Lord and encouraging the brother, pretty soon he would forget himself; and nine times out of ten the fellow that went over to pray for another received the Holy Spirit before the man for whom he was praying. He forgot himself and became preoccupied with doing the will of the Lord, with blessing someone else.
The same thing is true, especially when you are wanting to see Jesus glorified. Don’t look around and say, “I see things wrong in this church. We have to change this and change that.” That isn’t the way to change it. Contend that Christ shall be glorified, that He shall be magnified. He shall be worshiped; He shall be adored.
Suddenly, we are lifted clear out of the picture of what we are and of what our faults are or of how well we’re making it or what kind of difficulties we’re going through.
The problems will change from day to day and week to week. The problem this week isn’t the same as the problem of last week—and who knows what the problem will be next week? There will be problems, and they will change—the tactics of the enemy will always be there, trying to create some diversion. We don’t care as long as we’re concerned about God being glorified.
In this generation, Jesus is building again Zion. Say again to Zion, Thy God reigneth. (Isaiah 52:7)! Be concerned about Him being glorified. Be concerned about Him being magnified. Be concerned too, that in the house of God you worship with all your heart, and soul, and mind and strength; because the first commandment doesn’t change in any move in any generation. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God”—is there any difference between loving and worshiping? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind and with all thy strength. Mark 12:30.
When we think this way we lift up our heads, we take a great panoramic view of the whole thing and we come back to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. He is the Lord of all of us. He is the Lord of the Church. There is no reason for the Church to exist except for it to glorify Him: to say, to do, to print, to record what He is bringing forth. The revelation of the Lord to the hearts of the people, that’s it. That’s all. That’s all.
You say, “I thought we had a lot of different objectives.” No, we don’t. We don’t have to do a thing except see that the Lord be glorified. He will take what we offer, the best we can do, and He will start breaking it and multiplying it. We lay it in His hands. We don’t have to prove a thing, but we have to live something in our hearts. We have to magnify the Lord. We have to glorify Him.
PRAYER:
Father, with all of our hearts, we look to You. In these days, Lord, in which You are stirring our spirits and moving upon us so deeply, we want to move in You, Lord, with all of our hearts, Help us, Lord. Amen.