Father, our hearts look to Thee. We know that when we started to walk with You, You brought us to set our hearts upon You and to say yes to Your will—but we never dreamed what Your will would mean! We pray that You will help us to have that discipleship without reservation. Amen.
Think not that I came to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law: and a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and he that doth not take his cross and follow after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. Matthew 10:34–40.
Now there went with him great multitudes: and he turned, and said unto them, If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doth not first sit down and count the cost, whether he have wherewith to complete it? Lest haply, when he hath laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all that behold begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Or what king, as he goeth to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and asketh conditions of peace.
So therefore whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. Salt therefore is good: but if even the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is fit neither for the land nor for the dunghill: men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Luke 14:25–35.
It is the tendency of the human mind and heart to define the limits of endurance and the demands of love. We love, yet our love will allow only so much abuse. Marriages are threatened when partners prescribe how far they will be inconvenienced, how much they will endure as the boundaries of their love are approached. And if their love is offended beyond a certain point, they refuse to love any more.
The Lord has brought to my heart the realization of how much we must love Him without prescribing any limits to our love and to our discipleship. We cannot do it! Three times now I have sensed that my life will be ended as a martyr, but the Lord has His way of being glorified in that. I doubt if the early Church knew what they were doing or how far they would have to go as disciples. Until the time that Peter, James, and John left their nets to follow the Lord, their sole occupation had been outsmarting fish; but Christ led them into something much greater. Peter was crucified upside down (according to tradition), James was the first disciple to be martyred, and his brother, John, lived on beyond any of the other disciples, in banishment on the forsaken coppermine Isle of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. Tradition tells us that John was boiled in oil, but it pleased God for him to live on and bring forth the Word in the gospel of John.
We wonder sometimes what God will demand of this generation. How far will we be called upon to go? Did any of us realize, when we first entered into this walk with God, the spiritual conflict we would face day after day, the physical symptoms that would appear as the result of great stress and pressure, the weariness that would be upon us as Satan tries to wear out the saints of the Most High, or the kind of discipleship that would be required of us in this day? I know I did not. Daniel prophesied that for a little season the satanic prince would prevail against the saints of the Most High, until judgment was given to them and they would possess the Kingdom (Daniel 7:21,22). We have passed through the first period and now we are entering the period when judgment is being given to the saints of the Most High. The time of our prevailing is at hand, and the material realm is being loosed again to the Lord of lords and King of kings through the victory which He attained so long ago.
What does God want of us? What does He really demand of us? I cannot answer that. With revelation I might show you what the Lord wants today and tomorrow, but I really could not tell you what He will demand of us in the future, because it is in His own heart. I do know there will be ever-increasing demands made upon us. We do not understand what we can accomplish. I never believed, at the beginning of my walk with God that I would be capable of as much responsibility or as exacting a ministry as the Lord has required of me.
God ordains our battles. He is ruling out lighthearted adherence to this end-time walk. While we may see many people won by the word, if they do not mean business, they will either be eliminated or they will settle at some lower level. God will not cease to chasten them. Many times I have counseled with people who declared they had come to the breaking point. I calmed them down, prayed for them, and blessed them; but I knew they had not yet reached that point. The Word says that we should not faint, for we have not yet resisted unto blood: Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame…consider him…lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood… It is for chastening that ye endure. Hebrews 12:2–4,7a.
The Lord keeps dealing with us deeply. I cannot say what will happen to each of you, but I can be very compassionate when I see the extremes of loneliness and fatigue, when I see the tests that are ordered for each man according to his own area of need. What one would be tested by, another would not. A particular kind of testing will come to that one who will be disturbed by it.
We must give our hearts wholly to the Lord, realizing that the discipleship the Lord requires of us cannot have any reservations or boundaries. People often begin to crack up when they reach the limits they have defined in their thinking, as to how far they can go. I give you a word from the Lord: you have no idea how far you can go. These boundaries are entirely of your own making. You can go all the way because God says, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Paul must have felt that he had reached his limit when a messenger from Satan was sent to buffet him. He must have thought it was far beyond what he could comprehend or endure. Three times he prayed, but the Lord said, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” So Paul said. “I glory in my infirmities, for when I am weak then I am strong” (II Corinthians 12:9,10).
We see the depth of ministry in the church and the growth pattern that is upon it. The Lord is doing many things. As we pray and seek the Lord, one by one the strongholds are falling. We are aware that it involves a tremendous expenditure, but we were made to be expendable! We were born to be what the Lord would have us to be. We read in the Scriptures that whosoever would save his life shall lose it. Matthew 16:25a. The Lord is causing us to come to the place where we are losing our lives; we are relinquishing things. I have given up hobbies and activities I used to enjoy, not because I lack the interest and the creativity they require or the awareness and the appreciation of the aesthetic things of life, but because I have a greater awareness of those things which will endure. I choose to spend my time, money, and energy for these.
There seems to be no end to the demands made upon us, and tomorrow the Lord’s demands upon us will probably be greater than those today, but that day will dawn with more grace and light upon our pathway. The time will come when you will prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Romans 12:2). You will find yourselves busy about 150 percent of the time, realizing that there is no end to the demands the Lord makes of you. That is the progressive nature to discipleship.
It is like raising a child. First very simple tasks are taught him. He learns to take things to his mother, to pick up his toys and put them away. The parents are thrilled when the child can take care of some of his own simple needs. Little by little he begins to take on additional responsibilities. At the expense of a number of dishes being broken, he learns to wash and wipe dishes; and at the expense of some ruined pots and pans, a little girl learns to cook. The family bears with her eager efforts, and they smile as they eat those awful cinder brownies for the first time. They watch as the girls continue to prepare themselves to do many things well. When they marry, they take on more responsibility. The children come; again more responsibility. That is the way of life: the older we grow, the more we mature and develop, the more is laid upon us. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Lamentations 3:27. Nothing contributes more to the development of a child than that he be taught responsibility early in life. Children can be disciplined and taught many graces, arts, and abilities; but the child who will excel is the child who has learned responsibility. One of the marks of this walk with God will be that our sons shall be as plants grown up in their youth (Psalms 144:12). While they are yet children, they will spring up into maturity, able to carry the burden and do a man’s job.
Take down your reservations concerning discipleship. If a man would save his life, he will lose it. If you are holding back, remember the bitter lesson the early Church learned when Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead at Peter’s feet. Somehow they had called themselves disciples in the midst of a noble people who held all things in common, selling what they had so everyone would have enough. But Ananias and Sapphira laid down only a portion of the price they had received for their land, while pretending it was their all. What prompted them to hold back? I do not know, but it was the beginning of a spirit which probably swept through the early Church. In time, after a period of about three or four hundred years, the sacrificial spirit was lost; and then people were Christians for what they could get out of it, even to the extent that a man could buy an office in the church. What a far cry from what God wanted! The spirit of Ananias and Sapphira prevailed: “How much can I get; how much can I hold out?” Soon a little cheating, a little bit of greed became the way of life of those who called themselves Christians.
In the restoration of the Church today, God is reversing that trend. We take offerings to help care for one another. We try to see that none go hungry, that everyone has a job so he can have food and clothes, and can also share in giving to the house of God. There is no place for ambition; the ambitious and greedy person will wither and die. He will be self-defeated because God will make demands upon him which he cannot meet, and he will eliminate himself through his own reservations in his discipleship to the Lord. The Lord says, “You cannot be My disciple unless you will deny yourself and follow Me. You must love Me above everything else or you cannot be My disciple.”
A day of reality is returning, in which we are realizing how very much God must love us to have given us His only begotten Son. What an unspeakable gift—His Son! How then can we give Him anything less than everything we are? How can we do anything but relinquish our individuality—this personality cult in which we seek to be somebody, in which we seek to excel and have a place of preeminence? These ambitions are not of God. He who would be the greatest must be the servant of all (Matthew 20:27); but not so that the whole Body will give him recognition and say, “This man is greatest of all because he serves all.” It is not a matter of recognition or the praise of man; it is just being content to be such a bondservant of the Lord that the Master will say, “Well done.” And even when we have given our all and done our best, we are still unprofitable servants (Luke 17:10).
How can we reeducate our thinking in order to eliminate the human tendency of defining the limits of our endurance? Are you willing to give your life for the Lord? to lose your life for His sake? Is that in your heart? Then we must stir ourselves, allowing nothing within us that would draw back, as the Lord leads us on and teaches us to be disciples. I seek the Lord’s face, asking Him to remove any limitation in my thinking, to forbid any belief in limitations.
It is easy to look on past victories and recognize what God can do, but we become perplexed with the need of the present hour and the need to have faith for it, because yesterday’s faith is not strong enough for today’s problems. The ever-increasing demands upon our faith will not cease. At times, when every indication appears to go against the word God has spoken, we shall be called upon to stand and just believe God—simply and truly believe Him. Demands upon us are ever increasing to love with a love beyond yesterday’s love. I wonder if you grasp how much we will be called upon to love. What love will we reach? One simple goal before us is to lay down our lives for our brother as Jesus laid down His life for us. Will we do it? I believe we will. This remnant that God is raising up will walk before the Lord in a pure love, a love which is self-sacrificing and absolute.
“I am afraid I can’t do it; I am afraid I will give up”—I know that is in your thinking. I am reminded of a story about two frogs that fell into a butter churn. They started swimming, but one of them finally gave up and sank to the bottom. The second frog refused to give up and he kept on kicking. The next morning when the churn was opened, there sat the second frog on a pat of butter. This illustrates what you must do. Keep right on going, and God will help you. You can endure! The longsuffering, which is of the Lord, takes over when every human quality within you would give up and say the demands of the Lord are too great.
There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. I Corinthians 10:13. I had moved into this walk in the Spirit for about six months when I said, “Lord, this verse is not true. I have been tempted above what I am able to bear.” I could not believe that what was coming against me was common to man; I had encountered something I was not able to bear. The Lord spoke to my heart, “I never did say you would be able to bear it with your strength.” Then I saw something I had never before seen: the Lord had been crowding me into a corner until the problem was bigger than my ability to figure it out; the need was greater than I had the longsuffering or endurance to meet; the situation required more faith than I had; my best efforts were never good enough. I saw that the Lord was constantly positioning me so that in my moment of need I would reach out to Him and appropriate the extra faith, or love, or strength, or longsuffering to meet the need. Actually, the life we live as totally dedicated believers is impossible. It could not happen. We are what we are only because the Lord has met us.
The ever-increasing demands of discipleship are phenomenal. There are lonely moments in which God seems to ask you to lay upon the altar and give up that thing which, like an Isaac, He raised up for you. I do not think God is much impressed when we give Him some of our sins and bad habits. He does not want us to stand around a Christmas tree singing, “Happy Birthday” to Jesus as we present Him with some of the garbage of our old nature. God would like to give you a ministry and see you lose yourself in giving that ministry back to Him and to His people. He would like to give you something good and have you turn around and give it back to Him. Lay it upon the altar; you will never lose by it.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. But what about all the things you have been fussing about? They will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). Lose your life for Christ’s sake and you will find it. There will be a whole new beautiful life, lived almost violently with the ecstatic joy of the Lord crowning it. It will come to a people whose hearts have been broken, who have lost everything and are very lonely, but who still revel in the presence of the Lord and the fellowship of His Body. God is requiring that we come to an end of what we think is human limitation and say, “Yes Lord, I will follow You wherever You need me. Wherever You lead me, I will follow You.”
The ministry the Lord lays upon us will not decrease. As ministries are raised up, the Lord will lay more needs before us. We bargained for a Lord and Master, and we have One. We have been striving to be bondservants, but a bondservant is one who does his master’s whole bidding. The master does not serve him. After the bondservant has worked hard in the field all day, he washes his master’s feet and cooks his master’s dinner, and only then can he eat (Luke 17:7–10). If you intend to serve the Lord, He must be absolutely first in your life. You may think you are dedicated, but you can be sure you are not dedicated enough. The Lord will surely make more demands upon you, so you had better lengthen your dedication if you want to be His disciple.
The Scripture says that tribulation worketh patience (Romans 5:3), so if you determine to have patience, the Lord will give you tribulations. If you want more love, the Lord will bring to you some who are hard to love. Then you will be praying for more love because you must have it.
Many people seek my counsel, not because I am wise, but because the Lord has constantly put problems before me which I could not solve, and I was forced to look to Him to give the answers. That is discipleship. Woe be to the man who is such a fool that he thinks he knows anything. If any man thinketh that he knoweth anything, he knoweth not yet as he ought to know. I Corinthians 8:2. Oh, what a great discovery a man makes when the Holy Spirit shines His light upon the vast areas of his ignorance, and he realizes how little he knows. Then God commissions him to lead His people. He is not sufficient for the demands of discipleship—no one is—but he keeps drawing wisdom and strength from the Lord.
I have sometimes felt as if the Lord were making me into a pancake rather than a man of God, because of the crushing load which forces me to draw His strength. He scourges every son whom He receives (Hebrews 12:6). I have learned from the dealings of the Lord that He knows what He is doing and He must love me very much. He loves you very much too, or He would not have laid this life upon you. Often the satanic pressure on mind and spirit is almost unbearable, but when you come through it, you are one rung higher in that climb with the Lord. You do not always know how it happened, and often you even have the feeling that you have failed and lost the battle, but the Lord gives the victory and blessing even though you feel like a failure for not having what it takes. You do not have what it takes, but the Lord is merciful.
Do you see what God is doing in constantly putting the pressure on you? Did you think there were limitations and reservations on how far you could go? No, there are no reservations on how far you can go; you can go all the way into that beautiful image of Christ, to be conformed to the image of God’s dear Son. That is what the Lord has ordained for you to do.
Just about the time you think you have the answer and are on top of a weakness or a problem, that is when you will fall. It is deadly to think you have it made. The disciples were weak in certain areas, but when great demands were placed upon them, they did not fail on those weak points. A man usually fails on what he thinks is his strong point. Peter could not believe he would deny the Lord: he was the one who had confessed Jesus as Christ, the Son of the living God, and had received the revelation on which the Church is built. “Lord, You made a mistake. I am not going to deny You. Not me!” Peter would weep bitterly over that. James and John, walking toward Jerusalem discussing love, wandered through a little Samaritan town. The Samaritans would have nothing to do with them. James and John with their “sweet spirits of love,” wanted to bring fire down out of heaven and burn up the city. The Lord rebuked them, “You know not what spirit you are of” (Luke 9:51–55).
Don’t become overconfident, thinking you are strong. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. I Corinthians 10:12. I have watched the young people. The Lord helps them and they get along fine unless they become too self-assured. Then after they stumble, the fear of God comes back in them and they walk with the Lord again. Be careful to put no confidence in the flesh. Trust God to give you grace every step of the way.
Abraham walked with God, and when he saw the stars of the heavens and the sands of the sea, he remembered God’s promise that his seed would likewise be without number. He was called the friend of God, the father of the faithful. But at one time when he feared for his life, he denied that Sarah was his wife and claimed she was his sister. (What happened to your faith, Abraham?) Don’t become overconfident. Walk humbly before the Lord. When a man thinks he stands, he should take heed lest he fall. If you think you are too weak, remember—far beyond the point where you think you would quit and lie down and die, you can go on into the greatest victories by the grace of God. Ever-increasing demands will be with us because that is the way of God.
You may get to the place where you feel you are really spiritual and deserve a little pat on the back for all you have endured. Peter may have been at that place when he asked, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? until seven times? Matthew 18:21. (Peter was probably thinking, “I just forgave him eight times.”) And the Lord answered, “Seventy times seven.” The disciples said, “Lord increase our faith” (Luke 17:5). That is a good prayer because it takes faith to keep on forgiving. We draw our ability and our strength from Him. He is everything to us, for in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3).
Sometimes when I have an analytical turn of mind, I play chess with God, trying to analyze what His next move will be. I should know better because I have never figured it out, but I know this: He is leading, and He is the One who is writing the book, a book of destiny. The characters He has chosen are the lame, the halt, and the blind. You will be the ones who will know God and be strong and do exploits. Others who are more qualified are bypassed, but you will do it. Have faith, trust the Lord, and wholly follow Him.
You will need this message in those lonely days and hours when you think God has taken everything from you, that He has stripped you and left you with nothing. It is then that you will find you have a little more left, and He will ask that of you on the morrow. “Lord, I cannot walk one step further.” Then crawl on your hands and knees because you are going forward. He will give you the strength. This army of the Lord that God is producing is not a people with some illusion. Into the very fibers of their spirits will be wrought the ability to find and appropriate the grace of God. That is what Paul meant when he said, But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all… I Corinthians 15:10.
Where will the drive come from? The eager beavers left us a long time ago. Where will the money come from? People seem to lose their money about six months before they come into a real commitment to the Lord. Where will the pastors come from? Many pastors have declared that this revelation of the restoration of the church was the walk for them and they would walk in it through thick and thin; but to my knowledge, none of them are left—not one who made that promise. Where are those Bible school and seminary preachers? I think the Lord uses some just to show that by His grace He can do something with them, but usually He is looking for someone who is foolish so He can confound the wise, and someone who is weak to confound the mighty.
What a mess we are, and yet what a beautiful thing God is creating in us. If only we could understand the progressive nature of discipleship: the fact that today we cannot understand fully, that we do not know all we need to know, that we cannot do all we have to do, nor are we today what we must be tomorrow. We want to change, but we must not settle for some ambitious little change in and for ourselves. I do not know how it will come, but I do know that God will keep pushing us in a corner, to keep us reaching out and drawing more of His grace. That is the way it will be. This walk in the Spirit is still the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to us, so if we can learn to live in a state of crisis, we will do fine!
In former days, it was easy to judge what a church needed—whether it was an evangelist or a revival meeting or visitation programs. It was no trick to build a church. But in the beginning of this walk I never knew what to expect. It was a ten-year war of nerves. One Sunday the church seemed to be moving along fine, and the next, everyone seemed to have disappeared. Nothing was stable. This continued month after month because God was keeping everyone in hot water. That was the way singing in the Spirit came about—like a teakettle, we were up to our necks in hot water and we decided to sing. I think singing in the Spirit comes through a lot of tears and pressures, for then He gives the song in the night (Job 35:10). God comes to people without hope and makes the valley of Achor a door of hope (Hosea 2:15). Achan was stoned in the valley of Achor, but in that valley, with its monument to sin, wickedness, and failure, God made a door of hope.
I do not know what you have need of, but I am sure you need a great deal. No matter how wonderful the Lord has been to you, He has not allowed you to reach a place where you do not need something more. The Lord keeps unfolding more and more for us to reach for. One minister who came into this revelation with us described it as “the dog chasing the weiner” principle: a long stick tied to a dog’s back, with a weiner dangling from it, just far enough ahead of the dog’s mouth to be continually out of his reach. The dog keeps on chasing the weiner even though he can never quite catch it. That minister left us because he said he did not want to be like the dog chasing the weiner. He wanted to know where he stood.
I remember one individual who was afraid of the gifts of the Spirit, for she thought the congregation would be puffed up with spiritual pride. I have yet to see anyone who is truly spiritual be proud of what he has attained, because simultaneously with the impartation and the revelation of the Lord, which is so wonderful, the Lord keeps showing us areas of great need. The fact that the demands for personal ministry continue to increase is an evidence of this.
The demands of discipleship will continue to increase. You cannot use ministry as a crutch to get you out of that which God is demanding you to do and to be. When the Lord positions you in a difficult place, look to Him to get you out of it. If you are oppressed because you made a consecration to the Lord, go ahead and pursue it. It is your consecration! Do you want an elder to pray you out of what God has ordered for your life? The elders will fight the devil for you, but they will not minister away what God is demanding—that you be men and women of God. Stand on your own two feet and seek the face of the Lord. Be part of the army of the Lord and part of the Body of the Lord.
The flesh tires easily and we say, “I am so tired I am ready to give up.” I know. As far as the flesh is concerned, I have been ready to give up ever since I started, but my incurable faith keeps coming up. So lie down and bleed a while if you must, then rise to fight again. You have not yet resisted unto blood.
Ask God to forgive you and to take down the boundaries—boundaries that are manufactured in your own thinking, dictating how far you can really go. Take down the reservations you have made. You made them! Who needs them? They are the reason we are not totally involved. Under the pressure, we desire to save our skins, to feel sorry for ourselves or withdraw. I know that is the human reaction, but we cannot do it. It is too deadly. I believe that self-pity and our deep reservations are more dangerous than any temptation the world can offer. Anything the flesh or the world could manufacture is not as deadly as coming into a walk with God and then allowing yourself to become impatient, discouraged or depressed, withdrawn or rebellious in your spirit over any situation.
We want to be violent in our spirits, not because we are desperate, but because we are filled with faith and we are believing to overcome. Let us press on in the name of the Lord to be what the Lord wants us to be as His bondservants.
PROPHETIC EXHORTATION
For the Lord hath not called thee that in the day of battle you should turn your back to the enemy. He hath called thee to prevail. Thou art called to be overcomers. Yea, the Lord shall allow many things to be set before thee, but is His grace not sufficient for thee that ye shall overcome them all? Ye shall rise in the Spirit of the Lord.
O thou downcast one that sitteth in the ashes, arise. Arise and sit upon thy throne. O daughter of Zion, enter into that which the Lord hath prepared for thee. Be not dismayed. O thou withdrawing spirit that hath not loved the day of battle and hath not sought to prevail, but hath drawn back—the Lord rebuke thee in thy spirit. The Lord bring down to the very depth of thy heart a repentance before Him. Let not the Lord look upon thee and say, “Thy hand hath been put to the plow, but thou hast looked back and art not fit for the Kingdom of God.” Let not the Lord blow upon thee and say, “Thou art neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm.” The Lord bless thy heart and stir thee up, for this is not a day like thou hast seen before, nor shall tomorrow be like unto this day. Thou art called to prevail in the name of the Lord.