I overslept. It happens rarely, but it does happen on occasion. I am only human, after all. Blessings.
The presence of God makes the most unbearable of situations bearable. As children of God, our attitude and disposition are not dictated by our circumstances but by His living presence in our hearts. Paul and Silas were in the inner prison, with their feet fastened in stocks, yet they sang hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.
It’s not as though they live during a time when three hots
and a cot were guaranteed if you happened to be incarcerated. They were likely
sitting on the ground, unable to move, muscle aches and sore backs getting
worse with each passing minute, with no respite in sight as they had not even
been tried yet, but their hearts were full of the peace and joy of the Lord, to
the point that they sang hymns to Him.
I’ll be the first to confess that I like my freedom, a warm
blanket, and the ability to move my legs at will. By any metric, comparatively
speaking, I live a pampered life when considering others who came before me. If
I cannot bring myself to sing hymns to God in my comfort, with a roof over my
head and heat to keep me warm, how will I be able to justify my apathy and
indifferent attitude toward His blessings when standing shoulder to shoulder
with those who in the midst of being brutalized had the wherewithal to praise
God?
When our focus is on Him, the circumstances we find ourselves
in don’t influence us or affect our state of mind. It’s not that we don’t feel
pain or loss, privation or hunger. Job himself was unrecognizable to his three
friends, but we don’t fixate on our problems; we focus on the One who is the
solution to all our problems. God is where hope originates and resides. In Him,
we can look at the present and know with certainty and no shadow of turning
that He is already into tomorrow, making a way when there seems to be no way.
We serve, obey, and follow because it is our heart’s desire
to do so, not because we’re looking for something other than the bond of
friendship and intimacy that can only come about by spending time in His
presence. If my service to God is conditional on Him blessing me by way of the
material, then it is stained and done with ulterior motives. All I do in His
name amounts to nothing more than Cain’s sacrifice, something done out of
rigidity and tradition rather than true desire.
We serve God because we want to serve Him, not because we
have to out of fear of Him taking away our creature comforts or the toys we
spend more time with than with Him.
In the era of the participation trophy, even believers who
should know better seem to demand praise from on high for doing the bare
minimum as far as spending time with God, praising Him, and declaring that He
is worthy.
Neither God’s expectations nor His standard of servanthood
have changed from generation to generation. A good and faithful servant was
deemed such two thousand years ago as they are today. We go back and forth and
round and round as to why we’re not seeing the presence and power of God in our
day and age as those who came before us did, and we find ever more inventive
ways to remove ourselves from the equation and bypass accountability
altogether. Well, you see, the reason we’re not seeing the manifest power of
God is because God just doesn’t do that anymore. So much of His power was
poured out during the early church that God needed to take a break and recharge
His batteries.
We dread to consider the possibility that in order for God to
pour out, He must have a vessel to pour into, and He won’t pour into just any
vessel. It must be a vessel of honor, once that has been washed and made clean
without and within, for only in this way can what has been poured in remain
pure and untainted.
Once that consideration comes to the fore, we’d have to deal
with the reality that many claiming to be prophets, apostles, and men of
spiritual acclaim are only playing at it, never having received what only God
could give because the desire of their heart is personal acclaim, popularity,
and self-serving mindset that always seems to have the individual as the
pinnacle of purpose. Your job is to bring glory to God, not to man. Every time
you fail to do so, you’ve failed in your mission.
God’s hand is not short, nor have His promises ceased to be
true in our modern age. The problem isn’t with God; it’s never been. The
problem lies at the feet of those claiming to be His because words are only
words until they are put into action, and the fruit of that action determines
whether we are a good tree bearing good fruit or otherwise.
Your spiritual well-being is not a tertiary issue, something to get around to when all else is done. It is primary and paramount, the single most important thing you have to nurture and grow while you walk this earth. Throughout the millennia, men who prioritized God over all else saw His presence and power manifest themselves in their daily lives to the point that they’ve become legendary men of renown, whom we look to as examples of faithfulness and steadfastness. They were no different than you or I. They had responsibilities, jobs, friends, and families, but they prioritized God and their relationship with Him over all else. The desire of their hearts was neither fame nor fortune; it was not to rub elbows with the powerful or influential of their day but to do the work to which they were called consistently and without the thought of whether it would lead to something more consuming their minds. Be satisfied with where God has placed you, doing the work He has called you to do, because it’s the obedience that He rewards and not the scope of the work itself, for it is better to obey the Lord than to offer sacrifices to Him.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Posted on 30 November 2024 | 1:57 pm
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