Bali, Indonesia 2008: Arianna marvels at an elderly woman moving hundred-pound quarry rocks on her head up several flights of stairs beneath the blazing sun and suffocating humidity day after day for pennies. With what kind of effort, determination and heart will disciples of Jesus merely hold on to what they’ve been given as jackpots of truth raining down freely and daily from heaven? Are the Balinese pennies of greater value than God’s truths and championships? Or is something just wrong with the disciples? Fastidious.

From Trent Ling:

I don’t understand something.  Disciples of Jesus Christ have crossed from darkness to light, they’ve overcome obstacles never before traversed, and they’ve been promised greater and greater triumphs including one of ultimate import.  But, as God gets intimately involved and weighs in more and more, and as the seas swirl and the winds gust, disciples of Jesus drop the spiritual batons engraved with their names.  They forget how it works.  They lose heart, grow weary, and drift forgetfully despite having one day “tasted that the Lord is good.”  1 Peter 2:3.

My early spiritual history as a disciple contained extremely rich qualities that still overfeed me to this day.  Blown away by the Bible, I couldn’t get enough of it.  Like Jesus, often I had to recede forcefully from the fellowship just to read and pray.  Luke 5:16.  The fellowship was and is beyond measure but only when girded by a relationship with God through the Word and prayer.  In those early days, the teachings I received were “hit and miss” (some accurate and helpful; some earthly and self-destructive).  Personally, my high-stakes battles with the enemy required substantially better weapons than those handed to me by that first fellowship or that initial ministry.  Once the Holy Spirit mercifully directed my attention and submission deeply and strictly to the Bible, the enemy took some meaningful hits and began reeling from me for the first time in my entire life.  Never thereafter did it occur to me to forget or to ignore the divine munitions plant God had so graciously provided to me.  Ephesians 6:10-18.

Unlike my early days, “hit and miss” does not characterize this ministry today.  We are immersed in the Scriptures upon every gathering.  The call of the hour demands that our people go home and secure what has been shown, exemplified, and proclaimed.  They must live the Life granted to them, prove the Bible right, and glorify God as alive, well, and true.  Heaven shall not likely tolerate lesser expectations of those who’ve landed here in this particular body of Christ in 2010.

It seems that lives in this ministry ebb and flow in and amongst three learning scenarios:

First, God graciously reveals a spiritual malady to us personally.  We acknowledge it humbly and search out the solutions in the Bible.  The Bible provides insight, understanding, and answers.  The enemy skedaddles and the game is over.

Second, we present our situation openly and our spiritual wounds receive dressings from brothers and/or sisters in the faith.  The Bible proves useful in identifying and curing our sores.  We grasp hold of the curing Scriptures, the enemy retreats, and the hospital stay ends.

Third, we meander through our spiritual life oblivious to spiritual susceptibilities, shortcomings, and untenable weaknesses.  A message is preached, a letter is written, and/or a teaching is offered, and a brewing trouble is uncovered.  Again, the acknowledged Bible heals and Satan backpedals.

“The fear of the Lord leads to life:  Then one rests content, untouched by trouble.”  Proverbs 19:23.

This ministry allows all to do what they want to do.  This freedom takes abuse from the majority, and as a result, lives conscious of this Proverb run in short supply.  Having “tasted the heavenly gift” (Hebrews 6:4) and having received instruction with deep and great truths seemingly otherwise hidden from the planet, how could disciples of Jesus in this ministry fall off the pace of gift-wrapped victories from God?  How could they bumble, stumble, and fumble the triumphs?  Each of the scenarios above eventually requires the baton to be handed to each individual disciple of Jesus.  With that baton of greater power than any light saber, can disciples not get into the spiritual end zone and keep wins on their records and in their lives?  For those disciples who cannot be bothered to honor God and carry the baton two centimeters for themselves, what they have will be taken away from them and will be given to those lost people who will ultimately be the ones to produce the fruit of the Kingdom.  Matthew 21:43.  Those on the wrong side of these expectations from heaven are hereby called to repent.

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