Yukon Territory, Canada 2008: This naturally rugged and deceptively weighty chunk of gold fished from a river carries a hefty $13,000 retail price tag. Alternatively, “proving genuine” also carries great weight and pays handsomely for lives in Christ. Choose your treasures wisely.
From Trent Ling:
Ministering the truth, even to those already in Christ, meets with perpetually uphill climbs, challengingly stacked odds, and relentlessly menacing opposition. No wonder we read and see what we read and see. Only meager numbers (eight people) were found worthy of survival in Noah’s day (1 Peter 3:20); only one-fourth of those actually hearing and/or producing some sort of spiritual crop in Christ actually prove to have an enduringly noble and good heart (Luke 8:4-15); and, even after Jesus’ incredible ministry effort on earth, the believers numbered only one hundred twenty (Acts 1:15). Yes, ministry traction proves elusive. And, perhaps surprisingly, such is God’s will.
The ministry is meant to help you, but it is not designed to deliver you. Just as God frowned on worldly human triumph with the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), God seems wholly disinterested in “ministries” that can be built, run, and maintained by men. In fact, God frustrates and ultimately stands immovably against the “successes” of such places. More pointedly, He requires that each individual sheep pass muster in isolation-chambered testing and judgment. Romans 14:12.
We generally look after each other in the Church to the tune of seeing that each of our souls gets along well (3 John :2). However, God almost constantly disturbs such pedestals and oases with stern barrages of trials, questions, flames, demands, and pressures set down upon our weaknesses and failures. Of course, we are to consider such heavenly onslaughts to be delightful, necessary, transforming, and understandable. Ultimately, the point of such firestorms is that our “faith… may be proved genuine…” 1 Peter 1:7.
Let us catch our breath. After hours, seasons, and years of hard work on behalf of others, do and will those others prove themselves genuine? After multiply bad decisions are lodged and lived, what do we have on our hands other than a smoldering and reconciling cauldron administered and stoked by God Himself? In almost all cases, the verdict gradually incubates long after enormous expenditures of spiritual and physical resources. Yes, it is my heart to rescue, save, set-up, and cover my people in the faith. But, it is God’s superior role to test, reveal, run, and work those same people. So, wherein lies culmination, deliverance, and rest? Somewhere beyond proving yourself genuine.
The narrowness of the road and the genuineness of our remainder will enduringly mark this real ministry of the truth. Ultimately, we will be a people consisting only of those the beleaguered apostle John addressed in Revelation 1:9 when he eloquently saluted the legitimate: “I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus…”
There are several preached, recorded and obtainable messages to help you on the road to proving yourself genuine. Please feel free to contact me for audio links to the entirety of these ambitious messages. “Soundness” cannot be lacking. In addition, there must exist a life heeding the contortionistic call to “Restrain, Conform, and Account.” Not to be too ambitious, but “The Race in the Sky,” must at least be flown, if not won. None of these three requisite quantum progressions develop without heaping measures of essential seasonings offered in “Mine Your Life” and “Old Faithful” and “Leading? Following? Or, What?” Lives that lack the “Sensitivity” required to “Give Glory to God” through all of this will spring leaks and cede back to the enemy all that had been gained. God will not join us in forgetting what we’ve already been adequately taught.
So, what’s our calling on this day? More words? New Promises? Better Excuses? Distracting Tangents? Dutiful Re-starts? Unnecessary Do-overs? Old-fashioned Schmoozing?
Prove Genuine!
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