One of the things I am repeatedly reminded of as I write and speak as a voice for Amazing Grays Ministry is that going forth with any goal or message other than that which the Lord assigned is an act of both disobedience and futility. Each of us has our own set of unique gifts and God Himself chooses whether we are to use our natural gifts in His service or whether we are to lay them down and set out with nothing more than what He provides.

Different Paths to the Same Destination

Assignments differ among God’s children and my instruction is not necessarily the same as yours. Our responsibility and mission, however, is the same: Service to the Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ at His direction. For some service may be nothing more than coming to Him in prayer to be schooled in relationship. For others service will require travel to a foreign land among people not their own.

False Teaching

One of the red flags of errant preaching is that the instruction of the Holy Spirit to the preacher is then given as an instruction to all. The only source of common truth is the Bible. Anyone who suggests that they have some new commandment or universal interpretation of scripture is to be questioned.

Obedience that Transforms

Oswald Chambers is a wonderful resource for students of the ministry or those who pursue active service for the Lord. His entire career was dedicated to teaching prospective ministers at his Bible College. I cannot improve on these words about today’s topic from “My Utmost for His Highest”:

All God’s men [and women]are ordinary men made extraordinary by the matter He has given them.   Unless we have the right matter in our minds intellectually and in our hearts affectionately, we will be hustled out of usefulness to God.    We are not workers for God by choice.

“I have chosen you.” Keep that note of greatness in your creed. It is not that you have got God, but that He has got you. Here, in this College, God is at work, bending, breaking, molding, doing just as He chooses. Why He is doing it, we do not know; He is doing it for one purpose only – that He may be able to say, “This is My man, My woman.”

Never choose to be a worker, but when God has put His call on you, woe be to you if you turn to the right hand or to the left.  He will do with you what He never did with you before the call came; He will do with you what He is not doing with other people.

Let Him have His way.

God Will Make a Way

God is omnipotent. There is nothing on earth or in heaven beyond His control. God never assigns a task without also providing the means for its accomplishment.  Sometimes the means is nothing more than our obedience. Other tasks may require extraordinary or supernatural intercession.

It all comes down to the quality of your relationship with Jesus Christ. Discernment provided by the atonement [at-one-ment] will determine whether our service or that of another is obedience or an example of error and/or false teaching.

Scriptures:

Deuteronomy 13:1-3

  • Matthew 7:15
  • Galatians 1:10
  • 2 Peter 2:3
  • Corinthians 9:16-18
  • 2 Corinthians 11:13
  • 1 John 2:3-6
  • Revelation 2:2