“Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving; praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned; that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak.” (Colossians 4:2-4 NASB1995)
As those who believe in Jesus Christ, in truth and in
righteousness, we are to be his followers. We are to serve him with our lives
in doing whatever it is that he has called us to do, all of which should align with
the truth of his word and should not be in contradiction to the will and
purpose of God for our lives. For his purpose for our lives is that, by faith
in him, we will deny self, put sin to death, by the Spirit, and obey him and
his commands. This should be how we are living, by his grace, and no longer as
slaves to sin.
And as his followers, we should be devoting ourselves to
prayer. And prayer is not a one-way conversation where we just list off a bunch
of prayer requests and then we are done until we have the next time of prayer. For
we are to pray without ceasing, so we are to be in a continual attitude of
prayer, which is a two-way conversation with God. So prayer is open
communication between us and our Lord to where we can hear him speaking to us
in our spirits and we can speak to him, and we have a conversation together.
And through conversation with our Lord we learn of what he
has purposed for us to do individually, and not just collectively. For by his
grace we have been gifted of the Spirit with Spiritual gifts and we have been
assigned our body parts within the universal body of Christ, by God. So we need
to be able to hear in our spirits the voice of the Lord leading us in the ways
that he would have us to go, in doing what he has called us individually to do.
And we won’t all be the same with the same giftedness and body parts.
And let me give you a personal example of this, even though
I know I have shared parts of this before. The reason that I am writing down
what the Lord is teaching me during my time with the Lord in his word each day,
and I am placing these writings on the internet, is because God spoke to me
through his word, via his Spirit, in calling me to do this 21 years ago (this year).
And he used Habakkuk 2:2-3 to call me to write down what he is teaching me in
his word, and to put it on the internet so that a herald could “run with it.”
To begin with, though, he was having me “test the spirits”
to see which were of God and which were not, in that he directed me to all
sorts of Scriptures and internet articles related to what the Scriptures were
talking about, especially with regard to the last days before the return of
Christ, and with regard to the present spiritual condition of the vast majority
of the “church” here in America. For I had to unlearn some things I had wrong,
and I had to learn some things I had no understanding of before. So I was
learning much.
At first he had me reading the Bible from beginning to end
and then from the Psalms to the end many times over. And then in 2017 he had me
start using Bible Gateway’s “verse of the day,” although he usually has me reading
and sharing from more than just one verse. And at the beginning he had me
posting 300-400 documents per year. But beginning in 2020 he began increasing
the number of writings per year by 200 per year, then by 400 per year so that
last year alone there were 1811 documents posted.
And he kept adding more gifts, too, such as song writing,
then poetry, a few short testimonials in book form, then video devotions, and
then Christian memes. And all of this came from the Lord and not from my own
flesh. It doesn’t mean that I did nothing and he did it all, but that he led
and I followed his leading, and he empowered and I obeyed and submitted and
surrendered to his will. And I would not have done any of this in my own flesh,
of my own will, nor could I. And so I must be able to hear the Spirit’s voice
within me so that I know what to do and what to write each day.
And this is how he wants to work in each one of our lives,
not necessarily in all the same gifted areas, and not with all the same exact
callings of God. But as those who believe in him, and thus love and obey him,
he has something he wants each of us to do in his service, and for the
salvation of human lives out of slavery to sin, and for the encouragement of
the body of Christ, his church, so that we can minister to one another and help
one another to walk in purity of devotion to our Lord, according to his will.
And we should be praying for all Christians who are serving
the Lord with their lives, who are getting out the truths of the Scriptures and
the gospel of our salvation to the people of this world. We should pray for
open doors of ministry so that we may share the truth of the gospel with the
people of the world, and with the worldly church, too. And we should pray that
we will speak the message of the gospel clearly, as we ought, and that not one
of us would conform to spreading a false and diluted gospel to appease the
flesh.
And I will pray for you who know the Lord, who love him, and
who are serving him in ministry, that the Lord will open doors of ministry for
you, and that you will be given by God the words he wants you to speak. I pray
that you will be those who are listening to hear the voice of the Spirit
speaking to you through the written word and in your spirit in directing you to
the ministry and the giftedness that God has for you, and that you will heed
his voice and follow him in doing what he has called you to do, as his servants.
[Matt 5:13-16; Matt
28:18-20; Lu 6:27-28; Jn 4:31-38; Jn 13:13-17; Jn 14:12; Ac 1:8; Ac 2:14-18; Ac
26:18; Rom 10:14-15; Rom 12:1-8; Rom 15:14; 1 Co 12:1-31; 1 Co 14:1-5; Gal 6:1;
Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:1-16; Eph 5:11-27; Eph 6:10-20; Php 2:1-8; Col 1:9; Col 3:12-16;
Tit 2:11-14; Heb 3:13; Heb 10:23-25; Jas 5:19-20; 1 Pet 2:9,21; 1 Jn 2:6; Jude
1:22-23]
The Longer I Serve Him
William J. Gaither
Since I started for
the Kingdom,
Since my life He
controls,
Since I gave my
heart to Jesus,
The longer I serve
Him,
The sweeter He
grows.
Ev'ry need He is
supplying,
Plenteous grace He
bestows;
Ev'ry day my way
gets brighter,
The longer I serve
Him,
The sweeter He
grows.
The longer I serve
Him, the sweeter He grows,
The more that I love
Him, more love He bestows;
Each day is like
heaven, my heart overflows,
The longer I serve
Him, the sweeter He grows.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf9KgYCQ_iY
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God’s Callings on
Our Lives
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