When Cornelius sent those messengers
to the place in Joppa
where Peter was staying, where did
they find Peter? Peter was
up on the rooftop praying.
I'm convinced that our
apostolic brothers and sisters
had a relationship with the living God of which we
still
have no conception. And that all the mighty things
which flowed from their lives,
- 3000 baptized at
Pentecost,
- 5000 entering the Kingdom after the lame
man was healed.
-
communities of believers just springing up
in city after city equipped
with all the gifts
of the Spirit,
-
these things were the result, the outflow,
of the fact that they were first ministering
to God.
We, on the other hand, are so eager to get things
done that
we turn away from the Throne of the Father and from
that
stream of living water which flows from it, and we
take our
little bag of spiritual insights and go marching off
into
Satan's big-time, fast-moving world and we try to
play his
game. Before we know it we find we're serving Satan
instead
of God. All the things that we're doing are going to
have
to be undone because they are done,
-
not in the humility of our Lord,
- not in His lowliness,
-
not in His mercy,
- not to His glory,
-but as our own spiritual thing
which when you scrape off the surface turns out to be
no
thing but another demonic monstrosity.
Except the Lord build the house, they
labor in vain that build it.
And how is the Lord going to build
the house through us unless we first get our eyes off
the
house and on to Him?
Now our Lord made this quite plain when He said,
"Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch
cannot bear fruit except it abide in the vine,
no more can you unless you abide in me. He
who abides in me and I in him, he it is, she
it is, who bears much fruit, for apart from me
you can do nothing."
Right away so many
of us
are so quick to
say, "I'm abiding
in Jesus!" Like the husband who
loudly protests, "What do
you mean?
I love my
wife." Talk to her and you hear a
different story. What
a thrill this woman would get if
she received a little bit of kindness from this man,
a
little mercy, a little patience. If she just had some
evidence that he really honors her and thinks of her
as
something special. This man who protests so loudly
that he loves his wife has many lessons to learn
about
love. And until he learns to treat her with honor
and
with tenderness and with kindness, his home is going
to
remain bleak. He's living in a marital desert and
he's
got her living in a marital desert and the dummy
doesn't
even know it! This is how it is, so often, with our
relationship
with our Lord Jesus. "I'm abiding in the
Lord!" when we don't
even know the first
elementary lessons about abiding in Him.
When we talk about a
relationship with Jesus we are, of
course, talking about our relationship with God, for
Jesus is the brightness of God's glory in the express
image of His person. He is the door through which we
walk into the Father's presence. He is the window by
which we see the Father.
He who has seen me has
seen the Father.
Draw near to me and you have drawn near
to the Father.
For some time the
Spirit of the Lord Jesus has been calling
us to come away from all the scattered busy
things
that we've
been up to and learn, first, to minister
to
Him; knowing that
when we have learned to minister to
Him we will accomplish
more in five minutes by way of
healing in the world than before
we accomplished in
five
years.
We say, "How can I
minister to God? What do I have to
offer God that He doesn't already have?" There is one
thing which only you can give God: your blessing.
This
simple thing which any child can do marks the
beginning
of any ministry to God.
To cause all that is within us
to bless Him.
Oh, you think you're
too busy! You've got more important
things to do than bless God! What about His
angels
which excel in
strength, which do His
will,
hearkening to
the voice of His word? They're blessing God all the
time!
His hosts that do His pleasure? Constantly blessing
God.
All God's works in all places of His dominion, the
trees,
the flowers, the throbbing spaces, the silent rivers,
the
suns and the stars - all the time they do nothing but
bless
God.
The author of Psalm
103 understands this
well. He
under
stands that there is no possible way that he could
minister
in any fashion until he gets himself blessing God. So
he
says to his soul, (and we would do well to join him),
"Bless the Lord, 0 my soul; and all that is
within me, bless his holy name!
Bless the Lord, 0 my
soul, and forget not
all his benefits.
Who forgiveth all
thine iniquities; who
healeth all thy diseases.
Who redeemeth thy life
from destruction;
who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and
tender mercies.
Who satisfieth thy
mouth with good things;
so that thy youth is
renewed like the eagle's."
The beginning of any
kind of ministry is
right here. And
how easy it becomes to bless the Lord from our heart
with
all that is within us when we remember all his
benefits.
It's only because we turn our eyes away from His
Throne
and His goodness that we become weary and ingrown and
depressed and full of self-pity and impatient with each
other and angry and critical and judgmental about
every
thing we see. But when our eyes are fixed on Him, and
on
His Throne, and we remember His benefits, what else
can
we do but bless Him?
For what?
Who forgiveth all
thine iniquities.
The one thing we have
in common is our iniquity. Our only
claim on God, every time we pray, is His forgiveness
for
our iniquity. We can't come to God and say, "But
Lord,
you've got to answer my prayers, I've been so good
this
week. I witnessed to
ten people. Five people found
their way into the Kingdom." That's not the basis of
our prayers. The basis of our prayers is that He has
forgiven our iniquity, even today. And if iniquity
clings to any of our hearts, right now, the Lord is
present to take it away if we'll give it to Him.
Who healeth all thy
diseases....
all thy diseases. But you say, "Wait a
minute. My healing isn't complete. My body is still
twisted. My mind is tormented." The closer we come
to Jesus the more we
begin to experience Jesus truly
is our healer. If there's a need for healing in our
lives surely we can expect from Him the touch of His
hand in some way to encourage us.... for our own
heal-
ing, or for the healing of the one for whom we pray.
And when we begin to see that what else can we do but
praise God with a loud voice and throw our lives at
His feet, giving Him thanks? .
Who redeemeth thy life
from destruction
....
If there's any way to
describe this assembly of people,
at least those who have found Jesus, is that it's a
collection of lives that have been ruined, destroyed.
It doesn't make any difference whether you fell into
a
skid row ruin or a middle class ruin. Somewhere along
the line you suddenly woke up and .
realized that your
life is a mess....that you didn't have all the
answers,
and that you did blow it. You were going merrily on
your way, doing all right, and all of a sudden, Boom!
And you -wake up in ruin, a taste of the
ruin which lies
ahead. Then the Shepherd came and redeemed us. We've
been taken up out of the pit and set up on the plain
of
redemption. When we begin to see that afresh every
day,
what can we do but bless God?
Who crowneth thee with
lovingkindness and
tender mercies....
We're not even in
heaven yet and we're wearing a crown,
a living crown! Poured
down from God's Throne upon our
heads. Lovingkindness and tender mercy that come on
us
like an anointing. How in the world can we receive
that
crown every day and wear that crown moment-by-moment
without blessing God for it?
Who satisfieth thy
mouth with good thinqs so
that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.
He begins by touching
the heart with forgiveness and he
ends by changing this mouth, which was the instrument
of
destruction, in every one of our lives. This vile
member
that once spewed forth death is now filled with
- living water,
- living bread,
- living breath,
- songs of praise.
And when I begin to
find myself
satisfied with the breath of God's Spirit, what can I
do
but use this mouth to bless God? And as I do I mount
up
on wings as the eagle's, I run and I'm not weary, I
walk
and I do not faint.
Bless the Lord, 0 my
soul; and all that is
within me, bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, 0 my
soul, and forget not
all his benefits.
Who forgiveth all
thine iniquities; who
healeth all thy diseases.
Who redeemeth thy life
from destruction;
who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and
tender mercies.
Who satisfieth thy
mouth with good things;
so that thy youth is
renewed like the eagle's.
How in the world are we going to minister life to the
people out there until this becomes a reality to us?
How
can we say we're abiding in Jesus and He in us unless
all
that is within us is truly blessing His holy name? As
a
step in this direction why not take this 103rd Psalm
into
our prayer room every day and learn, as the Spirit
teaches through this
Psalm, how to bless God. Why not
do this until our whole being is soaked with the
Spirit
that comes forth in Psalm 103.
The day will come when
Jesus will talk to us like He
did to Peter after the resurrection,
"Simon, son of Jonas,
do you love me?"
"Lord, you know that I love you."
"Feed my sheep."
"God
will tell us things to do.
But first, can we truly say with Peter today, like he
could that morning, "Lord, you know that I love you.
Everything within my heart loves you." Very few of
us,
if any, can do that.
And if there's
anything that we need, it's to let the
Spirit of God teach us how to,
- love Him,
- praise Him,
- bless Him,
- adore Him,
- worship Him,
- serve Him,
- minister to Him.
And when we have come
to
the place where this becomes our second nature then
you can be sure that we will have food for His sheep,
healing for the sick, and such comfort, and such hope
for those who are hungering and thirsting for God
that
God's presence will be clearly manifest. It will just
flow like a river from our mouths,
from our
hands,
and from
our lives.
May God help us to
learn to minister first to Him.