Blessed Are The Powerless

Our brains are in tumult in trying to reconcile the fact that we have been empowered as GOD’s end-time movement to be foremost in doing HIS great work and the fact that we have been doing the ministry for decades as if powerless.

The world expects much of us and in our desire to keep up to their expectations, we plan strategies that are partly and outwardly beneficial to the beauty of the TRUTH we present, trying to mingle our methods with a little bit of that in the world, NOT even realizing that we are driven by the approval of men rather than the pure cause of GOD.

It is of GOD’s great desire that we realize our poverty of the power that is supposed to attend our ministry. The power is not of men but of the Spirit of GOD. It is “not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit,” says the LORD of hosts (Zech.4:6), that you would be able to conquer the hearts of men, whether through your preaching, teaching, singing, or healing!

But this power of the Holy Spirit must first conquer the hearts of those who would be vessels of its power in conquering the souls of others. The ministers themselves, whether pastors or lay people, must first be subdued and humbled by the Spirit of GOD.

Most of us do not see this need though, because in the world we have been fed that the power lies in secular education, training, position, possession, property, skill, appearance, and other outward manifestations of what is deemed as pleasing.

So then we try to gain all these ammunitions to fire up our ministry. Yes, we do fire the work up, but outwardly, and yet God is not glorified, but our selfish selves. And then the whole world as our audience would say, WE are a great institution! WE are great orators! WE are great educators! WE are great musicians! WE are great physicians! Yet, in all these things, GOD is NOT glorified. JESUS the preacher, teacher, singer, and healer is no more seen in a ministry that is supposedly empowered to make known the selfless character of CHRIST to the world.

What, then, is the problem with the ministers of GOD? Are we bitter because the world says they are better performers than us?

If so, why are we keeping up to their standards as if that is our mission? Why do we always seek to empower the work of the LORD JESUS by equipping ourselves with the ammunition of the world?

Why do we always have to seek the approval of men while claiming that we are working for the LORD? Why DON’T we just seek the approval of GOD instead?

The way of the LORD is simple but it requires death to self, and that’s the hardest for those who have been seekers of the praises of men.

“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah6:8).

Blessed are you then if you deem yourself powerless to minister and to save, for only the Holy Spirit of the LORD has the power!

Blessed are you if you understand that you cannot, in all of the educational background or training or skill that you have, win a soul to the kingdom, if you are not even won by the Spirit of GOD.

Blessed are you if you humbly accept you were wrong in your motives, and that you have desired to let glory be to self instead of unto GOD, and that you have wanted men among your audience to applause for the work of your hands, instead of desiring them to see the righteousness of Christ and seeing them repentant.

And blessed are you, if you are powerless to change yourself, for the realization of such is the step through which the power of the Holy Spirit can finally work in you.

Blessed are the powerless, for they shall be empowered.

 

This article was first published at Facebook notes, January 6, 2011.