GOD'S RULES FOR
SERVICE
"Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come" (1 Corinthians 10:11).
The Israelites limited what God could do for them, because of their selfishness and their lack of faith. It wasn't that God wasn't powerful enough but that the Almighty, omnipotent God was limited by the creatures He had redeemed. God could have done so much more for them. It wasn't God's idea to wander in a desert; He had Canaan all ready but they refused to enter in.
Truly this is a type of many of God's people today. We have been redeemed from bondage, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, but, like the Israelites, so many wander in a desert of their own choosing.
They wander and limit God, limit all that He could do for them in the way of peace, comfort, assurance and confidence in Christ. The wilderness was a place of murmurings and mistakes. So often they were rebellious (just as we are), and God had to chasten them. So many of God's people are in a desert of their own making. They murmur and cry, "Why should God do this to me?" yet so often it is not what God has done, but what they have chosen. If I put my finger into a fire, I must not blame God if I get burned!
The wilderness was a place of fruitlessness. They were constantly looking back to Egypt and thinking of the "pleasures" of Egypt — they had refused to enter into the land flowing with milk and honey. It was not God's plan that they should wander in a fruitless place.
A wilderness experience in the Christian life can be just as fruitless, just as unsatisfying.
Many of God's people have nothing to show for years of being on the Christian pathway. Many churches are composed of groups of wilderness Christians so that the witness of the church is fruitless, joyless and dead.
Limiting God in what He can do for us is bad enough, but then there is the other side which is so much worse. We limit God in what He can do through us. When God called us to Himself, and cleansed us from our sins, and gave us the gift of eternal life it was for a definite purpose: "Present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God" (Romans 6:13). The Amplified Bible uses the phrase "implements of righteousness."
We are saved for a very definite purpose — that we, our whole, entire selves, might be instruments, or weapons, or implements, in the hand of God.
Now, think how much we must hinder what God can do through us. All true Christians are the means whereby God fulfills His purpose, fights His battles and feeds the spiritually hungry. Weakness and failure on our part lead to God being limited in what He can do through us.
Perhaps God wants to do a mighty work in your school, in your store, in your church, in your family or wherever it may be, but He cannot, because you are fearful, in spite of all His promises. "He who is in you is greater that he who is in the world" (I John 4:4).
You and I are wonderfully equipped, we are invincibly strong, because Christ lives in us in the power of His Holy Spirit. But in spite of this, we still limit what God can do through us. We are useless instruments, idle implements, and frightened weapons.
If every Christian was available to God and served Him as fearlessly as the Communists serve their masters, what a different story there would be. A true Communist considers himself expendable for the cause, no sacrifice is too great to ask, or too difficult to perform. No wonder the power of communism is spreading — they never turn back, no matter how great the problems.
Often, too, we hinder God's work through sheer selfishness. Remember that God doesn't want our money, or our support, or our patronage — He wants you. "Yield yourselves. . .and your members" — all that you are and all that you have. Many Christians think this is carrying things a bit too far. "To hand over your whole life to Christ! That's a bit too much! You must be reasonable in all things!"
Through our sheer selfishness we hinder God: "The godly man ceases. . .the faithful disappear" (Psalm 12:1). Why do they cease and disappear? Verse 4 has the answer: "Our lips are our own; who is lord over us?"
This is true today in our churches. People who once were godly are ceasing, and those who once were faithful are disappearing.
The reason is the same — sheer selfishness. They say — "My time is my own! Who is going to tell me what I have to do?"
I have a glorious inheritance in Christ. "In Him also we have obtained an inheritance" (Ephesians 1:11). He is the source of all my cleansing, my comfort and my joy. How gladly we go to our Lord Jesus and tell Him our sorrows and expect Him to comfort us. How willingly He meets all our need. He, Himself, is our rich inheritance. But look at verse 18 of the same chapter: "His inheritance in the saints." It works both ways. I am His inheritance; all that He needs He should be able to find in me. But we are selfish — we say to God, "Give, give, give, and forgive!" But our own personal relationship is "Get, get, get — and forget." Thus we hinder God's work in all the many wonderful things He could do through us. "Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall" (I Corinthians 10:12).
In God's dealings with His people He gave them many warnings, but eventually the end came. 2 Chronicles 36:16 states: "But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy." How tragic are those last words — "till there was no remedy." We must realize that today we are the messengers sent with a warning.
How much more fruitful could we be if we did not hinder God's work because we go our own way, work out our own plans, and are unwilling to get off the throne of our heart and let Christ have full control.
"Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in him, And He shall bring it to pass" (Psalm 37:5).
"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Thessalonians 5:23). God wants us to enjoy not only what Christ has done for us, not only His work, but His very Person. He is our peace — He is our life. If we can come to the place where we commit all that we are, and hope to be, into His hands — and then rest there, thanking Him for what He has done — not asking Him over and over again to do what He has already done — then we can find peace and enjoy what God has for us.
"But as it is written: Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit" (I Corinthians 2:9-10). So often verse 9 is quoted by itself as being heaven to come, but verse 10 distinctly says: "But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit." All these previous things are ours to enjoy now, as we enter into all that Christ is now.
Living the Christ-filled life is thus a joyous experience of being totally involved with the living victorious Christ. It is the outcome of willing obedience. It is the delight of daily discipline. It is what God intended the Christian life to be. It is yours for the taking, the trusting and the triumphing.
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