A couple of weeks ago, I was reading my morning devotional from
Oswald Chamber’s ‘My Utmost for His Highest’. I've been reading this particular
book for many years, but it’s still amazing how God can speak something new
into my heart each year that I go through it.
This particular day’s reading led me to a profound thought. The
Holy Spirit of God reminded me of the words of Jesus when He was twelve years
old. You can find His response to His parents, who had been searching for Him
for several days. Luke 2:49 records His response to them: “Why did you seek Me? Did you not
know that I must be about My Father’s business?” The Bible goes on to say,”.…they did not understand His
statement, but then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was
subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart."
After this, the Holy Spirit reminded me of Jesus’ words when He
was a thirty-something year old man. In John 5:19 He says: "Most assuredly, I say to you,
the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever
He does, the Son also does in like manner.”
The twelve year old Christ was full of zeal and ready to go forth
with God’s work, but He had a process to go through. The thirty year old Christ
shows us the results of going through this process.
As a human being, Jesus had to learn obedience. The almighty God
of the universe, while dwelling in human flesh, subjected Himself to
earthly, human, flawed parents and Jewish leaders.
We must go through the same process. There are many 'twelve-year
old' adolescents in the Body of Christ, who are out on their own, having pulled
away from their spiritual family, and they are trying to be about God’s
business. But like the boy Jesus,
they need to go home. They need to submit to spiritual leaders, who are human
beings, with flaws and failings.
Many adolescent Believers are in rebellion because they discovered
the flaws and failings of their leaders. They felt that this discovery gave
them the right to leave and start their own church or ministry. They felt it
gave them the right to ignore the counsel and guidance of their leaders.
This has led to thousands of churches starting all over America
We believe that the trials and tribulations of these last
days will filter out the adolescents from the adults. There will be a
distinction between the immature and the mature. The mature ones will be those
who have submitted to the process and progression of Christ.
After submitting to His parents and leaders, the only thing the
Bible says about the next 18 years of Jesus’ life was that He increased in
wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. (Luke 2:52)
That's why the mature Son of God, in later years
says, "....the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father
do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner."
He moved from the boyish zeal to do things FOR His Father, to the
mature Son who didn't do anything unless He was moving WITH His Father. I
certainly want to be that kind of leader and I consider it an honor to be
connected with people who desire the same.
Personally, I believe that many people went out and started their
own churches, when all they really needed to do was establish a consistent time
to meet with their family and friends to encourage one another in the Word and
to pray.
Part of the maturing process of our church is our new initiative
to bring together a team of people who will give our ministry the opportunity
to reset and restart next year. We want to grow to the point where we are only
doing what we see God doing and we're only saying what we hear God saying.
We'll talk more about that next week.
