Saturday, July 30, 2011

Passion Required

I was speaking with someone a while back and I told them how I felt that God called me to pray and intercede on someone’s behalf, encourage and speak words of truth.  I was quite distressed that God had continued to ask this of me and they didn’t quite understand why it would distress me.  They referenced a scripture in John where it says, “I mention you in my prayers” and told me that I didn’t need to bury my face in the carpet.  I would say that very few people that I have spoken to regarding what I feel God has told me to do understands why it distresses me so much.  But the thing is, God didn’t call me to be half-hearted and just mention this person in prayer when I get around to it.  God told me to intercede, to be fervent, to be zealous in speaking truth, spare nothing and hold nothing back.  The very definitions of these things do not mean half-hearted, easy, convenient.  I can’t be zealously obedient to God without an investment of my heart, soul, mind and time.  I do not think it is just me that God has called to be zealous and fervent.  If God has called you to do something, He didn’t mean for you to do it when it was easy, convenient or after you get done doing what you wanted to do.  He doesn’t give you a ministry and then say, “when you get around to it, will you go preach the word?”  God doesn’t say, “once you have grown bored with your current lifestyle and find a little bit of time, will you pray for your neighbor?”  God doesn’t always ask, in fact seldom asks convenient things.  God doesn’t ask for easy things.  Sometimes… MANY times… MOST of the time, God asks hard things.  God asks for an investment of your heart, your soul, your tears, your love, your desires, your time… everything.  Being fervent in your desire to fulfill the ministry that God gives you requires ALL of you… not just what is left over after you have your way.  So what has God told you to do?  Are you pursuing it fervently or only as your lifestyle allows?  Are you being zealous in your pursuit of God’s will or are you more zealous to fulfill your desires and God’s will comes second?  Though being fervently in God’s will sometimes means fighting battles that you don’t want to fight, doing what you don’t want to do or weeping when you wish you could rejoice; it also is a place like no other.  God’s perfect will… is a place that, though seemingly contrary to everything around you, there is a sense of purpose and rightness.  It is my desire to get and stay in God’s perfect will. 

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