“MISSION-MINDED MEN AS
FAITHFUL DISCIPLES!”
(BY:J.FARRELL FISHER)……
APRIL 30 -MAY 1,2018
HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED ‘PROVIDENCE’?IT IS A HIGHLY INTERESTING WORD. IN THE “RANDOM HOUSE COLLEGE DICTIONARY”, PUBLISHED IN 1975 BY RANDOM HOUSE INC., DEFINING IT AS,”THE FORESEEING CARE AND GUARDIANSHIP OF GOD OVER HIS CREATURES..A MANIFESTATION OF DIVINE CARE OR DIRECTION: PROVIDENT OR PRUDENT MANAGEMENT OF RESOURCES…”!
AND WHEN I READ THAT DEFINITION, I CONSIDERED, “BIRTHED INTO THIS WORLD BY THE PLAN AND MANAGEMENT OF GOD,IS IT WRONG TO SAY, “GOD HAS NO PLACE IN PLANNING OR MANAGING ME”? UNBELIEVERS, SINNERS, BOSSES OF THEIR OWN LIVES ARE NOT AT ALL INTERESTED IN “GOD’S PROPERTY- MANAGEMENT” OF THEIR LIVES!THEY SEE ‘SELF’ AS “OK” ON THEIR OWN TERMS & DEFINITIONS OF WHAT “I CHOOSE – NOT WHAT YOUR GOD TELLS ME, BUT WHAT I CHOOSE FOR MYSELF!” AND WHEN YOU FULLY CONSIDER THE “PRIDE OF A MAN’S CHOICE OF ‘SELF-WILL, ‘SELF-PLEASURE’, ‘SELF-PURPOSE’, WITH NO INTEREST OR AWARENESS OF THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITY OF BEING ‘RECONCILED TO GOD’ SINCE THEIR ATTITUDE IS, “I’M OK – YOU’RE OK”, WITHOUT ALLEGIANCE TO SOME GOD, IS BETTER KNOWN & UNVEILED AS ‘SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS’, ‘SPIRITUAL PREJUDICE’, ‘SPIRITUAL RESENTMENT OF ANYTHING PERTAINING TO HOLINESS’!!” SO, ‘FALLEN MEN’, FALLEN AWAY FROM GOD, NEED TO BE “RECONCILED” TO HIM! IN 2 CORINTHIANS 5:17-21 PAUL WAS INSPIRED BY GOD HIMSELF TO WRITE, “THEREFORE IF ANY MAN BE ‘IN CHRIST’, HE IS A NEW CREATION, OLD THINGS ARE PASSED AWAY;BEHOLD, ALL THINGS ARE BECOME NEW.
AND ALL THINGS ARE OF GOD, WHO HAS RECONCILED US TO HIMSELF BY JESUS CHRIST, AND HAS GIVEN TO US THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION; TO WIT, THAT GOD WAS IN CHRIST, RECONCILING THE WORLD UNTO HIMSELF, NOT IMPUTING THEIR TRESPASSES UNTO THEM; AND HAS COMMITTED UNTO US (ALL BORN-AGAIN DISCIPLES!) THE WORD OF RECONCILIATION.
NOW THEN WE ARE AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST,AS THOUGH GOD DID BESEECH YOU BY US:WE PRAY YOU IN CHRIST’S STEAD, BE YOU RECONCILED TO GOD. FOR HE (GOD) HAS MADE HIM (CHRIST JESUS) TO BE SIN FOR US, WHO KNEW NO SIN:THAT WE MIGHT BE MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM.” GLORY! GLORY BE TO GOD ALMIGHTY, OUR LOVING HEAVENLY FATHER, WHO GAVE HIS OWN SON,JESUS, TO BE THE SAVIOR OF FALLEN MANKIND!
WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING, MOST SINNERS, MOST UNBELIEVERS,MOST ‘DEAF-EARRED’ & ‘HEART-DISEASED’ & ‘SELF-AND-SIN DEVOTEES’, MUST EXPERIENCE THE MIRACLE OF GOD’S GRACE & MERCY THROUGH HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTION TO OPEN THEIR HEARTS AND MINDS TO EVEN THE ‘CONSIDERATION’ OF WHETHER OR NOT THEY WANT UNDER DIVINE MANAGEMENT & DIVINE MERCY & DIVINE MISSION! IN PROVERBS 1 ARE SOME HIGHLY INNATE,INTERESTING, INFORMATIVE VERSES. VERSE 5 SAYS, “A WISE MAN WILL HEAR, AND WILL INCREASE LEARNING; AND A MAN OF UNDERSTANDING SHALL ATTAIN UNTO WISE COUNSELS.” OH, THEN VERSE 7 SAYS, “THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF KNOWLEDGE; BUT FOOLS DESPISE WISDOM AND INSTRUCTION.”
THERE IS A ‘SPIRIT OF WISDOM’ THAT CRIES OUT TO EVERY MAN WHO HAS EVER EXISTED! BUT PROVERBS 1:23-24 SAYS: “TURN YOU AT MY REPROOF; BEHOLD, I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT UNTO YOU, I WILL MAKE KNOWN MY WORDS UNTO YOU.
BECAUSE I HAVE CALLED, AND YOU REFUSED; I HAVE STRETCHED OUT MY HAND, AND NO MAN REGARDED;” AND THAT’S NOT ALL THE GOD OF WISDOM HAD TO SAY! EXAMINE VERSES 25-33! “BUT YOU HAVE SET AT NOUGHT ALL MY COUNSEL, AND WOULD NONE OF MY REPROOF: I WILL ALSO LAUGH AT YOUR CALAMITY; I WILL MOCK WHEN YOUR FEAR COMES; WHEN YOUR FEAR COMES AS DESOLATION, AND YOUR DESTRUCTION COMES AS A WHIRLWIND; WHEN DISTRESS AND ANGUISH COME UPON YOU.
THEN SHALL THEY CALL UPON ME, BUT I WILL NOT ANSWER; THEY SHALL SEEK ME EARLY, BUT THEY SHALL NOT FIND ME: FOR THAT THEY HATED KNOWLEDGE (THAT’S SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE!), AND DID NOT CHOOSE THE FEAR OF THE LORD;
THEY WOULD HAVE NONE OF MY COUNSEL; THEY DESPISED ALL MY REPROOF. THEREFORE SHALL THEY EAT OF THE FRUIT OF THEIR OWN WAY, AND BE FILLED WITH THEIR OWN DEVICES. FOR THE TURNING AWAY OF THE SIMPLE SHALL SLAY THEM, (THE TURNING AWAY OF THE SIMPLE? “GOD CALLED – THEY REFUSED TO COME TO HIM!),AND THE PROSPERITY OF FOOLS SHALL DESTROY THEM.
BUT WHOSO HEARKENS UNTO ME SHALL DWELL SAFELY, AND SHALL BE QUIET FROM FEAR OF EVIL.” DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? THE WISEMAN,SOLOMON, ALSO SAID, IN PROVERBS 3:5-6,&VERSE 8, WE READ: “TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART; AND LEAN NOT UNTO YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING. IN ALL YOUR WAYS ACKNOWLEDGE THE LORD, AND HE SHALL DIRECT YOUR PATHS.” & VERSE 8? “IT SHALL BE HEALTH TO YOUR NAVEL, AND MARROW TO YOUR BONES.”
“GODLESSNESS” PRODUCES A “THIRST”, A “SPIRITUAL ILLNESS FROM THE ‘SIN-DISEASE’, AND A SPIRITUAL ‘HUNGER’THAT ONLY GOD HIMSELF THROUGH CHRIST CAN QUENCH OR SATISFY”! ISAIAH 55:1-3,6-7, & VERSE 11 SAYS:
“TRUST?” IN HIS WRITING ENTITLED “HYMN”,
(ST.5),HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW WROTE: “O HOLY TRUST! O ENDLESS SENSE OF REST! LIKE THE BELOVED JOHN TO LAY HIS HEAD UPON THE SAVIOR’S BREAST, AND THUS TO JOURNEY ON!”
IS YOUR ‘JOURNEY OF LIFE’ A LIFE OF TRUE BIBLICAL TRUST? IS YOUR JOURNEY ‘A WALK OF SPIRITUAL ‘REST’? YOUR ‘JOURNEY’, YOUR ‘EARTHLY WALK’, YOUR ‘SPIRITUAL’ (?) PILGRIMAGE, IS IT ‘FULL’, ‘DRAINING’, OR ‘DROWNED’ IN THE SEA OF SELF-INDULGENCE, SELF-DETERMINATION, SELF-‘FLESH’ OR ‘SIN-NATURE’ SATISFACTION? OH, BUT THEN UPON “CONVERSION, THE NEW BIRTH, RECONCILED TO GOD, AND COMMISSIONED BY HIM”, ARE “YOU” A “MISSION-MINDED MAN AS A FAITHFUL DISCIPLE”, OR ARE ‘YOU’ A ‘SELF-INDULGING, SATAN-BLINDED,WARPED WORLD WANDERER FROM GOD AND HIS WORD AND WILL, FROM JESUS AND HIS LOVING WAY, FROM THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO CALLS, CONVICTS, AND SO DESIRES TO CONVERT THE REPENTANT HEART & MIND, BECAUSE, FOR “YOU”, IT’S YOUR WAY, NOT GOD’S WAY OF “THE CROSS THAT LEADS ONE HOME” TO SHARE LIFE WITH COMPASSIONATE GOD, MERCIFUL JESUS, AND LOVING HOLY SPIRIT?!?
AND, IF YOU’RE “SHARING LIFE IN CHRIST”,LET US GO BACK TO READ ALSO 2 CORINTHIANS 5:14-15! PAUL WROTE: “FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTRAINS US; BECAUSE WE THUS JUDGE, THAT IF ONE DIED FOR ALL, THEN WERE ALL DEAD: AND THAT HE DIED FOR ALL, THAT THEY WHICH LIVE SHOULD NOT HENCEFORTH LIVE UNTO THEMSELVES, BUT UNTO HIM WHICH DIED FOR THEM, AND ROSE AGAIN.”
AND, “IF THE LOVE OF CHRIST HAS CONVICTED US, CONSTRAINED US, CONVERTED US, DOES THE LOVE OF CHRIST ALSO COMMISSION US AS NEW DISCIPLES TO BE ONE WITH CHRIST IN “WORLD OUTREACH” TO PREACH THE GOSPEL, PROCLAIM IT’S SAVIOR AND LORD, AND PROVIDE EVEN FINANCIALLY AND PRAYER-SUPPORTED BY EVERY ‘BORN-AGAIN’BELIEVER, EVERY PASTOR, AND EVERY CHURCH?
“IN CHRIST” DISCIPLES LIVE FULLY AWARE OF “AMAZING GRACE” THAT IS NOT TO BE HIDDEN AWAY IN THEIR MINDS OR HEARTS, BECAUSE, “BIRTHED IN HIM TRULY”, THEY ARE “MISSION-MINDED MEN” AS FAITHFUL DISCIPLES!!! ARE YOU?