On the Subject of Worldly Rejection and Personal Agenda

Experientially, I have always found it difficult to weather rejection from any source in my world. I have failed in overcoming the negative impact on my spirit when faced with closed doors in all areas of my personal life. This is due in large part to wrong thinking based on the world’s ideals of rejection and what it says about one’s ability to make things happen in regard to personal agenda.


If, as a Christian, one’s thinking is correct about rejection from the world, your perspective is wholly opposite of the world. Where the world says you have failed to make it happen, the Christian should be saying, thank you Father for closing that door. When the world says “I have got to accomplish this goal, because it is practical and logical”, the Christian must say “Father, I trust your hand in my life, and if my decisions do not lead to open doors, I will submit it all to you and wait for your voice to move me in a new direction”.


I just read in Oswald Chambers today the following applicable quote to our godly perspective:


“The greatest thing for us to remember is that we go up to Jerusalem to fulfill God’s purpose, not our own. In the natural life our ambitions are our own, but in the Christian life we have no goals of our own. We talk so much today about our decisions for Christ, our determination to be Christians, and our decisions for this and that, but in the New Testament the only aspect that is brought out is the compelling purpose of God. “You did not choose Me, but I chose you . . .” (John 15:16).


If we truly believe that all things work together for good for those that love Him and are called according to His purpose, our agenda is a moot point and so is rejection for that matter. We must become so Christ-focused and bound that rejection is not a mitigating factor in our lives. We must have a vision of His purpose for our spiritual existence. We must have a reason to sacrifice our flesh for His kingdom.


This ideal sounds lovely, but how do we take this lofty wisdom and make it reality when, if we are truly honest, we must confess that the selfless life in Christ is not THAT attractive to our flesh? Well, if our hearts say yes to this life, yet our flesh says hold on, we must pray for our godly spirit-desire to overwhelm our corrupted flesh-desire. “You have not because you ask not!”


What I am really talking about here is inviting the manifest presence of God to abound in us daily, more and more. Jesus must increase, so that we may decrease. Once this transaction takes place, we will never be satisfied with status quo again. We will be those who usher in the larger revival in the world, because we are open vessels for His Glory to reside. “Come near to God, and He will come near to you.” Are we willing to bow down, so that Christ may rise up?


I am asking the church body around me to pray with me for God to be manifest in our lives for His glory in the world. I am asking the body to repent of its agenda, and tradition, and love for this material life (however humble we may live); so that God will see our repentant hearts, and send His reviving presence, and heal this land. I am asking all that will listen to give up the status quo of “doing church” on Sundays and Wednesdays as being enough.  God wants to spend time with you daily in power.  Start praying for His presence to abound in your life.


I know that what I have in my life of His presence is not enough, and I want more. I am greedy for more of Him. I am hungry for more of Him. Jesus is the bread of life, yet there is very little fresh bread in our lives on the whole. Sometimes only crumbs! Why would the starving lost people of this world come looking for bread in our churches, when there is so little?


Our spiritual bodies have need of fresh bread regularly to revive us and to live abundantly. It is all too often that church leadership becomes aware of the fresh aroma of the bread of Christ during worship service, but tries to keep a lid on it for fear of a stampede of all who hunger. This is wrong every time, and we should be praying for God to overcome our agendas.


Jesus, the living word, desires that we be free to receive Him in His holy scriptures and in His manifest presence. We need both in order to be filled with His glory; in order to be bread to a lost and starving world. A world that is either hell bent on believing in false teachers and prophets or setting themselves up as idols in their atheism.
 
If I were lost and deceived, I would truly not be attracted to the church today, unless the Almighty took up residence and shook all who entered to their very essence for His glory.