BEING A PERSON UNDER AUTHORITY

..."I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith." - Matthew 8:10

The centurion came to Jesus and told Him of his servant who was paralyzed and in terrible suffering. He came to Jesus because he believed He could heal him. He told Jesus of the matter, and Jesus was willing to come with the centurion. But the centurion would not have it. He knew that Jesus, being under the authority of Heaven itself, did not have to see the servant to help him. The centurion understood authority. He understood that he himself had certain rights that his position granted him to have power over situations and people. He also was a man under authority. The centurion understood Jesus' position and what power that position held in Heaven - the power to heal his servant if He chose to exercise that authority.

When Jesus saw that the centurion understood this principle of authority and that He did not have to visit the servant to heal him, He acknowledged the centurion's faith. Jesus knew it took great faith to understand authority and whether He had the authority to do what was being asked.

God has placed a system of authority in our world that requires faith to operate under its boundaries: fathers over sons and daughters, employers over employees, government leaders over the people, church leaders over church members. These are authority structures God has placed in our lives to protect and guide us to His will. Some confuse position with worthiness or qualifications of that position. It is the position that God works through. The fact that an authority may not be a Christian may have no bearing on whether God can work through him as your authority. It is only when that authority counsels against a biblical mandate that we should not follow that person's guidance. The heart of the king is in the hand of God.

Today, we find few who understand this system of authority God has ordained. It requires great faith to operate in this realm. Yet Jesus said that when we understand this, we demonstrate the kind of faith that He rarely sees. Be a person of rare faith. See the authorities placed in your life as those God is using to protect you.

YOU NEED POWER

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

D.L. Moody was a shoe salesman until God moved him into a full-time preaching ministry, often in the streets of Chicago. There came a point in his journey with God that he realized he needed more in his life than what he was experiencing. "At the close of the Sabbath evening services I remember two holy women they would say to me, 'We have been praying for you.' I said, 'Why don't you pray for the people?' They answered, 'You need power.'

'I need power?' I said to myself. Why, I thought I had power. I had a large Sabbath school and the largest congregation in Chicago. I was in a sense satisfied. But then came these two godly women who prayed for me, and their earnest talk about "the anointing for special service" set me thinking. I asked them to come and talk with me, and we got down on our knees. They poured out their hearts, that I might receive the anointing of the Holy Ghost. And there came a great hunger into my soul. I knew not what it was. I began to cry as I never did before. The hunger increased. I really felt that I did not want to live any longer if I could not have this power for service. I kept on crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York - Oh, what a day! I cannot describe it; I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to me. Paul had an experience that he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say, God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand.

I went to preaching again. The sermons were no different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you would gave me all Glasgow.*

*Elmer Towns, Understanding the Deeper Life, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1984, pp. 224, 225

A TWO-WAY RELATIONSHIP

"He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught." - Isaiah 50:4b

The prophet Isaiah describes his relationship to God as a relationship that has two-way communication. Have you ever felt that your communication with God was only one way - you to Him only? Isaiah tells us, "The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary.... The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears, and I have not been rebellious; I have not drawn back" (Is. 50:4-5).

The key to Isaiah's relationship with God lies in four important principles:

1. He had an instructed tongue. Isaiah had given over rule of his life completely to God's purposes.  

2. He knew the word of the Lord, which allowed him to sustain and encourage others.

3. He took time to listen. 

4. He did not flee from the tough assignments. He didn't shrink back.

If we are to be able to listen to God, we must follow the same principles. Knowing and spending time studying God's Word allows the Holy Spirit to bring to mind His instructions for what He wants for us. Recently, I became very busy in my work and other activities. It wasn't long before I felt distance between God and me. I had to make a conscious decision to carve out more time alone to listen, study, and meditate on His Word. This is the lifeline for the follower of Jesus. When we begin to lose the relationship, we are susceptible to becoming rebellious, going our own way. Invest your life in this relationship so that you may continue to hear His voice and sustain the weary ones around you.

ENTITLEMENTS

"And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death-even death on a cross!" - Philippians 2:8

Society today has duped many of us into believing that the world owes us. It owes us a good living, a loving spouse, good health throughout our whole life, sexual pleasure when we want it, and paid vacations the rest of our lives. The world has told us if we work hard and do right, we are entitled to these things. This is the Esau perspective on life. For a mere meal, he sold his own birthright for a simple pleasure to which he felt entitled.

Society, and even the Church, is more pleasure-focused than ever before. George Barna, the Christian researcher, cites:

We are not a society that simply enjoys its time off. Our leisure appetites drive us. It is increasingly common to hear people turning down job offers because the hours or other responsibilities would interfere with their hobbies, fitness regimens and other free time activities. Even our spending habits show that playing has become a major priority. The average household spends more money on entertainment than it does clothing, health care, furniture or gasoline. Recreational activities have jumped more than 10 percent in the amount of time given to them. [George Barna, Frog In The Kettle (Ventura, California: Regal Books, 1990), 82.]

What are the motives for our work life? Is it only to gain increased pleasure and leisure time? Jesus said He came only to do the work of the Father. I am sure that Jesus had times of refreshment in His life that allowed Him to get recharged for the mission God called Him to. However, He understood the balance of maintaining mission and play. When we view life with an attitude of entitlements, we are susceptible to becoming disappointed, resentful, and even bitter when our expectations go unmet. Ask the Lord if you need to relinquish any rights that may be hindering your freedom to experience His love and grace.

THE PLANS OF TOMORROW

"You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." - James 4:14b

A group of workplace believers meet at an office every week for fellowship, study, and prayer. One man attended the group for several years. Jim was well liked and in good health. One Thursday he showed up as usual. The next morning we received a call, "Jim is dead! He died in his easy chair last night!" Jim had no prior problems and there was no indication he was about to go be with the Lord. Naturally, it came as a shock to us all.

Whenever things like this happen close to home, it brings us face to face with our mortality. A friend of mine said he was challenged by someone to do an experiment. He challenged him to live his life for one year as if it were the last year he would live. He responded to the challenge and did as proposed. It changed his life forever. He began to focus on different priorities and people when he viewed life in these terms.

James gives us a perspective on viewing tomorrow.

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that" (James 4:13-15).

Life is fragile. Consider where you are investing your time and energies. Someone once said they had never heard anyone on his deathbed say that he wished he had made more money in his lifetime or he wished he had made a certain deal. Usually it is something like, "I wish I had spent more time with my kids." Ask the Lord to give you His priorities for your life.

OVERCOMING OUR PAST

"Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah." - Judges 11:29a

We've all heard stories of individuals who have overcome extreme hardship during their childhood years. Children of alcoholics, orphans who never have parents, loss of parents to a fatal crash, childhood disease - these are all difficult circumstances to overcome.

Jephthah was a man who overcame his obstacles and refused to allow his circumstances to prevent him from becoming great in God's sight. He was born to Gilead, a result of his father's adulterous encounter with a prostitute. Jephthah's half-brothers decided to reject Jephthah, and drove him away from their home saying, "You are not going to get any inheritance in our family because you are the son of another woman." Imagine the rejection this young man felt as he was cast away from his own family.

This experience taught Jephthah to become a hardened warrior. Today he probably would have been part of a street gang. As he got older, his reputation as a warrior became known to those in his country, so much so that when the Ammonites made war on Israel, the elders of Gilead went to Jephthah and asked him to be their commander. Jephthah had to fight off those feelings of rejection from previous years.

"Didn't you hate me and drive me from my father's house?" he responded. He overcame his hurt and pain, and responded to the call God had on his life.

It is said that if we were to help the butterfly remove itself from the cocoon, the butterfly would not be strong enough to survive. It is the struggle that prepares the butterfly to become strong enough to fly. Without the struggle in the cocoon, it could not survive as a butterfly.

The Lord prepares each of us in similar ways. Some of our childhoods seem to have been harsh and born from a seemingly unloving God. However, the Lord knows our struggle and will make our life an instrument in His hand if we will follow Him with an upright heart. He does make all things beautiful in His time if we are willing to be patient.

DAVID FULFILLED HIS PURPOSE

"For David...served the purpose of God in his own generation" (Acts 13:36 NASB)

Imagine for a moment that you have just died and you are about to come before the Judgment Seat of Christ. Jesus is speaking to his angel about you. He then says these words: "Janice served the purpose of my Heavenly Father for her generation."

Will God be able to say you served your purpose in your generation? Imagine being able to say that. God was able to say this about the life of David, even though David made some incredibly bad choices in his life that led to long term consequences. However, because David repented each time he erred, his purpose was accomplished on earth as God had designed it.

One of the prayers I often pray for people whenever I'm asked to pray for them is this; "Lord, may you fulfill every purpose for which you made them. May there be no inheritance left on the table that he/she is entitled to."

That is really the definition of success. Success is fulfilling the complete purpose for which God made you. It has nothing to do with wealth, accomplishments, stature in life, or standard of living. It has to do with living a life of obedience to the Father. And when we live a life of obedience to the Father, we will fulfill the purposes that God had in mind when he made you and me.

In 1924, Eric Liddell, a Scottish Olympic runner who's life was chronicled in a movie entitled the Chariots of Fire, was challenged by his missionary sister to forego running in the Olympics in lieu of going to China with her as a missionary. He responded by saying, "When I run I feel His (God's) pleasure. I was made to run and I was made to be a missionary too." Eric understood his complete purpose for his generation. As a result, he brought glory to the Father through his running and his missionary service.

Today, ask God to fulfill His purposes for your life in your generation.

OUR LABOR IN THE LORD

"Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." - 1 Corinthians 15:58

There is a paradigm shift going on among a remnant of workplace believers today. That paradigm shift is a focus on using our business and work life as a platform for ministry versus a platform solely for material success. There is a remnant of workplace believers throughout the world today who understand their birthright in the workplace is to reflect Christ fully in and through their work. It is reflected by a commitment to use their resources and skills to provide a product of excellence with the overall motive to affect people for Jesus Christ. The difference is that these individuals have an overriding ministry objective to their work.

When the apostle Paul tells us to fully work unto the Lord, he does not mean we must be working as missionaries in "full-time Christian effort." He understands that all of life is holy and sacred to God. If our motive is to serve God where we are, then our labor "in the Lord is not in vain."

As you begin your work today, ask God if you are working with the primary motive of reflecting His life and character through your work on this day. Let nothing move you from this motive being central to your activity. The Lord will reflect His power and leading in and through your life when this becomes your primary motive.

IMPOSSIBLE TASKS

"But He answered, 'You give them something to eat.'" Mark 6:37a

Has anyone ever asked you to do something that seems totally ridiculous? The very suggestion of their instruction may have brought laughter or even anger for proposing the idea.

I imagine that the disciples may have felt this way when Jesus responded with this comment when they asked him how they were going to feed the 5000, who had stayed around to hear him speak. The disciples suggested a logical answer to the problem, "Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat" (Mk 6:36).

That wasn't the answer Jesus wanted. He saw the need of the people. He had compassion on them. He wanted to solve the problem with a Kingdom response, not logic. He asked them what they had in their hand.

So often what we already have in our hand is what Jesus wants us to use to solve our problems. We must add faith to what we already have in our hand. Then we will see the gospel of the Kingdom manifested to solve problems in a supernatural way. Jesus wanted to meet a need in which God would receive the glory. Sending the people away did not meet the need, nor did it bring glory to the Father.

Do not settle for the gospel of salvation only. Jesus came that we might experience the gospel of the Kingdom in its fullest sense. Our job is to look past our logical reasoning and see how God might want to solve our problem in a supernatural way.

THE VALUE OF WORDS

"And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." - Matthew 5:36-37

Imagine for a moment that you are living in Jesus' time. It is before Jesus has begun His public ministry. He is a carpenter in your local town of Nazareth. You have asked Jesus to make a table for you. You're on a deadline and you must have it in a week. You agree on the price of $100 for the table and the date of one week for completion. A week later you arrive to pick up the table. You lay your money down on the table and Jesus says, "Mr. Johnson, I am sorry but the table is not ready. I ran into complications. Also, I can no longer honor the price I gave you. It is now $150 instead of $100."

Two years later you hear about this same Jesus who is preaching to the local townspeople. How are you going to view this Jesus? You probably won't give much credence to His message because of your personal experience. Our lives have an ability to reinforce the message we stand for, or they can violate it and make it totally ineffective. This literally happens all over the world in different settings with Christian workplace believers. Our message becomes ineffective because we have not done what we said.

I know people who, when they tell me they plan to do something, I can expect them to follow through about 50 percent of the time. I am sure you have had the same experience. Words and commitments are made with little meaning behind those words. However, I know others who will follow through almost every time. The only time they don't is when something falls outside their control. I quickly learn whose words have substance behind them.

There are times when we are unable to perform or deliver what we promised due to outside influences. The key to turning these potentially negative circumstances into a witness for Christ is communication. If we are unable to pay a bill on time, we must communicate with those we owe and make a good faith effort to resolve it within our means. In these cases, God's purposes are being performed as well if we seek to do the right thing.

Do your words mean anything to those who hear them? Do you make commitments and fail to follow through on them? What would others say about how you follow through? Ask the Lord today to show you how you are doing in this area. You might even want to ask three people who are the closest to you how you fare in this area.

FEARS THAT KEEP US FROM HIS PRESENCE

"Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear. So He got into the boat and left." - Luke 8:37

Jesus did many miracles when He lived on earth. One of those miracles involved the deliverance of a demon-possessed man. The people of the community witnessed this awesome demonstration of God's power when Jesus commanded the demon spirit to come out of the man and go into the herd of nearby pigs. The man was healed and sat at Jesus' feet.

You would expect the people who witnessed this to embrace Jesus as one performing good deeds and to honor Him. The opposite was true. Instead, they were overcome with fear. Why? Many of us respond the same way to Jesus when He does an out-of-the-ordinary act among His people. We are fearful because we have never personally experienced this before. So, we draw wrong judgments. The result is that Jesus removes Himself from us.

The Lord is able to do far exceeding above what we think. Jesus does not remain in the places where there is fear of His goodness. It is often subconscious fears that prevent us from going to a deeper level with Him. The people in Gerasenes could not benefit from Jesus' presence because of their fears.

Have you feared Jesus because of what He might require of you? Have you feared that He might ask of you something you are not prepared to give? Do not let your fears drive Him from your presence. His motive is always love for His children. You can trust Him.

UNRIGHTEOUS ACTS

..."Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies?" - Nehemiah 5:9

Nehemiah was the cupbearer to King Artaxerxes in Babylon. Jerusalem's walls had been destroyed and word had come to Nehemiah that the remnant of his people left in Jerusalem were distressed over the plight of the wall.

Nehemiah was grieved over this situation. He appealed to his king for permission to rebuild the wall. When he got to the city, he found many problems among his own people due to an economic crisis in the region. Among the classes affected by the economic crisis were (1) the landless, who were short of food; (2) the landowners, who were compelled to mortgage their properties; (3) those forced to borrow money at exorbitant rates and sell their children into slavery. It was unlawful for Hebrews to charge interest to other Hebrews.

"Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our countrymen and though our sons are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others" (Nehemiah 5:5).

Nehemiah stepped forward to admonish his people for this wrongful action on the basis that not only was it wrong, but God would respond to such action by making them susceptible to His judgment through the Gentile enemies.

Nehemiah was modeling to each of us a spiritual principle regarding sin. Whenever we sin, we give God permission to unleash the enemy into our souls to deal with that sin. Nehemiah understood this principle and warned the people of what this action would encourage from God. The people repented and returned the money gained through usury.

As Christian workplace believers we must make sure that our practices are righteous in God's sight. If not, we can expect the enemy to be released to judge that sin. Ask the Lord today if there is any unrighteousness in your business practices that makes you vulnerable to judgment.

CAN A CITY BE TRANSFORMED?

"All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord." (emphasis mine Acts 9:35).

Can an entire city be transformed for Jesus Christ? The book of Acts reveals that at least one city was. There are four key ingredients required among its Christian leaders to see a city transformed. These include prayer, humility, unity, and knowledge of God's ways.

Prayer
In every city in which transformation has taken place, believers have come together to pray for their city. Prayer changes the spiritual climate of a city. Some of the main areas of influence that must be the focus of our prayers include churches and businesses; the legal, political, educational and medical fields; and the media/entertainment industry. Workplace leaders must be strategically aligned with intercessors to impact their city.

Humility
God uses men and women who recognize that they need each other and who do not seek glory for their work. "He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way" (Ps. 25:9). The workplace leaders that God is using today care little about being in the limelight.

Unity
Jesus said, "May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me" (John 17:23). God calls each of us individually and corporately to represent Christ to the world, but our independence, pride and egos often prevent us from becoming unified in the purposes of Christ.

Knowledge of God's Ways
Sometimes leaders can move in presumption instead of in a faith that is rooted in knowledge of God's ways. Such was the case of David, who wanted to bring the Ark of the Covenant into the city of Jerusalem. He was zealous for God and celebrated as he brought the Ark into the city. However, the ark was being carried into the city on a cart instead of by priests on poles, as God required. When a man named Uzzah reached out to catch the Ark when the oxen stumbled, he was immediately struck dead by God. David was devastated. He lacked a knowledge of God's ways.

Do you want to see your city transformed? Make sure the three ingredients of prayer, unity and knowledge of God's ways exist in your leadership team.