Evaluating Risk from the Word of God
December 14, 2012If you born of the Holy Spirit you will take risks
Perhaps the greatest risk a person can take is to jump out of an airplane trusting only in the fact that the parachute case will open when the release button is pressed. Or perhaps the greatest risk is joining the infantry division of the US Army in a time of war.
Or perhaps the greatest risk is to put your eternal welfare into the hands of an unseen God, divinely inspired to simply put all your trust in the heavenly words written by the hands of unknown men in a language much different than our own. And then to hang your very precious eternal state and life on the words of those men who lived in times very much different than our modern fast paced high tech world who made first hand personal accounts of divine encounters, claims that don't make logical sense to the depraved human mind.
Embracing a different way of life and entering into a different way thinking developed in ancient times and then, taking leap of faith to walk forward in like fashion as these ancient God fearing people who operated with much less tertiary information about the way things are in other places.
Our weather can be seen in advance by our modern satellite technology but for these folks a trust had to be established everyday in Yah no matter what weather was to be endured in and on the Way they were commanded to go.These men lived in a way altogether different than we do today in the American Church; they were more dependent on the heavens for their sustenance as a matter of life, why is this so, because they were led by the Divine Holy Spirit to live outside of a normal secular way of existence to develop a new awareness of the need of Divine Love and Counsel for their survival.
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If you have ever read some of my other articles you will get the sense that I am trying to say something that I believe is very important. I feel like I have a mission here on earth to share what God thinks of the church of Jesus Christ in the USA.
Whether a few people read my words, or many, I don’t really pay too much mind to who reads but rather I care more about the pressure I feel of being faithful to God in how I present His Truth to those who might read my words someday.
Yashua (Jesus) will judge how I present Him and His call to all men in that Day when I will appear before His Throne. His words of approbation are all that I care about.
If you think about the reality of what I just said it might set you free from the tyranny of the fear of man. The Word of God tells us that trusting in man is a snare. I have seen this truth play out in my life time and time again; I don’t need to rehearse that part of the play again.
Today I would like to make the point that if you are not taking felt risk(s) in your earthly pilgrimage you probably are out of step with the will of the Holy Spirit and with Jesus, our soon coming King.
Risk is life, living out our days here on this planet comes with inherent risk. Your soul is bound to a
certain destiny. You have no choice in the matter, you have been allowed to be
born into a conscience state of mind with a sense that you are a production of
a Creator, you may seek to deny your actual Divine creation, but that doesn't
make your responsibility to take action on that reality.
The
basis of the reality of God's existence is filled with amazing discovery of who
you and I can be if we just surrender our lives to Him and His Sovereign Care. If we fully grasp the work of the Holy Spirit we will
change our way and walk with a new perspective.
When Our Lord traversed the hills of Galilee almost 2000 years ago He was very clear to all on the requirements of His call to anyone who would follow Him and who would be the benefactors of the joys of His Kingdom. All who were summoned to enter Life are called to release all care of the issues of this life which really is bound to death. By taking the biggest risk of all in trusting in His Words we are translated to a forever glorious Life of incredible happiness and bliss.
I would argue this “letting go” of our lives here on this planet is the greatest risk for any man, woman, or child could take. Even when compared to the scary thought of jumping out of an airplane 5000 feet in the air or preparing to go into the line of fire on the battlefield.
Most alter calls today fail to present all the facts to sinners, the true nature of the call to “sell all” and follow Jesus, therefore the sinner never really experiences all the benefits of the New Birth and the effects of the call fall short of its intended result in the heart of the man, woman, or child that calls upon the Name of the Lord.
The end result is found in a lower percentage of sold out believers in the Body of Christ and a weak and limp evangelistic effort to a lost dying world.
Remember the 1st century church was launched by risk and radical faith, why would revival in our times be any different?When we call mankind to Christ we are calling them to enter into real life.
To get or earn real life the condition is that they have to leave all the encumbrances of this death life behind and they can never look back, do you remember the sad end of Lot’s wife.
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Jonathan can you prove your case from the scriptures? Of course I can, and I challenge you once I am done with the presentation of just a handful of examples that you continue your search for any faith-filled person written about in a positive way in the scriptures that didn't take risks in response to the call of God on their life.
Let’s look at just a few examples:
Look first at the Divine Call of our father Abraham, in the first, let’s look together at the place of his calling.
Ur of the Chaldeans, where was that place you may ask?
It was not that far from the place where the original descendants of Noah lived after the ark rested in the mountains of Ararat, Ur of the Chaldeans is the same area where the inhabitants of the land violated the commandment of their Creator to go and repopulate the world.
What a simple commandment but what a stubborn bunch! Shortly after the epic judgments of the worldwide flood, just a few generations of Babylonians removed from Noah’s descendants, these unbelievers decided they would not populate the entire world but rather they would erect a city that would enter the heights of heaven.
Interestingly this is the same spirit of our current world leaders, a thousand points of light all over the world under the guise of a better planet with better leadership. This new spirit of antichrist has us to believe that we can create and rebuild a better world without Our Creator as the Supreme Ruler.
In the ancient days of Nimrod we see the Divine Response to the building up of a great skyscraper to interact with the gods. The True Supreme God of Heaven, El Elyon looked down and formulated a plan to foil the plans of men to build their heavenly interaction plan by confusing their languages, prior to this time they could understand each other to build a temple to the heavens, after Yahweh confused their languages they had to scatter all over the known world.
In spite of this great historical event, the plains of Shinar still remain a place of bad ideas, the plains continue to be a place of judgment (modern day Iraq) the same place where the building of the Ziggurat temple would stand, an emblem of a bad idea, or for some still this is the place they will return to begin this insidious effort again. Look at the modern day long term plans of the UAE.
So Ur of the Chaldeans, or Babylon, was the place of Abraham’s call, it was where our father heard for the first time a Voice of another supreme being, One far greater than Beelzebub, or the gods of the Chaldeans.
The first words of Yah were to “Go to land I will show you” The Call did not explain any of the details of what or how, just a simple edict of “Go” and I will show what I will do for you once you get there. The promises to Abraham, he would be a father of nations and he would receive a natural born son, for Abraham this was enough to get the plan moving, he packed up his wife and servants and stuff and said, "let’s go!"
But wait my father is still alive, don’t you know its taboo to leave your homeland when your father is still alive, so Abram decides to take his dad along for short trip toward Haran and on the way to Canaan he would dwell there until his dad’s passing. Keeping with protocol but still moving forward to complete work of faith which led him to separate from the past Chaldean world he had known and enter a new place of being with no clear mandate, simply a plan to walk with His Creator.
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Secondly, we look at the Divine call of Moses when he was a baby, released by his parents into Pharaoh’s court; these very scared Hebrew parents completely released their baby boy without any insurance plan to protect their beautiful newborn son from the real dangers of his release.
By faith they put little baby Moses in the hand of Yah (the basket) and left him there on the waters of the Nile to see what the verdict would be.
Why would our Lord make such a claim on these simple folks?
The needed to walk in the true faith which is required of all of us if we would find life, without their simple faith Moses would never be able to by the Divinely appointed leader that would Redeem His People Israel from the bondage of Egypt.---
Think of the later years of Moses, recalling the time of his birth and the faith of his parents he obeyed the call of Yah to face Pharaoh with the very unpopular idea of letting the Hebrew People go out into the wilderness to worship Yah.---
Moving forward in time, let’s look at how Our Messiah called His first disciples to His New Millennial Kingdom, more importantly let’s look carefully at His words when He called his disciples to follow Him:
Mt.4:18 And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.19 Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 20 They immediately left their nets and followed Him.
21 Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them, 22 and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him.
Let’s note the response:
Firstly their response to the call of Jesus was IMMEDIATE
No discussion between Jesus and the two brothers, no discussions between the brothers, no discussions with their father, no, they simply left all and followed Jesus.
Secondly, their response was WITHOUT AN EXPLANATION
The summons of these first disciples was
not based on an academic, business, or military plan, they simply and very
basically took Jesus at His Word and followed Him to an unknown place for an
unknown reason.
These brothers were eager to go like anyone would be if they were summoned by the president of the USA to meet him in the oval office. All would be set aside, all immediate responsibilities to keep business promises in order and family concerns in place were set aside without a conversation with the Lord of Glory.
Thirdly, their response REQUIRED MOVEMENT
An empty “words only” response would not suffice, the simple and right response was to start walking behind the King of the universe without knowing the details of the journey that lay ahead.
These disciples were not that young, they had families, and they had a profitable fishing business, they had real responsibilities to tend to, BUT these earthly priorities slip down the to-do list all because of the virtue and status of the ONE who was calling them to FOLLOW Him.
Only God can make these claims, not even the president of the USA can make this claim on you and I, even the military cannot make the overarching claim made here by Jesus.
Its interesting Jesus does not try to soften the call without any other words other than “Follow Me”.
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I can hear the voice of retraction and fear in my head as I write these words. But we must admit that we will never make a serious dent on the kingdom of darkness if we perform our efforts in a manner contrary to this bold and hard Way.
Are their risks involved?
Of course there are, eventually these men would all be martyred because they followed Him, sure this eventual end is and will be hard for any who would do as these men did, but they had no choice. If ever a man, women, or child hears the real Voice of God in the ears they too will do as these men did.
If you have heard His Voice and you find yourself in a bad place today, a conflicted place, a place of compromise, then turn back to your calling, consider this the call of God to you to go back to your original mandate to follow the King of the Universe.
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Finally let’s consider the means that a person comes to this point in their earthly journey.
Many will find themselves in a hard place where they feel like life is messed up and they finally turn to heaven for answers, so when the Voice of the Holy Spirit comes into their ears and heart they are ready to do what the Voice says. While some will be on top of the world, and the call will come and shake them when they are not planning on a new direction, in the end all that matters is WHO is calling you to service and what is the Divine Edict asking you to do.
In every case known to man, a real call of God is marked by these three essential realities:
Immediate action
Logic less Submission
Change in Geography and Mindset
This is what the Holy Spirit does in the heart of a person called by Heaven to do something and to go and perform the work of heaven.
4000 years of human history hasn't changed God or His method of calling a person out of Babylon and into His kingdom. Just before Jesus called these four fishermen to follow Him, after He had just defeated Satan’s attempt to get His perfect worship which was only due His Father, in Satan's plan of destroying the work of salvation, he showed Jesus the kingdoms of the world and said if you just bow to me, they are yours.
Satan knew that Jesus was the Son of God, he knew his destiny but that didn't stop Him from making the attempt to foil God’s plan to save mankind. In the power of the Holy Spirit Our Lord fought back with a hearty “NO” to the call to bow down to earth’s bounty.
So will you and I be led of the Holy Spirit to also so a hearty “NO” to the voice of Satan if he should seek to get your submission to him and his plans just so you can have Esau’s pot of porridge.
Our father Jacob did not sell his soul for immediate comfort or long term stability like his brother Esau, rather he went to Bethel and then on to the upper parts of Mesopotamia and found his destiny, Rachel and Leah, and in due season they came back a family ready to fulfill the promises to their father and ours – Abraham.
Where are you today my Christian brother or sister?
What risks are you taking for Your God?
If you are not risking things to do more for Him in your place
of existence you are probably outside of His perfect will.
Note - The only qualifier here is if
you have been placed in a solitary place for more training this also would represent
a place of risk. Take the apostle Paul’s 3 years in the desert of Arabia as an
example.
May the Lord of Heaven and Earth reveal His marvelous plans
to you in the coming days.
Posted by Jonathan Keener. Posted In : Holy Spirit
Our call is to be true "christ" ians. Those little christ's who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. Who spread God's fame by proclaiming His message of reconciliation to our world. Playing our part in the epic work of the regathering of the Body of Christ in the Last Days.
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