58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
If you are going to have God's victory, you must begin with the deep dedication that makes you a steadfast believer.
The next word is immovable. This speaks of your faith; your steadfastness has to do with the dedication and the love that you have for the Lord, but to be immovable deals with your faith. You must have the kind of faith that cannot be moved by circumstances. Neither can it be moved by relationships or people. You say, like Paul the apostle, But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I must finish my course with joy...Acts 20:24. He knew that within him was a faith to believe nothing could move him.
When you add steadfastness to immovable quality, you have an attitude like the three Hebrew children; they were told to bow down when music played, or into the furnace they would go. They said, "We don't know whether God is going to deliver us or not. But one thing we do know: our faith is immovable; we will not bow down." Furnace or not, it was an immovable faith. Nothing was going to move them (Daniel 3).
When you have these two things that do not alter, that steadfast quality of your love and dedication, and that immovable quality of your faith, then you come into the end time ministry which God is really looking for: always abounding in the work of the Lord. Abounding is a special word we do not use anymore. "Always abounding" would be that leaping forward, like race cars roaring out of their pits to run a race, going until they literally tear their tires to pieces, driving around every curve relentlessly, knowing that it is all a matter of time. http://youtu.be/7MaNiV7Kwe4
And that is the way it is in this day. We are not under the old strain of legalism or dead works, but something in us longs to redeem the time because the days are evil (Ephesians 5:16). That is why we must commission and thrust people forward into the ministry God has for them. We do not have that much time to waste one minute of it.
You have to always abound. You might become weary and give up, or have moments of discouragement, unless you have that steadfastness and immovable quality. But when you have that, you will be...always abounding in the work of the Lord (that is so important), knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 15:58. When you reach this in your dedication, nothing you do seems to be unavailing.
People sometimes tell me that I prayed for them five or ten years ago, and it finally came to pass. What happened in the meantime? Well, the word was there, but they had to live with that word and go through changes within themselves. God was constantly working on them, and the word came to pass. I do not think God wastes as much time as you think. You may have the impression that God stalls around because He has eternity.
God makes a promise to Abraham and then forgets him, he and Sarah are very old before God gets around to fulfilling it. I think God moves just as fast as the human heart will open up for Him to move; I do not think He intends to waste your life. Delays are a result of the process of our submitting to what He is trying to work out in our lives and to what the word is. It takes a while. He has to produce that steadfastness and immovable quality within us.
Often times someone knows he has a call from God to pastor, and he wonders why God does not thrust him out. Some brothers are thrust out soon, and they come back after a rough experience. Nevertheless, God is doing a quick work on the earth. It is a fine balance. I do not think that anyone is completely ready when he is untried and unproven. You can only prove a soldier, no matter what his basic training is and how well disciplined he is, by putting him into battle with live bullets whistling over his head. While it is true that you have to get out in the battle, you cannot go until that steadfastness and immovable quality has been worked in you.
"Do I just sit here waiting? I can't see why God is wasting my life." Let God first work that quality in you to be steadfast and immovable, and soon you will find yourself wishing for a few days to sit down, wait on the Lord, and take it a little easier. That always abounding in the work of the Lord will hit you. WHAM!
I know the responsibility that comes with a ministry. God will thrust you into it as soon as you are able to take it. At first you cannot live with it all the time. It was too intense when God first laid this ministry before me. I felt as if I had to get off once in a while and do something else and relax. I could be a ministry unto the Lord most of the time, but every two or three weeks I went off to relax where I could forget everything.
You may take a little coffee break from God, because He is dealing with you so intensely in putting you through circumstances, but usually you come back and say, "Well, Lord, now I'm ready again." And He is ready to put you through it again. But what He really wants is for you to come to the place where He can lay responsibility upon your shoulders for the house of God, even as the government is upon His shoulders, and for you to bear it with steadfastness and immovability.
There is not going to be a turning away from it. That is not an easy place to come to. How many times have you squealed under the responsibility when it was unrelenting? You had to meet it even though the last ounce of strength was gone. It is not a matter of dead works; the Lord is thrusting laborers into His harvest field, and they are always abounding in the work of the Lord. We cannot draw back.
Peter and John were told to stop speaking any more in the name of the Lord, and they said, For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. Acts 4:20. There was an inward compulsion. Christ felt it, and He said, I must work the works of Him that sent me...the night cometh when no man can work. John 9:4. That driving force of always abounding in the work of the Lord is what Paul felt. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. II Timothy 4:7.
He exhorted young Timothy to meditate on the prophecies, and give himself wholly to them, so that his profiting could appear to all ( I Timothy 4:15).
And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency, in all things, may abound to every good work. II Corinthians 9:8. If we want to be always abounding in the work of the Lord we will have to get to the place where all grace is abounding toward us so we will have all sufficiency in all things to abound to every good work. It is beyond human endurance, beyond human strength, and beyond human wisdom. We will never be able to be what God wants us to be in ourselves.
There has to be a rhythm of ministry. You cannot breathe out without breathing in. Even the Lord learned how to constantly go before the Father, continuing all night in prayer, then going out to minister. That is exactly how we must function. All grace is abounding toward us, and then we are abounding in every good work, pressing into it with all our heart. It cannot be done in the flesh; it cannot be done in the natural. The things that are going to come to pass in the churches will be accomplished by the people learning to draw the grace of God. Draw on that grace and then enter right into it.
This is a very simple message; nevertheless you will think about it, and it will begin to work on you until you realize this is what you have needed. You will think, "I haven't really been steadfast, because of the wavering in my love and dedication to the Lord. This has been the reason I couldn't abound in the work of the Lord. And as far as being immovable, I have been movable. With every tide I have shifted; I haven't been anchored as I should have been." But when you get down to the basic repentance and seeking of the Lord, you take care of your dedication, and God begins to really deal with your heart. Then you start abounding in the work of the Lord.
God's righteousness is not just to make you a lovely looking individual, a showpiece on some shelve. Some want to excel in the Lord for their own glory among others. No, the righteousness of God for the work of God in your heart are for a very practical purpose: to bring forth the perfect will of God in your life, to bring that end-time witness for the glory and the praise of the Lord.
Many people are ready for commissioning You may be ready for that kind of prophesying over you that has revelation, that identifies your ministry, and identifies the gifts of the Spirit you are to move in. Get into the Word, read it, pray about it, appropriate it. Start moving in what god has for you as fast as you can. You are ready for it now. For you to sit idle any longer will mean that you will go backward instead of going forward. The time is on us now to take the next step in god. We must enter into the full expression of ministry in every area. You are ready for it.
We cannot be without the Holy Spirit's illuminating and making alive this word that is coming now. This is the commission of the gospel of the Kingdom to the ends of the earth. This is the world's last witness and the gathering of the precious fruit. Something has to make us realize we are ordained of God for this purpose, and that it is now.
I rebuke the darkness of the enemy that would hold it back, and I believe for it to take hold and possess us deeply, not with a carnal enthusiasm but with a deep revelation of the Spirit that will know no end in its fulfillment.
If we set about to pump up inspiration and enthusiasm we will be right back in old order. This must be led by the Spirit of the Lord. It must be a deep revelation. In this, our walk with God will deepen tremendously because we will be drawing constantly, appropriating and becoming in tune. It will be the beginning of a miracle walk.
It is in us, but it cannot come with fanfare and pumping up. We almost have to understand it. We know that this step is necessary: the gospel of the Kingdom has to be preached to all the world for a witness. This gospel is going to be preached by the people who believe in Jesus Christ. And the Kingdom is Him; He is King. Whether you expect rapture, or however you expect the coming of the Lord, no matter how you envision the events of the Parousia, this gospel of the Kingdom has to be preached first as the witness in all the world ( Matthew 24:14 ).
Do you feel as if you can hardly wait for the Lord to begin to use you? Without seeking numbers and saying, "Look at all I did," do you really want to be a channel, to be able to look around through the churches and see people who have come in because God gave you a living word that was flowing?
That is the way it will be.
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