TRUSTING GOD - Contd.
In Part 4 we learned that self must be sacrificed, before there can be any service that pleases God. We may produce as many Ishmaels that we may like, but God's answer we always be a "NO".
Dependence on the Holy Spirit
Let us test ourselves in one area - the area of prayer. Do we really know what it is to pray what the Bible calls "the prayer of faith"? It is only when we come to an end of ourselves that we pray like that - for true prayer, as O. Hallesby has said, is simply confessing our helplessness to God. There is no credit in uttering beautiful, eloquent and impressive prayers. Such ordinary praying can be done by anyone - even by a person who is worshipping an idol. But the prayer of faith can only come from one who has recognized his impotence and utter helplessness without God. This is what it means "to pray in the Spirit" (Eph. 6:18); and that is the only type of prayer that brings an answer. As someone has said, what we need in our day is not more prayer but more answered prayer. Let us not fool ourselves, like the pagan worshipper, that God is pleased by our much praying. No. Prayer has no value before God, if it does not arise out of recognition of our own impotence.
So little of evangelical Christian work today is a work of faith. We have so many electronic gadgets and other aids to help us in our service for the Lord that many of us are, all unconsciously, depending on them, rather than on the Lord. It appears as though one does not need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, these days, to serve the Lord. All one needs is a tape-recoder, a few Christian movies, audio-visual aids, and some rich businessman to provide financial support. If added to these, one also has a dynamic personality and eloquence or a trained voice, he can go out and "win souls for Christ"!
How far evangelical Christianity has drifted from the faith of the apostles! What a tragedy that the techniques of the business world have been brought into the sanctuary of God. Let us never be fooled by the apparent success of these methods. We can accumulate statistics of our "conversions", but we shall realize in eternity that they were spurious. Heaven does not rejoice over our labors, because we have not delivered souls from their self-centeredness, but merely entertained them and given them a good time.
God's way has not changed. Even today, we need to be emptied of our self-sufficiency and filled with the Spirit of God, if we are to produce "Isaacs" that please God. The Bible says, "Cursed be the man who depends on man and who makes his self-sufficiency the arm on which he leans... for he shall be like a barren tree" (Jer. 17:5). However much such a man may give the appearance of fruitfulness to others, he will stand in eternity like a barren tree, for his work originated in himself and in dependence on human energies and human resources. On the other hand, it says, "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and has made the Lord his confidence. He is like a tree planted along a riverbank, with its roots reaching deep into the water... its leaves stay green and it goes right on producing all its luscious fruit." (Jer. 17:7-8)
To change the illustration (to the one found in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15), what are we building with - wood, hay and straw, or gold, silver and precious stones? One ounce of gold is worth more than a ton of straw after the fire has done its work. Only genuine works of faith will abide in that day of testing.
I would like to take this time to thank Zac Poonen for his wonderful book "Beauty for Ashes". The above has been taken from the same book.
I would like all my Brothers and Sisters in Christ to pray for me so that the Lord Almighty guide me, not in presenting the words from other people but also to open my mind His Holy Words and understand them and first accept those words in my life and then present those words to you all.
Your humble Brother in Christ
Jobin George
