DEVOTION TO THE CAUSE
IAN JOHNSON
Oct 26, 2005
DEVOTION TO THE CAUSE By Ian Johnson www.papelim.org.nz
HEBREWS 11:6
6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
The key to receiving anything from God is: "First you must believe that he exists", At first glance this statement seems aimed at the non-Christian. But it was written to believers.
The truth is, that we have areas in our life where we choose not to believe God. It may be in the area of Finance, or perhaps relationships or we may need the Lord to touch our body in the area of healing, but instead of turning to the Lord we seek worldly wisdom and leave Jesus in the cold, Jesus called this unbelief! Having just returned from India where there are no options but to trust God, No social welfare, no medical assistance readily available, no bank loan to carry them through, they have to trust God. So they say Lord I believe you can heal me and you exist as the God of healing, guess what? He heals They say Lord I believe you can provide all my needs and that you exist as the God in the area of provision, guess what? He provides.
Our problem is unbelief, the curse of the western Church, we shut God out of areas of our life, making him Lord only in the parts we feel comfortable in him being Lord.. So you could say He is not Lord in our lives at all!
We have lost sight of the fact that "In the beginning God" Spoke and it came to pass! (Gen 1) we build shelters around our lives that protect us from having to believe that God exists and is a rewarder of those who seek him.
We forget Psalm 19
The heavens tell of the glory of God.The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship.2 Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known.3 They speak without a sound or a word; their voice is silent in the skies;*4 yet their message has gone out to all the earth, and their words to all the world. In India there is a powerful move of God going on, its happening because the people "Believe that He is" 1000’s per week are turning to Jesus, not just fire insurance faith but radical devotional faith that moves mountains! 2) Without faith it is impossible to please God! In the west we have faith in many things: Faith in the bank Faith in the Doctor, faith in our education, faith in the Government systems. But do we have faith in God? Jesus said that unless you come as a little Child you wont see the Kingdom of God" To see a withered hand instantly straightened by Jesus is wonderful. This happened in India, but the difference I think between, East and West is that the first thing that happens in the East is that others are told immediately, it’s a tool for evangelism, not something to invite your Christian friends along to for another show! The Church in the west has become performance orientated, There were healings, but did you hear the music? Or that Pastor didn’t mention my favorite scripture once! You have just seen a creative miracle that the world has no rational answer to explain! And you are worried about the Music? The big Question is: What are we putting our faith in? If the answer is Jesus with a heart that will follow to the extreme levels of commitment then we get a big tick.Its easy to believe inside the four walls of a Church, but the call of the Sprit is bring your belief and faith into the street Faith steps out of the boat and into the water! Faith dosnt seek to understand detail it trusts the Master. In India when gold and silver fell in remote areas where there was no other way of explaining it away, as many do in the west, it inspired faith and many healings and salvations occurred. It was a sign that caused people to wonder! 3) Faith leads to devotion Mark 14:1-9 Devotion caused The woman to forget everyone around her, to forget the religious norm which said Woman should be on one side and men on the other, Then she did the unthinkable she poured perfume worth a whole years wages over the Lords head, When the woman who had faith in the Lord allowed her devotion to carry her to a new level, the religious (Judas) complained. But Jesus rebuked them and said this thing that has been done to me shall always be talked about. Its not enough to have faith, faith must be followed by devotion. A single heart set apart for Jesus. This sort of devotion breaks down barriers and overcomes fear to be with the Lord. This sort of devotion leads to Obedience. Think about it. When we do what we know to be right because its in the Bible its out of obedience but it’s a legalistic obedience. Romans 12suggests that if we give ourselves totally to the Lord then we will know what to do(Verse 2) when we unload into Jesus all our devotion, then he downloads into us all his will and desire. Obedience comes out of pure devotion not the other way around. EPHESIANS 3: 14 When I think of the wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father,* 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. 17 And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. 20 Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. This devotion leads to a longing to be with Him always and in every situation. The Miraculous comes out of this level of devotion. Because in this knowledge of him experienced only in the depths of His heart comes a revelation of His mighty power. The scripture in Ephesians talks about roots going deep into the soil of Gods love, a healthy plant has good soil to grow in and its roots go deep. In India I went to a prayer meeting at a Catholic Church in Goa called "Grace Church" the devotion to Jesus from young people there was amazing, In the two hour lunch break every day these young people would fall face down and cry out to Jesus, or just pour out their heart in adoration to Him. The Lord made a special point of letting me know that this devotion to Him was very very pleasing to Him. He also questioned the devotion of His people in the west! In fact the most recent figures for the Church in the west taken from an article in www.worldnetdaily.com suggest this devotion to the cause is paying off. [-© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com What is the fastest-growing religion on Earth Most news reports suggest it is Islam. But a new book makes a compelling case it is a new, or, perhaps, old form of biblically inspired evangelical Christianity that is sweeping through places like China, Africa, India and Southeast Asia. In "Megashift," author Jim Rutz coins a new phrase to define this fast-growing segment of the population. He calls them "core apostolics" - or "the new saints who are at the heart of the mushrooming kingdom of God." Rutz makes the point that Christianity is overlooked as the fastest-growing faith in the world because most surveys look at the traditional Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church while ignoring Christian believers who have no part of either. He says there are 707 million "switched-on disciples" who fit into this new category and that this "church" is exploding in growth. "The growing core of Christianity crosses theological lines and includes 707 million born-again people who are increasing by 8 percent a year," he says. So fast is this group growing that, under current trends, according to Rutz, the entire world will be composed of such believers by the year 2032. "There will be pockets of resistance and unforeseen breakthroughs," writes Rutz. "Still, at the rate we’re growing now, to be comically precise, there would be more Christians than people by the autumn of 2032, about 8.2 billion." According to the author, until 1960, Western evangelicals out-numbered non-Western evangelicals - mostly Latinos, blacks and Asians - by two to one. As of 2000, non-Western evangelicals outnumbered Westerners by four to one. He says by 2010, the ratio will be seven to one. "There are now more missionaries sent from non-Western nations than Western nations," he writes. This trend, says Rutz, has been missed by Westerners because the explosive growth is elsewhere. Hundreds of millions of these Christians are simply not associated with the institutional churches at all. They meet in homes. They meet underground. They meet in caves. They meet, he says, in secret. And what is driving this movement? Miracles, he says. "Megashift" attempts to document myriad healings and other powerful answers to the sincere prayers of this new category of believer, including, believe it or not, hundreds of dramatic cases of resurrections - not near-death experiences, but real resurrections of actual corpses. "When I was a kid in Sunday school, I was really impressed that 3,000 people were saved on the Day of Pentecost," he writes. "I thought, ’Wow, that’ll never happen again!" But, Rutz says, it now happens around the globe every 25 minutes. "By tomorrow, there will be 175,000 more Christians than there are today," he writes. The essence of Rutz’s book is about how Western Christians can tap into what he sees as a mighty work of God on Earth. "Very few people realize the nature of life on Earth is going through a major change," he writes. "We are seeing a megashift in the basic direction of human history. Until our time, the ancient war betweengood and evil was hardly better than a stalemate. Now all has changed. The Creator whose epic story flows through the pages of Scripture has begun to dissolve the strongholds of evil. This new drama is being played out every hour around the globe, accompanied sometimes by mind-bending miracles." Having just returned from India I confirm the outpouring of the miraculous in the meetings and with the saints there. The Lord is trying to do the same in the west, but the Church says its of the Devil or its a deception, because the power of the Holy Spirit cannot be controlled, or at times even understood, remember Jesus described the moving of the Spirit like the wind, "Who can know it" The official figure for Christians in Andhra Pradesh is 2% But its huge, whole villages are coming to Christ. They accept the power of the Spiritual realm because they are used to living in a Spiritual environment. If any man thinks he will receive anything from God, first He must believe that God Exists! and is a rewarder of them that seek Him!" Heb 11:6 This was written to Christians so I figure its deeper than just believing in God! its believing that he exists in every aspect of our lives. and that’s where the west has it wrong. they are looking for Mega Church control of which a man or men are seen to be the hero’s, Jesus is looking for face to face relationship in which he is in control. The west has indeed missed the boat, but its not too late! Don’t blame the Devil for the Miracles that lead to life. There is a world lost! "First we must believe that he exists" unbelief is the sin of the west, if we cant explain it, the devil did it! God is a God of creation and also a God of the Miraculous. Yes I know that the miraculous upsets the order of things, for your well oiled services, So why not take Jesus out into the streets, Heal the sick, raise the dead, expect signs that cause wonder! The harvest is ripe!
