SELF EXALTATION OR SELF DESTRUCTION: WHICH WILL YOU CHOOSE?
by J. Cole


Well, it has been a while since I have written an encouraging word, so let
me offer this up to you and to the Lord that you might be challenged,
encouraged, and strengthened in Jesus and that He may be glorified! I
sense many are going through this or have gone through this or are going
to go through this. Many are at the brink of losing faith or are just in
the "I don't care anymore mentality," and some of you I sense are
languishing in bitterness and self pity as well. Be not discouraged, God
is not dead and you are not forgotten!

It seems that there are no lack of visions in the body of Christ. It is
wonderful when one's vision and life quest comes true in that one's
lifetime. What I have been seeing pretty clearly is lots of visions or in
many cases, personal ministry ambitions, but very few visions fulfilled.
This has been perplexing. What many fail to realize is that many times our
visions are for the future. Most visionaries are many years ahead of their
time. They end up becoming preparers of the vision for another generation.
This can go on for many generations. Many, if not most never experience
it. They end up becoming people who prepare the soil and plow the field.
They end up becoming pioneers and forge their way through for others to
take advantage of their toil, their death. They are the grain of wheat
that falls to the ground. We do not like to think we may never see the
"promised land," or "promised vision," for it would steal our momentum.
God may very well hide this from us as He did Moses for a time so as not
to crush our expectations.

But sooner or later, we will come to realize that the vision is for a time
to come, after we are gone. This is part of the Spirit of Elijah, the
ministry of John the Baptist. More and more toward the end of our lives,
we come to realize we will never see the "promised land," we were just
promoters of it and encourages of it. More and more toward the end we come
to understand that we must DECREASE and God must INCREASE and ONLY
in our
decrease will He be increased. God gives us the promise and then tells us
to go out and offer up Isaac. What a contradiction! What an offense to our
natural thinking process! Jesus told us that there was no one greater than
John the Baptist and I believe that He was expressing this very idea. John
the Baptist willingly let his ministry die so that Jesus' ministry could
be accomplished. How many are willing to do that now? Many understand the
concept dying to self, but few understand the concept of dying to one's
ministry self! In God's eyes He sees that their is no greater offering
than this type because there is little or no earthly reward in this
calling. It is a giving up of our lives for a cause, a vision, for another
to be blessed by and experience. It is giving up our cause, our vision,
even the vision God gave us for the sake of obedience and trust in Him
against all odds! In many ways it is like every solder that died for
freedom. They never experienced it. They died so others would. In all
actuality, it is the ministry of Jesus.

Those that try and force the promised vision end up making Ishmaels
because they refuse to decrease, they refuse to offer up Isaac. They
misunderstand the way of God and choose selfish ambition over Godly duty.
They refuse to go out and offer up the vision on the alter. This is why
there are multitudes of Ishmaels in the body of Christ and they end up
just being a thorn in God's side and killers of the greatest purpose.
Doing this is selling one's birthright for a bowl of beans. It is putting
the better in front of the best. That is why few can get along in the body
of Christ. There are so many ishmaels, they end up becoming a vast enemy
set against the true promise. Therefore, we must all come to die to OUR
expectations of seeing what God has promised to us. If we do not, we will
end up mad at God and think Him unfair or just lose our faith totally. We
must love Him for HIM, not for what He can do, or promised to do, or even
what WE think He should do. We must willingly offer up Isaac for our good
and for the good of the future generations and for the glory of God! We
know that we are having a problem in this area when we begin to become
impatient and start to strive and manipulate and adopt world business
principles or when we sit ourselves in a seat of authority promised
instead of letting God seat us. Many think they are doing God a favor or
just are doing what no one else was willing to do. These can be
deceptions, wolves in sheep's clothing.

These are all warnings before the storm. We must realize that many times
the promise is not to be fulfilled at all in our lifetime. These times of
realization and tests are so extreme and severe we taste a very small
portion of what it must have felt like for Jesus in the garden. It is the
time of sweating blood! I do not know what Jesus experienced. I do know
what I felt though when I have went through times like these: Despair,
self pity, hopelessness, confusion and thought declarations of
meaninglessness. All these things come crashing down on us in these times.
Hopefully, we will come to the conclusion that Jesus did; not our will be
done, but His!

If we surrender and willingly watch the vision and what we thought was the
purpose of our lives, gasp for its last breath and finally die, a Godly
peace eventually comes. Then, almost a sense of relief! Everyone in the
world looks at you like you are the biggest jerk they know. It looks to
them as if you are self destructive, and you know what? They are exactly
right. If we want to be like Jesus, we will many times willingly do things
that totally ruin our chances of "success," of having a "successful
ministry." This is exactly what Jesus did. He did not do it just so we
could be blessed. He did it so we could learn from Him and follow! You
see, Jesus will not be happy until we become like Him in every way. He is
not satisfied to just bless us the rest or our lives and neither should we
be.

I have seen many ministries in self glorification mode and Jesus has set
His face to destroy these for their own good. Many have counted those who
have been saved under THEIR MINISTRY and ware it as a badge of honor and
advertise all the "good" "god" is doing at THEIR service! This is always a
mistake! God always hated censuses! God always hates self glorification in
any form, especially in the ministry form! Many of these ministries have
become as the serpent God used in the wilderness for Israel. It was once
used for healing, but now they are worshipping the snake and making it
God. God once delivered them and did many miracles, but now they have made
themselves a golden calf and called it God. In this case the ministry, the
church, has become an idol and must be destroyed. Any church who has
entered the world of Their ministry glorification and advertising have
entered a very dangerous area. You may very well build a very successful
church and it may look like you are doing God a favor, but the only thing
you have really done is built and formed a nice idol that stands in God's
way! Your church should not be promoting itself ever! God's church will be
promoting another church or ministry, not itself!

Otherwise all we will have is competition and division and that is exactly
what we have! Let God build His church and let God destroy yours! Beware
of the sand of what looks "successful!" The whole point is that to be like
Jesus, our goal must not be to be blessed, but to give ourselves away for
others to be blessed and to do it in secret! The only way we can all be
united as one is for all to enter into this Godly self destruction. I am
not talking about suicide so as to try and escape. I am talking about a
self destruction for the purpose of glorifying God and entering into His
will over our own. There is no room for any self glorification in this,
only humiliation! It is Satan's purpose for everyone, especially a
ministry or church, to enter into self exaltation and self glorification.
It was his downfall and very purpose for being cast out of Heaven. It is
God's purpose for us to enter into self destruction! Sometimes this means
that we must let go of something we are grasping to tightly to. Sometimes
this means letting go of everything we are holding onto. Sometimes this
means to die to our dreams and visions. Sometimes this will mean paying
the ultimate price, suffering to the point of the literal death of our
bodies, our ministries.

This is what Bonhoffer had to face. To many in his day, even his
denomination, he was a fool who committed suicide, but to God, what he did
was priceless, a glory for all eternity! Whatever promise God gave to you,
there is a time to plow and then their is a time to plant and a time to
harvest and a time to rest and then there is a time to give it to God and
allow Him to destroy it if He so chooses. I say again; This lack of self
destruction is probably the biggest problem we have in our churches today.
Many ministers understand everything but this. They do not equate it with
ministry. They equate it with everything, but ministry, but it is our life
that must be given away in order to gain it. If our life is ministering,
then it very well may mean ministry destruction. I believe that many works
of men, many ministries are to lay themselves down and die, but many
refuse, so God has made it a thorn in the minister's side and these
ministers are either choking and gasping for breath or are so deceived,
they have become completely unaware a comfortably numb. They think they
are doing God a favor and suffering for His name sake, when in all
actuality, they are fighting the hand of God. God comes not only just to
build and plant, but to destroy as well! To think any other way is to even
deny the wisdom of Jesus dying on the cross! That is why Jesus rebuked
Peter so severely when Peter tried to stop the self destruction of God.

To anyone going through this, standing there and letting go as you watch
God destroy everything you worked so hard to build is absolute insanity,
but let me assure you, it is the way of the Lord God Almighty! Many will
never understand this. Many will label you a fool. Many will ridicule and
call you a failure, but do not be dismayed! If you have been obedient in
this, then let me encourage you! You are a hero to me! You are becoming
like Jesus! You are following after Him and no one else! You have just
been tested and you will not have any other god before you! You are
entering into His rest! You are entering into His peace, which by the way,
surpasses all UNDERSTANDING! You are entering the hall of faith with those
who have gone before you, as told in Hebrews!

You are being conformed into the image of Christ! Your life is not in
vain! Your offering to God is a sweet aroma, the most precious kind! These
sacrifices of your life, your reputation, your humiliation, these are
badges of honor that you will wear for all eternity in the kingdom! Jesus
wore His scares even after He rose and so shall you! Do not be
down-hearted! Do not be discouraged! Do not consider yourself worthless
for your self is the very thing God wants, even demands! He will not
settle for anything but all of you, for He is an All or Nothing
proposition offered up so willingly for you so that you too could follow
Him and be an all or nothing proposition offered up so willingly for Him
and your brother! Let us all learn to die to that hideous self hiding in
all of us and may we all enter into the agony so we may enter the glory!
Peace and Love and grace and mercy and self destruction and humiliation to
one and all in Jesus!



Jan Ross
jross@...
http://focusontheword.com
ICQ#18767082

"Sha'alu Shalom Yerushalayim"
(Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem) Psalm 122:6

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