Walking in the Spirit

Greetings,

I won’t waste words this week with long introductions. It occurred to me that I haven’t really discussed in this blog what my job here at the church is. I’m primarily a painter here in the maintenance ministry. This week I have been repairing the plaster and painting in “The Tunnel.” The Tunnel is in the basement of this immense church. It has been dubbed as such because it is just a long, twisty corridor of narrow passages with lower-than-average ceilings. I could paint the ceiling by hand without the use of a ladder or extension pole. I’m not finished with this project yet, but I have finished the first long hallway.

This past Sunday I also worked security on the third floor of the Annex, which is the children’s department. This was the first time that I have worked security on that floor and I felt unprepared. Unlike painting, there’s nothing really physically demanding about doing security, but it is mentally taxing because you have the responsibility of paying careful attention to all that goes on and all the hundreds of people and children who go in and out of there on any given Sunday. It’s a HUGE responsibility! For the sake of not harming anyone even by a little mistake, I’d rather paint. It stresses me out to think about what could happen if I got distracted even for a minute at the wrong time while doing security. But just like everything else, I have no ability to perform this responsibility in the weakness of my flesh. My self-effort will only result in disappointment and failure. We have to walk in the Spirit and believe God for His ability for everything that we do. God makes Himself available to us for this through Christ Jesus. Our activity is either done in the flesh or in the Spirit; there is nothing in between. Regardless of what the activity is, God wants us to rely on Him; to do EVERYTHING as unto the Lord. Do you think that it pleases God for you to do even the most seemingly meaningless task by self-effort? Did it ever occur to you that performing your daily tasks by self-effort in the weakness of your flesh is the very reason why some of you hate your jobs? You go home irritated and exhausted because you performed your job all day by self-effort—by the flesh. We don’t hate our jobs merely because we aren’t passionate about them. I have come to realize that only focusing on what you are passionate about is a lie of the devil. And it is the reason that many people my age change majors in college seven times and then can’t find a job that they enjoy. Even something you love can become meaningless, boring, or burdensome if you are doing it in the flesh, by self-effort. Nothing you do in the flesh has any power to produce the fruit of the Spirit, namely love, joy, peace, patience, etc. These are the things we are longing to find in our daily work, and these are the things that we need to perform our daily activities and interactions, but these fruits cannot be produced by the work of the flesh. We know this, and yet we fail to trust God to perform through us, by His Spirit, even the smallest tasks. Even washing dishes can become an act of worship if you let the Holy Spirit work through you, with thanksgiving to Him. This is not because washing dishes is important! It is because you are washing dishes for the Lord with His help! Don’t you know that God wants to live through you? He wants to be intimately involved in our lives. The Holy Spirit wants to be a co-laborer with you to empower you.

Worship is not by means of a particular activity; worship is by means of the attitude of your heart. Anything done for God with thanksgiving and dependence on Him is worship. However, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that everything done in the flesh is sin. Maybe this is something that God will have to reveal to me, but I cannot see how sharpening your pencil in the flesh is an outright sin. But at the same time, it doesn’t bring pleasure to God either. It is simply meaningless and counts for nothing as far as worship goes. God will reward the widow in heaven for offering her last penny for the Lord, trusting Him to provide her needs. Meanwhile, the businessman who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, established a billion-dollar company and then gave millions away to charity will receive nothing in heaven because he did it all in self-effort without even acknowledging God. He has already received his reward. This principle seems backwards to our thinking, but, like it or not, it is the way the Kingdom works.

Last Sunday when Pastor Carter, the senior pastor here at TSC, returned from vacation, he confirmed what God has been showing me since before I moved here and which I have been writing about in my blog entries. Pastor Carter related to the congregation that Sunday morning (August 9^th) how he and Pastor Teresa, his wife, experienced one of the most rewarding seasons of prayer while on vacation. He then announced his message, entitled “The Secret of Spiritual Power.” I will not relate the content of that sermon here. Instead I encourage you all to listen to this message yourself. You can download it at http://www.tscnyc.org/sermons.php. And just what is the secret of spiritual power? Servanthood. After hearing his sermon, which he based from Luke 22:24-30, I became even more convinced of what God informed me that He would be dealing with me about while I am here at Times Square Church: “Establishing my authority from a low place.” Not only that, but it is evident to me now that the Lord is very interested in instilling this principle and lifestyle, by the Spirit, in all of His Church abroad, or at least His church in Times Square. It is by following in Jesus’ footsteps—being a servant to all—that we will receive/achieve greatness and authority from God—(cf. Luke 22:28-30). And this is always the case. If you think that once you are anointed a delegated authority for God that you can stop serving, you have missed the point entirely: ministry (service) and authority are inseparable. One has received authority because he or she has been given a ministry.

And so, here I am at Times Square Church just serving. Yet this is the highest thing anyone can do. But remember this: if we serve and invest in man/for man, we will always be disappointed or discouraged because we are looking at results or depending on our efforts. But if we do everything as ministry to the living God with dependence on Him we will not be disappointed for it will no longer be results or success or striving that matters, but Spirit-empowered obedience to God. Disobedience and God-ordained authority cannot co-exist.

Lord, enable us to serve with total dependence upon Your power to perform, and help us to serve others, not begrudgingly, but as serving You.