February
6, 2018
Do
you live on your own? Are you
married? Are you a mom? Do you work outside the home? Do you have a boss? Are your parents still living?
Isn’t
it amazing that you have all these things?
Children, a job, parents and a home!
Or do you find yourself complaining about some hardship? Your kids are sick. Your boss or co-workers are less than
pleasant. Or the work is unlikable. Your parents nag you about something. Or your home is not picture perfect.
Are
you still complaining after all you’ve read in our study so far? You’ve witnessed the amazing power of God,
yet you are somehow unsatisfied.
Perhaps
you’re like Moses and you’re fed up with other people complaining and you want
to quit. Maybe you’ve lashed out at God
asking Him why the situation you are in has not ended.
In
our reading for today, we see God’s provision of sending 70 people to take on
Moses’ burden of dealing with these people and God sent yet another miracle –
meat – to feed over 600,000 people! We see the complaints over who's the leader. We see the fear of the unknown. We see those who wholly follow the Lord, and those who rebel and get punished.
Are
you willing to take the risk of allowing someone else to take on
responsibility? I know many parents
struggle with this. It’s much easier to
do it yourself, than allowing your children to learn. Or possibly you belong to a group or
committee and you’ve worked together for years and have a system of doing
things, but your pastor or boss is new and wants to bring in new people and
their ideas and talents to the group.
Are you willing to trust them with your old job/tasks? Are you willing to let them be part of the
team and use their gifts and talents?
We
complement each other - but sometimes
they don’t do things the way I would do them.
If I’m a wise leader, I’m going to be appreciative of the different
values and strengths and unique gifts that these people bring, and I’m not
going to be insecure when God puts His Spirit on their life or in a way that He
hasn’t revealed in mine. I’m going to
rejoice when God uses them.
We
all need the fullness and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, in whatever God has
called us to do at this season of life.
We ought not to try to serve the Lord without that anointing and the
empowering of His Holy Spirit. Without
the Holy Spirit, we can do nothing. So
the burden of being a wife and mother, the burden of going to work, the burden
of mentoring or discipling, the burden of serving God cannot be borne
successfully apart from the enabling and empowering of the Holy Spirit.
God
can put His Spirit in anyone. God will
enable you to do things that He calls you to do that are extraordinary – things
that you could not do in your own strength.
When you see people doing something different than you, perhaps you have
learned or always believed that a particular denomination is not doing the Lord’s
work correctly, just remember that we cannot control the work of the Holy
Spirit. (Numbers 11:26-29 and Luke
9:49-50)
There’s
a broad spirit that includes any and all of God’s servants who are set apart by
God and anointed by His Spirit to do His work.
They don’t have to do it our way and we don’t have to control when and
how and where it happens.
Aren’t
you glad for people that God raises up to be influences in your family and
friend’s lives? If you feel like you
have to be the only one who’s mentoring or training them, you’re living in a
very small world.
God may put His Spirit on others to speak a word of truth or blessing or encouragement to the ones you love. Can you rejoice in that?
