Page t The Staff and Sword Ministry November 6, 2002

IERY TRIALSPART 13By Nancy-TONI

"Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strangething has happened to you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that,

when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding jour." (I Peter 4:12-I3)

WAITING ON GOD"Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine

heart: wait, I say, on the Lord." Psalm 27:14

When praying about what the Lord Jesus would have me write about next, the Holy Spirit

impressed upon me the need to encourage everyone who wants to grow in Christ and whowants to enter into what God has for them to WAIT UPON GOD. This may sound simple atfirst but patience and faithfulness do not usually come naturally to us. The key here is not justwaiting upon God but waiting on God in the right Spirt, with the right attitude and dispositionin one's heart. I was reminded of this as I read what Andrew Murray wrote in his bookentitled, WAITING ON GOD*, where he wrote,

"It is with the heart that we must wait upon God.... All our waiting depends on the state of the

heart. As a man's heart is, so is he before God. We can advance no further or deeper into the

holy place of God's presence to wait on Him there, than our heart is prepared for it by the HolySpirit."

So, once again we are drawn back to the issue of the HEART and its importance in our walkin Christ. In this article I have the leading to share what I have been shown about having aright heart, a right attitude and disposition when waiting upon God so you too can see Himmove wonderfully and beautifully in every aspect of your life and walk in Him.

(* Waiting on God by Andrew Murray is published by Whitaker House, 30 Hunt Valley Circle, New Kensington, PA 15(168)

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AWARENESS OF OUR NEED FOR GOD

The first and basic attitude and disposition to begin to wait upon God from is one ofhumility and the awareness within yourself of your absolute need and dependency upon Godand Jesus Christ. The very acknowledgment that everything you have and that you consider"good" about yourself is originally from God and not from anything out of your self Evenyour very desire to know Jesus and your love for Him originate with and from God. There isno "good" thing found in you unless God put it there for only God is truly good. I say thisbecause Jesus said it in Matthew 19:17. Here a fellow had referred to Jesus as "GoodMaster", to which Jesus replied, "Why tallest thou me good? there is none good but one,that is, God:". So, if Jesus isn't `good', then we surely aren't.

The second basic attitude and predisposition is one of waiting upon God no matter what.What we are seeking ultimately is what Paul writes about in 2 Corinthians 4;6-7. It says here,"For God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to givethe light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have thistreasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not us. "

That the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us — this is what we are waitingupon for. No matter what answer to prayer you may be seeking or even if you are just seekingJesus Christ to know Him more intimately, you must get yourself out of the picture and waitupon God to initiate the response, fulfill the prayer request or empower you to do what He hascalled you to do. Either way, we must resist the urge to take matters into our hands when itappears that God is doing nothing, we must not fear we will miss out on what He has for usand we must trust that God is powerhil enough and faithful enough to do all that He haspromised He would do.

WAITING ON GOD FOR .... EVERYTHING

In Andrew Murray's book, as an example of waiting on God, he uses the analogy of anarmy that has gone forward to a certain point and has run out of orders. That army must thenstop and wait for not only instructions but supplies as well. He goes on to say that an armycannot move without orders and an army cannot function without supplies -- the army mustwait for both instructions and supplies. This is true for any Christian throughout their entirewalk in Christ. At each step or stage in our walk, we must never forget our reliance on God.We must always seek Him for not only instructions but the supplies and provision to carry outthose instructions. It is too easy to get a little instruction and then try to run with it when we

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WAITING ON GOD FOR ..... E E RYTHING continuedneed to seek God in how to even carry out those instructions. God wants to lead us and movethrough us each step of the way — there is never a point where we should say, "Okay God, I'lltake it from here±"

When it comes to "supplies" I consider even the very faith to obtain an answer to prayerpart of God's supply and provision. `Supplies' are whatever you need to obtain what God hasfor you and that can be a vision, insight, word or revelation just as much as it could be money,manpower and other physical means to get something done. There is no limit to God's supplyand what God considers important provision may not be what we think it is so we need to becareful to not put limits on what we think God will do and how He will do anything.

Andrew Murray, in his book, even goes a step further by stating, "And there is nothing so

necessary as to cultivate that spirit of dependence on God and of confidence in Him, which

refuses to go on without the needed supply of grace and strength." In other words, to develop

that spirit of dependence on God — to not only acknowledge our dependence on Him but topray to have that night spirit (from God) of dependence and to be at peace and have innerconfidence in God to meet your every need. In other words, to KNOW within your very beingand heart the reality of what Jesus said in Matthew 7:7, "Ask, and its/tall be given unto you;

seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. " And with this knowing is

the faithful assurance that God will take care of you and that if His answer to your prayerrequest is `no', or if He seems to delay in answering you, it is for a good reason.

PREPARING YOUR HEART

The main key to waiting on God in a right spirit is having a clean and right heart beforeGod. Remember, your heart is your gateway or connecting point between your soul and theSpirit of God. The cleaner your heart is, the easier waiting on God will be. If your heart is stillfull of sin and things of the self-nature, the heart will become clouded and the connectionbetween you and God will experience static like a bad phone line. It will be harder to hearHim and to know His Will for you when your heart is troubled or afraid. Therefore the heartmust be constantly cleaned and tended to with the Love of God so His Word and Will mayfind its home and manifest within us.

One good example of preparing and tending to your heart, and what happens if you don't,

in Scripture can be seen in the parable of the sower. As a refresher here is what Jesus said inMark 4:3-8.

"Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow: And it came to pass, as he sowed,some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. And some felt

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PREPARING YOUR HEART continued(Jesus in Mark 4:3-8 continued)"on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, becauseit had no depth of earth: But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had noroot, it withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and chokedit, and it yielded no fruit And other , fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang upand increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred."

Then in verses 14-20 Jesus explains what the parable means. He says,"The sower soweth the word And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown;but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that wassown in their hearts.And these are they likewise which are sown in stony ground; who, when the y have heardthe word, immediately receive it with gladness; And have no root in themselves, and soendure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word'ssake, immediately they are offendedAnd these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, and the caresof this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in ,choke the word, and it becometh unfruitfulAnd these are they which are sown on good ground; such as hear the word, and receiveit, and bring forth fruit, some thirty fold, some sixty, and some an hundred."

Now let's break this down and take a closer look at this.

First of all, Jesus explains that the seed being sown here is the Word. This word' can bethe Scriptures but it is also any word, vision or revelation you receive from the Lord whetherit is from Jesus directly, the Holy Spirit or through the brethren once it is borne witness to thatthe revelation or word is from the Lord God and His Spirit. It is important to understand thatbecause this parable is telling us what will happen to that Word, revelation, vision or insightif we aren't prepared to receive it properly and this has direct bearing on whether we will seethe fruit of the Spirit of God in our lives or not.

The first illustration Jesus gives here is that of the seed which is sown but falls by the wayside and the fowls of the air come and devour it up. Jesus explained that these are they whichhave heard the Word but Satan comes immediately afterward and takes away that which wassown in their hearts. So how can this be? I believe this is speaking of those who Jesus spokeof in Mark 7:6, "This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. "These are those that hold back and while they have salvation, they keep their heart far fromthe Lord to where when a word comes it barely touches their heart and Satan can easily come

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PREPARING YOUR HEART continuedin and take the word away. The person just won't receive God's word and remains guarded,skeptical or even fearful of God so the devil takes away that which God would plant.

The next example is that seed which fell on stony ground which sprang up immediately butbecause it had no depth or root, when the sun was up it was scorched and withered away.Jesus explained that these were those who have heard the Word and immediately receive it

with gladness but the seed takes no root in them so they endure only for a short time but when

affliction or persecution comes because of the Word's sake, they are offended.This is speaking of those who first come to the Lord Jesus and enjoy the grace, forgiveness

and love He has to offer but they don't want to die to themselves and let Him into their heart.There is a shell or hardness about thei r heart which let's the word come close but it doesn'tactually take root. I believe this is directly connected to why Paul wrote in Romans 2:29,"... circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter.

Jeremiah also wrote a similar thing in Jeremiah 4:3-4 where it says, "For thus saith theLord... Break up your fallow ground, sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to theLord, and take away the foreskins of your heart... "

And should you think that this can't happen to a Christian, it says in Mark 6:52 that someof those with Him "considered not the miracle of the loaves. , for their heart was hardened. "So you see, here is an example of seeing a miracle of God right before one's eyes but thenhaving it not take root and produce faith because their hearts were hardened.

I have found in my own personal experience that when I first started hearing a word fromthe Lord Jesus, I tended to keep it outside of myself, kind of like a secretary taking dictation.I heard it and wrote it down but then I would hand it over to Chuck-JOHNEL and leave it inhis hands. My job was done.... or so I thought. No, that isn't what God had in mind. Instead,as I became more comfortable with what God called me to do, the more I realized that eachword or revelation was a precious seed that God had given me and that I needed to embracethat word as if it were a part of Jesus and a part of me now. I had to review it from time to

time, to work with it and seek the Lord Jesus for further understanding. I had to take it within

me and seek the Lord to know more about it. This also meant dying to myself which is where

that circumcision comes in.

From what the Lord has shown me, the foreskin of our heart which needs to be circumcised

is our self-nature and the reactions and behavior patterns we have developed in an attempt to

keep us from further injury. It's like when you have a bad experience and you say in your

heart, I'm never going to let that happen to me again. Your soul then begins to put up walls

or defenses around your heart to fulfill that statement. The problem is that it forms a wall or

foreskin around your heart which can work to keep the Lord Jesus and the Spirit of God out

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PREPARING YOUR HEART continuedas well. An insight comes to mind that Lord gave Royal Cronquist, which goes like this —

"You don't have the right to be right; you don't have the right to bewrong; you only have the right to be broken."

I also remember Richard Wurmbrand's comment in one of his books to the effect that theonly Christians that came through the tortures and imprisonment in Christ were those who hadJesus in their heart. The best theologians that knew the Scriptures well would all crumble andfall if they didn't have Christ i_n their heart. Likewise, if your beliefs are build on yourunderstanding in your mind and you keep Jesus Christ at a distance from your heart, His Wordand life cannot take root in you and consequently when afflictions or persecutions arise, youwill be offended. Also, if we have not died to ourselves in our hearts, if have not yielded ourhearts completely to Jesus Christ, then when persecution arises we will seek to save our self-life which in turn will cause us to react in a way contrary to the Spirit and Life of Christ. Wemust let our hearts be made clean and kept pliable for the Love and Spirit of God to work inus and through us.

Now we come to the third example given by Jesus which is when the seed is sown amongthorns, which are those which hear the Word but the cares of the world, the deceitfulness ofriches, and the lusts of other things enter in and choke the word and it becomes unfruitful.

Like a faithful gardener, here is where vigilance comes in. Once we give our hearts to theLord and pray to die to our self-nature and that which would separate us from God, wesometimes find dark or prickly parts of our personality pop out from time to time like thorns.Like weeds, we have things in our hearts that must be put under the Blood of Jesus Christ andgiven over to Him for Him to remove or change as soon as they appear. It is helpful to simplybe aware when you find a thorn in your side speaking through you, to go before the Lordimmediately to give it over to Him. Like a weed, you don't want to let it stay there and grow

any longer than necessary because the longer you leave it, the more it takes root and theharder it is to get rid of later. For this reason, you must guard your heart and let go of the caresof this world and any lust or desire that would take your focus off of Jesus and onto yourselfor any trouble in this world.

And lastly we come to the final explanation of what happens when the Seed falls on goodground. Jesus explains that they which are sown on good ground are they that HEAR THEWORD, A'VD RECEIVE IT, and bring forth fruit. I draw attention to part about those thatHEAR THE WORD and RECEIVE THE WORD because this is important. It's like I waswriting about before where it is not just enough to hear the Word of the Lord but we also must

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PREPARING YOUR HEART continuedRECEIVE the Word into our hearts. We must let it become a part of us and we must let theSpirit of God do the rest. Just like in a garden, the seed must be Jeff alone in the soil for it togrow, there is nothing you personally can do to the seed to make it grow. All you can do isto create the right conditions for that seed to grow. You need to let the Love of God shine intoyour heart, you can water it with the Water of Word of God and the Spirit of God. You canabide in the Vine, Jesus Christ, and He will make it grow. You can pray to give your heart toJesus, asking Him to create in you clean heart and to put your sin under His Blood that youmay be washed white as snow. You can wait upon God with your heart open to Him and Hewill do the rest.

KEEPING YOUR LAMP TRIMMED

While praying for insight into how to write this article, the Holy Spirit gave a knowing anda vision. The knowing was that the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25:1-13 is also anexample of waiting on God and that preparing our hearts is directly related to keeping ourlamps trimmed and ready. With that knowing was a vision of me with my hands cuppedaround a lamp that I knew was my heart. There was light coming from it but I knew that Ineeded to care for my lamp/heart by surrendering it to Jesus to ensure the light didn't go out.I also knew that this was the key to being ready when the Bridegroom comes and the HolySpirit immediately brought to mind that Jesus did say, "Blessed are the pure in heart: forthey shall see God "

In other words, the purer the heart, the more the Light of God will shine forth from it andit is those that have prepared their hearts that will see God and Jesus Christ in their fullness.

However, the parable also says that the Bridegroom tarried and that means that the virgins,the prospective brides, must wait for Him. So this brings me back to the point of this article,the importance of WAITING ON GOD in a right spirit, attitude and disposition because thereare going to be some of us that run out of oil before the time comes. I say "some of us"because I believe Jesus was talking g of believers when He spoke of the virgins because boththe wise and the foolish were waiting for the Bridegroom. The difference is that some virginshad prepared themselves and others hadn't; and the reason I say this is because when thefoolish virgins ran out of oil, they were instructed to go and buy some more. I believe this isn'tso much referring to the act of buying something as it is of paying the price. The price ofdying to ourselves and giving up our own life that we may obtain the life of Christ. The priceof dealing with the thorns which arise in our hearts and the temptation to harden it. The priceof constantly be vigilant to not allow sin into our hearts to where we lose the love of God.

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KEEPING YOUR LAMP TRIMMED continuedI say this because of the warnings from Jesus I see in Scripture that cause me to not take my

walk and relationship with Jesus for granted. In Matthew 7:21-23 Jesus said,

"Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; buthe that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day,Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils?and in thy name done many wonderful works?And I wilt profess unto them, I never knewyou: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. "

Later Jesus also said, "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax

cold" ( Matthew 24:12)

I see these Scriptures are warnings because in Matthew 7 these are people doing things inthe name of the Lord but in their heart they are not doing the Will of the Father but rather, theyare working iniquity (sin and wickedness). Their motives are other than those which seemapparent. Underneath the surface the individuals were not doing the Will of the Father but

seeking to follow their own will and doing so they are making man lord instead of God andGod must always be in first place in our hearts.

The second Scripture from Matthew 24, to me, connects directly to the parable of the sowerand the need to deal with the sin in our hearts that can flourish like thorns and choke out theWord and Spirit of God. The warning of letting cares of the world, deceits and lusts remainin our hearts like weeds that grow and choke out the life of the seed would plant thereproduces the same effect of iniquity abounding and causing the love of many to wax cold ....

their Light has gone out.

The other interesting side to that first Scripture quoted above is that you can see that Jesus'

Name has a power of its own. After all it says that they were able to prophesy, cast out devilsand do wonderful works in His Name so how can that be working iniquity? They workediniquity because they were not doing the Will of the Father, which means that it wasn't Godthat led them to do those things. This is why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:6-7, "that the

excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. " We as Christians have a power given

to us through Jesus and in His Name but just as Jesus did nothing except the Father showed

Him, we too must do the same. We need to learn to wait upon God and to come to know the

Will of the Father before we presume to act on His behalf. We need the kind of relationshipwith Jesus as Jesus had with the Father when He walked the earth, and to obtain that we mustcultivate the good ground in our hearts so that Jesus will make His abode there.

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KEEPING THE FAITH IN TIMES OF TROUBLE

It is too easy to think that we have done something wrong when we experience times oftrouble and difficulty and yet that is not always the case. Very often the Lord allows difficultexperiences to afflict as so that we may ever be made aware of our deep need of Him. Godwants us to wait on Him in good times and in bad. He never said this life wouldn't havetroubles but He did promise to bring us through them. Just look what David wrote in Psalm33:18-22:

"Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy;To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waiteth or theLord: he is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in him, because we havetrusted in his holy name. Let thy mercy, 0 Lord, he upon us, according as we hope in thee. "

Likewise, we see the Lord's help to come through difficulties in 2 Corinthians 4:6-10, Justfollowing what Paul wrote about the God commanding the light to shine out of darkness andinto our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of JesusChrist so that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of ourselves. He goes onto say,

"We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed: Always bearing about in thebody the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also ofJesus might be made manifest in ourbody. "

"Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus", this the price we pay tohave His Light shine forth in our hearts. And as part of that price comes troubles, beingperplexed at times, persecution and even being cast down, but with Christ in our hearts, weare not distressed, we need not despair, God will not forsake us and we will not be destroyed_Instead, these fiery trials will serve to refine us as fire refines gold to make us more like Christso that we may manifest His Life and His Love in our mortal flesh.

TRUST JESUS

To wait upon God and Jesus Christ is to really TRUST GOD and Jesus Christ as you neverhave before. It means not only trusting in Him but also embracing God and Jesus Christ withinyour heart and relying on Him as never before. This may sound easy but in truth, you may findsome hidden hurts, disappoints and fears lurking within you that will seek to cause you toclose your heart lest it get hurt or disappointed again. The very fear of missing what God has

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TRUST JESUS continuedfor you, can cause you anxiety and doubts. The fear that He isn't going to do what you wantHim to do will also bring you to not trust Hum as you should. These are all areas that as theyarise, you will need to die to. To die to self is to die to these areas that seek to hinder yourrelationship with Jesus Christ. These are the very areas that Jesus will use circumstances andtroubles in your life to reveal them to you so that you can then yield them to God and JesusChrist to get rid of them. However, you must again trust in God and trust in Jesus to point

where you are willing to let Him see every part of you without fear of rejection and with awillingness to let Jesus remove these sin areas no matter the cost to you personally.

When times are difficult for you, it is always good to put your focus on the promises of Godand the things that Jesus has said to keep your heart open and focus on Christ. One suchScripture is Matthew 7:8-11, where Jesus says,

"For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him thatknocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, willhe give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? I, f'ye then, being evil,know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father whichis in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"

God the Father so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son. Jesus Christ loved us somuch that He came and died on the cross to save us. So with this in mind, we have no rightto even suggest that God and Jesus Christ do have our best interest in mind at all times. Wejust need to wait on Them to find out what Will that is.

REST AND WAIT UPON THE LORD

As a final word of encouragement, let's look at Psalm 37:7,9 & 34. Here it says,'Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him.... those that wait upon the Lord, they shall

inherit the earth.... Wait on the Lord, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit theland.

Rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him and He shall exalt thee to inherit the land. Whata beautiful promise! Rest and wait on the Lord... this is the Holy Spirit's message to you atthis time. Let the determination of your heart be:

"Let nothing in heaven or earth or hell keep (me) from waiting on (my) Godin full assurance that it cannot be in vain." (Quote from Andrew Murray)