Stretch yourself
Apparently, the older you get,
the less likely you are to stretch when lying down at night or rising in the
morning. As a result, we become less flexible, our joints become stiffer, and our
bodies develop aches and pains in all sorts of places. We then resign ourselves
with the statement, ‘Well, we are not as young as we used to be!’
This mind-set naturally follows
into every other area of our lives, and we find ourselves giving up on the dreams
and ideas that we had when we were a bit younger.
Stretching is natural and good
for you. It lengthens the muscles and helps distribute fluid around the body;
it actually feels good and refreshes you, releasing strength into your limbs, and
putting your body back into shape.
I have met many young men who
once had big ambitions and plans for doing something great in this world to
reach people with the good news. They were enthusiastic, motivated, and ready
to climb spiritual mountains to be the best they could be for God.
By the time they had their first
child and begun the weekly routine of shopping expeditions and school-runs, all
of their dreams had faded into a forgotten past. They were now ‘settled’,
employed, working on their pension plan, and buying new furniture for the house
to keep the ‘missus’ happy.
They no longer had time for prayer
walks, evangelistic outreaches, or any plans to reach the nations for Jesus. They
‘had responsibilities’ now! Their spiritual muscles turned to floppy fat, their
minds became obsessed with the things of this world, and the call of God got
replaced with the demands of family and holidays.
From God’s kingdom first, it went
to ‘I have no time for that!’
From marching on in the light of
God as a soldier of the cross, they became couch potatoes and lumps of mushy
peas with no shell or spiritual vitality. It might have been the wife or the lady vicar who took on
the role of spiritual leadership, because the man threw off his God-given responsibility,
and surrendered to the demons of submission and compromise.
Shame on you men!
I do not care what your age may
be, neither the circumstances you find yourself in right now; the Bible calls
you to turn around and do the first works, go back and pick up the baton: for
you have not finished running the race that you once began.
You left your first love, says
Revelation2:4; and the word follows, ‘Go back to where you left off! Remember
where you discarded it.’
Most believers miss-quote this
verse and change the word ‘left’ to ‘lost’. They say that you have ‘lost’ your
first love, but this is not the case. God says that you ‘left’ your first love.
Losing something may be accidental, carelessness, and not necessarily your own
fault; but to ‘leave’ something is a deliberate action for which you are
totally responsible and accountable.
Coming back to God, returning to
the call of God on your life, is also a deliberate action that only you can
take. ‘Return to me, and I will return to you,’ says the Lord. Though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; even if they be deep red
crimson, they shall be washed as clean as whitened wool.
What does it mean to have left
our ‘first love’?
Look back to the moment of your
conversion and the early days when your heart was all taken up with the
goodness of God. Look at the zeal and enthusiasm you had to tell the whole
world what Christ had done for you. (Now of course, if that has never been your
experience, then maybe all you ever had was ‘religion’, but no personal friendship
with Christ, and no knowledge of God.)
You had plans to reach out to
others, ideas for evangelism, dreams of reaching the young people with the
life-changing power of the gospel. You ran to church on Sundays and never missed
the prayer meeting. You opened your Bible every morning to search for the
golden nuggets of wisdom and encouragement, before starting your day.
You were always ready to talk of
Jesus, and would steer every conversation towards the message that had given you
eternal life.
Nowadays you talk of football,
listen to ungodly music, and yibber-yabber about anything except the gospel of
Christ. You are all taken up with the world and its godless ways, and know more
about fashion and film stars, of business and money, than you do the teachings
of God’s Word.
And you wonder why you are a spiritual 'stiff', and your soul is lying on a cold slab inside some spiritual mortuary,
awaiting dissection by all the cares and anxieties of the demons of a
devil-driven age.
Paul says, ‘This one thing I do,
forgetting the things that are past, which are behind me, and reaching out to
those things that sit as possibilities and opportunities in front of me, I
stretch myself toward the finish line for the prize of the high calling of God
in Christ Jesus’.
He said that he would not look
back to what had gone on before, whether that be good or bad, beautiful or
ugly. His eyes were focused on a prize! He looked and ran for the finish line!
Nothing must distract him, nothing turn him aside.
He would not look at defeat or
failure, nor obstacles or mountains of impossibility, but he would muster every
ounce of faith and refine it into action.
He would stretch himself. He
would get up and draw strength into all his sinews, flex every muscle,
concentrate all his energies into fulfilling the call of God on his life.
Action, my friend!
Nothing less
will do if you are to save yourself from the tragedy of lukewarm-ness and its fatal
consequences. ‘So then because you are
lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue you out of my mouth.’
(Revelation 3:16)
It's no good sitting there in your
armchair waiting for ‘a move of God’. It will not come.
God is waiting for you!
There is a river of life flowing
from the throne of God that brings healing and refreshing, life-transforming
power, and the quickening of his Spirit into dead souls.
That river is not coming to you.
You have to go to the river. ‘But you will not come to me that you might have
life’. (John 5:40)
If you left something behind,
then you need to retrace your steps and go pick it up again. Lazy spirits get
nothing and go nowhere.
Revival does not come by waiting.
Revival starts when we get serious about our forlorn condition, the dreadful state
of the church, and the absence of godliness in the land. It has its root in the
conviction that we need to get right with God.
‘Seek the Lord while he may be
found: call upon him while he is near to you. Let the wicked forsake his wicked
ways, and let the unrighteous man cast away his unrighteous thoughts: and let
him return unto the Lord and to our God, and he will have mercy upon him; and
to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.’
(Isaiah 55:6-7)
It is surely time to stretch
ourselves, prepare to meet the day, rise up from our spiritual death-beds, and
get to know what it really means when Jesus said, ‘The kingdom of heaven suffers
violence, and the violent take it by force.’
People interpret that many ways
it seems, but Jesus spoke of the heart. When a man seeks for hidden treasure,
he will spend his money, his time, and every effort to gain his dream. No
mountain will be too big for him to climb, and no storm too fierce for him to
brave.
Jacob said to the angel (when wrestling with him all night), ‘I will not let you go until you bless me!’ Now, if he had been a twenty first century ‘believer’, he would just have given up after five minutes, and said, ’Oh, I can’t be bothered with all this!’
It is
only when we are awoken from our deadly sleep and slumber that we see where we
really are. It is then, in earnestness and even desperation, we take hold of the
door to the kingdom and shake it with our prayer and supplication, that we begin
to understand what it means when it says the violent take it by force.
God looks to see how real we are,
how serious we are, how sold-out we are. Jacob was in trouble and needed God’s
help, but Jacob wanted the blessing of his God more than anything else in his life,
and he would not move, neither flinch at the pain or the cold evening air, until he
got all he wanted from heaven.
Procrastination will dehydrate
your soul of all that might be good. Idly waiting for a door to open will send
you into spiritual sleep from which you may never awaken.
‘I have set before you an open
door,’ says the Lord. However, you will never know if the door is open unless
you stir yourself up to seek the Lord, and then try every handle of every door
until you find the one that is right in front of you. It may not appear open,
but if there is a handle on it, you might just find it unlocked and awaiting
your diligent search.
Away with all the frivolity of
this age! Time is fast running out for you to obey God and do something worthwhile
in his kingdom. Once you breathe your last breath, then time shall be no more,
and all that you should have done, and all that you now might only intend to do,
shall be lost in feeble regret.
Do not look at the years of your life young or old, but look unto Jesus who will strengthen you to do exploits in his name.
Stretch yourself to do what you have never started. Stretch yourself to complete the call that you lay down long ago. Stretch yourself to live the life of a warrior and soldier of Jesus Christ.
Go fight the
principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world and
spiritual wickedness in high places that have taken captive multitudes of
our young people, and imprisoned them into their cells of sin and evil.
Never give in. Never surrender.
Never lay down the ensign of our God. Never leave the battlefield, but fight on
until the King bursts through the clouds to take us all home.
Not all who run in a race get the
prize. Make sure you run as one who wants to win that prize for the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus. (1Corinthians 9:24)
I pray God blesses this word to
you.
JGM 2022 Telling it like it is
