You’ll know the spirit in which such individuals walk by their reaction to the rejection of their proclamations. A messenger is tasked with delivering a message and has no emotional attachment to whether those to whom they deliver the message receive it or reject it. Someone trying to elevate their status by claiming supernatural experiences or insight, however, will react with bitterness and vitriol when their assertions are confronted with Scripture, because they had a vested interest in being seen as spiritually superior to those he was addressing.
Simply put, a messenger’s only duty is to deliver the message
in the same manner it was received. His feelings don’t enter into the equation,
nor do his opinions, and once the message is delivered, his duty is done. Being
tasked with delivering a message from God isn’t a springboard to prominence,
fame, and fortune for the messenger. A faithful servant, a true messenger, does
his utmost to remain unseen, unnoticed, and unassuming, because he doesn’t want
to take away from the message itself or make himself the focal point rather
than the message.
Self-importance is corrosive to the spiritual man and has led
many an individual to set aside their duties in exchange for chasing the
limelight. The pattern is as clear as day. An individual receives a message
they are tasked with delivering, they deliver the message, those to whom they
deliver it begin to elevate them, they take a liking to it, and rather than be
in an environment of humility, obedience, prayer, and faithfulness, rather than
reject the praises of men and shift the focus to Christ and the cross, they
start to believe their own hype, and feed off the adulation of their
contemporaries. Because they are no longer in the position they once were,
having allowed distraction and the pride of life to divert them from their
purpose, that once vibrant relationship becomes stale, and their singular focus
shifts to their name, reputation, reach, popularity, and legacy.
Micah 6:8, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what
does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with your God?”
No matter how great the calling you’ve been called to, no
matter what duty you have been tasked with, no matter the number of people
sitting in your pews on any given week, what is required of you is to do
justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. There is no tier system with
God. You don’t get to shrug off His commandments, requirements, or standards
once you get beyond a certain number of members or once you’ve walked with Him
for an allotted time.
God requires that we start out walking humbly with Him and
finish our race in the same manner. He requires that we start out doing justly,
and loving mercy, and end our race doing the same. The only thing that changes
from when we start our race to when we finish it is the depth to which we know
God, the lessening of self, and the increase of Him, the maturing of our
spiritual man and the withering of the flesh to the point that it is dead and
no longer holds any sway.
At the start of any journey, the destination is afar off. We
know where we want to get to, but if we’ve never been there, all we have is an
idea in our minds, an image we hope will materialize into reality. If you live
in the Midwest and you’re traveling to Florida, you expect that as you get
closer, cross from Georgia into Florida, you’ll begin to see palm trees, and
eventually, if you drive long enough in the right direction, the glorious ocean
with its blue waters and lapping surf. If you start seeing snow-capped mountains
and evergreens instead, at some point you’ll have to acknowledge you’re driving
in the wrong direction and course correct. The closer we get to where we want
to be, the clearer it becomes. It crystallizes, and the signs that we’re
getting close become evident.
When we begin the race, the finish line is nowhere in sight,
but we know that it exists. We persist, we endure, we press on, because we know
the purpose for which we are exerting ourselves, and though we might not see it
in the physical, we have faith that one day the race will have been run to
completion, we will have completed our journey, and receive our prize.
At some point, the finish line comes into view, it’s so close
we can see it before us, and we get our second wind, all the struggle, the
hardship, and the pain having been validated by the absolute knowledge that our
faith was not misplaced, we weren’t running in circles, but toward a clear and
defined goal.
One inevitably grows in faith the longer they walk with God.
They have the experience of having known His presence, felt His love, seen His
hand, and witnessed His mighty power, and they transition from the faith that
comes by hearing to walking in faith, growing in it, and learning to wield it
with each passing day.
Faith is active. It is ever-growing, stretching, reaching, maturing,
evolving, and those who find themselves in a state of stagnation must not take
it lightly or dismiss it. There is always a root cause for why one’s faith
stagnates. Usually, it’s because we’ve become so busy being busy that we’ve neglected
the essential practices, such as fasting, prayer, and studying the Word.
Spiritual stagnation and spiritual decline are not accidental, nor do they occur
absent an underlying cause. If the enemy can keep someone from noticing it,
from being alarmed by it, and course-correcting, returning to the consistent
practice of the things that once made them grow, they will eventually find
themselves back where they started, wondering how they got there.
Consistent prayer works consistently. It works to grow, to strengthen, to enlighten, and to mature the spiritual man in ways nothing else can. It may sound like an oversimplification, but the most profound truths are usually simple ones. Do what works!
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Posted on 6 June 2025 | 11:31 am
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