Greetings;
God has not called you to be someone you are not, but He has called you to be who you are today. When King David was watching sheep, what was his anointing? He had the anointing to be a shepherd in the manner of a king. When the lion and the bear came against the flock, David rose up with a kingly anointing and executed the judgment of a shepherd upon the trespassers of the flock. When David was called upon to deliver cheese to his brothers at the battle line, his anointing was to deliver the cheese in a kingly manner. When he heard the giant Goliath defy the living God, David’s heart burned as a worshipper of the one and only living God. He executed judgment upon Goliath with the kingly anointing of a worshipper of God. When he was called upon to serve in the house of Saul, he served Saul as a servant of the king in a kingly way. When he was fleeing for his life before Saul, his anointing was to stay alive and still honor the king with the honor of a king. When David was anointed as king he became the king with the anointing of the king. David’s journey was a journey of authority. He was faithful to be who he was called to be in each season of the day. In all that David did, he functioned as a king (a king = one that is supreme or preeminent in a particular group, category, or sphere).
Walking in authority is not a matter of attaining to a position. It is a matter of always functioning. Those who have personal responsibility today possess the fields where God harvests the tools of tomorrow’s authority. Consider the life of Moses. He was eighty years old before he was called upon to deliver God’s people from Egypt. He had to be faithful in Egypt as a prince and then faithful in the wilderness as a shepherd. He had to be faithful in riches and faithful in the mundane world of keeping sheep in the wilderness. It was in the place of serving his father-in-law that he encountered God who would anoint him for the task of bringing deliverance to his people in Egypt.
Exodus 3:1-10 Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” So when the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father–the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. And the LORD said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. “So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. “Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. “Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
Something inside of Moses inspired him to know he was meant to deliver his people. He had attempted to fight for them in his own power when he was forty, but authority doesn’t come from the will of self. Authority comes from God. It is not a position of power to be taken. Authority is a responsibility to be received.
Moses had to learn to be faithful in the wilderness. It was in that everyday world that he had an encounter with God. His encounter with God was compelling him to become who he was meant to be. He had to come to faith in who he was. Our own encounters with God come in the everyday world of our lives. Our everyday circumstances can be a challenge to our coming to faith for the authority God is calling us to. We must find God where we live, but then we must be willing to leave where we live and pursue God where He desires us to go.
Exodus 3:11-14 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” So He said, “I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
The authority of God is not based upon what He does. It is based upon who He is. Who He is determines all that He can do. The same is true in our lives. Our authority doesn’t come from the things we are called to do. Our authority comes from who we are. Who we are determines what we can and will do in life. Our identity in authority doesn’t come from what we do, but from who we were born to be. There is authority in the things we do, but that authority is based upon who we are.
Moses had lived in the wilderness for forty years. He had walked the mountainous terrain of Mt. Horeb in his everyday task of tending to his father-in-law’s sheep. In being faithful with what belonged to another, Moses was manifesting the authority of who he was. He had no idea that the very ground that had been so familiar with would become the ground that would reveal the miracles of God in the future. Spectacular things were destined to happen at Horeb. The everyday sheep pastures of Horeb would one day be the ground for binging change to the whole nation of Israel. God’s presence would be revealed, His law would be given, water would come from the rock and bread would appear upon the ground. The familiar ground of today would become the supernatural testimony for the nation of Israel. The mountain was the backyard of Moses. It was his everyday situation. That everyday situation would become an extraordinary land of testimony.
The mountain of God is found in your everyday situation, not somewhere else. It was the same old place that Moses had been walking around for 40 years. God had been doing a work in the heart of Moses. The Egyptian Moses had to die before the Hebrew Moses could be revealed. He, like each of us, had to die to his own personal agenda. He couldn’t be Pharaoh’s son. He had to be God’s son. Moses had to find out who he really was.
The place that God has provided for you is not very far off. Who are you? God knows who He is. You are who you are, but who you are not must die before you can see who you really are. Your everyday world will prove to be the supernatural ground of God’s testimony in the lives of others. You must be faithful in your everyday responsibilities and expect to see God in the land in which you live. The burning bush is not in some other place. It is in the ground of your proving. It is within your grasp. What is in your hand?
Exodus 4:1-4 Then Moses answered and said, “But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, ‘The LORD has not appeared to you.’ ” So the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” And he said, “A rod.” And He said, “Cast it on the ground.” So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail” (and he reached out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand)…
Moses had to rely upon the thing that was comfortable for him. The thing that worked for him was what was to be destiny in his hand. It was the thing he had leaned upon. He had to let go of it, however. He couldn’t hold on to it. He had to cast it into the hands of God and let God bring life to it. The mundane had to take on the life of God.
Whatever it is that God has called you to do is in your hand right now. No matter what stage it might be in, or what form it might take, in your hand is the destiny that God has called you to. Sometimes we fail to see it because we are holding on to it so tight, and we are failing to give it to God to let it serve Him. It seems too natural to us. What is in your hand? What are you responsible for? How can you serve God with who you are and what you have today? How can you put it in God’s hand and let Him bring life to it? What is it that works for you? Moses didn’t get a new rod. The shepherd’s staff became the rod of deliverance for Israel. David didn’t get new armor to face Goliath. He had the same old sling. When we put what is in our hand in God’s hand, God can use it and make it a thing of resurrection life.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Love it. Once again fitting for the times we are in..
Journeying !