4 Aug 2013 by Natasha Kim CM-
Pastor Malcolm Dennis of Full Gospel Assembly (FGA) was a guest speaker at the River of Life Sanctuary, Puchong. He shared about the importance of letting go when God challenges us to, for He will bring us to greener and better pastures.
Right after the praise and worship, and a moment of prayer for those who needed healing Malcolm began his sermon.
Then he said to them all, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? (Luke 9:23-25)
In the verses above, Jesus urged this of His disciples before he was crucified on the cross. You are precious to God and having granted you the free-will, He hopes that you will seek Him, for the life of this world isn’t about losing your life but saving your life.
“We live in an age where we are territorial, self-protective, guarded, and want to save 'face'! We want to protect our reputation, guard our ministry, and guard and protect everything that belongs to us but there are times where God will bring us to a place where he wants us to lose something of ourselves. For example, rights, titles, something you’ve built up, a relationship etc,” said Malcolm. There are people in life who will want to take what you have worked hard for!
Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness; He is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous. A good man deals graciously and lends; He will guide his affairs with discretion. Surely he will never be shaken; The righteous will be in everlasting remembrance. He will not be afraid of evil tidings; His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. His heart is established; He will not be afraid, Until he sees his desire upon his enemies. (Psalm 112: 4-8)
When you find yourself in a place where nothing is moving, be sure that the only thing that is moving is the spirit of God! Life gets difficult at times even for the best of people, but such times of darkness are special times.
“There are times and seasons in our life where God is creating something new. Whenever He wants to bring something into being, He needs to bring something to death first, that which is expiring,” shared Malcolm.
God doesn’t want us to be stuck in one mold! There are even times where things are brought to change because people’s perspective about God that has expired, because they only look at him in one way or dimension, and because they only expect God to move a certain way in their lives.
“This is a way of creating God according to our image. God will not lower Himself and allow Himself to conform to our expectations for He is always outside the boundaries of our expectation, enlarging it and filling it with deeper knowledge of who He is and the way He works,” shared Malcolm.
God brought His son Jesus Christ to a place where he had to suffer loss too!
When the spirit of God is working through this truth of suffering and loss, we need to recognize it and yield to God.
“God is bringing His cross to bear upon our hearts and into our soul” said Malcolm.
He is bringing us the capacity to let things go without maneuvering, manipulating, or enforcing to get the desired results. However, this is hard to learn because this way of living is pretty much alien to our nature.
“Our nature is more like Jacob in the Bible that wants to grab and take!” said Malcolm.
The pressure of life pushes people towards harsh and unreasonable decisions. On the surface our actions may look legitimate but in reality some things we do are not.
Things happen! When you hear God knocking on the door, then it’s time to move on. God challenges us to let go of things that don’t count so that you can come into the things that count; things that are deeper, heavier, greater, stronger and more lasting that what we already have now.
“Our insecurity can cause us to overstay and hold on too possessively to things. This causes us to lose out on a new season because we are too short-sighted,” shared Malcolm.
Unless your heart comes into the presence of God and turns toward Him, you will not be able to recognize the knock! Those who do not realize the changing of seasons will think that this is spiritual warfare and start to act vindictively and defensively. The Kingdom of Gods light is contrary to that, and this truth can be seen in every man of God in the scriptures. Gods’ way is higher than our ways.
When you do not follow the timing of God you may act out and lose even more! Trust that God will go down that slope with you when you go down because He will not leave you! In the Bible according to the story of David, we can observe that David was smashed and broken inside but despite that, he was still worshipping. This was because he recognized that the same God who raised him out of nowhere and made him king, is the same God who can do it again!
There are many things that are not worth fighting for. Instead of fighting, create space for God by bringing your heart into prayer and look for God. When you do this you allow room for God to show up in your heart and also show you when to act, what to do and how to act rightly.
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