As I was driving into work today I was reflecting on the past 5 days of my life. I've spent the last 5 days attending an event called 7 Days of Praise and being completely surrounded by the presence of God again and again and again. Each night that I pulled onto the grounds where it was taking place I could feel the presence of the Lord as soon as I got out of my car. The fellowship with other believers was amazing and each night when the service would begin God would fill the building and the people with even more of His presence. Each speaker was so anointed and delivered such powerful words. It was truly something you hated see come to an end, but you knew that everyone involved was going to carry that presence out of that place with them.
Any time I attend something like this I always try to take time when it's over to ask myself what I took away from the experience..and this time was no different. The overwhelming thing that I felt God wanted me to walk away with and talk about to others is that He is never done filling us up. I watched the young, the middle aged and the older generation do ministry and be ministered to and with ALL of them I watched God fill them more and more and more. I saw brand new Christians find out the purpose that God has for their life and I watched seasoned Christians get a renewed filling and purpose delivered to them. It was beautiful to watch and to experience.
I didn't realize this for the first time, but I certainly was reminded of the fact that God is NEVER done with us. He is never done growing us, teaching us, using us and blessing us. There isn't a point in our walk with Jesus that He says "you've done enough, you can just rest for the rest of your days". No, instead (if we let Him) He will give us new revelation, new vision, new levels of relationship with Him and even new avenues of ministry. He wants us to grow with Him constantly and continue to help grow His kingdom.
As I was thinking about this, God brought me to Ephesians 3 and had me read it. In there Paul says how he was able to do what he did because of the Holy Spirit, because of the gift of the grace of God, because of His(God's) power. Not because of who Paul was, but because of who God is. Paul knew he was to use the gifts God had given him to preach the word through the wisdom granted to him. He was to do it with boldness that he got through his faith in Jesus. Then he finishes by saying that we too would be strengthened with might through His Spirit, not losing heart in tribulations, and staying rooted and grounded in love.....the deep, deep love of Christ. And then we are to go out and bring glory to Jesus Christ.
Again, this isn't something we should do less the longer we are a Christian or the older we get. We should be on fire, and stay of fire for God all the days of our life. We should be filled with joy and stay filled with joy as we serve Him. We should continually go back to God and say "here I am Lord, send me..."
God, burn in us and help us use that fire inside of us to do Your work. Let our lives be so filled with fire and joy that people can't help but want what we have. Help us to not grow weary, but to come back to you again and again and again to access Your renewing love, strength, gifts and revelation...and then go out and preach that to the world! In Jesus name, Amen.
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