Now may the God of peace—who brought up from the
dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and ratified an eternal
covenant with his blood—may he equip you with all you need for doing his
will. May he produce in you, through the
power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to him. All glory to him forever and ever! Amen. Hebrews 13:20-21
This certainly sounds familiar to
me. It should; I heard this prayer a
long time ago, and it was prayed over me by Ralph Beshears as I was ordained to
the ministry of preaching God’s good news.
Mr. Beshears was a retired postmaster from Boone, NC, and he was part of
the church body to which I belonged. Every
time I heard him pray, it impressed me that he was a man of deep faith.
As a rookie in matters of ministry,
I wanted that faith pathway. I wanted to
have the kind of impact on others I saw in Ralph and those like him, who were
seriously following Christ. I knew that
impact could only come from God’s hand, but when you open your heart to God’s
leading you look to others who have gone before to lead you in the
pathway. God manifests himself in
whatever way HE decides, but often it is through mentors who have been there, and
walked through some fires.
This prayer of the writer to the
Hebrews[1] invokes the blessing of God for
whatever is needed to accomplish God’s will.
It reminds me of the saying that wherever God leads, God will empower you to
accomplish whatever He wanted when He led you there.
Accomplishing God’s will – whatever it is, and whatever situation to
which it is addressed – is always the prerogative of God’s desiring.
There is only one phrase I choose
to describe this sense of choosing this pathway of being ready to follow God’s
will as a disciple of Jesus Christ; I call it
The Surrendered Life
Everything about following God
requires a humble heart that approaches, listens attentively, and then acts
accordingly to what God has declared. I
must admit that in 1981, on the day I was ordained, I imagined ministry was going
to be much different than it turned out….MUCH different.
For You Today
If you imagined serving God would
mean living your best life, experiencing the kind of prosperity you hear about that
could be compared to winning lotteries, or the success stories of obstacles
falling by the wayside like wilted weeds…perhaps it’s time to reevaluate
whether you’re serving the Almighty Holy God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Peter
and John. Or if it’s been your desire to
get what you wanted.
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