Results of Seeing the LORD
Hello all,
Below is the first question of the year. If you have not answered this question please do so, of you have already answered this question please respond to someone else’s post. Let’s seek to be diligent about our training this year.
Hello and Happy New Year!!! In case you need an update, we are on Lesson 24 of our book Through the Bible in One Year. I am excited about what God has done with our study so far and look forward to how He will continue to use our study of His Word to bless us. This week’s question is:
Considering Isaiah’s call to the Prophetic Office, this year’s focus, and your call to ministry do you/ how have you experience/d (pg. 85 of our book):
Conviction and confession (vs. 5)
Forgiveness and cleansing (Vss. 6-7)
Hearing God’s voice (vs. 8)
The offering of yourself to service (vs. 8)
The commission to serve (vs. 9-13)
I believe I have experienced all of these things on a consistent basis. As I have grown in my call I believe that these things happen on a consistent basis. Or should I say they are things that I have to receive and accept from God. I know that conviction is something that I constantly experience as I keep my face before the Lord which brings about my confession. When ever I have fallen away from the routine of keeping my face and heart before the Lord It then causes me to lack in my ability to recognize conviction or even be receptive to it. It is in the presence of God that I deal with my sins that bring me to a place of forgiveness and cleansing.
It has been my experience that I have been able to hear God’s voice only when I have been willing to listen because he is always speaking. I must be honest and admit that there have been moments where I ignored the voice of God about my call because I didn’t want to do what he called me to. I’ve even ignored him when I didn’t want to acknowledge my conviction.
After doing those things first mentioned above, it then put me in a place to offer myself to serve and be commissioned to serve. It wasn’t until I was willing to fully accept conviction, confess, accept forgiveness as well as forgive (in my unforgiveness it gave me a hard heart ultimately leading to sinful behavior) be cleansed by the Lord, hear him speaking through his word, people, or circumstance, that I could be a vessel for the use of pouring out as well as pouring in.
It is only as I continue to allow myself to go through this process consistently that I can be fit for the kingdom. I can’t be fit in the callings of God if I am not will to do the things mentioned in Isaiah.
Good EveningLeaders,
As I consider Isaiah’s call to prophetic Office in leu of our focus for the year, I have experienced conviction and confession. I was convicted of the sin which I had chose to live in. Long before I had confessed it verbally, my heart was transfixed on doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord. The moment in which I repented and did cry out to the Lord, I felt the weight of being lessened.
With each passing day, I feel the urge to seek deeper understanding and experiences in God’s word.
“Becoming vessels fit for the Kingdom” to me has implications of years of being poured into by the Holy Spirit through hearing , reading, understing, fellowship and ultimately applying His word in our everyday. We have countless opportunities to apply the teachings of God each day. For me , I have to make greater efforts to do so. With the deeper understanding I seek, my service shall reflect the call God has for me.
I think that I have experienced all of these things, and it seems to have taken a short time to accomplish them. When I first moved back down to Newport News, and ended my time at TLC, God almost immediately began to convict me. I could see how my call fit in with what God was doing at LFCC and I knew I needed to accept my call. Once I decided to accept my call, I immediately felt the forgiveness of God for running from my call. It was a relief to be reminded that God still forgave and loved me even though I was disobedient for so long. Once I felt that I felt released, which probably being cleansed to do as God was telling me. I then expressed this to those in authority and received my commission to serve.
Even though I can recall those steps for that time, I know that this a process I continue to go through everyday. It’s a process to accept my call everyday and every week, but I must continue to say yes in order to walk in obedience. It becomes easier in some respects and harder in others as God reveals different aspects of my call, but I am thankful for the process. I am sure that if God revealed everything as once I would shy away out of fear, but His grace only reveals what we need for today. I look forward to how God will prepare me to be His vessel even the more this year!
I am hard on myself because I want to get it right. I had this mind set before I got saved. I have to be obedient and just listen to the Holy Spirit and not to my flesh. My cry daily is “God whoop me and do not stop until I correct my wrong doings”. What is so sad I know when I am wrong. So just like Isaiah clean my tongue/mouth because I experience all of the above with a do right mind. I am making sure not to ignore the Holy Spirit regardless of the bad situations and how I feel. I do my very best to walk in my call to ministry. I know when I left LFCC my focus was on my family. I had no peace and I felt like I had a bag of 10 pounds of potatoes on my back. Being a vessel fit for the Kingdom for me is to keep a do right mind daily.
Becoming a Vessel Fit for the Kingdom. Once I determined in my heart that I would walk in my calling that God has on my life I knew then that I had to confess to God that I didn’t have it all together. I asked God to remove those things that were not of him. He has delivered me from many of the impurities that were holding me back. It wasn’t an easy journey but a necessary one to get me to where HE wanted me to be. I thank God for forgiveness and cleansing of my sins. This allow me to be free. I am a willing vessel and every day Im working to be fit for His Kingdom
Reviewing Isaiah’s call in Chapter 6, along with our focus this year and my call to ministry In my journey I believe I have at one time or another experienced each one of these areas.
At one point in my life when I was still living in Whidbey Island, WA and had attended a “Men’s Advance” I had experienced at least four of these during one single night. It was during that time I was forever in love with God. To me that was my miracle of life – one that introduced me to a love so pure that you can’t help but change, if you are willing. That was the beginning of my desire and need to serve God with all my heart. Now in the past in my initial coming back to God in the area of “Conviction and Confession, vs. 5” as it relates to me being convicted of my sin and confessing it was done earlier on in my walk but it was not as forthright, not that I didn’t mean well be confessing and repenting to Jesus Christ, but it was not all in – I didn’t follow through. But there that moment at that old Naval Radio Station at Jim Creek, located in Cascade Mountains of Washington. So in essence I went through the valley to the mountain top in being in God’s presence that night.
During that moment I was convicted, confessed – felt forgiven and cleansed and I heard God’s voice clearly in such a way that I offered myself to serve God with my whole heart, body, mind and soul. Now as I answered the call the more I got fortified, the more that scripture impacted not only my lifestyle but as a result of earnestly seeking God, it changed the whole dynamics of family in their desire to worship. The more I was transformed and as a result answering the call to Diaconate, receiving the commission (ordained) to serve God and His people those saved an unsaved.
As I look back it didn’t take me to get ordained to serve, it became a willingness to do so. It was like a fire in me that was pushing me to have a relationship with the Most High God. Although this journey was filled with wins, victories, some let downs but the wins outweighed my losses, I wouldn’t change it for nothing. Some were losses of my own doing and decisions and it was at these times I had to learn and get what I need to know from God in order for me not just to survive but to thrive as a man of God in this world. Hearing God’s voice is a blessing and I never want to stop hearing from God. In I now know that
Since becoming a member of the LFCC leadership team, I have experienced all of these. The closer I get to better my relationship with God the more extreme I feel them. There are plenty of things I would not have thought twice about before joining the leadership team, but after all, God has allowed me to encounter it is difficult to not continue to experience these.
Daily I am convicted of things that I could have done better. As I confess it to God he consistently forgives and cleans me. To be truthful there are times I can try to be stubborn and do things the way I want them. But God’s conviction is something you don’t want to play with.
Since acknowledging my call it seems that God has always put me in the place where I am needed to serve. Once I said ”I do” there has been a greater willingness to serve. It has been something that God has increased my willingness to do.
Danny, I am the same way about being free of all my mess. I say “God its me again I am a mess”. I am still a work in progress. My journey just like you got harder and keeps getting hard because I am determined. I am so glad we have a loving God that loves all of us.