Tag: pastor

God’s Sustaining Power

On By josephbarlowIn JournalLeave a comment

God has an amazing ability to keep us. When we endure so many trials and wonder how things are going to turn out, it’s amazing that His power is still there keeping us. He is so loving and faithful! Its not so much that He loves us, which He does, but He also wants to love others through us. For Him to do that, we need to survive and stay in place. In the Bible Paul calls us living stones; we are alive but we are put in place like a stone that’s used to build a wall. People being in the right position is a powerful thing.

This year Nancy & I will be pastoring for 10 years. We are still in position. We have had some wonderful times as pastors, but we have also had some very difficult times. Somehow God has been able to sustain us. He’s kept us alive. We haven’t missed a meal. We haven’t done everything right and there’s some things that we’d change if we could do it again, but God’s faithfulness is what deserves the real acknowledgement here. It’s God’s sustaining power. We would have been knocked out of this a long time ago, but God kept us here. He placed us here. He wants to love through us. His faithfulness to us is not just about His love for us. We’re confident of that. But His faithfulness and His sustaining power are also because God has a plan and a desire; He wants His representatives to be loving on His behalf. He wants those who will represent Him to be accurately in place.

There is such a huge wave of needy people and God’s heart’s desire is to envelope all of them with His love, His wisdom, His healing…all of His goodness. He must have people in place who will allow His love to come through. There are so many that are so hungry and needy for His love. He must have us in place.

He is the mortar that holds the living stones in place. When God gives you an assignment He wants you to stay there. The Devil will provide many opportunities for you to give up that assignment. But God will also provide His sustaining power. So many things pass before your eyes; so many problems that make staying in place look impossible. But staying in place is exactly what God wants us to do. His faithfulness is here to see you through, to help you and to keep you in place. If we focus on the problems then their chance of overcoming you increases. If you focus on God then His promise of surviving and thriving are yours.

Now when trials and storms come, remember that they don’t last. We don’t live in a constant storm. There are times of peace, hopefully sustained periods of peace. If you’re living in a constant storm, you may consider whether you are in God’s will or not, or you may consider that you might be missing a piece of wisdom for the way you are doing things. If you turn down a one way street going the wrong direction, you will face continuous opposition until you turn around. God has a place of peace for you; a place of productivity, of meaningful service, of significance and plenty.

Let God position you. Be faithful to Him. Let His faithfulness sustain you.

Knowing Joseph

On By josephbarlowIn Encouragement, Ministry, TeachingLeave a comment
Ex. 1:8 Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.
 
To speak metaphorically:
“Knowing Joseph” could stand for the world being familiar with the anointing and importance of the gifts and abilities that rest on God’s children.
“Knowing Joseph” they would have been partakers of the saving graces that God can provide to the world through his church.
“Knowing Joseph” they would hold God’s children in reverence and awe with a reverent fear that behind these people was some omnipotent power whom they did not know personally but it seems that these people do know this power personally.
“Knowing not Joseph” led to bondage for the people of God, because the world feared them because they as a people seemed blessed for some reason.

When there was a man who wore the anointing and had been proven in integrity by fiery adversity, God was able to place a mantle of authority on him that He couldn’t on one untried and unproven.
Joseph was positioned by God and exalted in the eyes of the world because of his extraordinary (God-given) endowment of ability. His work made a marvelous impact on the world because his abilities were extraordinary. Through all this his integrity never crumbled, as was normal for the world. Joseph was a good man. The world knew it. God knew it. He could be relied upon. He was faithful. Thus “knowing Joseph” is a healthy thing for the world. It brings blessing and order. But there must be a Joseph available for the world to know.

Are you a “Joseph” or maybe a “Joseph in training”?

Are you being prepared to bring solutions into this earth that answer man’s deepest problems, not just sacred but secular?

God is looking for someone he can exalt. God is looking for a man who he can lift up into a position of prominence, strength and authority who will work blessings into the fabric of society. Could it be you? Could it be me?

Let’s submit to the training, the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Let’s allow the refiner to complete His work. Let us wait patiently as He lets us sit and wait for the proper timing and positioning of our target.

Ps. 127 says, “like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.”

Is. 49 says, “He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver.”

Let God use you.