THE MEEKNESS OF GOD
Have you ever had someone ask you, “If God can do anything, why does He need us to pray for things before they can come into existence?” This question touches on a great truth and a powerful revelation about the meekness of God. Even though He is Almighty God and can do anything, He chooses to limit Himself to working in co-operation with the prayers of men. Wesley went even further when he emphatically declared that, "God does nothing but in answer to prayer".
One definition of meekness that I like is: "to become utterly dependant upon another". Watch someone in a position of great authority. They usually control everything, do everything, and resist the help of those less capable than themselves. Those who are not meek don't usually share their power. They won't risk anything by becoming dependant upon others. Yet, God, in His meekness, has chosen to be dependant upon us.
I suspect that one of the reasons why He does this is so that on the Day of Judgment, when Satan is brought before Him he will not be able to accuse God, saying, “All these people who are going to live with you forever were stolen from me. They are here because no one could resist your big hand. You took them from me!” The Lord will be able to simply say, “I only took those who asked or who were prayed for by others. I only acted in concert with their will, not my own.”
HIS WILL BEING DONE
Consider the meekness of God in bringing His will about in the earth. He who can do anything chooses to make Himself dependant on our praying each day that His will be done in the earth as it is in heaven.
Even prophets were needed to speak things into this sphere so that He could legally act upon them, enabling Him to bring His purposes to pass. Without their speaking forth and co-operating with Him, nothing would have happened.
All He needs is a people who choose to be meek themselves, becoming utterly dependant upon Him, which is an unbeatable combination. What I am describing here is a deep and dear revelation that can change how we do our ministries.
GETTING THE GOSPEL OUT
Have you ever thought about the meekness of God just in terms of getting the Gospel out? The Lord has determined that the Gospel would only be spread with our co-operation. Every salvation experience must have A human finger print on it.
It is an amazing fact to consider that neither of us can do it without the other’s co-operation. We can never get someone saved without the drawing and grace of the Father, as even Jesus testified to when He said no one can come to Him except the Father draw them. Conversely, people cannot be saved without the all important ingredient of human participation. Someone may reply, "Well, what about Paul on the road to Damascus?" I would answer by simply saying, "Stephen!"
I do not believe Paul could never get away from the witness of Stephen. The young man's face must have been embossed on his mad mind. Not to mention the prayers and witness of the hundreds of other believers that Paul persecuted. Only Heaven knows how many prayers were offered on his behalf by God's children while he tortured and murdered them.
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Since then, countless people have been saved by being exposed to the witness of Paul, as he penned much of the New Testament. For that matter, the compilation of the Bible itself is the ultimate example of God working with and limiting Himself to the co-operation of men.
I was saved in my apartment because of a visitation of the living Christ. He came into the room and invited me to walk with Him, but prior to this, I was reading David Wilkerson's book, "The Cross and the Switchblade" which God used to reveal to me that Jesus was still at work in the lives of men today. I have since been told that my grandmother prayed for me.
It is as if the Lord is using a massive chain by which He draws men to Himself, and part way down the chain is one frail link made of a "pretzel". This is the human factor He put into the plan. Without a doubt we are the weak link in His effort to draw all men to Himself, but we are none the less the essential link.
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GREAT RISK… GREAT FAITH
If God limits His work to the co-operation of men, doesn't He risk everything? Yes, there is a great risk here. I suppose it can be seen as an example of God's faith. When He planned for the redemption of mankind, from the beginning of time, He intended it to rest upon our willingness to share the plan with others. By limiting Himself to be dependant upon us to carry this Gospel forth, He risks losing all He wrought in Jesus' life and ministry. He even risks losing the effect of what Jesus did upon the cross, because if we don't do our part, it will not get done. He does not have any plan `B’.
Not all believers are aware of this truth. Many Christians live as if God was going to bring the world to Himself anyway, in some mass effort of produced by angels or some great sign. This is not going to happen, neither will He rely on natural disasters. While these things may soften people’s hearts or cause them to look up from their aimless lives, He has called us to be fishers of men.
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On the opposite end of the spectrum, some of us work as if it all dependent upon us and we only ask God to bless our game plans, programs, and initiatives. Of course, not all churches operate this way, but many do, even spirit-filled churches. We can learn to give good lip service to saying the Lord did this or that, but in reality we know we are really doing it ourselves.
This caused R.A. Torry, referring to another generation, wondered what would happen if God decided to remove the ministry of the Holy Spirit from the church. He concluded that much of the work of many ministries would continue anyway.
So much time and effort has been wasted because of our failure to see how necessary it is to be utterly dependant upon Him and doing the work His way. Men of God have died prematurely, burned out, or have ineffective ministries because we run on empty, refusing to submit to Him and do things His way. He does not want us working for Him. He wants us to work with Him.
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When young William Carey asked the leaders of his church about what was being done to win the heathen in India to God, the old chairman said, “Young man, sit down. If God wants to win the heathen to Himself, He can do it without you.”
Yet, we have the advantage of history to see that God had not saved the heathen in India, in any large scale, until Carey himself went there and began to work as a missionary, teacher, and translator, opening the door for many other missionaries to follow.
CO-LABORERS WITH GOD
The Lord Jesus gave Paul a revelation of His being a `companion in his labor'! He obviously saw it as a co-operative effort and referred to it as a genuine partnership, not a token one. The Lord's not like the dad who lets the child sit on his lap and allows him to think that he is really driving the car, while the dad does everything.
The apostle Paul used the same expression of `working together' in Romans 8:28 where it says "all things work together for good". It is an integral working together, not some token expression.
We are called to be co-laborers with Him: 1 Corinthians 3:8,9: "Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are laborers together with God; you are God's field, you are God's building."
In 2 Corinthians 6:1: "We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain."
Here are some insights in the Greek definitions found in the Strong's Concordance:
WORKING WITH GK 4903 sunergeo; from G4904; to be a fellow-worker, i.e. co-operate:--help (work) with, work (-er) together.
FROM GK 4904 sunergos; a co-laborer, i.e. co-adjutor:- companion in labor, (fellow-) helper (-laborer, worker), laborer together with, workfellow.
Earlier in my ministry, the Lord revealed that He wanted me to become a co-labor with Him. He showed me that I was to do what He could not do, and that He would do what I could not do. I had always acknowledged Him in asking for the right message to share, but when it came to the altar ministry I would just launch out with what I was familiar with. After He spoke to me about co-laboring, I became more aware of Him. I started to defer to Him, and was surprised at how immediately He would answer. When it came time to pray for people during the altar call, I would tell Him that I did not know what to do next, or how to pray for a particular person. Sometimes He would point out that He would like people baptized with the Holy Spirit, or that He wanted to heal people that night. Sometimes He would indicate who should be prophesied over. In response to His leading, I would call them out and they would stand up, then He would give me a word for them.
More often than not, He would show me His heart's concern along a line of truth that He wanted me to emphasize. Sometimes I would know before the service, but sometimes I would not know until I got to the pulpit. I noticed that whenever He shared with me about what He wanted to do, He never failed to work on the other end to make it happen. People would easily become baptized with the Spirit if that is what He emphasized. Healing would definitely occur if He prompted me to pray for the sick along certain lines. Before this, I would often pray a shot-gun kind of prayer. This is where I would pray everything I knew to say hoping to hit upon something that worked. Now He always works on the other end, confirming what He has shown me.
A DISTORTED VIEW OF THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
If we could only grasp more of this idea that God has chosen to limit Himself to a co-operation with man, it would altar much of what we understand about how the Holy Spirit works. Many people say that we need to get out of the way and let the Holy Spirit do what He wants, when it would be closer to the truth to say, we need to align ourselves more with His working through us. He does not work in a vacuum, but chooses to work decently and in order through people.
