Real Focus
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| Every human being carries within not just the potential, but also the mandate to propagate and be fruitful |
As we develop a vision toward being fruitful, we often discover that distraction is a major challenge. It is easy to become distracted by matters that appeal to the old nature, though they may have nothing to do with the new.
When we are distracted, we spend effort in activities; busyness that consumes time and leaves no lasting fruit behind. If we become too result-oriented, we run the risk of short-circuiting the preparatory phase I have mentioned above.
As a result, the birthing becomes incomplete and we are found to be lacking in what it takes to come fully into the phase of delivery. The Lord will not use the old identity we had before we came to Christ to be the guardian of what He desires through our lives for His Kingdom.
He wants to use the new man within each of us because this new man has been created according to His own nature and bears His likeness. Remember, only that which has been born of God contains the potential to overcome the world (1 John 5:4).
Just like these characters in the Bible, you and I may be going through situations that are beyond our human capacity to understand. You may be reading this while in the middle of a shattering crisis, a turning point in your life or a sudden problem that has refused to respond to solutions.
Regardless of how violently the storms may be raging, if we just hold on and not quit in the incubation stage, we will deliver. Remember that two opposing identities are in existence within us. This means that we require disciplined focus in order to qualify for fruitfulness in accordance with divine purpose.
Regardless of how violently the storms may be raging, if we just hold on and not quit in the incubation stage, we will deliver. Remember that two opposing identities are in existence within us. This means that we require disciplined focus in order to qualify for fruitfulness in accordance with divine purpose.
Just as it is true in the natural, so it is in the spiritual. True intimacy is the breeding ground for something new to be released into the world. Every human being carries within not just the potential, but also the mandate to propagate and be fruitful. The cyclic cause and effect relationship between life and birthing makes this possible.
Prayer and Productivity
“Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God, nothing shall be impossible.” Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” and the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:36-38).
We were all like Elizabeth - spiritually barren, without reproductive capacity essentially of course, because we lacked spiritual life. The scriptures point out that we were dead in our trespasses and sins.
We therefore lacked the potential to experience fruitfulness or productivity as far as the Kingdom of God was concerned. This is why we needed to be born of the Spirit so that in receiving new life, we could at the same time recover the ability to be fruitful.
Birthing is not merely a theory or a doctrine. It is the reality of life in the Kingdom. Those who have received the life of the Son of God, receive also the capability through the Spirit to bear Kingdom fruit that endures. See how the link between intimacy and birthing is brought out in the following words.
I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. (John 15:5-8)
If we abide in Christ and His words abide in us, we have intimate union with Him. When we come to the place of prayer, we will know what to pray and how to pray because His words will be revealed in our spirit even before we open our mouths to speak. The Spirit who bears witness within us will give us utterance in this place because He understands what the will of God is for our lives. With or without use of a human language, He will intercede according to that will.
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. (John 15:4)
Power to bring Forth
To illustrate, there was a time when Samaria was besieged by enemy forces who were mocking God's people and scorning them to derision. We pick up the story as it unfolds in Isaiah 37: 1-7:
And so it was, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. Then he sent Eliakim who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.
And they said to him, “thus says Hezekiah: 'This is a day of trouble and rebuke and blasphemy, for the children have come to birth but there is no strength to bring them forth.'
We are living in a similar time. There are many today who feel besieged by the situations they are going through in their lives. The political, economic, and social systems of the world seem to be in trouble, rebuke and blasphemy against the causes of biblical truth and justice. Today's spiritual maternity wards are full of believers pregnant with living purposes. They are carrying visions, gifts, prophecies, promises, dreams, revelations, confirmations and affirmations that they have received in the course of their lives.
Some of these were disclosed to them after they had wrestled alone in the prayer closet. Some came as they meditated and waited upon the Lord in their private devotions, studied the scriptures or through anointed servants who ministered prophetically to them. These rejoiced for a season at what the Lord was revealing. But since then, the natural setting of their lives has been such that the power to practically manifest that which they had spiritually received seemed to have been short-circuited. As a result, many have secretly begun giving in to doubts as to whether it was really God who had revealed these things to them in the first place. As with Zechariah, a time of questioning arises and they begin to wonder whether all these were merely products of their own imagination.
They begin to question their calling because everything in their lives seems to have taken a dramatic twist and there does not appear to be any sign of what was revealed coming to pass. Like Hezekiah, it seems they have come into a time when events in their lives are rebuking them and they are in the day of distress and trouble.
Crisis Experience
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, there is a clever schemer who plots to strategically disturb natural environments such that people of God lose access in the spirit realm to the strength to deliver. In the parable of the sower, Christ taught that persecution arises because of the word that has been sown in the heart. The enemy may know the whole counsel of God from beginning to end. But as a spirit being, he is able to detect signs and indicators that he can use. Part of the reason we are admonished to walk in the Spirit is to be able to thwart his purposes before he implements them.
We could use an example here to illustrate. It was no coincidence that Moses, the great old covenant deliverer was born at a time when all the male children among his own people were being eliminated. The same thing happened when the great new covenant Deliverer was born. He came in at a season when all the infants of His native hometown were marked for execution. In both cases, the parents had to put together an emergency rescue plan. These events were no coincidences. As far as the Kingdom is concerned, a time of opposition may characterize the birth of something new.
For a great door and effectual is opened unto me and there are many adversaries. (1 Corinthians 16:9)
Every battle within conception and incubation has its place and meaning, no matter how contradictory, hopeless or agonizing it may be. It is in the stage of conception that the believer learns to get into a deeper level of divine dependence through the things he is passing through. If he is sensitive, instead of them driving him further away, they will bring him into a closer walk with God. From the core of his new identity and as the human authority figure over the birthing taking place within him, he will connect with the change and be positioned in order to usher in the breakthrough.
This is true of many birthing experiences. Hannah, for instance, had the crisis period of competition between her and Peninah during which time she underwent ridicule and criticism. This drove her into desperation to seek God like never before. The reason behind this type of opposition is that the enemy seeks to ensure that though the believer has been able to spiritually conceive, he will be unable to deliver what has been revealed or implanted in him.
The enemy assails him by surrounding his life with numerous urgent, pressing and pending issues which distract him and bring frustration and discouragement in his life. The result is that he becomes disorganized and thereafter unable to continue the process. This is also how miscarriages of divine purposes occur. We realize in the scriptures, that discouragement is one way the process of fruitfulness (which comes through seasons of sowing and reaping in a believer) can be curtailed.
Determination
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. (Galatians 6:7-9)
You reap a harvest from the same ground in which you made an initial investment. If you spend time devoting yourself to making investments to the Spirit, then you cannot, but live with the results of making those investments. Christ was committed to sowing to the Spirit and supernatural results were what characterized His life on the earth. He promised that those who would believe in Him would be capable of doing greater works.
But the catch here is that once I consciously develop the habit of making quality spiritual investment in prayer and somewhere along the way I become discouraged, I begin losing my ability to be productive or fruitful. The sowing-reaping process is interrupted by the discouragement that has set in and I fail to hold till the time of delivery.
In other words, the incubation period is cut short and the inevitable result, as with a mother in the natural, is miscarriage. Once a believer begins to give in to the shakings, realignments and alterations that come up in the natural world after revelation has been conceived, the result will be unfruitfulness in the things of God.
In other words, the incubation period is cut short and the inevitable result, as with a mother in the natural, is miscarriage. Once a believer begins to give in to the shakings, realignments and alterations that come up in the natural world after revelation has been conceived, the result will be unfruitfulness in the things of God.
The question to ask here then, is why does the Lord in the first place allow such situations in our lives, knowing full well the damage they can cause? The answer is because we need such experiences for the long term. They are our refining process. They give us opportunity to develop the resolve and maturity necessary to be the custodians of what He is about to deliver through us in prayer.
