Religion tends to take off on rabbit trails. People will have a pet doctrine that they adhere to. Denominationalism is a good example. A particular group will decide what is most important to them in the Scriptures and they go off in that direction. Another group will come up with something else and follow that. Both things would be beneficial if they were brought together in a balance, but one without the other becomes a monstrosity.
We have been talking a lot about man’s inability to change his nature. We can’t do it. We realize there is nothing good within our human nature. There is none righteous, no, not one (Romans 3:10). No amount of discipline can make us righteous. So we say as did the Apostle Paul: O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death? Romans 7:24.We need the divine nature of the Lord to invade our lives, and regardless of how much faith we exert toward that it doesn’t seem to work. The answer: It is not our faith that makes the difference; it must be His faith! He must be our faith! He must be our dedication! He must be our sanctification, holiness, etc. However, that doesn’t mean that we sit back and wait for Him to do it. It would be wrong to sit back and do nothing, waiting on God to do it. There has to be a balance.
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5. We must become those who are meek. There is another, speaking of the Bride of Christ that says, His wife has made herself ready (Revelation 19:7). It doesn’t say the Lord made her ready, but that she made herself ready. However, we learn from other Scriptures that it is the Lord that purifies the Church and makes her His bride. We have a part with the Lord in bringing forth His will. We are workers together with Him (II Corinthians 6:1). So we understand that we are not to sit idly by while He accomplishes it.
Hebrews talks about the rest that remains. Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it…There remains therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that has entered into His rest, he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from His. Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest. Hebrews 4:1,9-11. The one entering His rest has ceased from his works; he also labors to enter into His rest. Do you understand that? Do you remember what Jesus said? I do nothing of Myself…The Father that dwells in Me He does the works (John 8:28; 14:10). The Father did the works, but Jesus was the channel He did it through. There had to be a balance of both. It must become the same way for us. We must become the channel the Lord works through, and because He is doing the works through us without our humanism input we have ceased from our labors and have entered His rest.
Jeremiah 29:13-14 And you shall seek Me, and find Me, when you shall search for
Me with all your heart.
14 And I will be found of you, says the Lord: and I will turn away your
captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places
where I have driven you, says the Lord; and I will bring you again into the
place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.
That’s quite a Word, isn’t it? Notice that it is not an “if-then.” “If you do this, then….” The Lord didn’t put an “if” in it. He said, “You will seek Me and you will find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” So you make up your mind that you are going to seek the Lord and search for Him with all of your heart. Then you say, “Boy, I did it.” Well, not really because He said that you were going to do it. That’s the way the Lord speaks. In Genesis 1 God said, “Let there be light” and there was light. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount talking to His disciples said, “You are a city set on a hill.” Well, they weren’t a city set on a hill right at that moment, but because He spoke it that is what they became. God calls those things that are not as though they were (Romans 4:17), and because He does that is what they become. He does it, but He likes to do it through someone. Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He reveals His secret unto His servants the prophets. Amos 3:7. Again, the Lord said to His disciples, “All authority in heaven and earth is given unto Me; therefore you go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:18, 19). Then in the book of Acts we see them going out making disciples and the Lord working with them. There was a balance.
You have 66 books in the Bible and a lot of different subjects and a lot of things that the Lord has spoken. You can pick any one of them, take off with it, and what you have is right but if you don’t mix in some other truths you can go astray and be completely in error with the truth. Do you understand what I’m saying? There has to be a balance.
Leviticus 19:36-37 Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin,
shall you have: I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of
Egypt.
37 Therefore shall you observe all my statutes [not just the one you like], and
all my judgments, and do them: I am the Lord.
When measuring out the truths of the Scriptures, there must be a just balance. We cannot take a certain revelation the Lord has given us and run with it, saying, “This is our thing; this is what we do.” No, we must have a just measure because the Lord wants His people to have a proper diet. A living Word will set a table for all ages. Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord has made ruler over His household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when He comes shall find so doing. Matthew 24:45-46.
Now in Matthew 24 he is saying, “You don’t know when your Lord shall come.” You must have the proper amount of this and the proper amount of that. You need to get in these Scriptures and study the whole Bible and get some of Isaiah in you, get some Jeremiah, Hosea, Paul, Peter, input from all these brothers and then when the Lord comes He has a treasure here He can work with. You don’t know what hour that your Lord does come, so you have to be prepared. Therefore be also ready: for in such an hour as you think not the Son of man comes…Who then is the faithful and wise servant…? Matthew 24:44-45. What makes this servant faithful and wise? It is because he has gathered in all of these men in this Bible that God has anointed and has received a just weight from each one. The Word is balanced and he has become one that is a treasure house that God can draw from and speak however He wants to speak, minister whatever He wants to minister.
God makes the faithful and wise servant the ruler and minister of His household. Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when He comes shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That He shall make him ruler over all His goods. Matthew 24:46-47. Would you like all the goods of the Lord in you? You would just become a real bread basket, a place of God’s heavenly food. One of the problems the Israelites had was complaining, “Can God prepare a table in this wilderness?” Oh yes, you may think that you are just a wilderness but God can prepare a table for us to partake of.
Jacob had twelve sons. He had one son named Joseph. Joseph means “added.” Joseph had a many-colored coat which speaks of the variations or verifying expressions of the Lord. That coat of many colors meant that he was chosen of the father, something special about him. These other brothers had something to give, but Joseph with that many-colored coat speaks of having the many varied expressions of the Lord. It’s like a prism when the light shines on it – you get the different colors coming out. It is what the Lord wants you to become, a prism so He can shine through you in anyway He wants to at any particular time. I want to be there, don’t you?
John 7:38 He that believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
We’ve looked at this scripture a lot focusing on the “out of his belly shall flow.” But with what we’re talking about here it says: Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. There is more than one river meaning the different ways the Lord ministers through us. We should partake equally of everything in the Bible so that we have those different rivers of living water. In Revelation 1:15 John says that the voice of the Lord is as the sound of many waters.
Isaiah 12:3 Therefore with joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation.
Again, here we see “wells of salvation.” Those wells are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, etc. There are many rivers and there also are many wells. It is not just each one of us becoming a well; there are wells in us. In this way we become balanced and our ministry is balanced.
Copyright © 2007 by Henry DuBose