Seeking God:
This part is the heart of what came through at the Consumed Gathering in Edmonton in August of 2006, and it is what has been the cry of our hearts, and we know it is the cry of many of your hearts:
God wants to take pleasure in us and our sacrifice of worship. So often we seek Him for a strategy, a plan, a vision to take our city, nation, etc. rather than seek Him and His presence. We wait until we get a strategy and then we run to fulfill it. He is not short on resources. He has hosts and hosts of angels to get the job done and do a way, way better job than we do. We tend to be job oriented rather than GOD oriented, or vision oriented rather than GOD oriented. Our problem is that we want something that brings results.
God's plan is not about us figuring it out. It is not about the PLAN. There is no secret about marching around walls seven times. There is no secret about singers and musicians going ahead of the army. There is no secret about shaving the army down to 300 men and them carrying torches in clay jars. The secret is that they humbled themselves like children, and prayed. It is about hearing God, rather than initiating things ourselves. The PURPOSE is that He is training a people who will hear His voice and be foolish enough to obey what He says. It is not about choosing a good time, a good location, a good speaker. It is about us changing our plans for God.
SO HE WILL ALWAYS TAKE THE GLORY THAT IT WAS DONE HIS WAY.
THE ONLY WAY TO BRING PLEASURE TO GOD IS TO DO IT HIS WAY...GOD WANTS A PEOPLE WHO ARE ABANDONED TO DO IT HIS WAY.
"It is not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit", says the Lord of hosts. Zechariah 4:6
God wants to lower the human factor. Elijah poured water on the sacrifice. It was impossible for man. It was definitely God when the fire came and consumed the sacrifice.
The Old Testament recounts story after story where the people came to a place of humbling themselves and praying like little children, hearing from God, obeying the foolish sounding instructions....and then God showed up! 185,000 enemies killed by an angel...not any man. The walls of Jericho coming down. A sea opening up so a whole nation crosses over and then the sea falls over the enemies and destroys them...on and on. GOD DID THOSE THINGS after man obeyed his small part.
Our obedience brings pleasure to God's heart.
Many of us carry a deep burden for Prince George and region. We have many enemies we are battling - increased crime, shootings, murders, drugs, prostitution, family breakdown. People do not know the answer is Jesus and we are trying so desperately to bridge the gap....some are being reached but thousands and thousands remain untouched.
Perhaps it is time to position ourselves humbly before God, to just seek His face...to delight in Him, lay down our strategies, and just say, "We want you God. We want Your Presence". Help us to quiet ourselves to hear better what You have to say to us. Wait on Him to shake off strategies and plans that may not be from Him at all. To wait for His presence...that presence that shifts and changes things way better than we can ever do with all our well - intended strategies. To pray that we keep keeping our eyes fixed on Him even when He gives us a strategy. That we don't start gazing on the strategy.
Moses said to God,
"If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here, for how then can it be known that I have found favor in Your sight, I and Your people? Is it not by You going with us, so that we, I and Your people, may be distinguished from all the other people who are upon the face of the earth?" Exodus 33:15-16