God wants a surrendered life, committed to knowing His word, and then He will take care of the rest. His Spirit will work in us the will of God, and if we would yield our all to Him, to His life that worketh in us, He would have a yielded vessel in the earth. Out of brokenness, out of the life of the Spirit, out of the school of faith, we can say that God is our strength. So we have come to this place, the place of full surrender. The place of finding our strength; that it is the life of God working through us that we no more live our lives, the old life; that the kingdom of God’s life is the life we live now and manifest in this earth. And we do it through obeying the word of God and the Spirit of God within us; and we do it by faith. Thus God has become our life, our strength, what we need to go through, what we need to be His Body in the earth.

If we had known, if we had any idea of the ways of God when we first believed, maybe… just maybe we would not have made so many mistakes. All the signs were there. God was even speaking to us through His word but we were not listening. We thought we knew the way. Then we found out that, Phil 2:13, “… it is God which worketh in [us] both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Knowing this is one thing, but living it is another. It would take some years and the work of the cross and the work of the Holy Spirit to make this part of our experience. But we had to go through the failures. We had to go through the disappointments, the letting of self down, and letting other folk down. We had to start over and over again to learn that in self we can do nothing. We had to be broken from the bondage of people and self, probably the greatest of sins, before we realized the way that God wanted us to go. Nothing we could learn from a book, nor a school setting, but we had to go through it. We lived trapped in the world, and now we know that only the word of God could free us, only the word of God could bring us out. The bottom line, we had to learn how to turn our lives over to God completely, and to trust God and His word. We had to learn that all God wanted from us was an obedient heart, a heart filled with faith and a burning desire to do His will.

God wants people who are after His heart.

God wants people who have power with God and man and can prevail – a praying people.

God wants people that He can live in.

God wants people that can reproduce themselves.  (Win souls and make disciples)

God wants people who know how to walk in His word.

God wants people who will walk by the power of the Holy Spirit.

God wants people who will be faithful to the end.

Paul writes: “…forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before. 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”  God has a goal for our lives. He has a will for our lives. It has nothing to do with this carnal, natural, sinful world. He has a high calling for us and we should want to walk in it. What is that goal? What is God’s will for us? To press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. We are to live the higher life with God not the lower life with Satan and the world. We are to live a better life. The thing that makes you different from the people of the world, God commands you to LOVE. Those who are saved…those who are Christians…those who are in the kingdom of God are to LOVE. Love is that higher life. Love is the will of God for you. God even goes as far as saying, Matt 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: This is the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.  This is the goal of God for your life.  This is the will of God for you. LOVE!

When you obey God and forgive, you not only release the persons that have wronged you, but you also free yourself. You loose yourself from a life of torment and bondage. When you disobey God’s word on forgiving, you are turned over to the tormentors. What are the tormentors? When you hold unforgiveness in your heart, the tormentors are: bad nerves, upset stomach, ulcers, sometimes arthritis, sometimes a bad heart, headaches, stress, tension, gloom, depression, anxiety, senility, confusion, forgetfulness, and sickness, etc. Your life closes in on you. Instead of being a loving person, you become a bitter person. No love can flow through you because you are so filled with unforgiveness. Living like this opens the door for other spirit to be manifested in your life: resentment, hatred, violence, temper, anger, retaliation, strife, rebellion, destruction, etc. What it comes down to is this: you cannot afford unforgiveness. It cost you too much to hold unforgiveness. And most important, unforgiveness is not in the kingdom of God, nor is anyone who holds it in his or her heart.

The call is clear. The work is clear. You cannot do it in your own power. You must be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. God is looking for people that He can use. God is looking for people who will obey Him. He wants a people made ready. If He can’t use the Church, who can He use? Every vessel called to be saved is called to do this work. Every vessel created was created for this work. Listen, you are the physical image of God the Spirit. You are in this earth for a reason. This is why God wants your all. You are His. All of you belong to Him. So yield to His Spirit at work in you. Obey His word. Manifest His life and you will be praise unto His glory.

What is the key to making ready a people prepared for the Lord? The answer: the Holy Spirit. The people of God filled with the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is the One who comes to live in God’s people on earth. He directs the born again life of the believer. He directs the ministries or work of the church. When the Church yields to the Spirit of God within her, when you yield, when you obey the Spirit of God in you, you are the Church, you then will receive the life of God, the righteousness of God, the wisdom of God, the gifts of God, and the power of God – all these given to carry forth the work of God in the earth. This is our guarantee for success in ministry. This is our guarantee for the accomplishment of the work of God in the Church – be filled with the Spirit.

The true Church, her members, that’s you and me, are a faith people. We stand in faith for all the work that God assigns to us. Some of us have not caught that. We are still trying to work things out according to our own knowledge and strength. We are trying to be a Church on our own power. But God wants us to stand in faith, His faith. Through His faith we know we will accomplish what God has call us to do. We are not moved by feelings. We are not moved by what we see. We are moved by faith and the word of God. We no longer can be like others who just talk this life. Our call is deeper than that. The word of God means more to us than that. We will be known for the depth of the word we have in us. We will be known for the prayers we pray and get answers to. Out goal is to please God, to make Him happy by doing His will. Then we can die in peace, knowing that our lives were like His life when He walked this earth.

When we read the history of the early church what do we find?  We find a record of constant victory, a story of continuous progress. Why is there such a difference between the early Church and the Church of Jesus Christ today? What made the difference in the early Church?  The answer is found in Acts 2:42: “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in breaking of bread and in prayers.” The Church was a “PrayingChurch”.  It was a Church in which they prayed or continued steadfastly in prayers.  They all prayed, not a select few: “…and all prayed continuously with steadfast faithfulness.” This is the difference. When God’s

people who are called by His name humble themselves, and pray, and seek His face, turning from their wicked ways; then God will hear them and heal them and will come in to them and do exploits.

If the church is going to make a difference in the world today; if we, the Church, are going to win souls for Christ and make ready a people prepared for the Lord, we are going to have to stand in the righteousness of Christ and walk in the commandments or the Word of God. And please don’t think that I am talking about being perfect. No man, no human being can be perfect; but if we do fall short we have an advocate with the Father and He is just and faithful to forgive us of our down fallings. If we ask Him, He will clean us from all unrighteousness. But God wants a holy people. God wants a people who will stand in the righteousness of Christ by faith. The world, the sinner, is looking for someone to believe in, someone who is for real. If you say that you are the Church and are not living like the Church – living a godly life, not only will they not believe you but they will not listen to you. Be faithful!