“How To Walk With God”
Session Two
Part B
By Nita Johnson
NOLA Revival Services June, 2011
From last week…
We always think that it is going to be much easier than it actually is. We are always going to think that way because our flesh will never lead us to the cross and neither will our soul. We can want Jesus so badly, but if it is up to our soul and flesh, we will see him hanging on the cross and start running in the opposite direction as far and as fast as we can go (longing for Jesus every step of the way). To walk with Him takes the strength of His Spirit and takes great faith. We start out on this walk with small faith, but our faith grows as we learn His ways and learn to trust Him in the difficult times.
Paul did not have an easy life. I know there are some who says that his hardships were caused by his rebelliousness. But I’m telling you, I have heard from the mouth of the Lord Himself, that is not the case. This does not mean that at times Paul did not go his own way. He was quite human, and he did learn how to die daily, but most of his hardships came because God was doing a deep work in him in response to Paul’s hunger. We admire him for his great intellect and all the sufferings he endured and yet still he loved Jesus and the Church so much. He just kept on going, no matter what.
There was something else calling him – the quest to know Christ. He cared about the churches, he cared about the lost and he cared about his own people. But “…one thing I do…” (Phil 3:13) He wanted to walk with Jesus. The path is not easy, no matter how much you try to cooperate. The Lord takes you by a way that you know not. He leads the blind by a way they know not (Isa 42:16). It is not easy to walk with the Lord. It is difficult, and it must be difficult because if it were not difficult, we would not need Him in the walk. This walk is designed to create in us a deeper surging of passion and desire for this mature dependence upon Christ. So we cry out: “Help me die. I want to die Lord.” Then He gets the physician’s scalpel out but before He can apply it we are gone! He knows us so well. He knows the way we are. It takes faith to walk with God, faith in His goodness, His mercy and wisdom.
I can remember one time the Lord took me into a spiritual experience. This was about 29 years ago. He picked me up and we went flying, visiting situations where He was cutting open the hearts of different people. He had a surgeon’s scalpel in His hand and He would cut the heart with precision. When the heart was cut open, all kinds of blackness would start pouring out. It was gory, ugly, and stinky. All the people around the person whose heart had been cut open started complaining, moaning, griping, and spewing harsh criticisms against Jesus (The Great Physician). The person whose heart was just cut open would join the voices, and the Lord would just stand there patiently. You could see at times that pain would enter into His eyes because some of the criticisms would reflect a lack of trust and that would hurt Him. I said to Him, “Why are you just leaving the wound open like that, Lord?” He answered me, “This is necessary; the poison cannot be released any other way. The corruption cannot be poured out any other way. So I must do it this way.”
We would stand there for a long time and He would tolerate and endure all of this. Then, He would turn to me and say, “It is time to go.” I thought to myself – But you have not sewn up the heart yet! He could read my thoughts, and He would say: I must leave it like this for a time, but I know everything is going to be alright. That is why we stayed and waited. We will come back when it is time for me to close up the heart. Then we would go to the next person and it was a totally new situation. I knew none of these people. We would go into the room and He would do the same thing again and again, and each time the same thing happened. All night long we were on this journey. At the end of the journey I said, “Lord, I feel tired. None of these people trusted You. None of these people understood what You were doing and that You are answering their prayers out of Your great love for them. Yet You were so patient, kind, merciful, and compassionate. You took all of their murmuring and all of their criticisms and complaining in love. You stood there and bore it all.” He said: This is the work of the Great Physician. I have yet to meet anyone who understands. But when the trial is over and it is time for Me to sew the heart back up, then they will understand.
Then He was gone, but He had taught me something about His ways. How does He put us on the path of walking with Him? It is by trials. How else could He reveal to us the things He needs to remove? How else could He help us understand that what He sees deep inside of us is part of the “everything that can be shaken” category (Heb 12:27), except that we also see it. Once we see it, we can grow to hate it enough to let Him remove it. This is how He works with our will. He takes us into these difficult situations out of His great love. Difficulties arise out of His great love. He is showing me my stuff, so that I will get on my knees until He removes it.
David Wilkerson told of a time he became ill and was hospitalized. He said to the Lord, “You have got to get me well. You have got to heal my body and get me out of this hospital. Lord, I love You so much. I just want to win the world to You.” The Lord responded, “I brought you to this place to tell you I just want to win you. I would be happy if I could just win you.”
We have these grandiose ideas, but when it is all said and done, the thing that is most important to Jesus is that He owns this heart. Of course, that also means obedience. This means that you will frequently go to the dry places. You are going to go to the low places where no man would want to tread. But He will never give you more than you can handle, with grace to spare. Praise the Lord.
Hebrews Ch. 11:23-27 23 By faith Moses, after his birth, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful and divinely favored child; and they were not afraid of the king’s (Pharaoh’s) decree. 24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 because he preferred to endure the hardship of the people of God rather than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. 26 He considered the reproach of the [c]Christ [that is, the rebuke he would suffer for his faithful obedience to God] to be greater wealth than all the treasures of Egypt; for he looked ahead to the reward [promised by God]. 27 By faith he left Egypt, being unafraid of the wrath of the king; for he endured [steadfastly], as seeing Him who is unseen.
The first lesson on how you walk with Jesus is that you must leave Egypt behind. What does it mean to leave Egypt behind? Egypt is the spirit of the world. How does the spirit of the world affect our lives? Everything you desire outside of God is probably provoked by the spirit of the world. If you want to get married and God is in that marriage, then He is in it. But if you want to get married and you are willing to marry just whomever you want to marry, and God is not saying, “This is My best,” then the spirit of the world is provoking it. If you want to have three children and God is saying to you I want you to have four and you are saying I don’t want four, I only want three, then the spirit of the world is helping in that decision. If you want to buy a house or a car and God is not saying, “I need you to go buy this house because I’m going to use it for my glory,” then it is probably your flesh and the spirit of the world. These are some of the decision-making processes that you might go through to discern whether or not God is leading or if your own soul is leading. Sometimes, it takes a while to get an answer when you start to pray.
To be continued next week…
In His Amazing Love,
Nita Johnson
