THE SUPERNATURAL HABITS, PAUL & NUALA O'HIGGINS [red novels .txt] 📗

serve in two directions:
• upwards towards God with thanksgiving, and
• outwards from God towards man in service.
Jesus said you “cannot serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” (Matthew 6:24)
“As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, 'So, then, separate Barnabas and Saul to Me for the work to which I have called them.'” (Acts 13:2)
When our focus is on God Himself rather than our work for Him, He can direct our work. When the focus is on work we miss his direction and flounder in a maze of human programs.
Paul & Barnabas ministered to the Lord and in that place of intimacy with Him received their assignment. Ministry to the Lord in love and intimacy is the taproot of all supernatural service and real success. The work of the supernaturally empowered believer is qualitatively different from the work of a mere hired man. It uses natural energy and skills but it also is backed up by God’s blessing and power. It comes not from the deadness of mere duty but from a heart of love and compassion. As Frances Roberts writes, “For I do not ask you to labor in drudgery, but the work of God is a labor of love, for God is love; and as you live by the motivation of my Spirit, you shall be partaker continually of my life.” (“Come Away My Beloved” by Frances Roberts, p.112)
Service to the world or to merely selfish ends ultimately brings disillusionment, heartbreak and disappointment. Service to the Lord, on the other hand, is sweet. Jesus said, “Learn of me for I am meek and gentle and lowly of heart and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden light.” (Matthew 11:29) Serving Him brings a rest, joy and inner satisfaction that no other service can give.

Serving God’s Agenda not Man’s
Jesus corrected religious people for putting burdens on others. Religion puts burdens on people and co-opts them to serve programs, plans and purposes to which they may not be called. These false burdens operate through psychological control and fear. They counterfeit the real service of the Lord. Supernaturally empowered believers are not pressurized by religious manipulation but serve in loving partnership with the Lord. It is tragic to spend years in religious service, thinking one is serving the Lord, when all we are doing is serving a religious spirit, a religious program, or the ambition of a denomination or leader. The gospel calls us out from obedience to yokes of slavery to the easy yoke of the Lord. “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1)
God may call nine people to serve in a certain way and the tenth person to do something completely different. Today there are many demands and pressures on believers from a world full of needs. God does not merely ask us to serve - but to serve as directed by Him. Our response is not primarily to need but to God who sends us to meet need. We are related to God first and He relates us to meet certain needs. One thing done FROM God is better than a thousand things done FOR God.
As believers we live from Heaven towards earth .... partnering with God as He directs us to bring His mercy to areas where He directs. He will direct each one in different ways. If we imitate and copy each other we miss God’s direction for us. We can be challenged and inspired by each other but our acts must be directed from God. What has its origin in flesh – even in good flesh - is flesh, and what has its origin in spirit is spirit. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh that which is born of the spirit is spirit.” (John 3:6)

Service & Sacrifice
Sadly, service to the Lord is often presented as a great sacrifice. It is true that service of the Lord requires that we give up some things but this is true in the life of everyone who dedicates themselves to a cause. The athlete for example disciplines himself to attain his goal. The scientist dedicates his time in study to pursue his research.
As we dedicate ourselves to the Lord’s goal for our lives and pursue our highest destiny, we give up everything worth losing for the sake of gaining everything worth keeping. We give up heaviness and put on joy. We give up selfishness and put on unselfishness. We give up indifference and pick up love. We give up isolation and we pick up friendship. We give up dysfunctional and destructive habits and put on life-giving habits. “He gives us beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” (Isaiah 61:3)
As Jesus says: “he who loves his life must lose it and he who loses his life finds it.” (Matthew 10:39) This has often been misinterpreted to mean we must constantly repress ourselves, our feelings, thoughts, dreams and desires. Such repression of desire and feeling is more akin to Buddhism than true Christianity. What Jesus is saying is that if we are to really enter into God’s plan and purposes – the abundance of the kingdom of God - we must place our lives on a new foundation. The self-built life must be replaced by a life that is built on the Creator’s promises and purposes. Once we are surrendered and willingly subordinated to Him our dreams and desires come into harmony with Him. There is no longer a dualism between our will and His and we begin to work with Him not just as servants but as His friends and partners. The dedication of the believer is never to any particular work or organization but to God Himself who directs his steps.

Life on a New Foundation
“And He said to them, ‘Follow Me’, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19)
When the early disciples found the Messiah it ruined their appetite for every other form of service. They left their nets and followed Him. They had seen the kingdom of God. They had glimpsed God’s plan to invade earth with his mercy and they gave themselves to Him to partner with Him in extending His mercy to the earth.
Not everyone is called to physically leave their nets. All will have a different relationship with their ‘nets’ when they find Him. The call of God is never to the ministry – the call is to follow Him and serve Him. What made their call holy was not that it was a call to ‘ministry’ but a call to set their lives on a whole new foundation. Instead of being self-directed they were to be God directed. Even their natural fishing became God-directed and when God-directed it became supernaturally successful and blessed.
Traditional Christianity has taught mistakenly that some are called to the ministry and others called to secular service. The truth is that all supernaturally effective believers are called to follow Jesus and to serve in different ways as He directs. Many dedicate themselves to work for a certain organization or denomination, but this falls short of Jesus’ great call to us: ‘Come follow Me.’ Our dedication is not to the ministry or to “The Church” but to Him.
“I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, in order to prove by you what is that good and pleasing and perfect will of God.” (Romans 12: 1-2)
This passage has often been used as a call to martyr-like sacrifice. In fact it is a commonsense invitation to align with God’s good plans and to be available to serve Him and His purposes. We can abandon the measuring rods, mindsets and goals of the world’s system and give ourselves wholeheartedly to the purposes and plans He has for us.
The supernatural believer is drafted into a great revolution – the revolution of bringing heaven to earth. He is joined to God’s plan and enterprise towards oppressed mankind:
• to reconcile them to Himself through the revelation of the cross
• to put a new spirit within them
• to break the curse imposed by ignorance and demonic oppression, and
• to bring His healing mercy to them.
We take our part with the Messiah in His eternal ministry.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19; Isaiah 61:1-2)
As we serve God, He places us in the service of others. As the disciples ministered to the Lord in prayer and thanksgiving and listened for His direction, He directed Paul & Barnabas, to go to Antioch. This mission became the great breakthrough mission of the early church. All ministry and service should flow from our ministry to the Lord in praise and thanksgiving.
Receiving the proceeding word from the Lord is the key to effective service. When we serve without God’s direction and without first ministering to Him, we become need driven and program driven rather than Spirit driven and we miss the supernatural blessing of God on the work.
One thing done from God is better than a thousand things done for God. Without the Lord’s direction we are simply serving impulse, need, pressure or some other force than the Lord. Christian work becomes lifeless and disintegrates into ritual and imitation.

Service & Identity
“Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. But we know that when He shall be revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:2)
The New Testament scriptures proclaim exuberantly in various ways the facets and glory of our new identity in Christ. We are “redeemed”, “adopted” into God’s family, “partakers of the divine nature”, “children of God”, “blessed in all things”, and “kings and priests to the Lord.” (Eph. 1:8, Gal. 4:5; 2 Pt. 1:4; Rom. 8:16; Eph.1:3; Rev. 1:6)
This is the amazing new identity of the believer in Jesus. With such a fabulous identity in Christ we do not have to look to our career or our position in the world or the church for our identity.
Jesus “knowing who He was… took a towel.” When we really know who we are, we will not be afraid of humble and obscure service. We will be less tempted to abuse ministry by using it as a vehicle for our status or identity. When we do not have to work to prove we are something or somebody, we can cease from our drivenness and striving. Our doing comes from our being. We can now make ourselves available to God for use based on His direction and not on our need to be important. Our ministry (though it does bring a reward) neither adds nor subtracts from our identity. This is a huge liberation. Our service becomes not a matter of compulsion but an expression of love.