How can Christians learn to spot the difference between false prophets and pastors and those who are biblically centered?
A Masterpiece in the Making
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you were born I sanctified you;
I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” – Jer 1:5
Horace Vernet, Jeremiah on the ruins of Jerusalem (1844).
Jeremiah reveals that before we were formed in the womb or born, our Father God knew us, sanctified us, and ordained us for specific kingdom missions. Isaiah teaches that when we wait on the Lord, we soar in Him into the lives He designed. What is the difference between the life you are experiencing and the incredible life He designed? Join us in this series presenting God’s biblical adventure of being and becoming His unique masterpiece.
Your Abundant, Masterpiece Life in Christ
Through John 10:10 Christ shares, “… I have come that they (His Sheep) may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” Wherever we are in our journey with Christ or our search for truth and meaningful life, Christ is inviting us to walk with Him on the unique and empowered biblical adventure He designed. He calls us to “Come and See” who He truly is, who we truly are to be in Him, and how He always has more of both Himself and His unique kingdom purpose for us to embrace. In many ways, the Christian life resembles the lives of professional athletes who are continuously training for greater excellence in the areas where God has called them. Importantly, we are not competing against each other but permitting God’s Spirit to transform us and mold us together into the empowered unity of His living Church.
Paul helps us understand this through 1 Corinthians 9:23,24,26 where he teaches, “Now this I do for the gospel’s sake …Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. Therefore, I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air.” As Paul reveals in Ephesains 2:10, we are not chance creations attempting to find our way. We are unique and incredible masterpieces of Christ. He states, “For we are His workmanship (masterpiece), created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength
They shall mount up with wings like eagles.” – Isaiah 40:31a
Setting Aside Our Natural Man (Our Flesh) for Our Spiritual Man (Walking in Christ’s Spirit)
Jesus calls us to thrive in the unique and abundant spiritual life He designed. In 1 Corinthians 3:1, Paul teaches we are to engage in Christ’s life as spiritual people instead of carnal. It conveys, “And I, brethren could not speak to you as spiritual people but as to carnal, as babes in Christ.” He previously emphasized in 1 Cor 2:14 that the unsaved cannot even understand the things of God, by revealing, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned,” Christ came to live in and through us. No longer are we to walk as unsaved individuals or even carnal Christians, attempting to “act like Christ.” Gal 2:20 reveals, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” We are to soar in His freedom, light, life, and power. This life results from the unique and incredibly personal journey of Being and Becoming His masterpiece.
Through Galatians 6:25, Paul exhorts that only those who “walk in the Spirit” experience this life. It commands, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” This is the moment-by-moment, intentional choice believers are to make through the power of His Spirit. Accordingly, we then thrive in the incredible life He designed. It replaces the safe and comfortable average Christian life many have accepted through the enemy’s deceptions. We set aside futile attempts at trying to “act like Jesus” and permit His Spirit to live in and through us. so “it is no longer I but Christ who lives in me…”
Saint Paul Writing His Epistles by Valentin de Boulogne (public domain).
What Audiences Are You Performing For?
Are you living for Christ alone, or are you defining your life by seeking to please others who want you to meet their expectations? Is God’s design for your life simply one more input you consider along with the rest? Do you recognize that many expectations placed on you by family, culture, friends, authority figures, abusers, destructive circumstances, workplace, church – and significantly by yourself – conflict with God’s design for you? Consciously and subconsciously, each of us reacts to innumerable influences around us, both long-past and present. Through Matthew 6:24, God exhorts us, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.”
Picture yourself in the center of a stage, surrounded by a large audience. Each person is asking you to meet their needs or their expectations regarding who they want you to be and become. These demands are impacting you no matter how mature and independent you are. Jesus is in this crowd, speaking quietly to you. What priority does His voice have in directing your steps and shaping you into His masterpiece? His is the only voice that will lead you inerrantly. As you permit it to replace all others, He will help you determine which voices you are to respond to and how to let Him provide what they truly need through you. It most often will not be what they are requesting. He will focus you on His kingdom missions and accomplish them in and through you by the presence and power of His Spirit. Every other God-ordained responsibility – spouse, family, ministry, job, etc. – will be accomplished more effectively.
Trapped or Free?
Paul tells us in Galatians 1:10, “For do I persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.” Are we attempting to live imitations of God’s design for our Christian lives and masterpiece callings? Are we walking in our flesh, under the imprisonment of voices other than Christ’s? Or do we continuously choose the incredible journey with Him of learning to soar as we “Walk in His Spirit.” Are you trapped or free? Consider what life would be like for an eagle who was raised in your local zoo. It would be living a constrained life that others had forced upon it. Much of its natural identity would have been snuffed-out, and its true identity would wither and die within. However, when a qualified expert with a loving heart (Christ), removed the eagle from the cage and patiently taught it how to exist as His designed, this powerful creature would begin to “be and become” all God had designed. Eventually (as it was released into the wild) it would soar into the heavens with a cry of exultation and life. This is what Christ has for each of us.
We find it only as we place Him on the throne of our lives to lead us through the incredible journey of learning to walk in His Spirit. In Ephesians 5:14-18 we are exhorted to, “Awake you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light. See that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.” His Spirit within both transforms us and lives in and through us. In His power, we are able follow Colossians 4:17b to, “Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.”
Summary
We encourage you to walk with His Spirit through this series. These are not presented as articles to evaluate with your mind but as personal explorations with God’s Spirit. Together, you are to listen for the Spirit’s biblical revelations regarding where you are in your unique journey with Christ. As you joyously place Him on life’s throne, He leads you and brings you further into the freedom, love, ever-deepening-personal relationship, and kingdom power of truly soaring in the wonder of the incredible life and missions He designed. You graduate from this life on Earth to heaven having truly lived as all He designed. You and those you mentor, are free to escape the following condition of many in the Christian Church.
Conclusion
What is God revealing to you? To what degree is Christ’s voice the authority in your life and His Spirit the source of life in and through you? What actions is He asking you to engage with Him? Will you join Him through this series as He provides more understanding, life, light and empowerment? Each of us is caged by some or many voices. Christ designed us for life and freedom in Him. This is realized in our lives only as it is “no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me” and we freely and intentionally place His Spirit on the thrones of our lives. Yes, we mess up and take back control. We sin or break fellowship by walking in the flesh. If our hearts are right, our Father embraces these occurrences as a natural elements of growth. We learn the joy of hearing our Father kindly drawing us back to Him as His Spirit asks, Whose Life Are You Living?
Author’s Bio: Curt Martin is an author, speaker, seminar leader, and organization consultant. God has filled him with the passion to see every individual and organization become the unique and incredible masterpiece God designed. Little touches Him more than helping awaken all God placed within you, so you thrive in His freedom, purpose, and power as you learn to Walk in God’s Spirit. Only those who commit to this journey experience the fullness of living God’s victorious life. Articles include excerpts from his (I’d much rather say “God’s” but believe those who don’t know me would find it hybrus.) award winning book, “Whose Life Are You Living.”
Here is some related reading for you: Why God Created Us – A Bible Study
Resource – Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), Crossway Bibles. (2007). ESV: Study Bible: English standard version. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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