Once the Lord gives me His burden and calls me into a particular ministry, He then begins to open the doors that were once closed up tight, doors that lead to His support and provision to manifest His vision into reality (step five). This is where the next stage of my spiritual growth begins, in the refining fires of ministry, where the Lord begins to reveal the pride and hidden agendas within my heart.
I will put this third through the fire; I will refine them as silver is refined and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say: They are My people, and they will say: The LORD is our God." (Zec 13:9)
This refining process has led to the fall of many ministers and ministries both past and present. Some have fallen because they simply got ahead of God’s program, believing that their gifts and anointings were all they needed to enter ministry. Still others have stayed on course with God’s plan for their life, only to find their own pride rising up to take control of the work and covet the glory as well.
The truth is, if I operate apart from God’s established order, satan will allow me to rise just high enough in my ministry so that my fall, when it comes, will be public and humiliating both to myself and the body of Christ. This is why the refining must come when the ministry is thriving on all cylinders. When everything I put my hands to is being blessed, and my name is on the letterhead, it’s then I must be willing to let God expose my hidden motives so they can be confessed and purged from my life and ministry, leaving no stumbling stone for the enemy to trip me up.
Once God has done His work of refining my heart, I am ready for the seventh and final step in my journey to spiritual maturity…
To be concluded…
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