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Teaching
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Written by Senior Pastor Judy Sky
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Saturday, 01 September 2007 11:48 |
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Page 7 of 7
CHAPTER SIX - "THE INTIMACY OF YIELDING IN MINISTRY"
(Continued from Chapter 5)
Yielding, like Loving, is a strange process that activates and precipitates death to self. It is the preferring of another, the laying down of one's own ways and life in order for the Nature of God to have place and expression.
Yielding in ministry works much the same as yielding in the personal relationships we covered in earlier chapters. In both situations we make ourselves available to God by laying down our lives and our own selfish ways in order to love. We are available for His Presence. When we yield to the Nature and Spirit of God, instead of our old selfish nature, we will experience a type and degree of death. Every opportunity and interaction will be one or the other... hopefully, not I but Christ. Whatever we yield our members to we become a slave to. (Rom.6:16)
Oftentimes when I begin to minister, or even pray to prepare for ministry, I sense and feel nothing spiritual or inspiring. I may feel like an empty hose without the faucet on, or a cable wire without the electricity on, yet I believe in God. I remind myself how He has worked through me faithfully and even powerfully in the past, and it has not been dependent on how I felt. It's more a matter of trust, and I had to choose to trust and practice trust, and while I was doing that The Lord was proving Himself trustworthy to me. He was building a trusting relationship with me, and every time I yielded myself we had another opportunity to flow as one and have a greater base of operation.
Yet even in the very beginning of my ministry and of my salvation, my faith without works was dead, until I began to reach out to perceive and to seek, and (by faith) touch His presence. Until I would begin to prime the pump and stir the waters with His own words that I would pray back to Him, my faith would lay flat and lifeless. But I have discovered that after awhile of consistency, when I would step out, even one inch, He would give me a mile. I would speak in His Name and leave the results up to Him, and I was shocked at the way He would back me up with power. We were communicating and interacting. There was someone responding to me on the other end of this relationship. I began to sense Him urging me to say and do special things in His Name so He could bless it. I would make myself pray out loud and even write out prayers to be sure I had prayed through. I often felt foolish and ridiculous that I was expecting Him to respond to me, but after I had lifted my voice to find Him, and touch Him, and love on Him, He would reward me with the connection.
When I throw self-consciousness and self concern aside, and battle all distractions to keep my focus on Him, I find that, indeed, He is the rewarder of those that diligently seek Him. Diligently seeking is "works". Faith without works is dead. (James 2:26  ) Faith with works (like diligently seeking) is a preparatory part of yieldedness. Along with all those who love to fellowship with The Lord, I have discovered that He has given us supernatural keys that work like passwords and vehicles to move us in and through certain boundaries and locked areas in the Kingdom of God; and in particular, His Tabernacle. But in order for them to work for us, we have to actively use them. Two of these special keys are thanksgiving and praise. We will enter His gates with thanksgiving in our mouth and we enter His courts with praise. (Psalms 100:4) As in the many patterns of God, this algebraic truth has one more mysterious and third element of passage unto completion of this experience. The third place in the pattern is The Most Holy Place. We enter into this Holy of Holies through worship. Worship is the most powerful communion, which is the combined work of laying down our own life to enter into intimacy with God. Therein is a rest that causes us to cease from our own works and be still and know that He is God (and we are not). Yet in all this, it is possible for us to lose consciousness of ourselves to become caught up and one with Him, who is Love.
Although I start out sensing and feeling nothing, by faith and works (which come into union in THE SPIRIT OF THE MIND), I open my mouth, step out, and press in. I am relentless in knitting and extending my end of the connection to love on God and to minister to Him. As I continue holding on and loving Him for His sake, then He faithfully meets me and He begins to give me impressions and thoughts and ideas that I recognize are altogether too lovely, loving, wise, and powerful to be mine. This is yielding to intimacy and union with God.
I love His appearing. I love His presence. Everything becomes simple, clear, and wonderful. This is what I was made for, it's excitingly good and on track. To continue in faith with works, I can begin to respond to the communications that I have learned by practice and experience, which are of Him. I can begin to pray out those thoughts and describe those visual impressions and my monolog turns into a dialog because His Word is good, and He says "Draw near to me, and I will draw near to you." And "To him who has, more will be given."
I pull at threads at first, to find any golden strand that He might be offering me. When I get hold of something I believe is from Him, I pursue it; I say it in words, I handle it and treasure it, and then it unravels and becomes more. I have little and savor it, and then the whole ball of yarn begins to unroll. I handle each thought of His as the treasure it is, and if it were all He chose to give, it would be enough. But He is The God of abundance, and to the degree I am willing to seek and receive, He is faithful to pour Himself out. I am only able to handle so much, but I am increasing in my endurance and ability to handle His anointing. In yielding, I learn not only to receive and give, but when He stops, I stop. I don't take liberties in making things up. When I am speaking in His name, He is the producer and the creator to the best of my ability. Yet He uses my own imagination as His image making factory or faculty for our communication. I am a visual person and I often describe what I see; I paint pictures with words for others to benefit from the impressions I receive. I am yielding my imagination to The One who designed it, for this purpose of ministry among other things. The language of the Spirit is in pictures, symbols, impressions, and patterns which can be translated into words. The language of the Spirit may irrupt in abstract form: in dreams, visions, words, or phrases that might not make sense in the natural, but find their interpretation in the Spirit.
As I make myself available to God and if He chooses, I will be a bridge and a priest to minister from Him to the people. I ask Him prayerfully and respectfully to use me if He will, and show me what He wants to do and say to this particular people at this specific time. I need to be a clean vessel and I am aware of certain obstacles and blocks to the flow of His Power and Presence. So I prepare myself by holding my heart open for examination in His Brightest Light so that I can know and confess my sins and weaknesses, and receive forgiveness through the shed blood of the Lamb. Conviction is sweet truth that makes me free and gives me something to work with, but condemnation is looming grief and dread and blocks not only joy and peace, but the purest and most powerful flow of His Anointing is affected.
I give up and over all guilt, shame, and condemnation attached to my sin because it really is all His, anyway. He bought and paid for it all in order that I might be clean and free to contain and express His nature and life and even minister it to others. So I gladly empty and purify myself of all sin consciousness because I am not really available to be yielded if I am full of that self-absorbed darkness. I really am not doing myself or God any favor by holding onto it. His will is for me to be freed up to contain and express Him, and I am glad to have the opportunity to be cleansed completely and washed and prepared to be used. I am glad to have one more interaction and experience with the Presence of God in my life. I cast my personal needs, concerns, and cares upon Him, and I forget about myself. I find that when I am busy about His matters and issues, He is also busy about mine. I minister to the family of God and He ministers to my family, even sometimes through me, also! I care about His things and He cares about my things and thats how we like it.
By putting myself into position and condition to be used by God, I am yielding. I hold myself like an open fruit bowl, so that He can take out what He wants to remove, and wash out, cleanse, sanitize, and refill me with that which is His own. When He puts something in my heart or in my life, I try not to slam shut like a bear trap and grab and cling. If I believe it is for others, I try to keep it moving on out to make room for the rest that will follow. I put myself out on the line, and I choose to make myself vulnerable to Him. I dont like the feeling of vulnerability, but without it I cant experience His trustworthy faithfulness. Without it I cannot experience intimacy with God or other people. I also must make myself vulnerable before the people, not knowing what is coming next as I trust Him and begin to allow myself to respond to and express spontaneously what I believe I am receiving from God. As it is working in me, through the moving and flowing of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, I minister to the people. Sometimes it is prophecy, sometimes it is healing, and sometimes it is deep personal ministry. I see it and hear it as I am saying it. I trust that the people are receiving from The Lord through the gifts of The Holy Spirit. I want to bless The Lord and serve Him in whatever He wants to happen. It's intense, exciting, and holy. He offers all He is to whosoever will come and partake, be prepared, be exercised, and be yielded.
Im understanding the word yielded, in the sense of yielding yourself, to mean holding yourself back to offer God the full right of way. It means valuing His life in you, willing to be used, in agreement with, accepting and receiving Him, to be available and ready as an ongoing process, to give your self over, to be submitted, to embrace the little and believe for the much, to surrender your life for His sake, and to let Him live His life in you and through you. It means to be open to Gods voice, and willing to let Him say what He will through your voice box if so lead. It means living to perceive His presence and His will in all areas of life, practicing living tuned in to His movement and flow. A yielded life is one that is seeking knowledge of His full purpose and His plan, not demanding that it live up to what ‘I want for myself'. To be yielded means to stay available, ready, and waiting to be used and to remain actively and consciously connected; interceding while waiting, thinking your thoughts to The Lord. One who is yielded is instant in season; ready and willing to do the "behind the scenes" work unless and until called, confirmed, trained, and anointed to move up front, in leadership. To be used by God is the accomplishment of the power of yielding. The power is His, the yielding to let it pass through me is mine.
To be yielded would mean then, that I am all about His Life and I am choosing to have Him live in me while I deliberately and consciously lay down my own selfish life.
Strongs definition: 3936 paristemi (par‑is'‑tay‑mee); or prolonged paristano (par‑is‑tan'‑o): to stand beside, i.e. (transitively) to exhibit, proffer, (specifically) recommend, (figuratively) substantiate; or (intransitively) to be at hand (or ready), aid: ‑ assist, bring before, command, commend, give presently, present, prove, provide, show, stand (before, by, here, up, with), yield.
Rom 6:13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. (KJV)
Rom 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? (KJV)
Rom 6:19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. (KJV)
James 3:12 Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? Either a vine, figs? So can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh. (KJV)
Once the yielding process takes place the Spirit of God is can then express Himself through you:
Col 1:25 ‑29 Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill the Word of God, Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labour, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily. (KJV)
This is what happens when you are totally yielded:
Gal 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (KJV)
Here is another example of yielding in Scripture:
Phil 2:1 ‑8 Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like‑minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. (KJV)
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ ...Yield, to let it be in you.
For more teachings and insight from Pastor Judy Sky visit our website at http://www.3rddayministries.com
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