FollowBy Martin Schlomer
God has challenged me over the past few weeks! As I’ve prepared to preach Jesus’ parable of the four soils in Mark 4, God has challenged me. Mediocrity easily slips into select areas of my life, and I don’t always see it until it begins to bear its fruit and rob my passion. If this problem is not caught early, my heart can become like concrete! We all share this vulnerability.
The writer of Hebrews warns us, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts …” Why does he give such a sober warning? The hardening process can happen very quickly and it can be devastating! This begs the question, is it possible to consistently cultivate the soil of our lives throughout the day so that we do not harden our hearts? Absolutely!
A few weeks ago, I was at the District Leadership Conference for our region. Matt Hannan, longtime pastor at New Heights Church in Vancouver, WA, spoke on transformational leadership. Bottom line: church health and transformation begins with the pastor humbling himself before the Lord. At one point, Matt shared a prayer that he daily prays throughout the day that keeps him in a posture of humility. This is his prayer, and it is one I’m adopting as my own: “Lord, I want You to do in me all that You need to do so that You can do through me all that You want to do.” This is one potent prayer!
There is no way one can develop a hard heart if this is a consistent posture before our God. I’m seeking to make it my posture and I want to encourage all of Elim to do the same. While God is doing many great things throughout this Body, I sense we are in need of revival! My sense is that there are too many people, especially men, whose hearts have grown (or are growing) hard! This is never one’s intention; it just happens through neglect. We make the wrong things, or even good things, the main thing in our lives. Before we know it, our hearts are desensitized to the voice of God. While God may be speaking, we aren’t hearing.
Will you make this prayer your daily, hourly prayer? “Lord, I want You to do in me all that You need to do so that You can do through me all that You want to do.” God’s passion is to do great things in us so that He can do great things through us in our families as well as in this city! Let’s take this challenge together!
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