Can I get a witness?
I don’t want to do something; I want to witness God do something. In this is my purpose. I want to allow God to show Himself strong. I want to rest in Him.
People throughout history and especially today spend so much time being busy, doing things, working, and sometimes I think God is just asking, “Can I get a witness?” We all question God in terms of what He wants us to do. What does God want me to do with my life? What does God want me to do with this person who doesn’t know Him? What does God want me to do with my close friend who is sinning? What does God want me to do with my sinful thoughts and desires? But we forget that the FIRST thing God wants us to do is LOVE HIM. When we love Him we get to be witnesses to what He is doing, to His power, to His goodness. Jesus says to His disciples, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea in Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8
When we receive the Holy Spirit and power, we get to be WITNESSES. It doesn’t say, “you will change people’s hearts,” or “you will change a generation.” It is God who does that. I see far too many people, pastors, leaders, who think that they can change the world, or that they have changed the world or lives, and what happens to them? They either give up on the whole God thing, or they get a god-complex and abuse their positions of power, turning more and more people away from the church and away from knowing the Truth. We can do nothing for God. Only God has the power to do. May we stop doing for God, and start BEING who God wants us to be.
God is not often described by what He does but rather by who He is. When Moses asks for God’s name, God responds with I AM. He is. We need to stop trying to define ourselves by what we do and start defining ourselves by WHO WE ARE. We are not God’s army of working ants, nor can we take credit for anything that God has done, that is HIS GLORY and He will not share His glory with any other. Anytime we say, “I did such-an-such thing for God,” we miss out on the whole point. No, actually you didn’t do anything, God did, and you were a witness. When we believe that we can do things for God, we start to put other people down, or think somehow we are better than them because of what we have done. We want recognition, we want praise. We start comparing ourselves to others, and when we find out we are not “doing” as much for God as someone else we begin to feel down and depressed. We start thinking, “What more could I or should I be doing for God?” We throw ourselves into God’s work and get burned out fast. We end up empty and wondering, “God wasn’t that what you wanted me to do?”
When we see clearly who God calls us to be, or rather, who God made us, only then can we live how God calls us to live. God never started by changing what we do, but by changing who we are. He looked deep into our hearts and instead of telling us to do something about the sin and ugliness in our lives, He called us “righteous,” “child,” and “clean.” He literally spoke a new existence into our hearts, just as he did at the beginning of the creation of the world when He spoke and it became. He made something out of nothing. He did that for me. From that moment and every moment since then I became a witness. I can now testify of what I have seen and felt God do in my heart and life. I did not do it, I have not done anything since then, I have only become a witness again and again to what God has done in me and around me in the lives of others. I’m not the one who is changing lives and people, God is. When I forget that, I lose my way.
We are called to be witnesses to what God can do, not the other way around. God is not waiting for us to do things so He can witness what we can do, God calls us to wait for Him to do, so we can be His witnesses. God changes, we witness, we tell, and God changes all the more.
Yes, I still totally and completely agree that we should do what God says in His Word, but before we do what God says, let us realize that doing what God says does not change anything permanently, only God Himself can bring lasting change, and we can only be witnesses of His immense and awesome power.
Don’t do, rather BE who He has called you to be, who He has made you. Who you are dictates what you do. Be a witness to God’s power and work.
