NO SWEAT

NO SWEAT

                “But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept charge of My sanctuary when the sons of Israel went astray from Me, shall come near to Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer Me the fat and the blood”, declares the Lord God. They shall enter My sanctuary; they shall come near to My table to minister to Me and keep My charge. And it shall be that when they enter at the gates of the inner court they shall be clothed with linen garments and wool shall not be on them while they are ministering in the gates of the inner court and in the house. Linen turbans shall be on their heads, the linen undergarments shall be on their loins; they shall not gird themselves with anything which makes them sweat.”

                It is the tendency of us who work for the Lord to feel that we are somehow building up sweat equity in the house of the Lord. Surely all of the things we do for the Lord are adding up to something. After all, Jesus says to those who enter in, “Well done thou good and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things, therefore I will make you ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of your Master.” Mt. 25:21

                And so it is that we think we may be building up sweat equity as we” labor for the Lord”; but God doesn’t see it that way. In fact, when we come before Him, He doesn’t want to see our sweat. But why might that be? Do we labor in vain as we give our all to the Lord?

                In order to understand the spiritual dynamic of why God doesn’t want to see our sweat, we can receive 2 major clues from John 15:4, 5 and Galatians 2:20.

                John 15:4, 5 Jesus said: “Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine and you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me YOU CAN DO NOTHING.”

                What this tells us is that anything that we do apart from Him, no matter how much we do, or how good our intentions, it always adds up to zero. So much for sweat equity huh?

                Our other clue lies in Galatians 2:20 and these days, no matter how many good sermons I hear and how many prophetic voices I listen to, they are all saying that everything in the Christian life comes down to Galatians 2: 20.

                “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave His life for me.”

                Being born again is so much more than people realize. The world despises it, and the church largely treats it too lightly. But when I am crucified with Christ, that is where I die. And how much can a dead man do? A dead man can do nothing, he can feel nothing, see nothing, hear nothing… he cannot be offended. In other words, if your feelings are hurt by someone it only means that your flesh is still alive. You have not truly been crucified with Christ. When people poke you, you still say “Ouch.”

                But this tells us that everything we do FOR the Lord is without value. We have not built anything up in our heavenly bank.

                Jesus did not say, “Work hard for the kingdom and all of these things shall be added unto you. He said, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, (not my righteousness, but His righteousness) and all these things shall be added unto you.” Mt. 6:33 In other words, we need to get His kingdom inside of us and His righteousness inside of us before anything can begin to add up.

                Only that which the Lord does in us and through us has any eternal value.

                So working FOR the Lord is tantamount to the teenage son pushing the car all the way home, thinking that He will incur more favor, impress Dad with his willingness and hard work; but the Dad will look with pity upon his foolish son and say, “Son I bought you a car with an engine in it, why are you pushing it? Now you have no energy to mow the lawn.”

                But the fact that we cannot build up any sweat equity with God doesn’t mean that we can just sit back and wait for Jesus to come. According to the Scriptures we actually have a huge amount of work to do and a huge harvest to bring in… a task that is languishing because most of us are doing nothing. We tend to see grace as some sort of diploma, rather than an engine run on Holy Spirit power. We find our security in hiding inside the four walls rather than seeing grace as full armor in which to wage war.

                As we approach the end of time (and we are racing toward it at breakneck speed,) we need to get our backwards ideas of Christianity turned around. We often laud and applaud ourselves and each other for our sweat equity on one hand, while on the other hand, we release ourselves from all sense of purpose, to become spectators needing “Christian” entertainment and positive thinking to bolster our sagging egos.

                In the great falling away that I see happening right now, the church has lost its own definition of itself.  We are no longer the ecclesia, the called out ones. Instead we are racing toward a kind of unity that will land us squarely in the kingdom of the antichrist. We will applaud ourselves for our huge crowds, but they will be energized by another spirit… the spirit of this world.

                The only way into Christ’s kingdom is through death and that death is only through the cross… and yet many are preaching a false Gospel today that bypasses the cross and the blood of Jesus. It replaces the power of God unto salvation with human reasoning and psychological conditioning. It replaces repentance with success motivation or some other self-help regimen. Today many preachers are building up the flesh and not the spirit. They minister to our externals, bolstering courage with manmade slogans and catch phrases.

                There was a very popular catch phrase a while back that made it onto many bumper stickers and it said “WWJD” What Would Jesus Do?

                To this question Pastor Joe Sweet said: “Here’s what Jesus would do. He would burst through our doors brandishing a whip that he had made by binding cords together. He would come in with a wind of fury that would completely knock us off guard. He would throw over our money changing tables and our merchandise. He would dash to pieces our smoke and mirrors and our facades of Christianity and our preachers of old wives tales and He would then invite the sick and the lamb and the children to sing praises and He would begin to meet the very real needs of those whom the church has neglected and He would make His house into a house of prayer.

                Okay, well, that was not an exact quote from Pastor Sweet, but it was the general idea.

                At any rate, we sit around largely idle, waiting for God to pour out His Spirit with latter rain power, when in fact; He will only pour our His Spirit on sons and daughters… those who have matured into the image of Christ.

                A mature son or daughter is one that can take over the family business, who can handle the finances, make mature and profitable decisions, treat the employees with respect and fairness, manufacture quality products without cutting corners, run the business with honesty and integrity the way Dad did.

                Our Father simply cannot pour His Spirit and power out upon immature children. We will misuse it and abuse it as has been done many times in the past. Revival will be a flash in the pan that quickly flares up and then quickly dies.

                But we have a pattern set for us in the ministry of Christ.

1.       HE cleansed the temple twice: Once at the beginning of His ministry and once again at the end just prior to His crucifixion.

2.       He had His disciples throw their nets into the water twice: Once at the beginning of His ministry and once again after His resurrection.

What this tells us is that before He pours out His Spirit with the kind of power that the harvest will require, He is going to cleanse His church. Judgment is coming to the house of God so that everything that can be shaken will be shaken. Hebrews 12:26-29.

                Then when the church is purified and all the dead wood shaken out, He will them commission us to bring in the final harvest and this time the nets will not break and the revival will not be a flash in the pan, but will carry us on into the millennial reign of Christ.

                So what should we be doing right now?

                “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” Jude 20, 21.

                Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in our born again spirit. Everything of eternal value must come forth from that spirit in which Christ dwells. So we must build up that spirit by praying in the Spirit and we must feed it with spiritual food which is none other than the Word of God. Did you know that 88% if all Christians do not read their Bibles on a regular basis and even fewer than that actually pray in the Spirit just as Paul taught us to? The power of Pentecost has been lost to most of the church. Even among those who still have the Holy Spirit, many are weak because they have lost their first love.

                Most of the church is not growing, but is instead falling away because they do not love the truth. They care nothing about God’s prophetic plans. They run from any activity of the Holy Spirit. They have resorted to human reasoning and manmade programs. They are now seeking unity with all other religions as if Jesus Christ is just one of the gods. They think that they are rich and increased with goods, when in fact they are miserable and poor and blind and naked.

                Whenever the anointing of God is not on us we have to work twice as hard to keep up appearances. What we can’t accomplish by the Spirit we try to work up with emotions. We increase our programs in order to look busy and yet what we really need is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and fire. We need a cleansing of the temple. We need our security to be shaken from all things worldly so that we will turn to God with our whole hearts… let Him put us to death on His altar of sacrifice, so that He can empower us with HIS LIFE.

                The sons of Zadok remained faithful when the rest of the Old Testament church fell away and so God invited them into close fellowship with Him, as priests, dressed in linen garments. Linen ultimately represents our glorified bodies and so those who reign with Christ during His millennial reign will minister before Him in linen (Our glorified bodies) but when we minister to the people we will do so in wool, just as Jesus did after His resurrection. For the disciples saw Jesus as a man of flesh and bone, but when John saw Him in His high priestly role in heaven, he saw Him glorified… and when John saw Him, he fell at His feet as a dead man. Rev. 1:17

                God is not looking for our sweat. He is looking for our faith… for only that which He can do in us and through us will count for eternity. We NEED TO PRAY EARNESTLY FOR THAT WHICH IS REAL.