SHILOH MESSENGER - June 2011
















 

The Affect of Righteous


“Do not devise evil against your neighbor, For he dwells by you for safety's sake" (Proverbs 3:29)  
I recently had a conversation with one of my neighbors by phone last week. He was asking questions about our new property and the new Dorm we are presently renovating. I explained to him what all we were doing in renovating the existing building to make room to disciple more men. I also communicated to him how blessed we were to live and be a part of this community that his family has lived for generations. He then began to give details of the ancestral history of our property and adjacent properties. I was glad to have received all this history of where God has placed us to affect a culture with righteousness. Daily I’m being made aware of this strategy by the Lord. In our conversation I asked him how he and his family were doing. He said he was good but needed prayer for others in his family. I told him I would be in prayer for him and his family. I then begin to tell him about my quite times in the morning and about his cattle that I see daily out my window. I said man, you got some beautiful cows. He laughed and said, “yea they get a lot of attention. Almost lost a bull last week though, thought I was going to have to put him down and give him to you as hamburger meat”. I said, what happened to the bull? He said, “the bull caught a healing”! I said, brother this is God’s favor for you, because you live next to a righteous neighbor, your being effected by the Holy Ground of your proximity( the state of being near or close). He said, “yea I guess so”. I do not believe that it is a coincident that we (the righteous) live in a certain neighborhood. It is my belief that God has placed us where we live to be a refuge for others to live in safety. There is much that God desires to do through yielded vessels to affect neighborhoods with His Glory and His blessings. We though have to be a pattern that represents Christ so it will attract them to Him. If we do not take notice of this we will lose what is so important to Christ Jesus, souls! When God called Deb & I to this community we immediately begin to visit our neighbors and introduce ourselves to them. We had an understanding that God desires for His love to manifest and be displayed by acts of kindness in serving one another. I remember early in our ministry we had un-ruly neighbors with teens that lived across the street. They would shoot guns at night and even during the day. We would express our displeasures with no results. It only brought further torment in acts of defiant behavior. One particular morning we woke up to ruts in the ministry yard brought on by four wheelers doing doughnuts (circles engraved by tires). I was furious. I was desiring to go over to the house across the street and call down fire on um! (As if I had such supernatural power to inflict righteous judgment). The Lord required mercy from me though. “For Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13). I said to the Lord, “ok what do I do Lord”? He said, “shower them with Twinkies” . I said, “do what”? He said, “do you not have boxes of Twinkies in your outside pantry”? I said, “yes Sir we do”. He said, “this will be a tool for ministry”. I did what He said and it opened doors for us to serve them and demonstrate Christ to them (Matt. 5:43-45). All through the Word of God, Old & New Testament we see God’s Heart for redeeming man. It was the most important thing to Him, restoring fellowship with His people. The way He chose to do it was in relationships. A pattern in which man would encounter God in love and then desire to give this love to others who where close in proximity. The scriptures are clear in what God was expressing. “Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:37-40). Loving God is the first commandment, and then we are commanded to love our fellow man. 1st John argues that “if we don't love those we have seen, then we don't truly love God, whom we have not seen” (1Jo 4:20). This isn't reversing the order Jesus gave here; rather, it is using our love for others as a measurement of our love for God. We can't give away what we don't have. If we don't first love God and thereby receive His love for us, we can't love others properly. We can't try to love some unlovely person first. We need to love God and get His love working in our lives and then we will begin to love others. If we loved God with everything we have and are and loved our neighbors as ourselves, we would never violate any of the written commandments. It is only knowing God as “Father” can we encounter Pure Love. The Creator fashioned us for His Love exclusively. His Love gives ability to love others because the Holy Spirit empowers through a born again spirit of a believer. How will others ever know we are identified with our Heavenly Father? By imitating God! “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma” (Ephesians 5:1-2). As we imitate God in our daily life, there will be an affect (to act on; produce an effect or change in) on those we come in contact with. Such was the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. He had such an affect that people responded with “astonishment at His teaching, for His word was with authority” (Luke 4:32). So here is the question that I believe the Holy Spirit is asking us, what affect are we having on our neighbors (human contact)? Do they sense the Spirit of God in us? The Anointing that is in us, should affect our neighbors to experience the supernatural state of Proverbs 3:29, dwelling in a place of safe keeping.


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