Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Pray your pastor/priest is filled with power



Micah 3:5-8

What an appropriate time to look into verses 5-8, for this morning I was going to write, when the need came into my mind to stop what I was about to do and go dig up my neighbors yard.  My neighbor is out of town and had a leak in their plumbing and I called my plumber, David Sekula to come and take care of the problem, and this thought came into my mind, go dig the area up so it helps David.  What a wonderful person I am, wrong, those kind of thoughts are not of my flesh, my flesh would have said and rightly, David gets paid well for doing that, but I’ve learned to listen to that voice and guess what, when I got there David was already on the job.  I was sharing with David that normally I would be writing the Back Porch at this time, but I had come to see if I could help.  He ask about what I wrote and in our conversation I shared that often what I was going to put on paper came out totally different than my original thoughts.  David’s comment was then the Spirit is talking to you and I agree absolutely. 

So what would it be like if your goal or purpose was to share insights from God, you’re the local priest, pastor, teacher, and God is not speaking?  In that my job was sales for the Electrical Markets Division of 3M and most of my time was with engineers or construction supervisors, it required me to be able to keep them updated on what our technology could do for them.  Often, I did not have the answer to the problem they were facing, but we had a group whose job was to help people like me solve or come up with a solution.  Often, the problems were outside of the experience of the lab tech, but I always had my ace in the hole, and he has a name, Bill Taylor, and he had spent many years as the head electrical engineer for the Lubrizol Corporation, and Bill is one smart guy. 

Often, when I could not get hold of Bill I knew the information I was getting would not meet the needs of my customer and that is one sick feeling.  Can you imagine a priest or pastor standing before a congregation and proclaiming this is God’s word and knowing all the time it was from someone’s commentary  or sermon notes of another man, that it was not a fresh word from God, it was not spoken to him. 

That is what God is telling the prophet Micah about the prophets of his day; listen and learn: “Thus says the LORD concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who cry “Peace” when they have something to eat, but declare war against him who puts nothing into their mouths. Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision, and darkness to you, without divination. The sun shall go down on the prophets, and the day shall be black over them; the seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame; they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God.”  (Micah 3:5-7 ESV)

Pray for your priest or pastor that what God is saying about the priest and prophets of Micah’s day will not be true about them.  Pray that what Micah is declaring about himself will be true of them; “But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the LORD, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

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