HOW TO STAY ON TRACK IN MINISTRY

[Bishop W.C. Maddox D.D.]

NOT NECESSARILY NEEDLESS THINGS

Ge 3:1-9 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. 8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

Have we ever had a time where we had something that needed to get done but we’ve found ourselves sidetracked by something else.

Has there been a time in you life where there is something that put before you and you knew it was part of God’s calling on your life and you got…….sidetracked.

We get called by God to share the Gospel somewhere or to go witness to somebody, help this homeless person over here, or help that addict over there, or that person struggling with their walk or we might get called to minister to someone that is sick or who might be in grief or in a suicidal condition, and all the sudden here comes somebody telling you that they got something more important for you to do, they say “ Oh it’s not that important that you do that now, or they will be alright, or every body goes through stuff like that then they say it’s not really…..necessary”

God has a funny way of sending us to minister to people who suffer from the same things that we have suffered from and sometimes minister to people who suffer from the same thing that we currently suffer, so that not only will we be a blessing to someone, but also that someone will be a blessing to us and reconfirm to us that God is still in control and God….still has something for you to do and let us know that, Yes……..it is necessary.

God will remind us that not too long ago we were in those same situations and it took somebody to take the time to do what God told them to do and minister to us or else we would be dead so we should be thankful to God that somebody was being obedient….to God, and for us, it was necessary.

Folks try to get us sidetracked, the God of this world wants take our focus from what is necessary…….and dwell on what is secondary.

In our text we have an account of Adam and the woman ( we must keep in mind that at this point, Adam has not yet named her Eve), and in the text we see that the woman is approached by the serpent, she is deceived by the serpent then takes a bite of fruit that God said not to eat and then she proceeds to give to Adam for him to eat (also note that the text does not say that Adam was deceived or tricked into this by the woman) in other words Adam did this knowingly, but we must remember that although Adam prior to Adam doing this that Adam did not know sin. After this they hid themselves amongst the trees. We see a crooked action, coming from a crooked understanding, from a crooked word. A crooked action, from a crooked understanding, from a crooked word……..crooked things……..We know that the god of this world is a deceiver and let me clarify, the god of this world, and the God of all creation are different, and the god of this world is still doing his job….and I have found that the same deception that he was doing back then is the same thing that he is doing today. Just like Adam and the woman back then, we start out walking how God wants us to walk, but then we end up hiding out amongst the trees. We get caught up by some crooked things, and end up being caught up in, some crooked things yet God is still asking……”Where art thou?”

There’s somebody that should be preaching and yet God is asking “Where art thou? There’s someone that should be singing ….and yet God is asking……where art thou? Where art thou, when you are called to teach?

Where art thou, when you are called to serve? Where art thou, when you are called to worship?

Many times when we examine the portion of scripture about the deception of the woman we have a tendency to look at when the woman added to the word of God in verse 3, however upon further review we find that what we are looking at is actually the result of her already being deceived. We find that the deception has already taken place. If we look at God’s instruction to Adam but for the woman as well, we find that God said in Genesis Chpt.2:16-17 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Now that’s what God said but look at what the serpent asks the woman, Ge 3:1 reads “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” Notice the serpent had questioned the eating of all the trees in the garden, not just the one tree. We notice that God named a specific tree, but the serpent just said every tree, and we might say big deal, however, what the serpent did by bringing into question all of the trees and not specifying the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was that by not acknowledging that that tree has a special name implies that this tree does not have a special designation which further implies that this tree does not have a special purpose, which further implies that this tree did not come with a special command and that this special command did not come from….a special God……..in other words by not setting apart this tree from the rest of the trees implies that all of the trees are the same…….but we know that…..one of these trees….is not like the other, but that’s what the god of this world wants you to think. He wants you to think that all these things are the same, that all people are the same, that all preachers are the same, .that all ministries are the same, that all churches are the same. The tempter says oh prayer is not needed, christian relationship is not needed, worship is not needed, praise is not needed, and the word of God is not needed. He says see everybody else has rules of a god and not relationship with God, he says see everybody else is doing church this way. He’s saying church is only a hobby that it’s only what you do cause your parents did it that its only something you do in your spare time.

Just like in the garden then we are still being told today that the word of God is unnecessary. We are told it is not needed, we are told it is just like any other book, but some of these things are not like the other. The need in the garden was obedience to the word of God. The need in the garden was for the woman to be able to stand on the command of God. Because the woman got sidetracked on God’s command, The woman got to looking at needless things, and how many times have we gotten caught up in needless things?

You know what I’m talking about, things that are really wants, but we want them so bad that we make them needs. We get so bad with this that we try to get God to cosign on our wants without dealing with our needs and we start praying to God about what we want instead of praying to Him about what we need. We start replacing our needs with our wants and when we start doing that then eventually our needs will not be taken care of.

We will be stuck with nothing from a bunch of…..needless things.

This also lets us know as it shows in the text that the best thing to do is to follow the word of God by properly understanding what God said, what God meant by what He said, and how God wants us to apply His Word to our lives so that we wont stray on needless things. Don’t get me wrong, I know that sometimes God will allow things that are unpleasant to happen in our life for our good. I know that God will allow us to mess up at times in order to teach us a lesson. He will allow things bad to happen to get us back on track with Him. But this is not necessarily….needless….things…..so God saw fit for the women to get caught in what might seem needless so that through her the Savior Jesus Christ may come. God finds things necessary in some things that seem needless. God saw it necessary to take care of our needs, if you feel that you need to overcome some needless things in your life then first of all see what God might be doing with those needless things, to make sure that you get to the necessary things of God. Jesus says in Mt 6:30-34 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

In other words….seek the kingdom of God….and God will supply your needs.

Seek the Kingdom of God

Its necessary

May God Bless You,

Bishop W. C. Maddox

 

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