When it comes to serving the Lord I think the key term is permission. We need his permission to do anything and everything that is spiritual. Everything we say or do or write needs to be first with his permission.

We may do nothing for him out of our own zeal and good intentions. Or out of admiration for Christians that we admire who pressure us. Even “preaching the gospel” is subject to his daily permission. Not every Christian has his permission to go and preach the gospel. We saw that with the apostle Paul. He was driven out for a very long time to do nothing at all. Jesus sent none of his disciples until he decided they were ready.

We are called to “let your light shine” we are not called to be the light itself with effort. Not by broadcasting a bubbly personality or, by flattering people then calling it love.

We are obligated to do nothing except what he wants, moment by moment.

It might be nice, but there is no autopilot to go on in serving Christ. There is no blank check we can cash to just do his will and get his approval and pleasure of our ministry pursuits.

We get his permission through the Holy Spirit and not through our own elaborate ministry strategy or visions. We do not get his permission and mandate from other Christians who themselves are not in mutual submission and community.

We get his permission on his timing by every day staying in communion with him and waiting patiently before we do anything. We can get permission by our community of Christians who themselves have proven to be in submission to the Spirit and to one another mutually, not permission some worldly religious hierarchy.

There is no ministry mandate or permission given by apostles or pastors or deacons that is not first and primarily directed through the Holy Spirit. They may affirm a calling and a sending. But they are neither the callers not senders.

A thousand individual independent Christians can scream at us saying “you and we should be doing this … or that, …why aren’t you…?” but without the Spirits permission and his ok we are better off doing absolutely nothing.

It’s very frustrating and difficult to submit to the ‘go and wait command’.

Sit on your hands, gag your mouth, sell your mics if he hasn’t ok’d your ministry first and repeatedly.

The most important thing then becomes how to hear and see and then follow the Holy Spirit. Make that …priority one, nothing else.

And when and if we start to follow him (and no one before him) … it is highly likely he will undermine our personal ministry, things we are doing for him as a favor out of self and out of our own religious zeal and our own definition of good work.

He will demand our top loyalty, and he will painfully break down our ties to others that stand in between us and him.

This is a bond slave, we do only his will unto death.

When it comes to serving Jesus, permission is the key.

Jesus is an exacting Lord, and he is the builder of his church, not us.

Ambition is not the key, not leadership, not preaching, not winning souls. Not prayer, not getting some force to back us that we call the anointing. All those things happen only as we respond to his moment by moment permission.

First and foremost it is permission and learning how to detect the Lord’s permission.

Permission for absolutely everything spiritual that we say, everything we do, everything we refuse to say, and everything we refuse to do.

This permission individually and as a body IS the ministry and we cannot control it or accelerate it. No more than we can control or accelerate the wind. All we can do is cooperate with the wind or resist it.

We cannot go on autopilot and enjoy a mandate to do what we think is good fulfilling our ambitions …then call that “the anointing”. We can’t get away with that and pretend we do the Lords work. It is just our work of ambitious, impatient, and pious religion, like all over the world.

When it comes to serving Jesus, permission is the key. Almost no one talks about this today. Because we assume pastors have all the spiritual permission and that it flows to us through them through their authority. So if a person wants permission to “serve the Lord” they are taught to first give their loyalty to a pastor of their choosing. Then he gives them some of his permission.

But Jesus wants to use and minister through all his children. He really is authorizing us all …directly.

A real pastor will teach us that in detail, he will teach us how to detect and yield to the permission of the Spirit. A real pastor will not insist on and enjoy a permanent position of authority over us.

Jesus is an exacting Lord, and he himself is the builder of his church, not us.

So very often our ambition is our biggest detriment. Unlike the business world our leadership, our preaching, even our winning souls and prayers can even hinder real ministry from the life of Christ. Especially when they grow independent of him, (and often they need to in order to accomplish outwardly impressive things) they hinder real ministry from the Lord.

Also, we often misinterpret money flowing our way as his permission and his pleasure in our ministries.

But the lord takes pleasure in and approves of some of the poorest people in the worl. just as they are, and amazingly he sometimes leaves them just as they are financially.

Preaching, prayer, leadership, winning souls may or may not happen but if so it is only as we respond to his moment by moment permission.

Detecting the Lords permission then submitting to his permission is essential. It is not even ok to preach without his specific permission given inwardly day by day.

Cover your mouth 🤭 …throw away your mic without it. It is done in vain, it becomes offensive, good sounding nonsense without the permission of the Spirit of Jesus.