What do you want God to do today?

God has commanded us to walk in His power with signs and wonders following us. Most churches do not see signs and wonders on a regular basis, but in the mission field we do. I asked the Lord why this is true, and what He said to me was so profound.I was in Haiti, preaching high in the mountains. At the end of the service, I gave an altar call for the sick to come forth. I never will forget this old man tugging on my shirt to get my attention. I was a bit annoyed at first. Then I looked down at him, and he was pointing down at his foot. When I looked down at his foot, I saw worms crawling out of it.I began to weep. The Holy Spirit quickly stopped me and told me that was not what He wanted me to know about this man. He said, “What I want you to know about this man is that he walked seven miles in his condition just to hear the gospel preached.”Then I really did weep, because instantly I knew that I did not have that kind of commitment to God and that hurt very deeply. I asked the Lord why we see all of these miracles in Third World countries — and the answer was so simple, yet so profound. He said, “Because these people love me just because of who I am, and in your country, they love me for what I can do for them.”In other words, it is a condition of the heart. If God never does another things for us besides salvation, that should be enough. But in this country we are so materialistic, and we just ask and work for more and more. We are not going to be able to take any of these things with us, yet we want more and more. Nationwide about 2 percent of Christians acknowledge tithing, yet we do not miss taking care of the things in our lives.In Judges 3:1-6, we see that God left some territory that the children of Israel were not able to conquer to teach them how to battle. He names the five lords of the Philistines that were to prove Israel, whether they would keep the commandments of the Lord. We will always be tested in one way or another before promotion comes.The five lords of the Philistines were five port cities that were heavily guarded and walled to keep people out of the Promised Land. They guarded all of the ports, what came in and what went out.The Holy Spirit began to speak to me about the significance of that for the church today. These are the areas of life that believers must overcome before we will be able to possess our promised land.The first city is Askelon, which means idolatry and witchcraft. This means that we want to be in control of everything instead of surrendering all to the Lord and allowing Him to be in control of every area of our lives. This means surrendering our wills to the Lord and foregoing the wants of the flesh. The flesh and Satan are always in agreement with one another.Proverbs 11:1 tells us that a false balance is an abomination before God. Therefore, we are not to be in excess or lack but well balanced in our lives. Any excess is a form of idolatry. We must bear the fruit of self control in our lives. For instance, many have not been blessed financially because of out-of-control spending habits.The second city was Ashdod, which means the god of agriculture or fruitfulness, which means the god of the flesh. This involves self will, self righteousness, self affirmation, self reliance, self promotion — all of those “self” things. It all began in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve broke covenant with God through disobedience.According to Romans 8:7, all flesh is hostile to God. In order to change this nature we must put to death the rebellious flesh (Romans 8:13; Galatians 16, 14.) The nature of flesh is sin, weak, evil, full of pride, wicked, greedy, unforgiving and not loyal. When our hearts loved the flesh nature, our motives were the same as Satan’s. The Lord warned us in Luke 6:44 that we should be able to determine a man’s heart by the fruit that a man bears.If you would like to contact us please write P.O. Box 327, Lima, OH 45802, shar8jffrs3@aol.com or www.sharonjefferson.org.