Needed

‘I need you as much as you need Me!’

These were words the Lord spoke to me recently as I fellowshipped with Him, but as I sat down this morning to think through what I wanted to share with you today, it ministered to me that this is a word for you too, sis. Let me back track a bit.

I’d said in my first post this year that I came into 2017 in trauma. Pressing in to hear God’s voice, He had then said to me that ‘surrendered’ is the state of heart that would keep me in His victory in 2017; that this is not a year where I should try to do battle by myself and that I would not win if I do. Somehow, this word seemed to speak to the fact that I needed God more than anything else in this year, and I was fine with that. God knows (literally), that I am tired of trying to do life by myself anyway.

A few days later though, I was meditating… okay, I confess… I was worrying over someone in a particular situation and praying for the Lord to intervene when He said the next few words to me:

“Focus on your own growth, My child! Do not worry about anyone else. Pray and encourage others, yes; but focus on your own growth. My word for you today is ‘Higher’. There are too many mountains ahead and you need spiritual strength to climb them. Be prepared! Plug in and persevere so you can grow. You need to be fed, and the only way you can do this is to spend more time in My presence and allow My Spirit minister to your spirit!

It is in My presence that is your victory and growth! Do not neglect dedicated time in My presence, My child! I need you as much as You need Me! My purposes must be fulfilled though you.”

I bolted upright after I wrote this down, and in the place of a pause I’d asked God. ‘You need me as much, Lord? I’m not sure I can handle that. And He spoke again clearly saying: ‘I need you as much as You need Me! My purposes must be fulfilled though you. It is weighty, yes. But, you are chosen and you must walk in the fullness of this privilege’.

Sis, I wish I could somehow make you feel exactly what I was going through at that time as I sat and mulled over these words. You and I know that those of us who have a relationship with God kind of always find ourselves in the place of knowing that we need God to walk through this life successfully on His terms. And many of us know that God brought us to the earth to fulfill some purpose, whether or not we are clear what that purpose or those purposes might be. Indeed, for those of us who are in one form of active ministry (‘active’ being the qualifier, for I believe all of us are called to be every day ministers), we understand that we are on God’s assignment to build His Kingdom. We know God needs us to do the work, given that He is not coming down from heaven to get things done, but has empowered us to do. However….. I am not sure that I personally have ever seen the assignment as being weighty enough for God to declare to me that He ‘needs me as much as I need Him’.

Wow! Me?…..tiny, little, insignificant-in-the-global-scheme-of-things me? How can this be?

Hmm! I just had Luke 1 v 34 drop in my spirit. Mary was asking the Angel the same question when he passed the message from God to her about her bringing forth Jesus. Remember? I believe the Holy Spirit is reminding me that God specializes in asking for the seemingly impossible from us because as He also spoke in Luke 1 v 35: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” It’s ultimately always about God’s power and purpose, sis. It is! 

On the day I had this experience however, Luke 1 v 34-35 was nowhere on my mind. What immediately came to my mind were all my past failings, my current struggles. I thought about how readily I could accept if my fellow man said to me that they needed me as much as I needed them. That would make sense because I know within my family and my small close circle of friends, we all play supporting roles in each other’s lives. Because I am not afraid to be openly weak, afraid, uncertain and vulnerable with them, they can (mostly) handle this as much as they can handle my many strengths, competencies and capabilities.  

But sis, how do you begin to conceive that the Lord God strong and mighty, the Creator of the universe, the Alpha and Omega, the One from Whom all things consist, the Mighty Man in Battle, the King of Glory, the I Am that I Am, the Double-Breasted One, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the One Who is God all by Himself, the One for Whom the heaven is His throne and the earth His footstool, the One to Whom all power belongs, the One who knows the end of a thing before its beginning, the One that simply speaks a Word and it comes to pass… Pray tell me, how do you begin to conceive that this mighty GOD could need simple insignificant little me… as much as I need Him? Me who is as small as a tiny speck of sand (or even smaller still) compared to the grandness of this God? Hmm!

Only now do I see it, sis. I pray you see it too. I have been trying to figure what this could mean to me in real terms. And clearly therein lay the problem….that I was trying to figure it out in ‘real terms’, this simply meaning that I was trying to reason it out in my mind…with my fleshly senses. 

Only now did Jeremiah 1 v 5–10 drop in my spirit and this is the answer. Sis, the Lord needs me and the Lord needs you because we were specifically brought forth as His chosen instruments, set apart as prophets to whatever ‘nations’ He called us to. Before we were born, He gave us oversight of nations and kingdoms of the earth. And before you decide you have no influence over nation’s sis, let me remind you as the Lord again ministered to me just now, that each of us carries within us the seed for nations. We are ourselves seeds from generations of a single individual from centuries ago. Therefore, even if your circle of life consists of only one person, you are in relationship with a nation…. a ‘nation’ that must experience God through you!

And this is the period when God is reconciling His kingdom back to Himself, sis. We are clearly in the last days, seeing gross darkness rapidly covering the earth as hell continues to enlarge its mouth. God has need of me and He has need of you because His desire is that as many of His children as possible would come back to Him and make it to heaven at the end of the age. And we are His instruments, sis. We are! You don’t have to have a pulpit to preach Kingdom sis, and neither do I! The time of the end is nearer now than ever before so if God says He needs us as much as we need Him, sis it speaks to the urgency of the assignment. It speaks to the fact that indeed we need to come up higher; that we need to be fed spiritual meat so that we can feed those who are running on empty, or who are on spiritual milk levels, so they can also grow and not miss that glorious eternal reward that awaits those whose are Christ’s!  

Go read 1^st Corinthians 1 v 25–28 sis, and realize as I just have, that as long as God is our Source, the One in Whom we live, move and have our being; then it makes sense that He would take you and I who might look small and insignificant in the eyes of the world (and indeed also in our own eyes) and use us to do His will …which is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and lead people back to Him. The assignment is clear in Colossians 1 v 28-29 sis… that we labor to present every person mature, complete and perfect in Christ. And He did call us co-laborers in His vineyard didn’t He, sis? If you own a vineyard and your laborers go on strike, can you be productive and profitable? No sis, NO!

God has need of me sis, and He has great need of you!  And His need of us is as much as our need of Him. His desire is that our lives be profitable to Him by His own measures, sis. He needs us to do the work He called us forth to do, so we can touch the lives, the nations He intends us to touch. I so get it!  And He is right…it is a weighty realization that I am needed of the Father as much as I have need of Him. I desperately need Him sis, don’t you? Imagine then walking around with the weight of the knowledge that He also desperately needs me? Of course He can do without me and He can do without you, being that He is GOD after all. But He has loved and considered you and I worthy of such honor and esteem as to grant us the privilege of being chosen to fulfill purpose for Him! Wow, sis! Wow! I don’t know about you, but I am grateful to be used by God, and useful to God. I am grateful that in spite of the many shortcomings of my everything and my all, God would consider me worthy to be needed by Him. What a privilege indeed sis, what a privilege!  

Please take time out to seek the Lord’s face today, sis. Let Him know as I am doing now, that you understand and that you make an intentional choice to meet His needs for and from your life. Yes sis, let Him know again today that your life is available for Him to use as He chooses. Commit again to Him that you submit to the assignments He will send to you. Let Him know you accept your call to any nation(s) He would have you touch with His love and the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. Let your Father know that you are humbled by the privilege to be needed by Him, sis. And as you do, watch Him do exponential things in your life and in the lives of those He will have you touch, all for His glory and the enlargement of His kingdom. The Lord will help you, sis. I can tell you with every certainty, that daily He is daily helping me.

Be blessed sis…. For you surely are!