The church has always played an active part in my life. Sunday has always been and still is a special day that is reserved for going to the House of God. When I do miss, I feel like my whole week is thrown off and I start it all wrong.

Over the years I have had some great pastors, and some that all they seemed to do was manipulate and control circumstances and people like they were puppets without any mind of their own.

There have been numerous times when I wanted to leave and go to another church that I felt might be better. After all, who wants to stay in a church where there are numerous problems and you have a lot of people acting in the flesh trying to accomplish their own agendas?

This was several years ago, but at one point the only thing that did keep me from leaving was God spoke to me and said these words: “You are not to leave, but you are to stay and pray and fast for this church.”

I can truly say that these were words I didn’t want to hear. I was not in a church where error was being taught outright, but there sure was a lot of stuff going on that had nothing to do with God. I really don’t think He was included very much at all in plans that were made even though it was said they were done in His Name. Anyway, things were a real mess and I wanted no part of it.

I couldn’t understand why God would want me to stay in a situation like this, but I had no choice if I wanted to be obedient to Him, so I reluctantly told God that I would stay.

It would have been much easier (at least I thought at the time)  to have left and gone to a church that had it all together and where I could just sit back and receive the wonderful word from the pastor, without me ever having to dive into the Word deeply for myself. That is what I thought I wanted, but God knew so much better. I really was seeking His Will for my life, but I didn’t want that Will to take me out of my comfort zone.

Because of the situation I was placed in, I had to dig into the Word for myself and find out what it said. God was working in my life and placing in me a desire to truly know Him. What I thought was such a terrible time turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. When I started to study the Bible, God met me right where I was and started to show me things I had never seen before. I started to get excited about God and everyday He showed me more and more.

It was still hard to go to church because of all the mess, but I knew that I was doing the will of God. If I had gone my own way and left the church, I would have missed so much from God. In fact, I would have been out of the Will of God since He had told me to stay.

You might be reading this and find yourself in the same situation I was in or something similar. Maybe you can’t see that things will ever get better and you just want to leave and go to another church.

I encourage you to not make a decision based on the way you feel, but to ask the Holy Spirit to show you the heart of God on the matter. Don’t ever make such a crucial decision without consulting God, because you will end up making a decision based on feelings alone.

Looking back through history, there are many people that God used greatly even though they had to minister in terrible circumstances. If they had looked at things around them and made a decision based on that, their name would not be known today as someone who was sold out to God enough to let Him use them in such a mighty way. After all, they certainly couldn’t see the BIG PICTURE of what would happen in the years ahead. In some areas of the world, God was able to use just ONE PERSON who was completely sold out to Him to impact that whole area, and sometimes that impact was felt worldwide.

I’m sure if you could go back in time and talk to some of those mighty warriors for the Kingdom of God, they would tell you that sometimes things got so tough they wanted to give up and take an easier way out. They couldn’t, though, if they wanted to be stay the Will of God.

Sometimes God just wants you to stay where you are and pray until things start to change. You might be one of the few people who sees the truth about the situation, and God might be planning to do an “impossible” work that you wouldn’t have thought of in a million years.

Instead of complaining the next time you feel you have been placed in such a position, feel honored that God sees something in you that would make Him want to use you to carry forth His Work. You never know how God can use just ONE PERSON who will be completely surrendered to Him.

Right now make the decision that YOU will be that person who is fully surrendered and waiting to walk in total obedience to His Word – even if it doesn’t always make perfect sense to you.

Check out my other sites:

Handbook for Victorious Christian Living – practical ways to learn to live a victorious Christian life

Blueprint for Victorious Christian Living

Power of the Living Word

1 person likes this post.

Unlike