This is important to understand. There's a saying: If nothing needs changing, you don't need leaders.Leaders look to see what God wants to change, and it's their responsibility to change it. But remember: People find change difficult. It's threatening, it's uncomfortable, and it provokes an internal reaction.
Just think of the Scripture I began with yesterday:
Isaiah 43:19 "Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."
If God wanted to fulfil that literally, just imagine the opposition. People would tell Him: You can't build a road in the wilderness. It's bad for the environment. You can't put a river there. How are You going to get water into the desert? Have You done any environmental impact studies, Lord? Change is difficult, but it's what leaders do.
What if God wanted to fulfil this Scripture in this church? For God to do a new thing there would have to be change. Would you allow your leaders to be agents of change? Are you sure? But your leaders are just like you: They make mistakes. Can you cope with that? You might say, "But if it's really God, everybody will be behind it." No they won't.
-It didn't happen that way for Moses when God told them to go into the Promised Land.
-It didn't happen that way for Jesus.
-It didn't happen that way for the 12 apostles.
-It didn't happen that way for the apostle Paul who constantly had to defend his apostleship and bring correction to the churches.
Change is all about yielding to the Holy Spirit.
A man had a 2-story house. One day, he heard a knocking, opened the door, and found Jesus there, so he invited Him to live in the house and gave Him a room in the top floor. Jesus will only take what you give Him. The man was sleeping and heard a pounding on the door, opened the door a crack and the devil barged in. He had a terrible fight, trying to resist the devil and his temptations, yelling out for help all the time. Eventually, he managed to throw the devil out. In the morning, he said, "Why didn't you help me last night? Couldn't you hear me calling for help?" Jesus: "The problem is, you've got this whole big house to yourself, and I've only got one room." Man: "Ah, I see your point. You can have the whole top floor, and I'll keep the bottom floor." The man was sleeping and heard a pounding on the door, opened the door a crack and the devil barged in again. He had another terrible fight, trying to resist the devil and his temptations, yelling out for help all the time. Eventually, he managed to throw the devil out. In the morning, he said, "Why didn't you help me last night? Couldn't you hear me calling for help?" Jesus: "The problem is, I have the top floor, but you still have the bottom floor to yourself." Man: "Ah, I see what you mean. From now on, the whole house is yours." That night, the man was asleep, and there was a pounding at the door again. This time Jesus went to the door, opened it wide, and stood in the doorway. The devil looked at Him, bowed very low and said, "I'm sorry, but I think I knocked on the wrong door."
That story illustrates our need to be fully yielded to the Lord.
Unyieldedness to the Holy Spirit is the most significant factor in preventing change. It all comes down to attitude.
In the days of Jesus, they didn't generally put fluids like wine into bottles. They put them into skins. They'd kill a goat, cut off the head and feet, skin it, cure it in a way that minimized unpleasant flavours, then sew it back up, except for the neck. Then they'd put wine, water or milk in it. The problem with wineskins is that as they get older they become harder and more brittle. They aren't as flexible as they used to be. If you put new wine into an old skin, the new wine was still fermenting, which means it was releasing gases. The gases would cause the old skin to burst. Because a new skin still had its flexibility, the gases released by the wine didn't cause a problem.
If God is going to do a new thing here in this church, He needs flexible skins that He can pour His new wine into.
What about you? Are you willing to let God do what He wants?
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