Focus: Take Your Rightful Place!

Text: Judg.7:21

And they stood every man in his place round about the camp: and all the host ran, and cried, and fled."

The men of Gideon, three hundred of them, every one of them stood in his place as they faced the enemy in battle. No one was missing in his place.

Every believer in Christ is called and equipped by God to occupy a space and fill a role in the kingdom of God. Just like the different parts of our human body, each part has a job to do for the good of the whole body. Jesus Christ told a parable in which a man said to his servants, "Occupy till I come." Our Lord demands the same of us - "Occupy till I return." The Genesis Account tells us of a time when there was no man to till the ground. God created Adam to fill a place and fulfill a role. Someone had to till the ground, dress the garden, and subdue the earth, and Adam happened to be the man for the job.

Man was created to accomplish a purpose, and in the same vein, the believer in Christ is redeemed to serve a purpose in the kingdom of Christ.

Paul, teaching on the different gifts of the Holy Spirit, says, "Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful" (1Cor.12:7). Each believer has an aspect of God to unveil for others to see and be blessed. The late Myles Monroe made clear that abuse is inevitable where purpose is unknown.

Every Christian is a minister of some sort. No one is called to be idle, and the New Testament Scriptures declare the believer's calling as holy, high, and heavenly. Paul says, "Let EVERY MAN abide in the same calling wherein he was called… Brethren, let EVERY MAN, wherein he is called, therein abide with God" (1Cor.7:20,24). 

Discover your calling and stay in it! You can't afford to be or do nothing with the resources of God's grace available to you.

Elisha's disciples came to their Master, and said, "Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan, and take thence EVERY MAN a beam, and let us make us a place there, where we may dwell" (2Kgs.6:2). Every man was meant to bring a beam for the expansion of their living space. In the same vein, every child of God needs to bring his own beam to expand the gospel space. We are called to the word of God to the whole world, and we are required to do so, beginning from our doorsteps. From our Jerusalem we advance to Judaea, Samaria, and the uttermost part of the earth. The gospel starts locally and ends up globally.

We must see God's work as a personal affair. We must own it individually. It is first and foremost 'my' thing before it is 'our' thing.

At the age of twelve, the Lord Jesus Christ said to His parents, "Wist ye not that I must be about MY Father's business?" (Lk.2:49). He saw ministry as HIS Father's business, not THEIR or OUR Father's business. Know it for a fact that if you don't do your bit, your bit is left undone. Do not disappoint your God. T. J. Bach clearly captures it well where he said, "When a Christian is in the wrong place, his right place is empty."

Child of God, rise up to your sacred and personal responsibility as Christ's follower! Fulfill your role on earth as long as you still have breath! Do what God is asking you to do, and stop shifting responsibility! If you don't do it, no one will do it for you. Answer your name and make God proud! You don't have eternity to do your bit and glorify God on earth. Take your rightful place!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter