Derek Prince - Are You Doing What God Wants You To Do?
This excerpt is from: How To Find Your Place
And then he goes on to say, and now this is very important, this is really the climax of what I want to say. He speaks about the body of Christ; that is, all believers. We’re all individual members of one body. And you cannot find fulfillment on your own. A lot of Christians make that mistake. In order to find fulfillment you’ve got to find your place in the body and take your place. You can’t be just a little finger wiggling on your own. You’ve got to be attached to a hand, which is attached to an arm, which is attached to a body. See that? So the essence of finding your place is finding your place in the body of Christ. And so Paul goes on now: For as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
So each one of us is an individual member but we’re all part of one body. And what Paul is saying is if you’ll present your body, be renewed in your mind, be realistic about your faith, start where God puts you; you can find your particular place in the body, you can find your particular job. And then you will discover that the faith that God has given you is the faith you need for that job. You see, a lot of Christians are always struggling for faith. My observation is in most cases it’s because they’re trying to do the wrong job. If they were trying to do the job for which God created them they would find they had the faith they needed. Take two members of my body, my hand and my foot. Thank God I’m healthy. Essentially they do what they were created to do. But suppose my hand tried to be a foot. It would be a failure. I’d put a shoe on it and begin to walk on it and I would be very clumsy and ineffective. Or, suppose my foot wanted to be a hand. It again would have tremendous problems.
So, it may be for some of you that you are struggling and trying to be and do something which isn’t what God created you to be. If that’s so, you need to go back and ask God: God, where did I miss your purpose? And very often it’s because you’ve been, let me say, sentimental, or you’ve formed a picture of things which is not realistic. Paul says you’ve got to learn to be sober, to think realistically, to see just what you are and what God has enabled you to do. So, the aim in finding your place is to find your place in the body of Christ. No Christian can be truly fulfilled on his own. As an individualist without any connection with the body, you’ll never find satisfaction. Then Paul goes on to speak about gifts and the word is charisma from which we get the famous word charismatic. Let me say that the word charisma is derived from the Greek word for grace which is charis.
So, basically the charismatic gifts are expressions of God’s grace. They enable you to do things which you cannot do by your own natural ability. You remember, grace cannot be earned and grace begins where human ability ends. So now Paul talks about various different charismata. And he gives some suggestions but they’re only suggestions. What I want to point out to you is, when you find your place and begin to function in that place, you’ll find that God has equipped you with the gifts that you need. I think it is foolish to seek gifts just on their own because you may be seeking a gift which isn’t the one that you need. But if you’ll seek your place in the body God will equip you with the gifts. At a certain time in my ministry I was thrust into the ministry of delivering people from evil spirits. I didn’t apply for the job, I had no ambitions; it dropped in my lap. I mean, I was confronted with a situation where I either had to do it or admit total defeat.
So in desperation I came against the demon and I won the battle. And that was a total turning point in my ministry. I’ve often said about my first wife and myself from that time onwards we never had to look for customers! They would beat a path to our door. And that basically would be true today if I would devote myself to that ministry. But, why I say that is because when I came into that ministry I needed certain gifts. I needed a word of knowledge. I needed discerning of spirits. I’d had them maybe off and on but I suddenly discovered I really had them. I remember a man brought to me his sister who had a lot of emotional problems. He sat her down in the living room with my wife and me and I looked at her, and I said to her: You need deliverance from... and I named about eight evil spirits. And all the time I was saying it I thought to myself: how did I know that? When it turned out to be perfectly right, she got delivered. But as I sat there and thought about it I said that was a word of knowledge.
Why did I get the word of knowledge? Because God wanted me to help that woman and I couldn’t help her without the word of knowledge. But it may not be that God has that type of ministry for you. Don’t apply for it, that’s my advice. Be thrust into it. It’s a funny thing, but the people who volunteer for the ministry of deliverance are usually misfits in it when they come in. Now, we’re very near the end of our time and I think I’ve spoken in such a personal way tonight that I need to end with something personal. There may be some of you here this evening, you’ve never really presented your body on God’s altar. You’ve never really surrendered your life to God and said: God, you take over. You can run my life much better than I can. And you see, you will never go beyond a certain point in your Christian experience until you make that decision.