How christians can avoid wasting spiritual resources and opportunities

September 15, 2023 Mary

Like the Israelites’ endless arduous journey around the mountain, many Christians seem to be going in circles, without progress in life.

This is not the will of God. The Bible clearly states that the path of the just, the righteous, like a shining light, ought to shine brighter and brighter until the perfect day.

“But the path of the just is as the shining light, That shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” (Psalms chapter four, verse 18, King James Version).

It is like experiencing the dawning of a new day. If you begin the journey at 3 a.m., you expect the day to get brighter and brighter as the night fades away. It gets significantly brighter at 6 a.m. It gets brighter and brighter until the peak at noon, when you get the full light of day right over your head, and shadows disappear. That is the perfect day. In the context of our life journey, that is the end of time and the beginning of the day that shall not end.

Twice in the first two chapters of the book of Deuteronomy, God instructed His people to quit stalling and moving in circles and go forward and make progress.

“The Lord our God said to us at Horeb, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Break camp and advance into the hill country of the Amorites; go to all the neighboring peoples in the Arabah, in the mountains, in the western foothills, in the Negev and along the coast, to the land of the Canaanites and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates. See, I have given you this land.

Go in and take possession of the land the Lord swore he would give to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and their descendants after them.” (Deuteronomy chapter one, verses six to eight).

“Then we turned, and took our journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea, as the Lord spake unto me: and we compassed Mount Seir many days. And the Lord spake unto me, saying, Ye have compassed this mountain long enough: turn you northward.” (Deuteronomy chapter two, verses one to three)

As was the case for the Israelites, one of the main reasons many Christians stall and stagnate in life is failure to hear God clearly and to obey his instructions.

Everyone agrees that communication is a fundamental key in any relationship. It is even more vital in our relationship with God than with fellow human beings. God’s communications are spiritual resources of great value. Letting them go to waste is a disaster of unquantifiable proportions.

Therefore, understanding the diverse ways God communicates with us and how we ought to respond is critical to our success in life and our walk with God.

God speaks very audibly and with a still, small voice, albeit authoritatively, because He is God. However, much of God’s communication with His people is non-verbal. It could be a knowing, an inward witness, dream, vision, trance, signs and wonders, events, through sermons, and burdens.

A burden is a non-verbal communication, yet it is a valid language of the Spirit. Consequently, only the spiritual can pick this language. The burden of the Spirit should not be confused with anxiety.

Burdens sometimes come like a concern that takes hold of your heart and refuses to let up. In most cases, you will not be able to explain why the matter is heavy on your heart. You will find no clue in your physical environment or recent experiences. But the burden is there, and you cannot shake it off easily.

Sometimes, certain encounters we have leave us with burdens. It could be that you observe or God shows things that displease Him in your territory and become a burden in your heart. It could be you picking God’s desire, and then it becomes yours such that you can no longer sleep because your heart is full of thoughts about what God wants.

Therefore, these burdens are concerns in God’s heart transferred to yours to spur you to take actions that will help establish the Kingdom of God in our areas of influence and have His will done.

Burdens can consume a person and change his or her life significantly. David said, “I have become a stranger to my brothers and an alien to my mother’s children because zeal for Your house has eaten me up. And the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.” (Psalms chapter 69, verses eight and nine). David was a man of many burdens. He bore God’s concerns passionately that God said he was a man after His heart.

So, when the burden of the Spirit precipitates from within your spirit man, what do you do? You need to discern and clinically execute the lines of the burden.

The first step is to engage in much praying to discern what the burden is and what God will have you do. You pray this kind of prayer until you are sure, without a doubt, what God wants. Once it becomes clear to you, the next step is to obey.

The undoing of many Christians is ignoring the burden God put in their heart to draw them into taking certain actions that would lead to their deliverance and breakthrough. Each time you ignore the burden of the Lord, you are choosing to continue pursuing your own will and moving in circles.

It is a mark of intimacy that God chooses to put His burden on your heart. It means He considers you such a person He can trust to handle matters of great concern to Him. It is a privilege. We should not take it for granted.

Sometimes, the burden can be rather faint and not easily noticeable. We should not let it pass. If it is even remotely an expression of God’s desire or concern, then it is an opportunity we need to hop on sail to greatness in His sight.

May the Lord help us to discern accurately and act decisively in line with the burdens of the Lord. Brethren, that is the way forward.

Reverend Austin Ukporhe is the Point Man (Resident Pastor) at Remnant Christian Network, Lagos. Raised in Sokoto, northern Nigeria, he was trained in peculiar firebrand evangelism and was ordained as a pastor in 2001. He has experienced countless and diverse workings of the faithfulness of God over two decades and has developed a passion to see God’s will for Nigeria become a reality. He can be reached on +2348060255604.