A Young Person Who Makes a Difference! |
Those Who are Prepared to be Useful to God |
The third aspect of the vessel's preparation to be useful to God is related to the Holy of Holies, where Moses entered to be in the Lord's presence. This is where the glory of God and the fragrance of God were. Each young person needs to have the experience of praying face to face with the Lord. Young one, do you pray or not? You need to pray more. It's not just a matter of constitution, of being able to speak the word, but the fragrance that we transmit while we speak. The ones who have fellowship with the Lord have the fragrance of God. In the Holy of Holies there is the powdered incense, which signifies the sweet fragrance of Christ (2 Cor. 2:15). You can sense when someone is in the Lord's presence, their speaking is different.
Now we will see the Lord's way. We do not have to wait for forty years to prepare ourselves and forty more years to learn to be dependent on God, to begin to be useful to the Lord only after eighty years. No, today the principle is death and resurrection. We must present to the Lord everything that we learned, received and have. Did you receive something from the Lord? If you received, offer, give everything to the Lord as a sacrifice in the altar of burnt offering, in order to be burnt and to become ashes. After death comes resurrection. God will use that in resurrection. Even though what you have is only a little, give it to the Lord. God must be the source of everything we do.
You need to pray to the Lord. When you go to school, you must pray to the Lord. You are a sojourner, a foreigner on this earth. You cannot go to school in a loose way, as if there is nothing happening. Your classmate will defeat you as in a fight. You need to pray to the Lord. Some young people think that prayer is insignificant and it makes no difference. That's why your friends at school can easily subdue you. For instance, they may say something and you don't have an answer; you think that you need the Bible, but you didn't bring it. That's why we need to be those who enter into the Holy of Holies to have fellowship with the Lord to be one with the Lord. Then we can be strong and active to give testimony for God. This will increase the capacity of our vessels. The little that we have can be given to God for His use. Surely you want to be useful to God as Moses was. Just look at Moses' achievements, he was an apostle, pioneer, leader, prophet, builder, minister, strategist, lawyer, intercessor, doctor, hygienist, father, shepherd, and someone who cared for others. Moses was all these things. God wants to be all these things in you.
This is why it's so important to exercise yourself. The key word is to exercise, starting with the spirit. If you do not use your spirit, you will give up; you will have nothing to supply others. That is why today, now–listen to this–you are putting your future in the Lord's hands. Don't think that you will enroll in school at the age of fifty saying, “Now I want to be useful to the Lord, I'm even going to learn languages.” How could you prepare yourself to be useful to the Lord at that age, with so many family responsibilities? We need to realize that now is the time to use your time wisely. The greater the capacity of your vessel, the more qualified you are, the more useful you will be to God. We should not be deceived by Satan. Satan tries to tell us, “Don't study languages, for what purpose? English, that's nothing! Portuguese? Don't think about it. Spanish? That language is useless. The important thing is that you speak.” Young one, don't think like this.
You should learn not only modern languages but also Greek and Hebrew. The first sentence of the Bible is, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In Hebrew, “created” is singular and God, “Elohim”, is plural. It's as if He was saying, “let us”. Have you ever thought of writing “let us” in a story? Would someone trust in you? But Moses knew exactly what he was writing. This is talking about the Father, the Son and the Spirit. When God created, the divine trinity was there: the Father, the Son and the Spirit. Moses didn't make a mistake because he knew Hebrew thoroughly. But we don't even know English. If someone asks us, “What does this mean?” Can we give a good answer? If we don't know English, how can we understand the riches of God's word? We need take advantage of our time and be prepared to be useful to God.
Today it's very important to know other languages. Which young people can be sent to countries speaking other languages? How many are redeeming the time? Who knows how to speak Portuguese or French? Young one, do not sleep in the class, because tomorrow, the Lord may need to send one saint to a country which speaks another language. You need to redeem the time today. At school there are Spanish and French classes. Redeem the time. Many young people don't pay much attention to Spanish, French or English, thinking these subjects aren’t important. This is Satan's fairy tale and only “foolish ones” believe it. It is not a matter of an important subject or not, it is a matter of being prepared for the Lord. Many of Watchman Nee's and Witness Lee's books are not translated into Portuguese yet and maybe it will take a long time until that is complete. You cannot read them now because you don't know English. The Conclusion of the New Testament is a collection with more than three hundred messages given by Witness Lee. It speaks about God, Christ, the Spirit, the believers, the Kingdom, the Church, and the New Jerusalem, but the messages are in English.
Young one, do not be foolish. We are in the church life because we are not foolish. At school we have to study. Do not waste your time. Wasting time at school means not paying attention in class. It's to doodle and give excuses like, “I don't like the teacher.” “I will never need this subject.” and things like that. After the class, what will you do? If you have not been paying attention, you will have to study on you own. It's better to study in the class by paying attention to the teacher, to what he is saying. Besides that, you should pray, “Lord, I want to understand this, I want to learn to the fullest to be a useful vessel for You.” But Satan deceives the thoughtless young people saying, “Do not pay attention, play your video game.” If you listen to this thought, you will be a fool. You will think that you are deceiving the teacher, but the reality is that you are deceiving yourself and frustrating God's plan for you. Young one, wake up!!
You also need to learn mathematics. Moses was very useful for the building of the tabernacle. There is the need for engineer and architect saints in the church life. Today many churches are being raised up in the Lord's Recovery! The saints need help, they need saints who know how to build, who know how to make plans. The churches need engineers and architects to build meeting halls. Many say, “There isn't anyone here who knows these things. We just know how to call on the name of the Lord.” Young people, it's good to call the name of the Lord, we need to call His name, but there is another thing. If you are really calling the name of the Lord, you will pay attention in the class, because when we call the name of the Lord, we turn to the spirit, and in the spirit God will say, “Pay attention young person!”
Besides that, there is the need of young people who know biology, the need of doctors. Some of us are going to the Amazon to preach the gospel and to raise up churches. There are no doctors there. Whoever appears there, dressed in white clothes, will have the whole jungle, because there are many sick ones there. We need doctors and nurses to help to preach the gospel to the people. In this way, the doors will be open easily.
Young one, today even for the simple occupations like cleaning, you need to be prepared. To be useful to the Lord, you must make a decision today, not tomorrow, because you need to be ready in time.
Another important point for the young people in the church life is music. Let's read Deuteronomy 31:30, “And Moses spoke in the hearing of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song until they were completed.” Moses also knew music. How many young people are learning how to play one musical instrument? In the small and new churches, the saints who are starting to meet have hymn books but don't know the hymns. They may come to you and say, “Young one, teach us how to sing this hymn”. At least you must learn how to play a guitar or a keyboard to help the other saints. In the end, we are being prepared to be useful vessels to the Lord. We are not being prepared to be useful to society or to the world, for all of us to pay attention to the beautiful music of Bach. You may play Bach, but you need to play the hymns to help the saints to turn to the spirit.
Young one, do not waste your time with foolish things. Learn today how to play an instrument to be useful to the Lord. In some meetings, there is a great difficulty, all the saints are singing out of tune. A hymn out of tune is terrible, with no harmony, rhythm or melody, and the saints can’t enjoy the Lord that way. A hymn may be beautiful, may help us to know and to praise the Lord more, and have a beautiful lyric, but if the saints don't know how to sing it, then it's difficult to get much from it.
Another important thing is physical exercise. It's not that the young ones shouldn't practice Jiu-Jitsu, Karate or Capoeira (defense and attack fighting invented by Brazilian slaves). Physical exercise is good for taking care of your health, but do not allow it to take too much of your time, hindering you from going to the meetings because of weekend tournaments and things like that. In this way, even though you are taking care of your physical health, you will waste your time. We are not against the physical exercise, but we cannot spend our precious time in something that is not worthy of God.
Concerning ballet, dance and acting, you need to be careful. The artistic environment is not proper for a young Christian. Many of these activities are related with sensuality and many of them in this environment are homosexuals or lesbians or practice fornication. If you want to study art, study crafts to help the younger ones in the children’s service. Young one, you need to have a spiritual vision. We are being prepared to be useful to the Lord.
We hope that while reading these pages you will make a decision in your life not waste any more time. When you finish the year and but barely pass, you will have wasted a year. For sure, you may have difficulties and be struggling, but don’t give up. The Lord can do much more than we realize in our lives with the spirit which He gave us.
What do you need to watch out for? Let's read 1 Cor. 8:1, “We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” Listen, when you receive any compliment, some exaltation, watch out! Turn to the spirit to not become proud. A compliment is something that can fill our heart with pride. If you answer a question in a correct way, and get a good grade, watch out, because Satan can take advantage and fill your heart with pride, vanity and ambition. These things are in our natural being. A young person studied, graduated and is now a great engineer or an important architect, but doesn't have time for the church or for the Lord. Another one is a well known doctor or business man, but where is he? We cannot count on him because he is not available. Young one, you need to decide where you want to be. Choose what you want to be: a small vessel just able to contain a little “living water” to give someone a drink, or a huge vessel, useful to God. Besides being a huge vessel, where will it be and what will it be full of? Be a huge vessel in the church, available to the Lord and for the saints to serve the Lord.
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