Included - God's Love at Work - Week of June 9

Included

By Margaret D. Mitchell
Week of June 9, 2024

God’s bridal invitation to us is to be with Him and others in His fullness of revival. To choose yes is to be included. 

For Him to even include us in His invitation means He desires that we be "part of the whole" and "covered" (Dictionary.com).

There’s power, protection and blessing for those included in His fold. And who wouldn’t want Jesus as an escort throughout life, especially right now? He longs to pour out Himself as goodness to us—in His best ways.

Inclusion Offers Abundance

Our run to Him and what He calls us to offers us abundance in various forms.

In Philippians 3:12 TPT Paul says, "I run with passion into his abundance so that I may reach the purpose for which Christ Jesus laid hold of me to make me his own."

God has need of us in this hour and His heart’s desire is to include each of us. But His kind of inclusion isn’t like the world’s. No, it’s for anyone who is willing and yields their heart to Him; because this kind of inclusion involves personal faith that God’s revealed Word will come to pass, as well action to His directives. This kind of inclusion requires our full embrace of Holy Spirit and our involvement in how He leads.

He is inviting us to be all in. Our progressive yeses to Him require that we get good at letting all else go and entrust Him to take care of it on our behalves. His invitation requires us to say no to that which is not for us at this time, entrusting it with Him completely.

Where many have gone through years of stripping to receive more of Him, Holy Spirit revealed to me that He’s pouring out, in a new way, to these submitted ones. He’s adding more fulfillment now for His purposes in more than one area. And it’s just the beginning. 

He’s giving them all they need to do what He has called and assigned them to do. He’s building upon their foundations He restored in the secret place, multiplying good fruit in order to fulfill divine purposes.

Wisdom as Life

These submitted ones know what to do because they received instructions from Him over time and they learned that God’s wisdom brings life. 

Proverbs 4:13 MSG says, "Hold tight to good advice; don’t relax your grip. Guard it well—your life is at stake!"

When God calls us into the impossible, which can even be our everyday Christian walk, the best we can do is take His hand, His arm and live forward with Him. We can do what He says and marvel at Him and what He does, even in specific areas.

Jesus’ invitation requires that we walk closely with Him—in His Glory Presence, within our assignments, as true inclusion involves boundaries. These are the safest places to be and we cannot go wrong. We can remember this when we hear invitations to step out otherwise.

Processing Opposition

Opposing or controlling voices may invite you to cross over into false lands-for-you. So, discern them and just don’t go there. It’s swampland for you. You don’t need it and it won’t serve you or God in the best way. Keep walking and bypass all that’s not for you in this season. 

Be like Nehemiah—committed to his cause. "I am doing a great work and I cannot come down," Nehemiah said to those through whom the enemy influenced to try to provoke him to cross boundaries he worked to rebuild (Nehemiah 6:3 ESV). "Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?"

Like Nehemiah, don’t let the enemy undo what God has built and is building when He sends you out. Anything that requires we leave our post to lower ourselves to engage in something less is not of God. So, just don’t go there. 

We can cast our cares and keep moving forward. We can keep our eyes straight forward on the prize, which is Jesus. We can focus on Him and His mission for us and we will experience His best reward. We can pray for others and move on quickly. This is God’s way for you and I. 

Be the Head

God’s invitation offers us a head start—to be the head, not the tail of what He’s doing in this hour. But this doesn’t mean we will be alone. No, we will be with Him and others whom He brings along. And won’t it be fun to find out who He assigns with us along the way?

Pray with me, if you will…

Dear Lord, 

Thank You for including me in Your place and time for a great adventure with You.

I choose to run to You with a resounding, “Yes,” to Your invitation.

Help me remain close to You and embrace all You have for me and nothing that’s not of You. 

In Jesus’ Mighty Name.

Amen.

Margaret D. Mitchell is the Founder of God's Love at Work, a marketplace outreach purposed to share God's greatest power source - the love of Christ.