Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth,
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers:
​all things were created by him, and for him: 
And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Col 1:15-17

​Christ the Creator

This is the most exhaustive assertion of our Lord’s Godhead to be found in Paul’s Writings. This magnificent dogmatic passage is introduced, after the apostle’s manner, with a strictly practical object. The Colossian Church was exposed to the attacks of a theosophic doctrine which degraded Christ to the rank of one of a long series of inferior beings supposed to range between man and the Supreme God. Against this assertion Paul asserts that Christ is:
The image of the invisible God. The expression supplements the title of “the Son.” As “the Son,” Christ is derived eternally from the Father, and of one substance with Him. As “the image” Christ is in that one substance, the exact likeness of the Father, in all things except being the Father. He is the image of the Father, not as the Father, but as God. The “image” is indeed originally God’s unbegun, unending reflection of Himself in Himself, but is also the organ whereby God, in His essence invisible, reveals Himself to His creatures. Thus the “image” is naturally, so to speak, the Creator, since creation is the first revelation God has made of Himself. Man is the highest point in the visible universe; in man, God’s attributes are most luminously exhibited; man is the image and glory of God (1Co_11:7). But Christ is the adequate image of God, God’s self-reflection in His own thought, eternally present with Himself.

As the image Christ is the first-born of all creation, not the first in rank among created beings, but begotten before any created beings. That this is the true sense of the expression is etymologically certain; but it is also the only sense which is in real harmony with the relation in which, according to the context, Christ stands to the universe. Of all things in heaven and earth, of things seen and unseen, of the various orders of the angelic hierarchy, it is said that they were created:

After such a statement it follows naturally that the fulness, the entire cycle of the Divine attributes, considered as a series of forces, dwells in him; and this not in any ideal or transcendental manner, but with that actual reality which men attach to the presence of material bodies which they can feel and measure through the organs of sense (Col_2:9). Although throughout this Epistle the word Logos is never introduced, it is plain that the Image of Paul is equivalent in His rank and functions to the Logos of John. Each exists prior to creation; each is the one agent in creation; each is a Divine person; each is equal with God and shares His essential life; each is really none other than God. (Canon Liddon.)
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​"And he is before all things - It is not said, he was: he is from everlasting to everlasting. And by him all things consist - The original expression not only implies, that he sustains all things in being, but more directly, All things were and are compacted in him into one system. He is the cement, as well as support, of the universe. And is he less than the supreme God?"  (John Wesley)

“In Him all things were made,” the creative energy not only passed through Him, as the volume of a river’s waters passes through its rock-hewn channels, but the creative energy dwells in Him, belongs to Him, as the life of His life, essentially and eternally.

In Him also all things consist, stand together; in Him the universe finds its unity and coherence. We talk about the laws of nature. If it were possible for us to trace the laws of nature and of history to their point of convergence, we should find that to be nothing less than the personal sovereignty of Jesus Christ.

​He is the universal Governor. For Him all things exist, to serve His purpose and to manifest His glory. Jesus Christ is the first, efficient, and final cause of all created existence.

Now these separate clauses are dove-tailed into the clause preceding them, “the firstborn,” for that expression does not mean that our Lord is the first creature, either in time or in rank. The emphasis must be put upon both adjectives, “firstborn.” The primacy of Jesus Christ in the creation is the primacy of birth. He alone is born, not made; all other things are made, not born; and there is a very marked distinction between these two. Our thoughts are born of our intelligence; our works are the product of our hands. The things that we make are outside of ourselves; they may perish, and our being be not affected; but the thoughts that are born within us and of us are a part of our being; when you touch them you touch yourself. Our Lord’s place in the universe is that of the firstborn; His own being is rooted in the very being of God, as inseparable from Him as thought is from being. Therefore He is called the Eternal Word of God. Thought always precedes achievement, just as a great cathedral is born in the mind of the architect before the click of a chisel is heard. Even so is Christ the first born of creation as holding in His living thought all the realms and ages. Thus far the essential majesty of the Divine Christ. This is a glory that blinds us, but does not kindle nor transfigure us.

The apostle passes to the glory of Him who tabernacled in human flesh. As creation finds in Him its head, unity, and coherence, so also does the kingdom of grace. These are not two systems, joining each other as two circles might have their contact at a single point, or overlapping, but are one, because the sovereignty of each and both is invested in Christ.

In His relation to redemption Christ is “the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead,” not the first who came forth from the grave in rank or time. His relation to the kingdom of grace as to that of nature is birth, i.e., in Him the resurrection finds its original and eternal home. It is net merely said that He is risen, but that He is “the Resurrection and the Life.”

 As He is said to be the source of spiritual creative energy, so also is it declared that the authority of spiritual control is vested in Him. He is Head of the Church, to whom alone our prayers are to be addressed, and through whom alone the answer of God can come to us. Between us and God there are no hierarchies of principalities and powers, no army of saints and martyrs. The way is clear through Christ. There is but one Mediator. Just as the head interprets, gathers up, and responds to the multitudinous demands of the body that are telegraphed along the nervous filaments of sensation, so also does Christ, as the Head of His Church, interpret her needs and respond to her prayers. The heart does not always pray as do the lips, and our wishes are sometimes very different from our wants: but the great Head of the Church knows how to interpret, and always pierces to the deepest need. And so when the strength of our hands fails us, and our wisdom is staggered by the problems that front us, a larger wisdom and a mightier hope come pulsing into our feebleness.

Great prerogatives are these, but they are not a temporary investiture. They belong to Him by eternal right, “for it pleased the Father that in Him all fulness should dwell.” Grace has in Him its eternal dwelling place. And so long as the redeemed shall endure will He be their loving and loved Head. For in Him both God and man find their sufficient and eternal reconciliation.

This great reconciliation is not merely problematical and partial, it is positive and universal. The tenses are in the past. We are living to-day, not in the dispensation of the wrath of God, but in the dispensation of His redeeming grace. God is sending forth His ministers, bidding all to repent, assuring them that the feast is ready, and that it is only waiting for the guests. The age of demoralization passed away eighteen hundred years ago. The age of reconstruction began when on the cross our Lord said, “It is finished!” That was the burial of the old, as it was the birth of the new; and ever since, and until the end of time, in spite of opposition and apparent defeat, all things have been and shall be working together for good, and surely, though slowly, advancing the cause of God’s eternal righteousness.

We have been led by the apostle to the most exalted conceivable position whence we can look out on the works of God and upon the history of the world. We have been led through all the grades of being, from matter in its crudest form to mind in its loftiest manifestation, and we have seen that in Christ the whole universe of created existence finds its unity and coherence, while the awful struggle of right against wrong, truth against falsehood, find in Him its consummation and ending. This is something that neither science nor philosophy can give. In Him all contradictions are solved between the seen and the unseen, the created and the uncreated, the sin of man and the righteousness of God.

If it be true that both creation and redemption find in Christ their living center, then it is also plain that only in proportion as we enter into the mind of Christ can we understand aright either the works of God, or the history of the race, or the revelation of His character and purposes in Scripture.

Here, too, is the only solution of the vexed question of Christian union. How shall that unity be brought about? Certainly not by creeds nor by forms. There is only one name, one sign, that can subdue us all, and that is the sign that must conquer the world, the flaming cross of Jesus Christ. When we bow before that, and all our faces are turned reverently toward the One on the throne, then shall enmity perish, and we shall be one, even as He and the Father are one.

The incomparable dignity of our Lord should awaken in us a three-fold attachment.

It should awaken in us a feeling of reverence. As no one of us would think of standing before a throned king without becoming humility, it behooves us when we come into our Creator’s presence to bow with reverence at His feet.

But incomparable as is His dignity, it is for ever joined with our common nature; and therefore, while it calls for reverence it also calls for trust. He is the Head of the Church, and therefore we ought to come not only reverently, but confidently and boldly. There ought to be joy as well as reverence in our worship and in our service.

This incomparable dignity ought also to fill us with assurance and courage." (A. J. F. Behrends, D. D.)

"All things stand together in Him as the causal and’ conditional sphere of their continued existence. In Him they live and move and have their being, and in Him the sustentation or upholding of the universe rests. How wondrous, then, the glory and power of the Son of God! Without Him the sun would not shine, nor the seasons revolve; without Him the rain would not descend, nor the rivers run, nor the trees grow, nor the oceans ebb and flow. His power is necessary to summer and winter, seed time and harvest, to earth and sky. He upholdeth all things by the word of His power, and without Him creation would collapse. Every province of the empire of immensity, with all its contents of life, force, and motion, depends on Him. The intellect of angels reflects His light, the fire of seraphs is the glow of His love, the energy of our own souls is an evidence of His beneficence and skill. In Him all things consist—the power of their support, the primal center of their order, the rule of their operation. This is the Being in whom we have redemption. What sublimity His greatness sheds around the gospel! What moral richness His gospel throws around nature and humanity! How lofty should be our adoration, how strong our confidence, how warm our love, how complete our submission." (J. Spence  D. D.)

COMMENT: This is my response to the subject of the upcoming movie "The Discloser" regarding UFO's and aliens. People like Perry Stone are talking about this, and a major event coming up about this, along with other pastors/leaders-and Trump has also been leaking out information on this, giving signals and warning of something big coming on this issue. My advice- get into the word of God, and find out what the bible says about principalities and powers of darkness that Paul talks about in Ephesians, and learn what they are. UFO's, and aliens are not from another galaxy, or universe, they are from another dimension, and are inter-dimensional. They are demons. If you know who Jesus Christ is, and have put your faith, and trust in Him-there is nothing to fear from them.
​This post has enough solid information in it, along with scripture to back it up, to tell you that ALL authority has been given to Jesus Christ-and in His Name, demons flee. Christ is the Creator of heaven and earth-and all that's in it. Last, I stand on this promise, from the word of God, and if your saved, you can also:
       For God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and love, and a sound mind." 2 Tim 1:7

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

​When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart: and when the people
​had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities. 
And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them,
and he healed their sick. 
And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals. 
But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat. 
And they say unto him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes. 
He said, Bring them hither to me. 
And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples,
and the disciples to the multitude. 
And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments
that remained twelve baskets full. 
And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children. Mat 14:13-21

"The problem of the disciples. The desert place, the night, and the multitude without food, presented a problem that might well constitute reason for anxiety to any that were of a sympathetic nature. The disciples were prepared for the desert themselves, with or without food; but to be there with five thousand men, besides women and children, and all hungering, was a very different matter. There was no provision in their faith for so unexpected an event. Their advice was to send the multitude away to provide for themselves. There is an easy way out of present difficulties which, if taken, may lead to difficulties in the future which may be of a more unyielding kind than any which beset the present. Great confusion might ensue by sending the multitude hungering away. The disciples seem to have forgotten that the people had followed their Master, not them; and that the Master knew as much and more of the multitude than they did. The Master was moved with compassion towards the people."

The solution of the Master. "Give ye them to eat," said the Master. The command seemed extravagant; but they knew that it had not been His habit to gather in where He had not scattered abroad. It made them feel how inadequate they were, with the little they had, to obey it. They had only five loaves and two fishes, do as they would, and with a multitude to feed. The loaves were, however, just what the people needed. We have all some little which, if wisely used, may be of benefit to our fellows. Whatever of good and holy things we have should be holily and usefully employed. The two talents are as valuable within their sphere as five are within theirs. The Master took the five loaves and two fishes from the disciples, and manifested His great power through that which they gave Him. He brought them into the fellowship of His mystery. Our first condition of usefulness is to take the little we have to Christ, if only we have the little. And we shall find that if we have taken whatever of thought and feeling and opportunity we have, and if all have been blessed by Him, that that which is blessed by Him is equal to all that life’s occasion demands; but without being blessed our loaves remain five, and the people, however frantic our effort, continue hungering.  (J. O. Davies, Sunrise on the Soul, p. 321)

Note: This is the importance of understanding where the abundance comes from, and seeing the example of Jesus-as He lifts His hands and eyes to heaven, and gives thanks to God, His Father, Our Father for the blessings before Him. Then, He breaks it and gives to the disciples, and they distribute to the multitude, and the pieces never fail. I've seen the proof of this over my years of following Christ, and seeing the evidence of what faith, prayer, obedience, trust, and giving, as God provides to me. I've never seen Him fail to take care of my needs, and provide for every situation. This is the key to the worlds needs, and hunger-if they would only see the truth of it, and come to Christ-and follow Him.
​Lorna Couillard

"Jesus sighed for a little quiet and sought it amid the lonely hills across the lake. The crowds saw where His boat was making for, and hurried round the shore to greet Him. Without a sigh He put away the hope of rest and stillness, and set to work to heal and teach the un-shepherded sheep.
​
This is not only a miracle but a parable. It is thus that the Creator is ever multiplying the slender stores left over from one harvest to produce another. It is thus that He will feed you and yours, if only you will trust him and not run hither and thither in panic. You need not depart from Christ in search of any good thing. All is in Him. When He bids us feed the crowds, He makes Himself ultimately responsible, but paves the way by forcing home the inadequacy of our resources apart from Him. It is as we break and distribute, that the living bread multiplies in our hands. The Church is the intermediary between the living Savior and the desperate hunger of the world. You may sit at the world’s table and remain hungry. But at Christ’s table you are filled. There is always more than enough left for the distributor."
(F.B. Meyer)

"An emblem of the whole work of the Body of Christ in this starving world. The multitudes famish. Tell Christ of their wants. Count your own small resources till you have completely learned your poverty: then take them to Jesus. He will accept them, and in His hands they will become mighty, being transfigured from human thoughts and forces into Divine words, spiritual powers. On that bread which He gives, do you yourself live. Then carry it boldly to all the hungry. Rank after rank will eat. All races, all ages, from grey hairs to babbling childhood, will find there the food of their souls. As you part the blessing, it will grow beneath His eye; and the longer you give, the fuller handed you will become. Nor shall the bread fail, nor the word become weak, till all the world has tasted of its sweetness, and been refreshed by its potent life." (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The Only Miracle Recorded in All Four Gospels
This is the only miracle recorded in each of the four Gospels, and we must take that as a token of the profound impression which it made. To us, the raising of Lazarus is more astounding than this mountain feast; but had we lived in Galilee, and heard the common talk, we should have perhaps found that this miracle was graven deepest on men's hearts. Most of the other miracles had been seen by few. There was no crowd near when the Nain widow got her son again. When Lazarus awoke, there were only the village neighbors present. But here five thousand lips had eaten, and five thousand lips would talk, until in every farm house and cottage this miracle would be a household word. That deep impression is registered in the fourfold narrative.

Only a word is needed to describe the miracle. Partly to avoid the dangerous neighborhood of Herod, and still more, to refresh His overstrained disciples—for there is nothing like a day with Christ among the hills for making a worried heart itself again—Jesus and His disciples cross the lake, and steer for the quiet hills by the north shore. Alas! there was to be little rest that day. The folk had seen them launching. They hurry round by the north end of the lake, meeting and mingling with the pilgrim-companies making for Jerusalem to keep the Passover. And as the prow of the boat grates on the beach, and Jesus and His disciples step ashore, God's great cathedral of the mountainside, whose roof is heaven and whose organ music is the sea, is thronged with a vast and eager congregation. Then Jesus heals, and teaches, and in the evening feeds them. Which done, the stars come out, and the crowds are scattered, and the disciples are rowing homeward to Capernaum, and Jesus is on the mountainside in prayer.

Christ's Compassion
Note first that this miracle had its roots in Christ's compassion. When He stepped ashore and saw much people, we read that He was moved with compassion towards them. And all the healing, and teaching, and feeding of that memorable day sprang from that pity in the heart of Christ. And that is the glory of divine compassion it is the source and spring of noble deeds. Often we pity where we cannot help. But the compassion of Jesus sprang into action always. It set Him healing, teaching, feeding hungry men, and it still draws Him to the same service. Is Christ my compassionate High Priest today? Then He will help me in my struggle to be true. He will lift me up when I have failed and fallen. He will feed me when my soul is starving.

One Food for All
Mark, too, there was but one food for all these thousands. The rich were there, journeying to Jerusalem, and the poorest of the poor were there, from the rude huts by the lakeside. Yonder were the quick merchants from the cities, here lolled the farmhands from the fields. There was a mother crooning to her babe, and here were the children romping on the green. Old men were there with the first glow of heaven about them, and young men with the first glow of earth. Yet Jesus fed them all with the same bread. The strange thing is that no one scorned the victual. All ate, and all were filled. No swift relays of courses had ever been so sweet as the single dish with Jesus on the hill.
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Now the wonderful thing about Christ—the living Bread—is that He satisfies us all. What a great gulf between the Jew of Tarsus and the ignorant fishers of Bethsaida! What a world between the gentle Lydia and the rude jailer at Philippi! Yet the power of Christ that made a man of Peter was no less mighty in the heart of Paul; and the love of God that won the love of Lydia conquered the jailer too. In all love, says a thinker, there is something levelling; and the love of God is the great leveler of the ages. It knows no social barriers. It is not powerless where temperaments differ. It comes to all, this one glorious Gospel of the grace of God, and all may feed and be satisfied.

Jesus Uses Gifts Men Bring Him
Again note, that in satisfying the needs of men Christ uses the gifts which men bring Him. Had Jesus so willed, He could have made bread out of the stones. In times past, God had called water from the rock, and brought manna from the windows of heaven, and I do not know why God in Christ might not have summoned these hidden stores again. But Jesus' miracles were acted parables, not wrought to amaze, but to instruct. And so He takes what the disciples give Him, and uses that to feed the crowd. It is often Christ's way to help the world through men. It is His plan to bring the Kingdom in through us. And if we take our gifts, however poor and humble, and lay them freely at the feet of Jesus, He will so bless and multiply and use them that we shall be amazed, and recognize His hand.

The Bread Increased in the Breaking of It
I see, too, that it was in the breaking that the bread increased. A wonder-worker would have touched the loaves, and made them swell and multiply before the crowd. But Jesus blessed, and brake, and gave to the disciples, and as they brake the bread, it increased. It was through the blessing that the miracle was wrought, and through the breaking that it was realised. And ever, through the breaking, comes the increase, and in the using of our gifts, with God's blessing, are our gifts enlarged. Trade with your talent bravely, and it shall be five. Power springs from power, and service out of service. Never try to do good, and you will find no good to do. Do all the little good you can, and every day will bring a fresh capacity and a new opportunity, until you find that "there is that scattereth and yet increaseth."

Careful of the Fragments
And lastly, note that Jesus was very careful of the fragments. One would have thought that Jesus was too rich to trouble Himself about the fragments. Surely it was but labor lost to sweat and stoop and stumble in the dark, to fill their wicker baskets with the scraps. But Jesus is imperious. "Gather the fragments that remain," is His command. And the twelve disciples, who a little before had been sent out to heal and teach and preach the Gospel, had now, in the presence of the thousands, to set about sweeping the crumbs. It was a splendid discipline. Someone has said that if two angels came to earth, the one to rule an empire, and the other to sweep a crossing, they would never seek to interchange their tasks. And our own poet has told us that:

A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine,
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
Makes that and the action fine.

But was that all? I think not. It was not merely to discipline the disciples that Jesus commanded the fragments to be gathered. We cannot read the story of His life, but we detect a care for the fragments through it all. The fragment of a day, how He employed it! The fragment of a life, how He redeemed it! The fragment of a character, how He ennobled it! Yes, that is His great passion—to love and lift our fragmentary lives till they are brought into the image of His own. (Devotional Sermons)

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part
thou shalt make me to know wisdom. 
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me,
and I shall be whiter than snow. Psa 51:6-7
Sincerity

​There is a remarkable foreshadowing of the insight of Christ Jesus in these words. They ring with that depth which is so clear a note of Jesus' moral teaching. We have been inclined to think of the Old Testament as dealing with the outward sphere of action; we have been inclined to say that it was Jesus who first ran down the act into the heart. But we must not separate the Old and New by any hard and fast distinctions such as these. They intermingle, both in creed and character. If Abraham saw Christ's day and was glad, David saw Christ's day and was sad. He recognized God's passionate insistence that a man should be thoroughly sincere.
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It is worth noting, too, that when David recognized this, he had a broken heart. David had sinned, and David was repentant; and a repentant man sees deeply. There are some hours in life when we are blind; hours when we see nothing and forget everything; and all our past, and all our honor and duty and God, and heaven and hell, fade and are blotted out. But when repentance comes, we see again. We see what we have done and what we are. We touch a sinfulness far deeper than our act. And that was David's case. On ordinary days he might have been content with ordinary sacrifices; but in an hour like this it was "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned," and "Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts."

This, then, is God's insistence on sincerity, and it is always a hard thing to be sincere. Life is so full of little insincerity's that it is often the man who is seriously struggling to be true who feels most keenly how untrue he is. It is always a hard thing to be sincere. But there are times when it is harder than at other times. And it is especially hard today.

​One reason it is so hard to be sincere is the fierce struggle for existence. There is a fierceness in modern competition that makes it very hard for a man to be a man. There are so many interests involved, so many whirling wheels within the wheels, that to be true to self is difficult. Men are not free as the shepherd on the hills is free. Men are combined and interlocked in the great mechanism of modern life until at last, to say what a man thinks and to be what a man is, is one of the quiet heroisms of honesty. Thank God, there are such heroisms!—as worthy of honor as any deed upon the battlefield. But when to be sincere spells heroism, we must not wonder if insincerity is common. Few men are heroes. For one soul that has a passion for sincerity, there are a hundred that have an overriding passion for success. And this, and the great gulf between Monday's warfare and Sunday's worship, and the compliance's and the accommodations and the silences, have tinged our city life with insincerity.

​I am so apt to be all warped and pressed out of the mental form that God has given me until my life becomes play acting and all the world a stage, and I don't have the courage to think, and I don't have the heart to feel, and I don't have the heroism to be myself. And losing my individuality, I cease to be sincere.
​Note: In this section-it can be seen that the writing is from many generations ago-now, we can add the computer, social media, and all forms of instant communication by media across the world. 

​But perhaps the deepest cause of insincerity is that we are living in a time of transition. All times to some extent are that. There is never an age, however dull and dead, but the old like a river is watering its plains, and the new like a spring leaps up into the light. But there are some times when the transition is very sharp and clear, and we are living in such a time as that today. Old things are passing away. Old faiths are in the crucible again. Old truths have got to be recast and readjusted. There is not a doctrine, whether of heart or Bible, but earnest minds are trying to reset it in the growing knowledge of these latter days. In one pew a father and a son are sitting; and though the father may never dream of it, there is the space of centuries between the two. For the father, with all the loyalty of his heart, still clings to the great message of the past; and to the son the strain is to reconcile that message of his childhood with the wider horizon that he cannot yield.
​
That is the pain of a transition time. There can be little question that for many the only antidote for that pain is insincerity. It is impossible, it is utterly wrong, to cast away the past. It has meant too much to us and been too much to us for that. It is impossible, it is utterly wrong, to flout the new. It is the air we breathe. So springs the temptation to be insincere, to join in the worship that was formed and fashioned when faith was an enthusiasm, to sing the hymns that were the music of unclouded souls though the enthusiasm of our faith is gone and there are more clouds than sunshine in the sky.

Insincerity takes all dignity out of life, and makes this world a very low place. We think we can be insincere, and men will be tricked and never find it out. O brethren, God Almighty has His own awful ways of writing a man's insincerity upon the heavens and engraving it as with a pen of iron on the world. All reverence is impossible, all purity is stained, and all innocence rebukes me when I am insincere. If I am false and double, I cannot hear the laughter of my children but what it sends a pang of pain into my heart. Better be excitable, better be inconsistent, better be dead than insincere. Peter was excitable, brimful of inconsistencies; yet if ever a sincere heart beat, it was the heart of Peter—and Jesus was Christ to Peter and heaven was heaven. But Judas, I don't know what his other sins were, was insincere till he came to feel the very sincerity of Jesus was like an insult; and, insincere, he went to his own place.

​​Insincerity carries yet another curse. I hardly think that there is any sin that mars and distorts the character like this one. That master theologian Augustine gave us a phrase that has become historic. He spoke of splendid sins. And perhaps there are some sins that in some lights, though not the light of God, have certain elements of splendor in them. But all the insight and all the love of Augustine could never find an element of splendor in the man or woman who had ceased to be sincere. There is no sin that so eats the manhood out of us as insincerity. There is no sin that so robs character of its quiet and restfulness and strength, and leaves it restless, shifty, self-assertive, loud. The nation has often wondered at the sweet equanimity of our revered Queen. And it was Bright who said the Queen was the most truthful being he had ever met. It is the insincere man who exaggerates. It is the insincere who flatters. It is the insincere who plays the coward in the crisis. When I have won something of the sincerity of Christ, I shall know something of His strength and peace.

​Surely no sin saps and undermines our influence as insincerity. Perhaps you think you have no influence. You feel yourself a very uninfluential person. Come-humblest woman reading this, it is not so. Most of us think far too much of our abilities and far too little of our influence. We are so interwoven in the web of life that we are making and molding each other every day. In ways mysterious, out of the depths of this mysterious self, we touch and turn each other. And perhaps the men who influence us most are the men who never tried to influence us at all.
​
Now the one bolt that falls out of the blue to shatter this unconscious influence of character is insincerity. I may be ignorant, and men may not despise me. I may be poor and still command respect. But ignorant or learned, rich or poor, once let men feel that I am insincere and all my influence for good, all my influence for God, is gone. It's a sad hour when a son sees through his father. Sad for the father, twice sad for the son. And even if a minister have the eloquence of Paul, if his people distrust him, there will be no changed hearts. It is God's curse on insincerity. It is the separating, isolating power of that heart-sin. There is no more heart-lonely creature in the world than the man or woman who has grown insincere. And to be heart-lonely forever, that is hell.

First we must win a deeper reverence for ourselves. We must believe in individual possibilities. We must remember there are no nobodies with God. If I am only a leaf tossed by the wind, if I am only a flake carried on the stream, if I am only a light that flashes and is gone, if it will be all the same a hundred years hence, it matters little whether I am sincere or not. I must not mock myself with any self-importance. But if I am a man called into being by an everlasting God, nurtured and bosomed in an eternal love, gifted with faculties that only eternity can ripen, and filled with a ceaseless craving for the truth, to be untrue to self is self-destruction. Therefore, when I am tempted to be insincere, I fall back first upon Bible doctrine. I see my weakness there. I see my fall. But I see there such hopes for me, such possibilities for me, that to be me—myself—becomes a new ambition. And to be myself is to be sincere.

Then we must gain a profound faith in God. There is no choice about it. We simply must. I defy any man to be consciously insincere who lives under these eyes that are a flame of fire. It is because God is distant, hidden in the clouds that are around His throne, that we dare be one man within, another man without. The old religious sculptors, says a writer, who came to their tasks with prayer and meditation on unearthly beauty, would never suffer any imperfect workmanship even though placed where man could never see it. And when one questioned them why the concealed parts of statues removed from human sight should be so exquisitely made, they answered that the eyes of the gods were there. "Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord, and my goings are passed over from my God?" It is a speech like Jacob's that makes insincerity so easy. It is the practice of God's presence which makes it hard.

And we must gain a closer fellowship with Christ. Of all the helps whereby I struggle onwards toward sincerity, there is none like daily fellowship with Him. If it ennobles me to live with noble souls, and makes me purer to have a pure woman for my friend, how will it shame me into a new sincerity to live with the sincerest heart that ever beat! There are some men with whom I could not gossip. There are some men in whose presence slander dies. There is one Man whose very company kills insincerity, and that is Christ. When I am near to Him, and He to me, I am proportionately true. When I have lost Him, banished Him, driven Him from His center and His throne, like a strong tide my insincerity creeps up again.
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There is a sad lack of sincerity today, but let us not be blinded to the fact that sincerity is not the only virtue. I am not necessarily good, I am not necessarily right, I am not necessarily saved, because I am sincere. There is a call for new sincerity in every heart, yet that sincerity is but a stepping-stone. I may sincerely consider my friend to be a hero, and yet in spite of that my friend may be a scamp. I may sincerely be convinced Christ never arose, yet Christ did arise and is at the right hand of God today. Sincerity without humility is the obstinacy out of which fools are made. The truly sincere man is always humble, feels like a child amid God's infinite mysteries and cries in his heart, "Light, light, more light"; till God in His own way leads him there. And the light is light indeed, and the light indeed is love. And neither height nor depth, nor life nor death, nor any other creature, shall, separate him from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  (Devotional Sermons)

​David, in the opening of this Psalm, appeals for mercy. No penitent man ever approached God on the side of His justice. The Pharisee, indeed, appeals to righteousness; but the publican appeals for mercy.

"Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." Mark the thoroughness of this desire. Not only must sin be blotted out, but the sinner himself must be. washed and cleansed. There must be not merely a change of state, but a change of nature. David’s words all come, as it were, from the centre of his being. There is no trifling with the surface here.

"For I acknowledge my transgressions." Confession is a necessary basis of forgiveness. Confession is in reality a multitudinous act; it is many acts in one; it is a convergence of right judgment, right feeling, and right action.

In the third verse the Psalmist uses an extraordinary expression, "My sin is ever before me." The point to be noted here is the distinct personal relation which every man sustains to his own sin. It is emphatically and exclusively his own.

"Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned". The idea is that all sin is against. God. Whoever sins against man sins against God. Then how sacred are all human relations. Every blow struck against humanity is a blow struck against God.

Up to the twelfth verse the Psalmist confines his intercessions to subjects which relate immediately to his own spiritual condition; but in ver. 13 he includes others with himself: "Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways." Mark the connection between true personal holiness and true worldwide benevolence. This is the secret of all evangelistic movement. The work begins in personal consecration. Ver. 17 shows that all sacrifice is worthless which is not vitalized by the moral element.
(Parker, Wednesday Evenings at Cavendish Chapel, p. 1)

And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter,
​and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. 
And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. 
And they straightway left their nets, and followed him. 
And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee,
and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them. 
 And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him. Mat 4:18-22

Jesus and the Fishermen

Observe here--
I. Jesus called the Galilean fishermen. There was nothing novel in the calling of men from a lowly condition to the performance of a high and holy task. The men who were to stand at the head of this great movement were men of the people, men who had not enjoyed any special privileges. It ought to be enough to establish the certainty of the heavenliness of Christ’s Kingdom, that He used no artificial means in laying its foundations so firmly in the consciousness of the world, and that this was done through the instrumentality of fishermen, and that He appealed to them as He does to all, to the willing mind and the responsive conscience, and did this through furnishing them with a new and holy ideal of human life.
​
II. He called them for a specific purpose. "I will make you fishers of men." Thus He spoke to them in familiar words; but familiar words when used by Him were charged with unfamiliar meaning; they contained the revelation of God’s heart and of man’s destiny. He who knew as no man knew enlisted the ordinary in the service of the extraordinary, and without injury to His theme translated the spiritual into the terms of the material. Christ promised that His disciples should catch. "I will make you fishers of men." They would have to vary their manner of using the net He furnished them with; they would not catch as many as they desired, but would at length succeed, because the net was the right kind of net, and they themselves would be prepared for its use.

III. How they were to be fitted for this work: "Follow Me." They were to wait on Him, to go in and out with Him from the beginning, to apprehend the meaning of His words and the spirit in which they were conceived. They must know Him; this was their first, their great, business in life. He taught His doctrine in the practice of it, and the practice of it in the patience and heroism of His own life. They were to know all they needed to know, be all they ought to be, and do all required of them to be done, by following Him.  (J. O. Davies, Sunrise on the Soul, p. 3)

​He goes to the lake of Galilee and finds them on the sea-shore—a most unlikely place, as some would judge. He knows the sort of men that He wants; He knows the material out of which He can make fishers of men, and it is that prompts Him.
1. He wanted men who were inured to hardship and seasoned for service. 2. He wanted men who were bold and daring.
3. I think that Christ chose these fishermen, also, because they were men who had done business in great waters, and had there seen God’s wonders in the deep. Surely an acquaintance with nature and with nature’s God, had been some sort of preparation for the higher and nobler employ to which He was able to call them.
4. The Lord Jesus, when He is selecting disciples, goes amongst men of humble calling, for labor is honorable.
5. It was from earnest toilers Christ found His workers—men who were already hard at work.
6. He finds His preachers, too, amongst those who are already His disciples; for this was not the first time that Christ had spoken to Peter and to Andrew.

The nobler employment to which Christ called these men.—I am not disparaging labor when I tell you that the highest form of labor is work for Christ—the winning of souls. Though Christ called these brethren to a nobler employ, they were to be fishermen still. “I will make you fishers of men.” You shall go on fishing, only you shall have a new sea. You are still to have nets, but they are to be of a different sort. Do you not think there is for every labor under the sun a spiritual parallel and analogy? I began my life as an engraver on wood, preparing pictures for the illustrated papers; and I remember my dear father writing to me, “I am content, dear son, that you shall engrave on wood until God calls you to engrave on hearts.”

How did Christ transform these men from fishermen into fishers of men?--
1.He called them.
2.He molded them, and fashioned them, and trained them. How? ​By precept, but principally by example.
3.He sent His Spirit, still to help them in the blessed work of catching men. (Thomas Spurgeon)

And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. 
And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him. 
​And when he had gone a little further thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee,
and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets.
And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the
hired servants, and went after him.  Mar 1:19
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But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. ​1Pe 5:10

​Jesus Calls All to Follow Him

​Peter Called while Mending His Nets

We have all seen fishermen upon a summer morning mending their nets on the seashore. With a patience and a skill that we have envied, we have watched them busy at their task. These bronzed faces, and strong and vigorous frames, tell of many a year upon the deep. We can picture the men handling their boats magnificently when the wind is freshening into angry storm. And now in the quiet of the summer morning, when the waves are idly lapping on the beach, they are busied with the mending of their nets. It was thus that James and John were busied when they received the call that changed their lives. Their boat was rocking in the shallow water, and they were chatting, and working as they chatted. And then came Jesus, and claimed them for Himself, and called them into the service of discipleship, and they left everything and followed Him.

Christ Takes Over the Mending of Our Nets, When We Decide to Follow Him

Now you will wonder why, with that Highland scene, I have associated these words of Peter. Well, the reason is a very simple one, although perhaps not lying on the surface. The word that Peter uses here for make you perfect, is the same word as is used for mending of the nets. It is as if Peter had said, The God of grace, whatever else He may do, will mend your nets for you. And when you remember that Peter was a fisherman, and had spent many a day upon the sea of Galilee, it seems impossible that he should have used the word without some recollection of his craft. Our calling, whatever it may be, has a way of coloring the words we use. It influences language with its old associations, and gives it some of the music of the past. So Peter, in the throng and stir of Babylon, writing his letter of comfort to the churches, flashed back in thought again to the old days, when the water was lapping on his boat. The God of grace will make you perfect. The God of grace will mend your nets for you. Our nets are sorely broken in the boat, and the God of grace is the great net-mender. It is on that figure I want to dwell, and to try to discover some of its significance, for that it was often present to the first disciples there cannot be a shadow of a doubt.

How Are Nets Usually Broken?

Now first, how are nets usually broken? That is a question which is worth considering. Well, I was talking to an old fisherman this summer, and the gist of what he said was of this nature.
Sometimes, he told me, nets are broken by the ordinary wear and tear of fishing. They get worn out here, and they get worn out there, through the rough handling of the common day. There is no reason to suspect that they were bad nets. They may have been purchased from the finest maker. Nor have they met with any accident, such as may happen to the most skilful fisherman. But fishing is rough work at the best of it, and the handling of tackle never can be gentle; and so as the days pass—now here, now there—the fisherman comes to find his nets are broken. There are points where the net is very apt to break, but it is not always there the breakage happens. Sometimes in the least expected quarter, unexpectedly; a rent appears. And so, my brother, in these lives of ours is there often a breaking down through wear and tear, and sometimes the breaking is at the very point where you and I might never have expected it. There are men who have never been great sinners, as we put it. They have only had the wear and tear of life—the strain of business and the stress of home. And yet sometimes that very wear and tear has spoiled all that was finest and most beautiful, and the temper is irritable, and the heart is sullen, and the net, so delicately made, is broken.

By Obstacles and Objects in the Sea

Again he told me that nets are often broken through the encountering of some jagged obstacle. They are caught by some obstruction in the deeps, and, clearing themselves free of it, are torn. It may be a piece of wreckage in the sea, jagged, and with iron spikes upon it. It may be the sharp edge of some familiar reef, that has been swept clear of its seaweed by the storm. But whatever it is, the net goes dragging over it, and dragging over it is caught and rent, and tearing itself free in desperate effort, it gapes disfigured like some wounded thing. Are there no human lives like that? No nets mystical that are so broken? It may be a hidden and surprising sin that does it; it may be a sudden and overwhelming sorrow; it may be the ruin of a cherished friendship, or the wreckage or a love that meant the world, or some swift insight into another's baseness, where once we dreamed there was sincerity. In such an hour as that the net is rent. There is a tearing of the very heartstrings. And faith is shattered, and God is but a name, and life seems the most shallow of all sophistries. For always, when we lose our faith in man, there falls a shadow on our faith in God, so that the very stars seem masterless, and goodness but the mockery of a dream.

By the Abundance of Catch

And then he told me that nets are sometimes broken through the very wealth of the sea that they enclose. And he did not need to tell me that, for I had read it as a child in Holy Scripture. I remembered a scene on that same sea of Galilee when the disciples had toiled all night and had caught nothing. And then in the morning came the Master—it is always morning when the Master comes. And He bade them cast upon the other side, and casting so, their nets were filled with fishes—filled with such a great abundance of them that the nets, as we read, began to break. My brother, it seems a thing incredible that the gifts of a good God should break the nets. Does it not seem unlike divine compassion that the very wealth of heaven should lead to ruin? Yet are there lives on every hand of us—God grant that yours and mine be not among them—where nets are broken just because God is good. What I mean is, that life has been so easy that all that is best and noblest has decayed. Prosperity has had a hardening influence, and luxury has diminished every sympathy. Endowed with everything that makes life rich—surrounded with all imaginable comforts, how many there are who have never done a hand's turn to leave the world better than they found it!

The Loss of Broken Nets Is Fundamental

So far then on the breaking of the nets. Now will you think of the loss when they are broken? Well, to begin with, remember it is the loss of the most important possession of the fisherman. If his cottage is burned he can still ply his calling, and be out providing for his wife and children. If a blight falls upon his little garden, it is hard, but it is not unbearable. But if his nets are useless all is useless, and his very livelihood is swept away, and other boats shall hoist their sails tonight, but his shall rock idly in the harbor.

There are some losses that are insignificant, and only a foolish man will trouble over them. But there are other losses that are vital, and affect everything, and are determinative. So with a fisherman is a lost net, and so with every man is a lost life, which is not lived to the glory of its Maker, and has never known the joy of doing good. All other losses, matched with that, are comparatively insignificant. The loss of health may be a bitter thing, and the loss of a fortune may be very terrible. But the one loss that cuts down to the quick, and calls for mercy in the heart of heaven is not lost health nor lost prosperity: it is lost life and opportunity. It is a mighty thing to save the soul; but we want to save the life as well as save the soul. We want to have sin conquered, and habits brought to an end, and time redeemed, and something worthy done. And it is just when we are doubtful of all that, and wondering if there be any hope for us, that the Bible comes to us, a seaborn people, and says, The God of grace will mend your nets. He will do it by His pardoning mercy, that forgives everything for Jesus' sake. He will do it by His upholding power, that will never leave us nor forsake us. He will do it perfectly, and do it now, and do it for the weakest and the worst, for the God of all grace will make you perfect.

It Is Distressing for It Misses What Is at Hand

But not only is it a vital loss. It is a peculiarly distressing loss, for this reason. The loss of the rent net entails the missing of riches that are at hand on every side. If one of our whalers were to be wrecked off Orkney, it would lose a harvest that was far away. There are a thousand miles between the whaling ground and the wild cliffs and stormy seas of Orkney. But when a net was rent upon the sea of Galilee, it meant not the loss of a far-distant harvest, it meant the loss of what was just at hand. There were the shoals of fish in the blue waters. They were in the very depths where the boats lay. They were not far away in other seas; they were where Peter was, and John and James. And that was the pity of the useless net, that all that was precious was so near at hand, and yet, for all the power to take it, might have been a thousand miles away. My brother, the God of grace will mend your nets. He will give you the wealth that is lying at your hand. He will mend your nets, not for some distant fishing, but for the fishing where your bark is tonight. He will redeem for you your opportunities, and show you new meanings in your daily task, and give you the wealth that is on every hand although it may be you have never dreamed of it. Home will be different from what it has ever been; it will be so full of peace and happiness. Work will be different from what it has ever been, for it will all be done with new ideals. And on every hand, all unsuspected once, will be opportunities of doing good, and of helping someone who has need of help, although you never saw that need before. The God of grace will make you perfect. The God of grace will mend your nets for you. He will sweep into your poor barren life the riches that are there just for the taking. For the gladdest things are never far away, nor hidden in distant oceans, inaccessible, but they are here where you and I are living, and where eyes of love answer to our own.

The Work of Net Mending Requires Skill

And so we come to the work itself of net mending, and I ask in closing what kind of work is that? Well, in the first place, you will agree with me that it is a work that calls for very perfect skill. Have you never been amazed at the deft fingers of some rough old fisherman upon the Clyde? Those hands of his, so brawny and so powerful—they could hoist any sail and manage any sheet. But the beautiful thing is that these very hands, all rough and seamed and hardened with the weather, will work as delicately as a woman's hands in the fine work of mending nets. Were you and I to try it—what a failure! What a hopeless tangle we should make of things! We have our own bit of work that we can do, but the one thing we could never do is that. Yet he, with hands as deft as any woman's, and with an eye that sees right through the tangle, makes his gear ready for the deeps. I have often thought that God's hands were like those hands. They too are powerful, and can grasp tremendously, when the wind is high and when the waves are raging. But they, too, with a delicacy infinite, and with a tenderness surpassing that of women, can mend the broken net upon life's shore. The hand of Christ was mighty to command. When it was lifted up, the devils trembled. Yet that same hand, with what unerring skill did it ply its task upon the brokenhearted! It touched the weary, and they took heart again, and it was laid on the hopeless, and their hope was kindled, and it fell with a healing that was irresistible on lives that shrank from every other touch. That was the ministry of Christ on earth. That ever since has been His ministry. When wisdom has failed, and learning been inoperative, Christ has succeeded, and is succeeding still. For He knows our frame, and remembers we are dust, and He is infinitely strong and gentle; and He alone, if we but trust Him, can mend the broken net and make it perfect.

It Also Requires Patience

But it is not only a work that calls for skill, it is a work that calls for patience also. There are tasks you can hurry through, and get them done, but you can never hurry the mending of the net. That is indeed a recognized distinction between a first-rate fisher and a bad one. The one, impatient, will patch his nets up anyhow, that he may have leisure for the public house. But the other makes it a leisurely affair, and settles down to it, and is deliberate—so deliberate sometimes that you and I are inclined to be irritated at his slowness. But the man is not working for our shallow praise. He is working with a higher thought than that. For he loves that net of his with a strange love that you and I could never understand. So with a leisureliness that is old-fashioned now, in this age of fast motion, he works at the mending through the summer morning, There is a patience that is born of cowardice, and there is a patience that is born of love. The one is the patience of a broken-spirited people who have been crushed for ages by some tyrant. But the other is the patience of our fishermen, and it is also the patience of our God, who through length of days, as Newman sings, elaborates a people to His praise. If you and I are ever to be perfect, it will take infinite patience to achieve it. We are so backward—so ready to forget—such foolish scholars in the school of heaven. Blessed be God, that love which gave a Savior will never weary in its appointed task, till that hath been made perfect which concerns us.

It Involves Hope

And then, in closing, this work of net-mending, is it not a work that involves hope? There would be little use in mending any net if there were no hope of a harvest of the sea. Sometimes around the coasts of Scotland fish take what the fishermen call a flight. One year they are there in plenty, then unaccountably they disappear. And I know little towns upon our northern coasts where that has happened, and where hope was killed, and where the nets, so finely mended once, have hung upon the shore until they rotted. Always, when a net is mended, it means that there is hope for coming days. And always, when a life is mended, it means there is a harvest yet in store. And that is why, when a man yields up his will, and gives himself into the hand of God, hopes that were quenched begin to shine again, and the heart thrills with what is yet to be. We have sinned, and we have sinned exceedingly. We have done our very best to spoil our lives. We have wasted time, and squandered opportunity, and been unloving and utterly unworthy. Thanks be to God, in spite of all that, and of things that may be far darker than that, the broken net is going to be mended. He forgives us even to the uttermost. He is pledged to save us even to the uttermost. Deeper than our deepest need are the infinite depths of His compassion. It is in such a faith that we give Him our lives which are so rent and ragged, assured that His grace will be sufficient for us, and His strength made perfect in our weakness.  (Devotional Sermons)

Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee. 
Deliver me, O LORD, from mine enemies: I flee unto thee to hide me.
Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good;
​lead me into the land of uprightness. Psa 143:8-10
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Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths. 
Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation;
on thee do I wait all the day. Psa 25:4-5

Meditation and prayer are many times inter-woven, inseparable. I've found this to be true in cases of examining my own conduct, my own life and decisions, and going to scripture on the subject to bring greater understanding to my soul. Many bible scholars, preachers and serious believer's find this to be true and we can glean much wisdom from their comments and quotes. Those chosen here, are some I've found useful. 

“Cause me to know the way"-Many want to be their own guides. groping through life by choosing their own paths, ignorance and pride. It takes wisdom to see the folly of this.
1. Prompted by a sense of our weakness and ignorance. How much we need a guide. We have as much need of daily guidance as of daily bread. We cannot get safely through a world of sin and danger without the Presence and Grace of Christ. It is not a matter of indifference to the Christian how he passes through life. Not enough to say, “What shall I eat?”; but, “Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us.” The soul has wants as well as the body. The Christian has moral interests to secure; he has a race to run—a battle to fight—a prize to gain—a God to glorify—a soul to be lost or saved. He is in a world where the great destroyer has his seat. He knows that the interests of others are linked in with his own: cannot stand or fall alone. Hence he prays, “Cause me to know,”
2. Prompted by knowledge of the character of Christ as a Guide. Wise, powerful, gracious. “The Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” Having had large experience of the conduct of sinners.

Life is not a pathless wilderness. God has a way laid down for every man. He regards the individual life. Laws are general, but the progress of each life is unique. There is a way in which every man should walk.
1. This it true morally. Right is straight, wrong is zigzag. Right is distinct from wrong,—a Divine way, clear to those who will see it.
2. This is true intellectually. Truth is the Divine path for the intellect. Truth, as a narrow way, lies often in the midst of the devious windings of error; but they who are guided by God shall not fail to discover it.
3. This is true circumstantially. From the cradle to the grave God has a way for every man. The prayerless miss it; the prayerful find it.  (Biblical Illustrator)

Show me thy ways, O Lord - The “ways” of God are His methods of administering the affairs of the world; His dispensations; the rules which He has prescribed for Himself in the execution of His plans; the great laws by which He governs the universe. Deu_32:4, “all his ways are judgment; a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.” The prayer of the psalmist is, that he may be able to understand the methods of the divine government; the principles upon which God bestows happiness and salvation; the rules which He has been pleased to prescribe for human conduct; the arrangements by which He confers favors upon mankind; the scheme by which He saves people. The idea evidently is that he might understand so much of this as to regulate his own conduct aright; that he might not lean upon his own understanding, or trust to His own guidance, but that He might always be under the guidance and direction of God.
Teach me thy paths - The paths which thou dost take; to wit, as before, in administering the affairs of the world. The prayer is expressive of a desire to be wholly under the direction of God. (Albert Barnes)

“Shew me thy ways, O Lord.” Unsanctified natures clamor for their own way, but gracious spirits cry, “Not my will, but thine be done.” We cannot at all times discern the path of duty, and at such times it is our wisdom to apply to the Lord himself. Frequently the dealings of God with us are mysterious, and then also we may appeal to him as his own interpreter, and in due time he will make all things plain. Moral, providential and mental forms of guidance are all precious gifts of a gracious God to a teachable people. The second petition, “teach me thy paths,” appears to mean more than the first, and may be illustrated by the case of a little child who should say to his father, “Father, first tell me which is the way, and then teach my little trembling feet to walk in it.” What weak dependent creatures we are! How constantly we cry to the strong for strength.
Psa_25:5
“Lead me in thy truth, and teach me.” The same request as in the last verse. The little child having begun to walk, asks to be still led onward by its parent's helping hand, and to be further instructed in the alphabet of truth. Experimental teaching is the burden of this prayer. Lead me according to thy truth, and prove thyself faithful; lead me into truth that I may know its preciousness, lead me by the way of truth that I may manifest its spirit. David knew much, but he felt his ignorance and desired to be still in the Lord's school; four times over in these two verses he applies for a scholarship in the college of grace. It were well for many professors if instead of following their own devices, and cutting out new paths of thought for themselves, they would enquire for the good old ways of God's own truth, and beseech the Holy Ghost to give them sanctified understandings and teachable spirits. “For thou art the God of my salvation.” The Three-One Jehovah is the Author and Perfector of salvation to his people. Reader, is he the God of your salvation? Do you find in the Father's election, in the Son's atonement, and in the Spirit's quickening all the grounds of your eternal hopes? If so, you may use this as an argument for obtaining further blessings; if the Lord has ordained to save you, surely he will not refuse to instruct you in his ways. It is a happy thing when we can address the Lord with the confidence which David here manifests, it gives us great power in prayer, and comfort in trial. “On thee do I wait all the day.” Patience is the fair handmaid and daughter of faith; we cheerfully wait when we are certain that we shall not wait in vain. It is our duty and our privilege to wait upon the Lord in service, in worship, in expectancy, in trust all the days of our life. Our faith will be tried faith, and if it be of the true kind, it will bear continued trial without yielding. We shall not grow weary of waiting upon God if we remember how long and how graciously he once waited for us.

Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: 
And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: 
They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they
wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; 
(Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens
and caves of the earth. Heb 11:35-38
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Troubles Made Beautiful

This chapter, Hebrews chapter eleven, gives a historical rundown of a long list of great men and women of faith, some were of great stature, some were among the unknown-except to God. But, the one thing they all shared was their place in the great hall of records of those who overcame in faith, and it shows they are recorded in heaven. This continues to this day, as each one who has overcome in their life, and stood in faith, and not waivered, are added to the record in this hall of faith. There are meditations for our learning, that will be shared here, though by no means exhaustive. The lessons in this chapter alone, are limitless.

Not a man or woman mentioned in this chapter was perfect. Falsehood, adultery, greed, cruelty, profanity, attached to most of them; to some in a pre-eminent degree, Yet here is no mention of their sins; they are put among the saints, canonized in the roll of heaven’s illustrious heroes. The Great Father is more charitable in His treatment of human character than men in treatment of each other.

Now, let's unpack more, and see what God would share with us on this topic:

​Faith Refusing Deliverance

Faith Leads to Deliverance
Among the blessings which we connect with faith, one of the most conspicuous is deliverance. The Bible is a great record of deliverance effected through the agency of faith. Abraham was delivered from idolatry. Joseph was delivered from his brethren. David was delivered from Goliath, and Peter from the prison at Jerusalem. And most notable of all, there was the Exodus, when Israel was delivered from its bondage—drawn out of Egypt, by the might of God, into the peril and the prize of liberty. All these are instances of deliverance, wrought in the power of a living faith. Men trusted God, and in the joy of trust were freed from darkness and captivity. And so the Bible, as we read its pages, grows into a great argument for this, that God is able and willing, if we trust Him, to set the feet in a large room.
The same issue of faith also arrests us when we come into the company of Jesus. Here, too, as in the rest of Scriptures, faith is a mighty power to deliver. We see the maniac released from legion, and sitting clothed and in his right mind. We see the withered arm restored again; the eye that had been blind regaining sight. We see a woman delivered from infirmity, and a loved brother delivered from the grave, and a great company whose eyes are glad because they have been delivered from their sin. Christ was the great enemy of bonds. He was the lover and the light of liberty. He came to preach deliverance to the captives, and to bestow the gift which was His message. And so again we learn this happy lesson, that faith is a mighty power to redeem; and that in every sphere where faith is active, one of its blessed fruits is liberty.
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There Is a Faith That Refuses Deliverance
Yet while that is true, and gloriously true, in a way I trust we all know something of, there is a suggestion in our second text that it is fitting we should not forget. "They were tortured, not accepting deliverance," and the whole chapter is a song of faith. The chapter is a magnificent review of all that faith is powerful to achieve. So this is also a result of faith, not that it brings deliverance to a man, but that sometimes, when deliverance is offered, it gives him a fine courage to refuse it. There are seasons when faith shows itself in taking. There are seasons when it is witnessed in refusing. There is a deliverance that faith embraces. There is a deliverance that faith rejects. They were tortured, not accepting deliverance—that was the sign and seal that they were faithful. There are hours when the strongest proof of faith is the swift rejection of the larger room.
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Better to Be Faithful Than Free
Think in the first place of the martyrs, to whom our text immediately applies. When a man was charged with being a Christian, deliverance was always at his hand. He had only to blaspheme the name of Christ—a word or two of cursing—that was all. He had only to spit upon the name of Christ, when the Roman centurion scratched it on the wall. He had only to put his hand into a box, and take a grain or two of incense from the box, and sprinkle it without a single word before the beautiful statue of Diana. On the one hand was life, and life was sweet. On the other hand was death, and death was terrible. On the one hand was liberty and home. On the other hand was torture and the grave. And they were tortured, not accepting deliverance. They might have had it by a single word. It was their faith that led them to the scaffold. It was better to be faithful than be free.

It Takes Faith to Refuse to Be Liberated from the Troubles Entailed in the Performance of Needed Common Tasks
The same issue of faith is seen again amid the troubles of our common life. in precisely the same manner it is witnessed in the pettier martyrdoms of every day. Each of us has got his cross to carry. There is no escaping from the law. Each of us has got his secret bitterness, and his burden, and his travail or his fear. For one the trouble may be in business matters; for another, the cross may be at home; while for a third, perhaps, it is the body that wakes the heart to trembling in the night. Now I believe that whatever be the trouble, Jesus Christ has come to preach deliverance. There is peace in Him, and quietness of soul, and conquest over death and all its terrors. But remember that there are other outlets which sometimes loom upon our gaze invitingly, and promise us the release that we are craving—if only we are untrue to our best selves. I think that all of us are tempted so, though these are temptations of which we seldom speak. Sometimes indeed we hardly understand them, they are so subtly hidden and disguised. But always there is a tampering with conscience in them, and a certain lowering of the flag of youth, and a sinking clown upon a lower level than we know to be worthy in our hearts. it is when a man or woman is so tempted that faith in God is needed to be true. To choose the drudgery and spurn the liberty is the sign-manual of faith in him. "They were tortured, not accepting deliverance." They let the laughter and the sunshine go.
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Don't Miss the Best by Choosing the Easier and More Remunerative in Disregard of Conscience
Now I might illustrate how to beware of choosing the easier in disregard of conscience by many instances. For example, the case of a young man. His work is hard and irksome and ill-paid, and he has a father who is dependent on him. From morning till evening it is a weary grind. There is no encouragement. There are scarce any prospects. And when evening comes he is so fagged that he can hardly follow a good book. And then there comes to him the glittering chance of work that is easier, and pay that is far better, on the condition that he shuts his eyes, and does not trouble about a tender conscience. Many a man accepts that swift deliverance. He offers the grain of incense to Diana. And then he prospers, and is kind at home, and there are comforts for the aged father. But nothing on earth can alter the old fact that such an act was faithless and untrue, and that a man forever from that moment has left the company of saints and martyrs. He has been tortured and accepted deliverance, and the world and the devil are exacting creditors. Somehow, as the years unroll themselves, he will discover he has missed the best. And if my words have any weight on young men who are starting out on life, they will write upon their hearts this text of Hebrews, and avoid that tragic mistake.

Faithfulness Is Better Than Happiness When Happiness Is Brought On by What Is False
Or I might take the case of a young woman who is set amid uncongenial surroundings. She is not happy. Perhaps she has to work, and probably her health is very far from good. I shall not paint the picture at its blackest, though I have seen it at its blackest for myself. I shall not touch on that most awful freedom that lurks on every street of every Babylon. But I shall say that she gets the offer of marriage from someone to whom God has never led her, and to whom in her woman's heart there is no drawing, as of those cords which have been knit in heaven. There is the chance of freedom, if you like. There is deliverance from all the drudgery. But, O my sister, at what an awful cost of all that is most womanly and delicate! A thousand times better to be tortured daily than to accept deliverance like that—and it is there, you see, that faith comes in. Faith that God can uphold you in the darkness, and give you music in the weariest mile. Faith that there are better things than happiness, when happiness is bought by being false. Faith that the best in life is ,ever lost when you are true to what is high and beautiful; and always lost when you have played the traitor to the sweet sincerities of womanhood.

Sometimes Deliverance Can Be Failure or Treachery
The same issue of faith is also seen in public and in Christian service. I suppose there is no one engaged in that who does not feel at times a longing for release. It may be that enthusiasm has vanished. It may be that we are disappointed. It may be that those whom we are called to labor with are irritating and interfering people. So sooner or later comes to us the day when we are tempted to have done with it; to take our armour off, and hang it up, and pass into the oblivion of peace. Now I am far from saying that that is always wrong. Sometimes it may be right and necessary. A man may be forced to it by doctor's orders, and if he be wise he will attend to these. A man may be led to it by the appeal of conscience telling him he should be more at home, and that no service can have heaven's blessing if wife and children are neglected. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. That is a matter for heart and God. All that I want to do here is this: it is to warn you that all release is not like that. There may be times when deliverance is treachery; when to seek for freedom is to fail; when a man's first duty is to continue serving, even though his service may be torture. "They were tortured, not accepting deliverance," and sometimes we are called with that vocation. If we trust God we shall refuse relief, and stick to the service we have put our hand to. God has no pleasure in these sorry workers who are always threatening to send in resignations. No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

Beware of False Deliverance from Moral and Intellectual Doubt
I am impressed again by the same truth in regard to our spiritual and intellectual difficulties. I may be speaking to some here who have great difficulties about faith and God. They would fain believe, and yet they find it hard. They would fain trust, and yet they cannot trust. They cannot feel their need of a Redeemer. They cannot grasp the power of the cross. Or it may be that, having grasped it once, they have been thrown into darkness by their reading, and cannot reconcile the facts of science with the old message of the love of heaven. My brother, I want to say to you that Christ has got deliverance for you. He has come to preach deliverance to the captive, and there is no captivity so dark as doubt. But there are times of darkness and perplexity when other methods of release will face you, and if you are a man you will reject them, and face the torture which rejection brings. You will not take shallow answers to great questions. You will ,or yield up moral questions in despair. You will not fall back upon a life of sense, as if in sensuality were rest. But you will be true to all the light you have, and you will cling to all the good you know, and you will trust that, when the night is past, the singing of the birds is sure to come. To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. It is sometimes better to be tossed and tortured, than to be sleeping on a couch of ease. This is one mark of every earnest soul that has come at last to liberty and light, it has been too faithful to the Highest to accept deliverance upon unworthy terms. "Not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection."

Christ Refused False Deliverance
In closing, may I just remind you how true this was of our Lord Jesus Christ? He is our Savior not because He refused deliverance. "All these kingdoms will I give thee," said the Tempter, "if thou wilt fall down and worship me." Was not that a road to power and princedom which would have escaped the torture of the cross? But He was tortured, not accepting deliverance. He chose the bitter way that led by Calvary. He scorned deliverance by that compliance, and so He has won deliverance for the captive. Then think again, when He approached the cross, how the women offered Him the opiate. And had He but drunk it, His senses had been numbed, and the agony of crucifixion had been deadened. But having tasted it, He put it from Him. He could not and He would not drink it. And He was tortured, not accepting deliverance, that He might be the Savior of mankind. Now He preaches freedom to the captive. Do you know it? Have you experienced it? Can you this minute bear witness in your heart that you are a freed man in Jesus Christ? if so, to you may come those darksome hours when voices call you to some mean escape, and just because you are a man in Christ, with all the saints and martyrs you will scorn it.
(Devotional Sermons)

God does not care to label all His wonders. The great men and women who are brought into prominence are only specimens of what may be found in lowlier spheres of life, just as the rocky strata hurled up through the earth’s surface do but reveal the kind of deposit which is to be found everywhere down deep in the earth’s bosom. Yet men, as a rule, have ignored that wealth of resource which does not project itself in huge protrusions before their sight. It is comparatively recently that even historians have learnt that human history does not consist exclusively of the record, however faithfully given, of the lives of kings, great warriors, powerful ecclesiastics, and other recognized rulers of men. This glorious Book has been the one grand exception. It has ever taught men that there is a mightier power than that of monarchs, which determines the destinies of nations, and works for righteousness, and which often works more powerfully out of sight than on the surface. Here, after the names of patriarchs, kings, noted women, and the great judges of Israel, come the prophets, but only as a whole and unnamed; and then the nameless “women … and others”—not a jot inferior to those who have passed before them, and whose names have been echoed throughout the ages.

The transition from “the prophets” to “women “ is sudden, but not incongruous. The list of the faithful is not complete without women, those in whom faith triumphed in true womanly fashion—in the power of patient endurance. Theirs was a faith mightier than the wrench of death. They were great in what is pre-eminently the grace of sanctified womanhood—the passive virtues. What a world of suffering and of heroic endurance is epitomized here. The writer has no time to tell more: the theme grows in its vastness; hence, under the pressure of a sublime necessity, he throws what has been left untold upon the shoulders of a few sentences until they stagger and are well-nigh crushed under their burden. Here the grandest summary of all types of patient endurance, which we can find within the covers of this book, is associated with the lives of obscure men and women. Heroism is shown to be no monopoly of position or of sex, of age or of nation. The favourite type of womanly devotion is presented not only in the words “received their dead to life again,” but also in those which apply to the more general epithet “and others”—namely, “were tortured, not accepting deliverance.” How often is this illustrated in other days than those of persecution by the devotedness of consecrated womanhood to husband, child, sufferer, and outcast, in toil, feebleness, suffering, and shame! How often have labours and hardships been gratefully accepted, and the suggestion of deliverance or exemption from such emphatically ignored! It is the summary of this indignant repudiation of deliverance from suffering, and even death, when they have stood in the path of duty, that occupies one of the finest chapters in the illustrious history of faith.

Edwin Long gives a striking illustration of this type of heroism in one of his paintings, where he depicts a Christian maid who will not burn a single grain of incense upon Caesar’s altar to save her life, and that notwithstanding the eloquent appeal in the beseeching look of her lover, that for his sake she would do it. What significance there is in the words “and others”! They represent the forces which have not been tabulated in the ordinary records of triumphs, and yet they are the greatest of all. God in His record supplements every great name with “ and others.” Elijah in the hour of despondency thought himself alone as the center and circumference of the true devotion of his age—“I, even I only, am left.” God reminded him of the “and others,” when He replied, “Yet I have left Me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him” (1Ki_19:18). Who won the battle of Waterloo? Wellington. Yes, “and others.” Who have wrought Christian reformations of the past three centuries? Luther, Wycliffe, Knox, Wesley. Yes, “and others” in every instance. Now, it is of these “women and others” anonymously mentioned here that the writer adds, “Of whom the world was not worthy.”

​Observe that this is not said of any of the great names mentioned previously. That went without the saying. But there was need of emphasizing this regarding the unknown heroes of God. The world which extended such poor hospitality to its King has, throughout the ages, made no room for the royal, although unknown, men and women whom the King has sent. One of the hopeful signs of to-day is that the world gives room to the good and the faithful as it never did before. We, too, can belong, if we will, to the “ and others.” Our names will not be added to those of the world’s great ones, nor yet to those of the more prominent heroes of faith, but we can belong to the nameless ones who yet have a glorious record to give. Are we unknown? So were these; yet the story of the triumphs of faith cannot be told without admitting their achievements into the record. So shall it be with us if only we are found faithful. They without us cannot be made perfect. This is God’s reason for providing “ some better thing for us” than was ever granted them. No age of faith is final or self-inclusive. The one becomes the counterpart of the other. Every generation of faithful heroes shall strike its own note, until all ages shall unitedly perfect the grand chord of music that shall ascend to the ear of God, and thrill heaven with its full and rich harmony. (D. Davies.)

And the hand of the LORD was there upon me; and he said unto me, Arise, go forth into the plain,
​and I will there talk with thee. Eze 3:22
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Then the spirit entered into me, and set me upon my feet, and spake with me, and said unto me, Go, shut thyself within thine house. But thou, O son of man, behold, they shall put bands upon thee, and shall bind thee with them, and thou shalt not go out among them: And I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, that thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be to them a reprover: for they are a rebellious house. But when I speak with thee, I will open thy mouth, and thou shalt say unto them,
Thus saith the Lord GOD; He that heareth, let him hear; and he that forbeareth, let him forbear:
​for they are a rebellious house. Eze ch. 3:24-27
RESTRAINTS IN SERVING THE LORD
​Seasons of Devout Solitude

The whole course of the history of the kingdom of God, as traced in the Old Testament, may be pointed to as showing that the godly, whose service is outlined therein, are met with recurring impediments to their efforts. The like feature is observed in the New Testament. Every true life for Christ, at one step or another, verifies the expression of Paul, “Without are fighting, within are fears.”

1. The restraints may be in the servants. They may be ready to spread the gospel, but are forbidden to enter the door which is apparently opened, or are afflicted with disease and unable to enter, or are prostrated in their energies by some domestic event and unfit to enter. In such and similar cases they must not conclude that they have offended the Lord because silence is imposed on them; they are not to write bitter things against themselves; they are to bow in acquiescence and wait till God opens their lips. This is the time to be "shut in" with God in their own chambers, and only speaking what God allows, in the manner of God's choosing. It's a time of using wisdom, and restraint.
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​2. The restraints may be from those for whom the service is required.
  (1)​ They may become violent against the persons who stand up for the rights of God. A prophet like Jeremiah was “cursed” by every one, and cast into a miry dungeon; an apostle like Paul was mobbed, beaten and imprisoned, and unnumbered injuries have been committed against less-known followers of Him who was crucified by wicked hands.
  (2) Or the people may be rebellious in heart. It was because of this their state that Ezekiel was shut up and trammeled. The soil, into which the seed of the kingdom was to be cast, had not those elements in it which would act upon and vitalize the germs. The gospel is unproductive in many a sphere, not because it is not plainly and faithfully set forth, but because men are irresponsive and unimpressed. They reject the medicine which would bring them health and cure. Such sad conditions should not prevent further efforts for the redemption of souls, though former ones have been made apparently in vain. We must not repress our longings for a change. We must watch as servants who wait for the Lord.

II. The restraints are under the direction of the Lord.
He concerns Himself with every matter relating to His kingdom amongst men. The enforced silence and disablement of the prophet and the “gross” heart of the people are controlled for His righteous and good ends.

1. Traces of His working are perceptible. Restraints are felt teaching His suffering servants to be patient, vigilant for Him, and so qualifying for future action and future reward. “If we suffer with Him we are glorified together.” Also by those restraints the evil which lies in hearts is disclosed. Their enmity to God is elicited. Their hardness becomes more intense. Blinded thus, they lead the blind and “provoke” God to send a famine of His Word. What more deplorable state can a lost traveller be in than that in which he can be no longer tracked by the guides who go in search of him? What more painful illustration of their state can there be than when the wicked and the righteous hear warnings no more?
This lesson is further inculcated by enforced silence. “Thou shalt not be to them a reprover,” a man who will endeavor to convict them of their sins, except so far as and how I direct thee. They are not always in a state fit to hear rebukes, “for they are a rebellious house,” and nothing effective can be accomplished as yet.

2. Hopes of His working may be entertained. When men make void His law, that is a time to ask God to do special work. The restraints which lie in the prophet’s disablement or the people’s sin will not always continue to press. God will not be served only by silence. He will open a door of utterance, and again send forth His words to the people that He may prove whether there is yet a heart in them which will take heed how they hear. However, any movement on this part, should only be taken after long seasons of prayer and having received a sure guidance. The servant needs to know the path and direction of the Lord, in the ministry he/she is working in.

III. Restraints may be associated with communion between the Lord and His servants.
This fact is brought to pass--

1. By a fresh consciousness of God in His service. When His faithful followers are “troubled on every side,” they often realize the power of God and the preciousness of Christ; when they are weak, then are they strong through His grace. He seems to come nearer to them, and they say, “Thou holdest me by my right hand.”
2. By a deepened conviction that He who has led them is the same for ever. Ezekiel is not left to remember that he had seen the glory of the Lord; it is shown to him again. He learns that God is all that He was. The glory of Christ which we see when He is first revealed in us, the glory which moved us to consecrate our lives to Him and His work on earth, that glory will be shown again and again, if we wait for Him. It is not the memory of a first love which is to sustain us in suffering and duty; it is a renewed sight, “day by day.” We are prostrated before His glory, but we, beholding that glory, shall be changed into the same image, from glory to glory—from the glory of suffering for Christ to the glory of reigning with Christ.
​3. By the power of the Holy Spirit. He is given to dwell in our body as His temple. He takes the things that are Christ’s and shows them to us. He teaches to profit, and we receive power, love, and a sound mind. The efficacy of all true ministry depends on His energy. It is as the servants of the Lord live in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit that they adequately fulfil the mission to which they are called. And since He is freely and fully promised for the asking—as the gift of a father to his children—what sorrow and shame may not affect us who might have received so much of His power and yet have been satisfied with so little! “Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these His doings?” (Preacher's Homiletical)

Ezekiel was bitter because of his message, but not because God’s fire was burning within him. It is a blessed thing for preacher, leader, or Christian worker, when the hand of God is strong upon the soul. But whatever your inward condition, you will never be able to do your best work, unless you can sit where the people sit. In other words you must take their attitude, know by experience their circumstances, and share their lot. We must live very near to God, or we shall never hear the word of His mouth. There is no other way of obtaining messages that will effect His purpose. Ponder again Eze_3:17. In Eze_3:20 God is said to lay a stumbling-block only in the sense that He has constituted the world in that way. When the prophet went forth into the plain God revealed Himself. Whether He bids us go to the plain, or shut ourselves in the house, the place of obedience and duty will ever be the right one for the manifestation of His glory and the communication of His message. The secret of a successful ministry is to be absolutely yielded in thought and in speech to God.  (F.B. Meyer)

CONCLUSION:
The Lord has been dealing with me on these issues for a long time, many months. Today, there are far too many "prophets" for hire, that have no discernment, and show their true intent by what they allow to come out of their mouths. They are either full of deceit, showing they are in it for the money, or the name their trying to make and maintain for themselves. They aren't willing to pay the prices of a true servant of the Lord, and take the persecution and rejection that God plainly says we will get. 

Many of them serve the god of this world, and Satan has the power to give them all they desire-the prosperity preacher's and prophets are reaping their rewards now-it's all they will get. When they die, they will receive their just rewards, and join their master, the devil in the lake of fire.

For anyone who thinks they are called of God to be a watchman, prophet, or serve God in any capacity, ask yourself a question an elderly pastor said to me, when I was newly called of God; he said "Ask yourself before you move forward into the work, or service you believe is from God- "Am I willing to die for what I'm doing or saying, literally." He went on-"Many begin, but soon find Satan is right there, and will use everything he can to oppose you and people will be put in your path, that will reveal to you what's really in you, and if you are truly called of God, or not."
This elderly pastor advised me to study the life and mission of the Apostle Paul. I took his advice and God has burned it into my heart, what the cost truly is to serve Christ-it costs you everything.

If God has called you to this work-you will know it, and you won't be anxious to speak out publicly because you will know that it's going to bring you hardships, misunderstandings, and rejection. But, if you are truly called of God in this realm, and you love God, you'll sit shut in with Him until you've gotten the message correctly-and know exactly what your supposed to say, and nothing more. You'll seek His face, and meditate on His word, and digest everything you can on the subject God's placed on your heart, and you'll take it all to God, many times. You won't have any desire to say anything, unless you know in your heart and spirit that this is from God, and not a deception.

Then you'll ask Him for the time to give it, where, and you'll obey, and let the chips fall where they may.
This is the heart of a true servant and watchman/watchwoman of God. 
​Lorna Couillard