Poured Out For God

My Utmost For His Highest

“The process of being made broken bread and poured-out wine means that you have to be the nourishment for other people’s souls until they learn to feed on God. They must drain you completely— to the very last drop. But be careful to replenish your supply, or you will quickly be utterly exhausted. Until others learn to draw on the life of the Lord Jesus directly, they will have to draw on His life through you. You must literally be their source of supply, until they learn to take their nourishment from God. We owe it to God to be our best for His lambs and sheep, as well as for Him.  Have you delivered yourself over to exhaustion because of the way you have been serving God? If so, then renew and rekindle your desires and affections. Examine your reasons for service. Is your source based on your own understanding or is it grounded on the redemption of Jesus Christ?”  CHAMBERS

After serving on the Gulf Coast for 5 years, that is how we felt … spiritually exhausted .. the Lord then carried us next to a stream (Clanton Alabama) to be refreshed.  While we rested, He began training and preparation for Haiti.  When I was in the Vietnam, units that had been in the field .. conducting combat operations .. would stand down for a few weeks … for the troops to rest, be re-supplied, repair equipment and prepare for the next series of combat operations … the Army calls it reconstitution … regaining your constitution.

Martie and I didn’t understand what Chambers is talking about .. in fact, there were times that we were resentful that we seemed to be giving at a faster rate than we were receiving.  Let’s say that you are re-filling a bucket at the rate of 5 gallons per minute but the fluid is coming out the bottom of the bucket at 8 gallons per minute … soon, the bucket will be empty and the liquid will pass right out the bottom of the bucket … There are times when your only source of refreshment is Jesus … there will be no one to encourage you … to disciple you … no church service to inspire you … just you and the Lord …

Are you willing to go there?  You don’t have to leave where you live to pour yourself out … Our giftings are not for self-consumption but for the building up of the church …

(Ephesians 4:11-16)

" And He (Jesus) Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ--from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part (that would be us) does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. "

 Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)