Preparation for God's Service. 1 Samuel 16:13

In this one verse we see the two most critical needs for God's servants as they serve Him. We note that in this case that it was the LORD who chose David. His qualifications enabled him to become in such a position that God was willing to put forth His Spirit upon him. All the great stories we hear about David all come back to the anointing by Samuel. David was a good strong warrior. He was faithful. But the astounding acts that would later come were because of the Spirit of God upon him including the slaying of the giant Goliath.

What interests us is the connection between the heart and the Spirit for ministry. We do see that the gifts are not at all mentioned. Yes, it does say that he was a good warrior but it is definite that this was not the reason God chose him. We find that the heart has to be rightly prepared before the anointing is fully poured out on a man rightly equipping him. I suppose we see the same thing in Jesus.

Jesus' anointing came when He was thirty years old. This doesn't mean of course that He did not have the Spirit of God on Him before this. But in a special way, the dove at His baptism came down readying Him for that ministry. He and those around Him heard the words of Mark 1:10-11.

And immediately coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opening, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him; and a voice came out of the heavens: "Thou art My beloved Son, in Thee I am well-pleased." (Mark 1:10,11, NASB).

From then on the Spirit of God moved in Him differently than before. He was now set for ministry. But before this, his heart was prepared. We see this when God said, "In Thee I am well-pleased." So we see before us a great need for the hand of God mightily working in His servants for ministry but this outpouring of the Holy Spirit comes from a right heart.

Does this mean that one cannot have a outworking of God's Spirit without having a proper heart? No. We see this in Saul. Saul displeased the Lord. Let's be generous and say that he had a good heart. But he clearly showed the LORD that he preferred his own will to Yahweh's and because of this the LORD took his kingship away from him. How did the LORD take the kingship away? He took the Spirit of God from him.

Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD terrorized him. (1 Samuel 16:14, NASB).

So let's say that in the minimum that even if Saul had started off where Samuel did regarding their hearts, he lost the special anointing. So the Lord takes it very serious as to who has His Spirit. The heart and the maintanence of the heart is of extra importance. We think immediately of David's prayer after he had sinned by going into Bathsheba.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. (Psalms 51:10).

He was not as many Christians believe that it talks about the Spirit of God being taken from a person and losing salvation. We are discussing the Old Testament era and service where God's Spirit came upon those doing special service for Him whether it be a king or a prophet. David knew what happened to Saul and could see the exact thing done to him. He deserved it but in his penitent prayer, his heart for God shone forth and God forgave him. We see nothing like this with Saul who cared more about what people thought about him.

How does the heart relate to the Spirit anointing for ministry?

This question is not easy to answer. We recognize that even Samuel did not rightly judge the hearts of men. What could he see of Eliab, Abidnadab or any other of David's brothers? We must wonder then how can we rightly assure that men we ready for ministry have a whole heart for the Lord? Dare we prepare people for ministry if they are not of the right heart? Can we refuse to graduate people or ordain people who meet other qualifications that are unsuitable for the ministry?

Is it possible that a good part of the training that men receive for the ministry is training of the heart? This is the reason it is important to get in close contact with those whom one is training. We need to look beyond knowledge and skills to the heart. Why? We must acknowledge that without the right heart preparation, there will not be the Spirit anointing. Without the Spirit of God mightily working in our ministries, we are merely building up our own organizations. The church of God must refuse these kinds of churches that accept ministers who are not empowered by the Spirit. Ministers and minister candidates themselves must refuse a ministry without the Spirit of God.

Much more effort and attention must be given on this most important topic. What is it then about the heart that God wants? "The Lord looks at the heart." In another words He sees all the things that we hope to do. He furthermore sees all of our motivations. All the selfish motives of paying off loans, being comfortable, looking spiritual, feeling established, etc. are all seen by God and corrupt genuine relationship with God. Let's see how this happens.

Man is either God-oriented or self-oriented; he either serves God or himself. Sometimes he thinks he serves God when truly he is serving himself. The heart is the place loyalty and respect is lodged. His will stems from the heart. So any effective training must work on character training where we more and more isolate ways that we have not a pure heart and surrender that portion to Him. Of course, we can take a look at some activities and see that they are not pleasing to God. Careless watching of television shows that a man has not begun to share much of God's holiness. The best way to train these things is to work hand and hand with someone who has a heart for God. While they do this, they see their inadequacy, repent from it and join in God's work more full hearted.

We are not saying David's heart was pure. We see through his life that it wasn't. But we must understand that any area that our hearts are not purged of the flesh become areas that Satan will use to tempt us and cause us to fall. And depending on our ministry, many others will fall along with us. For it is these areas that we will neglect in proper teaching and prayer. Because of this, we need to be a little bit more firm in the way we rebuke a brother. If we let their sin stand, then we will let it further infect the brother until great damage is done. Of course we must speak the truth in love, but we must speak it forth.

The Spirit of God in ministry

As was said before, we must resist any kind of ministry, outreach or extension of ministries that are not anointed of the Spirit. A pastor might wonder what this means with his lukewarm church? The Spirit of God is clearly not at work in a lukewarm church. This is one of the telltale signs of a dead church. Let me make a few suggestions.

1) We first should wonder if we are the reason it is lukewarm. Is it because I myself do not pray, read God's Word, boldly preach the Word of God and personally hold people accountable? This is often part of the problem that we can correct. We must be prepared not to be 'called' there anymore, perhaps, but we must cultivate the resistant to ministering without the Spirit of God. Without the Spirit, we dare not minister. Jesus and His disciples were clearly not invited to different areas.

2) We should secondly set ourselves to serious prayer and fasting. We must be like David when he discovered his sin, "Take not the Holy Spirit from me." In other words, the Holy Spirit is my life. Without Him, we have nothing. Are we so Spirit-dependent that we would turn from the ministry if the Spirit of God was not in it? Have we really searched for God's Spirit. There is no doubt that some would read this and think we are speaking of tongues. We are not. We are not talking about the gifts of the Spirit which can be imitated. We are mostly talking about the power of the Spirit in the way God's Word is ministered in love.

3) We should realize that the Spirt of God is being locked up in some certain sin of the church. When we work through the problems of the churches in Revelation, we find that threre are sins that need to be pointed out to the churches to work on. If they do not respond to these things, then it will be not worth going on into other topics.

The church, the elders, the preachers, the teachers must stop playing a game of religion. This is dead bones. There is hope that the bones can come alive when the Spirit of God moves among them, but this will not happen if they do not seek God's heart and purposes. When the leaders or congregation sense that they have not enough of the Spirit of God, then they will start crying out to God and God will hear them. They will uncover every stone in their hearts to see if there is anything blocking the Lord from ministering to them.

What should one expect when one's heart is right?

We should realize that just because the Spirit of God is in our lives, this does not mean everything is smooth. We clearly see this in the way that David was pursued by King Saul in the desert. The Spirit of God preserved and protected David, but it was not easy going.

Nor did it mean that he did not sin. He could sin. He could stop listening to the Spirit of God. Anytime we let the flesh loose, it will lead us to poisoned waters. We dare not let the monster out of the cage for a moment! David sinned. So can we.

Nor does it mean that our heart is as pure as it can get. This is one of the reasons David was in the wilderness. His heart had to be further worked on. We should not think we have arrived but continually be trained. In this way the Spirit of God can protect us from major faults and as 2 Peter 1 says kept protected without stumbling.

We should expect that God can and will entrust more of His Spirit to us as our hearts are proved. We do see a special anointing on many Bible figures. This can and does happen. He also seems to work in different ways in different people. We should not consider one way better than another. On the other hand, perhaps we do not have because we have not sought Him the Spirit. What are the ramifications of Luke 11:13?

"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?" (Luke 11:13, NASB).

Is this a one time giving? Do we even after Jesus' time need to ask? Have we really sought the Spirit of God to fill our lives?

We need to be careful of seeking the Spirit for personal gain. We see this when Peter refused to set the Spirit on Simon because he had an evil heart.

Then they began laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit. Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, "Give this authority to me as well, so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit." But Peter said to him, "May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! "You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. "Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray the Lord that if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven you. "For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity." (Acts 8:17-23, NASB).

Summary

Ministry must be done with a right heart and by the Spirit. We must refuse all other means and ways. Training of God's people must focus on these areas rather than just knowledge. We do not want just successful ministries; we want God to be working true life into the people. Without this we are not satisfied.

God's Heart Training Program

God 'looks' differently than man.
Man gathers his information from the outward. His judgment is limited to what he sees. God's judgment is differently formed. (2) God is not at all distracted by the outward appearance of man. Just think what it would mean for us to see through a person in light of his past, his testings, his gifts and his motives. Well, we would have a whole different of factors to judge by. When we see how narrow minded we are and limited our information, we should realize that we desperately need to wait upon God for help. We can't do it without Him.

God scrutinizes the heart.
Well, with all the information that God has, what becomes the critical information that He judges from? This passage says that He judges the heart. Of course this is not the only place the scriptures attest to the importance of the heart. God wants us to love Him with all our heart, mind and soul. As the source of our affections, our heart becomes the place where our desires will eventually follow. For a time, other factors might shape us. But in the end it is our chief affections – our heart. We desperately need God to help us see our heart for what it is.

God is very interested in training. Training is a specialized aspect of discipleship. God is able to use all sorts of situations to test and train our hearts. Our trained hearts are the foundation of a great ministry. An untrained heart will lead to great disappointment by others as well as oneself. Let's look at David's situation to get a greater feel for desiring God's self-designed training program that He has set up for each one seeking service.

Well, with all the informati

Let's think how God could have made life easier for David.

God could have held off anointing David until later. Anointing David as king got his expectations up real high.
God could have shortened Saul's life. In goes the good king David.
God could have held back the anointing of the Spirit for a longer time so that others and he would not have so readily seen him as a good potential for kingship.

Saul's pursuit of David took place over a number of years. David literally ran as a refuge from city to city seeking to save his life. No one including David could figure why this time and kind of training was important. It was not an hapless period. As we look back, we see there are a number of important lessons for David.

David proved his loyalty to King Saul and ultimately to the Lord.
Would David kill Saul or spare him? He decided to recognize Saul as God's anointed? He didn't at all hurt him even though he had numerous chances. These opportunities/testings are provided for us in I Samuel. One example is found in 1 Samuel 23-24 where he only cuts a small part of his robe off to prove he could have taken Saul's life if desired.
David learned to trust God in troublesome circumstances.
David's Psalms often were spoken from circumstances of being hunted down and mocked. David was anointed and yet was mocked by others that rejected his position. But instead of attacking present authorities, he submitted to them waiting for God's timing and purpose. Christ so suffered for us. What a demonstration of waiting upon God!
David identified with the poor and oppressed.
We see that David learned all about graciousness. He gathered the rough and stubborn runaways and trained them into his disciplined men. He also learned to extend special kindness to those who were down and out such as Miphosheth and others. He was a man after God's own heart. Someone could look to David and find graciousness. They would see God. Power did not go to his head.
David deepened his reliance upon God.
David learned how to depend upon God. We hear more than 70 times the phrases describing God as his Rock, fortress or strength. He depended upon God. He knew he had no real strength on his own.

(A Psalm of David.) To Thee, O LORD, I call; My rock, do not be deaf to me, Lest, if Thou be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. (Psalms 28:1).

(A Psalm of David.) Blessed be the LORD, my rock, Who trains my hands for war, And my fingers for battle; My lovingkindness and my fortress, My stronghold and my deliverer; My shield and He in whom I take refuge; Who subdues my people under me. (Psalms 144:1,2).

David was very gifted but he was not fooled. He learned in the desperate straits of life and death that God alone could and would protect him. He learned to praise God because he was absolutely convinced of the Lord's greatness. Would it not be good for us to not confuse our giftedness with God's goodness and purpose?

David was eventually brought to be King, first of just small Judah and then later as king over all the land of Israel. Even with all this training, he did turn his eyes from the Lord a few times, but when confronted, he humbled himself and came back to the Lord. David is such a clear example for us to value the training time God has for us. It is a time to learn and master God's strength. It is a time to see our giftedness is not the issue but our heart and ability to follow instructions.

Summary
Waiting for ministry is hard. We don't know how long we will be put out to pasture, seemingly being irrelevant as a bee among the flowers. But in those very circumstances we will find plenty of occasions for service. These will be our proving times. Let's purpose our hearts to pass them that our time in training might not be lengthened and our hearts are fully prepared for the tasks that lie ahead of us.