Message to Ministers in India for 2011
New Paths, but we have never gone there before!
Spreading the Gospel of Christ often requires God’s servants to go places where they are not familiar with, to those areas that seem to be off limits or at least should have a sign of high caution to such adventurous leading's.
Yet at times our Father calls us to step out into those areas for a purpose and as well for faithfulness to hearing His voice.
Isaiah, the Prophet of God spoke to Israel during a time of captivity and a period of diminished people. Israel felt alone at this time in their history and spiritually childless as a symbol of their poor outlook for the future. Perhaps they saw the future as off limits or there was a fear of never stepping beyond their current condition. (Isaiah 54:1-3 English Standard Version)
Isaiah calls to them: "Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married," says the LORD. "Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities.
As God's servants and ministers of the Word, we can look back at the greatness of God's work in 2010. Yet, there should be an urging to step out of some of the areas that we felt captive in. Places that seemed barren to us. This is where Isaiah speaks to us. Perhaps we have become more or less permanent in our minds as to those places we can witness in or to expand the influence of the Gospel of Christ. God would have us to enlarge our hearts and spirits to the places of habitation that include areas we have never walked in before or even considered. It is a time to become impregnated with a new vision that calls for us to spread abroad, beyond the areas we have become comfortable with.
As Isaiah said, "Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities.".
As ministers, servants of the Word, press on into those areas in your personal life and as well in the surrounding areas of your churches. Reach out further than ever before. Strengthen yourselves in the Word of God and allow prayer as the stake of position; spread out to the left and right to inhabit the places that the enemy seeks to possess and enslave with his desolate message of hopelessness.
Let it not be said of us as Jeremiah spoke: "My tent is destroyed, and all my cords are broken; my children have gone from me, and they are not; there is no one to spread my tent again and to set up my curtains." (Jer.10:29)
Instead begin to sing and cry aloud for a birthing of such new paths in your lives. If you do this, the year 2011 will be a year of New Paths, that will be a sign to all those around you, that God is your Father and He is wedded to His Church. Let us take hold of the promise of Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
This is the Promise for your New Paths in 2010. He will empower you to enlarge the curtains of your habitations, to not hold back, but instead to stretch forth in faith and go to places that you have never been to before right in the areas of your own churches. He is with you and will guide you into New Paths. May God grant you the vision to see this coming in 2011.
In His Grace and Desire to see you blessed as you travel these New Paths… Brother James L. Ulmer
