How do we distinguish between the church that the Lord is building and the one that men are building? There is a saying that, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” The “good” side of the Tree of Knowledge is just as deadly as the “evil” side. The fruit of both is poison.

      This is not to say that all of man’s good works are attempts to circumvent the cross. One’s works can be good, but if they are not the good God has called us to do, they can be diversions from the path of life He has called us to walk. Man’s goodness is not the same as God’s, and it often counters what God is doing by drawing men away from walking with Him to follow human projects and initiatives. These can be rooted in a number of what we may consider good things, but are in reality attempts to attain our acceptance by God through works, rather than through the cross of Jesus. When this is the case, those works are in fact evil, and they lead to self-righteousness rather than the righteousness of God.

      We must never forget that we do not serve the Lord to gain His approval, but from a position of having His approval through the atonement that Jesus made for us. Then we serve Him because we love Him, and He is our Father and we want to work in the “family business.” Our hearts are joined with Him and His purposes, but there is still more required to do the will of the Lord.

      Jesus had to the power to heal all of those waiting for the angel to stir the water at the Pool of Siloam, but He only healed one because that’s what He saw His Father doing. The Father had His reason for only healing one that day, but if we had been there, how many of us would have reasoned that it would be great to heal everyone there? We don’t know the Father’s reason to only heal one, but it was, and His ways are higher than our ways. Perhaps He wanted to save the rest for the apostles to heal after the Day of Pentecost, or for other reasons that would better serve His ultimate purpose, which we could have thwarted by healing everyone right then.

      Maybe the reason we do not have more power than we do now is because He cannot trust us to only do what He shows us to do. The key here is obedience to Him, not just going around doing good works. We’re called to follow Him in everything, not just follow principles of what is good.

      When I was called to start a congregation in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area, a great dread come over me. I had tried to be a pastor once when I was too young and inexperienced in the Lord, and I had made a mess of it by trying to operate in my own wisdom instead of simply following Him as close as I could each day. Years later when He called me to this ministry to His people, I had many more years of experience and hopefully more wisdom. However, I still reacted to this like Moses did at the burning bush: I focused on my own inadequacy rather than His adequacy and resisted Him. He was not pleased.

      It is false humility to focus on our inadequacy. This is to think that our inadequacy is stronger that God’s adequacy. He said that I would never be adequate in myself, and if I started feeling adequate in my own abilities, I would be dangerous. He was not calling me then because I was mature enough, wise enough, strong enough, or righteous enough, but because it was His purpose to use me to do His works through me.

      I got it and repented, but I still dreaded starting such a work,  remembering how hard it is to spiritually lead people. He said that if I followed Him, He would build His house, and He was just inviting me to come along and to watch Him work through me. Then He showed me how He would build it, and all it required of me was to follow Him, watch Him, and do what I saw Him do. He said if I would do this, and not get beguiled into departing from this simplicity of following Him, building this congregation would be one of my greatest joys. It was.

      I would never claim to have done this perfectly. In fact, I got off track a few times when He gave me a vision of something He wanted to see, and I raced ahead to do it thinking it was for me to do, but He actually had someone else in mind. He was just showing it to me so I could prophesy to the one He had chosen for it.

      I made many more mistakes than this, but He fixed every one of them, while teaching me and others about His works. He does not condemn us for making mistakes, but He teaches us through them, while making the whole process a great and wonderful adventure.