By Pastor Colin Ruddock
I have been in some crazy warfare after preaching the message on Waking up from Spiritual Sleep. I didn't sleep for 2 nights!
Now that we are awake from spiritual sleep. It's time to move!
The next move God has for you, may well be the biggest and most decisive move you have ever made.
When I look at our ministry. We have a "whatever it takes attitude" to see the vision of planting churches and Victory Homes (recovery homes) in every major inner city around the world.
We are always on the move.
Have you set up camp, have you dug your heels in with no room for God to do a new thing through you?
Genesis 12:1-3 NLT says
The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”
Just one of the things that is so crucial, you must be in a place and in a position to allow God to speak into your life. The people God spoke clearly to throughout the Scriptures had a deep and open obedient relationship with God. They saw the results and the purpose for their life unfold.
There is also a price to pray for disobedience, we have seen that through scripture. We can look at Jonah, with the responsibility of bringing a prophesy from the Lord to a wicked nation.
The Lord said to Abram, leave where your comfortable, leave where your familiar with everything, leave where everyone knows you, including your family and relatives.
Go to a land that I will show you.
When God tells us to move, He doesnt show us the plan or the outcome straightaway.
When God spoke to our founder in 1967 and asked him to move from New York to East LA then to build a church with drug addicts. It all takes faith and trust in God.
When God spoke to my pastors and asked them to move from their home in London to Manchester just after getting married, again it takes faith and obedience to the plan of God.
When the Lord spoke to my wife and I and said leave your family and your place of birth and come to Birmingham and start a church last year, it took faith and trust in God.
By faith, Abraham moved from where he was and made a covenant with God. And God gave him a promise based on his obedience to move.
The times we are in have caused us to move or to shift directly or indirectly. This means we can't continue to do things the way we have always done it, based on the world's current situation.
The church can't do church the way we are accustomed to do it. Are you trying to get back to the former things, when God is saying It's time to MOVE!
My whole life has been built on 'in-person' worship. My whole life has been built on gathering in large crowds. My whole life has been built on conferences and large events. I am still dealing with a mindset shift.
God has a way of allowing conditions to change in our lives, that we must respond to them. Many times our actions and obedience take us to new heights, and varying levels of growth.
Imagine Abram not being obedient to the voice of God. Look at the enormous promise he was given, that affects all of us today.
I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you. POWERFUL
Faith is the activator. That means you have to Move. You not moving, you not activating, affects not only you, but others.
Is your faith purely in God. Or is your faith in the hope that God will come through.
We are talking about seeing the kingdom of God come to earth. We are talking about the lives of others. We are talking about preparing the way of the Lord.
We have to heed to the voice of God. It might not be easy, but its necessary. The promises God has for his people comes from a place of obedience.
Colin Ruddock is the Lead Pastor at Victory Outreach Birmingham.
