Pastor Dwain Wolfe's Blog

When God approaches you with a calling, a command or a purpose it’s easy to magnify the cost of what he is calling you to do and cop an attitude of irritation.  This can be a real problem for God, yet this has been extremely common.  This used to be a badge of honor we’d wear as we talked about the call of God on our lives. ” Bless God, I’ve sacrificed everything for Him.  I didn’t want to, but He made me.”

If we obey the calling with this attitude of “don’t want to”, we go out with anger, frustration and impatience.   We are easily pulled into jealousy and envy.  This will ruin the potential for the fruit of the spirit.  The whole time that we are doing something we’ll be thinking about what we’d rather be doing.  We’ll be thinking about what we wish we were doing.  People around us will pick up on that attitude and this will harm all others in zeal to follow God.  This is how people have gotten the idea that God wants to ruin our lives, that God is trying to mess us up entirely, that God doesn’t care about what we want to do in life, only what He wants matters.

This might also harm greatly the success of what we are called to do.   Now we are really mad, we aren’t even having success!  Wow, this God thing is so irritating.   What is problem?  Look at what Isaiah said:

Isaiah 1: 19  If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

20  But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

Here God has attached a promise to willingness.  Many have gone into a God assignment, but they were not willing.  “God made them”.  The blessing, the over flow, the goodness of God only flows where there is a willingness on our part to do what He has called us to do.   Conversely, if we go and are not willing, exactly what we thought or “feared” will be our lot.  It will be God stealing our life and our joy.  There will be no reward.  It will be all about God’s will, and it will appear that He cares nothing about us.

God has moved and motivated all through the promise of provision, blessing reward.

Jesus knew the outcome of His obedience, the outcome of His daily obedience and the outcome of His final obedience.  The outcome (provision, reward, blessing) of His obedience had been written down long before He arrived on the scene.  He only needed to believe the promise of provision, blessing and reward to set those blessings in motion.

Psalm 15 was about Him, Psalm 16, 17, 91, 89 and on. There were about Him.   The prophets had declared in advance the outcome of His life.

This is why He could have a great attitude at all times, even on the cross.  This is why He laid His life down.  Not one could take His life, but for the sake of the reward, He laid it down.

Hebrews 12:1  Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  2  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  NASB

He endured the cross, despising the shame, for the joy set before Him.  Here is the secret to having a great attitude in all that God calls you do.  Do it for the joy set before you.  Do you count the joy?  Have you studied the joy?  Do you know what the joy is?  Have you magnified the joy?  Here we are told that He went through the horrific experience of bearing the sin of the whole world because He made the reward, the provision, the blessing His sole focus.