You are required to take everything that God has given you and spend the time necessary to be good at what you do. God demands that. He demands excellence. Don’t ever let anybody talk you out of that.
Excellence of ministry is the least you can give God, because everything you do is reflecting His glory.
If you aren’t doing it to the best of your ability, then you’re failing in what God has called you to do. Take hold of the fact that God doesn’t make failures, and He not only programmed you for success, but He has given you the avenues to do what He expects of you. He won’t ask you to do what you can’t do without His help, so give Him your best effort.
You should never get the idea that because there is an apprenticeship period in your ministry that you shouldn’t do your very best during that time. Remember that God is shaping you for your calling. He will shape you and prepare you to be shot out like an arrow.
Then, when you are ready, God will appoint you to a task. He won’t appoint you before you’re ready. He might give you a picture of it—a vision of what you are going to do—but He is never going to give you the word, Go, until you are ready to do it.
Do you know why?
Because He doesn’t want you to fail. He wants you to be a success in everything you do. He knows that with the right groundwork and the right preparation, you can make it. That is why He said in 2 Timothy:
Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to God approved (tested by trials), a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing [rightly handling and skillfully teaching] the Word of Truth.
(2 Tim. 2:15)
That means, do the best that you can do to present yourself to God, approved. In other words, God isn’t going to wave a little wand down on you to make you perfect.
The Bible says you have to work out your own salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12). Part of that is to ground yourself in God’s Word. Show that you are willing to submit yourself to God and to authority by putting off the way you think and putting on the way He thinks.
Maybe the hardest part of putting on God’s way of thinking is to wait for Him to let you know when you’re ready to do what He’s told you to do. First Peter says:
Therefore humble yourselves [actually put off your way of thinking and think like God] under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you.
(1 Peter 5:6)
If you clothe yourself with God’s Word and exalt His Word…His Word will exalt you!
Many people wonder, Why isn’t my music ministry going anywhere? Why isn’t my teaching ministry going anywhere? Why isn’t my preaching ministry advancing? Why doesn’t my church get behind me? I know God has called me to do this.
Have you humbled yourself? Have you put off your thinking and put on God’s thinking? God says that in the perfect, exact, right timing, He will lift you up, if you are thinking and acting His way.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers
Janny is dancing on the streets of gold. She ran her race and has now obtained the ultimate victory.
For more than 23 years, Janny Grein had toured the United States and the world sharing her story with millions of listeners. Her dynamic abilities had been unleashed into the needs of Eastern Europe and Africa. Traveling with her anointed band and playing various types of venues, Janny and her Concert Crusades had stormed many nations from 1984 until she passed. She uses her candid personality and gift of song to communicate God's love to people of all race, gender, economic status and denominational background.
Janny believed music was a universal language that transcended all barriers and captivated the heart of the listener. She also believeed that when you fully prepare to be a vessel for God's anointing, you will move moment by moment in God's glory and the power of God will be with all that you do.
In fact, Janny had wrote a book with breakthrough keys on preparation for the calling of God. The book is entitled, "Called, Appointed, Anointed." Since 1993, Janny and her husband Bill had been spreading revival fires to churches throughout America, with some meetings lasting a long as four weeks.
Janny and Bill saw God change His people into the image of Christ, and were excited to be part of God's awesome movement. Janny was an ordained minister. But more than that, she was a willing vessel that God used to bring a message of hope for the brokenhearted, healing for the sick, joy for the depressed, and increase for the financially strained.