JANUARY 2023
Co-Labouring with God
Being a co-labourer with God means that we work together with God as a unit to achieve what God desires and part of that is building His Church and expanding the kingdom of God.
The fact that God Almighty chooses to invite us to work with Him doesn't mean that He can't do it all on His own. He is the Creator of the world and everything in it. They also created mankind in their own image. He desires our love and company so draws us into all that He does, if we will let Him.
Co-labouring is described in 1 Corinthians 3 v 9. For we are co-workers in God's service, you are God's field, God's building. We see the first example of co-labouring when God would create the animal from dust, and then bring it to Adam to name (Genesis 2 v 19-20). It must have been such fun. Giving of names is a big deal. There is a sense in which the character of the individual is captured in the name given.
It's the greatest privilege to be called and set apart by God to steward His purposes with Him. His purposes include being adopted into His family and thus bearing His Name. When we accepted Him as our Lord and Saviour, His Spirit came to live on the inside of us (John 14 v 17). We thus became co-heirs with Christ and enter into works that have been prepared for us to walk in. So our accepting Jesus is the beginning of our salvation, and we walk it out with fear and trembling (Phil 2 v 12-13). We go forth with Him to spread the goodnews of His grace and freedom that has been made available to us. He also brings others alongside us to serve and with Him we can bring heaven down to earth. It's therefore important to learn how to respond to the Call, God has placed on our lives. He desires that we live a life worthy of the Calling.
Our Call, is not based on our ability but on our availability. If we remember Moses and all the excuse He had when He was Called by God or Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1 v 4-10), who felt He was too young. However, because it is about co-labouring, God empowers those He Calls. So God calls the available and then empowers them to accomplish His desires. God is more than able to work through our weakness (2 Cor 12 v 9) to accomplish His purposes.
To be a co-labourer with God, we have to be in a loving relationship with Him. This has to be cultivated from both sides in this relationship. We need a high level of trust in His sovereignty, and assurance of His ability to see us through. We need to always understand what is ours to do, and what God Almighty will achieve. Examples abound right through the Bible about how people like David, Daniel, Esther, Nehemiah and so many others co-laboured with the Lord.
Jesus spent time with His disciples to show them how to co-labour with Him. When Jesus fed the 5000, He gave thanks before He gave the disciples the bread and fish to hand to the crowd (John 6 v 5-13). This miracle happened in the hands of the disciples who were also given the task to pick up the excess.
When Jesus ascended to heaven, Jesus commanded His disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit, who would come to them as the enabler, to empower them to co-labour with the Trinity. So, you and I were never expected to journey alone, or to strive to achieve things on our own. We are to lean completely on the Holy Spirit and with Him, perform exploits.
The Kingdom purposes that we have been called into now, are much bigger than we could ever dream about. Using our ideas alone is really not going to accomplish much. We must not short-change ourselves, and the Holy Spirit. It's important that we press into the heart of God, so He downloads the secrets of heaven to us. It's important that we have the Holy Spirit as our best friend, as together, we can go on an adventurous and exciting journey together. We serve a supernatural God so absolutely nothing is impossible to you and I.
Amen.
God Bless You,
Mina Bajomo
