A Confession From The Site Moderator (brother Greg)

"It is God who gives us a platform. His sovereignty even sets up circumstances for us to be used in His plan. God is concerned with primarily with His Church and has had an eternal purpose in Christ before the foundation of the world." (Ephesians 1:9).

Greg,

I want to thank you for sharing this with the Body of Christ that reads these posts on a regular basis. I was blessed by reading what you shared in "How to Build Your Platform Without God."

One of the most difficult things for us to do as believers that sense that God is wanting to do a work through us is to wait on God, allowing His Spirit to work and accomplish His purposes through us in His own timing.

Praise God that your eyes have been opened and you have realized that you were going through a period where you were striving and not resting in the Lord.

This does not mean that we are to be passive, but to allow the Lord's life to accomplish in us and through us His good pleasure which will bring glory to God and be a blessing to the Body of Christ.

Mike

May the Lord shine upon you and guide you, Greg. And, may the Lord help each of us to be a "Paul" -- "small" in our own eyes so that we can allow Him to do big things through us.

"God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."
- Proverbs 3:34
- James 4:6
- I Peter 5:5

Greg, take it for what it's worth from an 60 year young dude. I have always felt,"nothing scriptural" God would rather see us try and realize it was not from him, than not to try at all, we usually find out it's not from him, when we run out of tools.

Hi! Greg Gordon

I don't pretend to know the secrets of your inner man nor of your relationship with our Lord Jesus; therefore I quietly respect the more intimate circumstances which you described.

While it is true that some Christians can seem to be much too preoccupied with working for the Lord rather than doing the works of the Lord, your narrative did not strike me as the negative. I detected only an earnestness to be faithful and true to the Lord and with the talents He has gifted you with.

Now, again I reiterate that I'm not in a position to know the hidden motives nor the spirit influences of your heart. This, after all, is only open to your heavenly Father. Yet, after reading your words and the contradictions therein which became increasingly obvious to me while reading them, I believe your insight and subsequent decision to be mistaken.

I have a personal history and journey over many years which has wrestled with similar needs, intents and accomplishing as you expressed. So, it's not as if your circumstance is foreign to me.

One of the most important items I had to learn for myself was that the evil one makes every attempt to cripple and dismantle godly efforts through inferiority and self-accusation.

If you're waiting for your person and motives to become somehow flawless before committing your efforts and talents, you're setting yourself up to be sadly disappointed. God is seeking for a willing heart ... not a perfect heart. It is in your doing that the Lord is able to refine and purify the imperfections.

And, don't believe for a minute that you are somehow so indispensable to the wheels of the visible and invisible worlds that a single ill-conceived notion or motive can interfere with God's over-all plan. It's one thing to have a boastful heart and quite another to be suffocated with such a false pride.

You are already aware that I myself structured a Bible resource Site. If you thought that I committed myself to that task because God somehow awoke me in the middle of the night with implicit plans and directions, you'd be wrong.

I simply had the confidence that God desired to use my talents and aptitudes for His glory.

A few years ago someone telephoned me about setting up a business site for them. The person was unemployed and penniless. So, I freely gave her my talents and expertise. Did God intervene in some miraculous manner for me to decide this? No. The only thing I knew was that God desired that I freely share my talents. So, I created business cards and letterhead and a WebSite for her. A year later this lady was well on her way to having a thriving business and had won the "Business Woman of the Year" Award. And, you know what? Not only did this lady insist to give me her monetary award, she has financially supported God's work at every opportunity. She too is using her talents to glorify God.

I have no intent nor desire to have a so-called 'ministry' or anything as such. I never once thought that I was somehow chosen to be some godly hero of the Internet. I don't even give a care if only three people visit the Site. I never overtly advertise it. (For instance, if you peek at my Profile here, there is no mention of my Site). The Site simply sits there day-after-day in MouseLand and is available to "whosoever will".

The Lord has always provided the money required to pay for the commercial WebHost and whatever else is needed. Month after month, various Gospel content arrives from across the world and I simply publish it with gratefulness. Two weeks ago someone arrived from Holland and gave me some literature to publish. Not only that, they volunteered to pay all my expenses to visit the Netherlands in November to attend/speak at a Bible conference there.

Gordon, plain and simple: my Site is there in MouseLand as testimony to the talents which God has so graciously given me. Nothing more than that. I glorify God by using my god-given talents to distribute His Gospel.

Gordon, I prayerfully suggest that you reconsider your decision. You have talents that the Lord can surely use.

My personal suspicion is that God desires to open this door so that He is better able to teach you deeper things about Him and His plans and purposes for you and your life. God doesn't always interrupt people's lives with a shout or hand them a specific roadmap of instructions. Oftentimes, He just uses 'common sense' (for lack of a better word). (I have the mind that God actually prefers to become known in UNdramatic ways).

Keep Smiling!

Brother Greg, you are wise beyond your years, and I thank God for that. Blessings my friend for you and yours...

Brother Greg you are truly a blessing in the Lord. I thank God for your availability and the things you do in the Lord to bless others.

I thought I would take a little liberty to express some of my perception of you and your ministry. I see you as a person who continues to desire to be humble before the Lord as well as pleasing to Him as you possibly can, depending on Him for everything.

If I could graciously offer you any advice it would be to consider something that I have struggled with and now seem to have more of a freedom to please God more effectively than before I discovered it. I too want to please God in everything but realized that some of my effort to please God was of me and not exactly of the Lord but more from a personal desire. When I discovered this it helped free me to be able to be more of a blessing to others. For example some of my convictions I discovered were not all that pleasing to the Lord because it handicapped me so to speak of being able to really bless others as the Lord would desire me to do. Jesus did not live by the convictions of men but only by the convictions of His Father. Jesus was always being accused by the religious leaders of His days on earth and if he had of listened to them he would have gotten distracted from listening to the voice of His Father.

I will stop for now and only pray that nothing, not religion, or any other thing will stop you from fulfilling your calling to His utmost for your life on this earth.

Blessings always…from brother rbanks

I have a blog but without my name on it. I use it mostly to preach the Gospel I use twingly to link to big newspapers in my country. So every article with hellfire brimstone preaching gets 100 readers in one day.
But I also use the blog to preach to so called christian.
I post videos etc. I never feel condemned about it.

Read theese scriptures
Rom 8:28, Phil 2:13

What is born of the Spirit is Spirit and what is born of the Flesh is Flesh...

Greg,
I must answer your post, but only because you have quoted one of my absolute favorite verses;

Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Ze-rub-ba-bel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of host.

Who art thou, O great mountain? before Ze-rub-ba-bel thou shall become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it (Zechariah 4:6-7)

Brother Greg, i am not certain as to how one builds a platform for God when he himself is the builder. However, his word does clearly say that if we deny him before man he will deny us before our heavely Father..

I think that i would first and foremost before building a platform to be a voice, if that is what God has called me to do, i would build an alter first..

May you always be led by his Spirit in all that you do for HIM, i will leave you with this:

"the Pearl of the East", is said to be the oldest city in the world with a continous history-reaching from the time of Uz (Noah's grandson) to the present day. Always, during these long centuries, Damascus has been "the head of Syria" and the metropolis of the desert peoples. Its permanency is attributed to the fact that it is located with a 60,000 acre plain (2, 260 feet above the sea level, which is one of the most fertile oases of the world. The city, and surrounding plain, literally owe their life and prosperity to the well known Abana and Pharpar rivers of biblical fame (II Kings5:12). The Abana, now known as the Barada, ere it reaches the city, spreads fan-like into seven quiet branches; and these in turn subdivide into many life-giving streams which distribute their blessings to the homes, gardens, orchards, and vineyards of some 400,000 people, then sink at last in the desert sands some eightteen miles east ward. The Pharpar, now called the Awaj, rises from the foothills of Mount Hermon and flows some seven miles south of Damascus, where it gives life to the surrounding orchard country.

Ruined remnants of fairly ancient walls and gates remain-some of which date back to Roman times. At two different places a bricked-up window is pointed out as the one through which Paul, "in a basket", was "let down by the wall" (II Cor. 11:33); yet these only illustrate the act, for the mansory immediately about either of the windows hardly dates back to Roman times.

"The Street called Straight" begins at the eastern gate and runs westward into the heart of the city. The "house of Ananias," as seen today, is a low cave-like chapel, sixteen to twenty feet below the street level. This could possibly be the correct location of the house, but "the Street called Straight" was then on a lower level, as a discovered street remnant shows. The present street is no longer the broad boulevard-a mile long and nearly a hundred feet wide-"down which Roman chariots rattled" in those faR-off days. Yet it is fairly straight, and at its western end has roofed-over bazaars which present a brilliant changing pattern of animated trade-as truly Oriental as will be found in any part of the world.

The Great Mosque, which ranks next in sanctity to the mosques of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, is the oldest and most venerated building in Damascas. It represents three great epochs in history, and the three religions which successively possessed it: heathenism, Christiantiy, and Mohammendaism. The massive foundations and exterior colonnades are of a Greek or Roman temple. Some think it highly probable that this was the site of the temple of Kimmon or Hadad, where Naaman deposited his "two mule's burden of earth" and reared his own alter (II Kings 16:10-13) Under the Romans the temple was dedicated to Jupiter. After Constantine embraced Christianity in the fourth century, the temple was reconstructed into an immense church which was dedicated to John the Baptist by Theodosius. After the Moslems captured Damascus in A.D. 634 the building was remodeled into a magnificient mosque. Three fires have damaged the building but each time it has been restored.

In its present state the Great Mosque consits of a quadrangle structure 480 by 324 feet, surrounded by fine masonry walls, and surmounted by a splendid dome, three lofty towers, and a multitude of graceful minaretes. One of these is called "the Minaret of Jesus,:\\" for says Moslem tradition, "on the summit of this Minaret Jesus will appear on the great Judgement day."

On the south side of the mosque, on the upper beam of a little used, but magnificient doorway, there is an inscription in Greek which reads:

"Thy Kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting Kingdom."

I have many friends in the Lord, in th Kingdom of God - yet i have none.

I have many friends in the secular world - yet i have none.

Trust in the Lord thy God and lean not on your own understanding..

- be blessed

Yes, the calling of God is very important. And God has called me in various ways.

He called me to love Him with all my heart, mind strenght and soul.

He has called me to love my neighbor, as I love myself. And I sure do love me a lot.

He has called me to be that neighbor, via His parable of the Good Samaritan.

He has called me to merciful because Mercy triumphs over Judgment. By what measure I measure others, I will be measured.

He has called me into daily fellowship with Him via the indwelling Holy Spirit, through Whom He cleanses me continually from my many impurities, and by whom He transforms me to be enabled to do the good He created us to do, as well as to make amends of any damage I do, wittingly or unwittingly.

Sometimes one has to leave the Harbor in order to reach the desired destination, trusting God to fill the blanks as you sail.

Inspiring...

An issue we all have to deal with at some level or another.

Thanks for an insightful article.

ginnyrose