Sensing and Seizing the Opportunities to Serve God, do His Will, and Prepare the Bride

Today the Lord needs some who do not waste the opportunities He puts before them but are seizing the opportunities to do God’s will, thus redeeming the time and being the dispensational instrument He desires to gain to turn the age.

We need to redeem the time, for the days are evil; to redeem the time means that we “buy it back” at a higher price. We have time, but many times – probably even most times – we waste the time.

God has given us enough time, but we waste so much of it.

So because we’re so used to waste the time and cause it to be wasted and become lost time, we need to pay a higher price to buy back the time, especially as we see that the days are getting more and more evil.

This word “time” can also be translated as “opportunity”; we need to redeem the opportunity which the Lord has presented us with, so that we may be the overcomers that He needs today.

As those learning to serve the Lord, we must not be dull to His direction or numb to His leading; rather, we need to allow the Lord to train our spiritual sense to sense the opportunities whenever they come and make the most of them.

Especially as we see that the desire of God’s heart today, toward the end of this age, is that He would gain an age-changing instrument, a dispensation-changing people, may we seize the opportunity and give ourselves to the Lord to be His overcomers today.

The Lord’s eyes are on the kingdom; He is looking forward to conclude this age and bring in the next age, the age of the kingdom; may we be the age-turning people who cooperate with the Lord to end this age and bring in the next age.

This is why we need to be before the Lord and not waste the opportunities He is giving us, realizing that there’s never a day without God’s arrangement for us.

He may arrange for us to contact a certain person for the gospel, and this person may be quite useful in the Lord’s hand in the future, but if we are lazy and do not cooperate with the Lord to speak Him to him, we miss the opportunity.

When we meet the Lord, it is probable that we will regret many of the things in our life that now cause us to be happy and satisfied, and we will realize that we have not been faithful to live Christ and propagate Him.

Those who are in the outer darkness to be disciplined, the main thing they will be experiencing is regret; they will gnash their teeth and regret with remorse. Oh Lord.

May we not be such ones, but may we seize the opportunities to do God’s will, number our days, and show strength and take action, even as we know our God and His will!

Sensing and Seizing the Opportunities to Serve God according to His Will today

This matter of seizing the opportunities which the Lord gives us daily is very important. The Lord doesn’t just give us time; He gives us opportunities, and we need to grasp every opportunity.

In Dan. 11:32 it says that the people who know their God will show strength and take action; this means that God’s people will open up new horizons for God, for they are seizing the opportunities to serve God according to His will.

The more we know the will of God, the more we will seize the opportunities.

Those who know the will of God will never live in a habitual way day by day; rather, they cooperate with God according to their knowledge of God’s heart’s desire, and they are seizing the opportunities to serve God according to His will.

We do not just want to live a routine kind of life, day by day, like in a treadmill, not knowing where we’re going, not knowing where we have been, and having no keenness or understanding of the situation.

Rather, we want to be those who sense the opportunity given by the Lord and grasp it; as we know our God, we can show strength and take action, being for God’s will and desire today.

May we be the kind of people who take strength and take action, open new horizons, and move with the Lord, following Him into new spiritual territory.

The new territory the Lord wants to gain is producing the overcomers to end this age and bring in the kingdom age. May we seize this opportunity today!

Brother Nee testified of brother Lee,

“We have seen how God has blessed Brother Witness’s work. His strong point is that he does not allow any opportunity to slip by. It is hard to find him missing an opportunity. Once the opportunity arises, he takes advantage of it” — speaking from Brother Watchman Nee on July 19, 1950 (The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 55, p. 199).

Brother Lee was a pattern to us all in this matter; he was seizing the opportunities which the Lord put before him, and the Lord had a way to use him greatly.

For example in 1991, after the Iron Curtain fell, the Soviet Union imploded, the Berlin Wall fell down, and after the one-hundred-hour war at the Gulf, he took the opportunity to encourage the saints to go to Russia for the gospel, for the Lord’s recovery.

As someone who was close to the Lord and knew how to observe the situation, brother Lee had the insight that there was a window of opportunity to be seized.

So many saints went to Russia, and the Lord’s recovery spread in Russia through the preaching of the gospel and the raising up of local churches. We need to learn from such a pattern.

If our service is according to the will of God, one day will equal many days; however, the days spent outside God’s will are not counted.

Outside the kingdom of God, no human beings are employed by God (Matt. 20:6-7); rather, they are employed by the enemy to carry out his evil works.

Nebuchadnezzar was satisfied with his own work (Dan. 4:30, 37) – this is the principle of Babylon.

If we do not work in God’s vineyard, we are idle in God’s eyes; we are doing nothing.

We may be making a lot of money, we may be building a career, but in God’s eyes we are idle.

May there be no idle brothers or sisters who are busy with their own accomplishments but are missing God’s business and His work! Oh Lord Jesus!

May we all be those seizing the opportunities the Lord gives us every day to cooperate with Him and be produced as His overcomers, part of His corporate age-turning instrument today!

Lord Jesus, save us from being idle in Your eyes by taking care of our own accomplishments yet forgetting Your work and not being involved in Your business! We want to be those seizing the opportunities to serve God according to His will in this age today so that we may be part of the dispensational instrument God desires to gain to end this age! Amen, Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to You to know God, know His will, and show strength and take action by seizing the opportunities You give us every day to grow in life, mature in the Lord, build up the Body, and be produced as Your overcomers today.

Learning to Number our Days, Live Christ, do God’s Will, and Labor to Prepare the Bride

May we all pray that the Lord would train our spiritual sense and spiritual sight so that we would know how to deal with the situations when they come up.

May we give ourselves to the Lord daily, realizing that, even though the Lord gave us enough time, we need to be those seizing the opportunities, for the opportunities given by Him come and go.

May we sense the opportunities when they come and make the most of them.

Our problem is not that the Lord doesn’t give us the opportunities but that we miss them; may we not let the opportunities from God go by but take advantage of the time the Lord has given us to live Christ, do the will of God, and labor to prepare the bride of Christ.

On the positive side, however, even though we may be quite exposed and convicted that we waste so many of the opportunities the Lord is giving us, we need to remember the Lord’s promise in Joel 2:25.

He promises that He will restore to us the years that the locusts have eaten.

There are so many things that cause us to waste our time and the opportunities that He has given us, but the Lord still has a way; we may have wasted twenty or thirty years of our life, but the Lord will restore to us the years that we have wasted and the locusts have eaten.

There is a story concerning a young gir who fell into sin and contracted tuberculosis, but on the hospital bed she heard the gospel and believed into the Lord.

She became very happy to know the Lord, being filled with peace in her heart.

However, she was saddened by the thought that when she will go to meet the Lord, she will be empty-handed; what can she bring to the Lord to show her love toward Him for all that He has done for her?

So the old servant of the Lord who visited her comforted her by writing what became a well-known song, “Must I go, and empty-handed, / Thus my dear Redeemer meet?” (Hymns 930).

Because of this song, so many were inspired to go and preach the gospel; on one hand this dear sister didn’t have much opportunity herself to do something for the Lord, but on the other, she brought about this very precious song that ushered many into doing God’s will.

In the Lord’s eyes, ten years of our life may be counted for one day, but then one day may also be counted as one thousand days.

As the psalmist said in Psa. 84:10, a day in the Lord’s courts is better than a thousand; our serving the Lord according to His will is not in vain but rather is highly regarded by the Lord.

In God’s eyes our days are not measured by twenty-four hours; rather, He has a different view of time.

If we waste our days, ten years may be equal to one day, but if we redeem the time by seizing the opportunities the Lord gives us every day, one day may equal ten years.

May we learn to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom, realizing that the days we live Christ and spend doing His will are valuable in the Lord’s eyes.

The days we serve the Lord in the church, we minister Christ to others, and labor to bring in the kingdom and prepare the bride, these days are the days that count in God’s eyes.

Lord, teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom; may we realize that a day in God’s courts is better than a thousand, and the days we spend living Christ and laboring to bring in the kingdom and prepare the bride are valuable in the Lord’s eyes. Amen, Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to You today to be those seizing the opportunities You give us for the building up of the Body and the preparation of the Bride!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 19, p. 463-478, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, A Timely Word Concerning the World Situation and the Lord’s Recovery (2020 Memorial Day Conference), week 5, Answering God’s Call to Be His Dispensational Instruments, His Overcomers to Turn the Age.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Teach us then to number our days, / Heart of wisdom to obtain. / O Lord, teach us then to number our days, / Heart of wisdom to gain. / Satisfy us, Lord, in the morn / With lovingkindness outpoured, / That a joyful ringing shout may arise / All the days of our life. (Song on, Numbering Our Days)
  – “Must I go, and empty-handed,” / Thus my dear Redeemer meet? / Not one day of service give Him, / Lay no trophy at His feet? (Hymns #930)
  – We have seen the Lord is coming / For the church for whom He died; / We are in the age of ages, / When the Lord will take His Bride! (Hymns #1320)