I believe that God has been speaking clearly about the word rise for this year 2019.
A few years ago, a lady from our church was speaking on a Sunday morning. She shared so much value so I complimented her talk after the service. In her humbleness, she replied “Nikki, God told me you have a platform too.” I couldn’t believe it. At the time, let’s just say that I didn’t think of speaking as my gifting! But what was God really saying?
It was a few years later that I realised that ‘platform’ doesn’t necessarily mean stage and mic. It doesn’t mean that everybody sees us either. A platform is not a stage but an area for us to lift God’s name on high. ‘Platform’ means that we are simply working for the glory of God. We are humbling ourselves to lift up the King. Therefore, as Christ followers, we each have a platform.
In the context of church, we so often look at those on stage with the platform but there are so many jobs within a church which effectively make up the church. And there are so many roles which we all have the ability to fill according to the gifts and talents that God has given us. Each one is of great value and each one is of equal value.
We have the opportunity to serve God and to worship Him through the way we live and work. A platform doesn’t always look so obvious as being the most inspiring leader at work. It can be through obedience to God’s plans for our life and doing our best at whatever role we do have. Once I realised what ‘platform’ means for us, it became much more realistic and achievable.
Encompassing the recent transition of leadership, I believe the message for our church and in fact, churches everywhere, is that we each need to RISE UP! God is calling his church to take up the platform which has been given to us.
Each one of us has so much value to bring and I believe that like Jesus called Lazurus to rise from the dead (and he did!) God is calling us to rise from the death of gifts, dreams and hope and to realise our worth, our God-given talent, our God-given dream and the hope and faith that lives inside of us. It’s time to stop comparing ourselves to others and to rise up as a child of God, an adult in faith and embrace all that God has for us. Let’s give God the GLORY how and where we can.
Nikki Boutelje
