What Do You Want Me to Do for You?

Those who were here, those who arrived early. What word did I begin with? Even if we become stubborn or difficult toward God, even if we turn our backs on God, when it is God’s time, God will make sure that things work in His favor. I mean, in God’s favor. And in the same way, when God has something for you, even if the situations around you seem adverse, even if the situations around you seem to get really ugly, if it is God’s time for your life… it will happen.

It will happen. Close your eyes and say, “Lord, it will happen.” “Lord, it will happen.” Or it happened. If it happened, it happened. And for the one for whom it is still going to happen, it will happen.

Father, I ask You to let Your Word right now serve as a seal upon this testimony that my brothers and sisters have shared, Lord. First of all, I thank You for the way You have worked in Pablo and Ángela. Father, to You be the glory. And likewise, I give You glory for so many things You have done in so many of my other brothers and sisters, and for those for whom… may this word now serve as strength and encouragement for each of their lives and hearts, so that they may attain those things You have already decreed for them.

We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I want you to go with me to the Book of Luke, chapter 18. And let it be known that I did not speak with Pablo and Ángela today, but look at what we are going to find here in the Word today. Luke 18. I am going to read a little of this story, beginning with verse 35. Luke 18:35. Sorry, Marlene, I know you were waiting there. Luke 18:35.

It says: “As Jesus drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging, and when he heard the crowd passing by, he asked what was happening, what the commotion was, what the reason for the noise was. And the people told this man, ‘It is Jesus passing by.’ Then this man began to shout and cry out, saying, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.’ And those who were ahead of this man rebuked him and ordered him to be quiet, but he shouted even more loudly, ‘Jesus, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.’”

Then Jesus, with His superhuman, supernatural hearing, heard this man and stopped and commanded that he be brought into His presence. And when he arrived, Jesus asked him… This is one of the most interesting questions I have seen in the Bible. So I want you to put yourself in that scene right now: Jesus has sent for you, and when you come into Jesus’ presence, Jesus takes your hand and says, “What do you want Me to do for you?”

Listen carefully. Whether you are young or old, listen to that word. At the stage of life, at the point in life where you are, the Lord sends for you and asks you, “What do you want Me to do for you?” Think for a minute. I am going to give you a minute to think, and if you are watching me online, you think too. One minute.

What do you want the Lord to do for you? The minute is over. I wonder, if God, if the Lord addressed me that way, do you know how many things I would have on the list in my head, not knowing which one to choose? I would be so confused that I would be like, “Uh, hmm, mm.”

There are so many, Lord; I do not know which one to choose. But the thing is that this man had an urgent situation. He had something right there in front of his nose—or rather, his eyes. Because the man was begging, and what did he say to Him? “Lord, the only thing I want is to receive my sight.” Look how interesting that is.

Because when the Lord stops and asks, “What do you want Me to do for you?” He is not asking a random question, so to speak, some offhand question. He is asking an intentional question, because Jesus was no fool; Jesus knew what his situation was. But He wanted this man to tell Him.

You have come here tonight, or you are listening to me here tonight, and you have a need that is right there in front of you. You wake up with it, go to bed with it, bathe with it, eat breakfast and lunch and have your snacks with it. It is right there in front of you. It is the little pink elephant there in your living room, and you try to cover it with a rug, but you know it is there. Or make it whatever color you want. Pink is the color people usually say.

But that is the situation you have right there. The Lord draws near, steps into your life, and says, “What do you want Me to do for you? Tell Me.”

Obviously, I believe Jesus was testing this man’s faith on the one hand, because Jesus knew what he needed, but He was also testing this man’s faith. And through that question, Jesus was telling him, “Ask, because it is available”—in other words. Ask, because it is available, but ask properly. Think carefully about what you are going to ask for. Do not come to Me with, “Nyeh, nyeh-nyeh. Oh, Jesus… no, no, no.” Tell Me what you want. Come on, I am on a mission, I have to get to this place, and I decided to stop because you were shouting and making a scene over there. I stopped to give you the attention you need; now tell Me.

That is what the Lord says to each one of us, my brothers and sisters: “Tell Me.” “Tell Me what you want Me to do.” Let us not be afraid, my brothers and sisters, to be—well, “afraid” is not the word—reserved, rather, about being specific with God. But along with being specific comes a sense of consistency. It is not, “Okay, I ask today and then forget all about it because I already asked You.” No. Ask, and until you see that answer there…

Do you know why, my brothers and sisters? Jesus Himself—look at this other passage: Matthew. In Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew, chapter 7—this is another verse that fascinates me. Matthew 7:7. Let us all read it in unison. It is here on the screen]. Matthew 7 and 8. Everyone together, in chorus. Let us say it in chorus, or aloud: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

I think this is one of those verses that, I tell myself, can sound so very simple, and sometimes it may sound like a cliché, but there are times when we ourselves take the weight away from those words.

In other words, once again, Jesus is saying, “Hey, here I am.” “Here I am.” Now, do not think I am like a McDonald’s drive-through window where you can come and order anything you want, but this window has a purpose; it has intentionality. And the Lord wants to bless us, my brothers and sisters. What those words imply is that He wants to bless us, that He wants us to be intentional in our pursuit of Him.

If we are saying that we are living in God’s time, that God has an intention—look, ask God. “Hey, Lord!” “Well, what is it that You want?” In fact, it is like asking Him the question: “Hey, Lord! What do You want me to do now?” If this is Your time, what do You want me to do? How do You want me to respond?

But the thing is, there is this constancy in continuing to seek, and look, I am sure—I do not have to imagine it; I know. Perhaps many of you right now would be sitting there saying, “Oh, Pastor Omar, you do not know how much I have asked! How much I have sought! How much I have knocked! And nothing, nothing, nothing.”

That would then lead me to another passage in the Book of James. I am trying to ask the same questions you ask. I am behaving like you.

James chapter 4, verse 2. James 4:2. It says: “You covet and do not have. You murder and burn with envy and cannot obtain. You fight and struggle, but you do not have what you desire because you do not ask.” In other words, here I am seemingly contradicting what I am saying right now. I know we ask, but then verse 3—here is the answer for us. It says: “You ask and do not receive because you ask in order to spend it on your own pleasures.” Look, why am I asking wrongly? To spend it on my own pleasures.

How many of you would ask God for a million dollars? I would ask God for a million dollars, wouldn’t I? How many of you would ask God all the time for the ability to travel around the world? And not travel around the world in just any way—travel around the world on a yacht. No, if you are on a yacht, there is no first class. A yacht is a yacht.

Look, those are good things to ask for. Make no mistake, those are good things to ask for. Is that the house? Ah! I know which one it is.

Look, one can ask for those things, my brothers and sisters, but I believe the most… Look at this; I am going to tell you the secret to all of this. I believe the secret lies in the intention with which we ask before God. I think that, as human beings, our personal interests and pleasures will always be there, present. It is very difficult, so to speak, to detach ourselves from that reality, because we are here; we are in this body. We live in a world with all these influences around us, and sometimes a person says something like, “Wow! I want that too. I want that too.”

It is difficult not to be overwhelmed by that sense of greed and envy, as that passage says—by the desire to have what we see others have.

Now, my aspiring to that out of a sense of envy or greed is very different from my aspiring to something like that because I see God’s blessing in my life and want to share it with my family and with others, so that I can pass that same blessing from God on to their lives.

I believe that, as the people of God, as sons and daughters of God, that is something that distinguishes us in the way we ask, the way we seek, the way we knock at the door. It has to set us apart.

If I approach God merely on a whim—even though I know there are times when God spoils us and grants us our whims, but that is not always the established rule, so to speak—there are times when God grants what is sought according to the intention we have there in our hearts.

If I am seeking all these things—in fact, I can even frame it at the ministry level. In other words, if I aspire to be a pastor, why do I aspire to be a pastor? For the glory that comes with the title and so that everyone will recognize me wherever I go? Or am I truly seeking it because I am nothing and because my desire is to serve others without personal recognition? Personal recognition may be secondary, but God, spare me from letting it go to my head. Because that temptation is always there.

What good does it do me to have a ministry of “a gazillion people” if my heart is completely filled with such a vain sense of vanity? Pardon the redundancy.

My brothers and sisters, I believe that in this time we are living in now, in this time of God—I am going to put the “strawberry” on the very top of the cake for you—in this time of God that we are in, I believe that, more than ever, God is, so to speak, X-raying the intentions with which we approach Him.

Listen carefully: God is analyzing the intentions with which we approach Him.

The Book of Hebrews itself reminds us that the Word of God is what? Living and effective. “The Word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and”—what?—“it discerns the intentions of the heart.” It discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

He is, so to speak, scanning, and He is making a scan of us. And if He sees something that is a little murky, He will put you—so to speak—on standby. It is not that He will eliminate you, but He will put you on standby. It is like, until your heart is straight with Me, until we settle accounts from God knows how many months or how many years ago.

Until we straighten those things out, or until you settle matters with other people, I am going to remain here waiting. I will hear you asking; you will keep seeking; you will want to knock My door down, but until that is dealt with, the door is not going to come down.

Goodness, I do not want to sound too rough about this, but it is the truth, my brothers and sisters. You know what? I remember Pastor Greg’s words as he preached on Sunday. He himself said that we are entering a time when that double personality with which we so often approach God—look, again, it is not that God is going to tell you, “Phew, get out of here, you old shoe! I want nothing to do with you.”

That is not it, but it will be more like being benched: “I’m going to bench you.” You will be sitting there, so to speak, waiting to be given the opportunity to enter the court and play, so to speak, and enjoy yourself with everyone else.

But until you relay… I liked that illustration. Have you seen that? In a football or basketball game, or whatever it may be, when one of the players starts showing off too much, what does the coach do? “Come here, sit down. Time out.” Or even we ourselves say to our children, “Do you want a time-out? Come on, sit there for a while.”

And it is God’s way, so to speak, of correcting us and calling us, and we can be there. It makes me laugh because Lucas does this to me: he looks at me as if to say, “Now.” He does this to me; he gets really whiny, looks at me like this, and goes, “Mm, mm,” and I say, “What?” Pay close attention to this illustration, because we laugh, but that is what we are like.

He starts going like, “Mm, mm,” and I’m like, what? “Mm!” What are you saying? Then he starts pointing with his little finger: “Mm.” And I know he means the floor, but he still won’t say it, and he wants to get out of the chair. And finally I stand right in front of him, look him in the eyes, and say, “Lucas, speak clearly to me. What is it that you want? What do you want me to do?” Then he comes out with, “Floor.”

Ah! Obviously, time has already passed, but I’m waiting for him to tell me.

For that very reason, there are times when God has to deal with us very much one-on-one, but until you are clear with me, you are not going to see what you are waiting for. And look, my brothers and sisters, time may pass, and more time may pass, and still more time may pass. It may take time to get a house, but the moment will come when you will get it. Look, you may have been waiting for God to get your papers in order, but perhaps there is some aspect of our conduct or character that is so damaging in us that we may have grown so accustomed to carrying it around, yet deep down we know that it is like a blockage between God and me.

Until that character is formed and becomes more tangible before God, we are going to keep seeing things only halfway… halfway… halfway. We are going to keep enjoying things; instead of eating the bread directly from the table, we will continue eating the crumbs that fall from it. And the crumbs bring blessing, of course, if I remember the biblical context: the crumbs bring blessing. But why settle for the crumbs when what God has is a whole loaf of bread, fresh out of the oven, for each one of us?

My brothers and sisters, it is God’s time. He is telling us so: this is the time I have for each one of you. But at the same time that He says that, it is like, “I am willing.” He is saying, “I am here; I am playing my part. Now it is your turn to play your part. Ask, seek, knock on the door. What do you want Me to do with you?”

Take that question with you in your hearts, my brothers and sisters. Take that question with you, but without trying to obtain an answer. Do not ask yourselves the question while trying to arrive at an answer. Just keep your hearts open until the Lord truly shows you: “Okay. This is it. This is where I want to work. This is where I want to act.”

Then one can say, “Okay, Lord. This is what I want, this is what I need, this is what I ask for. I am not asking for it on the basis of a whim; I am asking for it on the basis of what You are doing in my life or what You want to do with my life for others.”

Amen? Amen. Let us stand, and let us pray.

Father, in the name of Jesus, once again. Father, these are very simple words that I know I have wanted to share with my brothers and sisters. Perhaps to many they may sound redundant and routine, but for others I know that these words refresh something in their minds, in their spirits, and in their hearts. At least that is what they do for me.

And Father, I ask You to fulfill Your word, the intention and the desire that You have, Lord. May this word not strike against the walls or remain floating in the air, but may this word reach deep into the hearts of my brothers and sisters tonight, Lord.

May they leave here picturing themselves in that scene, Lord: You are standing before them and saying, “Look, it is My time for your life. It is My time to bless you. What do you want Me to do for you?” Faced with such a question, Lord, and with such willingness on Your part, Lord, give us the wisdom and discernment to know what to ask for.

May we not ask according to personal whims, Lord. Rather, may we ask with wisdom and discernment concerning what You are doing in our midst, Lord.

Lord, You are looking for fellow workers. We are fellow workers with You, so that Your Kingdom may be established in our midst. Help us to redeem the time in such a way, Lord, that we may know Your will and that we may, my God, work hand in hand with You, Lord. Help us move at Your rhythm, move at Your pace, and respond to the actions You have for our lives.

May we not be ignorant, may we not turn our backs on You, and may we not be carried away by the pressures or circumstances of life. Instead, may we always maintain that persistence in seeking You, asking You, Lord, knocking at Your door, and remaining there until that door opens, Jesus.

I bless each one of my brothers and sisters tonight, Lord. I bless their lives, I bless their families, and I bless everything they do, Lord. I bless their coming in, their going out, their lying down, and their rising, Lord. I bless them tonight.