What’s Your Mountain?

by Paul McGuire

This is a special and significant year for me. January is my birthday month. And my age is the same as the year my sweetheart and I were married, fifty years ago. (No, I’m not 1972 years old!) Significantly, this is also a Jubilee year on the Jewish calendar.

Many folks of my age are thinking more about cutting back the pace, retiring to piddle around, and awaiting the glorious second coming of our Lord. As for me, I’m excited to see and participate in the great awakening and revival among the Lord’s people, and to work in the anticipated

great harvest of souls. I have a view much more like ol’ Caleb as the Israelites were preparing to cross over into the Promised Land. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for forty years,” he proclaimed. “I’m 85, now, strong as ever. Give me my mountain!” And he took on a number of giants living on his mountain—and won! Retire? Bah! Gimme my mountain!

These are the times when the Body of Christ must proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom. The Church cannot look the same anymore. We’ve been effective by our own measure, but the world passes us off as rather an annoyance! It remains largely unaffected. That’s not God’s Plan for the earth and its people.

In my personal pursuit of exhibiting the Love and Life of Christ, the Lord told me, “Give them ears to hear by what you are to them.” A phrase I’ve heard says, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” And Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, that you have love for one other” (John 13:35, NKJ). Then Apostle John penned these words: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7, ESV). My desire of the Lord is to take the mountain

He has assigned to me. Part of this effort is to walk out the Life Christ Jesus has birthed in me. It will mean doing this in every area of life in general, not just Sunday School. It means every day. In every place and circumstance, I must hold up and insist on

God’s Righteousness to rule, starting in me. “Are you gonna beat people over the head with the Bible?” I can hear some wonder. No. The Love of God is our most powerful weapon.

The Apostle Paul wrote how it is the “kindness of

God that leads [Men] to repentance” (Romans 2:4,

NASB), not a stick, not criticism. When we can show

His Love, which is certainly kindness, by living out the Life of God, their ears will open to the message of God’s Salvation for them. We can tell them, and they will listen.

There are many mountains influencing people. Most of those mountains are occupied by wicked giants which have been leading us and our nations away from the Righteous rule of God. Let’s take those mountains back to where the greatest influence on us there is—the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

What’s your mountain? Will you retire or be a Caleb?

About The Author Paul McGuire has been born again for almost 60 years, and has pursued to hear God’s Voice through all those years. He and his wife Teresa of 49 years are active at Living Word Church in Cleveland, Tennessee. They have two children and five grandchildren.