Dr.  Ronald Powell     

 PASSING THE SPIRITUAL BUCK

"Upward Delegation"

 Have you ever asked anyone to help you do something because you were pressed to get other things done? Later when you check up on the assignment, the person says, "I put it aside because I didn't understand how to do it." So you patiently explain how to solve the problem. A few days later the person offers another excuse for not completing the job. With your own deadline approaching, you reason silently, it would be easier if you just did the task yourself. So you do!

Or maybe you are going to see your hygienist to get your teeth cleaned and you step into the bath room and really scrub your teeth good to keep the Hygienist from having to scale your teeth. Suddenly it dawns on you: Wait a minute. Why am I spending money for an Hygienist when I'm the one doing all the work?

If similar incidents have ever happened to you, you are a victim of "upward delegation." We become victims of upward delegation whenever we allow a subordinate to give a job back to us that belongs to them.  

We also are guilty of practicing upward delegation whenever we give back to a superior a job that he has assigned to us.

Giving Assignments Back to God When You Pray!

In our spiritual lives, we are often the perpetrators of upward delegation - and God is the victim.  

We give back to Him assignments He has given to us.

For example, maybe a single mother in our small group at church mentions a specific request during prayer time:

"My food stamps have stopped, and I don't have the money for groceries for me and my three children. I will be able to get my food stamps back in a couple of weeks but I do not know what to do till then. Would you pray that God would provide the money for the groceries?"

So you pray aloud, "God, we know that You own the cattle on a thousand hills. Nothing is too hard for You. Please, Lord, answer our dear sister's request so that she can have a money to provide for her family's grocery needs. In Jesus' name, amen."

However, your small group really doesn't need God's help in the matter.

Each person in your group has the ability to contribute at least $20 dollars to the cause; together you probably could cover the entire grocery bill.  

But instead of passing the hat, you have collectively chosen to pass the responsibility to God. You have given Him a job that He has already given to you.

Consider carefully what James wrote to his fellow Christians:

"If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,' and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself,"  

( James 2:15-17)

Or maybe you have a family member who is not a Christian. For years you have been praying for their salvation:  

"Lord, please provide an opportunity for him to hear the gospel so that he might escape an eternity of separation from You."

Tears stream down your face as you imagine your loved one engulfed in the flames of hell. Yet, in spite of your sincere interest in your family member's eternal future, you have never mustered up the courage to share the gospel with him.  

Instead, you've asked God to do the task that He has already assigned to you.

Sure, God could miraculously shout the Four Spiritual Laws from heaven or supernaturally switch the television program your loved one is watching from Friends to an evangelistic crusade. But God's preferred plan is for you to explain the way of salvation to your family member.

"How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?...So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ" (Romans 10:14,17).

One more example:

Frustrated with a mediocre spiritual life and hungry for something more in your relationship with God, you pray, "God, I am tired of living a life of continual defeat and disappointment. I need to experience Your power in my life. I'm tired of fighting by myself. If anything supernatural is going to happen, You are going to have to do it. Lord, fill me with Your Holy Spirit. I pray in Jesus' name, amen."

Have you ever prayed such a prayer? If so, you have once again practiced "upward delegation." When we ask God to fill us with the Holy Spirit, we are handing back to God a responsibility He has given to us.

God commands us to "Be filled with the Spirit," (Ephesians 5:18).  

Contrary to popular thought, the filling of the Holy Spirit is not something God does for us, but something He has commanded us to do for ourselves.

We Have To Make Up Our Mind to Obey From Our Heart.

Anything we agree with and allow to stay within the boundaries of our life has the right to stay.

If we really want to have change in our life, whether the desired change is mental, physical or spiritual, we need to be able to recognize old patterns and old ways of thinking that are still within us.

We must come out of agreement with them in order to bring freedom and health. Stop Passing the Buck and become a doer of the Word. 

Romans 6:16  Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? 

• We have to make up our mind and decide we do not want to pass the buck any more.  We have to decide we do not want to disobey any longer.  We have to decide we are tired of upward delegation rising up in us.

When we make up our mind that we do not want these religious dynamics ruling in our life and decide we want the fruit of righteousness to be in our life instead of the fruit of sin, God will meet us in that decision and will make us free.

Philippians 3:13-14  Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended:  but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,  14  I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 

Today can be the day we stop agreeing with the enemy, we can stop passing the buck in upward delegation and become doers of the word.  Today, why not choose life and blessings by obeying God's word from the heart.