See, here's another place in 1 Samuel 17, Verse 9 and it's the place, the Valley of Elah meaning the Valley of the Oak Tree, was where David slew Goliath. See, now what was the problem with Goliath? Goliath was a giant that intimidated everyone. Everyone was afraid, and so what did they do? They all looked after themselves and fled. David slew the giant of fear, so it's a place of facing and overcoming our fears, and trying to preserve our life. See, so there are some times God will want you to do things, and you're afraid to do them, so we come to the cross, we just admit God, I'm afraid, I'm afraid of what will happen to me. It's all about me - so you begin to yield your fears to the cross, and draw strength from Him. So the cross is the place we can deal with our fears, and bury our fears, slay our fears.
Here's another thing, in 2 Samuel 18, Verse 19. Absalom was slain, and he was in the oak tree. Now Absalom was a man full of pride, but he was full of self ambition, and what Absalom did was this. I've known people over the year who do this to me. It's a very, very painful thing but it's just part of the walk with God and you've got to learn to handle it, and that is Absalom stood by the gate and he said oh, what's your trouble? He said oh, man, that's a big problem isn't it. Well it's too bad the king hasn't really got a provision for this, but you know if I was king, then I could actually deal with this for you. So what he was doing was he was promoting himself, and speaking erosively of King David, and eventually he created a huge sedition in the nation of Israel, and many lost their lives as a result of it. So Absalom speaks then of pride and hidden agendas, trying to promote yourself. Now there are times we've just got to come to the cross and say Jesus, I need to deal. I've been trying to really get ahead. You see, get this - if you intend to be a Christian leader of any kind and don't deal with ambition, selfish ambition, you will use God's people to further your ambition. This is not the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is about me loving people, and helping them fulfil what God called them to do, not about me using people to fulfil my vision and ambition. There's a huge challenge I think, facing the church in the western world at the moment, over models of church, and style of church, that actually uses people to fulfil something, but actually doesn't activate and release people to fulfil the call of God in their life. I believe this is one major issue. I've had many contentions with various leaders in different places over this kind of thing, and I believe that God is calling the church to prepare people for their destiny, not to use people to build some great thing. That make sense to you? And so there is a point where our hidden agendas need to come to the cross.
Over the years and particularly now, it's a lot easier because I've got very strong prophetic people around me, and I've got a relational team where we can talk openly about things, but hidden agendas don't ever - they're not really a big problem now, because the prophetic people around me can spot them a mile off, just speak, hey, this is what's going on there, so that's wonderful. It's very secure to have that, but hidden agendas are where a person comes to you pretending to be something, and says all the nice words and the right things, but actually what they have is a plan to use you to get somewhere. Now this is the spirit of the world, and when we do that, that's deceptive, and it betrays relationships. We should have no agendas except to honour Christ, to honour His kingdom and that means I've got to bring my selfish agendas just to the cross. I've got to trust God to sort them out, got to trust God to work them out. Will I apply myself? Yes, I'll apply myself, however I've got to trust that I'm not going to ever have to use people to get where I want to get. I can actually love and serve people, and God will help me to get where I need to get.