I think Jesus is looking for those who will remain in the prison where they are placed until the Lord delivers them. They trust God's promises and are waiting patiently for them to be fulfilled, particularly those promises that have been made real to them as an individual.

We need to hear from Jesus today. But we are not going to hear until there are those who keep looking to Jesus to see what He is doing; who refuse to follow their own motives and ambitions no matter how powerful these urges are—including motives and ambitions that have to do with Gospel work.

We need Elijahs and Elishas and Pauls who, like Jesus, spend so much time alone with God that they know what God is doing at any given point. Such people are not lazy; neither are they passive, although sometimes they are accused of being one or the other. They are not impractical although there may be years in which it seems they are accomplishing nothing in the Kingdom of God.

I think there are some today who are hidden away in God spiritually although they may be excellent workers in their local assemblies.

If I am correct in this, the day will come when God speaks to them. They will know what the seven thunders of power are saying. They will bear a witness in power and glory without precedent. I think such a witness is coming and I do not believe this is an idle dream or fantasy.

In any case, God wants people who are learning to wait on Him until His will and their will are one and the same. Such individuals must pass through many fires and waters before they are dwelling in untroubled rest in the flowings of the Godhead. They must cease from their own works that they may enter the rest of God.

The fullness of power and glory are reserved for those who always say, "Not my will but Yours be done in every part of my life without exception."

The Lord Jesus said this under incomprehensible pressure. The result was that He has been given all authority and power in Heaven and on the earth.

Jesus is looking for some mature brothers with whom He can share the fullness of the power and the glory of God.

But Christ will share such rule over the creation only with those who, like Himself, can be trusted to look always to God to see what God is doing, that they may faithfully perform the same works on earth.

We understand, therefore, that our will is central to our salvation from sin; that if we would enter the rest of God, the center of God's will, we must cease from our own works. The purpose of our tests and trials in the present world is to teach us to obey God.

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 8:2,3—NIV) (from To Will and To Do)