One of my dear friends has got herself into quite a mess through doing
her own thing. She has understood it by now, though, and does sincerely
want to get back on the right track. She is taking the steps toward it,
but she still wants things to happen fast, overnight. Sure, God can
change our lives and circumstances overnight, no problem! HE can do
it... but more often that not, He does not do it. God is like any good,
loving, committed parent, being more interested in our character
change, rather than in our dis-comfort change.
Then
there are the dreams in each of our hearts... dreams that we have
waited for, for a long, long time. I have such promises from the Lord.
He has promised me something and I have stood on faith for His promise
to be fulfilled in my life... and yet a month has passed, then a year
has passed, then five years have passed, then ten years have passed...
and still nothing! Or so it seems!
What do
we do? What do we do when we know that God has spoken to our hearts and
has confirmed His promise through His Word... and yet a very long time
has passed... and still no fulfillment of this promise? What do we do
when we have lived in disobedience or ignorance (due to our lack of
learning to know Him through His Word) and have gotten ourselves into
quite a mess... wanting to get back to the right track? What do we do
when things do not happen overnight?
We continue to wait in faith!
We do NOT fling away our fearless confidence, for it carries a great
and glorious compensation of reward. We have a serious need of
steadfast patience and endurance, so that we may perform and fully
accomplish the will of God, and THUS receive and carry away and enjoy
to the full what is promised. (Hebrews 10:35-36)
This
verse says that BEFORE we receive what God has promised us, we need to
perform and fully accomplish the will of God. God doesn't carelessly
dash His promises and gifts out to anyone who wants them. God expects
us to do our part. Sure, He does answer every one of our prayers... but
not always overnight. When we ask Him for something, often we are not
yet in the position to receive it. We need to first grow and mature in
order to be able to appreciate the gift and the blessing He desires to
give us. Or at times we need to rise to a higher level of faith in
order to receive His blessing.
The very
first condition for us to receive His blessings and gifts is to
surrender our lives to Him. When we have done that, then the next
condition is to seek Him FIRST daily (Matthew 6:33). Too often we seek
Him when we "have time" to do that... instead of settling this one
issue once and for all that He is the number ONE and He will get the
best part of our day... every day. When we fulfill those two
conditions, we are on the right track and WILL indeed receive His
blessings much faster.
Most of God's wonderful promises in His Word go with a condition. Like this one: "IF you are willing and obedient, you SHALL eat the good of the land."
(Isaiah 1:19) So, when we have surrendered our lives to Him, we put Him
FIRST daily... and OBEY Him every time He tells us to do something -
whether through the Word or speaks into our hearts - we are in the
position to receive His blessings. God does not bless disobedience.
Have You
noticed that sometimes new believers receive God's blessings much
faster than those who have been Christians for years. Why is that? I
believe that often those young, fresh believers are so in love with the
Lord and they have no problem giving Him the first place in their lives
and obey everything He tells them to do... which puts them in the
position to receive God's blessings right away.
Then
again, there are times in every one of our lives, when our faith is
being put to the test. Shall we continue to believe God and His promise
to us, after having had to wait for quite a while... or shall we weary
in our faith and miss the promise? Those are the times to especially
draw very near to God and hear from Him. Sometimes the answer delays
because we are being disobedient in another area of our lives.
Sometimes the promise includes other people and God is still be working
in them and with them. Sometimes God wants to work on a personality
trait in our lives before the answer can come. Sometimes it is the
devil who is fighting the promise to be fulfilled in our lives. One of
the best Biblical examples of the latter is in the book of Daniel:
"Then
he said to me, Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set
your mind and heart to understand and to humble yourself before your
God, your words were heard, and I have come as a consequence of [and in
response to] your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia
withstood me for twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief [of
the celestial] princes, came to help me, for I remained there with the
kings of Persia." (Daniel 10:12-13)
So, in
order to find out what is our case, we need to seek the Lord daily. He
will show us whether we need to correct something in our lives... or we
need to keep praying and waiting... or we need to bind the enemy forces
in order for the answer to come. That is why we are so dependent on
Him. No one else has those answers for us. He alone does and He is
ready to tell us everything we need to know... except if our hearts and
spiritual ears are not trained to be still and listen to Him, we won't
hear Him. 1 Kings 19:12 describes the voice of the Lord as "a sound of gentle stillness and a still, small voice."
He doesn't shout commands to us. God is a gentleman... He definitely is
GENTLE to us. He doesn't make us do the right thing. He has given us a
choice and He stands back and allows us to do our own thing, if we so
desire. We will know from the results and from the missing peace in our
hearts that we have gone the wrong way. God always leads us through
peace in our hearts:
"And
let the peace (soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (act as
umpire continually) in your hearts [deciding and settling with finality
all questions that arise in your minds, in that peaceful state] to
which as [members of Christ's] one body you were also called [to live].
And be thankful (appreciative), [giving praise to God always]." (Colossians 3:15)
It
doesn't always make sense to our minds to do what our hearts sense to
do... but we should always follow the peace. If we have no peace about
a decision, we should NOT make that decision until we get the peace
about it. If we go against the peace in our hearts, we will always make
a mistake. We need to learn to first achieve the peace through our
daily fellowship with the Lord... and then always keep the peace. If we
do, we will immediately notice when there is even the slightest
unsettling feeling in our spirit...and we will stop going the way we
were going.
And then
one more thing that I believe we, as believers, very often do - we
hope, instead of believe. This is one of the very common blessing
delayers. We hope for something sometime in the future, instead of
taking it by faith and believing that we have received when we first
prayed (Mark 11:22-24), especially when the promise is in black and
white in the Word of God. If we only hope for it, we won't get it...
for nowhere in the Bible it is written that we receive what we hope
for. No, instead the Word says:
"NOW
FAITH IS the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things
[we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the
conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not
revealed to the senses]. Without faith it is impossible to please and
be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must
[necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of
those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out]." (Hebrews 11:1,6)
Faith is
the assurance, the confirmation, the title deed of the things we hope
for. Faith gives thanks to God for the things it believes for, ahead of
time. Faith believes without seeing. Hope alone is not enough. We need
faith to receive. Hope puts the answer somewhere in the future. NOW
FAITH IS! Faith is NOW... not in the future.
"For this reason I am telling you, whatever you ask for in prayer,
believe (trust and be confident) that it is granted to you, and you
will [get it]."
(Mark 11:24) When we believe that our prayer HAS BEEN GRANTED TO US, WE
WILL GET IT! Hey, this is the promise of the Living God Himself. If He
has said it, then so it is! This verse tells us to BE CONFIDENT.
Hebrews 10 tells us to not throw away our FEARLESS CONFIDENCE. What is
fearless confidence? It is faith. Faith is fearless confidence. When
there is still fear in our hearts, we do not yet have fearless
confidence. We need to get rid of fear in order to walk in faith. Faith
and fear cannot exist in our lives at the same time. If there is fear,
we are not in faith. But, we have a way to get rid of fear.
God says: "Perfect love casts out fear." 1 John also tells us that "God is love."
John 1:1 tells us that the Word of God and God are ONE. Which simply
means that if we spend time fellowshipping with God, through His Word,
fear will be pushed out of our lives. This is the only way we get rid
of fear. There is NO other way.
If, in
order to receive God's promises, we need to be in faith and God's Word
fills us with faith... then no wonder God is telling us to put Him
FIRST in our lives daily - this helps our faith to grow and helps us to
become fearless in our complete confidence in Him... making us more and
more able to receive good things from Him. God is easy to receive from.
It is us who block His blessings. God tells us in Joshua 1:8:
"This
Book of the Law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall
meditate on it day and night, that you may observe and do according to
all that is written in it. For THEN YOU shall make your way prosperous,
and THEN YOU shall deal wisely and have good success."
It is
US, not God, who decides how great blessings and how many blessings
flow into our lives. We make the decision. He has already done His
part. He is willing... now we will have to do our part. He tells us
what we need to do at any given time.
So, keep the fearless confidence, whatever You are believing for!
Eve Juurik
Body-Mind-Spirit Health Fitness & Beauty in Organic Way
Eve Juurik is a writer and speaker. She has
taught style and make-up to young models at a modeling school, written articles
for health and beauty magazines in Estonia, including Style and Health
Newspaper. At present Eve is a Health and Beauty Editor of a US based My
Walk With Jesus newspaper and website. She is a regular speaker at women's events.
Eve has been
invited to write for Recipes 365,Connecticut Herb Association’s
Newsletter and US
certified fitness expert Amy Lundberg’s Aim For It Newsletter. For 5 years she has been
teaching the Bible through weekly spiritual-inspirational articles. Eve
regularly writes for a US Christian newspaper and website My Walk With Jesus, website HandMaidens, and Estonian internet magazine The Voice of
Victory.
Eve promotes and sells certified organic skin-, body-, hair-, oral-,
men's-, home-care products through her website: www.TheSpringOfLife.net
» left by Eniola from Highland Park, NJ (1 year 161 days ago.)
This article is amazing. Thank you so much and may God continue to bless you for sowing this into my life. I'm sharing it with my sister right away. she needs to see this. This piece has given me peace.
» left by Eve Juurik(1,165) Eve Juurik (1 year 161 days ago.)
Dear Eniola,
Thank You so much for Your kind comment. I am so glad this article has helped and blessed You.
I wish You many blessings and success in all You undertake,
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