This is the re-take

Recently, a dear friend said, "I can see that my tests are closer together."  Then she went on to describe how she'd been presented with two different scenarios several times with in the span of only a few days.  James put it this way in chapter 1:

2My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

  3Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

  4But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

  5If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

Have you felt lately that you are going through the same tests or the same experiences over and over again and that those tests are closer together?  For some of us it may be dealing with people at work, in the community or at church.  For others of us it may be challenging to saving or giving each time we receive our pay check.  When we, in affect, fail our tests or our challenges, the enemy wants to cover up the fact that that test was meant to make you stronger.  He wants to distract from the purpose of the test.  The test isn't to highlight your failings in a way that brings shame or makes you  feel poorly. Not at all.  The test is actually a way to show you that you are making progress.  That's why when my friend said her tests were closer together, I knew that she was nearer to her victory!  The enemy wants you to feel so ashamed and so condemned when you have a failure that you delay re-take and find it difficult to connect the dots between your tests and experience how God is strengthening you.  Let me try to explain it this way.  When I was very young, around 12 or so, it was prophesied to me that I would be a preacher.  That information was scary at that age, but it rang true some place within me.  I knew it was accurate in my spirit.  But there was a major issue.  I was and remain painfully shy.  It sort of reminds me of Moses telling God that he wasn't able to speak to the people.  But here's the thing, God calls and God chooses.  He does so at His will and for His glory.  So now in my hindsight, I can look back over my life and see all I have been through, each test, each trial, all of my tribulations and I can sew them together into a tapestry that reveals the picture of how God has nudged me into His purpose for my life.  It's amazing when you give it some thought.  God actually meant my failings and my rough patches to be for my good?  He meant for all of that to make me stronger, wiser, better and fit for His use and purpose?  He did that just for me?  It makes you look at your re-takes so differently.  Failing isn't failure unless we refuse to learn and grow from it.  Failing is a necessary stepping stone in growing stronger.

I imagine the life of a body builder.  We see the after pictures.  These individuals have bodies that look awesome.  Yet we weren't there during the building process.  We werent there through the pain.  We were just witnesses to the end results.  That body builder had to discipline himself exercise everyday  and had to deny himself when he wanted to eat sweet snacks.  He had to push himself to workout and to lift more weight each time.  The process took time, it didn't happen overnight.  But as he went along he would measure his muscle growth and he could  tell that his endurance was getting better.  Think of yourself as a spirit builder.  Like a body builder, your spirit must be challenged so that you can see your growth and so that you can tell that you now have more endurance.  Consider how Paul viewed this in Romans 5:

1Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

  2By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

  3And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

  4And patience, experience; and experience, hope:

  5And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.  

Truly our progress is measured in faith and maturity.  Our standard is Jesus Christ.  We strive to be like Him in how we show love toward each other and how we have compassion for people.  We work to build our endurance to be like Christ in how we show up for our divine appointments and act as conduits to allow His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Truly we strive to be like Christ in facilitating a real relationship between God and His people.  But often people don't see the work of our spiritual building and our maturity.  They don't see the pain and the trials that bring out patience and discipline.  They don't see how we learn to give and how we become aware so that we are not ignorant of Satan's devvices against us.  They see the result, but we know our struggle and that our struggle sometimes comes in waves of tests  that are back to back showing us that we have gained spiritual muscle and endurance.

Today, be purposeful in your spirit building.  Set your eyes on the standard, Jesus Christ.  Strive to be humble like Him.  Strive to serve like Him.  Strive to live like Him.  Before you know it you will be measuring your success in faith through experience which results in hope.

Then, I am strong . . .

In 2 Corinthians chapter 12 Paul states that the enemy handed him an ailment to keep him, Paul, humble.  Paul tells us that he asked God to take the ailment away on three different occasions.  I was reading this scripture today and it struck me that God did not take the ailment away the first time that Paul prayed, nor did God take it away the second time Paul prayed nor did God take it away the third time that Paul prayed.  In fact, it is notable that God never took the thorn away, but He told Paul that it was in weakenss that he would find his strength.  Does that mean that Paul was ineffective at praying?  Does that mean that Paul lacked the faith for God to remove the ailment from him?  The modern church views Paul as a learned, wise, passionate and strong patriarch of faith.  Paul was a fervent servant of God and in our hindsight we herald this apostle as one of the most articulate communicators of the truth and proof of Jesus Christ and he is credited for single handedly bringing the Word of God to gentiles.  So what does all of this mean?  Does it mean that God simply doesn't answer some prayers?

I'm glad that I've grabbed your curiosity.  I'll tell you what all of this means.  God in fact answered Paul the first time that Paul prayed.  It took Paul three times to hear, process and understand God's response.  So even the most revered Christians at times struggle to accept God's communication to us.  Sometimes we pray fervently for the answer that we want.  We sweat.  We cry.  We declare and we decree.  We wail and we moan.  We get others to pray with us.  But you know what?  God's answer is His answer and we need to hear it, process it, accept it and understand it.  After the third time of God not removing the ailment that had been handed to Paul, Paul was finally in a place to hear what God had been trying to communicate to him from the first time that he had prayed.  God was trying to tell Paul that He works best in our vulnerabilities and in our weakness.  We hear from God more clearly in our broken state.  We are more open for hearing His communication to us when we are in need.  Not only that, but when we hear, process and accept God's communication, we move ourselves, our ideas of what is right and what should happen out of the way and we are able to allow God's will to be done in our lives.  So many times He wants to show Himself strong.  He wants to prove His word.  He wants to be lifted up above our circumstances and situations.  He wants to be lifted up above the earth so that He can draw others to Him and we are His conduit to make that happen.  But understand that God's power shows up better on the backdrop of our ability to endure in spite of whatever situation or circumstance we find ourselves in.  For Paul that was the thorn in his flesh, it was imprisonment, it was being beaten, and it was preaching the word anyway and in spite of and through it all.  Paul's life serves as a powerful testament of how to persevere anyhow.  So we may have felt badly for him because he had an ailment that He wanted God to take away, but you see we are able to overcome today because of Paul's powerful testimony that in the middle of a thorn and in the midst of jail and in the process of being beaten, Paul preached Jesus Christ to anyone who would listen and he did it with the same level if not even more passion!  It was in this that God was lifted up above Paul's thorn.  God was made the main focus.

Today, when you think of an ailment that you are struggling with or maybe one that a friend or relative is struggling with, understand that the answer may not always be for God to take that thing away.  Some times it is, but not always.   Accept God's will.  Accept that God knows what He is doing.  Trust that God has your best interest at the core of all that He does in your life.  Trust that God will give you glory in the situation through sufficient grace.  Trust Him, not what you are experiencing with your physical senses.  Trust Him and take Him at His word.  Hear His answer.  Accept His answer.  Understand His answer.  Know that He will give you sufficient grace to endure.  Know that He is the focus and His will is the primary objective.

Why Do We Long for the Counterfeit?

Today's blog is about transparency for me.  I recently had an experience after which God showed me how He carried me through it; how He protected me in it; and how much He loves me and that He kept me.  When I awoke to this revelation, I immediately worshiped Him and blessed His name.  However, I did begin to wonder why I was longing for a counterfeit.

In the present case, I had been harboring a deep hurt in a very dark place.  That hurt had trapped me into a place where I had refused to declare the Word of healing.  It is no secret, as I have previously shared in this blog that I was abused by my father for 15 years of my childhood.  I had locked that pain in a dark and desolate place in my mind.  I had gone to therapy, I had spoken with counselors and with my pastors, I felt that I had dealt with the hurt.  But in fact that dark place needed to be eradicated and I had only put a very ineffective lock on a very rickety door.  The hurt and pain were still there.  The need to fully forgive was still hanging.  And frankly from time to time I would visit that dark place to remind me of what was missing in my life.

What I didn't understand was that you cannot simply allow hurt space to live in your mind.  The hurt creates a void and that void begins to suck.  That sucking then brings people into your life who have no way of filling the void, but who know how to manipulate you because they recognize that this void is your weak place.  There is only one who can fill such a void because it takes a being who has the ability to step in and out of time, who can go into your past, completely heal your hurt and make you whole.  So in my case, I felt that I needed love; that no one in my life had provided me a foundation of love and support and a basis for trust.  I felt that I needed to be loved properly and that such love had in fact eluded me my whole life.  That's where the vortex and the black hole began and it was sucking every thing and everyone around me in, or trying too.  I kept thinking I wasn't enough, but it was because that dark void was sucking in my confidence and my knowing that God was the author and finisher of my life and my faith.  There are people who see that sucking and recognize that there is a desperation to hang on to something.  So they interject themselves into your life to try to steal your anointing while you are distracted by your hurt.  And because you are so distracted by your hurt you never even notice that a counterfeit has entered in.  In fact because of our desperation, we become satisfied with the counterfeit.  We accept it as the truth.  There may be a nagging voice telling us the whole time that what we have isn't real and isn't of God.  There will be a voice telling us that what we have isn't going to help us, move us forward or support us, but that sucking desperation has a hold of us and we accept the counterfeit.

Today I was reading the book of Isaiah chapter 58.  This scripture discusses how we can be repairers of the breach.  The scripture text talks about how we can use what God has given us to help others and to repair the breach and in helping others we are also receiving help.  How does this relate to longing for counterfeit?  Well Isaiah 59 really helps to answer this.  Many times we cannot experience freedom in God and being restored, healed and made whole because we are pretending to seek light, when in fact we have become satisfied with darkness.  I had become satisfied with my hurt.  But there is no productivity in harboring hurt.  Therefore, I was never giving myself an opportunity to be successful.  I couldn't speak the word of healing over my life.  I couldn't admit that God is my all and all because I wanted to hang on to hurt and that hurt gave me the excuse to distrust God.

But today I declare that God has taken away that hurt and that pain and I can proclaim healing and wholeness in the name of Jesus.  I am whole and if God never does another thing for me I am whole and well and He is my savior.  I am a breach repairer.  God has given my gifts and talents with which to minister healing and deliverance.  I refuse to accept the counterfeit any longer.  God is the genuine article and He is mine and I am His.  I refuse to allow one more person to try to act like they have the potential to fill a void in my life.  Why?   Because the void no longer exists.  Christ has forgiven me of my sin, healed my hurt and made me whole; therefore, there is no more sucking and bringing the wrong person to me trying to hustle my anointing and make my ministry of none effect.

Today can you declare that you are done with the counterfeit?  Can you declare that you are actually trying the spirits by the Spirit?  Can you declare that its for God you live and for God that you'll die?  Can you say that you genuinely and wholeheartedly rely on God?  I can.  Thank you Jesus.  I finally can.