Wednesday, August 29, 2012

DIVINE TIMING


THE LORD IS MY PORTION; THEREFORE I WILL WAIT FOR HIM.  THE LORD IS GOOD TO THOSE WHOSE HOPE IS IN HIM, TO THE ONE WHO SEEKS HIM; IT IS GOOD TO WAIT QUIETLY FOR THE SALVATION OF THE LORD.  LAMENTATIONS 3:24 -26 

I am compelled by the Holy Spirit to give a warning to the children of God during these rapidly changing times. There is a danger in losing sight of God’s great design by the overwhelming situations and experiences of the present moment.  We must remember that there is a purpose in everything that is taking place.   I learned at a Morris Cerullo School of Ministry that “The God we serve is a God of plan, purpose, design and objectivity.” 

Those of us here in the United States are well aware that changes are taking place in our great nation and many are praying that God would save it. However keep in mind God is not concerned with just one nation but all nations.  The bigger picture is found in Genesis 12:2, 3 which reads, “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” God’s intention is salvation to all people of all nations through the Body of Christ. 

As we enter into unexpected changes, we take hold of God’s promises and pray; but our prayers don’t seem to get answered.    Why hasn’t God answered my prayers?  There are a number of possible reasons why the answers to our prayers are divinely delayed.  We must understand God is causing us to wait so we can come to know Him and His divine character.  It’s obvious the longer we wait the longer the door of communication between God and us is open.  If we are not knowledgeable in our well intentioned prayers, God will have to respond according to Mark 10:38, “You don’t know what you are asking.” The motive of our prayers must pass through the filter of God’s love and wisdom or He may respond according to James 4:3, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

The apparent delays, based upon our measurement of time, move us to take matters into our own hands.  This is a great mistake.  Faith is being tested; the faith that we received from Christ is being tested and we are becoming established.  Do not be discouraged; God’s great love is guarding us.  Know that every experience, every situation and every circumstance has a beginning and an ending.  We don’t need to ask why.  God will see the results He desires. Daniel 4:34, 35 reads, “. . . Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever.  His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation.  All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing.  He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth.  No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?” The enemy wants us to forget that God is in control of the changes in this world, not man! It is up to His children, His sons and daughters, to express this confidence, this trust, and this faith to the world.

We know there are different stages of maturity in the Body of Christ.  There is much to be said of the faith of a child who doesn’t understand God’s ways but continues to believe.  There is more to be said of a mature man who knows God does not move according to our time frame despite our situations.     His measurement of time is in II Peter 3:8, “With the Lord a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” He knows the beginning and the end.  There is a risk of taking matters into our own hands as we assume God is delaying the answer.   A good example is recorded in Genesis 15 where God promised Abraham descendents.  Abraham was without a son and thought his servant Eleazar was going to be his successor.  But God made a covenant.  So much was involved in the promise of God to give Abraham a son that Genesis 16 tells us the delay began to affect Abraham and Sarah, like it does us.  Abraham took hold of wrong counsel from his wife and takes the servant Hagar to himself and she conceives a child.  The consequence of that decision is still seen today. Fearing the delay and listening to the flesh will lead us to make wrong decisions.  Only God can bring a supernatural promise to pass as written in Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.   Does he speak and then not act?  Does he promise and not fulfill?”

Exodus 2:11 records another example of poor timing in expressing God’s purpose,  “One day after Moses had grown up he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor.  He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. He looked this way and that way and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.” No doubt there was an instinct of deliverer in Moses as he saw the oppression of his people, but his time was not yet.  Moses took matters into his own hands so God dealt with him in the desert for 40 years. We should be moved but not outside of God’s timing.

How many have prayed for loved ones to be saved and have become perplexed and perhaps discouraged when we don’t see an immediate answer to our prayers.  Take heart with the word of Jeremiah in Lamentations 3: 24-26, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him. The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”  We should heed his counsel.  Jeremiah saw beyond the present circumstances; he saw the goodness of the Lord.  We must not lose sight of the fact that the wisdom of God and the love of God created the circumstances.  In these circumstances the Father is unfolding His design through his people; the principalities and powers of the air have never seen this before.  Paul writes in Ephesians 3:10, “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  He sees the outcome; the unfolding of His great design is taking place.  God is in control and He knows the exact minute you enter a change of circumstance and He knows the exact minute when you will exit.  

GOD IS IN CONTROL AND HE KNOWS THE EXACT MINUTE YOU ENTER A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCE AND HE KNOWS THE EXACT MINUTE WHEN YOU WILL EXIT.

All the understanding of divine delay is in Christ Jesus!  “All things were created by Him and for Him.  Nothing was created without him;” Corinthians 1:16.  Every minute of every situation and circumstance was created by Him and for Him.    God is bringing us into the fullness of Christ.  It is encouraging to see the hunger in God’s children to know the purpose and ways of God; to know Him.  For many years all we’ve heard from the pulpit is what God is doing for us and what we can get from Him.  Now there is a hunger to know what He desires.  The coming of the Lord is closer now as this world is changing. However, the real sign of the Lord’s coming is not the Lord breaking through the heavens, but breaking through his people.   An increase of the glory of the Lord is occurring. God will not take his people out of this world without impacting the world;

Know the times we are living in; the glory of the Lord, all that He is and all that He has, is revealed through his people. Isaiah 60:1, 2 “Arise [from the depression and prostration in which circumstances have kept you—rise to a new life]! Shine (be radiant with the glory of the Lord), for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you! For behold darkness shall cover the earth, and dense darkness [all] the peoples, but the Lord shall arise upon you [O Jerusalem], and His glory shall be seen on you.” Amplified bible

Do not lose heart my friend.  I want to encourage you by Paul’s example.  There was a messenger of satan sent to buffet him.  He prayed three times for the Lord to take this thorn away and received a powerful revelation, “My power is perfected in your weakness.”  Paul said in II Corinthians 12:9, 10 “. . . I will glory in my weakness so that the power of Christ Jesus will rest upon me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Don’t be discouraged if you are going through persecution, hard times, or moments of disappointment.  Remember, the Peace that passes all understanding rests upon you.

 


WE CANNOT LIVE IN FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD
AND LET EVIL STALK UNCHALLENGED,
BY NEGLECTING THE WIDE-OPEN DOORS OF THE WORLD
WHICH CALL TO OUR FAITH AND OUR LOYALTY. 
 (J .S. HOLDEN)









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