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The Re-Use of the Wretched
If you are listening to the news there are so many wretched things happening to humans today including things that are legal to do.
We are beating people with all manner of weapons over a tree. We are killing babies for convenience. We are hazing people for fun. What’s happening is that love is going cold (Matthew 24:12) because of this lawlessness.
The Good News
Lawlessness is the reason we are being called into ministry. If there wasn’t lawlessness there would be no need for us to lead ministries that change lives.
The bad news is that your own lawlessness has given you the experience needed to run this ministry with compassion. Your healed heart from the experiences you have endured, is how your ministry will lead others to the power of Jesus.
Your Wretched Experience is the Catalyst
The fact that you have endured that wretched experience and have a testimony of complete healing from Jesus will be the catalyst for your ministry. The Lord is going to make all things new for you not all new things.
The ministry you create and lead is the gateway to their heart healing because the Lord has healed you. Before that you will not be able to speak with power out of pain. Your power will come from your healing and compassion for those who are going through the same thing.
The hard part is that Jesus may hold you back from ministry until you are completely healed and ready to testify.
Emotionally Healed
This complete healing is of the anger, disgust, sorrow, grief and pain you are holding because of the wretched thing someone else did or what you have done as a result.
Your healing can be the bodies healing because we, as leaders, are rooted and ground in Jesus Christ. If we are not, than we should be chasing this with everything we have. As leaders and leaders in the making our faith needs to be firmly fixed on Jesus.
Re-use of Your Healing Testimony
Your testimony is what brings people to Christ. It is not that you healed yourself but that Jesus gave you the tools to be healed and the time in which to do it thoroughly.
It is when you realize that the Lord has turned all of this wretched stuff into something new that you can testify of His goodness to those He wants you to testify too. He reuses your healing testimony over and over again until you fully understand the healing as well.
Prepare Your Life for Leadership
Christian living is not an easy task because the world tries to draw us back into pain and sorrow, over and over again. The Lord has commanded us to persevere through every testing and trial.
You will only be able to persevere the way Jesus has created you to do it. Each one of us is unique in who we are and have different needs to move forward.
What are your needs? Email me to let me know, so I can either send you a link to a free training or have a great conversation with you about a long term solution.
You might need to start this with cultivating a deeper relationship with Jesus (click here if this is what you need), or time management skills so you can make time for Jesus (click here if this is what you need), or maybe you just need the confidence to start talking about Jesus more (click here if this is what you need).
Effective Christian Living for Kingdom Leaders Community
Effective Christian living for Kingdom leaders is imperative to last. Your leadership is needed in the kingdom and your example is the catalyst for healing. Join the best community on Facebook here for learning how to live an effective Christian life as a leader or leader in the making for the Kingdom.
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Death Makes you Alive
Have you had a near death experience or heard one that changed you?
The Widow of Zarepath thought she and her son would die but then her son actually did die. This experience could do nothing but change her forever.
Our Biblical Background: 1 Kings 17
Elijah, a prophet of God, rose up in the Land of Israel to tell Ahab there would be a famine in the land for three years. Ahab had allowed his wife Jezebel to set up Baal and Asherah high places for people to worship.
The Lord fed Elijah with the birds until the water dried up then He sent him to a widow in Zarepath, a suburb of Sidon. She was at the gate collecting twigs when Elijah showed up. He asked for a drink and a morsel of bread. She told him she had only a little and then her and her son were going to die.
That was not part of God’s plan for her so she lived. Elijah stayed with her but while he was there her son took ill and died. Elijah brought him up to his room and begged the Lord to put his soul back inside him. The Lord answered him and the boy lived. A miracle offered to all of us.
Our Biblical Lesson: Living begins when our old self dies.
The widow was willing to die physically when Elijah got to her but was her old self willing to die as well. The death of the widows son was enough sorrow for her old self to take up her cross. All the teachings Elijah gave her during the time that he was with her were confirmed for her.
As Jesus followers we understand this concept and can get behind it but are we living it? Are we carrying our old self around with us and giving her licence to lead? Are you alive in Christ or are you dead in self? Paul said in Philippians 1:21, “For me, to live is Christ, to die is gain.”
Join me in The Bible Gals Monday at 2pm EST to discuss the Biblical Power Tools for how to live for Christ and die to self.
I have exciting news for you as well. I am running a FREE Biblical Goal Bootcamp to help you plan a future with Jesus in The Bible Gals from February 22-26th. You can learn how to set biblical goals even if you don’t know your vision from God yet. Sign up here and make sure you join The Bible Gals.
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Ruth, A Daughter with Integrity
What kind of woman do you think you are? Does your life compare to Ruth? Would you describe yourself as a daughter with integrity toward Jesus?
We compare ourselves to others to much these days. How we deal with mother. How we deal with children. How we deal with illegals. How we deal with ethnic backgrounds. We are stressed out by these dealings. Let’s see how did Ruth dealt with all of this?
Our Biblical Ground Work: Ruth
Ruth comes onto the scene as the wife of one of Naomi’s sons. He dies and his brother dies as well. Ruth is a young widow living with another young widow and her widowed mother-in-law. There is no men left and in those days men were the bread winners.
It is repeated to us over and over again that Ruth is a Moabite. A foreigner to the people of Israel. A relative of the people of Israel through Lot but a foreigner all the same. A relative of Naomi through marriage but nonetheless a foreigner.
Naomi was brought to Moab by her husband but is going home to Bethlehem without him. Ruth was born in Moab, but linked to Bethlehem through her husband family. She chose to remain linked to Bethlehem through her mother-in-law and she goes with Naomi to live in Bethlehem as a foreigner.
Ruth and Naomi need food so Ruth goes to glean in the fields. She is noticed because Boaz is supposed to notice her. He tells her to stay and work with his women and men so she does. We are told she works hard to provide for herself and her mother-in-law. She is mentored about Israelite living by her mother-in-law and soon lands herself a husband.
She is not only a foreign woman added to the lineage of her father-in-law’s family but into the lineage of king David and Jesus. Her whole identity was transformed for us with this story.
Our Biblical Life Lesson: If your whole identity is based in your integrity, your story can be as brilliant as Ruth’s.
On the surface it looks like Ruth has lost everything, her husband, her land, her family, her gods. We equate that lose to losing self. Ruth did not lose who she was in the process of serving Naomi. She was being herself. Her story is that of love, friendship, servant-hood and integrity.
We can learn to fill our relationships with integrity and still hang onto self in the process. There is great value in serving people with integrity but we need to place value on them first. All people have value but not always do we value them for the role they play in our lives.
I invite you to come in deeper with me in The Bible Gals community this week as we learn the Biblical Power Tools for valuing our integrity while valuing people.
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3 Reasons to Enjoy those Periods of Adjustments
We have special insight into the life the Lord wants us to live. He reveals information about who He is to us and transforms us using that knowledge. It is during that transformation time that we find ourselves inside a “period of adjustment”.
I know sometimes we see this period as mundane and boring because it is a time of reflection and growth. There isn’t too much going on because we are learning how to be, who this new knowledge requires us to be.
If we allow ourselves to linger, just long enough, in each period of adjustment we will grow into our vision significantly faster than someone who is bucking the change. We can enjoy those periods of adjustment as much as we enjoy the work involved in the working out of our vision. We always need reasons to comply with the Lord so here are three.
Reason 1: Enjoy Your Heart Receiving the Head Knowledge
Remember back to the day you were saved or the time period (I have to use time period because I cannot remember the date.) You walked away from that so stoked and ready to be a Christian BUT you just began a “period of adjustment”.
You have no knowledge about how to act or what to do, so you go back to what you do know, secular living. Christian living is not even on your radar let alone a setting on your GPS. You begin to ask questions about how to live as a Christian. As you ponder the answers to your questions the Lord starts moving some of the answers down into your heart. It becomes a truth building experience with Him.
Reason 2: Enjoy a Wonderful Understanding of Your New Relationships
There is not doubt about salvation changing relationships. The first relational change is your relationships with Jesus. Before there wasn’t one and now there is. Adding a relationship with Jesus tends to complicate. Who are you in this new Christian life with Jesus? Who are you with your spouse, kids and family members? Who are you in every aspect of life?
This period of adjustment gives you the time to ponder who this person is who has this knowledge and how you will relate to others with this new knowledge. Your relationship with Jesus, self and others can be wonderful when you take every period of adjustment as a time to obtain an accurate understanding of theses relationships. It becomes a relationship building experience with Jesus.
Reason 3: Enjoy a Faith Empowered by Jesus
As you spend time in any period of adjustment Jesus has an opportunity to grow you into the person you need to be. Each session of adjusting you go through your faith grows. As your faith grows your vision for the future you grows as well.
Knowing this alone is enough for me to want to sit with Jesus for a period of adjustment, but that is not what is required of us. We are becoming who He created us to be so we can do what He has created us to do. This faith building experience with Jesus is just what we are going to need to move into our vision.
When we walk away from these periods of adjustments we are changed beyond measure. We have had a truth building adjustment, a relationship building adjustment and a faith building adjustment. That is what they are meant to do.
Each adjustment made in your life is a change in direction toward knowing your vision, growing into your vision or growing from your vision. They are all measured and calculated by Jesus to get us into each place we need to be.
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Living on the Fence
Before my kids were old enough to ask questions about Santa Claus I was still living that pagan ritual but now I am saved and being asked questions by my grandson. I had no idea what to say. How do you encourage imagination without lies? This is the question all Christians are faced with this time of year. Here is what I encourage you to do, and what Jesus has put on my heart about Christmas, and every day, that you would know the truth.
There was a real man, named Nicholas, who did what the Spirit moved him to do. He fed the poor, gave gifts to the orphans and helped the widows. He did what the Lord told him to do and as a result the spirit of what he did lives today, his fruit. We can believe this story and know that it was ordained by God because it lives in our knowledge. You need to bring this whole story home with the story of Jesus.
There is nothing wrong with children knowing the story of Nicholas, especially if they know who Jesus is. It is those who do not believe in Jesus who perpetuate the inflated story of St. Nick or Santa Claus. They know there is something out there, that is spiritual, and they attribute it to Santa this time of year and any other timely mythical character that man has created. The Devil is at work convincing people of the validity of these characters, so those people do not have to believe the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of God is active all year round. The fence is erected.
Now, read the Bible, Ephesians 3:15-4:3. This is a prayer for those who have jumped up onto the fence. This is a prayer that each of us who believe, should put to work each day, and be reminded of, when we are tempted to kick someone off the fence. The Lord put them up onto the fence, in our presence, for us to support Him in His work. Our calling, to support Jesus in His work on this earth gathering His people together, is more important than telling people what we know. He gives us the knowledge we need, even if it is secular knowledge, to bring His people down off the fence into the faith. All knowledge can be used to help someone who is on the fence.
If you are saved and still on the fence I say to you, keep asking questions of Jesus and He will answer them using people and the Bible. If you are talking with people who are on the fence do your best to make sure you don’t kick them off because they will not come down on the side of Jesus. You will have bruised them and left a nasty taste in their mouth about the Body of Christ. If you are saved and keep jumping up onto the fence about specific topics, stop it. Mature Christians don’t jump up on the fence because of a topic they are pondering. They question Jesus, asking for the truth, knowing they will receive it and believe it.
People on the fence are asking questions looking for the truth. We ask questions of Jesus, as mature Christians, expecting Him to answer them. We ask question, of mature Christians, expecting them to know the answer from the Bible or help us find the answer from the Bible. The goal for every Christian is to get off the fence and believe God.
I pray this prayer over you and every person who is on the fence about the truth. Pray this prayer over yourself if you are on the fence. If you are a mature Christian, pray this prayer every time you are tempted to hop up onto that fence. There is no grey area with God only with humans. When we are in that grey area we need to make sure we don’t climb up on the fence. The Spirit, in the inner man, has the strength you need to know the truth and you will be filled with all the fullness of God. Isn’t that what we all want?
Merry Christmas
May the Lord bless you this Christmas with His fullness through your faith.
Kathleen Derbyshire
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In the Image of Beauty!
Her Eyes see an Ugly Image!
Leola spent one hour in the bathroom, primping and covering, to be ready for work only to walk by a mirror to see what ugly looks like. She sighed and continued on her way to work. As she was driving she is careened back to grade school where she first learned she was ugly. She was one of the only red heads in the whole building. Why did red hair and freckles make a person ugly? Her lazy eye didn’t help either! She didn’t make that decision, someone made it for her and she accepted it based on their opinion. Someone decided she was different and that difference in their opinion was ugly. To be cross eyed with red hair and freckles was a deadly combination to be born with according to that person. Her brain runs over all the words people used to drive her to the conclusion she was ugly. Up until those days she never thought about it one way or the other. She looked in the rear view mirror of her van and sighed. “If I was beautiful no one would take me seriously on my job anyway,” she thought. As a leader in a male dominated field she was comfortable with being ugly.
In spite of her apparent ugliness she had accumulated a few friends in grade school but they lived on the other side of the tracks. They were headed to a different high school together while she alone would go to high school in Belle River, Ontario. She was devastated by this continued slight against her. How in heavens name would she make friends in a new town in a new school? She decided she just wouldn’t go to school so the skipping began. Every class she felt insecure in she wouldn’t go. She hated the school and its pretense but more so she hated her image. The people were beautiful and wealthy. She was ugly and low end middle class. The complete opposite of them and they had no issue reminding her of that fact. Why can’t she hide away somewhere to never be seen by anyone ever again? Sometimes she thought they sought her out just to fulfill their own fantasy of degrading people. Leola even stooped down to bully a girl much more beautiful than her to see what it was like. The act horrified her so much she never did it again and actually apologized to the girl for her bad behaviour. No matter how Leola felt, deliberately demeaning someone was something God never allowed her to get away with. She did not know Jesus during this time but He was working His plan in her life even then.
I spent a lot of my childhood emulating ‘the beautiful’ to be accepted, except it didn’t work. I was called on it constantly. A girl I admired in grade school told me to stop dressing like her to my horror. In high school Farrah Faucet was big so I styled my hair like hers and got bullied by a set of female twins because of it. I did everything within my power to appear beautiful but all of my work was for not because every time I looked in the mirror my eyes saw an image of ugliness. I eventually learned it wasn’t about the outward adorning it was the inward jargon. I probably spent more than one hundred thousand dollars on apparel to my financial peril. I believed my image was ugly from the inside consequently no matter how I changed my outside appearance it would never change how my eyes saw my image. That vision of my image became deeply rooted in me for many years. When I became a Christian I wrestled with the fact God had created me in His image which is not ugly. It would be many years before He was able to convince me I was made in His image and when I called myself ugly I was calling His created image ugly. The concept of that is far reaching and perfectly planned just for me and just for you!
Her Eyes see His Image!
Leola had to become invisible at school so no one would notice she was skipping classes and invisible at home to get away with it. In one hand she wanted to be invisible but in the other hand she wanted someone to see her as beautiful. Was that too much to ask? Not with our Jesus Christ it wasn’t! Jesus Christ had a plan for her and He was going to bring her too it. He gifted her to do things to make her visible even in her ugliness and she worked hard to look beautiful for the masses. It was still very important to be accepted by people to be successful at her calling. Jesus would deal with that too although not in the eyes of people but in His. Leola did not know she was still harbouring the feeling she was ugly to God therefore invisible to Him. How could God look upon her! She was learning her fear of being invisible is tied directly to her view of her image. If God couldn’t look upon her because of her ugliness than she was surely invisible to Him. Leola saw her image completely different than Jesus Christ saw her. He gave her His eyes, little by little, thus she would see she looks just like Him. She began seeing Jesus in the mirror every day and her image began to change until one day she looked in the mirror to see His creation in her image. Her tired old feelings are gone today and she is free to see God’s ‘very good’ creation in her image. She is also free to see His image in all women even when they don’t!
We are created in His image but that is a hard concept to realize when ugly is the image we see in the mirror. Peter tells us our beauty should not come from merely outward adornment because the mere adornment we use changes every single day. God created mankind in His own image both male and female. If we believe what God says eventually our soul will agree with Psalm 139:14 in that we are fearfully and wonderful made and praise God just for this alone. Women are made to feel but we need to feel what God tells us to feel otherwise we could spend our lives a slave to what other people feel. When Jesus Christ comes into our vision He forces us to see what He sees and feel what He feels! We transform from ugly to beautiful without changing our outward appearance at all. Let Jesus have His way in you so you see ‘you’ the way He sees you because beauty is NOT in the eyes of the beholder it is in the eyes of Jesus Christ!
Mediation Verses: 1 Peter 3:3-4; Genesis 1:27; Psalm 139:14
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‘Fear Not’ What is Happening
Do you believe it? Do you know, for certain, the Lord is with you? We can see there is a lot of very weird stuff going on today and it is all leading to one thing – the return of our Lord Jesus. He is in control of the world as we know it today as well as yesterday and tomorrow. If we know this why are so many of us still fearful? We say in our mind, He is in charge, but in our heart we still fear what is too come. We need to get on the side of God and be joyful that He is coming but how? We need to know and meditate on His Words of truth.
There are two very powerful mediations for us. We can go into the Old Testament Psalms to see how the songs tell us to meditate on Him, His Word, His work, His precepts, His statutes and His majesty. Reading these verses is not enough; you need to know Him to be able to know His truth for the future. What if you’re a new Christian (welcome to the family) or a seasoned Christian that doesn’t spend time in the Scriptures (to your shame)? We can go to the New Testament for all the Words God gave Paul to speak to us but I want to get back to the Old Testament again to make my point because the New Testament quotes this book more than any other. Isaiah is a prophet of God who prophesied to the people while they were in conflict with the countries around them including each other (Israel and Judah). Fear consistently gripped the people just as it has gripped Christians today. We are in conflict today, not with the people around us, but with principalities so we need to prepare ourselves by meditating on the Words of God with the intent of taking action. Isaiah 41:8-10 gives us two strong precepts to meditate on in our time of fear: we are chosen and He is with us!
Fear Not, For You are Chosen!
You are here at this moment in time because you have been chosen to be here, even if you do not know why! Our ignorance of the truth doesn’t make the truth any less the truth! Based on this fact the fear we have about ‘the times’ is unfounded. Do we think the Father doesn’t know the times? Do we think He has put us in someone else’s time slot? You, like everyone else alive today who has fear, have been chosen for this time (Ephesians 2:10). Whether we believe it or not, we must take the stance that God has not made an error in placing us here today. We have been chosen by God for this time for His reasons. We need to replace the lie we are a mistake with the truth.
The Truth: You have been taken from the ends of the Earth, and called from its farthest regions by God. He is saying to you, “You are my servant! I have chosen you and have not cast you away.” No matter what you think. Now go about doing good while seeking out that reason rather than questioning your existence!
Fear Not, For He is With You!
We look around us and think we have to be the only one, everyone else is going crazy. I am sure Isaiah thought the same thing about the conflicted children of Israel. People think the craziest stuff and you are the only one who believes what the Words of God speak. Unfortunately, we begin to question the truth God has taught us. People are trying to convince us things not Biblical and preach things not supported by the Scriptures. If we spend more time questioning what we believe than we are on the right track for it is not about what others believe. They will stand before Jesus to give account for their own life while we will give account for ours. Our great God is with us and will teach us but we need to believe this. There are more of us, we just need to have faith that Jesus will reveal them to us when we need them most. We need to replace the lie we are alone with the truth.
The Truth: He is with you and He is YOUR God. He will strengthen you and help you. He will uphold you with His righteous right hand. Now go about doing good while God alone teaches you the truth!
Fear Not, For You Can be Prepared!
Settle in your heart not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things and give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all even if they don’t acknowledge it.
Seek out God first of all and then seek out people who challenge your current knowledge with more truth. Be sure to read every verse I have quoted or linked in this post so you know for sure that even I am in the truth. Seek out the truth for yourself and do not believe peoples truths over Biblical truths. Test every spirit knowing God will teach you what truth is. AND above all walk in the joy of the Lord so others will see your good works and give glory to God (1 Peter 2).
Hard times are coming for those who believe the true God and want to walk in HIS ways alone. Know the times that you will not be thrown to and fro by every freaky doctrine out there. The best defense against fear is truth. Use the truth that you know to learn more truth until all of your fear of the unknown is gone. Each time you are debilitated by fear and use the Words of God to quell it you will come out the other side stronger and able to fight the next attack of fear. Soon enough you will ‘fear not’ for you will know for certain the Lord is with
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It Goes Beyond Heaven!
By Kathleen Derbyshire
If we are lucky the Father will call us into Salvation when we are younger rather than older. Time is a factor for us! We know that anyone can be saved on his or her deathbed. Rumour has it Jeffrey Dahmer got saved before a fellow inmate beat him to death. We might say, “I have been saved for what seems like forever living a decent law abiding life and I will be sitting next to him at the bride’s supper?” How unfair is that? May I remind you of the story in Matthew 20:1-16. The workers were coming all day to work until the end of the day but when quitting time came the boss gave them all the same pay. Some of the workers were annoyed because they’d been working all day and thought they deserved more [paraphrase mine]. Salvation is the same for every Christian regardless of when the time of their Salvation. Jesus and the other writers in the New Testament talk about being in Heaven but God gives us Revelation.
The hope that we have is now about being with Jesus wherever He is. Now, it goes beyond Heaven. Revelation tells us a whole host of things are going to happen that I will let you discover on your own but what we want to concentrate on is when it’s all over. When all is said and done, what will happen to us, those who are saved? Revelation 21 and 22 tell us exactly what will happen to us Saints after the Lake of Fire is gone. John starts with Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. So, everything that happens from here is after the devil and all the unbelievers are in the Lake of Fire. I want you to pay particular attention to the City. The New Jerusalem is where Jesus is going to live; the tree of life will be in the city. Remember the only people left are the Saints. When you get to chapter 21 verse 27 you have already read about how wonderful the City is going to be. 1500 square miles filled with light because the Lord will be its light.
The New Jerusalem is set on the New Earth and the saints are around to watch it happen then Jesus says something peculiar, But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Remember the Lake of Fire is gone and only the Saints remain so who are these people who cannot enter the New Jerusalem. For this answer we need to go to Revelation 22:14-15 Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie. Jesus makes it very clear who can enter and who cannot enter the gates of the New Jerusalem. Those who do His commandments while they are here on this earth will have the right to the tree of life and may enter through the gates into the city and those who do not are outside.
Are you going in or staying outside? I want to encourage you to be able to present yourself mature in the things of God so you can be inside. I want every woman I teach to learn and be able to apply what they have learned into their life so they may enter through the gates into the city. I know that each and every one of you can do exactly that because I am doing it and many other women are too. On this very day I challenge you to read the Word of God and ask Him to reveal to you what He is calling you to do. Learn how to do His commandments so you are walking with me and many other women into the New Jerusalem when it comes down to meet the New Earth.
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A Mantra to get into His Will!
By Kathleen Derbyshire
Have you ever noticed that when things are going well our communication with God is so much better but when things are not so well it is hard to pray? I find my mind wondering back to my problem over again. I think about things that will help solve my problem rather than asking the Holy Spirit to give me the way to solve my problem. As a matter of fact I forget to ask Him in the good times too. Revelation is what I need more than anything else so going it on my own looks less and less useful. We know deep down that God’s ways are the best ways so we should just ask God!
Jeremiah 33:3 should be our mantra if revelation is what we want to solve our problems. I love this verse because it tells me how to get revelation. I am not looking for new information I am looking for information I do not know. I am looking for information regarding the salvation of my problems. I am looking for information regarding the building up of my character. I am looking for information to manage with the world and those who live in it. I’m sure that you are looking for the same thing. We need to know how not to make mistakes or how to recover from the ones we already made. This can only be done if we get revelation from the Father. Let’s pick this verse apart and add others to make sure we fully understand what revelation is and how we can utilize it to do what Jesus really wants us to do. In other words we need revelation to remain in the will of God.
Our mantra Jeremiah 33:3 says, Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.
Let us start with the simple but powerful words from our Lord ‘call to Me.’ He says this because He is the only One who can guide us in a direction that will result in solutions for our troubles. I wish that this was my first line of defense but it is not right now. I call on the Lord when I cannot figure it out on my own. My own strength is my immediate resource for issue resolution. If God has gifted you will administration and exhortation as He has with me you are nodding your head right now but if you have another gifting like mercy, compassion or helps you might go to God first and you are finger wagging me. We are all gifted differently and those giftings lead us in specific directions resulting in not really needing God to be productive BUT that is not what He wants from us. He wants us to call on Him because He is the one who knows what our future holds, what our past was and what our present status is. Psalm 34:17 says emphatically, the righteous cry out and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all of their troubles [emphasis mine]. All we need to do is cry out or call to Him to begin the process of Him hearing us and answering us.
Without the hearing He cannot answer us! Our biggest problem may not be the crying out part but the listening part. Three verses come to mind in this stage of our mantra, Psalm 91:1 and Psalm 42:7-8. The former tells us that we need to dwell in His secret place to learn how to hear Him. His secret place is a hard place to find and be inside of. We have to be persistent in looking and resolute in staying, which means we need to be determined to hear Him. My mind is a terrible place sometimes but that is where the secret place is. We can find a place on this earth that makes us happy and peaceful but the minute we leave it our peace and happiness disappear like a puff of smoke. In this secret place with the Father our hope, peace and joy remain and we carry it with us where ever we go because it is in us not in the world. This is also where that latter verse picks up. In the secret place Deep [God] calls unto deep [us] with the noise of His waterfalls. And all of His waves and billows go over us. If we are indeed in the secret place we will hear everything He has to say. We are being called into the deep with the Father and His deep will go over us resulting in us seeing the great and mighty things He needs to show us.
The vision of God for us is what we need to solve our problems. We want to see what He is doing in the World so that we can go in that direction. We need to see, He is doing His works on this earth, and whether we participate or not, His works will get done (Isaiah 55:10-11). All of our problems stem from being out of the will of God so when we are in the will of God we are participating in His works therefore outside of the problems we have created. When He shows us great and mighty things that we did not know it is His workings on the Earth. If we want to see His workings in Heaven look around because whatever is worked out in heaven is now on the Earth (Matthew 6:10). The great and mighty things are happening but we just don’t see them. If we want to see them then we must dwell in the secret place until we believe and trust in Him. Once this process is done He will give us vision of what He is doing, the things which we do not know.
Our mantra from now on should be Jeremiah 33:3 (HCSB). Our first defence with problem solving is to cry out to God and He will hear us and answer us! He will open our eyes to see what He is doing on the Earth today so we can go that way as well. All of this takes time as well as Spiritually enhanced problem-solving skills that we can only be given to us from the Father. He gives us revelation to go in His direction, which in itself is a problem solving skill that we must nurture in our secret place with Him. As we are called in to the deep His Words wash over us with the shadow of the Almighty. God has, over the years, Revealed in Me that getting revelation is a process every Christian needs to learn! I have enhanced my problem solving skills in the secret place and so can you! If you want to move into the will of God get into that secret place with God and see how He moves!
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The Rewards for Study
I don’t know about you, I am an instant gratification person! Well, that might be a little strong but I like to see the reward from my work. I am a hard worker and I can see the reward sometimes but there are times when I work hard and see nothing, if you know what I mean. I don’t see the reward right away and it bothers me! I see that sometimes when I study the Bible! We have been talking about studying the Bible but do we know what we get out of studying the Bible? What is the reward and exactly when will we see this reward? Does each person get the same reward? Let’s see what the Bible says about that….
2 Timothy 2:15 says rightly dividing the Word of Truth, which is studying the Word and knowing it, means we can present ourselves approved to God an unashamed worker. If we diligently study the Word, God will approve us along with the rest of those who study the Word. Each of us will receive the same reward. This is an amazing thing all by itself because everyone will stand before Jesus one day but we will already be approved before we even stand before Him. That is a great thing to know while I live here on this earth but I must continue to study the Word to continue in that approval.
Joshua 1:8 Meditating in the Word, day and night, will surely help us do all that is written in it therefore we will be rewarded with a prosperous way and good success in what we do. If we meditate in the Word and do the Word, God will make our way prosper and give us good success along with the rest of those who do that same. Each of us will receive the same reward. Another great thing to know while here but I need to continue to meditate on His Word and observing to do all that is written in it to continue going in a prosperous way and having good success in that way!
John 8:31-32 A Disciple of Jesus who abides in His Word shall know the truth and that truth shall set him free. The reward for abiding in His Word is freedom. Abiding is more than just doing it is living. If we spend our days abiding in the things of Jesus we shall know the truth, which in turn shall set us free. Each of us will receive the same reward. Oh, freedom is the greatest thing to know but we must abide and continue to abide to know this freedom in the truth.
Proverbs 25:2 God takes glory in concealing a matter so that His kings can search it out to our glory. The reward for searching out a matter is glory from God. We should never be satisfied with our current knowledge but always searching out the matters of God. If we spend our days searching out matters from the Word we will obtain glory from God just like the rest of us kings who do the same. Each of us will receive the same reward. How wonderful it is to know that Jesus will see me as a king and bestow glory on me as long as I continue to search out the matters of God.
We know that all of these rewards are contingent on us continuing in mining for the treasures of God. He wants us to study so that our soul will be overtaken with doing the right thing, the will of God. Our soul will always want to do the ME thing but God wants us to do His thing and that is why we study the Word; to know God and to love Him so much that we do His will out of love.
Please don’t study the Word for your head or for the world, study for your heart and God will reward you mightily with approval, freedom, glory, a prosperous way, good success and so many more. Study the Bible to find other rewards and be further rewarded.
