The other day I was having a conversation with another ministry leader and we were sharing about God’s dealings in our lives. There are those times when the things you believe and speak forth do not seem to be happening. There are those times when we seem to be going round the same mountain over and over again. We have the choice to give up and consider that God’s word is unreliable or to get to the bottom of the problem. And one of the ways we do this is we go back to God and rather than talk, listen.
Truth is, often there is too much of us and too little of God in our interaction with the Father; we need to learn to listen more, put aside our own ideas of what should be happening now, why it is not, and who God needs to fix or kill to get things moving, set aside any expression of frustration with God since God is never wrong, and just listen. It’s the time to say, Lord, please give me your take on what is going on here, tell me what is on your mind and what I ought to be thinking, feeling and doing right now; tell me what the problem is and how to fix it.
One of the things we found is that in some of those times God will take us back to something He had told us to do that we had neglected to do. Sometimes we did not think we had actually disobeyed, we were just inconsistent in our obedience or perhaps putting it off till later, but we certainly intended to do it, at some point. At other times, it was, one must admit, egregious and outright refusal. I have found that as soon as I started obeying things began to turn around. When we get back in harmony with God the devil must take his hands off our affairs.
The Bible says ‘He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. (Prov. 28.13)’ . Basically we need to have the good sense to recognize when we are wrong, and we do not need to make excuses to justify our behaviour either, making excuses means I refuse to take responsibility for my actions. When we do that, one, we refuse to repent and we will not be forgiven, two, we will continue to fall into the same pit because we attribute the sin to factors outside of ourselves, we make no personal commitment to change, so we will not be delivered and consequently will not see victory.
The books of Exodus and Deuteronomy are replete with examples of divine instruction to obedience and promise of subsequent blessing. The truth is that even as believers there are consequences to our choices, God does not bless disobedience. God says ‘if you will carefully obey the Lord your God, do what is right in His eyes….’ followed with a promise of healing, elsewhere, ‘if you carefully obey My commands I am giving you today…I will provide…..You will eat and be satisfied’ followed with a promise of provision, and then ‘if you carefully observe every one of these commands I am giving you to follow…. you will drive out nations greater and stronger than you are..’ followed with a promise of supernatural ability and victory.
All this to a people contaminated by 400 years of living in the midst of people who worshipped other gods, they had bagage, they had a past, like many of us, but He says follow me, choose to obey and i will bless. There is divine ability to overcome the most difficult, challenging and disastrous situations when we choose to walk in obedience. We cannot live any wretched way we want and expect to have a wonderful life anyway. God in His goodness will often move with power to touch people by His anointing, through the Word, in prayer, despite their current state of disobedience, but there are those who lose it because they refuse subsequently to obey God and do things His way. He brought Israel out of Egypt with a mighty hand but many perished in the wilderness because of persistent disobedience.
Be quick to seize the time of your visitation then go into God’s word and grow; choose to follow the Lord and set your life right. Stop holding others responsible for your own foolishness, in other words, repent and accept for God to change you. In those challenging moments, it is time to find out from the Lord what you need to do, what you have been neglecting and what His perspective is on your actions. And then do what He says. God does not play favourites, what we put into the relationship determines what comes out of it. If we will agree to clear out the debris in our lives, there is no telling what amazing edifices He will construct to His glory.
Shalom!