Rejoice Through The Process

Deut8:2 “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands.

Your attitude in the wilderness is far more important than you getting out of it. Learning to priase God and rejoice in our Saviour is also a lesson to be learnt. At midnight, whilst in the prison, Paul and Silas sang praises to God and Bam! there prison doors were swung open.

If you are going through trouble right now or any kind of suffering, or have added responsibility in your life which seems overwhelming, I encourage you to remain stable and controlled in your attitude. Since you cannot change where you are or what you’re going through, you can choose how you respond. Choose to praise God instead of complaining! Choose to rejoice instead of bowing your head, Choose to still walk in love, choose to still go out and help others instead of becoming self engrossed. Why?  Because you know that God works all things together for your good. It is in this high places of challenges that you grow. Once your response is right and stable you are close to getting out of that situation.

Hab3:17-18 “Though the fig-tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

In other words, though my situation has not changed and my breakthrough has not yet come, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. Why?

Verse19 says “The sovereign God is my strength, my personal bravery, my invisible army. He will make my feel like hinds feet and cause me to walk, not stand still in terror but walk, and make spiritual progress upon the high places of my trouble, suffering or responsibility.(amplified)

If you can manage to stay stable in your trial, you will begin to grow spiritually and make progress in your walk with the Lord. That is a great achievement; making spritual progress.

Beloved, what we are going through, whether hardship or discipline is momentary. Be encouraged by this scripture in Heb12:11 “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Praise God for the second part of that scripture. There is a harvest to look forward to. Let’s begin to rejoice. Again, I say, rejoice!

Co-operating With Gods Process

I don’t know if anyone can identify with me but I was recently thinking, wondering why I seem to be going round and round in circle in this area. Why am I not making progress or having victory in this area of my life.

God spoke to me and opened my eyes to the fact that I am yet to pass a test that I have been taking over and over again. I’m sure the analogy of sitting exams at school or college is familiar to everyone. It became clear to me that I have not yielded to Gods process of developing my character. He showed me in His word that His priority is to build character in His children. He has already given us everything that pertains to life and godliness but our character is far more important than any gifting, talent, or achievement that God has given us.

Rom12:12 says “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Patience can also be defined as endurance, to persevere. Enduring triumphantly is necessary for a Christian because affliction is his inevitable experience.

As shown in Jhn16:33 “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart I have overcome the world

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Rom5:3-4 says “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our suffering, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope”.

A Christian can rejoice in suffering because he knows that it is not meaningless. Part of Gods purpose is to develop character in His children.

We shared in the previous blog that we come to know God and develop an experiential knowledge of Him through what we suffer (our challenges).

Since our challenges and struggles are channels through which God matures us, I beseech thee to ask Him for grace to be to co-operate with His character building process so that we do not become weary and lose heart. God is not in hurry and until he matures our character there are certain things we cannot tap into, certain heights we cannot reach.

The children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 yrs instead of entering into their promise in 40 days because they did not cooperate with Gods process. That will not be our portion in Jesus name.

Do You Know Who You Worship?

I was preparing for worship recently and was pondering on the song “How great is our God”. My heart was a bit heavy because I was dealing with a situation and as I pondered on the greatness of God, the Holy Spirit spoke into my heart and said “Do you really know the greatness of the God you worship or do you just sing about it. The story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well dropped into my spirit and God began to speak to me, what I’m about to share with you.

It reads in John 4:22 that “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; We worship what we do know; for salvation is from the Jew”.

The Jews claimed to know God because they had encountered Him and His power in various ways since their miraculous deliverance from Egypt. They experienced God’s deliverance, experienced the cloud of glory that protected them as they ran from the Egyptian army, and the cloud that rested on their tent as they journeyed through the wilderness. They experienced God’s miraculous provision of food, water from the rock, and saw Gods powerful judgement when they sinned. They saw their shoes grow with their feet, and through all the stressful conditions they were subjected to, none was feeble amongst them.
They could claim that they knew God for themselves because they saw His mighty acts over an over again.

God then told me that the only way one can claim to know another is through a relationship of some kind. The only way that we can claim to know God is through our personal relationship and experiences with Him.

God said He allows situations and circumstances in our lives so that we can experience Him personally. That is how we can claim that we know God. The opportunities given to us by virtue of the challenges we face are the channel by which we get to have an experiential knowledge of God.

What I’m saying is that I cannot say I know God as the Healer if I have not been healed of some kind of illness. I cannot boldly declare as truth that He is my Provider if I have not suffered lack. I cannot claim he is my Deliverer if I have not experienced His deliverance, neither can I claim He is my Help if I have never been overwhelmed and in need of help.

This tells me that we need to change our perception of the things we go through. We need to embrace those situations in our lives that seems like are from hell because through them God is going to reveal different aspects of Himself and His power in our lives.

James 1:2 says “Count it all joy when you face trials of many kinds knowing that the testing of your faith develops perseverance”.

This has not been one of my favourites scriptures and I'm sure most of you would agree with me, but I now understand what God is saying. His intension is to work out maturity in you. His intension is to ensure your faith is strong and entire, lacking nothing. You can count it all joy because God is using the situation as an opportunity to reveal Himself to you.

This experiential knowledge of God is very vital if we are going to be able to say that we know God. Then, when we worship through our songs we are not just singing about the former days of Gods power, we can worship in spirit and in truth because He is as real to us now as in the days of old. That experience you have of God would bring new revelation to the songs you sing.

I enjoy reading about God’s great acts in the bible because they are an assurance that He can do mightier things for me now, if I believe. However, it is time to seek a first hand experiential knowledge of God .

I want to encourage you to persevere, trust, and see God revealed in your life through your situations. I long to hear others declare "The God of Toro". The God of.........(put your name).

Shalom!