Tag: waiting

Against All Hope

If the ups and downs of our lives were pinpoints on a graph, what would yours look like? Would it be one straight line going up? Or would it look like a mountain range with highs and lows? Throughout our lives, we encounter blessings, victories, trials, and hardships. But how are we remaining hopeful even in the lows of life?

Jesus told his disciples in John 16:33 “In this world, you will have trouble but take heart! I have overcome the World.”

So when you’re against all hope when it feels as if the odds are stacked against you. Ask yourself

  1. Will I still believe it anyways?
  2. Will I let anything stop me from believing?
  3. Will I always expect God to answer?

Abraham was “against all hope,” it says in Romans 4:18 “In Hope, he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told.”

Abraham hoped when there was no hope. The hope he had made no human sense, Abraham hoped when the facts were contrary to logic. They were both well past the age of childbearing but “Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age since she considered him faithful who had promised.” – Hebrews 11:11

They didn’t let what was contrary become the roadblock to their promise, they were against all hope but yet they still believed. What is it in your life that you’ve been believing for? Are you hoping against all hope?

Strength for the Weary

Have you ever been in a place when you needed strength? Who do you look too? How do you receive this strength that you are needing? Do you know that in this life we can’t do it on our own, we need help, we need His strength.

“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited…”

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me…”

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:7-9 

“Living this life can only be lived through His strength”

His strength is limitless. When we are at our weakest that is when His strength becomes the greatest! But are we seeking for His strength? Are we asking for His strength when feel as if though you can’t take another step?

Fact: Strength is grown and developed and we can’t grow or develop without seeking Him.

Q: Where can we find this strength? How do we receive strength?

There is strength for those who hope

“ My soul, wait silently for God alone,

For my expectation is from Him.”

Psalm 62:5

The true source for our strength only comes from the hope we have in Him. 

There is strength for those who seek 

  • “Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.” – Psalm 105:3-4
  • When we begin to praise in our weakness, when we begin to look up, we begin to have hope and joy, joy is the strength of the Lord.
  • “Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face continually.” – 1 Chronicles 16:11

  • There is strength for those who wait

Isaiah 40:31 

“But they who wait (hope) for the Lord shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
    they shall walk and not faint.”

He Was Right Their Waiting

John 4:7-15   7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

This story explains the longing of the human soul, the desire to fill the void that man alone cannot fill but yet so many are visiting these empty wells that can never satisfy. But only He can fill. Here are 3 key areas of how He meets us where we are.

  1. He breaks down barriers

The Woman was a Samaritan and Jesus was a Jew. That’s like having a democrat and republican in the same room, there’s going to be some tension. Not only that, but a man talking to a woman was not of that time. But history tells us that the samaritans and Jews was fierce and long-standing. It dates all the way back to the patriarchs. 

Jesus doesn’t care about your social status or what party you vote for. He rises above all that Because He sees through your walls, He knows the shape you are in and He wants to be right in the middle of it all. But will we let Him?

  1. He knows our needs

Jesus knows this World cannot satisfy the heart. He knows the possessions, talents, gifts that He has given us will not fill us with contenment but only will make us long for more. The World is an empty well, but The Well only offers the Living Water. He met this woman because He knew she needed to hear Him and to see Him. 

  1. He is always waiting

She came for the water, but she didn’t know of a Living Water who was already their waiting for her. In our darkest moments, in our time of a need. He is always there at the well, no matter how fast we run to that Well, He is always there waiting before we get there. What is it that you need today? Come to Well today.

Fan or Follower? Part 3

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Part 3
“Diversify”

“Diversify your walk in Me”

An afternoon dinner party a few months back at my sisters house. Enjoying the time off and not trying to think about anything even ministry (which is hard to block out). Having a good time that I needed, relaxing, away from work, away from it all. I try sometimes my best; not to be an absent mind from God, but to leave the “deadlines” that I set for my blogsite and messages that I constantly critique. When all of a sudden, God spoke “Diversify your walk in Me”.

I immediately Googled the word “diversify”, I knew that it had came from the word divide. Here’s what I got.
Diversify – change, expand, transform, alter, spread out, branch out

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HHMM? What God? Have I messed up somewhere? I immediately asked God to turn the spot light on in my heart to see if there were anything that did not line up with His Word. I heard nothing back, nor did I feel conviction. On the drive home, I began to think about that more, “Diversify your walk in Me.”

Point 1. Be Set Apart

Was I being serious in my walk with Christ at the time? We all say that we could improve on this but our number one problem to this is the word complaceny. If we are to be set apart, one cannot be complacent, it would defeat the term of being set apart, that would be like someone saying that they are going to workout seven days a week a couple of hours but yet eating a Snicker’s as they do so, it’s got protein, right? That’s the problem we always have the excuse of what our complaceny problem is good for. The Snicker’s, the protein, helps build muscle? No, but how much muscle? Not enough grams to make any difference, it’s got more junk than good. Instead of drinking the right protein, such as whey protein, we always go for the stuff that taste better, resulting in less performance. Spiritually speaking, yielding no fruit. But we do what we want to do. It’s human nature, right? WRONG. We must die daily, shedding our identity by dying to the flesh.

Point 2. Standing Still

There will be obstacles and situations that come our way as we question God as if we don’t think He is doing it the right way. Three years ago I had looked at what God had done in my ministry and the church’s that I had preached at and thought to myself, what happened? Was it laziness, complacency? My pastor had told me that God was going to use me in the local churches, and he was right, a month later I was getting calls, held a Revival, and so forth.

It all changed when I had gotten a promotion at my job a few years back that I had been wanting for a long time, the call’s to preach slowly declined. The promotion, I looked at it as a blessing. On the other hand, it hurt me inside, I was constantly thinking that God was done with me, he had seen that I wasn’t cut out for it. Was that a lie that I had believed? Why yes, God doesn’t make mistakes nor does He call someone to do His will without the proper gifts that He has gaven that person. Nor, does He call the qualified, He qualifies the called. I had been putting myself in the driver seat by not allowing God to use me when He was calling out to me. See how easy it is? I was looking at another option, like going to college and getting a degree in marketing and advertising. I prayed that evening that God would show me, tell me what is next, I was at my breaking point.

An hour before service started I had prayed, I knew God would answer me somehow, someway. I was at the alter for a simple alter call that the congregation came up for, I was the last one to leave that alter. Hoping, waiting, speculating an answer. A dear friend of mine who is also in the ministry, had came up behind me as I was knelt down and God began to speak to me “I am not done with you, there are doors that I will open, but at this time I am preparing you before you walk through those doors.” What a relief, I needed conformation, and God delivered.

{We constantly should be on the move, all the time, letting Him perfect our faith as we walk by faith, not standing still but running with all that is within us} “Run with endurance the race that is set before us”. – Hebrews 12:1

I was standing still. Waiting on Him when all that He was doing was waiting on me. We walk by faith not stand by it, we are scared of what’s in front of us if we don’t visibly see it. That’s where faith overcomes this “fear” We must work out faith by taking action. Or like me in this situation, we begin to stand still on the sidelines becoming a fan instead of a follower.

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be ready stay