Clothed and Walking
April 21, 2022
Deuteronomy 8:1-6
Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. 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. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.
Clothed and Walking
If we truly want to know God’s provision in every circumstance in our lives then we must experience what it is not to have. We have to experience the night before we truly appreciate what it is to have the light of day. Often, we don’t always understand the things we must go through, the losses that we must endure and why sometimes God doesn’t seem there for us. We all have our own wilderness journey in one form or another. Through it all we have been tested to see what was in our hearts. Would we continue to trust God, even when He didn’t seem to show up, meet our need or answer our prayer? When things didn’t go our way, did we blame Him? Many of life’s heartaches and hardships have really tested us to see if when we couldn’t understand His hand, we would trust His heart. Yet in those times as we look back, we see the subtle grace of God at work helping us, comforting us and giving us strength when we had no more of our own.
Some of us are at this place in our walk right now. We are struggling with finances, with health, with relationships or job issues. Sometimes we reach that point where we want to just rebel, get mad or give up. Your heart is being tested. It is not out of meanness or lack of caring, but when a muscle is stretched and pushed beyond limits, it must continue to grow in order to meet the demands placed upon it. It is not easy. It is painful. What we forget is that we are not just an ordinary people, we are an extraordinary people. We are becoming that because God is taking us the extra mile and stretching us beyond our human limitations. He is preparing us for extraordinary times. Yet, as we will respond to Him in faith and obedience, we see His grace at work in supernatural ways in other areas of our life.
God is separating us from our reliance upon our flesh and our dependence upon this world. He is stretching us to know supernatural provision and strength. We don’t find that when we are in pursuit of worldly goods or earthly fame and significance. We find it in the humility of walking in His discipline and discipleship. We will never fully appreciate the bread that is our provision until we first pursue and find the bread that feeds our spirit and our soul. We could say, “seek ye first the bread of life, and all these things shall be added unto you.” Jesus tells the following that pursued Him after He fed the multitude in John 6:26-27, “Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” Jesus is the fulfillment of that manna which came out of heaven. It is not in the attainment of physical needs and wants that we are filled and completed, it is in our partaking of Him in personal relationship, faith and obedience that we find the true bread of life. When you have truly found Him, then all of your superficial needs are met as well. That need that we have is not always seen and met in the present tense, but it is met in faith as we embrace Him.
God is our loving heavenly Father who disciplines us as His sons. He is often willing that our flesh would suffer so that our spirits may grow. Most of us are here and now kind of people. We are most concerned with what we are facing right here and right now. Be not concerned with the cares of the moment, God is seeing you in a much greater role, one in which you must be tested, tried and proven. That is just as He was doing in Joseph when through years of suffering and hardship, God was all the time preparing Him for leadership and government. Could Joseph have faithfully and adequately done what he did for Egypt, if God had not prepared and raised Him in His purpose through strong discipline and adversity? Like he told his brothers, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.” You may think the devil is out to destroy you, but what he would mean for evil, God will use for good. Romans 12:12 exhorts us, “Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer.” If you are enduring the discipline of the Lord, then rejoice, because God has marked you for better things. What He has called you too, He will prepare you for.
We are no longer walking in this worldly economy as kingdom people are; we are walking in a kingdom economy and for a kingdom purpose. In this journey God will clothe you with His righteousness that will not wear thin and He will put the strength in your feet to walk the walk of the cross as He shods them with the preparation of the gospel. We are people that are rich beyond measure, but our riches are not measured by earthly standards. God is our standard and in Him there is no lack or weakness. Let us pursue Him who is our Bread of life, provision and godliness. In Him we will know no lack. Even in our correction He will sustain us.
Blessings,
#kent
The Wounded and Broken
September 23, 2015
This Day
September 8, 2015
Isaiah 60: 1-5
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. 2 See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. 3 Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. 4 “Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the arm. 5 Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come.”
This Day
This day are we seeing this scripture fulfilled in our midst. A tremendous stirring and emerging of the Spirit of God in the midst of His people is coming forth. We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg of what the Lord is preparing to bring forth. There is a trumpet sound of heaven going forth and there is anticipation and excitement arising in the heart of God’s called out people in this hour. The Lord is assembling His troops. He is training them, preparing them and setting them in rank. This scripture is exactly why, we His people, do not despair or fear, because when gross darkness covers the earth it is a sign that we are about to take flight into heavenly places as the glory of the Lord comes upon His people and all of the earth is drawn to her light.
As I am speaking with God’s people I am so encouraged and in awe of what the Father is working and doing in the hearts of so many. Right now, in this moment many of us are standing at the end of our resources. God has brought us to this place for a reason. It is so He can show Himself mighty in His people and that He is all of the resource that we need. He has brought to the place where we are hanging on by a thread, we have cried out to God for help and He is telling us what scares the life out of so many of us, “LET GO”. Most of us are reasoning with our natural minds, “If I let go I will fall to my death and be dashed in pieces by the rocks below. All will be lost.” Jesus is saying, “He who seeks to save His life will lose it, but He who loses His life for my sake shall find it (Mark 8:35).”
The paradigm God is bringing us into in this hour is that our lives are not about us any more as individuals. Our lives are about kingdom purpose, kingdom principles and kingdom living. Our wealth is no longer about individual gain, but will be seen in corporate distribution. Our lack has come because we have been individuals seeking our own prosperity while the Lord’s house lies in ruin. It is time for us to join our resources, our talents and our abilities to build and restore the house of God, which is the body of Christ. We are each other’s greatest assets. We can not be truly blessed and prosper until the body comes together in unity and oneness of purpose. It is every joint supplying the need as it arises and we are able. We are no longer a bunch of individuals that meet together once or twice a week, we are a family that loves and cares for one another on daily basis.
Why doesn’t the world see the love of Christ? Jesus says, “By this shall all [men] know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. (John 13:35)” This is not a day of denominations and religious camps, it is day when we must start flowing in the love of God for one another. If you love Jesus and truly know Him as Lord, it is not important that all of your beliefs are exactly like mine. You are still flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone in Christ.
The glory of God will fall when the love of God arises in the hearts of His people and they learn not to be takers, but givers. We will learn to no longer live just for our benefit, but for the benefit of our brother and sister. As we operate in these principles we will see wealth begin to flow into the body of Christ as never before. It the simple kingdom principle, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33)”
This day God is stirring our hearts with His love as we come out of our private, guarded houses where we have lived for our own agenda and seeking our own prosperity. We are coming together to build the house of the Lord and when we do, from this day forth we will be blessed.
This day hear the trumpet of the Lord calling us together and assembling us for the common purpose of building His house. When we build His house, He will fill it with His glory!
Blessings,
#kent
The Will and Do of His Good Pleasure
October 23, 2013
The Will and Do of His Good Pleasure
Philippians 2:13
For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure.
You and I are a work in progress. How many times would we just like to give up and say, “it is no use, I’ll never change?” The Lord is encouraging us to do one thing, look to Him. It doesn’t matter what we see; it doesn’t matter what others say about us or to us. It doesn’t matter that satan is the accuser of the brethren and is forever parading our faults and shortcomings before us. God hasn’t called us to be the works of our own hands, “for it is God, which worketh in you both to will and to do His good pleasure!” God not only wants too, but it is at work in your life in ways you don’t even see or know. What is that saying, “a watched pot never boils?” When we are looking at our lives we don’t often see the many obvious changes, but the Lord is working in us over the course of a lifetime. The more we are willing to submit these vessels to the will and do of His good pleasure the faster that work can be accomplished. The Lord is always steadfast and faithful; the problem is, we aren’t. We so often want to take these little rabbit trails that depart from His perfect will for us and get off doing our own thing rather than His. Yet He is faithful even in that to work in us and use the errors of our ways to correct us, teach us and instruct us in righteousness. So many times we are like our children, we can’t just take God’s Word about what is best for us, we have to do it our way and then endure the consequences of our stubbornness and disobedience.
God never loves us less or desires less for us. He has His perfect plan for our lives. Our greatest joy is to find the center of His will for us. When we are abiding in that place and find the center of His good pleasure we are fulfilled and content as well. It is like when we realize that it is in blessing others that we are blessed and that there is no greater joy than bringing joy and blessing to others. We can never be as content doing our own pleasure as we can be in fulfilling God’s good pleasure for us. This is true success in life. It doesn’t even matter what the outward surroundings are, “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, [therewith] to be content (Philippians 4:11).” 1 Timothy 6:8 says, “Having food and raiment let us be therewith content.” It isn’t in the abundance of the things we possess that we ever find our contentment, that is only found in the center of God’s will. We have a concept in our Christian culture today that if we aren’t wealthy and prosperous we aren’t living the “blessed life.” How many of the apostles and prophets do you see in God’s Word living the “good life” by the world’s standards? If you are and that’s where God has you, that is great. There is nothing wrong with being blessed materially in this life, but that isn’t the essence and meaning of our lives. That essence and meaning for our lives is only found in the center of God’s will. That is where we find true riches. It may be in some stench filled hovel in India or in the kitchen of your home raising these crazy little kids. If you are in the will and do of God’s good pleasure then you are experiencing the riches of heaven.
Even if you are in that place of discouragement where you are looking at your life as just a failure and waste then you are discounting and denying God’s great love and purpose for you. Sometimes we have to get off of our pity pots of self-doubt and failure and get our eyes on the Lord and not on ourselves. We all are cracked pots with weaknesses and failures, but we serve a mighty and perfect God that loves us never the less, in spite of those weaknesses and failures. Let it always be in our prayers that God will work “the will and do of His good pleasure in us” to the end that we might, in return, bring Him pleasure and blessing.
“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)”
Blessings,
kent