Blessed In The Presence Of Your Enemies: Tell Them “Try Walking In My Shoes!”

This is probably the shortest blog as I’m going to get straight into it.

The Psalm

In Psalm 23 David is speaking in very detailed terms about his relationship with God. He details extensively and from the outset speaks about his relationship where he is submitted to God, who is his Shepherd, who provides everything he needs. The One who gives Him rest and guides his life on right paths giving him peace. Importantly he makes the point that God is the One who brings him back into alignment when he walks outside of God’s will (He restores my soul). He makes no bones about the fact that along his life path he has had to tread some pretty tricky waters where he has walked through the lowest parts (probably some very humbling times) where satan was no doubt masquerading in front of his very eyes trying to obscure and break his focus on God, and introduce him to fear (even of death) – BUT David says that he feared no evil! Such was the strength of his relationship with God that he knew that God was with him, and that being the Good Shepherd, God would protect and support him using His rod and staff respectively.

Up to this point, it sounds like David has been through a mighty lot in developing a very strong and close relationship with God. Then the next part of Psalm 23 seems to talk about the other side of the trials… a bit like when God started to turn the captivity of Job after such catastrophic trials of his faith.

David says God prepares a table in front of him in the presence of his enemies, anoints his head with oil, and he has been given so much from God that the blessings are more than he can contain.

And this means what to me?….

In short this almost serves as a bit of a guide to what life is like walking with God and developing a deep relationship with Him. It all starts with submission and surrender. Then as you do this, God leads you into something like a gym for faith (aka wilderness) and in that place you go on a designated course of apparatus (which are trials in life) each of which are designed to (i). make the muscles of your faith grow strong thereby (ii). developing your relationship with God and (iii). teach you lessons about living life according to God’s principles.

There are going to be low points, lonely points and points where you actually wonder to yourself “where is God?” because the devil is all up in your face (this is what it means by walking through the valley of the shadow of death – you only get shadows when something is blocking your path of light. If you are walking and God who IS THE LIGHT is going before you, it must mean that the thing standing between you and God trying to block His Light, your focus and cause you to see everything other than God (even death to induce fear) is the devil himself). Yet even in such times David saw the Hand of God that protected and support him (rod and staff).

The captivity turned around..

After the trials of faith which come to refine us into pure gold, meaning to become the exact Masterpiece that God had in mind when He created us before the foundations of the earth were laid and ready for His use and purposes, then at that point He fulfils the Deuteronomy 28 ‘Blessings For Obedience’ . This is the point where you get the table prepared before you in the presence of your enemies, the cup runneth over and you get double for your trouble!

The enemies part...

Let’s quickly cast our minds over to Mark 8:31-38 where Jesus was explaining the course of His destiny (to be crucified and rise again after 3 days). Sitting with Jesus listening to all this was Peter, who loved Jesus and followed Him closely. Yet when Jesus explained His destiny, Peter rebuked Jesus!

What is the significance of this? Several things:

i). Your enemies are probably closer than you realise.

ii). Enemies are not always the ones who mean you direct harm. In fact, enemies can be the ones closest to you who get so used to you being at a certain level with them that they literally cannot bear the thought of  you moving into your destiny, especially if it means a level of separation. Not everyone can go to the next level of your destiny, and you cannot always go into the next chapter of level with some people. When people cannot accept that gracefully it becomes an issue and they become an enemy because their ‘issues’ are now standing as an inhibitor to your elevation into destiny.  It doesn’t mean that they don’t love you. I’m sure Peter very much loved Jesus. It just means that from the time people cannot genuinely support you into your destiny for their own reasons, they become an enemy of your purpose. In its simplest of terms, satan is the enemy of God simply because he cannot accept the destiny that God has chosen for mankind because of his own will (5 ‘I wills’ – Isaiah 14:12-15).  Thus in a nutshell, ‘enemy’ includes both those whom actively seek to destroy you but also those who cannot accept your destiny.

iii) . Because the people at (ii) above tend to be closest to you, the table is most certainly prepared in their presence. I think another major reason why God blesses you in front of them is because these people tend to think they know all the answers: why you should be doing this instead of that, why xyz didn’t work out, they literally have all the answers about life, and particularly your life.  BUT GOD knows your heart and all He is seeking is someone whose heart is perfect towards HIM! Those are the raw materials He can work with. So whilst they are out there judging and hating on you for what looks like failures in your life, God is taking you through that gym of obstacle courses to build you up in the most holy faith and prepare you for the awesome destiny that He has for you. And then suddenly… God acts and the enemies, frenemies and haters get real mad because they  have a front row seat and cannot understand why God has blessed you! What they didn’t realise is whilst they were microscopically analysing your life, God was slowly elevating you, first because He is God and He can do as He pleases, and secondly because you have been focused on Him and your heart, mind and soul are continually focused on HIM and Kingdom matters!  By blessing you in front of them God is in His own way teaching them something, but whether they will choose to learn, or remain caught up in envy and jealousy is totally another matter.

iv).  The table is not just any table by the way, it is a feast. You will be celebrated publicly and God will honour you publicly.

v). Remain HUMBLE. Don’t get caught up on being celebrated that you forget that what got you to this point is being Kingdom focused. Remain Kingdom focused. God has a Kingdom Purpose for your life. You haven’t come THIS FAR to forsake it out of pride (think Saul 1 Samuel 15).

A note to remember

There will be ‘haters’. Those people that walk in on your life in the ‘blessing stage’, or the people who have conveniently forgotten all the trials and struggles that you endured to reach the blessing stage, by God’s abounding grace. Probably the most graceful thing you could say to a hater is that they are welcome to walk in your shoes in order for God to bless them the way He has blessed you. It really isn’t worth wasting energy on haters because the paucity of their understanding is so focused on human concerns that they are unable to see the bigger picture of Kingdom matters. That’s a pity, pray for them and don’t get drawn into any kind of vitriol. In fact, this is exactly what Jesus told Peter!

Can i get an Amen?!! So keep walking your walk of faith and endure the gym of trials. Please endure as God has a good destiny and purpose for your life… He will turn the captivity around if you endure, complete with a table, a banquet, a celebration BUT most important of all a PREDESTINED PURPOSE for your life!

Stay blessed.

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Great Steps of Faith & Keeping The Faith

Sometimes my good people, just sometimes in life we are squeezed to a point where the only way out is a BIG ENORMOUS step of faith! You know what I’m talking about – those situations where you literally cannot remain where you are any longer (for whatever reason) but the next step that you have to take feels exceedingly uncomfortable and completely uncertain by all logical explanation. What do you do in such circumstances? Have you ever thought that perhaps sometimes God allows certain situations to come our way as a catalyst for change to elevate us in our destiny (yet oftentimes it is change we sometimes resist). And in the process of elevation, our faith is literally put to the test! Where we are is uncomfortable, but where we have to go seems so uncertain and we cannot reason with our logical minds why this next step is the right step. Many times we end up confusing ourselves as to which direction we should take, not because we don’t know (because deep down in the quietness of our souls, we know), but because the next step involves us facing our fears. That voice of fear yells “it doesn’t make sense”, “suppose you fail”, “is this really God”….  And rather than face fear and move forward we remain at the edge of our circumstances frantically trying to figure out what to do. Peace evades us and we have to make a decision. What do you do?

Well this is exactly the depiction of the scenario in Matthew 14:22-32. We are more familiar with it being referred to as the scene where Jesus walks on water. Let’s reflect exactly what happened here.

A trying day

It had been one trying day to say the least. Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist was beheaded by order of King Herod. This was Jesus’ cousin whom when Jesus’ pregnant aunt Elizabeth heard pregnant Virgin Mary’s greeting, John leapt in the womb. This is a significant cousin relationship. Upon Jesus hearing of John’s beheading He withdrew to a solitary place by boat, but when he landed on shore He found a large crowd waiting for Him. Jesus had compassion on them and healed their sick. Time was passing, evening was approaching, they were in this remote place with a large crowd who had been with them for some significant time and needed to eat. The disciples were conscious of the situation at hand and knew very well that they only had five loaves and two fish. Because of this they told Jesus to send the crowds away so that they could feed themselves, however Jesus told the disciples to give the crowd something to eat. Pause. This looks like an impossible situation right? Right. Proceed. Jesus told the disciples to bring the food to Him and directed the people to sit down on the grass. He looked up to heaven, gave thanks and broke the loaves which He then gave to the disciples who distributed it amongst the people.  There were 5000 men, not even counting the women and children who were there. Yet after feeding everyone until they were satisfied the disciples picked up 12 basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.  They had 12 basketfuls of leftovers from what looked like an impossible situation before Jesus touched it. Bear that in mind. The disciples had just witnessed a miracle!

 

Why is all this relevant before we get to the walking on water episode?

Because there’s a lesson in it ALL.  God is omniscient, He knows everything and all of our life situations and is in all of our tomorrows. Deuteronomy 31:8 says the Lord goes before us and will be with us. However in the midst of a trial we often need a little reassurance that God is with us and for us so that we know we are NOT ALONE. Because God is so ahead of us in all of our life situations, He prepares us in advance by making us bear witness to His Hand moving in impossible situations our lives, so that when we come up against hard times, we don’t have to question whether we can depend on Him to rescue us. So remember what just happened. The disciples witnessed a miracle of Jesus feeding more than 5000 with five loaves, two fishes and had 12 baskets full of leftovers. Okay let’s proceed.

Walking on Water – The Actual Trial of Faith

After this Jesus sent the disciples ahead of Him to get into the boat and travel to the other side. Jesus remained back and dismissed the crowd and went off to pray.  Now later that night the boat was in the sea at a considerable distance from the land and was being violently battered by the wind. Jesus obviously knew this. Then at dawn He went out to meet them walking on the water. The disciples cried out in fear thinking that they were seeing a ghost, but immediately Jesus reassured them that it was Him.  Pause. Sometimes when we’re in the midst of a terrible situation what we ‘know’ we don’t always recognise or register because our minds are focussed on the troubles around us. These disciples had spent significant time with Jesus so you’d think they’d recognise His physical appearance. Yet even if they didn’t recognise His appearance, they should have recognised His voice when He spoke to them, they’d been around Him long enough! However, when you’re in the midst of a storm, it is so easy to get caught up in fear of the circumstances around you rather than focus on the presence and Word of God.  Now let’s just take stock of the situation at hand. The boat has been getting violently shaken by the winds all night until now finally dawn Jesus shows up. The disciples have had enough time to recognise that they were literally in a trying situation because I’m sure it was not easy for them being out in the middle of the sea for the whole night having their boat getting battered by the winds and questioning their future. We are just like that. Sometimes we are pushed to the point from the storms in our lives that we are actually considering what our future will look like. Let’s recognise ourselves in this picture. Then after a while Jesus shows up. They don’t recognise His voice but they desperately want to believe it is Jesus, because they know Jesus means Helper! Peter called out “Lord if it’s you tell me to come to you on the water”.  Sometimes we just want ‘a Word’ to confirm that we really should step out amidst situations of fear. So Jesus gave the Word “Come”.

The Strategy

Like many of us we know when we’ve heard a Word from God, so we muster the courage and step out in faith. Likewise Peter got out of the boat and started walking toward Jesus. He was focussed on what the Lord had told Him to do. Nobody said that when you step out in obedience that all storms will cease, but we do know that we have God’s Word that He will never leave us nor forsake us, so if we have His Word we can depend on it, especially in a storm.  Peter was doing good, focussing on the Lord. However, his focus changed to his circumstances and he saw the wind and was afraid. Now if he saw the wind AND remembered with deep conviction the miracle that Jesus had literally just done some hours before (with the fish and loaves), Peter would have had every confidence in Jesus – Peter would have asked Jesus to rebuke the wind and it would literally have been a different story.

However that’s not what actually happened. Peter’s focus shifted to the storm. Okay these things happen but it’s better keep your focus on the Lord and His Word. Jesus gave Peter the Word “come”. If He has given you His Word believe it that you are TOTALLY GOOD – you don’t need to focus on the storm, because the storm cannot overtake you!  Yet in the midst of this storm, Peter doubted that Jesus can do the impossible even though he had witnessed the fish-bread miracle hours before! So the doubt led to fear, and the fear caused him to begin to sink, and then Peter cried out for help. Jesus reached out His hand and caught Peter and said “WHY DID YOU DOUBT?”

 

(((( Why do you doubt? ))))

That is the question I ask you now. Whatever you’re going through, remember what God has brought you through in the past, when it is seemed impossible remember how His Hand moved in your situation and showed you that He is God. Just like the song says, ‘Count your blessings, name them one by one, Count your blessings, see what God has done’. When you remember (like Peter should have remembered) your confidence will be in God, regardless of what situations are whirling around you.

You have power – You have His Word

You have God’s Word that He will never leave you nor forsake you so as you step out in faith and continue to step on in faith, trust that God will not fail you, no matter how trying things get. Remain focussed on the Word. Meditate on it day and night as it is the Source of your strength and confidence and faith. Snuff out voices of fear with the Word of God. And we don’t have to wait for Jesus to speak to the storm – He has given us power so we should be using that POWER BY SPEAKING GOD’S WORD to those storms in our life and bringing them (and our thoughts of doubt/fear) captive to the obedience of Christ. That is exactly what prayer is and we should be doing that constantly with our life situations.

 

 

Jesus is moved by our faith

When we speak and act in faith, it moves Jesus. Remember that Jesus was amazed by the faith of the Centurion who only asked that Jesus would send His Word (Matthew 8:5-13). Amazed, Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And the Centurion’s servant was healed at that moment.

Endure!

As we walk by faith and not by sight, let’s not dwell or focus on the situations around us. Let our minds, thoughts, words and actions be filled with the Word of God which is the Source of our faith. And remember this… Storms do not last always and God will not suffer the righteous to be ashamed.

Be encouraged.

HEARING THE VOICE OF GOD

One of the most frequent concerns amongst Christians passionate to obey God is with regard to the ability to hear God’s voice. And I say this with complete humility because I too have vocalised this on many occasions throughout the years. Sometimes we go through moments where God is silent. These are quite often through trials and storms of some sort that He has allowed to try our faith. Yes, God does allow storms to come our way to try our faith. Remember that God is omnipotent meaning ALL POWER is in His mighty hands. If there is a storm coming toward us, He can stop it. But sometimes He won’t because He wants to see where our faith is and what level it is operating at.

The voice of God in a storm

Let’s recall the actual storm moment in Matthew 8:24 when Jesus was in the boat with His disciples and was sound asleep whilst a storm was raging and the waves were sweeping over the boat. The disciples panicked out of fear and woke up Jesus exclaiming that they were going to drown! For years I really didn’t understand what this scripture was about. I mean in the first instance, and the second and in fact many instances after that I couldn’t find what was wrong with the disciples’ response. I have watched enough clips on Youtube and social media of how violent the sea can become in the midst of a storm and whilst sitting comfortably in my home even I am filled with dread at such scenes, much less to actually be on the boat amidst such a harrowing event. Then the Spirit of God opened the eyes of my understanding. These people in the boat with Jesus really hadn’t figured out or understood who Jesus was at this point. This is clear from the text. After Jesus rebuked the storm, “In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.””. – Matthew 8:27

Now you and I both know that Jesus has ALL POWER. So if we are literally travelling with Jesus and danger looks like it’s coming our way, all we have to do is just speak to Jesus and ask Him to deal with it because we know with Whom we are dealing – The One who has ALL POWER on Heaven and earth Matthew 28:18. The problem was that they didn’t recognise the Saviour, probably because He didn’t come to them as they had expected. This is the exact same problem that you and I face today.

Recognising when God speaks

Oftentimes we become so fixated on how we expect God to speak, or whom He will speak through that when He is trying to speak to us in ways that we don’t expect we can often dismiss the vessel through which He speaks as ‘unacceptable’ because of our own prejudices and perceptions. This is a good time to drop a relevant scripture. Let’s take our well-known man Job. He came with high commendations from God who explained to satan that There is no one on the earth blameless and upright that fears God and shuns evil like Job. Safe to say that Job is one highly acclaimed man who knew God, and this is what Job had to say about hearing God:

For God does speak–now one way, now another– though no one perceives it. Job 33:14

Even Job knew that God speaks through a multiplicity of ways and what limits our ability to hear is our perception! This means that if we are really keen to hear God, what we need to do is stop limiting the ways which we are able to receive a Word from God. As we well know, God’s ways are much higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our own. Therefore we will sometimes come to us in ways that far surpass our imagination and so we have to stop boxing God into the limitations of how we perceive that He COULD or SHOULD speak to us.

God can use any thing and any one

The Donkey Account (Numbers 22)– This scenario involved Balak whose father was the King of Moab at the relevant time. Balak became terrified when he saw the number of Israelites arriving at Moab and became worried that they were going to sponge off all their resources. In modern day speak, Balak didn’t want any immigrants in his land and didn’t want to share their resources with them even though he had heard that they were a blessed people. Balak called out to Balaam who was a wicked prophet in the bible to come to him to help him curse the children of Israel. Long story short, Balaam sought God who told him not to go to Balak because He had blessed the Children of Israel. Balaam reverted to Balak’s officials with God’s Word, who in turn told Balak. Balak was insistent and tried to entice Balaam with silver and gold and high ranking officials to persuade him to come. It is quite shocking that Balaam went back to seek God again, who had already given him a clear answer, but after the second enquiry by Balaam (and clearly seeing Balaam’s heart sympathetic to the enemies of God’s people) God told him to go to Balak, but God was very angry when he went. Along the journey the Angel of the Lord blocked Balaam’s donkey’s way. Balaam didn’t see the Angel of the Lord with a drawn a sword, but God had opened the donkey’s spiritual eyes, which caused the donkey to act out character. Balaam beat the donkey three times and after the third time God opened the donkey’s mouth to clearly converse with Balaam, and then opened his spiritual eyes to see the Angel of the Lord. A good read of this account reveals that although Balaam was a wicked prophet, he still heard God clearly and was therefore not a false prophet. His heart was wicked but he did declare the Word of the Lord. Eventually however he betrayed Israel and led them astray.

 

THE LESSONS

The lessons here are manifold:

1. Do not limit God. In the words of Job, He acts in ways that you cannot perceive.
2. If God can use a donkey He can reach out to you through any number of methods to get your attention.
3. God can use anyone, even people with wicked hearts. used a wicked prophet to convey His Word. A very common trait in the Christian culture is to absolutely refuse to receive from someone who is clearly anointed by God to speak His Word, but for one reason or another that person has done something or said something that probably is questionable at best or ungodly at worst. Nevertheless, if God could use Balaam a wicked prophet to convey His Word, who are you to start rejecting who God wants to use to speak to you. Are you more concerned with judging the person or hearing from God, especially if you know that they are anointed by God but like us all have ‘issues that they are dealing with?
4. Test the spirits (1 John 4:1) – This means if you hear a Word you are supposed to test the SPIRIT, not judge the person. If you judge a person based on something they do or have done without testing their spirit of the Word being given to you then you write off a whole opportunity to hear from God. As we know, the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth and therefore if the word is not true we will know as the Spirit of God will bear witness to this.
5. Don’t be complacent. Just because used a person to speak His Word on one occasion doesn’t mean that we should automatically accept everything that person says, no matter who it is unless it is Jesus Christ Himself! Remember people are just people and nobody is perfect. We are told in scripture not to quench the Spirit. Yet so many times we do exactly that every time we rely on our own thoughts about someone’s ability to deliver a Word or be used by God to speak to us. Instead of allow the Spirit of God to help us discern whether what they have to say is of God or not, we just extinguish to Spirit of God’s role and use our own futile ‘wisdom’. The scripture goes on to say that we should not treat prophecies with contempt but test them ALL and hold on to what is good and reject every kind of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5:21
6. Do not automatically accept that just because someone says they are a prophet that they actually are. Simple I know but you will read in 1 Kings 13 how a clearly anointed Prophet deterred from the instructions of God simply because someone came to him and professed that he too was also a prophet who was told something by an angel of the Lord. God’s Word always aligns so regardless of who says what, if you know the Word of God for yourself then by the power of the Holy Spirit you will be able to discern a Word of truth or a word that is not of God.
7. When God speaks, actually LISTEN AND OBEY. Balaam clearly heard from God and at first he acted correctly by delivering God’s Word in an unwavering manner. However after a while he became too involved in the situation at hand. He became sympathetic to the pleas of the people who were trying to curse God’s chosen people and was persuaded by the high ranking officials and the desperation of Balak that he actually went back to God to enquire again, as if he expected God to change His mind about to curse those that He had already told Balaam that should not be cursed because He has blessed them. However God knew what was going on in Balaam’s heart and although God allowed him go to Balak, He was very angry. It is okay and even admirable to have a servant’s heart to serve people by the power of God. However what we shouldn’t do is become so emotionally attached to situations that we begin to treat God’s word with contempt. If He spoke, He spoke. Listen and obey. Nothing and nobody should at any time take a rank in our lives  or be in a priority higher than God and His Word. Obedience is better than sacrifice because we certainly don’t want God’s anger to be kindled against us.
8. Be Humble. Never think that just because someone has behaved ungodly that God cannot use them ever again. We all make mistakes. Imagine if God ruled us out just as quickly as we ruled out other people based on their errors in their walk with God. We are all learning every single day how to live a righteous life. Don’t count anyone out because in being so self-righteous you could be blocking an opportunity to hear from God.
9. Study and know God’s Word for yourself. God’s Word is truth. If you do not know and study to understand God’s Word then how will you know when the Spirit of God is trying to help you discern the truth! Prioritise spending time studying God’s Word and getting it deep into your heart so that you are not deceived.

May you continue to be blessed and hear from God in all things concerning your life.

May you continue to be blessed and hear from God in all things concerning your life.