Sunday, August 5, 2012

Standing on His Promises, Part 4


The last time I wrote, I talked about gaining God’s perspective in every area of our lives. I want to talk about that just a bit more. As we begin to renew our minds with God’s Word, our perspective begins to change; we acquire God’s perspective.

God has vision and provision for every area of life. For sickness, God has healing. We view death; God sees life. He has a totally different perspective than we have in our human mind. So the carnal, unregenerate mind must come into alignment with God’s mindset and with His perspective. That can only happen with revelation that brings conviction. Conviction brings persuasion. The purpose of conviction is to bring about change: transformation. Revelation without transformation has no effect.

So God’s not just revealing His will to us so we can simply know what it is; He reveals His will to us so we will have a conviction about doing it! After we have done the will of God, we will have the promise. Oh, how God wants to lavish the promises upon us! He wants to just pour out His promises in every area of life, but He knows that we must first do His will! In order to do His will, we have to know what His will is. And for us to know what His will is, we have to receive fresh perspective and revelation so that we can develop a conviction that will ultimately result in a life transformation.

Prayerfully we are moving to the place of living according to the principles and precepts of God, and then we won’t even have to chase the promises. The writer of Deuteronomy said the blessings of God will overtake us! They’ll just come up on us! Why? Because suddenly our lives are lined up with the will of God, and then this weird thing starts to happen. We find ourselves at the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing, and with the right people. Instead of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing, with the wrong people! Suddenly things come into alignment with the will of God and then boom! Oh, there’s’ one of those promises right there! BAM. Oh God, You’re overtaking me! Is this making sense to you?

We have need of endurance, but in order to have that endurance, our perspective must change. Our human perspective must be transformed in order to have and demonstrate a correct, spiritual perspective. There is a God-given, Spirit-inspired vision for our lives. God has a vision for your life! You may or may not be living out that vision. I’m not judging that. In order to live out the vision that God has for your life, your perspective has to change. You have to begin to see your life as God sees your life. This will bring you to a place of being able to determine ultimate purpose. We talk a lot about purpose, but until your perspective changes, you cannot fulfill your God-given purpose, and that purpose goes beyond you! It actually goes beyond you and your household. Human purpose must come into alignment with God’s will for our lives.

Purpose is simply having an objective. What is your objective in life? What are you attaining to? Someone might say, “Man, I’d be happy to just get a job and pay my bills.” Okay. Let me tell you something. Everything I’ve been asking God for this week has been happening unbelievably beyond what I expect. Do you need a job? Then let’s agree together right now. “Father in the name of Jesus Christ, open the door of employment and opportunity for my brothers and sisters to get the job You have for them. I pray that you each may have the boldness to go through that door no matter how menial the task may seem, and BOOM, a bigger door will open in front of you. May you see that it’s not simply a job or source of income, but it is an opportunity to represent Christ in a place of employment. God, I ask You to open that door of opportunity for each one who is believing You for it.” Friend, now that we’ve prayed and believed God together, when that door of opportunity opens for that job, I don’t care if it looks good to you or not, just do it . . . as long as it’s legal and it’s from God.

As I was stating earlier, my seeking God for a few things recently was borne out of frustration, and I said, “God, I need to see this, this, and this,” and boom, boom, boom happened within twenty-four hours. I’m telling you that God is in a good mood, and He’s just opening up opportunities.

Things are going to start happening! And don’t let your human perspective mess you up. Before you know it, you’ll start weighing things out and thinking about things and get that old unregenerate part of your mind going.

God has promised provision, but many times that provision is a result of us getting the vision and having the perspective of God, which is seeing life, our life, through His periscope. We can ask ourselves, “How is God viewing that? Is God just taking us through a bitter circumstance and trial because He’s a mean, old God who doesn’t like us anymore?” NO! Maybe He brought us to some bitter waters because He knows we need to be cleansed and strengthened and prepared for what’s ahead.

Having done all to stand, therefore stand. Having already conquered, and every one of us has conquered, let’s conquer again! In fact, the Scripture says that we are MORE than conquerors! Why? Because having conquered, we’re ready to conquer again! Aren’t you ready to conquer again? You know, conquering is better than being conquered. The only one I want conquering me is Jesus. I almost got a t-shirt this past week that said, “beautiful losers.” At first I thought, “Who’d want to wear that?” But then I began to think about my life and thought, “I’m a beautiful loser.” And I would gladly lose it all, again, for Jesus. In the world I was a loser, but He made me beautiful.

I have to stop. Hallelujah. I said that God has been answering prayer; He surely has been. You have to change your perspective; you have to find the promise. Isn’t God good?

~ pg 



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