The general feeling of people is that you will be able to do great exploits when the Lord has visited you and blessed you.
For instance people will tell you that, “only if God will bless me I will do ... for Him” yet it is not about waiting for God to bless you because He has already given you a deposit of the blessing and will give the full-payment when you start doing the job. It is like hiring out someone: You give them the deposit, and then as they progress with the work you give them more resources.
If they wait for the full payment you will not trust them and will never pay them until you see some progress. People who wait for God to bless them and honour them before they can do exploits will ultimately die without accomplishing anything! People wait for a “special” anointing, apart from the Holy Spirit in us, before they go out to preach...we wait to be mystical ... God has already given you something and you are to do great things with the “little” so that when you are faithful with little He will entrust you with the “much,” that is the principle. If you wait for the “much,” without showing faithfulness with the “little,” the much will not come.
Though with little, it is time to arise and go!
God’s way: Arise and go, then i will speak!
God speaks to Jeremiah to “arise and go” to the potter’s house so that He may speak with him there. A few questions beset Jeremiah:
- Why can’t God just speak to me here since He has already started the process?
- What if I get to his house and he asks me why I am there, what will I say?
- If he calls the police would an explanation that, God has spoken to me, satisfy the police? And many other questions!
In-spite of all these, the command had to be followed, arise and go. Jeremiah could have chosen not to obey and would have lost the prophetic word. God is teaching us here that, he will speak a little, just to command us to arise and go, so that the whole revelation may be given after we have already arisen and gone. Often in our lives we have very acceptable reasons for us not to arise and go to do what God has called us to do and these good reasons, not the devil are the very things that cripple us until we die. Heroes are people who made it regardless of the prevailing situation.
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| First Mistake: Waiting For Your Breakthrough! |
- Top story: Slave boy, “rapist” becomes Prime Minister in a foreign land.
- Joseph had very good reasons not to excel in life:
- He was the eleventh child and second from last only before Benjamin, therefore culturally irrelevant. First-borns are natural leaders and lasts are usually followers.
- Joseph had a very traumatic past of being abused by his own kith and kin, hence had very low self-esteem. People with low self esteem cannot handle the yoke of leadership.
- He was a foreigner and a slave. Foreigners do not handle civil offices and especially top posts like P.M. Slaves are meant to work in the fields not to direct the affairs of a nation.
- He was “convicted” of rape charges of a very senior statesman’s wife. In Zimbabwe you are put together with murderers and stay under leg-chains. Before you hold civil offices of that nature your criminal records are checked and Joseph had a very bad one.
A number of examples come to mind:
- A number of times, He told Abraham to arise and go...to a land I WILL show you!
- The lepers that Jesus told to go to the priest. He did not first heal them, but as they were going, they were healed.
- In most cases Jesus would say, “arise take up, your bed and walk.” As they arose they were healed. We want it to be, “be healed, and therefore, take up your bed....” We first arise and as we take up our bed and go, we get healed.
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| First Mistake: Waiting For Your Breakthrough! |
Though Joseph had gone through the process of God, he did not fully understand the sequence of God. Joseph bore two sons: first Manasseh, second Ephraim (Gen 41:50-52).
Manasseh means forgetting because Joseph thought; God has delivered me from my toil and my father’s house. Manasseh was first. That is important. Ephraim came later, and the name means fruitful, as Joseph remembered that, God made me fruitful in a land of my affliction. Ephraim was second, that is important. In short for, for Joseph deliverance (Manasseh) comes first before fruitfulness (Ephraim). This is exactly what we think: when this happens then I will be that! This is the reason why we look for prophet after prophet to lay hands on us because we believe we must first be delivered before we can become fruitful, so we board planes to look for a season when all must be well before we can do great exploits. Yet Joseph got a rude awakening: it is fruitfulness first then deliverance (and note, I am not talking about deliverance from demons but from situations around our lives!)
When he brought the boys to be blessed (Genesis 48:13-20) by his departing father, he took Ephraim/ fruitful in his right hand toward his father’s left hand and Manasseh/deliverance in his left that is towards his father’s right. In short Joseph was giving pre-eminence to deliverance before fruitfulness. However Joseph had the shock of his life when Jacob taught that by God’s doing the second, fruitfulness comes first and the man’s first, deliverance comes second: you can still be fruitful even in the midst of your challenges! Do not wait for the challenges to be over before you decide to be fruitful: you can still be fruitful, even in the land of your affliction: it is Ephraim! PRAY!
The Apostle’s life testimony
Years ago, in 1992, I developed problems with migraine headaches. This is a condition that causes splitting headaches, nausea , loss of focused vision, loss of proper speech, not to mention the confusion and paralysing effect it brings. It is a whole mess when these headaches do come. With them, you cannot do much especially with the extent they do attack me.
They are such a thorn in the flesh that I will do everything to fight them till I die, if need be. I hate migraines, they are my enemy forever.
When God called me I believed they would just go away. They did not. I did the work of God and started praying for the sick and many with migraine conditions were healed, I was not. This really turned me off and I started complaining to God and expected Him to least say something. He did not! I got really mad. I gave God an ultimatum...if I have another migraine, I will not preach again...then I had another migraine...I wanted to stop preaching but I could not ... something inside told me that I cannot forsake my purpose. However I got so discouraged to the point that I spent my whole days crying. Pressure to consult traditional healers and fake prophets from all over was forevermore mounting on me as doctor after doctor confirmed that the condition had no feasible solution. I prayed the more for my healing but it got rather worse.
Then, almost by accident I bumped into and bought a book by Paul David Yongii Choo entitled, Suffering:Why me? That book was God’s answer to me. The writer was pastor of the world’s biggest church and I envied him so much for such a great accomplishment. I imagined him to be a very astute man who would be so impressive. I thought that, in the book, he would be theologising about what he had studied on theodicy (the study of God’s righteousness in the light of the suffering in the world). As I continued studying the man’s life, I realised that the man had had a so troubled life, yet decided to be fruitful anyhow.
Amongst other things, he had:
- Been ill with pneumonia
- Tuberculosis twice
- Had fainted before his congregation whilst ministering and had to have the church carry him to hospital
- Had been told by doctors to leave ministry and find a less-stressful job
- Had people rebel from his church
- Had rumours of sexual misconduct levelled against him
- Started the world’s biggest church with only 5 members!
I have decided I will go by God’s order and not my own desired order: fruitfulness first then deliverance, though frankly speaking, humanly I would have preferred deliverance first then fruitfulness.
Years have gone by and I still have the migraines, which I pray will be over soon but I have not let my captivity restrain me from being fruitful. I will be fruitful even in the land of my affliction. I turned to God and said, “God, am so sorry for wanting to arm-twist you into my plan, give me grace to fulfil my call regardless of what my life is like, I am here for You not for me, Your will be done not mine. If you heal me, I will work for you the rest of my life...if you will not heal me, I will work for you the rest of my life ... I decide to be fruitful as I wait for my deliverance!”
MORALE: Your greatest hindrance may be to wait for the right time and situation. Do not wait for that, be fruitful even the conditions are not right for being fruitful. “Bloom wherever you are planted!” As we enter into the season of the mega, let us not wait for deliverance, let us just arise and go and as we do that we will be delivered.
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| First Mistake: Waiting For Your Breakthrough! |
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| First Mistake: Waiting For Your Breakthrough! |
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