There comes this point in your journey of faith, where you just become weary. You’ve done all that you can do to believe in God. You’ve read His word, and you’ve spoken it over your life. You’ve prayed and waited, prayed and waited some more, but at the end of the day, you find yourself in this place of the unknown. It’s a place where you feel like maybe God hasn’t heard your prayers at all. You think to yourself that maybe you just aren’t praying right…maybe you just haven’t fasted enough. And maybe if you changed your tactics, your prayers just might be answered. It’s this place of uneasiness because in your heart of hearts, you trust and have faith in God, but also deep down, you don’t know if you will ever experience the breakthrough that you have hope for. We’ve all been in this place at some point, even if we’ve seen God move in another area of our lives. So how do we push past these feelings? How do we navigate the frustration that comes with waiting on God? Today, I want to give us a few things that we must keep in mind, in order for us to be able to stand firm, until we receive what God has spoken over us.
We must remember that God’s plan is always for our good.
Are there strongholds in your life that have been lingering far too long? Have you been struggling in an area, unable to break free? Today, I want to remind us of what the word of God says:
For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,” says the Lord. “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land.” (Jeremiah 29:11-14 NLT)
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, Because the Lord has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;…” (Isaiah 61:1 NKJV)
Freedom, is God’s plan for our lives.
Why is this important for us to understand? Because sometimes, when we struggle in an area of our lives for an extended period of time, we begin to think that maybe this is God’s will for us, and we allow that struggle to keep us from walking in the fullness of who God has called us to be. But we must understand that while God does allow weakness in our lives, His will is never bondage.
…So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10 NLT)
In this passage, Paul shares that he begged the Lord to take his thorn, his weakness, away, but each time the Lord said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.”
I want us to take a moment and think about God’s response, because in it, He basically tells Paul that the weakness was for his good. God knew that without this weakness, Paul would become prideful, and he would forget his need for the Savior. You see, the only reason that Paul was able to walk in purpose, was because the power of God shined in the midst of his weakness.
This applies to our lives, because there will be prayers that we’ve prayed, and instead of God sending the answer that we want, He sends His grace that we need. He might tell us no to what we want, so that He can give us something so much better…His presence with us, in our situation. And His presence is what enables us to walk in purpose despite our lack of ability to do so. But, we must not assume that all of our struggles and weaknesses are the will of God. Like Paul, we must be willing to bring our shortcomings to God…even those things that we have been dealing with for what seems like a lifetime. Because our God is a healer and a restorer, and in His word, we can find the truth of His promises. We can find the truth about the freedom that we have access to through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32 NLT)
For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3:17 NLT)
As a Christian, this is our right…to live free. So, we must make a distinction.
Struggle and bondage are not the same thing.
God allows us to endure our struggles so that we can be made strong in Him, but at the same time, the Spirit of God gives us the ability to live in freedom in the midst of the struggles that we face. We do not have to live weighed down, by the brokenness of this world. So, if you are in a place where you feel weighed down, like you can’t break free, I want you to understand that God’s will for you is freedom. His will for you is joy and peace.
Maybe you are in this place of feeling weight down now, but deep down, you know that God has more in store for you. Has He given you a vision for your future? Maybe He has shown you glimpses of what He has planned. Or maybe it’s the complete opposite…maybe you are in this place, and you have no vision at all. If that’s you, I want you to know that it’s never too late to begin walking in purpose. Make a decision today to begin reading the love letter that God has written to you. In His word, you will find healing for your soul. And as you spend time in His presence, He will begin to speak His plan over your life.
Have hope in these things. Stand firm in your faith for these things.
God makes the plan, but it is our responsibility to agree with it. It is our responsibility to denounce everything that is contrary to what He has spoken over us. It is our responsibility to cling to His promise.
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NIV)
We will discuss spiritual warfare later on, but I just want to remind us of the power that we hold in our hands. We have been given a weapon to fight for the promises of God. And many times, we don’t get to where God wants to take us because we don’t understand this power that we have. God gave us the ability to demolish every argument that seeks to prevent us from knowing the truth about Him, and what He says about us. Every thought that seeks to tell us that we can’t walk in the will of God, must be torn down. Every thought that tells us that it’s too late to walk in purpose, every thought that tells us that we aren’t good enough, or that we don’t have what it takes, must be torn down. These thoughts are not what God has spoken over us. He tells us that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. He tells us that we have the power to move every mountain that we have faith to move.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13 NKJV)
So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. (Matthew 17:20 NKJV)
If we have faith, nothing will be impossible for us.
These are the words of Jesus. So, we must see how important it is for us to have faith and hope in the will of God, in order for it to come to pass in our lives. But, it’s not just that we must have faith in God, we must have faith enough to stand firm, while we wait for Him to show up in our lives, because the promises of God always come with a wait. And this is the frustrating part, especially when it feels like you’ve been waiting for a lifetime. But we must understand that God will never give us something that we aren’t ready to receive.
God always prepares us before He releases the promise into our lives.
We see this time after time in scripture. But the most plain example was when He led the Israelites to the promised land in a round-about way. He knew that if He took them there too quickly, they wouldn’t be prepared to receive what He had for them. And this is how He works in our lives.
When Pharaoh finally let the people go, God did not lead them along the main road that runs through Philistine territory, even though that was the shortest route to the Promised Land. God said, “If the people are faced with a battle, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” So God led them in a roundabout way through the wilderness toward the Red Sea. Thus the Israelites left Egypt like an army ready for battle. (Exodus 13:17-18 NLT)
I remember when I was waiting for God to restore my marriage. The hardest part was trusting God, even after feeling like nothing in my situation was changing. Year after year, I made the decision to continue waiting, but at the same time, I wondered why it was taking so long. Why did God make me wait? Why didn’t He just do the miracle faster? I didn’t know the answer to these questions back then, and I don’t know everything now, but I do know that God answered my prayers at just the right time. What I can see now, is that I wasn’t prepared to receive what I had been praying for. I was praying for God to work in my husband’s heart, but first, God wanted to work in my heart. You see, God didn’t just want to give me an amazing husband, He wanted to give my husband an amazing wife. He wanted to do a deep internal work within me…a work that took time. It took time for God to tear down the mindsets that had contributed to my brokenness…the mindsets that were projecting into my marriage. And while God was working in me…He was doing a vast work within my husband. I couldn’t see it at the time, but God was tearing down strongholds in both of us, and healing years of brokenness.
God wants to give us a foundation that can support our promise.
Many times, we are believing God for the superficial promise…we want Him to fix the things that we can see. I know this, because this is exactly what I wanted. I wanted Him to put my family back together, but He wanted to address the reasons that we were separated in the first place. He wanted to transform our minds, so that we could see ourselves and each other differently. He wanted to tear down everything that we had built up for ourselves, so that He could build us up according to His vision for us.
This is why we must be willing to wait on God’s timing. We have no idea what it will take for us to walk in the promises of God. All we see is the surface, but God sees every bit of transformation that we need. And what we have to understand is that the miracles of God are multifaceted. God isn’t just transforming our lives and preparing us. He is transforming and preparing the situation. He is positioning the resources, and the people that will help us get to where He is calling us to go.
God knows what’s best. We have to trust His timing.
Our God is never late. And when we wait on Him, we can be sure that He will use every part of our story, and make sure that it works out for our good. But waiting on God doesn’t mean that we just sit back and do nothing. We have to make sure that while we’re waiting, we are seeking His face. We have to make sure that we are quiet enough to hear His instructions, and we have to be sure to obey Him. We can’t forget that our faith is proven when we trust God enough to obey His instructions, even the ones that we don’t understand.
It’s impossible for us to receive the promises of God without faith. But, we must also remember that we have an adversary. We have an enemy that is constantly seeking to prevent us from walking in purpose. Why? Because when we walk in purpose, the will of God is being manifested in the earth. And Satan does whatever he can, to make sure that this doesn’t happen.
Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are. (1 Peter 5:8-9 NLT)
This scripture tells us very clearly that we have an enemy that is constantly looking for someone to devour. He wants to devour you and me. And he is seeking to do whatever he can to prevent us from knowing the truth, and from walking in it. So what does the bible say that we should do? It says that we must stay alert. This means that we can’t walk through life with our eyes closed to the enemy right in front of us. I’ll be honest with you. I hate talking about this topic, because I don’t ever want to give the enemy credit. But how can we win a war that we don’t acknowledge we are fighting? And how can we defeat an enemy if we don’t realize that he is at work in our lives?
In the book of Genesis, we read about the fall of man. Long story short, God created heaven and earth, and everything in it. He created Adam and Eve; He place them in a beautiful garden, and He gave them a set of instructions. In those instructions, He told Adam that they could eat freely from any of the trees in the garden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.” (Genesis 2:16-17 NLT)
One day, a serpent (who is Satan) entered the garden, and tempted Eve.
The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” (Genesis 3:1 NLT)
Satan only has one tactic…deception. This is how he tempted Eve to the point of disobedience. Satan didn’t even have to lie to her, all he did was get her to question if what they heard from God was true. And this is what we must understand about our enemy. He is very subtle, and his battlefield is in our minds. He comes to us in the midst of our thoughts and insecurities, and he gets us to question if what God has spoken to us is true. And the bible is very clear about how we are to handle him. In 1 Peter 5, it tells us to stay alert, it tells us to stand firm against our enemy, and to be strong in our faith.
We must stay alert. We must stand firm. We must be strong.
Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are. (1 Peter 5:9 NLT)
According to Merriam-Webster, to stand firm means to refuse to change a decision or a position. Oh how I love this definition, because this is exactly the stance that we must have, if we are to be victorious over our enemy. We have to have a stance that proves that we won’t budge. We have to have a footing that gives us the ability to stand unmoved in our faith for, and pursuit of, the promises of God. We have to make the decision that we will stand firm, and be strong in our faith.
So how do we live this out?
Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm. Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared. In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Ephesians 6:13-17 NLT)
We are able to stand firm against the schemes of the enemy when we put on the full armor of God.
We must put on truth, which is found in the word of God. When we know the truth, we will have the ability to recognize the lies of the enemy.
We must put on the righteousness of God, remembering that we have been made right in our Father’s eyes because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
We must put on peace, which comes from reminding ourselves that because our Lord and Savior died on the cross, and was raised back to life, we too, have been given a new life.
We must then hold up the shield of faith, with every attempt that the enemy makes to come against us. In these times we must stand firm on the word of God, believing in Him, and everything that He has spoken over us.
We must put on salvation. Reminding ourselves that through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we have been saved for eternity.
And then, we must use our weapon. It’s not enough for us to know the truth of what God says about us, we have to take that truth and turn it into a weapon. What has the enemy spoken over your life? What has he tried to use, to keep you from your destiny? Whatever it is, you have to find out what the word of God has to say about it, and proclaim that truth. This is not an option. In Matthew chapter 4, we see that even Jesus used the word of God to defeat the enemy. If the Son of God had to use the word of God to defeat Satan, what makes us think that we don’t?
You must use your weapon.
Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. (Ephesians 6:18 NLT)
The last instruction that Ephesians 6 gives us is to pray in the Spirit at all times, to stay alert, and to be persistent. What does this tell us? It tells us that our enemy never sleeps; he is always lurking, and looking for a foothold into our lives. He is persistent, so we must be persistent. We must stand firm. We must refuse to be moved.
What has God spoken over your life? Who has He called you to be? I want you to know that your enemy knows the answer to these questions, even if you don’t. Since the day you were born, your adversary has been trying to prevent you from knowing the truth. That is why it feels like you can never break free. But I want you to remember who and who’s you are. You are a child of God. You were created for a purpose. Yes your enemy might seem strong, but your God is stronger, and He has already defeated the one that seeks to defeat you. Today, I want to remind you that your enemy is fighting a battle that he has already lost. You already have the victory, you just have to walk in it. You just have to stand firm, and proclaim what God has already spoken over you life, and then wait for Him to deliver it into your hands.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you for reminding me that your plans for me are always good. Thank you for reminding me that you are a God that restores and heals. You are a God that desires for me to be free. And because of your grace, I have the ability to walk in that freedom, despite the struggles that I face. Father, in faith, I bring every struggle to your feet, and I ask that you do a deep work within me. I pray that you would repair the brokenness inside of me, and that you would allow me to walk in the fullness of who you have called me to be. And I know that as I trust you, you are working in my weaknesses, so that I can be strong in you. I know that you are using everything that I have been through for my good. Today, I have been reminded that I have the ability to fight for the promises that you have given me. Thank you for reminding me that although I have an adversary, I am stronger, and I am victorious, because you are with me. I declare today that I will use my weapon. I will speak your word, and I will cling to the word that you have spoken over my life. I will not be moved. I will stand firm, and I will wait on you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
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