Friends, I made a journal for myself this year in April to record and remind myself of the promises that God has made concerning me and concerning those that I care about.
It is one of my absolute favorite things to dive into this journal from time-to-time to read, confess and release the power of God’s Word over my life.
Why do I do that?
Because like Mary in the Bible, the mother of Jesus, who pondered and treasured the words God had spoken about Jesus being the Saviour of the world, anointed and appointed, to take away the sin of humanity; I do believe that we too have the same privilege.
The same privilege to receive, believe and steward the Word of God so that it is the Lord’s narrative that we are intentionally choosing to partner with and eventually see made manifest in our midst.
So I felt it back then, friends.
I felt an urgency, an impulse, an unction of the Holy Spirit to make myself a journal that would allow me to organise all the wonderful, prophetic words that God has given me thus far, in one neat place. One click on Amazon got me this babe:
I think she is fearfully and wonderfully made!
Ok.
So my jouney with Jesus through this brand, new journal began. I divided it up into a couple of different sections and promptly began decreeing the Word of God over my life.
Happy to report that not only have I seen the Holy Spirit move and manifest God’s will time-after-time, but also that the Lord continues to add more and more promises to my bounty.
Pastor Bill Johnson often says that we attract what we value. The Bible puts it this way,
“For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.”
(Matthew 13:12, NASB)
God here, I believe, is talking about the sheer value of stewarding the revelation of His Word. He guarantees, that should we commit to this process of discovering and consistently releasing the sound of His Word into the earth, it is sure to have a domino effect and reel in even more abundant revelation, simply because we show that we value the sanctity of what our Holy God has decreed.
Like rain drops filling up a bucket.
Or like the missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle being consistently and increasingly put together by the Hand of God.
That’s what the Promises of God do.
The promises of God can be likened to the missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that God is putting together behind-the-scenes.
The things that most puzzle and confuse us are these ___________________________. Fill in the blanks, literally. Questions about our identity, our purpose, our destiny. Questions about our family, household and community. Questions about God’s plan for us, individually, corporately and globally.
But what if we learned to take these questions to God Himself, instead of trying to figure things out in our own limited strength, with our own limited wisdom and our own limited resources?
What if we stopped trying to simply ‘fix’ everything ourselves and dared instead to entrust our matters to The One who is sovereignly in control, confident in battle and more than capable of bringing resolution to the very things that confound us?
God truly is who He says He is, friends.
I have always, always witnessed that whenever I am challenged by a trying and impossible circumstance, God always, always shows up.
He may not do it the way I expect or would like for Him too, or even on my timeline. But I can testify that He always, always does show up and show off.
Imagine a scenario, friend where you find yourself in what appears to be a snow-covered wasteland. For as far as your eyes can see, the land looks completely barren and desolate. You are fully geared up for a trek, equipped for the harsh conditions in front of you. Donning a long, furry overcoat to keep you warm and gum boots to help you plough through; you are good to go.
Yet, you can’t.
You feel lost for direction.
Now imagine the same scenario through the lens of the pilot of a chopper overhead. He can see that if you only take a few steps forward, turn right and walk for about a mile, you will be warmly greeted by a kind and hospitable old, godly couple who even have a guest room to spare, warmly lit with an inviting fireplace and a steaming cup of hot chocolate milk.
The pilot of this chopper overhead has insight into things that are obscure to you because he has a higher vantage point.
Yet, you do have the option of connecting to him through your cell phone device. You can choose to pull it out from your pocket, press the right buttons and connect!
One call away.
That’s how I believe it works with God too. He has insight into the road and the route ahead that will be instrumental in paving the best way forward, but we have to be willing to connect to Him using the cell phone device called the Word of God.
For the Word of God is our GPS to help navigate life.
“Jesus answered, ‘It is written: Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”
(Matthew 4:4)
Spending time in the Word and receiving His insight into the plans and purposes that He has for us is precisely how we trek through the snow-laden terrain of the broken pieces and parts of our lives.
All we are tempted to see and believe in the moment though, is that one piece of the jigsaw puzzlethat we find ourselves in the midst of. But God knows the whole picture!
And believe me, its a good one that He’s painting.
Things may look unanswered and incomplete to us in the natural, but we can take heart because we serve a supernatural kind of God.
“With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
(Matthew 19:26)
The God who knows the end from the beginning, already has the answers and the redemptive solutions our lives need. He reveals these hidden plans and purposes of His heart through a revelation of His Word by the Holy Spirit.
What He does require in the process is for us to put down the bricks of humility, vulnerability and complete dependency on The One who is perfectly faithful and absolutely trustworthy. The assurance of His Perfection is the fuel that empowers us to bring the broken pieces of our lives to Him so that He can begin to do what only and only He can do.
“Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’
says the LORD Almighty.”
(Zechariah 4:6)
The promise friends, on the other side of our obedience is, that God will raise up a wall with the modest bricks that we have put down so beautically and monumentally that it will not only leave us astonished, but even those that we care about.
The truth is that God is the Architect of our lives, friends. As He has taken the complete charge of bringing about the complete restoration of our lives, I like to call this a process of ‘re-membering,’ i.e, rearranging, reassembling and realigning the different parts and pieces of our lives into the Grand Masterpiece that He has in His heart and mind concerning us.
So as He ‘re-members’ the different parts and pieces of my life, I find it incredibly helpful to in turn, ‘remember’ the truth of that which He has spoken and decreed.
☆ The Book of Rememberance ☆
It can be a file, a folder, a journal, a diary because the goal is to have a place to document and rehearse Truth.
Friend, for the Lord to ‘re-member’ our lives, we must remember what He says.
The devil is a liar, and in the absence of Truth, it is easy to believe what the world says. It is easy to believe what the media says, the government, or even our family and friends. Therefore, I find it so vital to be intentional about my time in God’s Word so that I can literally dwell in the Truth that He has spoken over me, letting His narrative shape and frame my reality, and not a lesser word.
So simply put, The Book of Rememberance is a space friends, where we get to put down God’s dream for our lives, and through the power of a loving partnership together, watch Him make it a reality.
Activation:
Friend, I would like to invite you to ponder some questions with the Lord in your own, unique miracle-in-the-making story. Letting God come into every dark and obscure crook, cranny and crevice of our lives is key to a lifestyle of ongoing holistic healing and good success.
I’ve learnt this much, and I know its true.
Any part of our life that is kept from the Lord will become an open door for the enemy.
While there may be areas of your life that you perhaps don’t feel comfortable addressing with the Lord yet, I encourage you to start opening up bit-by-bit to the Goodness of God. He is good, He does good, and He works all things together for good.
So friend, consider asking yourself the following questions:
What has God spoken concerning me? What has He spoken concerning my health, my family and my calling?
If you feel unsure about these questions, it’s time to press in. Its time to pray and seek God to reveal His heart and mind concerning the things you care about. Its time to let go and let Him step into your life and do what He is best at – make all things new!
Your life is now His story.
Let Him make it a grand one.
SoulandSubstance27 