"I will not keep silent because of Zion, and I will not keep still because of Jerusalem, until her righteousness shines like a bright light and her salvation, like a flaming torch." (Isaiah 62:1)
‘These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?
But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt.You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the Lord your God brought you out.
The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. Moreover, the Lord your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished.
Do not be terrified by them, for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God.'”
(Deuteronomy 7:17-21)
For He still is the God who parts open the Red Sea, pushes back River Jordon and tears down the walls of Jericho.
He still is the God who turns bitter waters sweet, and commands the sun to stand still.
He still is the God who leads us with a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night.
He still is the God who provides manna from heaven, and brings water from the rock.
He still is the God who shuts the mouths of lions, and turns the heart of the king around.
He still is the God who brings dead bones to life, and calls things that are not as they were.
The Lord still is a sovereign, miracle-working God who goes before like a devouring fire, comes between the enemy and His loved ones and makes a way where there seems to be no way.
Because the Bible says that Jesus Christ is the same – yesterday, today and forevermore.
So can I encourage you?
Don’t yield to your fear. Yield instead to the revelation of who He is.
The Lord first laid this verse on my heart a couple of months back with regard to a personal initiative that I believe He is calling me to take up. Someone who absolutely delights in chronicling everything that Jesus tells me in multiple journals, I made a quick note.
But as I did, a really funny thing began to unravel in the days and weeks ahead.
What began as a fancy name for a future enterprise slowly morphed into a most stunning personal revelation. Seeking to share what I have learnt, allow me to welcome you to a tiny segment of my personal walk with Christ called,
“Small Things with Great Love.”
I believe that it was Mother Teresa who first contrived this phrase in her well-known adage,
“We cannot all do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
Though there is much to say about our faith walk with the Lord, what I love most about it is that it can all be summed up into one simple law, the law of love – ‘and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Mark 12:30-32, ESV)
More often than not, I feel that as children of God who are learning to walk with the Lord, we can tend to overcomplicate things. We can start to think about our calling and destiny in terms of something quite spectacular and grand which will happen, ‘one day when.’
One day when I get my degree and start my practice..
One day when I get married and start my ministry..
One day when I get my breakthrough and the path ahead is cleared..
But what I have discovered is that all we ever have is the ‘here and now.’ As long as we are sowing in love in our lives on a daily basis, we can be rest assured that whatever the Lord has promised us in the ‘then and there’ will manifest most organically as a result of our humble obedience and loving devotion – right here, right now.
1.Loving God well
Our primary calling in life is to know God and love God. I have learnt by experience that what this basically means is a lifestyle of unbroken fellowship with the heart of our Perfect Father, something which doesn’t only happen in and through our spiritual disciplines like prayer and quiet time with the Lord (though those are really important!), but rather in and through the beauty of an authentic heart-to-heart connect with the Lord through the hours of our day.
In my own personal walk with Christ, I have discovered that one way to effectively put this truth into practice is to remain in a relational dialogue with the Lord as we walk through whatever it is that we are called to in our day-to-day life.
Whether it is in the context of family, community, business, workplace or ministry, what confounds us is never beyond the wisdom of heaven. I have learned the value of taking my questions to Jesus, instead of striving to find solutions in my own limited strength. What inevitably follows is not only a satisfactory response from God that promises resolution, but also strength and strategy for the journey as I embrace my process, knowing that God controls the outcomes and therefore, they remain secure.
The net result of such a lifestyle, friends is a deepened and more dependent relationship with the Father where He leads, and we follow. Walking in humble steps that keep Him involved in our daily lives not only demonstrates our love for Him, but also brings the awe and wonder of God into our otherwise mundane lives, keeping the adventure fresh and exciting.
Love, I’m learning, is its own reward.
2. Loving ourselves well
Fuelled by the transforming power of grace, rest and self-care; I am also learning the power of loving myself well. We cannot pour from an empty cup, but for my cup to run over, I not only have to receive the love of God for me in its fullness, but let my experience of that love transform the way I see myself and love myself.
Grace Talking of grace, our Father personifies it fully in the person of Jesus and as I take my cues from Him, I am learning to not be too hard on myself but rather give myself the kind of grace that I receive from the Lord too. Letting Him teach me to understand myself with mercy, not judgement has one of the most challenging yet satisfying part of my journey to wholeness thus far.
Though the times I fail or falter are many, learning to correct my posture in such times from self-condemnation to self-compassion has begun to awaken me to the truth that God does not call me to a life of perfection, but rather perspective. I wasn’t created to have it all together, but rather to bring all the messy parts of me to Jesus, letting His perfection fill in the gaps. For in Him, I am complete. The Lord couldn’t have said it better when He spoke thus to apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9, ESV)
And because it is, I am learning to let go and let God. Letting God not only inhabit those spaces of my soul where His power is made perfect in my weakness but also take over as it relates to the situations and circumstances of my life, which brings me to the topic of rest.
Rest Friends, though there are many ways to practice rest, I have found that they are all rooted in one common truth – trust.
Our most basic human instinct is to have control, but the word of God says that love always trusts (1 Corinthians 13:7). Control has to do with fear, but love will inspire trust. As image bearers of God being transformed into His likeness which is the purest love ever, a huge part of our process with the Lord has to do with releasing control and replacing it with simple, childlike trust.
I am discovering that when I do what the Psalmist describes in Psalm 56:3, ESV “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you,” I immediately enter into a place of deeper rest as a result of placing my trust in the right place – Him.
Not in my limited ability, and not in the broken state of my circumstances, but rather in Jesus – the author and perfector of my faith (Hebrews 12:2). Each time I sense fear creeping up, tempting me to take control, I have to be very intentional about acknowledging that the Lord is sovereign – over every nation, every household, every heart. And if He said it, He will do it.
This is a gentle reminder that I give myself several times a day, and the more I do, the more I am able to trust Him and the more at rest I am internally.
Self-care The third counterpart in the realm of loving ourselves well that I have found, friends is self-care.
Taking the time to engage in an activity that serves to rekindle our passion and zest for life while simultaneously connect us to the heart of the Father is a wonderful way, I believe, to remind ourselves that we are worthy to be taken care of, to be nurtured, to be replenished.
A personal revival is always at the core of revival in our families and communities. Though there are several things that we can indulge in, I have learnt that commiting to what is most authentic will be the most fruitful.
For some of us, this can look like catching up with a trusted friend over coffee at Starbucks. For some, it can take the form of reading through a fictional novel that transports us and stimulates our imagination. For some, it can even be fixing a jigsaw puzzle in the cosy comfort of their home, while for others, it can look like long walks and evening strolls with Jesus.
Let me share a true story at this point. On the other side of having begun this post, I found myself thrust into an unexpected trial. Since my temperament is basically like that of a finisher, I had kept a target of 2-3 days when I would write, finish, edit, pray and publish. However, the process that the Lord had in His mind for me, was quite different.
Though I don’t believe that He causes our troubles, I do believe that He uses them for our development. And this much I knew, I had hit a valley.
As the Lord shepherded me through this difficult time, I learnt how to love myself well in a whole new way. Walking out the impact I had endured hand-in-hand with the Father, I was compelled to give myself grace even if I never completed what I had begun. And perhaps, especially then. I was inspired to take adequate rest not only physically, but also spiritually as the Lord challenged me to trust Him to complete that which He had begun. Any voice of self-condemnation was replaced by the voice of self-compassion as I took the necessary measures to heal, recover and rebound well.
Coming out on the other side, I am so pleased to share that as a result of learning to love myself well through this time, I have come forth more refined, more rested, more whole, more free and more empowered. I also feel better positioned to love my neighbour more authentically because I know what it is to love myself the way God loves me.
3. Loving our neighbour as ourselves
I believe that God deposits the seeds of a prosperous future in our present. We are summoned by Him into a lifestyle of daily devotions and daily missions where it is not so much our ability that qualifies us, but rather our availability before the Lord.
The people that He has called us to love and serve are always around and about us. So, I will share here a couple of questions I have started asking God in prayer that have empowered me to be the hands and feet of Christ to help those around me:
– Who can I help today? – Who can I encourage? – Who can I pray for? – Who can I bring loving correction to? – Who can I forgive and bless?
As I write these questions for you to ponder, I am struck by the fact that all these questions have one thing in common –
‘Who.’
I feel we can often stumble over the ‘what’ in terms of our calling/destiny. My own experience testifies. But what I am learning and seeing is that the Lord wants us to pay attention to the ‘who’ – His son or daughter that is right in front of us. And as we do, He promises to make all things manifest in His perfect way and timing.
In other words, the question perhaps is not so much as, “what am I called to do?” as it is, “who am I called to love?”
Personally, this approach has been hugely rewarding for me. I have since found myself more present in my day-to-day life. Whether it was organising a vehicle for a young girl stranded on the street desperate for a ride to her destination, fetching medication to aid the recovery of my auto-rick guy, or agreeing to speak the truth in love to a family member; walking in tune with the rhythm of the Father’s heart postures me to be more aware of and attentive to the needs of the people that God has placed in front of me – right here, right now.
For it is our obedience in the here and now that is instrumental in unlocking the realms and doors of our destiny in the then and there, simply because all that we are and all that we do is grounded in the primary call of beholding and becoming love.
The value that God places on love above all else is clearly revealed in the passage that says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3, ESV)
I believe that God here is saying that no matter how accomplished we are, no matter how much knowledge we possess, no matter how theologically sound our doctrine is, if we have not love, we have nothing at all.
Conversely, even if the areas of our calling and destiny seem a bit obscure, we don’t need to despair. We are encouraged by heaven to start small and begin right where we find ourselves. We can all learn to love God, love ourselves and love our neighbour as ourselves right where we are at. And as we do, the Lord promises to go before and do what only He can do.
So as we walk in radical obedience friends, may we be encouraged to remember that our tiny acts of faith executed on a daily basis will inevitably add up to a glorious destiny. For the liberating truth of the Simple Gospel is that we don’t really need to do grand things for God to make a difference, but only small things with great love.
“If you don’t go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don’t deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.”
(Matthew 10:38-39, MSG)
Setting our hearts on Jesus, and letting His heart pulsate through, what say?
“Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.”
(Romans 8:17)
Honesty Hour – A key nugget in being made whole through Christ
Entitlement is an offspring of the orphaned spirit, whereas contentment and gratitude are the hallmark of the Spirit of Sonship.
Father, take us higher in our awareness of the Truth that we are not orphans any more, but your Sons & Daughters. You are not the care taker of an orphanage who gives us barely enough to just get by, rather You are a Perfect Father who delights in us, celebrates our gifts and always provides MORE THAN ENOUGH to empower us to fulfill our destiny.
Funnily juxtaposed with the sunny disposition of this design is the mysterious revelation that accompanies it at a time that I candidly confess, was anything but sunny.
If anything at all, it has been fiery.
A fiery trial, some would say.
Going through something like this is not something I would opt for, but when the enemy does wage war, I gang up with Jesus.
Because He wins every battle he ever wages.
So at the very onset of this trial, I prayed to the Lord, friends; and asked Him to not only get me through the string of the impossible situations that seemingly stood like giants before me that came up overnight, but also bring me out with greater spiritual fruit than I had when I went in.
It’s literally how the Lord makes the devil pay.
So I decided to cash in on this Truth.
Today I write to you as a child of God with concrete evidence in her hands that God is Good, God does Good and God works all things together for our good and His great glory.
As He has safely brought me through this trial, friends; I have had to understand the difference between what I felt and what I knew to be Truth at another level.
I will explain as we go on.
With a high value for the revelation-light of Truth, friends; I love it when the Lord makes a wonderful invitation for us to seek Him throughout the pages of Scripture, and one of my most deeply personal favorite verses is thus,
“He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him.”
(Daniel 2:22)
So when everything came up under siege overnight, I mentally scanned the Truth thatthe Lord had already deposited in my spirit.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
(Romans 8:28)
If this is true and it is, so the only valid question to ask was,
If this is what the enemy has done, Lord; then how do You want to redefine this narrative according to Your Promise of Romans 8:28?
How will You work all this together for my good and Your glory?
I heard the Lord say,
“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
(Matthew 19:26)
Each time that I doubted the Lord during my trek through this trial, the Holy Spirit would gently remind me of this Truth from Matthew 19:26.
I tried to remember the memorial stones that the Lord enabled me to pick up especially this year. Calling to mind testimonies of the Lord’s faithfulness is a sure fire way to stir up faith at a time when little else is needed.
As I would do this along with confessing the Promises of the Lord over my life, I found myself in battle. On the one hand, I knew God was Faithful. He saw me through then, He will see me through now.
But it was also at this precise juncture that the enemy tried to intimidate me with the size of the giant in front of me. I have slain giants before with the Lord, but this one?
I suddenly wasn’t too sure.
On a particularly anxious day, I stumbled over a podcast from Christine Caine. She said something that I felt was straight from the heart of God. I made a note of it. The next day, the message from the Lord’s heart again caught my attention as Christine shared precisely the same thought on her Insta page.
Let me paste it below for you.
It struck home.
I felt bolts of lightning go off in my head as I realised the Truth that it was never the size of the giant in my life that determined my destiny. Rather, it was the size of my God that did.
The God in me. The God through me. The God around me.
With new found faith, I found the courage to believe again. Putting my hands in the hands of Jesus, I decided to let Him walk me through this and teach me everything that was on His heart for me.
After all, this giant may be too big for me. But it was nothing compared to the bigness of my God.
“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
(Exodus 14:14)
Because it is the Lord who fights for me, I need only to be still…
What does that mean?
I believe that what the Lord was and still is saying through this is that because it is Him who fights for me, I have no need to be anxious about anything. The enemy is already defeated in Jesus’ Name, and the irrevocable victory of the Cross is already my portion in Christ. Therefore, the outcomes of my life situations and circumstances are already secure in the hands of my God.
But what about the process?
This is where friends, I believe we really get to meet Jesus face-to-face. The Lord is a God of process. As surely as He kept affirming me that He would bring about my complete deliverance and vindication, He also lovingly exhorted me to commit my way to Him so thatit could align with His right way forward.
So, in response to this perfectly wise Father, I released my process to Him.
And I learnt much.
So much more than before, friends.
With more insights in my spirit, more humility in my heart and more dependency on the Lord; I had many more arrows in my quiver.
Allow me to repeat myself.
This is how Jesus makes the devil pay.
Jesus started to emphatically teach me that though His Promise of victory will see to it that I come out on the other side stronger than I was when I went in, it does not mean that my feelings will magically line up.
More often than not, they don’t.
Though my spirit knows the Truth, my soul is often having a fit.
So what do I do?
I learn to demarcate between spirit and soul.
Between what I know to be the Truth based on what God is saying v/s the feelings that I am currently having which are based on the facts of my temporal circumstances.
As believers in Christ, we are given authority by the Lord to challenge the facts of our current circumstances by declaring the Truth of what God is saying.
Therefore, it naturally follows that the temporary state of my temporal circumstances is just that – temporal. It is now in fact, subject to change according to the eternal, everlasting Truth of God’s Word that will not only come to pass, but will endure forever.
“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
(2 Corinthians 4:18)
So what I am getting at is this:
When we are willing to acknowledge our opinions and feelings for what they really are – just feelings and opinions – and readily exchange them with the Truth of what God says, then it is a sign that our soul is coming into alignment with God and is thus, being saved.
My soul says that this is how I am feeling _______________________________ .
But it is also willing to admit that these are just feelings, it is NOT Truth. Just because our feelings are real does not mean that they are right. They are after all, only feelings based on facts. But facts change because God moves in alignment with Truth, and eventually manifests it.
So even though I felt the giant was too big, I knew that it was no match for the bigness of my God. Even though I felt it was the end of everything, I knew that in the Kingdom, it was only a new beginning. Even though I felt abandoned and forsaken, I knew I was never alone for Jesus was with me every step of the way.
Feelings v/s Truth.
A divine demarcation.
So I am learning that the degree to which we are humble enough to admit that how we feel is not based on reality because reality is only determined by what our Holy God says,is the degree to which we will be able to trade them in for Truth and be healed, whole, saved, contented and at peace.
Coming out on the other side of the tunnel, I can attest to the fact that how we feel during a trial is often misleading. The only way through the valley of the shadow of death, is to hold on to the helm of His garment and fix our eyes on Jesus – the author and the perfector of our faith. As we humble ourselves under His mighty hand, He promises to take us by the hand and lead us forward, step-by-step, into His promise for our victory.
So as I draw to a close, friend; I will leave you in the Presence of the Lord with one question:
What mountain are you needing Him to move on your behalf today? How can you learn to partner with Him as He unfolds your triumph?
Let me lead you into a prayer to get started.
“Dear Lord Jesus,
I thank You that because of Your finished work on the Cross on my behalf, I am now a partaker of Your Victory, on earth as it is in Heaven. I thank You that in the power of Your Name, the enemy is defeated and I am now seated at Your right hand in heavenly places.
I thank You that You are the Sovereign Lord with whom nothing is impossible. So I ask, Lord that You would help me walk in Your promised victory for my life in the context of the challenges that are confronting me in this present day, time and season of my life.
I invite You to enlighten the eyes of my understanding by Your Spirit so that I can learn to partner effectively with You. Teach me to embrace the process of growth that You have for me through this phase. I trust that because You are fighting for me, I can surrender all my anxiety for Your Perfect Peace.
I also ask for Your help with my emotions and feelings in the process, Lord. As You hold the outcomes of my life securely in Your Faithful Hands, I declare that I will trust that despite what I feel, the Truth is that You have the power to do what You promise. Help my feelings to slowly line up with the Truth of that which You have spoken concerning me as Your Beloved Child and grace me to whole-heartedly receive it.
I thank You that You will not only see me through, Lord but make me better as a result of walking this out by faith in You. Honor and praise belong to You!
SoulandSubstance27 