Bishop George Davis
--> Ephesians 2: 8-10 We are God's workmanship; His masterpiece.
- Everyone knows a masterpiece takes time. There are always different phases til the finished product God has called us to. Where ever you are right now, this isn't the end for you!
- So if you're doing well right now, that's great! Thank God for it, but he has more in store for you! If you're not doing so hot right now, you thought you should have accomplished some things in your life and you didn't, you strayed away, etc. God is still working on you!
**Philippians 1:6 - "And I am sure of this, that he who began a great work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."
(In lamen terms): As long as you are still down here on this earth, God will be working on you! It doesn't say "..until you mess up," which means God must have already factored into it your mess-ups! He already understood that there was going to be a detour; it wasn't a detour He intended, nor a detour He designed, but He has a way for you to get back on track and still end up where he intended for you to be.
**Question: What is God working on in you for this year??
- If you say that God isn't working on anything in you right now, it's because you haven't been listening! b/c Phil 1:6 clearly states that He is working on something continuously in you until the day Christ returns
--> Hebrews 6:1-
* At no time does God want us to get comfortable with where we are!
*God never remains stagnant. So what frustrates people is when we (people) become stagnant, and God is trying to move us to the next level of growth.
*God is not going to give you the next level of blessing until you walk in the next level of growth.
*In order for this to be the year of the fullness of the blessing for you, it must be the year of the fullness of the maturity for whatever He's talking to you about fixing.
-So if I want the fullness of the blessing, i have to be willing to submit myself to God, and walk in the fullness of maturity for whatever He's asking me to do right now!
-If you refuse to let God work on perfecting you in that one area, it's going to bring a stop to what God able to do in your life. b/c you can't keep going higher and higher with a moving God, while staying the exact same way in your personality and character.
-Every time you make the changes, God promotes you to a higher level.
*Many times we are hold-up for the blessing! But if we'll just get out of the way, and let God have his way, what we'll find is He's ready to do a lot more things in our lives than what he's been able to do up until now, *and as soon as we get ready we find that He has been ready!
--> 1 Samuel 16:1 - Example of how some character issue can cause you to miss out on some facet of what God could be doing in your life.
- God doesn't owe us an explanation! There's plenty of times where God will tell you to do something, and when you're a young christian he gives you plenty of time. He'll give you confirmation. He'll give you someone to prophesy a word into your life, send you to church and a message confirms what you're supposed to do, etc. to make sure you know it's really Him that's sending you. BUT, now that you've been walking with God for a little while, and you know his voice, you know how he deals with you, you get to a point where God tells you to do something and you ask for confirmation- no confirmation comes. Because he knows he already taught you how to hear his voice. You know how to pray it out in the spirit until you get peace on the inside. So now God is telling you to go and do what he asked you to do, and he may not give you all the details.
- The more you mature, to which much is given much is required. In the beginning days God knew it'd take time to work with you. But after all this time, God no longer takes your excuses.
--> Look at Moses as an example. The confirmations God gave him with the signs in exodus; versus the response God gives Moses for not doing what God commanded in the dessert. The first time, God told Moses to strike the rock with the rod and water would come out. sure enough, water came out and the people were given water to drink. The second time however, God wanted Moses to show the people that the power wasn't in the rod it was in God, so this time God told Moses to just speak to the rock. But afraid of what would happen Moses did what he did the first time and hit the rock with the rod. The people's needs were still met, but because of Moses' disobedience God would not let him inherit the promise land.
Back to 1 Samuel 16:, starting at vs 6:
-Eliab was rejected by God, and so were all the other sons before David. To be rejected means they must have been considered. There was probably something in their characters that made them unfit to be God's anointed king.
(I wonder if there are things in our own personalities and characters that hinder God's blessing...)
**The moment God reveals a part of your character or personality that needs to be altered, from that moment you become responsible to God for going to Him and letting Him give you what it takes, by the grace of God, to make the changes. b/c any of us can change any part of our personalities that needs to be changed.
- With God, it's all about position! God will start talking to you about something you need to change today, that will have you lined up for a promotion that's coming your way tomorrow.
-There may be something you've been standing and believing God for, and though you have a covenant right to it, there's a difference between having a covenant right to something and being spiritually mature enough to handle it when it shows up. --> *God won't give us more than we can handle.
--> Philippians 3:10-
*When there's something in your character or personality that keeps sticking out at you like a sore thumb, that needs to be corrected, it's because the Lord is the one who loves you just the way that you are, but can see how much greater you would be, and how much more he'd be able to do through you, if you went ahead and made the adjustment.
- (Phil 3:13) you have to let go of the past!! So many people are stuck grieving over their hurt feelings from the past, their failures, etc.
*The one thing you need to learn as a Christian is how to have a short memory! The only thing you want to keep on your mind is how good God has been b/c every day his mercies are brand new, he has a way to turn things around, and make things better every day of your life!
- It's time to let go of "he hurt me," or "they hurt me," etc. God knows they hurt you! But just like God factored in your mess-ups, he also factors in people hurting you.
- you'll have such joy on your face when God rewards you b/c you didn't faint, you didn't quit but you kept pressing forward.
- "press" = comes from the Greek word "dioko" which means to seek after eagerly; to earnestly endeavor or acquire; or to pursue in a hostile manner.
*Are you living with urgency to become all God has created you to be??
- I'm not talking about pursuing after all God can do for us. But are you really pursuing in a hostile manner all God created you to be? Are you at a place where you're no longer content with having a bad attitude? Are you at a place where you're just not willing to live another year caught up in foolishness? Are you at a place where you've made up in your mind that you're done repenting over and over again for the same thing? Are you at a place where you made up in your mind, "I'm going to go so hard after God in a hostile manner?" That i'm not going to let that spirit of loneliness cause me to step out of the will of God ever again? Are you at a place with your walk with God where there's such an urgency, a hostile spirit in you, that you've just decided, "i'm not getting baited into strife ever again?"
**See what happens with so many believers, they say they're going to change in some areas but they don't make a determined decision to do so. There's no urgency on it. There's no hostile intent. So consequently, when someone comes along and pushes the wrong button, it's easy for them to drift right back into what they say they'd no longer do b/c they never made a real commitment to do it right to begin with. That's why we say things like, "i'm gon' work on that," or "i'm gon' try and change that." Those are just excuse that mean, "i'm not going to do it, but i want you to know that i was thinking about doing it before i messed up."
- I've made up in my mind that there has to be more on the other side of what God is asking me to change.
--> John 5: 30 *This has to be your declaration! If you're still stuck on "it has to be my way all the time" or "i have to win every fight," then you're not going to be willing to make the adjustments. But when the only thing you really care about is the will of God, "i just want to be right with God.." The only thing you're really concerned with is, "Lord, let me know your will so i can sell out the rest of my life doing your will." And what happens is when you sell out to doing nothing but the will of God, you can't help but get rewarded for doing right! ((David said i've been young and i'm now old, but never have i seen the righteous of the Lord forsaken or his seed begging bread) you do right by God, and i promise God will do right by you! That's why it's impossible to live right before God consistently and have everything in your life go wrong every month, and every single day, etc. So don't confuse it. don't think that God has let you down! If you just never get a break, something's always going wrong, you never get a chance to stop & celebrate the goodness of the Lord without it being by faith, somewhere along the line you have to go back and examine. "Lord, what have you been dealing with me about changing, that i may have missed the mark on, or been too stubborn to change, or ignored it and didn't hear what you were telling me to do?" b/c when you live uprightly before God to the best of what you know right now, you can't help but walk in blessings even when challenges come your way.
*I'm tired of apologizing for blessings, or acting like i'm not blessed just to make someone else feel better! I'm blessed! and there's a reason why i'm blessed! Yes, God is good, but i've been living right and doing right before God for a very long time now, and when you've been living right before God you ought to walk in the blessings that come from living right before Him.
--> Acts 9:1-5
(vs 4-5) "It's hard for thee when you kick against the bricks." -in other words: when you're trying to do the opposite of what God is nudging you to do, nothing good is going to come out of that.
- If you try to go up against God and do the opposite of what he wants you to do, God IS going to have his way in your life! You can take the easy route, or you can take the hard route bc He's not going to change His mind. If you don't believe me, here are a few examples:
- Jonah: he didn't go where God told him to go; went on a boat heading in the opposite direction.. (you all know the story) *But we always look at Jonah being swallowed by a fish as a bad thing when really it's the mercy and grace of God that he didn't let Jonah drown in the sea! And when Jonah was back on land, God told him to go and do the exact same thing he told him to do before. So really, Jonah could have saved himself a few nights in the belly of a fish had he done it God's way to begin with!
- Pharaoh: God said let his people go. Pharaoh did everything he could not to let them go. etc.
--> End up in the same mess, sometimes longer than we had to be there, b/c we won't go ahead and do it God's ways.
-God is going to have his way, so it's best to just surrender all to him.
--> Hebrews 12: 5-11
- If you can't think of anything God is dealing with you about, it's because you haven't sought him on it. You spend enough time with God, and he'll make it very clear to you what he's working on.Then you have to surrender it to God.
*The way in which God chastens us is not with sickness and disease! God doesn't put cancer, or HIV on you to teach you something. Now sometimes sickness and disease come because we get out here on the enemy's territory. We dance with Satan and end up getting something we didn't want to have. But God is still merciful!
-God is the father of spirits. So when the father of spirits wants to correct his spirit children he does so by correcting or chastening them in their spirit not their flesh. He makes it real clear here: (He contrasts) "Fathers in the flesh would correct us in the flesh." And even when they corrected you in the flesh, you still had respect for them.
example: a 4 year old being spanked for being disobedient --> well 10-20 minutes later they're back, hugged up on their mom or dad b/c they understand it's just part of the process.
--> Well now our heavenly father is the father of spirits. When he corrects us, he corrects us in our hearts. When he comes and says, " you know you're wrong doing that," or "that wasn't the best way to handle that situation." Sometimes you want him to jump all over that one person at work or school b/c of how they mistreated you, and instead he starts telling you how he wants you to grow in your walk of maturity, your walk in love. He wants you to stop being so selfish in having things always done your way, etc. That's the chastening of the Lord!
And the bible says, "if you endure it.." Meaning if you don't kick against it. b/c you can rebel by saying "but i don't want to do it that way," or "man whatever, they mad me mad," etc. b/c it doesn't feel good when you're going through it, when God is chastening you, when He is working on something on the inside of you; it doesn't feel good when it seems like he's just constantly nitpicking at you..
But the bible says afterwards! Afterwards, if you endure the chastening, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness.
--> "peaceable" -root word being "peace," it comes from the Greek word "eirene" and it means "to set at one again." It's the Greek word that corresponds to the Hebrew word "shalom," which means "to bring everything back together, nothing missing and nothing broken."
- So when you submit to the chastening, that means everything that has been missing or broken from your life
will start making its way back because of your right standing with God.
-Now we get to a place where we say to God, "whatever you want me to adjust, I'll adjust."
--> Proverbs 9:8-
*We have to grow to a place where we love righteous correction! When you see God correcting you, whether it's him talking to you directly or if it's him talking to you through your holy woman or man of God, you ought to thank God for it. And surrender to it saying, "thank you Lord for bringing me up to a higher level."
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