Last week we started a new series called Positioned for Purpose.
We discussed the difference between Seasons and Cycles and the evolution that we all must go through to break destructive Cycles if we want to become what it is that God has called us to be. Throughout this life we are acquiring the gifting needed at each level to train us for the next. So, we are divinely: prepared and positioned for His purpose in this life.
The key ingredient is not the experience but our reliance on God’s presence during these difficult interactions that cultivates us into our purpose for His kingdom plans.
Without His presence, we miss the P.U.F.F.!
• Power
• Understanding
• Fellowship
• Favor
We are quick to give God credit for blessings, but we find it hard to assign responsibility for things less desirable. However, He is all powerful. To think He has dominion over only blessings and not misfortune would be foolish and unbiblical.
There are things, and people, carefully placed in our lives who bring us to points of humility and frustration.
They seem to know how to expose that last piece of flesh showing in your armor.
If you close your eyes, I’m sure there is someone who comes to mind that keeps you praying.
Sometimes it seems like God is protecting our haters just so they can keep provoking us!
According to the BEB (Basic English Bible translation) haters would appear 208 times throughout the bible.
Have you ever thought, “Lord if you would just take care of my haters, I could run this race for you; I could be the Christian you have called me to be. Lord I could fight the good fight.”
Consider for a moment that these personalities have also been positioned for the purpose of the development of your gifting.
How do you win a race with no other runners? How do you practice being a Christian with no one to forgive? How do you fight the goof fight with no opponents? How do you turn the other check if you’ve never been slapped?
This is not a game and slaps are not only coming, but they ensure that you follow instructions and grow in your gifting for His Purpose.
How do you have victory if it’s not over something?
Job’s wife (Sitis) was a hater. She was blessed beyond measure under his favor, but when the tables turned, she told Him “You still believing? Curse God and die.”
The devil spoke right through her lips to Job. He had to make a choice in the worst conditions, advised, by the Love of His Life.
Job 2:10
Job 13:15a
- Goliath was a bigtime hater. A 40-day bully, demeaning the Israelites, and blaspheming against God. Until David showed up with a rock and the faith to swing it.
The devil will always act up, if we don’t show up and stand on the word of God!
1 Samuel 17:45-46
Do you think God was showing David His power? Did those who would later follow David know that He was blessed and highly favored? Each one positioned for purpose (The enemy, the army, and the boy)!
Each time the trouble is present before the help is supplied. We are all looking for our joy in the morning, but we are trying desperately to avoid that weeping during the night. However, night always comes before day. The season (or period) of a day is the promise that inspires us to make it through the night.
How are you going to be rescued if there is no trouble? I’m not saying look for it, I’m saying know that its allowed to find you.
Psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
That is the testimony of a man who knew, firsthand, that God delivers
-When the odds are against us, it’s only because we don’t see, who’s with us!
2 Kings 6:16-17
Matthew 5:6
Matthew 5:11
Let them talk, (their speech) is now confirmation that you are in anticipation of a blessing.
The devil told you to be hurt by it, but God said it’s a blessing!
- Don’t let your preparation be used as bondage when God has called it a blessing!
- Haters want you to be bound by their words, But God is going to use HIS Word (which is a promise) to free you.
As believers, we must stop being afraid of rejection,
Matthew 10:12-13.
When something is not worthy of relinquishing our peace, we are supposed to retrieve our tranquility and depart (Go).
14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. 15 Truly I tell you; it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.
Take the power you came in with but leave the residue from the unworthy communion right there. (Leave it behind!) Leave that dust in the past.
Don’t leave your Peace in the past. God brought you through a valley, and instead of worshiping on the mountain top about your rescue, you’re still examining your wounds from the valley.
- We are robbing God of the worship that comes after a victory!
You have been to the mountain top but have never experienced the worship and communion that comes when God provides an escape!
So, you don’t have mountain top experience and the growth that comes from it!
- You miss the worship, communion and fellowship
- You miss the new assignment that is disseminated in the intimacy of the relationship
- You lose the confidence to go again!
- You either stay there on the mountain top. or
- You enter the next valley with greater trepidation, fear anxiety nervousness and apprehension!
Some of us are missing the steps that allow spiritual transformation from one cycle to the next because we are longing for things God meant for us to leave behind in a previous season.
Thank God I’m free from the traps the enemy set! Lord open their eyes!
Some of you have left your peace in the past.
16 “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.
In this life, the wolves will be biting at us often, trying to take a nick here or there, and you can’t bite them back because we have two different identities (and natures).
A wolf was sent to attack, and the sheep were sent to follow their shepherd.
Yes, a hater must hate. That’s what they are designed to do. But in many ways, it keeps us closer to the guard of the Good Shepherd.
He is able to take every encounter – good, bad, good or indifferent – and use it for our good.
Romans 8:28
God took the life and death of Jesus and used it to set the world free. One man’s death, for every man’s sins!
Romans 5:8
Let your eyes be open today, and see that God was not punishing you but preparing you for a purpose much greater. To realize your purpose and accept it, you will have to let go of what you have been holding on to from your past, that thing you were supposed to shake off, let go and leave behind.
I promise you, the blessings God puts in your open had, will be so much better than the hurt you have let go!