Strength to Bring Forth

Some people find themselves landlocked in the place of developing concepts and ideas, the concepts and ideas they spend so long creating never see the light of day. This is not a result of not trying or not pushing, they simply lack the ability to turn intangible ideas into tangible creations. Sometimes it is due to the environment these people find themselves in, sometimes it is due to the lack of resources and support needed to birth these ideas and sometimes it is due to lack of adequate preparation on the side of the one with the idea. When there is no preparation, opportunities will be missed, and dreams will fail.

Some believers find themselves holding on to promises made to them by God, but which seemed unfulfilled for one reason or the other. Sometimes the opportunity will come for the promises to be fulfilled but they don’t see it and at other times their focus is on God using a particular path to solve the problem while the solution had already come through another path which they ignored

Some believers are very insensitive to the Holy Spirit, they think carnally while trying very hard to deal with the reality of the Spirit. Because they have refused to renew their minds and grow as they ought to, they miss out on the fulfillment of the word of God.

We saw the swiftness of God’s word and its fulfillment to Hannah in the Bible. The Bible says Hannah went into the temple at Shiloh to pray, Eli the priest came into the temple and saw Hannah praying silently, he assumed she was drunk and rebuked her. Hannah didn’t get angry or dwell on the provocative words of Eli, she expressed her grief to the Priest. Eli prayed for her and her countenance changed. A changed countenance spoke of her faith and change of demeanor, as a young woman who wanted a child, she was previously unhappy with the taunting of her husband’s second wife and her husband’s inability to protect her from it.

She was in no mood to have sexual relations with her husband, in no mood to delight in their love and affection but as soon as Eli prayed for her, her mood changed.

She went home rejoicing, acting as one who had received the promise, and she received the promise within a year.

That Promise was the birth of her first son, Samuel.

We also saw how she did not hold on to the child she received out of sentiment but even though it was a difficult decision, she brought him to the temple to serve Eli the priest, and his sons as a temple boy based on the vow she made before she received the promise

We saw how at the age of ten, a few years after his mother had dropped him off to serve Eli, God spoke to Samuel for the first time. God told Samuel he would remove Eli and his two sons from their priesthood and make him the priest to the nation of Israel.

We saw how God did it.

God stirred the Philistines to make war with Israel. God made the war seem to the Israelites like one they could win. When they got into the war, they realized they needed divine intervention to win. The soldiers sent for the Ark of Covenant, which only the two sons of Eli could carry as priests.

Now these two sons had profaned God’s sacrifices, altar, the ephod, their station as priests, and their office as men of the cloth. They did this to the extent of sleeping with various women, just because they could, right at the tents around the temple in Shiloh. Their conduct had made them a joke to the people of Israel and by extension, their conduct had caused God to be belittled in the eyes of the people.

These same Priests were the ones who brought the Ark of Covenant to the camp of the Israelites so that they could use the power of God to overcome the enemy. The war broke out and the Philistines won. They killed the two sons of Eli and captured the Ark of the Covenant.

When Eli heard the bad news, he had a stroke and died. This was how Samuel became the religious and political leader of Israel. Even though he was not born in the lineage of Aaron and had no right to the priesthood, God promised him that while he lived, no one born of the household of Aaron would be able to contend with him for the position he had been given as a priest and prophet over Israel.

In the story above we saw God made two promises and we saw the two promises fulfilled completely.

In the Book of 1 Samuel 16, God made a promise to David that he would make him King. This promise was sealed with the anointing with oil which was carried out by Prophet Samuel.

For this promise to come to pass the King on the throne who was Saul had to be removed from his position, just as Eli and his sons were removed from their position

God used the same modus operandi. The Philistines were stirred to war against Israel. They were led by Goliath. David had no idea what was going on behind the scenes.

He volunteered to fight Goliath even though he was not old enough to fight in the war and he was also not instructed to fight in the war. That battle was meant to provoke a battle between Saul and Goliath.

Saul surely would have been killed, and David would have been crowned King by prophet Samuel, who knew everything God was up to. However, David intervened and killed Goliath. By so doing, he set back the fulfillment of God’s promise by 13 years. Those thirteen years were years of great peril and affliction for him.

He wrote a lot about it in the Book of Psalms and in the account of his life in the Book of 1 Samuel. It would seem as if God had failed to fulfill his promise or delayed the fulfillment, but this was not so. David took the long route to the throne because he lacked the discernment required to allow the promise of God to be fulfilled.

Eventually, Saul declared David an enemy of the state and he was hunted by Saul and the enemy like a dog, he became a fugitive, and he sought asylum with the enemies in Philistine for many years.

In all the trials he went through at the time, he would sometimes wonder why God did not fulfil his promise and validate the ordination he received to lead Israel.

In that time of waiting a lot changed

• Prophet Samuel Died
• David’s Parents Died
• The Priests of the Nob were slaughtered
• David’s wife who happened to be Saul’s daughter was taken from him and given to another man.
• The waters threatened several times to swallow up David.
• He had Saul cornered twice but he couldn’t take his life.

Eventually, the cycle was complete. God stirred the Philistines again to war with Israel. Saul and his sons led the battle.

David couldn’t intervene because the Amalekites attacked his village and took away his family and the families of all his men.

He had to face another battle far away from the battle between Israel and Philistine. Saul, Jonathan, and his loyalists all died in battle. David then was told by God to return to Judah.

The Men of Issachar’s vision came to Judah, and they advised the elders that it was time to crown David as King. The promise of God came to pass partially in Judah when David was crowned King and fully seven years later when he became the King over all Israel after the Kingdom of Saul was handed over to him.

When we look critically at the events written above, we see how we can sometimes be the architect of our own delay by not doing what God wants us to do at the time God wants us to act or not to act.

“Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.” Proverbs 4:23

In Matthew 12:35, Jesus said, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things…”

The things that happen in your life come from your spirit and not from around you. Hence, it’s important you learn to live from your spirit and bring forth good things out of the good treasures of your heart. The kind and quality of life you live as a Christian aren’t dependent on external factors such as the social and economic circumstances of the world around you but on the state of your spirit and the content and quality of your mind.

This is why it’s important that you inundate your spirit with the Word and have a voracious appetite for the Word. Your health, prosperity, success, and all other good things you could ever desire are embedded in the Word of God. So, with the Word in your Spirit, all you must do is bring forth these good things from within you through your faith-filled confession. The Bible says in Matthew 12:34: “…For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” In other words, when you fill your heart with God’s Word, your mouth will of a necessity speak it forth.

This is how you saturate your life with the blessings of God. Therefore, to have your needs met, don’t look up to any person. Don’t even look up to heaven, expecting the blessing to come from there. Look inward! God has placed within you everything you require for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). Whatever good thing you require, bring it forth from your spirit. It’s all inside you!

But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ (Acts 9:22).

Years ago, while I was having a lot of opposition, I set my face like a flint and focused on something God had told me. He said, “Be courageous; I will not fail you, and I will not forsake you.” It was an instruction from God. Therefore, it made no difference who was against me or what was happening around me; I couldn’t be bothered. There wasn’t going to be any fear. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, I endured with courage, and I’ve been ever since.

When God tells you to be courageous, it’s because He knows there’s trouble out there. He knows some things will try to frighten you, discourage you and dissuade you; so, He says, “Be courageous.” I made up my mind that I was going to do what God said, I was going to be very courageous.

“Saul increased the more in strength….” To increase in strength means that the Lord enabled him. The Greek actually expresses it as “to be made strong.” He was increased in strength; this is an inner strength. He was empowered from within to be able to accomplish more. This is what the Lord does for His children; He strengthens you from within.

As you increase in strength, you increase in glory. This is what has happened with the Gospel of Jesus Christ in these last days: it has increased in strength, and it has increased in glory. We’re in a special time in the world today with Rhapsody of Realities reaching billions of people in their native language. Millions of ministries are partnering together with us for the common goal of taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth!

These aren’t the kinds of things anyone could have planned. They’re happening by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. That grace is at work in you today to accomplish more than you’ve ever done for the Lord. You won’t be afraid; you won’t falter. You’ll rise up to the occasion and win because you’re empowered from within with the strength to bring forth!

Glory be to God.

-GSW-

Announcement

GSW and GSWMI Ministers are coming to Abuja this weekend. We will learn and master the strength to Bring Forth together. Please mark the date and be there.