2018: A Year of Faithfulness and a Year of Judgment
God is not looking for the strong. God is looking for the willing...for the loyal.
Smallness is always a part of what God is doing. It is almost never in the "big" decisions that I am found faithful to believe and faithful to go forward in God. It's almost always in what begins seemingly small, sometimes the presumptive "no brainier" decisions that I find the greatest testing of my loyalty to the person of God. The principles of loyalty to God always bear fruit...positively or negatively. Seeds of faith and seeds of doubt both grow. The word of the Lord never returns to Him without fruit of some kind.
2018 is a year of judgment. Judgment is good. God is good, and his judgments bring life.
In 2018, many doors are going to open to "say what God says, the way he says it", and to trust Him in the face of great resistance. It will start small....it will start in a manageable way....that is the test!
The testing is in the fact that God lets big moments start small so we can decide what we really want.
The principle is what matters...not the perceived impact of your decision to follow God. No one ever knows what is going to happen. We can only decide to stay faithful to God in the now....the right now.
The right now almost always seems small and always determines our future.
2 Chronicles 16:7And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said to him: “Because you have relied on the king of Syria, and have not relied on the LORD your God, therefore the army of the king of Syria has escaped from your hand.8“Were the Ethiopians and the Lubim not a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet, because you relied on the LORD, He delivered them into your hand. 9“For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him. In this you have done foolishly; therefore from now on you shall have wars.” 10Then Asa was angry with the seer, and put him in prison, for he was enraged at him because of this. And Asa oppressed some of the people at that time.11Note that the acts of Asa, first and last, are indeed written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel
12And in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa became diseased in his feet, and his malady was severe; yet in his disease he did not seek the LORD, but the physicians.
Many will be given second and third chances in 2018...they will seem like small chances to redeem big mistakes of not standing for loyalty and truth...the smallness is the point...the principle is what matters.
Say yes to God in 2018. Change your future for the better. Resolve to stay loyal to God, no matter the size of the test. See the small as real. Small is his Mercy, not his inattentiveness, or your ineffectiveness...what starts small always grows.
Matthew 13:26“But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.27“So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’28“He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’29“But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.30‘Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”
Smallness is always a part of what God is doing. It is almost never in the "big" decisions that I am found faithful to believe and faithful to go forward in God. It's almost always in what begins seemingly small, sometimes the presumptive "no brainier" decisions that I find the greatest testing of my loyalty to the person of God. The principles of loyalty to God always bear fruit...positively or negatively. Seeds of faith and seeds of doubt both grow. The word of the Lord never returns to Him without fruit of some kind.
2018 is a year of judgment. Judgment is good. God is good, and his judgments bring life.
In 2018, many doors are going to open to "say what God says, the way he says it", and to trust Him in the face of great resistance. It will start small....it will start in a manageable way....that is the test!
The testing is in the fact that God lets big moments start small so we can decide what we really want.
The principle is what matters...not the perceived impact of your decision to follow God. No one ever knows what is going to happen. We can only decide to stay faithful to God in the now....the right now.
The right now almost always seems small and always determines our future.
2 Chronicles 16:7And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said to him: “Because you have relied on the king of Syria, and have not relied on the LORD your God, therefore the army of the king of Syria has escaped from your hand.8“Were the Ethiopians and the Lubim not a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet, because you relied on the LORD, He delivered them into your hand. 9“For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him. In this you have done foolishly; therefore from now on you shall have wars.” 10Then Asa was angry with the seer, and put him in prison, for he was enraged at him because of this. And Asa oppressed some of the people at that time.11Note that the acts of Asa, first and last, are indeed written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel
12And in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa became diseased in his feet, and his malady was severe; yet in his disease he did not seek the LORD, but the physicians.
Many will be given second and third chances in 2018...they will seem like small chances to redeem big mistakes of not standing for loyalty and truth...the smallness is the point...the principle is what matters.
Say yes to God in 2018. Change your future for the better. Resolve to stay loyal to God, no matter the size of the test. See the small as real. Small is his Mercy, not his inattentiveness, or your ineffectiveness...what starts small always grows.
Matthew 13:26“But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.27“So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’28“He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’29“But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.30‘Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”
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