Renew My Mind

I heard an excellent explanation once about prophetic words of knowledge and encouragement and revelation in general. When God speaks to us, he builds faith in our hearts. It is our responsibility to hold onto that revelation and to talk to him about it. Usually, God gives us a heads up because we need it to stay the course.

There will often come a occasion to believe the exact opposite, which is why he speaks to us in advance. Without that encouragement, we would often believe a lie and doubt his goodness. So when God speaks promotion into your life, be aware that you may face a period where that truth has not come to fullness. In other words, it may not happen immediately and you’ll need to hold on tightly to that word and trust in him before you see it happen.

When promised promotion is postponed, it’s time to return to the quiet place. Make sure you haven’t lost your posture of intimacy and reliance upon him. Sit at his feet and listen for what he wants to tell you. Just enjoy him. Delight yourself in the Lord. He will fulfill his word in due season.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
- Psalms 34:4

I’ve heard several takes on this one. Everything from name it and claim it to God will tell your heart what to desire. The former is an abuse of greed. The latter a rewording based on fear of misuse and misunderstanding.

I have to stick with the given translation here. Because if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. He says elsewhere that he gives good gifts to his children, even better gifts than we fathers give our children. So why wouldn’t he give you or me the desires of our hearts? Because our hearts are desperately wicked? Okay. I’ll even give you that. But there’s more to it than getting your heart’s desires.

How many people could legitimately delight themselves in the Lord and still lust after another man’s wife? How many people could delight themselves in the Lord and still ask him for something wretched? What we fail to realize is that God fashioned and formed each one of us to be unique, and part of that uniqueness comes in the form of what we desire, enjoy, and find fulfillment in.

I just recently heard of a man who is well respected for his maturity and prophetic gifting. He gets all these amazing business ideas and gives them away to people because he has had no method of executing them on his own. He’s an excellent golfer, and has been for decades. He could have gone pro, but he felt like he was supposed to enter full-time ministry. He’s helped dozens of people with business ideas, and helped them pursue their passions with excellence, but he’s not doing it himself. Some people who love him started encouraging him to pursue his passions. He’d been delighting in the Lord more and more, and God began opening the door for him to play golf!

It may sound silly, but he does it with excellence, he receives fulfillment from playing well, and he has excellent avenues of ministry opportunity with other golfers and members of resorts and country clubs around the country. God has some amazing things planned for this guy who delights himself in the Lord!

Take me, for example. I have wanted to write a few books for awhile now, but have yet to seriously take a stab at it. Writing is a desire of my heart. I am passionate about expressing my thoughts and ideas on paper or the web. But I am also limited, and I think part of it may revolve around the fact that I have tried to make my heart’s desires happen on my own – apart from delighting in God.

Delighting in God is such an enjoyable activity, it is really its own reward. A person is NEVER more fulfilled than when he or she delights himself/herself in the Lord. And I think that’s the point. God releases the grace, ability, and resources to those who delight in him because he can trust them. A person who delights in the Lord won’t turn their other heart’s desires into idols. Our Father wants to be Numero Uno. Do that, and he will entrust you with more than you can imagine. You will finally be trustworthy enough to receive it.

Our God is a God of justice.
I was reminded of this last night when my wife and I received some prophetic encouragement from a group of people at Borders bookstore.

Sometimes God allows his children to be treated unjustly so that he can swoop in and deliver promotion. He IS the God of justice. So when injustice occurs, he has the right to bring justice. He blesses his children with increase and promotion when their hearts are stayed on him.

Be Encouraged.
Focus on the blessings you have: your spouse, your children, your home, your church, your pastor, your extended family, your friends, your health, your spiritual giftings, etc. Whatever you currently posses that is a blessing, thank him for it. Allow yourself to be postured properly so that his promotion can come swiftly.

Follow your heart more than your head. Your earthly logic will tell you that you are about to go bankrupt or get a divorce or lose your friends or lose your good name. You simply cannot allow those thoughts to rule in your mind. Yes, they will come, but you take authority and choose to focus RIGHT THEN on how you are blessed.

You can be certain that God is a God of promotion and increase. Your part is to be thankful for what you do have and not interfere with his imparting blessing to you. One of our biggest challenges is not getting in the way.

He loves us. He will provide for us. He loves righting wrongs. He loves giving good gifts to his children. He loves you very much. You are safe in his love.

When all else fails, God is faithful.

It’s true, but it’s hard to hear when you get fired, you get dumped, your father abandoned your family, your friend commits suicide, your husband cheats on you with another woman, or you are betrayed by a friend.

Life is hard. God IS faithful, but you might not be able to believe that until you have a history of his faithfulness in your life.

Some people like to claim that they can have faith in Jesus and have received his salvation without joining or attending a local body of believers (church). This is true, but what these people DON’T realize is that they are sorely lacking some tools that will help them in this life.

Let’s take a look at how we build a history of knowing God’s faithfulness. These are not necessarily in order:

1. Ask God for big and small things. Ask God for everything you desire.
2. Submit to the authority of a local body of believers.
3. Find at least 2-3 Christians you respect and build relationship with them (same sex, just in case that wasn’t obvious).
4. Write down your desires when you ask God for them.
5. Go back to that journal and note when and how God answers your prayers.
6. Re-visit older journal entries that remind you what God has done in the past.
7. Talk with your Christian friends about what God has done in your lives.
8. Thank God for his goodness even when you haven’t seen him do something obvious in a while.

There are more things than these that you can do, of course. And I don’t want you to feel like you have to live up to this list in order to have God’s love or approval, because that would be nonsense. But these are practical steps which will help you to foster a spirit of gratefulness and remembrance.

God doesn’t always call us to major activities with spotlights and cameras and audiences. But he does ALWAYS call each of us to have personal responsibility for our actions AND our thoughts and beliefs. We can affect our thoughts and beliefs every day. We just have to choose to do it.

Have a blessed day. May God speak to you and give you fresh revelation that sparks greater confidence in Him.