Job 2:1-10 (NIV)
It may have taken you a long time to get to today, you may have shed some tears and endured some pain. You may have had some disappointments and some moments you felt like throwing in the towel, and that God had abandoned you. Despite all that you went through this year, you have the testimony, but I kept going. Celebrate yourself and pat yourself on the back that you kept going, because there were some that quit the race and said they’re not doing this anymore, but you kept going.
*Some of us only serve God when everything is going right in our lives. We only want to serve God when we want things from God, but what happens when God takes things away from you? What happens when God allows you to suffer? Can you learn how to count it all joy? Keep on serving and going, because you know who God is and what he has done for you. Even if he takes it away, you came into the world with nothing, so what sense is it for you to cry and complain about losing things. I don’t have to get caught in material things because I know who God is. The same God who takes it away is the same God who can give it back to you.
*The enemy is on a mission to steal, kill, and destroy, because he wants to steal your life, kill your spirit, and destroy your faith. Even when God allows me to be in the hands of the enemy I’m still in God’s hands. When things come into our life to cause us pain, hurt, and heartache, though they come by the permission of God, it’s not God doing it. No evil thing dwells in him, Satan is doing it, because he is allowed to do these things to us gut even the enemy has restrictions on how far he can go in our lives. Stop saying the devil did it when it was your decision. Don’t blame the enemy for something the enemy did not do. You decided to go there, do that, say that, and because you decided you must take what comes with it. In spite of what you decided to do, that God’s love is so great for you, that no matter what you do you can’t all out of the hands of God. We serve a God who is gracious and gives us brand new mercies every day. Our only response when we get up in the morning should be to ask for forgiveness.
*This year you may have not experienced physical pain, but emotionally, mentally, and financially you have been in ruins. Trying to figure out how do I get up in the morning? How do I keep smiling, when I want to quit this job? How do I maintain joy when I’m ready to kick everyone out the house? How do I keep being happy when it seems like every time I come up a little bit here comes another bill, and the children acting like they lost their mind. I’m trying to survive this relationship or marriage, but if the Lord provides an exit strategy I’m gone like the wind. Maybe that might not be you, maybe it’s just the fact every time you go to the doctor’s and they see something else. You’re eating healthy and cut things off, but when you go back to the doctor something else is wrong. They tell you take this and that and it doesn’t get better. Your greatest sense of peace came when you leaned on something else. We don’t get to choose when God wants to afflict us, because if it was our choice we would live everyday as if it was Sunday and Sabbath would have no end. But sometimes God comes in at inopportune moments inflicting us with things, and we say how is it that I’m serving God, praying, giving, and doing everything I’m supposed to do, and every time I turn around here comes another issue. How do you keep going, when it seems like all that you’re living on is a pile of ashes and gum.
*Make sure you’re able to discern as you go into the new year the people who you allow to speak to you when you’re going through some things. If the people in your life are telling when you’re going through to just curse God and die, or telling you to do the wrong things, then maybe you don’t need to take advice from then when you find yourself going through some tough things. You don’t need people in your life that bring negativity or want to dump on you with their nonsense and mess trying to keep you where they are miserable and sad. You need people in your life who want to push you to better. If they don’t want to see you doing better in life, then you need to separate yourself from them. You don’t have to dislike them just learn how to love them from a distance, because you can’t keep having people in your life who constantly cause you to question God. You decide you want to start something, a business, and organization and they’re the first negative Nancy always in your ear. Telling you someone else did that, you can’t do this or that, or it costs too much. You need people who know how to speak to your possibilities.
*If you’re going to do something different this year, you’re going to have to reevaluate your circle. In this year when you decided to do something, how many people that you constantly hang with as soon as you said it, they said let’s do it? Before you get to that place you need to know the people who you allow to be around you are riding with you if you decide that’s what you’re going to do. If you say this is what you’re going to do, the first response from your circle should be what do you need me to do. As long as you’re alive you will have moments and seasons of suffering, but you have to make sure you have the right support systems around you so your suffering does not drown you out. You must have some people you can talk to, lean on, who can encourage you when you don’t feel like going on. You already know what God has shown you, stop expecting people who God did not give vision to, to understand the vision that God gave you. We cannot get upset with people that cannot comprehend what we have been called to do, because God did not give them the vision or idea. One of the greatest ways that God speaks to us through dreams and visions. Sometimes we will allow the dreams and visions to be deferred, because people don’t agree with it. Remember that the bible says one with God is the majority, so if God said it and you’re in agreement with it, than it can come to pass. There are some things that God has called us to do that we cannot hesitate in moving in.
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