I am not sure if you have ever been waiting for anything, but while waiting for the promise I have endured the pruning and burning away process. I came to realize that it was necessary to prepare me to manage the blessing I was waiting for. I want to encourage you and remind you that the storms will come, and at times it will bring heavy rains and winds. But stand on – Hold Fast in the face of struggle Hebrews 12:15-17 “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.”
My friend, I am convinced that the closer you get to your breakthrough the more temptations will come to try to cause you to forfeit the promise. Don’t fall for it! Guard your heart and keep the Word in your ears and in your mouth daily. Be diligent to cast down every imagination and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
I remember when the Lord spoke to me and said daughter “Be the ram in the bush.” I didn’t immediately receive this Word. Honestly, I was taken back. I know what many of you will say, “Well Pastor, the Word says that God will provide the ram in the bush.” For many of us we see the ram as our way out of an unbearable situation.
We are all seeking our ram in the bush that we can lay on the altar and sacrifice on our behalf. No one has ever said, but today I had to say to the Lord, to experience and accept the RAM, Lord “Make ME the ram in the bush”
I came to the realization that the fire is for me! I am no stranger to the purifying fire of God, to walk with Him, we all must be acquainted with the fire. Over the years I had dipped my toes in the fire. I had even walked into the flame’s waist deep. In those times, I thought I was all in, but looking back now I see what I was withholding from the flames.
No novice can accept this invitation, “Present your bodies a living sacrifice.” I was crying out for the flames and didn’t know it. God is not promoting flesh, he is not pouring out blessings and favor on flesh, nor can the flesh inherit the promises of God.
It is by living and operating according to His spirit by faith do we enact the blessings of the covenant relationship in our lives. All of this is to the purpose of manifesting His glory in the earth. God wants to put us on display as models and examples to principalities and rulers and high places to demonstrate His manifold wisdom and also for the encouragement and edification of the household of faith and to draw the lost.
This is a high calling to bear the weight of glory and its stewardship requires maturity in the spirit to manage and direct the flow of many streams of blessings. It takes WISDOM to be blessed!! God is after the treasure we house in our earthen vessels. This is why we are pressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed, always bearing in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifest in our bodies.
Submit!
Don’t quit! Don’t forfeit the promise that belongs to you in Christ Jesus. Walk in the spirit and deny the flesh. Be the ram in the bush that somebody needs to see.
Use me Lord, send me Lord! I am your RAM!
Pastor V.