This morning we continue our new series for 2017 entitled, “The Year of Supernatural Manifestation”. Yesterday I shared a few things with you that the Lord revealed to me about 2016 and how it He saw the entire as simply “a moment in time” He used to reset us and reposition us to receive the future He planned for us. Today I feel led to provide a brief explanation of God’s part and our part in the process.
God does all He does by His unearned grace. That being the case, one could think that God could have forgone any reseting or repositioning on our part and He could have simply given us what He was going to give us, whether we were ready or not. While that is true, you must remember the system God established. First of all, God is a good father. He is not going to give you something before you can handle it, because he knows that a blessing, before it’s time, can actually become a curse. Second, while it is true that God does all He does for us by grace, He requires us to do all we do to access His blessing by faith. God requires us to exercise our faith in order to access His grace. That is why the Bible tells us that this is impossible (literally) to please God without faith (Heb 11:6). Faith is God’s requirement of us.
Understanding God’s part and our part, the matter of being in the proper position makes sense. It is not that God is requiring you to work for or earn His blessing — Jesus earned it for you — it’s just that God is looking for you to be in position to receive what He already planned to do in, with and through your life. You could never get to the point where you deserve God’s goodness, but you can get in position to receive it.
So what does this mean to you today? A few quick things.
1. Experiences with God are important.
a) God does not want you to simply know Him through the pages of the Bible. If God is only someone you read about, then you are not ready to become a conduit of His supernatural power in the earth.
b) In 2016 God allowed you to endure situations that caused you to experience Him in ways you never had. Those experiences are invaluable. Those experiences did more for you than reading scripture ever could. Those experiences helped position you to receive what God is ready to do in, with and through your life in 2017.
c) Like the child who does not understand what you mean when you tell him that fire is hot until he puts his hand on the stove, the child of God does not truly understand God, nor can he/she have intimacy with God, outside of experiences. Challenges are not pleasant, but they do allow us the opportunity to experience God in a way we never could outside of the challenge. So, thank God for every experience He allowed you to live-out in 2016. Those experiences have prepared you for 2017.
2. The position you are in has a lot to do with the disposition you maintain.
a) Being in position to receive from God has a lot to do with your disposition. You must remain humble, submitted, open and yielded to the Father, for Him to freely operate in your life.
b) The experiences you endured in 2016 helped form and fashion your disposition to the point where you are now ready to be used of God.
c) In one of the latter messages of 2016 I told you that “your character must be developed to the point where you can carry the weight of the anointing”. That’s what having a Godly disposition is about. You must get to the point where you know it is God living in you, giving you the words, and performing the work, every day of your life.
d) If you live your life with an emphasis on you and your selfish desires, God will never live through you, because He is not going to compete with you. But if you allow yourself to be processed to the point where you are dead to sin, self and selfishness, you are then IN POSITION to be used of God for His glory!
Closing Confession: Father, I thank You for giving me the space and the grace to experience You in 2016 like never before. I learned of You by experience in a way that I never could by reading scriptures. I now know You in a more intimate way. I have died to self to a greater level. I am yielded, submitted to, and in synch with Your Spirit. I give myself over to You completely, to be used of You, for Your glory. You are now free to do in me and with me, what You planned to do from the foundations of the world! I declare this by faith! In Jesus’ name. Amen.
This is Today’s Word! Apply it and Prosper.
