“For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.”
When we hear God saying we need to be strengthened by enduring so that we are ready to receive what He has promised, we have two sides of the coin to consider.
The one of realisation that we have to undergo to be trained to be ready. We may feel overwhelmed with the battle already. The second that there is a promise at the end of the tunnel that is worth reaching.
“May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus,”
Jesus has the solution. We keep our eyes on Him and get over and around whatever comes up in between resting in our distraction of Him and not what appears to be junk obstacles in the way.
There is then a sweetness in the hardship of the training because God has provided and continues to provide our strength and emotional stamina.
We have been promised, therefore enduring to receive that promise means there is no longer disappointment in God but instead always expectation.
The testing we endure prepares us to hold the weight of what is to come. Weight bearing will reveal any flaws or fractures that we may previously have been unaware of. We need whole strength.
Often sensing we are swimming against the flow is indicative of swimming in God’s direction and not man’s.
Conversely there is an ease and rest when we are in His anointing and time that is missing when we have forsaken Him and built our own way.
“for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
Both trying to continue when the season has passed or trying to birth things in our timing and not God’s will meet with resistance.
We can be accused of trying to bring about solutions to solve problems or create the promise in our own strength and not in Gods.
We can easily encounter a sense of fear, loss, failure or of being overlooked and commence driving ourselves independently.
It may be merit able solution to getting through a crisis by gearing up, but not to fulfilling a promise driven by God.
An Ishmael spirit of independent solution instead of resting and abiding in the faith, that what God promises will be, as Sarah giving birth to Isaac portrayed.
God is training us not to be driven by fear. Instead to stop, be still and wait. To not make things happen. Resting and hosting; responding to Him and awaiting the supernatural solution. Stop making driven decisions. Wait for answers to be released.
Move in response to Him instead of as a reaction to what is of the world. Nothing phases God. He exists in the place of the eternal not the earthly.
Our dependence on Him is our solution, it exists in the space we give Him.
Our biggest idol is fear; to not look like a failure. Fear comes from the enemy.
God cannot inhabit and bless what we give space to be filled by another. God can fill empty places prepared for Him. He needs a gap left for Him.
It is His joy to be invited and for us to wait in expectation. Too often we have to fill the space with our own noise or words, not His. We worship Him in our waiting.
We cannot do this by our human effort only by waiting on Him. It is not about us. It is about Him.
The illustration shows us waiting upon the Holy Spirit to fill, strengthen and empower us to overcome what is of the world and to be expectant of the fruition of God’s promises. Light emanating to push back the darkness.
Three Scriptures that come to mind:
“For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.” Hebrews 10:36 ESV
“May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus,”. Romans 15:5 ESV
“for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Jeremiah 2:13 ESV
The song Your Nature. Kari Jobe
Lessisgreater 