You've got this!

Wow! What a week! What a month! What a year! Have you had those thoughts recently? Life has been filled with challenges, tests, and struggles. But it’s also been filled with joys, triumphs, and breakthroughs. This morning God challenged me to just encourage you in Him. There was nothing super deep, no visions or catchy phrases. He just wanted me to tell you that you are going to make it! What you have been facing is not the end of your story. It’s a part but it’s not the end. It’s so easy to get into a season of your life and supersize its importance. You feel like it’s never ending and so it overtakes you and everything else in your life. I’m not saying that what you are going through or where you are is not important. But I am saying that it is not all that God has for you. He is using this challenge, this test to perfect and prepare you.

I’m a witness. God has been presenting me with tests that I never expected. I’ve had to cry, self-examine, pray, repent, cry some more. But at the end of every test, there is a lesson that I can add to my spirit to help me move forward in God’s purpose for my life. How about you? Can you look at your life and see God shaping and making you? Can you feel the stretching? The things that used to be simple for you are not anymore because God wants you to use your next level thinking. He wants you to call on Him for His wisdom and understanding. One of my favorite scriptures is “Wisdom is the principal thing therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.” (Prov. 4:7 NKJV) I have had to really accept that word in my life. Sometimes what you’re are going through is a wisdom building exercise. God is teaching you some things so that you do not make the same mistakes again. Aren’t you tired of taking the same test over and over again? I know I am! Ask God to show you what you are missing. Ask Him to give you HIS wisdom and then follow His instructions. It’s pointless to ask and then not listen.

That brings me to the other thing God led me to share. If we are going to get through the challenges of life, we have to deal with our flesh! It’s one of the greatest challenges, obstacles, tests, enemies that you will ever face. Do you know why? It’s a simple answer, actually. Because it’s you, your humanness and it fights every day to remain a part of your life. God cracks me up sometimes with the things He gives me to share but I really bugged out on this one because it’s so true. Ebony can mess Ebony up really bad! You know what I mean? When I am walking according to what I want, I mess things up. God wants your attention to be on Him. The Message translation breaks it down really clearly. “Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.” (Rom. 8:5-8) If we want life and peace, we have to walk according to the Spirit. We cannot combat the challenges of this life and the world, if we are walking in our flesh. That’s why Paul often talks about dying to Christ. Every day, we have to crucify our flesh so that we aren’t functioning based on ourselves but on what God is saying to us. It's the only way to live with some peace.

Part of what God has called me to do with Rhema is uplift the body of Christ. If I have to tell you every week that you are going to make it, I will because that’s what God is saying. He does not want you to think that the things you go through are for nothing. And He definitely doesn’t want you to think that you have to handle anything on your own. He has a plan and purpose for your life that is going to be fulfilled. You just have to be obedient. You don’t have to worry about what other people are saying or doing if it’s not in line with Kingdom and God’s plan for you. That’s often the hardest lesson to learn, trust me, but it will make all the difference in how you conduct your life. Just know that you are God’s beloved and He has your back. “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 15:57 NKJV) Get that wisdom! Kill that flesh! Keep fighting! You will make it! AMEN