God's Waiting Room or Faith Gym?

What do you do after consulting God on an issue, 

and a big part of His answer is or seems to be, "Wait"?

I recently heard (live) a powerful and quite moving speech by Dr. Ronn Elmore (drronn.com) entitled, "Have a Seat in God's Waiting Room". This speech painted a vivid and very entertaining analogy between the experience of waiting in a dentist's office with an awful toothache, and waiting for God to answer urgent prayer. This speech prompted me to ponder the following questions, which may be on your mind, too, if you’ve ever “Had a Seat in God’s Waiting Room” for a protracted period of time:

1. When do I end up in God's waiting room -- before consulting Him on my petition, as with the dentist experience, or afterward? 
2. From God’s perspective, what really constitutes patient waiting? 
3. What to do while in God's so-called waiting room? 

Re. the first point, I readily recognized my waiting room experiences with God are the flip side/opposite of those in typical professional settings. I typically am required to wait AFTER praying. What about you?

Before addressing the remaining points, ponder with me a couple of questions:

• Honestly, when is your faith developed to receive from God, the answer to your typical prayer -- before you ask (pray) or afterward? 
• When is your faith to receive the answer most likely to wane??
• And WHAT is the typical evidence of …waning faith? 

The biggest problem we may encounter in God's waiting room may well be the tendency of devils to manipulate our thinking to focus on ANYTHING BUT the glorious climax -- the manifestation of answered prayer! One of their biggest deceptions may well be prompting us to apply to God's waiting room experiences, the 'patient mentality' of our human experiences, e.g., with the medical industry, or other similar professional waiting rooms. I, too, have been duped into believing waiting on manifestation of answered prayers means hunkering down, getting quiet and trying to prove to God and myself "just how patient I can be." After a long while with this approach, the vision and desire would slowly dry up and fade away, to the point that it didn't matter anymore! I gave up; caved in. My vision was D.O.A. (Dead On Application) of the "patient principle", or at least what I thought was patience. It was merely me slowly giving up ‘the fight of faith’! 

I now understand more clearly God's ways are so much higher than our ways. It boggles my mind to try to flip my image about being patient. The concept of patience really speaks to what we "do" while in God's waiting room. This is the place and time our faith may be on trial, and devils know it! This may be when God, in His loving but tough 'faith development' mindset’, offers us the opportunity to grow-up our faith to receive, materially, that which He has given to us, spiritually. If so, this is the time to come out fighting, swinging and jabbing with the "S-Word" (The Sword of the Spirit, which is the Spirit's Word!). We do this by increasingly confessing and professing God's promises, listening to them, feeding on them, praying them and meditating on them. We do this until God's promises become our 'new inner reality' over and above the 'temporal actuality' of our current circumstances. As noted in the blog post, Earth Still Producing After Its Kind, our mind is the biggest planting field of Earth’s system. Our mind and spirit, working together, simply reproduce, in actuality, the reality we mentally ‘see’ within, spiritually believe, and hold as Truth. Thoughts of our mind and heart, when fed, nourished and spoken, become seeds that have germinated and taken root. Their resulting fruits, are assured! 

Once their fruits are produced in our spirit, no devil can dislodge our 'faith vise' on God's promise. By this, God is incredibly PLEASED! Rather than our vision shriveling up and dying (the devil's wish!), it now has been magnified, and has developed exceptionally deep roots that won't easily be dislodged with the slightest pull or push from untoward forces, seen and unseen. This, I have come to understand, is "patience" to God -- quite the contrary to what I originally understood.

I tend to pray in response to needs others or I have, rather than when my faith to receive is strongest. Do you, too? As a result, I spend an inordinate amount of time in God's so-called "waiting room". Looking at this situation from the flip side, I now see this waiting room is not always where I am assigned to go and wait for God to get everything aligned, and carefully worked out before His answer is manifested. Often, it may be more of an assignment for me to go to the faith gym to develop and strengthen my faith to be able to receive my needed answer.

This tendency to do need-based praying rather than faith-based praying is both inefficient and unproductive. Knowing others and I will have needs that will move me to pray should, in itself, be sufficient wisdom for me to develop, en avance!, faith to receive well before any need materializes. Thus, I need to get ahead of the need-based praying “8 ball”, so to speak.  Do you, too?

In light of the above, God's waiting room may well be more like a "Faith GYM!". In this case, to help minimize time in His waiting room, before praying…

"Go to the gym, FIRST, you sluggard!" 

(Takeoff from Proverbs 6:6)

May this concept and the above picture help you, during your waiting experiences, to achieve a sustainable, laser-like focus on your end result, musing what God is shaping for your life. As you do, allow the vivid pictures of what you 'see' (the results of your prayers) to ignite within you, the fiery desire to fight and overcome any and all obstacles, seen and unseen, to the realization of your vision.

To help anchor this concept in your mind, please accept my challenge to share it with someone. Whatever we share, we retain; and what we teach, we (re)learn.

wOw!! This concept and picture really excite me as I, too, am definitely in God's Waiting Room ... oops, I mean Faith Gym. In fact, that is where I intend to LivE -- deliberately... always in expectancy!

How about you? 

NB: Thanks to BJT for the picture suggestions.

A Same Sex Marriage I CAN Support

I've got both good and bad news to share:

Good News:  This is the ONLY same-sex marriage acceptable to God!

BADD News:  This is the ONLY same-sex marriage acceptable to God!

If this is bad news, you are in a BADD vise-like grip:

Bold Arse Devilish Deception

Got it?  

Enough said.

The Final Nuclear-type Effects

The U.S. triggered the world's first nuclear explosion. Since then, while nuclear proliferation has run a mock and nuclear tests have been rather frequent, world powers have thus far managed to avoid another nuclear explosion in the context of war. This notwithstanding, some of the effects of what we currently recognize as a "nuclear-type" explosion WILL be unleashed in the context of war, and this WILL be the final one. I say this authoritatively and with no reservation. However, these effects will in all likelihood not be the results of an explosion, nor have typical damaging environmental consequences.

You may have some doubt about my words. Not to worry, no offense taken. Trust me, while these are my words, the truth of this 'news of tomorrow' is not mine. Check out what Zechariah predicts, the context, and indicated timing of the following:

And this shall be the plague with which The Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, and their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths. (Zechariah 14:12)

This might refer to the 1st War of Gog and Magog, described in Ezekiel 38, which is predicted to occur some time during the great tribulation, the last half (42 months) of the tribulation age. Sounds like the effects of a 'nuclear-type' explosion to you? Note, I did not say "man made nuclear bomb" or actual explosion. The power of God, implemented through the words of Jesus and/or acts of holy angels, is more than efficient to achieve these or any other intended results! 

 

Can't believe our all-loving God would do such a thing?!  

Study your Bible. Get to know Him not only as 'The Lover of Your Soul', which He definitely is, but also as Judge Potentate of The World, which He ALSO IS.

----------

For more see: Revelation - Future Attacks in Israel

See also: Zechariah Prophecy & the Neutron Bomb

Ignite the Fight

It takes a certain personality type to start ('pick') a fight. Admittedly, I do not fall in this category.  
H-O-W-E-V-E-R....

You and I were born into the kingdom of darkness and evil, under the 'kingship' of a merciless, hateful god. He likes to keep his subjects, and will do W-H-A-T-E-V-E-R it takes to keep them subjected to his plans until we die. This is the only way he can assure we will live a useless life, far from realizing our God-ordained purpose. And for many, this is his way of assuring he will have their company during his God-promised eternal torment in a mercilessly hot, inescapable hell!  

So, as you might imagine, ANY effort to break his hold on our lives is picking a really big FiGhT!  Even though Christ fought and won the deciding battle against satan's authority over mankind, his (satan's) final punishment is still pending.  Until then, we have been charged to ignite a fight -- the good fight of faith, systematically breaking any and all strangle holds our former god still has on us.  As is clearly visible in our world, there are many.  

Christ paid the price for action-oriented believers in Him to enjoy abundant life, free of such strangleholds.  Just as the Promised Land was available to the children of Israel during their 40 year sojourn in the wilderness, they were initially reluctant, but eventually would have to apply their determined, persistent FAITH to possess it.  In releasing their faith, GOD, Himself, fought the core spiritual battles for them, En Avance!, but He first required them to "ignite the fight".  Once done, the physical victories were absolutely 100% assured, though battles had to be fought, with patience, endurance, blood, sweat and even death of many.

Perhaps you are like me, not the personality type to start a fight, but more inclined to reason your way through conflicts.  Our former god is so unreasonably hateful, it will take a real fight for him to let go!  Ask anyone who has struggled with addictions of any kind, lustfulness, habitual lying and gossiping, stealing, etc.  While God's Grace help is available, and victory is within our reach, the very first step in our 'victory dance' is to ignite the fight. Take a first step of faith, standing on God's promised help.  Since earth was established as a "word-rich, word-ruled-and-rocked" environment or realm, then start saying exactly what God, Himself, says about your problems or stranglehold.  As you do, you, as I did, will quickly find the battle is too big for you!  Like kindling, your "self" will be very quickly drained in the struggle, consumed in the fire, at which point you will hear/perceive the rallying call of God's troops, His holy angels, shouting as they come to your defense and assured victory:

"The Battle Is The LORD's!!!"

The Rest (End) of the Story

In our seesaw type of a world today, it clearly seems as if the 'ways of the world' 

are winning over anything related to values promoted in The Bible.  

Take heart, the darkest hour of the night is just before the BREAK OF DAWN~

Take courage, you and I have read "The Rest of the Story!"  

WE WIN!

Polluter or Tree?

No matter the amount of ‘spiritual pollution’ we may be in, each of us gets to choose our spiritual equivalent: 

• to be part of the ‘sin pollution problem’ in our neighborhood, city, state and country, 
• or a healthy ‘tree of righteousness’ that, in unique ways, aids in cleaning up, preventing or not contributing to sin pollution.

On which side of the problem do you see you?
More importantly, how do you think God sees you?

Report Card: Self-grading Faith NOW

We all grow up and become well versed in tracking various aspects of our growth processes. We receive and respond to school report cards, health report cards, and job performance reviews. We dutifully track our work level productivity and profitability, as well as our earned income per week, month and year. We even track and double/triple check every possible (hopefully legal) income tax deduction to make sure we are only paying the absolute minimum amount in taxes. Thus, we ‘live’ by these tracking processes. They comprise critical threads in the fabric of our lives.

But what do we track as carefully and methodically in our spiritual lives, which are far more critical and eternally valuable than anything we experience in this physical life? Where do we find our ‘spiritual report cards and grades, periodic productivity reports, performance reviews, and benefits statements?!’

The Bible meticulously reveals and unfolds God’s will for believers in Christ to live the abundant life. Moreover, we, ourselves, are allowed to define the parameters of such a life. Jesus teaches, as does the entire New Testament, that our ability to walk in this abundant life is directly and intimately tied to the level/quality of our applied faith, including our ability to trust patiently and unfailingly that God’s will is unfolding in our lives.

Nevertheless, many of us elect to diminish this message in favor of a misplaced, misunderstood ‘arming ourselves to suffer for Christ as He suffered for us’. Jesus did indeed suffer, and we are to arm ourselves to suffer, but NOT for what He suffered. Only He could suffer as The Christ. Our suffering has more to do with the common struggles of living a holy (i.e., separated) way of life from the way people of the world typically live their lives. It’s a struggle to swim up stream when the whole world is seemingly headed the opposite direction! I doubt we are called to suffer the lack what Jesus died and was raised again to pay for us to have, namely life abundant, full of joy and victory. The typical mantle we don in the name of ‘suffering for Christ’ is likely a cleaver deception of our common enemy, to steal, kill and destroy our two-stage inheritance in Christ, rendering His death and resurrection of no effect in our Earthly lives.

Just as in any other developmental aspect of life, our Christian walk is supposed to pass through progressive phases, all the way from being a baby Christian, to being increasingly matured in our faith. Any baby whimpers, cries at the least discomfort, and loving parents try their best to respond immediately. Same with baby Christians. The problem is we all like and expect, as adults, the same loving attention received as a baby, but don’t receive. God has His maturation process for us all, and His ways are not our ways. To develop patience, we walk through trials, etc. During early maturation stages, we suffer because we want the attention received as a baby, but don’t get. If God were to give it, we would not mature. The level of our suffering is, therefore, directly keyed to our willingness to accept and walk through His maturation process, which includes His tests. Toward the end, we endure sufferings differently, and squirm less and less …until we arrive at the point of transforming suffering into pure JOY! (James 1:2) Jesus transformed suffering into joy. Remember Hebrews 12:2?

As we grow in Christ, it is critical to understand God’s maturation process and to develop our faith along the lines of how Jesus operated, just as He commanded. 

Faith speaks.

Just as God reveals and exercises His faith by speaking words, Jesus similarly spoke to reveal, release His faith in what He perceived The Father was doing (John 5:19), and He required the same from His disciples …and now from you and me. The great capstone of His expectations and requirements is for us to ‘speak to mountains’ -- revealing, releasing and requiring our mountain-moving faith in what we perceive God is doing (i.e., His inner voice), to work on our behalf. This is how we access the ‘all things’ The Word declares have been purchased for and made available to us through Christ, as noted in 2 Peter 1:2 -4 and elsewhere. As we do this, God performs His good works in and through us. This is ‘in yo face-faith!’  On the surface, it looks and sounds like incredible arrogance! Often misunderstood, it is too easily shunned by many of us who seek simply to blend into the ‘garden variety, don’t do anything to stand out’ Christian. Consider for a moment the great cost of this approach. wOw!

Mountain-speaking faith isn’t something we tend to do or exhibit early in our spiritual maturation process, now is it?? Nope. Neither do I believe Jesus expected His disciples to do this very early in their 3-year walk with Him. Similarly, I think The Book of Jude, especially verse 20, may be well placed at the end of the New Testament for similar reasons. Praying in the Spirit, and thereby ‘building up our most holy (i.e., separated, standing-out or out-standing) faith’ just isn’t something we tend to do very early in our maturation process, now is it?? Nope. Praying earnestly in this manner is 100% faith, because the understanding mind is not involved. Again, the objective of building up our faith is to more clearly and accurately perceive God’s inner Voice saying, ‘This is the way. Walk in it.’ (John 5:19)

Paul speaks of the Christian’s spiritual diet transforming from ‘milk of The Word’ to strong meat. If feeding on/hearing The Word produces faith, surely these two diet extremes would produce different kinds/strengths of faith, no? Get this:

Faith is NOT a monolith.

in this regard. we simply don’t ‘have faith’. There is faith for salvation, for health and provisions, faith to intercede, faith for A, B, C, X, Y, Z, and beyond. It may take stronger faith to reach for and expect to receive Z, rather than A. Just as muscles of our bodies have different strengths and purposes, and must be developed, used, rehabilitated, etc., think of faith as the overall strength of your spiritual body, but with clearly identifiable elements, with designated purposes. You go to a gym to develop specific muscle groups. Consider, identify and develop the various groups of your spiritual muscles.

We are all well experienced in being graded by a teacher after completing a class or course, and Jesus will eventually ‘grade’ both our faith and the works we were able to accomplish by faith. But we don’t have to wait for this final grading in order to know how well we are progressing. We can grade ourselves, with insight from The Holy Spirit within us. Consider the great benefits of not waiting for your final spiritual report card!

My wish for you:

Matthew 9:29 and John 5:19

Stuffing Fun In

i-Turn

Tale of Two Saviors

The whole Christian world seems to have a problem 

begging and pleading 

to God and Jesus to do what They have assigned us to do~

Jesus saves your spirit...
but
YOU save your soul

(i.e., your sinfully reasoning mind, strong will, undisciplined emotions,

contrary imagination and carnally-trained intellect)

How?

By renewing it to The Word of God, The Bible

(See: Romans 12:1-2 and James 1:21)

Failing to obey this command, we remain 'spiritual babes',

ill-equipped to manage the challenging tests and trials of life.