Growing Personally

Jonah hit the beach thankful that God had spared him and was keen to complete his preaching mission in Nineveh. As he preached repentance he could hardly believe the success of his crusade. The whole city from the king down to donkeys clothed themselves in sackcloth. Jonah’s message had melted the coldest heart; what a crusade. But was God content or was Jonah a success/

Jonah did the right thing, but he was not yet the right person. So God comes to him again in Chapter 4.2 because God wanted him to learn to love. As he sits down in the glow of his success, God prepares a vine to grow over his head to give shade which Job enjoyed greatly. Then God prepared a worm to kill the vine and the shade, and Jonah wanted to die. God brings the whole lesson to close. Until you learn to love like me, you have not yet succeeded. To be a true prophet; to speak for me, to represent me, you need to represent my love.

Jonah’s failure was not really rebellion but actually a lack of love; he could not love as God did. Most failure is just a lack of love.

Failure helps us to see that we need to abide in His love, in order to love others. In the parable of the two debtors the man who failed to forgive failed to love! True success is not just persevering or never quitting. We may be inspired by the story of Disney who went broke seven times before he had success or Edison who did 10,000 experiments to perfect the light bulb before he had success, but real success is not about accomplishing something so much is becoming someone.

Friend, success is not the ultimate triumph but ultimate love it’s not what we have done, but who we become.

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I had a prophecy over me once, that there would be times when I would feel an absolute failure, but this would be Gods guard upon my spirit to keep me from pride. I didn’t know whether to feel good or bad about that prophecy! Failure often destroys self-confidence. We are not self-made men and we are not self sufficient. Nothing helps us to see our self more accurately, than failure.

The prodigal son saw himself in a much more accurate light, after he failed. The oldest son seemingly without failure, ends up graceless, loveless and bitter. How often has the failure of someone, worked a work of grace in a person’s life to such a degree, that their usefulness to man and God is taken to levels which could never have been possible before their fall. The real benefit of failure, is the ‘recognizing the weakness of self. Pride and self-confidence can be dealt with by God and failure often opens a person up to the possibility of help from others. Failure worked for good in Peter’s life, to rid him of his self-confidence and to thrust him upon the Lord. Failure is something God can use to bring about a greater quality of union with Christ and gives us a better perspective about the weakness of the human vessel.

In all it seems often that the humility and character of Christ is more able to be forged on the anvil of human failure, than it is by a perfect record of performance. Jonah had great revival after his failure. Peter became a nation shaker and even Samson saw things very differently after his failure and delivered the nation.
Friend, failure is not a person, it is an event! It can even be an important event, that opens us up to more of God’s love and power than ever before.

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There is confusion about the importance of self in today’s world. As disciples, we are all called to deny self as we take up our cross.

This is not talking about self-hood (being an individual) God has made you with a personality and you are uniquely you and you should be grateful for what God has done. We call that self-acceptance.

The self we are to deny is the selfish desires that put ourselves before God and others. The self that wants to be the boss and be in control. It must be denied. All of its little outbreaks of self centred-ness, selfishness, self-protection and self-promotion.

Too many believers think the only one dying in the gospel is Jesus. We have proclaimed loudly the death of Jesus to gain us but speak with less conviction about our death to gain him. Like the song says “Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.” He died for our sins but we are to die to our sins.

Friend, Jesus is perfect and doesn’t change so it is us that need to adjust. “Can two walk together unless they are agreed? Let’s take up the cross and imitate him

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King Nebuchadnezzar thought he had done it all by himself. Pride gets us imagining something of ourselves, which is not true. Nebuchadnezzar thought “My own power has gotten me this wealth.”

And it manifests in our attitude to others too. We become obsessed with disputes and arguments, or maybe we won’t listen to others advice. Some people are unteachable, they think that know best. Pride enters into their heart and instead of receiving grace which leads to success, they blunder into the darkness alone, making all the mistakes the unaided person is prone to make.

But worse, if we are proud we will be resisted by God. It’s just a law. It’s not that God wants to resist you, it’s that He must. He doesn’t want his children to hurt themselves, but He knows if they seek to break the law of gravity they will and similarly the laws of the kingdom can never be broken. The way up is down. The only way to know success in life is to have Gods grace upon us. Success is to become a servant. To serve your wife; to serve your husband; to serve your parents.
Friend, it is the law of humility. God gets behind the humble and pushes them but He gets in front of the proud. We either lose our pride or we lose our possible destiny, it’s our choice.

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The ten spies returned to the camp from the Promised Land, focused upon the giants and forgetting the promise. As the talked about what they couldn’t do but there were two who talked about what they could do. The difference was how they saw themselves. Sometimes we don’t realise the problem is with us. We may not get on with other people but not realise it’s not them, it’s us. Were unable to love them or relate to them and connect with them because we don’t love or like ourselves. When someone is insecure it’s hard to talk to them. If they feel bad about themselves, it conveys to everyone around them. “I don’t deserve God’s blessing because I am too unworthy; I don’t think He wants to bless me.”

It won’t be the size of the task before us or the lack of experience but it will be how we see ourselves that stop us from touching our world. When you have a bad attitude about yourselves, everything is too hard. We have to see ourselves in Christ! In Christ, we are everything to God. Not only do we have everything in Christ we are everything to God in Christ.

We are not worthy of any kind of blessing but Jesus is worthy of every blessing. Christians do not get what they deserve they get what Jesus deserves. We deserve punishment but we get a blessing because Jesus deserves it.
Friend, you are going to be a great leader in the house of God. You will make a difference in the kingdom of God. He’s not looking for people whose upbringing was perfect. He’s not looking for people who have a lot of money but He’s looking for people that can believe that in Christ they can do everything God desires them to do and be.

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When Philip the evangelist arrived at Samaria he expected to reap a great harvest from the seeds sown there by the Samaritan women and Jesus. When he got there, he found the devil, already had someone there. It seems to be a pattern in the Book of Acts that where the gospel goes, there was a stronghold needing to be broken. The devil brought Simon there as soon as he realized that God was planning something big in Samaria. The devil always tries to mess up your present life, before God “arrives.” He seeks to tie you up with business, porn, poverty or sour relationships. He wants you to discourage you with shame and regret or the pain of abuse. He wants you to stay distracted, because if he can stop you here. Your destiny will remain unfulfilled.

If there’s bondage or weakness right through your family; alcohol, adultery and divorce from generation to generation, the enemy has come to your family because he knows that God is planning to do something really great in your home and family. The devil filled Legion with hundreds of demons but it never stopped Jesus from reaching the legion and setting him free and if you keep praying, the tide of the battle will turn.

Friend, if it seems that the devil has been at work in your life, it’s because God is planning to do something great in your life.

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A number of years ago some teenagers from a local school were killed in a tramping tragedy. The rains came and the swollen river floated them away. One cried out to Jesus and he is saved but others are washed away. Presumably, they are praying too, wanting to be rescued but they die.

The parents gather around and wonder why one child is saved another is lost. Outside the theologians defend the sovereignty of God and console themselves with the mystery of Gods plan for the accident. Some people look at the tragedy and think God can’t look after his own so he’s either powerless or if he is powerful, maybe not as loving as we think he is. We are better to admit that God is loving and powerful but there are mysteries when it comes to tragedy in His people lives.

A man called Helmet Thielecke says “When you look through a magnifying glass at the cloth, the fabric is sharply in focus in the centre and blurred at the edges. We know edges are really ok because we have seen the centre. Life is like that too. There are many edges that are blurred but because we have seen the centre, the cross, that greatest demonstration of God’s love, we can accept that the edges we don’t understand will be woven by Gods love too.

Friend, we can understand God enough to trust his character when we can’t understand our circumstances

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