Israel stood on the edge of Canaan and although they saw and heard of the beautiful fruit of the land, they could not rise to the opportunity God gave them. They still saw themselves as slaves from their previous identity and they could not take the Promised Land with the mindset of a slave. We also can see a Promised Land before us but if we do not see ourselves as one who is able to enter it, we won’t.  Corinthians tells us that we are new creatures in Christ; a brand-new species and our potential is totally different from all of our family members before us. It’s not your haircut or clothes or address that changed, but you, your potential, your future and even the impact of your past.  You see differently at every level now as all of your life is new. Your perception of God has changed and how you see yourself must change too because how you see yourself is more important than how you see your future.

People do not necessarily grow into their potential; they only grow into what they think they deserve or what they think they are capable of.  The most important vision is not what you see ahead of you but what you see inside yourself. Israel had trouble in their thinking. They saw themselves as small and incapable. When we see ourselves correctly, we know we are more than able to drive out our enemies.

The problem is not with God. He can do exceedingly abundantly above what we can think, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,” (Ephesians 3:19-20).    The problem is with us.   Can we think about ourselves differently and about what God can do in us differently?   Have we neglected opportunities provided by God or left ministry dreams and ideas to somebody else because we never saw ourselves as able? Have we allowed enemies to be thorn in our side or vex us day after day?  

Friend, the fact is that if you see yourself rightly a new future, authority and freedom will appear.  God is able to make us able and if we want to inherit the future He plans, we need to see ourselves correctly.

During the Viet Nam war the phrase “The Eye of the Tiger” was coined– which referred to the fierce gaze of a soldier once wounded in battle who later comes back to fight. They were different. The fierceness of a recovered soldier is phenomenal. Perhaps you have been wounded in the battle. 

“He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love” (Colossians 1:13). 

Although we have been delivered from the kingdom of darkness, the devil still tries to attack us, intimidate us and bring his darkness around our heart and mind.

The reason Paul says that we wrestle against our enemies (Ephesians 6) and not box or kickbox is that wrestling is the only form of combat where you never lose physical contact with the adversary. And it is the only one that strengthens you as you fight. Have you seen the All-Black rugby team do this in training?  While they are trying to wrestle each other to the ground, they are getting stronger.  Our wrestle against darkness is creating in us the strength and spirit of a warrior. When Satan attacks you, he is unwittingly developing your fierceness and strength in God.  Satan may think he has your measure now, but he doesn’t reckon on who you are going to be in the future. 

 Perhaps the greatest threat to Christianity is not attacks from the enemy but a time of ease - when everything is quiet and there is no need for weapons or strength. The Philistines closed all the blacksmith shops in Israel to weaken them and stop them making weapons. A blacksmith shop may seem a dark place where Someone is stoking the flames. It might even look like hell but the sound of hammers hitting and striking are forming weapons in the fires of adversity. If the “blacksmith shop experiences” were taken from the church, we would have fewer weapons. 

If we have never been attacked, we cannot gain the “eye of a tiger.”  We develop “the eye” when we go through and grow through his attacks. 

Friend, the enemy has tried to intimidate you. Wrestle through the heat of the battle and you will soon find that you have a new strength and weapons that will intimidate him.  

When Job heard the news of the death of his children he collapsed in shock and felt unbearable waves of pain. Later, after losing everything he was afflicted with ugly boils. He picked up a piece of pottery and scraped his sores.  This pottery piece symbolized Job’s life once alive and full but now shattered and dry. “And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself with; and he sat down among the ashes” (Job 2:8). 

It seemed to Job that his life (earthen vessel) was dashed in pieces but actually rather than his life ending, God was about to make Jobs life fuller than ever.   Jobs restoration was not accomplished when God doubled the number of his children or his bank account but when Job was able to process his mounting grief and see himself and God a lot clearer. “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself And repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6)

Humans are designed to grieve yet grief is something we need to choose to enter into and not suppress. Grief is the one feeling that can heal all the other emotions we feel from loss, betrayal, abandonment and hurt. Part of grief is being able to embrace the mysteries in our life and be able to say “I am bewildered and have no idea what God is doing”. Or “Yes I’m hurt; I’m disappointed, even angry that God seems to have forsaken me”.  Embracing the fact of our limitations means we accept that we have limited knowledge and spiritual understanding.  Jobs friends and some of us still today, too easily overestimate our grasp of a situation, as we look at the difficult times in our friend’s lives or ours and wrongly judge people and God.  We need to assume the humble position of bowing before God instead of trying to be Him. It’s healing. In times of emotional pain, I have walked the streets of my neighbourhood in tears crying out to Father. I went out looking for understanding and came back only with peace.

If you feel today like a dry potsherd (broken fragment) embrace it.  Cry your tears and groan your groans before the Lord.  Coming to the end of our wisdom and control over life is something we experience so that the One we are designed to need can be found and the one we are designed to reveal, can be seen.

Friend, embrace your limitations and bow before Loving Wisdom. Don’t doubt God but doubt your understanding.  The trouble with being unbroken is that nobody ever sees Who lives within.

As the boat slipped effortlessly out into the harbour from the bustling docks at Joppa, Jonah sat down on a coil of rope. He felt pleased to be on board. His plan was working but in spite of the relief he felt, there was also a slight foreboding with in his heart. Jonah was running from the presence of the Lord.

Thankfully God prepared a great storm and a great fish to help Jonah succeed in his ministry. In 2 Tim 4.7 Paul said “I have finished my course..” (A sailing term) Paul the great pattern man and apostle, completed his course not because he had a perfect knowledge of God’s will but because circumstances beyond his control (storms) but completely within the control of God, blew him to the mark.  In Nahum 1.3, it says that God has His way in the storm. Many of the circumstances that came into Paul’s life were uninvited and unpleasant.

Mostly we don’t volunteer to go to the places where the growth and stretching of our faith takes place, but Gods faithfully blows us there in His storms.  In His storms, even people like the sailors who threw Jonah over, are unwittingly part of Gods plan to help us stay on course. Our difficult circumstances are all conspiring for our success. Most of all, God wants to reveal Himself to us in a way that He never could without the storm. The disciples in Mark 4.35-41 learned of Gods sovereignty over all and Jonah found out just how much God loves sinners. So right now in the midst of your storm, hold on because there is something more of God that He wants to reveal to you, that you can only see by going through the storm and you should know that when God planned the storm for Paul, he had already prepared a people for harvest and when he planned a storm for Jonah he had already prepared a fish to help Jonah end up a success.
Friend, I have found that God is at work in us and in our storms and He is preparing some thing great for you. (Phil 2.12)

Can you remember when your father told you to drive carefully?  He seemed to think that you didn’t have the experience or the skill to drive safely.  Well, it turns out he was probably right.  When I was sixteen I crashed my father’s car by driving it unsafely. I slid off the road and ended up submerged in a river along with my friend who came along for the ride.  The wisdom and understanding that older people have, comes from having perspective?  They have had a chance to see life over a longer period and they have a bigger frame of reference.  In one picture a father may seem to be aiming a gun at a child but a bigger frame of reference we see a snake behind the child. That bigger frame of reference can be visual or for a longer time period.

When a student says “if only I’d done something or not done something”, they are having a moment of perspective.   When that student gets their first job and thinks either, it has been worth it all, they are having a moment of perspective.

In prison, Joseph no doubt wondered if his dream was ever going to come to pass.   It is hard to know what he was thinking when he was betrayed by brothers, accused by a woman and forgotten for years in prison. Even after sitting on the second throne of Egypt, his dream made no sense till one day his family turned up.   He then had a perspective on all his troubles and his unusual life. When life is difficult, we usually just need time to gain perspective.

Perspective also comes from living with the knowledge of the future.  Jesus washed the disciple’s feet knowing that the father had given all things to him (Jn13.33).   Jesus had perspective and it empowered him to serve without the need for the position. He was not insecure.   He knew his future was one of oneness with Father and accomplishing His will.  Knowing the joy set before Him, gave even the cruel cross perspective. If you know the future ahead of you, it changes the way you go through life. Having a true perspective of the past and the future changes everything.

Friend, the things Father asks us to do and anything we don’t understand will make sense with time and perspective.  But we don’t have to wait until the end of our life to get some perspective. Father has told us everything we need to know about our future with Him.    We can live boldly in difficult times or times of significant personal cost and know that in the future when we look back we will know “it was worth it all.”

It is amazing who God calls to be ministers.  If I was God I wouldn’t have chosen Aaron to be the High Priest of Israel.  The first day on the job didn’t go well the Aaron. In Ex 32.24-25, Moses had gone up the mountain to meet with God and was told that Aaron was to get the top job.  As the High Priest, Aaron was going to bring the sinner before God and God’s mind to the people. When Moses came down, Israel was dancing naked around the fertility god. Aaron had turned the worship service into a strip club.  He seemed the biggest failure ever.  If we were God, we wouldn’t have chosen him for the job but God is looking for people who can be touched with the feelings of the infirmity of others.  Aaron would now never be a self-righteous, judgmental or condescending High Priest.
Jesus was full of mercy to sinners of every type, even those who came to kill him.  When the High priest’s servant, who led the mob to arrest Jesus, got close enough, Peter cut off his ear. The servant of the High Priest was likely studying to be the next High Priest. Think Elijah and Elisha. However, the Old Testament forbade a person with a physical blemish, from holding a priestly office so Peters sword made sure he would never hold an office he didn’t deserve.  But Jesus “touched his ear and healed him”( Luke 22.51).  Jesus not only healed his blemish and restored his office but he gave the man an experience of mercy that qualified him to be a merciful High-priest to others.
Friend, doctors and nurses who have had injuries are the most empathetic. If you have gone through failure and pain in your life,  you will likely find that you can also be merciful and non-judgmental of others. In a way, your agony was necessary for your destiny.  We know well that we have received mercy from Jesus,  He has restored our ear to hear His voice and touched our hearts by His mercy. Now we are more likely to be a merciful “priest” to the people in our world. What a privilege! It is, after all, the Top Job.

The lame man was carried by his friends each day to beg outside the Beautiful gate. It was his routine but one day was different - the day Peter and John saw his broken limbs and healed him in the name of Jesus. He didn’t imagine anything different would happen that day, as he sat down on his mat, but it was going to be the day that God would make beautiful.

The word “beautiful” in Acts 3.2 here doesn't mean beautiful in appearance, but beautiful in timing and effect.  The beggar received in that “kairos” moment, much more than he asked for or expected.  The Apostle Paul expected every believer to understand the difference between “kairos” and “chronos”.  “But concerning the times (chronos) and the seasons (kairos), brethren, you have no need that I should write to you” ( 1 Thessalonians 5:1)  “Chronos” is earth time - regular, linear and predictable.  “Kairos” is God's moment; the due time, the right time when eternity, intersects with “chronos”.  It is sometimes unexpected, it's often miraculous and sometimes it even seems to come too late.  Think of Lazarus.

Joseph's “chronos” was difficult and challenging, including a pit, a promiscuous princess and a prison. It looked bad but God was about to make it beautiful.  Gods “kairos” made him a prince with power.  He always believed it and came to see that “My times are in your hand” (Psalms 31.15)

Zachariah and Elizabeths “chronos”, included 60 years of childless service to God. It looked too late and too difficult, but God was about to make it into something beautiful. Gods “kairos” brought the miracle son John, the forerunner of Jesus Christ. It was more than they could have asked for or expected.  “Chronos” can produce the results of human effort or demonic strategy, but “kairos” has an outcome that is beautiful, miraculous, abundant and necessary for destiny!

Friend, in the middle of a Covid crisis, when we are sitting on a mat just waiting for another day to pass or thinking that it might be too late to birth our best days of business or ministry, let’s remember that it is just Chronos. Chronos has never stopped God doing His will. In fact, Chronos is just a set up for a step up.   “He has made everything beautiful in His time” (Ecc 3:11). Our Sovereign King is right now, in the midst of creating Kairos moments for His Church. He is always in control and always working. And while demons or democrats may want us broken or barren, He is making and will make, all things beautiful in His time. The lame will walk, the withered arms will be raised and the forerunner Elijah company, is about to be birthed.

Abraham might have been walking slowly but his mind was racing as they climbed to the summit.  He had strife in his home and now his promised son was to be taken from him.  Sometimes ancient deities demanded the offering of a child and that day had come.  “After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.”  He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” (Genesis 22:1-2)   The promised and precious was about to be taken away with no warning and no word from God about how it was going to end.  Sometimes God wants for us some things that we don’t want for ourselves.   We imagine in life that we will ask things from God; not that God may ask something of us.  Abram received his son back again but others didn’t.

Tests of faith are costly to us, usually because we lose something from our life.  Maybe a loved one or a cherished child that turned away from God.  Perhaps mobility was lost as the use of some part of our body permanently disappears.  Did we lose a partner through divorce or was it a simple request to remove a headache that went “unanswered.”

Of course, Jesus said to pray and we need to ask but if God answered every prayer as we wished, would we be as god and would He would end up the genie in the bottle.  We almost want to be God or at least we want God to do our will. Greater difficulty can come when we think we know His will and He doesn’t seem to act!   St. John the divine coined a term called the “dark night of the soul.”  which as Pentecostals we prefer not to deal with.  We are more comfortable with the bright day of victory yet if we walk longer than a few years with God, we will find the sun does set.   These dark nites could be called the test of love and in the darkness, we learn to live with mystery.  Our self-revealing God is still unfathomable in many ways. Our redeemed spirit and renewed mind can know Him a little but will never know all that He knows is important for us. We know that He is faithful, that He cannot be unjust and we know He is pleased by faith.  Hebrews eleven tells us that it is not receiving the answers to faith that pleases God but keeping the faith through the test. Being people that still love God when there is no answer from God.

Friend, trust Him when you can’t track him. Reward and complete understanding are reserved in heaven for you. You are pleasing to Him. If something is necessary for your destiny God will intervene.  Abram walked down the mountain with his son and with a greater love for God. God will again speak to you in your darkness to reveal His greatness and to keep your promise alive.