A RESET

 

I once had a silver steel watch that my Sister got for me.

From the very day she gave it to me, I noticed that the timing wasn’t working properly. It would stop repeatedly. I returned it to her and she had it worked on. It started working again, but after some time, it stopped once more.

Yet, I continued wearing the watch.

I would often tell myself that I would stop using it, but I didn’t. At that time, I didn’t have another watch to replace it with, so I simply continued wearing the one I had, even though I knew it wasn’t keeping time correctly.

After wearing that watch for a long time, I had a dream.

In the dream, I was in my room getting dressed. As I looked at myself, I noticed that I was wearing that same silver watch on my wrist.

I looked at it and wondered, “Why isn’t this watch working?”

Then I noticed another watch.

It was gold—beautiful, shiny, and working perfectly.

As I tried to put the gold watch on my wrist, it immediately seemed to glue itself to my hand. Then I felt something like an electric shock run through my body.

Suddenly, the electric wave stopped.

I looked at it again, and it was working perfectly.

I woke up with the picture of those two watches in my heart.

And I began to think about time and timing.

TIME AND TIMING

Time is a system God established to regulate the affairs of man on the earth.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says:

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

God is a God of times and seasons.

There are things He has written concerning our lives that are connected to particular seasons. There are doors that require the right timing. There are assignments that require preparation. There are places we are meant to enter, things we are meant to build, people we are meant to encounter, and battles we are meant to fight, all within the framework of God's purposes and timing.

But sometimes, without realizing it, we can become stuck in a particular time.

We keep moving, but we are not progressing.

We keep trying, but nothing seems to shift.

We keep repeating the same patterns, making the same decisions, encountering the same limitations, and wondering why we cannot seem to move forward.

It is possible to be physically moving while spiritually remaining in the same place.

You can change locations and still remain in the same season.

You can grow older and still be operating with an old pattern.

You can have new opportunities and still carry an old mindset.

And sometimes, what we need is not simply another attempt.

What we need is a reset.

A reset is the process of returning a device, system, or setting to its original or intended state so that it can function properly again.

Spiritually, there are moments when God begins to call us back into alignment.

Back to prayer.

Back to obedience.

Back to His Word.

Back to His instructions.

Back to the place He originally assigned us.

Because sometimes, the issue is not that God has stopped moving. But we have continued to stay in a place God has asked us to move from.

And just like my silver watch, we know something is wrong, yet we continue wearing it because we have become accustomed to it.

We say, “At least I have a watch.”

But the question is not whether you have a watch.

The question is: Is it keeping time?

WHEN GOD BEGINS TO RESET YOU

When you begin to come into alignment with God, He begins to deal with the things that have kept you  in a season.

He begins to remove weights.

He begins to correct perspectives.

He begins to expose patterns.

He begins to change your strategies.

He begins to restore your sensitivity to His voice.

And as your alignment with Him becomes consistent, something begins to shift.

And what seemed like stagnation begins to give way to movement.

That is a reset. A reset does not necessarily mean God is giving you something new.

Sometimes, it is God, restoring you to the place where you can properly carry what He has already prepared for you.

David did not become king because he suddenly became someone else.

Joseph did not become governor because God abandoned the process.

Esther did not suddenly discover purpose on the day she became queen.

The reset begins with alignment.

1. Prayer.
2. The Word.
3. Obedience.
4. Fasting.
5. Wisdom.
6. Strategy.

And sensitivity to the Holy Spirit.

So, ask yourself:

What am I still wearing that God is asking me to remove?

What old system am I using to navigate a new season?

What has become familiar that God is calling me to release?

Where is God asking me to realign?

Most times the answer is not try harder but Look again, what do you see?

Stay Revived!

The Hitch in the Journey

Deuteronomy 25:17-19

Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!

As I study the journey of Moses and the Israelites, I have come to see that just because God had promised them Canaan did not mean that Canaan was uninhabited by people or that they would simply arrive with their belongings and begin to live there. There were battles they had to fight and attacks they had to counter in order to continue their journey to Canaan and, eventually, remain in Canaan.

One of these battles was their fight with the Amalekites. The Amalekites launched a surprise attack on the Israelites because they knew the Israelites were weak and tired from their journey out of Egypt. Their plan was to destroy them. But why?

The Israelites had done nothing to them. The anger was unprovoked. Yet, the Amalekites saw the Israelites as escaped slaves who were vulnerable and probably thought, What can they possibly do?

What they did not know was that these people were living out a covenant the Lord had made with Abraham generations earlier—a covenant to give them Canaan. It was by the hand of the Lord that they left Egypt, and He did not bring them that far only to abandon them and leave them to be fed to bloodthirsty and hostile men.

In the same way, God has not led you this far only to leave you vulnerable in the journey of life. His desire for you is to remain on the offensive, consistently taking a posture of total surrender so that He may have His way in your life, navigating it to the angle He wants. 

Today, the Lord wants you to know that by His hand, He has brought you this far, and by His hand, He will also keep you and cause you to see His light.

Shalom.

FORCE THE OIL OUT

Olive is the fruit of an olive tree but for you to get the oil from it it must first be squashed and squeezed that is to say you must apply pressure, this is so with us that for evil challenge God let's us face he has equipped us for it,what the situation does is just to force the oil out we can see this in the life of Joseph, you know Joseph would not have understood if God was yo tell him I will take you to Egypt as a slave,  it didn't look like whom the Lord annoited it didn't look pouch or something but this was God letting Joseph go through the Process, taking Him into the prison and occastrating a situation where him alone would have answer and then bringing him out we can see that while Joseph was with his brothers he was a dreamer but the challenges after his brothers sold him forced another dimension he never knew existed interpretation, he started interpreting dream. 

You see you are tailor made for the challenge you gave today you just need to find the nob to the challenge switch it on a d let the dimension of God which he has placed inside of you for that situation to break you free.

We later see this same Joseph proclaiming to his brothers about how it was God's plan after all for him to go and perseverance their life

Genesis 45:5 (ESV) 

And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.

Your challenge and what you do with it is for the benefit of someone else, so today I want us to think on where we are think of what Hod has shown you and what you should do yo force the oil out.

Stay Revived!

Strength for Today, Bright Hope for Tomorrow

“If only we could sleep through the days when we feel overwhelmed and only have to wake up on the days when we are bubbling with joy.”

These were the thoughts I had the morning after my quiet time. Then the Spirit of the Lord said, “How would we know the strength of the Lord? How would we get to experience God’s goodness? How would we get to sit at His feet each day and simply soak in His presence? Because if we stray, we might end up broken and lying on the streets.”

“Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.” These are the lines of the famous hymn Great Is Thy Faithfulness.

To know and experience God only when we are walking on silk cloth is a good thing. But to choose to walk with Him even when the road is blood-stained—that is a journey through which we cultivate strength in the secret place.

How has it been in the past few days, weeks, months, or years?

Are you currently walking on a silk path? Or maybe, just maybe, you have never really known what it means to walk on a silk path. Yet God’s promises for us are not consumed or lost in the trials of this world.

They are strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.

Maybe recently, I’ve been caught in the web—the web where the enemy thinks his rhythm will become louder than God’s promises. But just because I am weak today does not change the fact that God has a package specially written for me:

“I have given you strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.”

And so, even if it might seem that our strength is weak, God is saying that our weakness can become a manifestation of the strength that is needed for today.

We can gather up the weakness and weariness that we feel, bring them to Jesus, lay them at His feet, and place a demand on the promise.

Oh Lord, I am in need of strength for today’s journey and the hope that tomorrow will be perfected in You.

Rest in this one conclusion of David:

“The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me.”  Psalm 138:8

Stay Revived!