June 23, 2007

• Waiting on God by Pastor Don

  Someone asked Pastor Don what waiting on God meant. We read the Psalm 27:1-14 then started looking at individual verses to get an idea of this. For waiting on God does not depend on what the physical circumstances appear to be, it is dependant on what is occurring in the spiritual realm.

   

  Faith is the correct perception of time.

  In Psalm 27 David is speaking in faith concerning his situation, which wasn’t pleasant..

   

  When David composed this Psalm he was surrounded by the enemy and to combat his fear, he spoke fact (spiritual truth) concerning his situation. The correct name for satan is “the adversary.” The spiritual adversary stirs up people in the natural against us.

   

  Sometimes we see problems in life through a human perception of the flesh. But sometimes the problem is not from the flesh, the problem has a spiritual aspect. Pastor Don asked us if we ever woke up feeing great and five minutes later were plunged into a deep depression, to where you wonder, “Why am I upset now?” Our depression may not have a physical cause. We have spirits, demonic forces and angels in our midst all the time. We are seldom alone when we think we are alone.

   

  While we are in the flesh walking around, the spirit man is picking up what is going on in the spiritual and that can have an emotional effect on you. Sometimes we fight the emotional effect and other times we acquiesce to it.

   

  Pastor Don went on to point out that because you are saved doesn’t mean that you are converted. Salvation is a beginning, but we need to grow in the Spirit. The church is a hospital for sinners and a university for saints. Conversion is dependant on me surrendering to God, not to the flesh.

   

  The measure of maturity of a saint is that they are quick to repent, how quick to realize when they are out of order. Responsibility is self-control.

   

  People in trouble want to blame the church, to blame other people. The mature saint says, “I blew it, help me.” Help comes quicker when we admit that we are in error and need help.

   

  The answer when we are in trouble is to SEEK GOD’S FACE, not solve my problem in my own strength. Before a priest could enter the Holy of Holies, they had to wash in the laver. The laver was polished to a mirror finish, and when the priest washed, he had too look in the laver, and see what was reflected back. He looked at himself.

   

  Faith begins with the self. Spiritual maturity begins with the self.

   

  Who is responsible for your happiness?

   

  Pastor Don pointed out that we have a choice as to how we respond to situations. He gave an example, if you are a child and you watch your parents fight, you have various ways to look at the situation. You can see that they have a special way of fighting that doesn’t involve you, you can see that they are working out stuff that doesn’t involve you, you can decide that they are fighting because of something you did or didn’t do, you can tell them to stop fighting because it hurts your feelings, you can get between them in the fight and then they might turn their attack on you.

   

  When you face a situation that is unpleasant you need to ask yourself, “What is my part in this?” and “How am I going to respond?”

   

  (Heather’s comment, a few years ago I would have been up in arms about this teaching, for I viewed much of my life from a victim’s point of view, that everything happened TO ME. I am beginning in some areas of my life to now realize that even though things happened to me, I still have a choice on how I view it. Distance from the past helps me to begin to see that it does not have to control me, but I can still take lessons learned from the past and apply them to the present situations. Nothing is wasted in God’s economy. Now I want to learn the lesson quickly so I can move on. God is soooooooooo good!)

   

  We can look at what our interpretation of the situation is, not letting it steal our joy. We can choose to be happy. Pastor Don then mentioned that sometimes a person who is co-dependant will stay in a situation and feed it, because they too get something from dealing with the tough situation.

   

  Pastor Don pointed out that we really don’t leave an abusive situation until we own up to our part in it. He pointed out that often a person leaves one abusive situation only to end up in a similar situation with another person. They will keep doing this until they change. When we stand praying and ask God to forgive us for our part, then change can occur. Then we will not move from one abusive situation into another.

   

  When we wake up, and find that our happy mood unaccountably has changed to one of depression we must ourselves, “Do I choose to be happy or am I going to permit this disgruntled mood?”  Something in my life is not permitting me to feel the joy of the Lord.

   

  What is it that David knows to keep the faith with?

   

  Pastor Don pointed out that God created time in the beginning. He created the sun, moon and stars. Adam and Eve were put in the garden in the realm of time. But God is outside of time and eternity. The Jewish calendar had 30 day months, based on the lunar calendar. But God does not function according to our calendars, for God bases His actions on a series of events within the time space continuum, a Spirit realm time frame.

   

  God created time. But there is spiritual time and earthly time. When the carnal aspect of man and the Spiritual aspect of man arrive at a certain place in time God moves in a situation.

   

  When God created man, he gave man the opportunity to choose. Man chose to disobey God and satan was given the ability to function in the world.

   

   

  We explored David’s situation by looking at Psalm 27 verse by verse to see how David took his physical situation and willed himself to see it from God’s eternal perspective. This allowed David to have hope and faith that God will act in the tough situation and gave David the strength to wait on the LORD.

   

  Events in spiritual time may have consequences different than what man sees in physical time. Man sees life as a series of events occurring in physical time, but God sees events from an eternal perspective.

   

  In the Bible, people tried to force eternity into statements like forever and ever, Amen. We cannot conceive of what eternity is like; it is beyond our conception of clock time. The Jewish language talks about eons and eons and bits of events that never end but that does not give a picture of eternity because eons is still an element of earthly time.

   

  Spirit time does not operate on an earthly time frame. God is looking at prophetic events and he will intersect on the physical based on prophetic events, not based on our clock time. That is why Jesus said that no one knows the day or the hour. But when the prophetic events in the physical come to pass in the season of the Spirit, then they will be fulfilled.

   

  God can do more in a day with my life than I can do in years. God, when I am 90 can do more than I did in the previous 89 years. God brings about spiritual events regardless of physical time. (Remember Abraham and Sarah and Isaac.)

   

  One member pointed out that Joseph Zietz gave an example of this when he spoke about how the rabbis decided when the month of ABIB – which is the first month of Spring occurs.  She reminded us that the rabbis would decide when the First of Abib was based on the maturity of the grain. Later the rabbis tried to make a calendar by adding and subtracting days to make the months come out right, but they did not decide Abib based on the grain, but on their calendar days. But in the old way of reckoning the first of Abib, God was in control, and it was based on a physical event.

   

  God can change a life on a dime. Some people are saved, but not converted. God examines the heart, and can tell if something is done only in the physical or if it has touched the spiritual.

   

  Pastor Don pointed out that sometimes the devil tried to tell him that he had missed his time to be a pastor, because he wasted many years of his life. That had he started preaching at 14 or 24 it would have been one thing, but because he waited so long to have his calling he had missed the mark. But that is a pack of lies. God does not wait for chronological age in a person to activate a calling. God is looking for certain experiences to have occurred so that when a person steps into the role God has for them, that they will not fail. We need to yield to the time frame of the Spiritual.

   

  Remember, Samson in his last day did more destruction of the Philistines in one day yielded to God, than he did in his entire life before that. Although Samson lived the outward life of a Nazirite by following the rules, he was not converted according to spiritual time. He was self-absorbed, played around, tested the limits. It wasn’t until after Samson was blinded that he realized that he was out of God’s will. Then he asked God to help him, and God was able to use Samson in a big way once He yielded to God.

   

  During the time of the writing of Psalm 27, David was in a tough situation calling on God. We looked at this Psalm to see if David was talking about God acting in the SPIRITUAL or the PHYSICAL.

   

  Psalm 27:1 The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

   

  This is ½ talking about God in the spiritual and ½ talking about the physical. He talks about God’s qualities, that God is his light and salvation, strength of his life. But in the physical David is afraid. David wants time in the Spiritual to interrupt the circumstances in the Physical. David reminds himself that the truth of God is above and beyond the circumstances in the physical.

   

  God is God over every season and over every evil situation that may occur in the physical. Based on the strength and truth of Spiritual time, who can be afraid in the physical?

   

  Psalm 27:2-3 When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and foes, they stumbled and fell. Though an army may encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war may rise against me, in this I will be confident.

   

  In plain talk, Pastor Don said that David was reminding himself that in times past in the physical God always kicked butt against David’s enemies from the Spiritual realm. So when things in the physical are coming against David, God remembered in the spiritual that God always delivered him, so there was no real need to be afraid.

   

  Psalm 27:4-5  One thing, I have desired of the LORD, that will I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock.

   

  David knows where his strength lies – seeking and dwelling in the house of God. And God sets him high on a rock. We know the rock to be Jesus.

   

  Psalm 27:6 And my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me; therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD.

   

  This is both physical and spiritual. David is confident of the Lord, seeking His face and dwelling in His tabernacle. Our life goal is to behold God. In the day of trouble, in the physical, God will hide us in the secret place of His tabernacle. In the physical David’s experiences were grim, but no matter the circumstances in the physical, the hiding place is in the Spiritual. When things were getting rough, David hid out by the Rock of His salvation (Jesus).  While David was hiding from Saul in the physical realm, he hid in God in the Spiritual.

   

  I have to remember that there is another time moving in the Spiritual. That God is not defeated, that we are not alone. We can hide in eternity, even though we are in the physical. The help we need is from the Spiritual, the answer is from God, and that answer will help us in the physical.

   

  If people try to fix problems in the physical their lives are a mess. Churches who try to fix people’s problems only in the physical are not effective. People’s problems are fixed by God, who operates out of time, and comes up with an eternal solution.

   

  Some people come to church and their problem starts being fixed by God, things start going good in their lives, and then the people make the mistake of thinking that they don’t need to go to church anymore, that their lives are ok, and that worshipping God is not primary. They step out of eternity and get locked in the physical, and then they step out of the covering of God’s tabernacle. Their lives fall apart.

   

  Pastor Don says that it saddens him when this happens, because often the people then decide that they can’t go back to the church that they left. He pointed out that it is where they really need to come, for in church the person can then get back to God, and God can then remedy the situation.

   

  Some people are not able to believe that the spiritual exists, and they try to put everything into the physical. Only when God gets on our case, gets involved in our problems, can things change for us. We need to step out of the physical into the eternal.

   

  Will it happen by the clock? NO. Change happens by a prophetic series of events. If we step out of the eternal series of prophetic events into the physical we can get lost in the physical time. Sometimes, if we miss the spiritual time, we cannot get it back. Pastor Don gave the example of how at 60 he is not able to have the body or physical strength of a 20 year old, so things that he could do at 20, he may not be able to do physically at 60. Then he pointed out that for an instant, if God needed him to act in a physical way that a 20 year old could act, God could supernaturally do this, for faith could interact and bring the spiritual into the physical.

   

  We recently had a wedding at church of someone who was in her 50’s. Pastor Don said that  many people came to his office and said to him that why did she get married, they have been praying for a partner for years and years and God did not answer their prayers, telling Pastor Don that this faith stuff does not work. Why was it not working? Pastor Don pointed out that it wasn’t working because they said so. When they looked at the physical clock and made the determination that because they had prayed so long for a relationship and it hadn’t come that it wasn’t coming – they spoke unbelief, and got what they said.

   

  God doesn’t operate according to our clock time – from eternity, God is looking at seasons of events in our lives, not at the passing of a clock. God is waiting for us to make changes in our lives, and when He sees those prophetic changes in our lives, then He opens the door of Heaven and pours out what we have prayed for. If we pray, and stay the same, He will not move, for that would not be in our best interest. Sometimes we need to change inside, then God can answer our prayer. If we pray, tap our feet, look at the clock, and say, “Faith does not work.” We will have what we say.

   

  Do we have faith to believe in a Spiritual miracle? Do we have the belief to believe that the anointing of Elijah and the experience of Elijah can happen in our lives?  God’s anointing can cause us to act at any age of our lives. At the age of 62 Elijah outran a chariot. He could not have done it in his own strength, but the strength of Eternity (God) came into him and he was able to outrun a chariot.

   

  Pastor Don gave another biblical example. Caleb at 20 knew that he could defeat the enemy in the Promised Land, and was one of the two spies that spoke the truth of God to Moses, did not give a bad report. When it was time to parcel out the land, Caleb, after living in the wilderness 40 years was an old man and he told Moses to give him the land where the Anak were, and he drove out the enemy at an old age. His strength was not abated, and he was as strong as he was in his youth.

   

  Peter walked on water, saying, “Lord, bid me to come.” Peter knew that the Lord in eternity has dominance over the physical. Peter knew that if God told him to do it, he could do it. Eternity intersects the physical.

   

  When we ask for what the will of God is in our lives we get this information outside of physical time, and by faith we begin to bring the Spiritual into the physical. As long as we are measuring time and waiting for God’s will by measuring hours, days, weeks, we can be defeated. Faith is hope and the expectancy of eternity intersecting the physical. God does not do this on the basis of you prayed for this last week. God looks at what events in your life have occurred, and when you get to the point in your physical life where you are ready for the Spiritual to happen, then God permits it to happen.  When we are looking at a clock and wondering why something hasn’t happened, we are out of faith.

   

  Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

   

  The evidence is not in the physical, but in the Spiritual. If we are disappointed that the situation hasn’t occurred in the physical yet, we are out of faith. We need to keep hoping and expecting, even when we do not see it in the physical. Not speaking words of doubt and unbelief.

   

  Romans 4:17  Speaking of Abraham, (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations.:) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did.

   

  You can’t be disappointed when you don’t see the manifestation, for if you are trusting God in faith, hoping and believing for what doesn’t exist yet, you have to act as if, feel like, believe that it is in the Physical. Not looking at what the reality seems to be, but waiting in faith for it to manifest. Once it manifests, then we do not have to believe in faith for it because then it is in the physical.

   

  Concerning Abraham Romans 4:19-22 And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore, “it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

   

  Even though the circumstances of his age seemed to imply that he could not father a child, Abraham never wavered in faith. He knew that if God said it, God could do it.

   

  We need to hold to what God tells us in faith, not wavering or doubting. God will do what He says He will do. He is true to His word!

   

  Have a blessed day.

   

  Heather

  • 8:42 am
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