One of the things I learnt during the recent "40 Days in the Word", where we have been learning the WORD of God and how to love and apply it, is to picture what a scene or a passage in the bible is saying and to receive this as new revelation of what God is saying to me at the moment.
Today I want us to picture what God is saying in Isaiah 55:
"I don't think the way you think. The way you work isn't the way I work." God's Decree.
"For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think. Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don't go back until they've watered the earth, Doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, So will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed. They'll do the work I sent them to do, they'll complete the assignment I gave them. Isaiah 55:8-11 [The Message]
Here are some of my thoughts:
Most of my thoughts are governed by what I see and hear and by what's going on with my other three natural senses. When we hear some news on TV about economic troubles and deadly diseases and many other horrible things happening in the world, we think we will perish and we become fearful. But God doesn't think, act or respond that way.
Here is what he says in Psalm 91:
Fear nothing—not wild wolves in the night, not flying arrows in the day, Not disease that prowls through the darkness, not disaster that erupts at high noon. Even though others succumb all around, drop like flies right and left, no harm will even graze you. You'll stand untouched, watch it all from a distance, ……. Yes, because God's your refuge … [The Message]
How should we respond to this? I would claim this as a personal promise which I will commit myself to praying back to God, daily. I will also commit myself not to join in with the rest of the world in confessing what I see and hear on TV or from others, thereby making what "I fear", my daily prayer (without realising it). No wonder some of our "formal" daily prayers are not answered. We pray and confess one thing and then cancel the same confession by speaking otherwise in our "informal" conversations.
My thoughts about the rest of the passage above are: We don't see the end of the skies in a manner we see the ceiling in our houses. So we should not put God in a box or give him limits to what He can do when we pray. Often, I have noticed that God is answering my prayers when the scary and unexpected happens, particularly after praying about a situation, for no one can fathom His ways!
The majority of us have the grace of seeing rain or snow falling quite often. Touch it, watch it, listen to it and even take a photo of the rain falling. It's a real life demonstration and reminder from God that our prayers are being answered and that if we keep a diary, we will soon make a connection when we see things unfolding in the near future.
Finally it is the word of God that does the work! As we pray back God's promises and speak the same words when temptations arise, for example, when in pain we respond by saying "it's written ….by the stripes upon Jesus' back we were healed", we will soon see manifestation of our prayers. It's a matter of time before we see things blossom! We overcome the devil by the blood and by the word of our testimony or confession. Personally, I need grace in this area.
Farai Mutsambiwa
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