Thursday, 2 February 2017

THE LITTLE FOXES THAT SPOIL THE VINE (PART 4)



The New Living Translation (NLT) puts it simpler thus, “If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done!” So take a step of faith, cast your net into the deep, and do that thing you have been putting off for so long TODAY! And you will be surprised to discover that YOU are the one who has been delaying God from blessing you all along, not that He doesn’t care or slow in hearing as you probably thought. Nothing moves until you move. A tortoise cannot make progress unless it puts out its head and legs out of its shell. So get out of your shell and break through into your blessing. THE LAW OF SEED AND HARVEST Another way some of us unwittingly delay or even truncate our miracle is by our blatant violation of the ageless law of seed and harvest. God Himself decrees in Genesis 8:22 that “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.” This law of seed and harvest is as immutable as God Himself; it does not change. “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7). But it is amazing how often we deceive ourselves by despising the effect (result) while nurturing the cause that results in that same effect. Have you denied someone in the past when you shouldn’t have? You can be rest assured that you will also be denied too, if you are not being denied already. Have you wronged, robbed, cheated, condemned, judged, short-changed, or done something untoward to someone in the past (no matter who the person is), you will reap the harvest of your thoughts and (in)actions in due time, if you are not reaping it already. And we all know that the harvest is usually bigger than the seed. This is one major area I think we usually fall short and thus shoot ourselves in the leg. Granted, God is merciful, but He is also a just God. I have the privilege of having read the bible a number of times, and one of the discoveries I made about God is that He is not a fair God; He is only just. Now that may sound unreasonable to some of us, but it is the truth. We all suffer the natural consequences of our shortcomings from time to time albeit the fact that we have sought forgiveness and have indeed been forgiven their eternal consequences. We will get to reap the harvest of the seeds we have sown in the past or are sowing presently, either good or bad, at one time or another. That is why it always pays to do good and be good. Even when you are the one that is wronged, you are not expected to wrong your offender in return because by so doing you will only plant a seed of wickedness whose harvest you will reap in time. Little wonder the Bible is replete with several passages that command that we do not repay evil with evil. SINS The final reason we shall consider as one of the ‘whys’ for unanswered prayers is sin. Most of the times we shoot ourselves in the leg by our sinful indulgences in thoughts, in words, and in deeds. The bible says ‘God is angry with the wicked everyday’ (Psalm 7:11), how then can you hope to get anything from Him if you are always rubbing Him on the wrong side? Little disobediences here and there: an evil or lustful thought you allowed to roam in your heart, a wrong word you said to or about someone, an harmful deed you planned for or did to someone, or your blatant disregard for the injunctions of the bible. These are ‘the little, little foxes that spoil our vine’. But we often do not know. Another way that sin robs us of our miracles is through the little compromises we allow from time to time. You see, God tests us now and then to see the disposition of our hearts in relation to Him. He tests our faithfulness, our commitment, our loyalty, our maturity, our patience, and our preparation, among others, before committing certain things to us. How we fair during and after the moment of trial is what determines whether we are ripe for the blessing or not. God does not use or commit things to an untested vessel. If you run through the bible, you will see how true this statement is. Just as we have to write exams to pass from one class to a higher one, so does God examine us or allows the devil to tempt us from time to time with circumstances and real life situations. If you fail, the miracle is aborted or miscarried at that point, but if you overcome, it is delivered to you. However, because of His infinite mercy, we are usually presented with multiple opportunities to prove ourselves worthy so that if we fail at some time, we may overcome at other times and so obtain the goodies of that victory. In conclusion, I encourage us all to examine ourselves impartially to see that we are not falling short in any of these areas of spiritual leakages so that we can be able to say that we have indeed ‘done all to stand’ toward obtaining our miracle. Thanks for reading. God bless you. Shalom.

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