09
Sep '20
TAKE THE WEIGHT OFF YOUR WAIT ON GOD
09
Sep '20
Don’t you just want to scream sometimes when you know God is going to do it but the wait is killing you? We all go through this and if we keep on living, we’ll go through it again.
Have you noticed waiting on God is the only time that we feel the weight of our faith? Faith under pressure is the condition that challenges us to trust God on a new level, to walk in peace even though we’re in pieces.
I remember a time when I was in God’s waiting room and everything that could go wrong went wrong. Everything that was supposed to go right went wrong. The longer I waited, the more stuff seemed to go wrong. If you’ve ever been in that position, or maybe you are now, you know that keeping your sanity is a job all by itself. After I put down the weight, I thought to myself, “If God is real, this has to be a setup.” The fact that we’re in the waiting room is evidence that it is a setup. God said, “All things work together for the good.” That means all!
It’s hard to see a setup when emotions are hot when we’re stressed up and borderline desperate. When it has to happen on our schedule, when it has to go the way we planned it, when it has to do what we want it to do or they have to do what we want them to do when we want them to do it, the wait is 10 times worse. Eventually, we realize or God forces us to understand, no amount of worry, no amount of tears, no amount of frustration, no amount of anger will make God do anything. Only faith and work can do that (Hebrews 11:6).
Put This In Your Spirit: The thing you’re waiting on is the very thing that God is going to use to grow you with. When you’re waiting on God, God is growing you in an area that almost always hinders you from walking in peace when you’re going through the process.
God’s waiting room is always about preparation. Even when the deadline is coming, or passed, it’s always about preparation. Even when we think the worse is going to happen or is already happening, it’s still about preparation.
When we’re in God’s waiting room, it’s never about what we’re waiting for, it’s about what God is waiting for. What God is waiting on to grow inside of us. There is nothing wrong with putting a timer on a blessing or a breakthrough, as long as we don’t forget these 3 things:
- We’re never waiting on God to do something, we’re growing to what God has already done. (Psalm 139:16)
- God does not work on our schedule. He works things together for the good when the time is good. (Romans 8:28)
- God is not working on what we want, God is working on what we need — the two can be the same but the fact that we’re in the waiting room says that what we wanted or when we wanted does not line up with God’s plans. (Philippians 4:19)
Remember the bible says, “Be anxious for nothing…” This is not always easy to do and the harder it is for us to do it, the longer the wait will be. “Be anxious for nothing,” doesn’t mean don’t do anything while you’re waiting, it just means that trust in God has to go up in order for our focus to stay on our peace rather than on God’s timing.
“But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31).
If you’re in God’s waiting room, no matter how long or no matter what for, focus on keeping your peace while you keep walking. The bible says, “…And hope will never make us ashamed,” so as long as we hope right, walk right and wait right, God will make everything turn outright. Stay focused, talk to yourself, encourage yourself, you got this!
Pastor Patrick
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02
Sep '20
HOW TO DEAL WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE
02
Sep '20
What do you do when you have to deal with difficult people? You can’t just walk away from every difficult situation or just cut off every difficult person. A difficult person is not somebody who’s optional, a difficult person is somebody who we have to deal with.
Why? Optional people are not difficult. If they aren’t required or necessary, you can walk away from them instead of putting up with them. Problem solved!
No, your difficult person is not that simple. The spirit of difficulty has to use somebody who is a part of your life, who has a role and a position in your life that makes dealing with them necessary or even required. Family can be difficult, bosses can be difficult, spouses can be difficult. We can even be our own difficult person.
How do you deal with somebody who is difficult? Let’s address some points upfront. Somebody right now is being abused — mentally or physically. If this is you or somebody you know, tolerating abuse is not difficult, it’s deadly. Deadly is not to be tolerated, cooperated with, or confused with God’s will. We’re not talking about people who are a threat to our well being, we’re talking about people who we desire to get along with but for some reason, it’s difficult.
Put This In Your Spirit: Haven’t you noticed that the difficult person affects the way you deal with them? Remember, self-control is a fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). The first rule for dealing with difficult people is, “Be the thermostat and not the thermometer.” This is easier said than done but nothing is possible until you use your power to control you first.
Some folks think that believing in God means that we don’t or won’t encounter difficult spirits. That’s foolery. Grown Christians have read: “A fool’s lips walk into a fight, and his mouth invites a beating” (Proverbs 18:6).
Remember, they are difficult because they are necessary, important or not optional at the moment. Every difficulty in life, every wall, every challenge is a symbol of our difficult person. Sometimes God puts us in difficult situations because there is no way around it except through Him — If we allow it, our most difficult person or situation will cause us to go deeper in Him and higher in power.
Without difficult situations, we would not know what Jesus meant when He said, “With man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). The difficult person, difficult situation is going to be overcome by your power. This is what is meant by, “Turn the other cheek.” Turning the other cheek has nothing to do with letting somebody slap you twice. You’re not literally turning the other cheek, you’re turning to power to respond instead of turning into them, acting like them, or turning your power over to them. Turning the other cheek and owning your power, feelings, and response is your victory in difficult situations.
When the situation or the person, the problem or the difficulty has control over us, we are owned by them and that’s what makes them difficult. Think about it — If you’re smart enough to know they’re difficult but you’re letting them dictate how you act or feel — they’re controlling your temperature. You have to flip the script — be the thermostat and not the thermometer and watch what happens.
Every difficult person, difficult situation and the difficult problem has one thing in common, purpose. When God allows difficult, He’s preparing you for a greater release of your power.
They may never change, the problem may never change but the victory is not about them or it. The victory is about walking in power when you have to deal with difficulty. If you stay in power, God will move or remove what will not change.
Share and be blessed.
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29
Jul '20
Faith Under Pressure
29
Jul '20
Scripture Reference: James 1:1-12
Life is not a cakewalk or a bed of roses all of the time. We know this but that doesn’t make life’s pressures or pains any less difficult. When our faith is being tested, we can feel alone, weak, defeated, anxious, and overwhelmed. Notice I said, “feel.” When life happens, the natural instinct, normal reaction is to feel first — as long as we’re human this will be true. Feelings tell us what to think about what we see.
We are never ready for a test, we can only be prepared to grow. God knows how to grow us because He created us. God doesn’t cause everything that happens in our life but He causes everything to work together for the good (Romans 8:28). Pressure busts pipes, and when the enemy has us under pressure, he usually has us believing and thinking things that cancel whose we are, who we are, and what the truth is (2 Corinthians 10:5).
No matter what the trial or pressure is, even if we’ve caused it, God is faithful (1 John 1:9). The bible says, “…And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). When we find ourselves under faith pressure, we have to fight every temptation to let emotions override our truth.
Confidence releases pressure. The bible says, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). In other words, God’s power increases as we release the pressure of doubt, fear, and anxiety through trust in God and hope in the divine assurance that no weapon formed against us will prosper, that with God all things are possible, that he who the Son sets free is free indeed, that every setback is set up and every miracle needs a mess. It’s not easy to turn off emotions or pretend as if hurt does not hurt — decreasing does not mean to dismiss what happened, it means to intentionally surrender emotions that stand between us and doing what beasts do, what greatness does to honor self.
Some have been tempted to believe that trials or pressure only comes to those who lack faith. Not true. Trials and pressure do not discriminate and they have no respect of person. In fact, without pressure faith would not grow — faith grows when our trust in God grows: “…When I am weak then am I strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). God allows our resistance to cause pressure to grow us beyond our comfort zone. Destiny does not come to where we are, we grow to it. The pressure is pushing you into destiny love, destiny joy, destiny peace, destiny visions.
When someone leaves your life, that’s not the test. The test and the pressure is whether or not we will trust in God’s word and “lean not to our own understanding,” about a season. God said, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11). This is God’s covenant with us, this is our pressure release valve — Hope and confidence in God’s promise is the only way that we can release the pressure that comes from the weight of hurt, fear, and failure.
Releasing weight is not easy. Releasing hurt is not easy. Pressures in life don’t come from easy issues. Conflict, guilt, disappointment, struggle are emotional attacks that will rage, war, and battle against us until we find the courage to hope in the Lord and walk in the strength that comes from releasing and being set free from the emotional weights that cause our pressure (Hebrews 12:1).
The bible says, “…Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5); the morning of our joy — in any situation, trial or test, is the moment when we rise up in faith and tell our emotions, “Peace be still.” The morning comes when faith overrides what we see and confidence in our truth declares the victory, the healing, the recovery, the breakthrough, the divine intervention — in advance. In other words, morning comes when we tell hell, “No, not today, not this time, not as long as I’m breathing.”
Life will sometimes blind you, people will sometimes hurt you, jobs will sometimes lay off, losses will occur and life lessons will come but God’s grace is sufficient to endure, to stand up in it, and release the emotional pressure that causes us to walk by sight and not by faith. It takes work, it takes time, it takes prayer for strength and courage to walk out of emotions and walk in power. But there is no other way out.
Stand in the faith. Focus on the release. Know that when you’re in life’s gym, you’re getting stronger, better and wiser. You might not see it or feel it right now but you are a miracle in the making — pressure produces diamonds. Grow through it, don’t die to it. When life works you out, do your faith work and remember, God is faithful to your faith!
Share and be blessed.
Pastor Patrick
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21
May '18
YOUR RELATIONSHIP IS STRUGGLING BECAUSE…
21
May '18
Everybody in a relationship should keep this posted in plain sight: “Of course we experience relationship struggles, becoming one can and will be a struggle.”
Relationships that believe otherwise are doomed to sink in the quicksand of unrealistic expectations. It might survive but love will be a recess between the hell. What makes us all, Christians, have to deal with relationship struggle with purposeful intent is that we know that God did not put us on this earth or in a relationship to suffer (Jeremiah 29:11).
The devil wants you to play emotional ping pong with hurt and to keep wounding each other with friendly fire. Here it, the devil is at the center of mess. When I say the devil, I’m not talking about the spooky, I’m talking about familiar spirits.
Familiar spirits activate familiar, toxic behavior. You’re sitting in the relationship, you’re going back and forth over a problem but you’re talking about everything except the problem. You’re talking about what they did and why you did what you did, and on and on, knowing good and well you’re not solving anything.
Put This In Your Spirit: You cannot solve any problem by fixing a symptom. A symptom is the result of the problem, not the underlying problem or root. Problem solving is for grown people. You know like I know that kids fight without any intent of solving anything — they haven’t emotionally matured to this level, that’s why we call it tantrum.
When relationships waste time throwing tantrums, revisiting and rehashing symptoms, staying in old feelings instead of healing feelings, you have a mess on your hands that messes relationships up. We’ve all been there. Don’t look at the grass next door, it’s only green because they’ve done their work. They did the work if the grass is not artificial.
Most of us have heard, “Do your work.” But most of us don’t learn how to do the work until we lose the job. Lose the love, lose the relationship. Familiar spirits activate emotional demons, dysfunction and feelings that keep us from doing our work. Everybody has to agree to cut the mess out if you’re going to put the devil out.
Familiar spirits are the enemy of love. They speak into the problem to bait ego, pride and, unrealistic, unhealthy and even fantasy emotions that deceptively justify tantrums and division. Doing the work is a decision that can only be made after agreeng that the love you signed up for is the love that you’re going to fight for.
The bible says, “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it” (Habakkuk 2:2). Don’t do another thing until you write the love vision down and make it plain. Not a thing. Did you hear the point and purpose of this scripture: “So he may run who reads it.” You cannot run without knowing where you’re going.
The recovery, the healing, the restoration is not possible unless there is a vision that all minds, emotions and intentions agree to (Amos 3:3). Getting and using the tools, resources or whatever is takes to run in the direction of the vision is what love has to do to love on purpose. You cannot have an outcome that requires two people if only one person is working or both people aren’t working towards the same goal. Write the vision and make it plain, then be clear that everybody is on board and ready to die to self for the cause of love.
Is it ever easy? No. But if you’re with the right one, the one God assigned to you, all things are possible. It takes commitment, vision and complete and total surrender to your goal of having the best love daily. It takes abiding in the Holy Spirit and a dedication to casting down all contrary spirits, emotions and thoughts that exalt themselves above the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Don’t let anybody tell you that great love does not require great work and — The ability to forgive, to be vulnerable, to extend grace, to move past the past, to shut down familiar spirits, to prioritize actions that produce healthy love, and the ability to love the love of your life even when you don’t like them or what they did. Green grass, not artificial grass, is the result of serious work, compassion, desire and motivation that never stops — can’t stop.
It’s not a secret. It’s not magic. It’s work. It’s knowing the price before you pay it. We can and do lose the love of our life when familiar spirits overrule and override love, and the will to prioritize actions that run after the vision as opposed to division. Love is in the work — and work is for those who are ready and able to submit to God’s plan for relationship to be the most incredible love that two people will ever experience on earth (Ephesians 5:21-33).
Remember, you aren’t love. God is love (1 John 4:8). How much love we give is based on how much of us we move out of loves way: “He must increase but I must decrease.” That’s intentional love work.
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