Have you given God glory for that undeserved gift He blessed you with today? Yesterday? Or even what may come on the morrow?
Were you even deserving of it?
Had you prayed, praised, worshipped and fasted for it? Or was it a complete surprise?
God’s blessings are free to all His children. Some He just gives for no reason at all other than He Loves His flock. Others we must put in some work for in order to receive them. Let us look at the Israelites upon their arrival in The Promised Land.
Joshua 5:12 reads, “And the manna stopped…”
Here we find the Israelites had become complacent in their receiving of God’s daily blessing of manna from Heaven. They were lazy and expected to just roll out of bed each day, walk outside, scoop up the manna off the ground, prepare it and eat. They didn’t have to put in any work for it, nor pray for it or demonstrate any faith. They assumed it would always be that way…complacency!
But the Master had other plans. He was about to do a new thing in their lives and take them to the next level in their faith. In order to do so, He had to instill a desire and a hunger in them so that He could grow them in faith.
Sometimes to take us higher, God has to pull the rug out from under us or allow our safety net to be yanked away. Not all our trials and tribulations are demonic in nature. Some are brought on by our own foolish ways, some are because He is stretching our faith. He does this in order to grow us in The Spirit and kick start our Christian maturity in other areas. You see, as we go through new trials, we develop new testimonies as we learn to trust Him in ALL areas of our lives.
Much like the Dad who tells his maturing son or daughter that when they turn 18 they should be prepared to leave the house. Now preferably, we have developed and guided our children enough that they are prepared for this transition, either by heading off to College, the military or employment. Why do we do this? In order to help our children get to the next level of maturity and independence we have to remove them from their comfort zone. Some parents begin this process early on by sending their children off to boarding schools. You see we have to challenge them so that they begin to depend less on us and more on God and the skills and lessons we imbedded in them towards self-sufficiency and independence!
With the Israelites, God had safely brought them to, and blessed them with, The Promised Land. A land of milk and honey and fertile soils that yielded massive crops. But the land had to be worked to produce their food needs. So, as the Scripture reads “the manna stopped,” suddenly. God wanted them to stand on their own two feet. You see, He was weaning them off their spiritual breast milk to ready them to go to the next level. That next level required putting in some work, or working out their faith. Now, they would have to till the soil, plant the seeds, tend to the fields in order to generate a harvest to sustain themselves. In other words, they had to put their faith and trust in God into action as they worked the fields to produce the fruits of their labor. At this ‘next level’ God could now grow their walk in other areas.
His desires were to increase their prayer life, grow their faith and increase their worship. Now they would have to turn to Him in prayer for a good harvest, nourishing weather and holding back pestilence. They were also to bring Him the best of their ‘first fruits,’ or harvests, as a sign of thanksgiving and worship for all that He had done, was doing and would do in their lives. It was not that they would come to need God less, no! To the contrary, they now needed Him more in so many other areas of their lives as each period of growth begets another challenge.
Our Christian faith can in many ways be compared to a video game. Video games are not meant to be conquered or completed. To the contrary, each level brings new obstacles and challenges you must overcome to get to the next. Each level of play helps the player become stronger, wiser, more confident, and mature while it builds skills you need going forward to survive. And like the video games, our walk with God takes us higher and higher as we recognize our need for His daily presence in our lives, and can sing the benefits to others of having a strong relationship with Him. Our spiritual growth empowers us to give back to The Kingdom through our witness, our worship, our tithes, talents, offerings and praise.
We all have a purpose-derived life. We are not here by accident! Just look at those who died in their Earthen vessels but God revived in The Spirit and returned them to tell what they saw and what He said to them in order to encourage the rest of us to continue to press on to our high calling in Christ Jesus, Amen!!! (Please pause on this part, feast, pray and meditate on it as you may know someone He did this for, I know three!!!)
Nor should we become complacent or lazy in our faith walk!!
You see, just like those video games, we can NEVER complete all the levels. God just keeps advancing us from Glory-to-Glory for His Glory!!!
Our faith grows as we grow from each trial we overcome!!
Never grow complacent or weary in your well-doing because you shall reap, if you faint not. It’s Biblical y’all. Steady and ready yourself for the never-ending journey ahead. He is perfecting you as you advance each level.
So as you have so freely received of His gifts, now it is time for you to give from that reservoir of talents and lessons He has freely given you in your walk.
Ready to ‘level up?’ Pour into someone else and watch Him pour out an overflow in you as you master each level of faith, prayer, worship and praise.
God is DUE our praise even when the words are hard to spew out because of what He has ALREADY done in our lives!!
And remember, don’t ask Him for something, when you’ve given Him and others around you your nothing!! Amen 🙏🏾 🙏🏾🙏🏽