Do You Want Really Want It!

I do a lot of reading and it sometime gives me fresh insight into things that I feel inspired to write on. Every now and again I hear a message that so rocks my world that I get inspired to the nth degree. Such was the case when I heard Pastor Steven Furtick preach yesterday on ‘Timing Your Testimony’. It struck home on so many levels because I could feel even the rooms that I heard the testimonies in that shaped my life.

I did not really grow up in the church, so when I married a minister’s son, who was a full gospel minister, it was like going into a strange land. There was nothing familiar to the churches that I had attended in my youth. Nor was the message the same. My father-n-law was a prophet before his time. His messages would go from blasting the sins of life as they were, into going into prophetic pronouncement as to what was ahead. It took me awhile to grasp the full meaning of what he was saying.

I did however get fascinated with the stories that people told as they gave their testimonies. It not only spurred my interest, but gave me a grasp on what this God could do. Even though I now have testimonies of my own, I often think of the testimonies that schooled me to having faith in God:

Remember the miracles of long ago. Acknowledge that I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like me. Isaiah 46:9 (TPT)

I’ve thought about that. and I wonder, “do we really want miracles”. The fire ignited by those testimonies was because someone had gone through a “test”, and God had brought them out, often miraculously. The question that came to mind is, “have we failed to see the glory of God that we once saw, because we reject the commands of the Lord to go out to a far country”? Are we so settled in our secure place that when God introduces to us a proposition that will require us stepping out on ‘nothing’, that we say to God, “find someone else”. For there is no testimony without a test; there is no answer without a question; there is no ‘move of God‘, without tilling barren ground.

Do we want to see God’s glory? Do we want to leave the comfort of our homes on Sunday morning and return to the church house to get our tank filled, to run for the Lord all week being a devil chaser? Can we risk offense by sharing with others the unadulterated Word of God? Can we dare to shine like lights in a very dark world with the proclamation that I will stand no matter what:

Though the fig tree does not blossom
And there is no fruit on the vines,
Though the yield of the olive fails
And the fields produce no food,
Though the flock is cut off from the fold
And there are no cattle in the stalls,
¹⁸ Yet I will [choose to] rejoice in the Lord;
I will [choose to] shout in exultation in the [victorious] God of my salvation!
¹⁹ The Lord God is my strength [my source of courage, my invincible army];
He has made my feet [steady and sure] like hinds’ feet
And makes me walk [forward with spiritual confidence] on my high places [of challenge and responsibility].

Selah,

Maria