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Faith and Expectation

Psalms 31:24 (AMP) Be strong and let your hearts take courage, all you who wait for and confidently expect the Lord.

Are we showing up to places expecting calamity? Are we expecting a struggle? Are we expecting to walk into confusion? I want to tell you something about this faith life, we cannot pray against something that we have invited. We need to change our mindset and our expectation. God is not going past what we expect and speak with our mouths.

Matthew 15:15, 17-20 (AMP) Peter asked Him, “Explain this parable [about what defiles a person] to us.” Do you not understand that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated? But whatever [word] comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and this is what defiles and dishonors the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts and plans, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, slanders (verbal abuse, irreverent speech, blaspheming). These are the things which defile and dishonor the man; but eating with [ceremonially] unwashed hands does not defile the man.”

Ephesians 4:29-31 (AMP) Do not let unwholesome [foul, profane, worthless, vulgar] words ever come out of your mouth, but only such speech as is good for building up others, according to the need and the occasion, so that it will be a blessing to those who hear [you speak]. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God [but seek to please Him], by whom you were sealed and marked [branded as God’s own] for the day of redemption [the final deliverance from the consequences of sin]. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor [perpetual animosity, resentment, strife, fault-finding] and slander be put away from you, along with every kind of malice [all spitefulness, verbal abuse, malevolence].

I was in prayer yesterday about some of the confusion we have had with setting up on Sunday mornings. It has been effecting our worship and media (which includes the sound) teams. Where is all this confusion coming from? As of right now we are renting from another church. We have a 1:30 in the afternoon service. Their worship and media teams have been doing some changes with the equipment and it is different every week. There is discouragement, and I understand that, it is not easy to figure out when we are not a part of the whole picture. What we cannot do is lose the joy in that we have a place to come to worship together. We cannot allow it to cause discouragement in how we approach worship.

The first thing we have to do is to check our heart attitude. Have we lost the joy? If so, what are we doing to find it again? Psalms 31:24 says, “Be strong and let your hearts take courage.” Discouragement cannot enter our hearts. Out of hearts we will speak what we expect. My prayer was, “God let our hearts remain steadfast to your Word. Let us not grieve the Holy Spirit by our complaining when we come into this place. Holy Spirit, we value You more than any inconvenience we may face. Let our words build up. Let our words be used to bless.”

I am praying against the confusion, but I am also praying for our minds to be in correct alignment with the Word. No matter what, the Holy Spirit is more important than what we sound like or look like on the camera. We are not producing a product, we are ushering in His Presence. We should have excellence, but not at the expense of not sitting at His feet. We can often get into the works of it all, that we forget the most important part, being with Him.

Joshua 6:10 (AMP) But Joshua commanded the people, “You shall not shout [the battle cry] nor let your voice be heard nor let a word come out of your mouth, until the day I tell you to shout. Then you shall shout!”

This is the story of how God delivered the city of Jericho into the hands of the Israelites. They marched around the city walls six days with only the trumpets being blown by the priests, and the ark of the covenant being carried behind the priests. On the seventh day, when they had walked around the city seven times, this time when the priests blew the trumpets the people were to give out a shout. I believe it was a shout of praise, it was a shout of victory, it was a shout of expectation. Their faith had lined up with their expectation that God had delivered the victory.

We cannot pray against something we have invited. Change your mindset and change your words. Stop inviting confusion into your life and into your worship. Do not allow discouragement to take root and cause your mouth to curse what God wants to do in that moment. Speak faith, speak expectation, speak to build up. Your faith will meet your expectation.

Our Lord, Our God, Our Banner, You are more precious than the sun you put in the sky. We want to bring glory to Your Name. Thank You for Your Son, for coming to earth to live among us and for restoring us to our rightful place in Your Presence. Thank You for the Holy Spirit. Your Word says that the Holy Spirit is the seal of our redemption. That means we have been inspected and approved. We are no longer broken vessels, Your Son redeemed us. We repent for speaking words that are not uplifting, that we have spoken out of the confusion without going to Your Word and Your Promise. We choose to forgive ourselves and others for having expectations that do not line up with Your Word. Let us choose to remain silent and get our hearts and minds in correct alignment so that we do not dishonor You with our words. We choose hope today. We choose joy today. We choose forgiveness today. We choose love today. In Jesus Name, Amen.

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How we treat people matters

Ephesians 5:1-2 (AMP) Therefore become imitators of God [copy Him and follow His example], as well-beloved children [imitate their father]; and walk continually in love [that is, value one another—practice empathy and compassion, unselfishly seeking the best for others], just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God [slain for you, so that it became] a sweet fragrance.

How we treat people matters to God. I was in prayer yesterday and God told me to turn to Ephesians 4:30, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God [but seek to please Him], by whom you were sealed and marked [branded as God’s own] for the day of redemption [the final deliverance from the consequences of sin].” I am a context girl, so I read the verses around it.

Ephesians 4:29 (AMP) Do not let unwholesome [foul, profane, worthless, vulgar] words ever come out of your mouth, but only such speech as is good for building up others, according to the need and the occasion, so that it will be a blessing to those who hear [you speak]. 

Ephesians 4:31-32 (AMP) Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor [perpetual animosity, resentment, strife, fault-finding] and slander be put away from you, along with every kind of malice [all spitefulness, verbal abuse, malevolence]. Be kind and helpful to one another, tender-hearted [compassionate, understanding], forgiving one another [readily and freely], just as God in Christ also forgave you.

The Book of Ephesians was written to the church of Ephesus, which means it was written to people who had received Christ as their Lord and Savior. At the moment, my husband and I are in a series about Relational Maintenance and we are taking the verses from Ephesians 5 and breaking down how we can apply it to our every day lives. Like I said, I am a context girl and when I see the word “therefore” that means that this is not the starting point of the thought. We grieve the Holy Spirit when we are not becoming imitators of Christ. This is not referring to winning the lost, healing the sick and raising people from the dead. We have been given the authority to do that at sons and daughters, but it is not referring to your position as a child of God. As a child of God, that is an imitation of the Father, an ambassador (2 Corinthians 5:20). Does my character reflect His? There are two words in the Greek that are used for son, teknon and huios. Teknon refers to child or heir, huios refers to maturity and the mannerism taken on.

Can I grieve the Holy Spirit as a born again believer? Yes. How? By not maturing into huios, becoming an imitator of my Father. What are some checks in myself? When I am talking are my words building up? Do I take the chance to tell it like it is about someone? Do I repeat a wrong? Do I spread resentment or strife? I had someone do that to me recently and it has taken me a moment to think better about the person they were talking about. They said something to hurt me out of spite and sow a seed of division to another. This was a person in our body of believers doing this. Did I correct them? There would have been no point because of their character (they are known for doing this). Instead I loved them and am choosing to walk in forgiveness.

When we mature we begin to walk continually in love [that is, value one another—practice empathy and compassion, unselfishly seeking the best for others], just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God [slain for you, so that it became] a sweet fragrance. There are times that I am going to have to work on this more and more. How we treat people matters to God. When I become an imitator of Him I do not have to fear grieving the Holy Spirit. I believe He is a God to be honored. I should honor Him with my full self, that includes my thoughts, words and actions.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 (AMP) Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty [emancipation from bondage, true freedom]. And we all, with unveiled face, continually seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are progressively being transformed into His image from [one degree of] glory to [even more] glory, which comes from the Lord, [who is] the Spirit.

Father, our Creator and Banner, You are so Marvelous. If we do nothing else but to just love You, that is all we need. Thank You for Your Son, for being the Restorer of our authority and fullness. Thank You for the Holy Spirit and the power that You have entrusted us with. We repent for not being imitators of You and for the words we have spoken in vain against Your body. Let our tongues be submitted to You. We are choosing to renew our minds daily in Your Word. Thank You for allowing us to partner with You in Your Kingdom expansion. We choose to see people the way You do. Let us have eternal eyes when we speak and treat Your people. Let us be true children of You and imitate You in all we say and do. We choose forgiveness today. We choose joy today. We choose hope today. We choose love today. In Jesus Name, Amen.