Kingdom Movement

Kingdom Movement

We live in a nation that celebrates comfort. How successful you are is determined by how comfortable you live. The thing with being comfortable is you get lazy. Life is no longer challenging. We settle, for we have arrived, advancement is no longer necessary. Many in America reach this stage young, many even grow up this way. Growth comes from being challenged. So one ceases to grow when they are too comfortable. I have found as I walk with God that when things begin to come easy, God sends me elsewhere, or brings something new my way. I have moved more times than I have fingers. I have gone from the Northwest to the Caribbean to now the Northeast moving many times in each location. Each setting has had it's own unique challenges. God has allowed me to see different extremes to help me find proper balance.

Hebrews 11: 8 It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going.9 And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith—for he was like a foreigner, living in tents. And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise.10 Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God.

We will never achieve in our lifetime what God lays on our heart. His vision for us goes beyond our generation to the generations to come. We will never fully receive our inheritance in this lifetime. If we are walking with God we will always be on the move, going forward, constantly changing, always growing. God will not allow us to stay in our comfort zones. It seems like mission trips are when we see our limitations broken for we are put in situations that we have to rely on God. This is where myself and the people I have been connected with grow together the most. It is when people deal with challenges together that they form a deep bond. Relationships can only go as far as one trusts the other. When people face challenges together and they have to rely on each other trust is built. The kingdom only advances through the unity of Christ body. So short-term mission trips can be a great tool to develop teamwork in the lives of believers.

We all want to have everything figured out, we don't like to be not sure of tomorrow. Yet walking by faith is like that. God only reveals to us what is necessary for today. He doesn't want us to get ahead or be frightened of what is coming. I often spend time trying to figure out the future. This is when I get anxious, I lose focus, I get restless, and end up waisting my day, not satisfied in my daily responsibilities, consumed with thinking about what's to come. My faithfulness to what God puts before me today will determine what happens tomorrow. God reveals only what I need to know to be ready for tomorrow. It is usually vague, not too detailed, just enough to keep me in the right path.

Matthew 6:34 “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

We must be confident like Abraham looking forward to what is to come but being faithful over today's responsibilities at the same time. Abraham had been given a command to leave home and was shown a vague vision of future greatness, he believed and it was accounted to him as righteousness. He moved even though he had such little detail. See God's plans for us are way bigger than ourselves, we can not fathom the details. We must just trust Him. Not an easy thing especially for those who are analytical, who try to figure everything out, think everything through. Trust me, we will never fully figure out God, our minds are not able to fully conceive Him. He is too big, just think for a minute, these question, where did God come from, how did He begin, and how can things just never end, and how can the universe have no end? These questions are way beyond our comprehension, it hurts our heads to even think about it. So some questions just cannot be answered. Life is an adventure and God made it that way, we have no idea how things may change tomorrow. It is good to be analytical, visionaries like me, need people who think things through, and help fill in the blanks, putting the details together, but everything will never be figured out.

Faith is ever-patient it believes no matter how long it must wait to see promises fulfilled. Abraham didn't begin to see the reality of his vision until his latter years. He even stepped ahead of God and tried to create God's fulfilled promise on his own, causing much difficult and pain. This is the root behind the conflict in the middle east. So much of our own personal difficulty and pain is the choices we have made ahead of God's time. God has placed great desires inside of us and it is good to desire to see them fulfilled, but so much must take place for us to be able to handle the changes in our life when prophecy is fulfilled. Is our character ready? Are all the people who are part of this place ready? God's timing is perfect so we must simply trust Him, bottom line!

Challenge: Let's repent of our Ishmael's the things we have created on our own in our own timing, then let's recommit to follow God's timing alone. Let's repent for not being faithful over today's responsibilities and being so anxious for tomorrow and recommit to being faithful today.