Details
That situation in your life is a blessing in disguise, stop trying to pray it away. Ask for grace to manage it because that's the same thing God will use to promote you from shame to fame for His Name's sake.
Comment
Details
That situation in your life is a blessing in disguise, stop trying to pray it away. Ask for grace to manage it because that's the same thing God will use to promote you from shame to fame for His Name's sake.
Comment
That situation in your life is a blessing in disguise, stop trying to pray it away. Ask for grace to manage it because that's the same thing God will use to promote you from shame to fame for His Name's sake.
Listen to WIN by Wheatfield Apostolic Ministry MP3 song. WIN song from Wheatfield Apostolic Ministry is available on Audio.com. The duration of song is 54:14. This high-quality MP3 track has 128 kbps bitrate and was uploaded on 3 Sep 2023. Stream and download WIN by Wheatfield Apostolic Ministry for free on Audio.com – your ultimate destination for MP3 music.
Comment
Loading comments...
Praise the Lord. People of God, praise God. Glory to Jesus. It's another great and awesome Sunday evening. And we're back again to have a wonderful time looking into the living word of God. It's a bank holiday, public holiday this weekend. The weather is nice. It's Labor Day 2003 tomorrow. So there is a feeling of relaxation and generally people are feeling wound down. So it's a great thing to be able to relax after a hard month's work. Meaning that the month before was a month of hard work. It's good to work hard. Because when you work hard, the rest period is more fulfilling because you know that you're deserving of rest. So before we go into our discussion for this evening, discussing a title, a subject that I have titled, Living With Your Phone. So the subject, our subject this evening is titled, Living With Your Phone. And our anchor scripture is from the book of 2 Corinthians 12, verses 2 to 9. 12, 2 to 9. We are depending on the Holy Spirit to talk to us this evening as He always does. Because when we come on these recordings, we are very dependent on the Holy Spirit. Because you know, everything we do, we do in the Spirit. We are not here to speak our own words. We are here to speak as the oracles of God. And so it's very important to be mindful that these meetings, our meetings here on the wheat field, they are ordained by God. And we heavily depend on the Spirit of God who searches the mind of God to come and tell us what's on God's mind. And so that when the Spirit of God speaks to our own spirit, we are able to deliver what is on God's mind. And we don't ever want to speak our own words. Why? Because it is not our word. The Bible isn't the word of man. The Bible is the word of God. And so we are heavily dependent on the word of God. And so at this point, we are going to pray before we get into our conversation, our discussion this evening. Holy Spirit of the Living God, we worship you. We honor you. We exalt you. Holy Spirit of the Living God, we worship you. We honor you. We exalt you. Holy Spirit of the Living God, we worship you. We honor you. Holy Spirit of the Living God, we worship you. We honor you. Holy Spirit of the Living God, we worship you. Holy Spirit of the Living God, we worship you. Holy Spirit of the Living God, we worship you. We pray that you will teach us by your Spirit. We pray that Jesus Christ is glorified in everything we say, in everything we do, in the ideas, in the conversation, in our delivery. That Jesus is exalted and Jesus is glorified in Jesus' name. We ask that flesh die right now. And we sanctify this atmosphere in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We sanctify this atmosphere by the blood of Jesus Christ. We take authority over any spirit contrary to the Spirit of God on assignment to disorganize our thought, to disorganize our meeting. And we release in this place fire. We release an atmosphere, an atmosphere of wisdom. Holy Spirit, come. Come and take full control. Teach so that we can teach. I don't want to speak the words of man. I want to speak only the words of God. So, Holy Spirit, come. Enable me to teach. Teach me that I can teach. And as you use me to teach, teach me also so that my life is transformed even as the hearers are transformed. We trust in you. We depend on you for wisdom, for revelation, for instruction, for boldness. We trust you for the ability to communicate, the unction to teach that makes teaching easy. Let it come upon my life this evening. In Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Hallelujah. And so, our anchor scripture, like I said earlier, comes from the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 12. We will be reading from verse 2 to 9. 2 Corinthians, chapter 12, verses 2 to 9. The Bible says, this is Paul speaking now, the apostle Paul. I knew a man in Christ above 14 years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell. God knows. Such an one caught up to the third heaven, verse 3. And I knew such a man, whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell. God knows. How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such an one I will glory, yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities. For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool, for I will say the truth. But now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he sees me to be, or that he hears of me. Verse 7. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. Verse 8. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. Verse 9, the final verse. And he said to me, my grace is sufficient, my grace is sufficient for you. For my strength is made perfect in weakness. I'm going to take verse 7 to 9 again. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. For my strength is made perfect in weakness. Holy Spirit, help me this evening. Help me to speak, give me utterance, keep my mind state on Christ. In Jesus' mighty name. Amen. And so in this passage of scripture, we see the Apostle Paul revealing in his second letter. This second Corinthians is the second letter of Apostle Paul to the Corinthian church. And so in this verse, this passage of scripture, he's talking about his experiences. His divine experiences in his visions and his revelations. And how he was caught up to the third heavens. He doesn't want to actually say it's him. And you see, if you have the gift of revelation, you have the gift of divine encounters, you have the gift of visions. Very often, you don't actually know who it is. And this didn't occur to me until I was getting ready for this teaching. I have read this passage of scripture countless times. I have heard it preached countless times. But because I operate in the prophetic and I have actually been caught up to the third heavens by the grace of God. On October 1st, 2018, I was caught up to heaven. I was there. I saw heaven with my own two eyes. But like the Apostle Paul, when it happened to me, when the Lord gave me the grace to visit heaven, I didn't know if it was me. I was experiencing the journey, but I didn't know who it was. I didn't know if it was me, who God had given access to experience heaven. Or I didn't know if I was taking on the nature of someone who was actually transitioning to heaven to be with the Lord. Because if you have a gift, the gift of the prophetic, and you have a gift of visions, very often when you have prophetic encounters such as visiting heaven, you take on the nature of someone who might be actually going home. And God gives you the grace to experience their transition, even though you are not dying. So when it happened to me, when I was granted access to visit heaven, this is actually the very first time that I am discussing this publicly. I have only shared this very privately. In fact, I've only shared this in my journal, my vision journal. And I had no intention, I had no plans to share this. So this must be what God wants to do. So on October 1, 2018, around 5 a.m. in the morning, God granted me access to visit heaven. And another day I will be able to share, now that I have the courage, because it was so heavy. It was such a heavy experience. This year, this is 2023, and even as I speak now, it feels like it was yesterday. It was such a heavy experience that it's taking me a long time to unpack and unbundle the experience. So one day I will actually go into details about what I saw. So tonight I am just talking about the fact that I can relate with the Apostle Paul when he says, I know a man, whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know, God knows. That is exactly how it can happen. That's how it happened to me. When I went and visited heaven, I didn't know if it was me going to heaven, or God was giving me the grace to experience the nature of someone who was in transition, so I can understand. Because when I first read this piece of scripture, I thought the Apostle Paul was being modest. I thought he was being modest. Because the entire message, his message really is about humility, is about not glorying in the gifts, not glorying in his ability to see visions, and his ability to see revelations, and his ability to see the gifts that God has given him. So that's the idea behind this passage of scripture, and not wanting people to exalt him too highly because of the graces that God has given him. That is true. That is the message in the scripture. But it just occurred to me that what he said about how he went to the third heavens is actually how it has happened to me, it has happened to others, it has happened to people whom God has granted access. You don't know who it is. You don't know who exactly is experiencing, if it is you. Because it's so real. It's not a dream. It's a visitation. You are actually there. You are alive in a different realm, in a different dimension. You know you are not dead because you went to bed. But you know you are not in the realm of life either. You are not in the realm of the physical either because you realize you are now in a different realm. You are in a different dimension of the spirit. But you don't know if it's you, that means you are dead. That means you might not come back. Because the truth is, once you begin this journey, once the Lord catches you up, it's called catching up because you don't make up your mind to go. You don't even know you are going. You don't have any plans to go. What happened to me is, it was early in the morning, 5 a.m. I had woken up to go to the toilet because it was early. I hadn't woken up to go about my business. I only woke up to go to the restroom and then come back to bed, which is what I did. So I remember the time very, very clearly because I checked the time before I went back to bed. So I had gotten up from my bed to use the restroom and I went back to bed to continue my sleep because it was early, it was 5 something and I usually wake up around 7 or 8 in the morning. The moment my head hit the pillow, I was caught up. I was caught up to heaven. So I knew that I wasn't asleep because I didn't have enough time to go back to sleep. My eyes just closed and I was gone. I was caught up by the spirit. So because I was caught up so fast and so quickly, I didn't know. I was like, am I still in my bed? Where am I? But events began to unfold and from what I was seeing, I said, this is not earth anymore. This isn't home anymore. This is a different dimension and eventually I began to see, I began to travel in the spirit and I began to see things and I realized this is heaven. At first I was sad because I thought, is this it? That's it. I wasn't ready. I didn't plan anything. At first I thought that was it. I wasn't coming back. And so I remember it took me a little while to adjust. I said, okay, well, that's it and that's it. And then I began to see things. I began to see things and I was allowed to come back. I can never forget, like I said, now that I feel, as I'm sharing now, I feel a release now to share. It's going to be easier for me now to break down every single experience because I saw many, many things, many, many things. And I recorded because I have a journal where I record my visions and I record my encounters. So I recorded it on that day with the level of accuracy. Even though I remember everything, that's an experience you can never forget. If you have ever been to heaven, you can never forget until the day you die, no matter how old you get on this side of life. And so now that I'm reading, I see now that even though the Apostle Paul was being modest, he was actually describing an experience that I have had. And I have listened to the testimony of another sister, Christian sister, who was caught up. And she records also that you don't know who it's happening to. You are aware of what's going on, but you are not sure of who the individual. So the Apostle Paul now is describing, he's talking about his experience to the third heavens. And you know, the third heavens in Christianity, the third heavens is the residence of God. The third heavens is where God actually lives because it is believed that there is a first heaven. The first heaven is the sky where the birds fly, you know. And the second heavens is believed to be that space where the stars, the constellation of heaven, the stars, the moon. So that space is believed to be the third heaven. And it's believed to be the second heaven. The third heavens is where God lives. And like I saw when I was caught up to heaven, there is actually a divide. It's like a river. It's like a firmament. There is a divide. There is a firmament kind of, it's like water. It's like very clear water that divides the third heavens where God lives. The third heavens that you cannot access physically, you can only go there by the Spirit. There is a divide. There is a divide like a firmament. And people who transition, they walk across this divide. It's like a river. It's like water. It's like a bridge, a bridge of water. It's long. So you can imagine it's long. Imagine it spans the entire earth so that wherever someone dies, whether they die in America or they die in Africa or they die in the United Kingdom, wherever they die, as they rise, they are able to access that bridge. So it's a bridge that spans across humanity. So therefore, it's a spiritual bridge. But it looks like a river. It looks like, if you can imagine a waterfall, you know, when the water is falling, the quality and the rush of the water, that's how the water appears. But it's not rushing. It's still. But that is the quality of the appearance. It appears like waterfalls, but it is flat like a bridge. Like I said, I saw so many things. And as I am speaking now, I realize that it's actually time to record my visit to heaven. God moves in mysterious ways. Like I said, it was not in my plan at all to talk about that, but I will do another recording and I will be able to share what I saw when I went on this visit to heaven. So now, Apostle Paul is saying that because of his giftings, his graces that God has given him, he is admitting that it can be very tempting to become puffed up. How many people do you know who visit heaven and come back? How many people do you know who have such accuracy of vision and revelation? Not everybody does, but Apostle Paul did. And he's saying that it's easy when you have been graced to be able to do extraordinary things. It is possible to get puffed up and to get prideful because of these many graces that you carry in one person. So the ability to have experiences that others don't have, that can only come by the Spirit, the ability to see unspeakable and to encounter unspeakable spiritual experiences can make a man puffed up and proud. And it can also make people lift up a man inordinately. If we're all in one place and one of us has extraordinary abilities, the likelihood is very high that that one person is going to be very proudful, is going to be puffed up if the person isn't subjected by the Spirit of God to submit themselves to the authority of God and to the Word of God. The temptation is high that this one person is going to be puffed up, is going to be proudful. The possibility is also high that the people around this one person are going to see that person differently than everybody else because the person is different. And they're going to try to exalt that person more than they should, which is what Paul is saying, that because of his abilities, because of his giftings, the temptation is high. But he was not going to glory himself. He was going to glory in his ability to be humble. And he was admonishing people not to exalt himself, exalt him more than he should. And because of this, to avoid this misfortune, he says that a thorn was given to him in his flesh. A thorn was given to him in his flesh. We are now in verse 7, and verse 7 says, Lest I should be exalted, meaning that less people, even without me being proud, even without me being puffed up, less people should exalt me because of the abundance of revelations that God has given me, because of the abundance of my giftings to see and to visit heaven and to do all these great and unspeakable things, there was given to me a thorn in my flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. He was given the thorn in his flesh as a gift to prevent him from being proudful, to prevent him from being puffed up, and to prevent people from exalting him above measure. So God can give a gift of the thorn in the flesh to help you stay humble. God can give you something that makes you uncomfortable, that makes you as wonderful as you are, as successful as you are, as prayerful as you are, as powerful as you are. The apostle Paul was a man of power. As excellent as you are, you can be given a thorn in your flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet you. You can be allowed to marry someone who will in your life be a thorn in your flesh and be a messenger of Satan, to keep you grounded, to keep you humble, and to keep people around you from exalting you more than is meet. Why? Because pride comes before you fall. If God loves you, and God loves us all, and God has an assignment for you, God always sends you a thorn in the flesh, or He allows a thorn in the flesh to come into your life and to buffet you. Why? He's trying to do you a favor. He's trying to make sure that you don't run ahead of yourself. He's trying to make sure that your head doesn't get too big. Why? Because God, in His infinite wisdom, there's some people that God, it seems almost like God spent such an amount of time on them. They seem perfect in every way. They seem, when you look on the outside, they're 110%. In everything, they just seem perfect, but they are not. They have a thorn in their flesh somewhere. Looking at them on the outside, you may not be able to tell, but they know what their thorn is. I know what my thorn is. You know what your thorn is. Everybody has a thorn in their flesh. It is a prerequisite. You must have something in your life that keeps you grounded, that keeps you humble. Otherwise, it's a freeway to destruction. The Bible says that the way to destruction is wide. The way to hell is wide. If God doesn't help you by allowing a thorn in your flesh, you are on a freeway to destruction and certainly a freeway to hell. So God allows this. And the Apostle Paul is saying that... This is verse 8. He said, for this thing, he begged God three times to remove it from him. He begged God to remove this thorn from his flesh, but God said, no. My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness. So you need that thorn in your flesh to be able to access my grace, says the Lord. The weaker you are, the more my strength is needed. If you are strong, you don't need my strength. You already have yours. And your strength, because you're a man, your strength is really weakness anyway. So if you don't recognize that thorn in your flesh, that weakness as a strength, it is actually inadvertently your strength. It is your strength. It is that weakness in your life that causes God to show up for you. In essence, God is doing us a favor by allowing us to be in that condition. The thorn in your flesh is a gift from God. Stay in it. Stay in that thing. This is Apostle Paul. Paul said he begged God three times. He tried to pray away this thorn. He tried to pray it away and God said, no. It's good for you. You need it. Stay in it. That's what we also do. We are praying for this thorn, this situation in our lives. We are trying to pray it away. Stop trying to pray away your thorn. That uncomfortable situation in your life is a blessing in disguise. It doesn't look like it, but it is a blessing. As I speak to you, I speak to myself. It's a blessing. That thorn, that uncomfortable situation, that is the vehicle that God has designed to promote you. It is that thing that you detest so much that drives you to God. It drives you to your knees. That's the area of weakness in your life that you have no control over. You can't remove it. You can't wish it away. You can't dissolve it. It requires the supernatural ability of God to move on your behalf. That thing that you are trying to drive away, trying to pray away, that is what brings you to God. The devil doesn't know the secret. Paul said, this thorn in his flesh, verse 7, Paul calls his thorn the messenger of Satan. It's an agent of Satan, doing Satan's work. But God said to Paul, my grace is sufficient. God could have removed it. God can do all things. But God didn't remove it. Why? Because what Satan meant it for, God meant it for something else. The same in your life. That messenger of Satan in your life, why Satan sent it to you? The message that Satan sent to you through that thing is different from the purpose of God. God is going to use what Satan has sent to you as an evil messenger to do his will. To refine you, to keep you humble, to keep you praying, to keep you winning. So you need to recognize that even though Satan is trying to incapacitate you, because everything that Satan sends into our lives as a messenger is to kill, to steal, and to destroy. That is the message of Satan. So if Satan's messenger comes to your life, that messenger is coming to steal, to kill, to destroy. But God uses it for his purpose so that all things work together for your good. And whatever Satan sends to you, in whatever form it might be, God isn't going to remove it. God is going to use it to fulfill his purpose for our lives. For someone it might be shame. Maybe you are so ashamed of your life, ashamed of your past, you feel so incapacitated because you have done things in the past that now you can't change them. So you are ashamed and you are hiding. Because of what you have done, you are hiding because Satan is using shame as his messenger to incapacitate you and to hold you in bondage. So now you are ashamed. But that shame, just going off of what we are reading now, on this passage of scripture, on the life of Apostle Paul, that shame is only a thorn in your flesh. It might be a disability. It might be poverty. It might be lack. Whatever it is that is trying to debilitate you now, Satan sent it to do what it's doing now. But recognize that you have power. It's a gift. That messenger of Satan is only a thorn in your flesh. And even though it's making you weak, because that is what Satan wants it to do, is making you weak, but your weakness is God's strength. In your weakness, the strength of God rises up for you. So you don't need to do anything but just keep praying. But praying for God to remove that thorn is a disadvantage to you because that thorn is an instrument in your hand to rise. Have you ever seen mountain climbers? You know when mountain climbers, when they climb up a mountain, they have, I don't know what they call them, they have things in their hands. Sometimes it's in their hands. Sometimes it's on the mountain itself. And they use those things to pivot, to lift, to go up. Whatever Satan has sent you as a messenger, the plan of Satan is to use it to do evil. But the plan of God is to use it for you, to lift you up, to elevate you, because Satan is using those things to make you weak. But your weakness, it is in your weakness that God is strong on your behalf. And when God has done what God wants to do, nobody sees you. They see God. Because you were weak anyway. You were weak in your own eyes. You were weak in everybody's eyes. You were weak. Everybody saw your weakness. Yet in that weakness, God came through. And God lifted you through that weakness. Who do you think is going to be glorified? God or Satan? God is going to be glorified. Because the purpose of Satan is clear to everyone. Everybody saw what you are seeing. This stone in your flesh, this shame, this disability, this lack, everybody sees it. It's no secret. For some people, their phone is hidden. For some others, it's not. So it's evident to everybody. Yet in spite of your disability, in spite of that phone, God is able to lift you up by his right hand. And the devil is ashamed because what he meant for evil, God meant it for good. God has used it to glorify himself and to bless you. God will use that same shame that was meant to hold you down and to bind you to the ground, God will use it as a platform for fame for his namesake. And that's because that shame, that disability forced you to your knees. Like Paul, it forced Paul to his knees to beg God to remove the phone. But God was strong on his behalf, and Paul became a great apostle for the Lord in spite of his phone. I dare to say that that phone was an instrument in the hand of God to bless Paul because the phone made Paul pray. But God was answering a different prayer. God was converting Paul's begging to remove the phone as a ladder. God was converting that phone into a ladder for Paul to climb to great heights. Jacob in the Bible, Jacob was a deceiver. He was a supplanter. And he knew exactly who he was. That's why the Bible says he wrestled with God. He knew that if God didn't bless him, he said, He said, if you don't bless me, he wrestled. The Bible says he wrestled with the angel of the Lord and he said, I won't let you go until you bless me, unless you bless me. And he was blessed because he knew who he was. He had a bad reputation. He knew that it was going to take divine intervention. Because he knew who he was, his phone was his reputation. The Bible says his brother Esau, he stole his brother's birthright. And because he stole his brother's birthright, when he saw his brother, he was afraid. He didn't know what his brother was going to do. So that fear of having cheated his brother made him humble. He was humble. My point is, Jacob knew he had a phone. And that phone kept him humble. And that phone drove him to wrestle with God. Because he knew that his salvation, his deliverance was only going to come from God. Because if not, he was going to carry that phone all the way through his life. And the phone didn't go away. It's just he received a promotion on that day that he was led to fight for. Because he knew who he was. He knew that his next level, if he didn't fight, his phone was going to prevent him from moving to the next level. And that phone pushed him to fight. David also was a man who had many phones. One of his phones was his son Absalom. The Bible says Absalom was a huge phone. The Bible doesn't say it that way. But Absalom actually was a huge phone in his father's flesh. Absalom tried to take the kingdom from his father. And he did for a time. And David had to flee and go in hiding on his way. The Bible says that a man called Shimei, the son of Gerah of the tribe of Saul, cursed David and his officials. David and his men pelted them with stones. Can you imagine? Someone who was the subject. David was king over this man. David was ruler over this man. But when he saw David's phone, his son Absalom had deposed him. Which means all the time in this man's heart, he harbored this curse. There was just no opportunity. So when the opportunity came and he saw David falling, his son was a phone in his flesh, the Bible says he cursed David and pelted David and his men with stones as they went along. And the Bible recalls that David said they should leave him alone. Leave him alone. That perhaps God will look upon this reproach, will look upon this thorn and bless him. So David was well aware. Absalom was his thorn. Even this man now had become a thorn in public. Can you imagine the subject of a king? Let's think about the king of England, King Charles III. As he's traveling down Buckingham Road, Buckingham Palace or Baker Street or some place, someone picks up stones and begins to pelt him and his men and begins to curse him in public. That's what happened to David. Public shame, humiliation from his son because he had to run away from his son, run away from the kingdom because of his son, and then now someone who was subject to him is now pelting him with stones. He said, leave him alone. Perhaps God will look upon his behavior, look upon this reproach and convert it to a blessing for him. And God did just that because the Bible records that ultimately David was restored to his kingdom. God gave him his kingdom and David was able to go back to his throne. And this same man, he was not dead even though eventually somewhere along the line, Solomon, the son of David, he took care of this Shemai guy. But when David was returned to his throne and his son Absalom was deposed, Shemai, the son of Gerah, who cursed him in the day that he fell, who cursed him because his stone, David's stone was not obvious and apparent for everybody to see. The Bible says Shemai was there and saw when the Lord restored David and saw that God restored David. But by this time, David had learned a lesson in humility. So the point is, when David saw the result of Shemai, Shemai's reaction to his throne, his throne was... sometimes when you have an internal squabble between your son, you're able to manage it in the palace. Nobody knows what has happened. David and Absalom, maybe they just had a little squabble. Absalom wanted the throne but David was able to contain. But that's not what happened. Everything went out of hand and David lost the throne to his son and had to go on the run publicly. It was a thing of shame, public shame. And here now was this man, in David's lowest moment, to use his stone as an occasion to disrespect him, to curse him, to pelt him with stones. But David said, don't harm him because they could have killed him. He was still king. He was just a king on the run. But David gave instructions. He said, don't harm this man. Eventually, like I said, Solomon took care of Shemai. David said, don't harm this man. Don't touch this man because his behavior, this reproach, perhaps God will look upon this thorn and show mercy and take me back to my throne. And God did it. So in closing, I want to tell a story that I heard. I heard a man of God tell a story about a fisherman who used to sell exotic fish. I can't remember what type of fish it was now. Exotic fish. And he used to sell this fish transatlantic. He would catch the fish in one part of the world and then he would move this fish by trawlers, move this fish sometimes even by boats, by ocean liners, whatever, and move them to another part of the world. And he noticed that while he was doing this, by the time this fish, this exotic fish got from one part of the world to the other part of the world, many of them had died. And it looked like they were dying because of inactivity. It was a long haul and this fish were dying. And so he says, ultimately, this fish trader introduced catfish into the tanks where he was transporting these exotic fish. And he noticed that this fish stopped dying. They were now surviving the long trip. And he found out through observation that the catfish were always chasing these exotic fish in the tank. And because the catfish were always chasing this exotic fish, the exotic fish now were active. And this activity kept them alive. They were always on the run, trying to run away from the catfish. And because they were always running from the catfish, they stayed active. They stayed agile. That's how they were able to be alive by the time they got to their destination and they no longer died because of the catfish. Your thorn, your shame, your disability, your lack, that thing you hate so much, that's your catfish. That's your catfish. That's the catfish that's going to drive you to the altar of grace. That's the catfish that has been placed in your tank to make sure that you're not at ease in Zion, to make sure that you're not lukewarm, to make sure that you're active spiritually, to make sure that you have something to pray for, something to drive you to your knees, something to drive you to lay hold of the altar, because you need something to keep you praying. Woe betides the man who is at ease in Zion. You need to be active in the Spirit. Otherwise, what you have, you will lose. And what you don't have, you won't get. And worse still, you will disconnect spiritually from God. So your catfish is a gift to you. Your thorn is a gift to you. That issue that you're trying so desperately to get rid of is a gift to you. The assignment is to drive you to your knees, drive you to the place of prayer. Your destiny depends on that catfish. Your destiny, the destiny of your entire family, the success of your ministry depends on that catfish, depends on that thorn. So what you need isn't to pray away the thorn. What you need is grace, grace to manage that thorn, grace to manage the situation so that you're not overwhelmed. But let your thorn serve its purpose. Let your catfish chase you to the altar. Chase you to the throne of grace, because that's how you're going to get promoted. That's how you're going to move to the next level. That's how you're going to survive, basically. Okay? Hallelujah. It's been another wonderful time in the presence of God. It's always a joy. And we want to just take a few minutes now to pray, because there might be someone on the other side of this recording who is saying, I do have some catfish. I have some thorns. I've been struggling with some things. God is able and available on standby to dispense grace. So let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you. We honor you. We worship you. We reverence you. We appreciate your mighty power. We appreciate your great and awesome unconditional love. We come, Lord, now humbly before you to say that we all have a thorn in our flesh. We all have something that we're dealing with, something that we have been struggling with, and we need your grace. We ask for grace, Lord, that even according to your word, we ask that your strength right now, your strength will speak for us. We ask that in our weakness, Lord, you will be strong for us. We ask for grace. We ask for wisdom. We ask for light. We ask for direction. We ask for help, that by your mighty hand, oh, God, you will lift us up. You will give us direction. You will help us. The purpose for which this situation in our life has been sent, we pray that that purpose will be served, and we will be better because you have answered our prayer. We will be better because of your grace upon our lives. We thank you now for answered prayer in Jesus' mighty name. Hallelujah. Well, everyone, thank you so much for your time, for listening. Until next week, until next time, God bless you and take care of yourselves. Bye.
There are no comments yet.
Be the first! Share your thoughts.
