Consumed By The Journey

Tomorrow night is my night to preach at our church, as the associate pastor I preach the last two Wednesdays of each month...I'm up tomorrow. Last week as our senior pastor was teaching I was drawn to Deuteronomy 6, I was particularly drawn to verse 23 when it says, "Then He brought you out in order that He might bring you in..." Then speaks of something that follows something, that after certain things took place, then He accomplished what He promised them. Western Christianity is consumed with events and instantaneous blessings. Our prosperity is measured by the abundance of things, the amount of revelation, and our ability to testify of God's abundant blessings on our lives. Don't get me wrong, I believe in prosperity and abundant living, I appreciate revelation and believe it is operative today...but I also believe that we are in the midst of a process...a journey. Trek with me here for a minute, for every one person sitting in church on Sunday that has just received a great revelation, there are seven that can't feel God, haven't heard His voice, didn't understand what the pastor just said, and are wondering if they're spiritual or not. They read their Bibles and watched christian television as well as all the popular books, they may have gone to a Bible study where people are sharing their latest revelation and they're sitting there wondering...What in the world is wrong with me? To which I loudly am going to reply...Nothing, Absolutely Nothing...Enjoy The Journey! I'm not meaning to sound cynical and believe me when I say I believe God speaks, that He gives revelation knowledge, that He blesses His children, I believe in the prophetic and the power of God to do exceeding and abundantly above all that we ask or think...it's in the Bible you know! What I also believe is that most blessing comes as the result of our ability to remain faithful during the journey...That while we were on our way to the blessing, we were diligent, we were obedient, we were considerate, we were generous, we kept our minds set on God and one day crossed the line into the place of blessing...it wasn't a huge event, we were just where we were supposed to be and once we got there we didn't stop doing all the stuff we did before, we were just blessed to be blessed and then became a blessing to others...Journey and Process...There's something to think about!