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One of the most overlooked promises is found in Isaiah 48:17: "I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go." Most people read this verse and immediately think about money, provision, or financial increase. While God's blessing certainly includes those things, the promise reveals something much greater. God is not promising simply to give you more. He is promising to develop you into someone capable of carrying more. This is the great distinction between provision and inheritance. Provision meets a need for today. Inheritance prepares someone to possess, multiply, and govern what has been entrusted to them. Anyone can receive a gift. Sons and daughters are trained to carry an inheritance.
Recently, I was reading through my dream journal from a couple of years ago. One night I dreamed I walked into my room and felt a gentle breeze coming through the window. When I looked up, I saw the window was open about an inch and the shades were slightly parted. I immediately understood that this was a prophetic dream. The open window was symbolic of an intruder attempting to break in- not a natural break in, but a spiritual one.
We've all looked at our family trees or our past mistakes and wondered: Is this just who I am now? Is this story already written? It's easy to feel trapped by the momentum of old habits, generational patterns, or the choices of those who came before us. But if today's sermon reminded us of anything, it's this: We serve a God who specializes in the turnaround. What the enemy seeks to finalize, God has the absolute authority to reverse. To fully understand the magnitude of this truth, we have to look at a powerful moment in the Old Testament where history, legacy, and a supernatural miracle collided on a single sundial.
In a dream the other night, I was shown a choice between pursuing a deeper connection through Holy Spirit, versus retreating to what feels safe and familiar. Age-old mindsets are pulling some back to tried and true methods of church life in hopes of avoiding disappointment. And yet, the choice we make will not only determine our unity, but our ability to perceive truth. In the dream I was sitting in an outdoor mall café talking to a woman about spiritual things. She was well dressed and came from a conservative background and was very interested in the things I was sharing. Her husband came up, dressed in a suit and tie, and she began to share of our conversation. He seemed interested, as well, and I decided to invite them to church. They were eager for the invitation and asked where I attended.
For most of my life I thought I understood the story of Job. I had been handed the version most of us inherit. A righteous man appears to become a pawn in a wager between God and the accuser. He loses everything in a single afternoon. His wealth, his servants, his children, his health. Then three friends arrive and sit with him in silence before taking turns insisting that somewhere, hidden in the folds of his life, there must be a secret sin. Surely a just God would not let a man suffer unless he had earned it. Job protests his innocence. He holds his ground through speech after speech. In the final scene he receives back double what he lost, and we close the book satisfied that he passed the test and collected his reward.
The people of God were never meant to be a people of stagnation, but a people of movement. Stagnation breeds decay. When the Holy Spirit shows up, we call it a move of the Spirit. God is ever at work, drawing His people into His movements, into His procession. He is a King and whenever He moves there is a Procession. Every procession has order, protocol, and qualification. All are invited, but not all may enter. Those who seek to usurp the King's glory cannot remain. Perjurers and liars cannot ride with the King. The proud and arrogant cannot walk in His company. The sexually perverse cannot enter His holy procession toward the Throne.
Early this morning, in my time with Jesus, I was thinking back on some of the changing seasons Steve and I have gone through in our marriage. There was the season we lived in Africa for almost two years, the season when we enjoyed a very stable pastoral ministry, and the season when we transitioned out of pastoral ministry and into the world of missions. There have been seasons where we traveled internationally and seasons where we've done more ministry here in the States.
"It is the spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak unto you are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63). Jesus said there is spirit life in the spoken word. That's why it is important for us to confess what God has already said about us in His Word. Words carry spiritual forces. Words can transmit fear or words can transmit faith. They transmit images after their kind to others. God's Word transmits the image God wants you to have. The devil's words transmit the image he wants you to have.
I know this is the right thing to do, and I want to do it. I just can't make myself do it! In fact, I fall back into doing the wrong thing!!! (Romans 7:15) Most of us have been taught that transformation is an information problem. Learn the right principles, apply the right rules. Study the right theology. Hear the right sermon. Think better thoughts, add a little discipline if you have to. Fix the argument and the behavior will follow. It won't, and it doesn't. Not because the information is wrong — but because information doesn't reach the place where your life is actually governed.
Romans 8:31 contains a powerful rhetorical question and I encourage you to memorize it. Unfortunately, there are still some believers today wondering, "Is God really for me?" Well, my friend, the Word of God does NOT say "maybe God is for us" or "hopefully, God is for us." It simply says, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" Indeed, when God is for you, what opposition can succeed against you? When God Himself fights for you, defends you and vindicates you, what adversity or adversary can stand against you? There are none! Hallelujah!
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