Welcome to 2015.  The Lord has brought us over into this New Year.  Let us not waste any moment in it but use every breath to praise and honour his holy name.  This year the Lord has so much he has to say to us, so let us tune our ears so we can hear and discern him in every situation. God wants us to do the impossible but for this to happen, we must be able to discern what type of year this is.

Firstly, the Lord wants us to know that this year is a year of waiting.  Notice that, we always read in the scriptures that when the time is fully come, then God brings forth things causing them to happen.  This year is the time prior to things happening. Have you ever watched a plant grow from a seed and wait for it to bear fruit?  Between seed and fruit there is germination and waiting  and waiting.  Like that seed the Lord want us to germinate and consolidate.  Let us submit and be humble before the Lord. Let us not hurry him.  He knows the right time for things to happen in our lives. As we actively wait on the Lord, let us do our part like growing and putting out flowers.   Let us like Mary ponder things in our hearts knowing we are directly in God’s will as we actively wait on God’s timing.

Secondly, this year is a year that God will prove Himself to us so we need to trust Him. Remember when as a child, you made a promise to some friends and then they ask you to prove it? Think back the ones that knew you best knew that you would keep your word no matter what.  What does God proving Himself mean to you? Do you really know God? Have you taken the time to know God’s character, His integrity?  Can He be trusted? Can you take Him at His Word? Yes, you can. In Malachi 3:10 God gives us a direct call  for us to prove Him resulting in Him opening the floodgates of heaven and pouring us out a blessing that we don’t have enough room to store it.  Can you imagine one blessing from the Lord so big that it requires the floodgates of heaven to be opened and we do not have enough room to receive it?  God want to open the floodgates for us this year under the condition that we bring into His house all that belongs to Him. Note the word all, no partial thing, the whole tithe is required…our time, money, ourselves, our children…everything that we are. You might be having lingering doubts.  Note, however, that God’s thoughts and God’s ways are vastly different from ours (Isaiah 55:8-9) so His methodologies of operating are not always how and what we expect.  God has given His word that you can trust Him to do what is best for you.

Thirdly, God wants to train us this year. God wants to train us in the holy things of God such as the disciplines of prayer, fellowship and witness.  This is hard training but we will reap the fruits of righteousness. Why is the training so hard? Training for anything is never easy, whether for a race, a swim meet, a job.  This is so because training forces us to engage ourselves differently from what we are accustomed.   God wants to train our minds, spirits and bodies in different ways from what we are accustomed.   He wants train us to think differently in our thought patterns, rewire some brain waves.  He wants to train our ways of speaking so that they are obviously different.  Are your minds, spirits and tongues seasoned with the salt of heaven?  Are you able to evaluate your thoughts and words against what the Lord has spoken to you? Or are you just saying what comes to your mind, not caring who it will wound in the process? Are you prepared to be trained to pray differently?  David in Psalm 144:1 that praises God who trains his hands to war and his fingers for battle. Now David was a top flight Commander in Chief who fought many giants as high as nine feet high in the spiritual, physical and mental realms. God trained David to handle all the circumstances he encountered.  The God of yesterday is still the same today and He is willing to train us this year. As Christians we fight not against flesh and blood but spiritual wickedness in high places with weapons that are not carnal but mighty through God through the pulling down of strongholds.

So are you ready to step out of your boat to do the impossible?

Lord we are ready to do the impossible. Amen