“The threshing floors shall be full of wheat, And the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil. “ I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, The crawling locust, The consuming locust, And the chewing locust, My great army which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; And My people shall never be put to shame” (Joel 2:24-26).
God’s wish is that His blessing is manifested in all areas of our lives as buttressed in Psalm 23:5 – “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies”. The Lord has promised and bestowed His blessing upon us as inheritance. The promise of the Lord for plenty is all encompassing and we should broaden our horizons of what can be plentiful in our lives. We should therefore not limit the promise to materials things alone, i.e. money, houses, jobs and other tangibles. Ideas, wisdom, patience, love and victory are all part of the package.
Ephesians 1:3 says “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ”. Which means for God’s blessing to be useful or impactful here on earth, which is the realm of men, it is our responsibilities to bring about the manifestations. We are to make this happen and not be robbed of our inheritance or give it away out of ignorance (Matthew 7:7 – 8).
Therefore, the question to ask should be, “how do we translate our spiritual blessing to reality?” One of the ways will be through conscious, consistent confession, irrespective of whatever challenge or situation of life presents to us. There is tendency to see opposite of what has been promised but it’s our duty to consciously and persistently declare what we want to see happen instead.
We should be aware (alert/conscious/observant) that our adversary the devil is every moving around looking for who to steal, kill and destroy; but we have Jesus who is ever on our side. The question is how do we respond in times like this? When under pressure, facing challenges or being attacked; what comes to our minds, goes on in our heads and proceeds from mouths first?
The scripture is always our guide and constitution. So, let us have a look at few examples in the bible and their responses in the face of their challenges.
In the book of 2 Kings 4 verses 1-7, “A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. And the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves”. Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.” Then he said, “Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbours—empty vessels; do not gather just a few. And when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons; then pour it into all those vessels and set aside the full ones”. So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured it out. Now it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel”. And he said to her, “There is not another vessel”. So, the oil ceased. Then she came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt; and you and your sons live on the rest”.
How the ‘certain’ woman got her sons to comply and to work with her is so amazing. She must have raised and taught them in the way of the Lord, or they must have heard of what God had done with their fathers in the past and believed too. The bottom line is that they didn’t question her instruction.
The average normal woman could have explored the easier options of approaching a money lender, a neighbour, family members or friends, to ask for help rather than a prophet. But this woman realised her situation had gone beyond people helping her with mere peanuts or additional loan. She realised that she needed a breakthrough that would sustain her family without further encumbrances, so she went to the highest authority – God, through the prophet. She had faith and exercised it accordingly.
Not only did she have faith, she humbly obeyed all instructions irrespective of how ridiculous it seemed or sounded. She never questioned the instructions from the prophet, which required faith and trust. She didn’t say what she was feeling, lacked or exhibited desperation, rather she acted on what she wanted to see. She didn’t spend time with her neighbour explaining her situation. She took a personal decision to her victory and never gave up.
Another great example is the story of Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus, which we as Christians are conversant with. This story is clearly stated in the book of Luke 1: 26-38.
I can imagine how dramatic some of us would have reacted or responded in contrast to how Mary did when she found herself in this position – How can this be as all she asked? Definitely, that would not be what most of us would be asking. We might have even called fire down on the angel itself. However, it is obvious there must have been a certain degree of relationship Mary had with God, in order for her to feel at ease and comfortable with the angel. How is our relationship with God?
She then responded, let it be done according to your word, based on the trust built through a direct relationship with God. Her response expressed absolute trust that God’s plans for her would definitely turn out right. She was confident about it. How confident are we with God’s plan for our lives? Can we believe and faithfully say – be it done according to your word? Will we allow God’s will to be magnified and come to pass in our lives?
How do I consciously control my responses to maximise my victory?
- Build a relationship with God – trust. This is the only way such trust can be developed. Most of us trust in ourselves, families and friends than God. This is totally in the wrong order. It should be God and him only. What do we know about Him? We need to find out more about God ourselves rather than been told about Him.
- Joshua 1:8 – Meditate on the word of God constantly, so it becomes your road map to great success in life. Matthew 12: 34 – 35 stresses that what fills your heart is what dominates your speech and from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. At times, we are overwhelmed by circumstances that we become prone to old ways of speaking, but Proverbs 15:28 admonishes us that the word of God shows us how to answer.
- Do not give up (Luke 9:62) and consciously declare what you want to see, irrespective of what’s showing up on your radar. Keep gathering the cloud with your confession and after a while, the rain will surely fall. Romans 10:10 – For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with mouth, confession in made unto salvation.
Despite all the pressure or circumstances we face daily, we are still more than conquerors. The victory is ours to give up, so we should be conscious of this fact. Let us receive grace to respond/react aright especially in this season of plenty, in order not to lose our inheritance.
