God Only Recognizes What He Gives You
Welcome back, my esteemed Paisans!
It is a seemingly daunting thing to know that God only recognises what He gives you. God is a loving Father who gives His children every good gift. The Bible says “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change [1].”
He knows our needs before we can ever anticipate them. Whenever we ask Him of our needs in the name of Jesus Christ, He willingly gives us those things in His own time [2]. Sometimes we expect God to provide the answers to our prayers in our own way and preferred time, but Isaiah 58:8 says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.”
Where Are You?
More often than not, instead of waiting patiently on God to fulfill His promises concerning our lives, we take our own initiatives and do things our own way and then expect God to endorse the things we acquire with our own wisdom and physical strength. However, God only recognizes the things He gives us! Some of the things we acquire ourselves may be good and seem to have eternal value, but if they weren’t given by God, He doesn’t acknowledge them.
After the fall of humanity in the garden, God started looking for an alternative way to reconcile and to bring redemption back to humanity. Even when they rejected God, He was still looking for them, and kept asking “where are you [3]?” Thousands of years later, He still goes about calling people by their names and ask “where are you?”. He isolated Abraham from his idolatrous background and gave him a promise that He would make him a father of many nations. God indeed had redemption of humanity in mind.
The Most Difficult Request Ever
Abraham started contemplating on how the promise of God was going to be fulfilled since he was very old, and yet didn’t have any biological children. Moreover, Sarah his wife was also at the stage of ‘double menopause’. Faced with these discouraging facts, Sarah suggested to Abraham that he had affair with her maid Hagar. It was rather unusual because women are usually jealous and protective over their husbands, and for Sarah who possibly was living like a queen to give her own loving husband to none other than a mere maidservant, showed the level of their desperation.
Abraham who usually would consult God on every decision didn’t consult Him this time around. He had an affair with Hagar and gave birth to Ismael. Thirteen years later, “Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. [4].” A couple of months later, God called Abraham to ask him to do the most difficult thing any man in his position would ever dream of doing. god said to him
Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you [5].
Notice, that as at this time, Abraham had had two sons, Ismael and Isaac ; Ismael was older than Isaac by 14 years. Nevertheless, when God was asking him to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, He said “take now your son, your only son Isaac”. The LORD used “your only son Isaac” to emphasize on the fact that He didn’t recognize Ismael, because Ismael was birth out of scheme of Sarah and Abraham. Much us God didn’t question Abraham, He did not endorse what they did.
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Not Too Early And Yet Not Too Late
It is therefore imperative to wait on God to establish His will and promises concerning your life. If you start something with your own strength and wisdom, you will have to complete it with your mortal strength and finite wisdom. But if God starts with you, “unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us [6]”, He shall surely bring it to a perfect end.
God is known as the Alpha and the Omega because they are the first and last letters respectively of the Greek alphabet. This implies that He is the beginning and the end. It also means that whatever He begins, He is committed to end it. The question when need to ask ourselves is that, did God begin it our we began and we invited God to bless it. DON’T do it your own way, or at your own preferred time. WAIT on the Lord. He is never too early, yet never too late. He will definitely show up.
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References
[1] James 1:17
[2] Ecclesiastes 3:11
[3] Genesis 3:9
[4] Genesis 21:2
[5] Genesis 22:2
[6] Ephesians 3:20
Comments:
samueldaniels
God bless you Nora
Yolanda Mullen
Aside from being a pastor, you are a counselor, advocate, teacher, and friend. Thanks for always going above and beyond your pastoral duty to fulfill every one of these roles. We do appreciate you.
samueldaniels
God bless you for your kind words Yolanda.
Awura
I have learnt alot from this today. My mindset is change now.
God bless you. I will wait on him bcos he is neither too early nor too late.samueldaniels
God bless you for always reading
Nora
God is indeed neither too early or too late and He only recognizes what he’s given you. This is such an important message in our generation where there’s so much pressure to do things quickly. God bless you Pastor for sharing and teaching us always.