matthew

The Lord said to me, “See, I have begun to deliver Sihon and his country to you. Now begin to conquer and possess his land – Deut. 2:31

Taking possession of God’s promises has been an aspect in the Christian faith that has suffered great abuse and gross misconception. We pray, fast and ‘exercise’ faith in other to possess our God given promise; yet, the promise-land remains unattainable.

God’s promises are always followed by opportunities to fulfil those promises; opportunities to enlarge our coast, to recover our lost possessions and above all, opportunities to be the best for God. However, when these opportunities come, they meet many Christians unprepared for it. God does the ‘delivering’, it’s your responsibilities to do the conquering and possessing.

GOD’S DEMAND: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Personal development is the God’s required human aspect/role in the fulfilment of covenant of blessing. God is all powerful, almighty and all-sufficient, yet He can only faithfully play His own role while expecting you to do likewise.

Possession is not taken in idleness, it requires building the required capacity because content is a function of capacity. God’s way still remains the highway to life, He gives idea, you work it out; He gives the dream, you live the dream; He gives vision, you walk in it and above all, He delivers possession to your door-post, but you do the possessing. So you see, the deposit of Greatness has been made by God, only awaiting your discovery, capacity building and the eventual possession.

He has made everything beautiful in His time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end – Eccl. 3:11

The above scripture summarises the lot of many Christians, having all we need to emerge in our Canaan-land but never fathoming it.

Friend, it is when opportunities meet preparation that possession is birthed. The bane to our Christian superiority in today’s world is not the devil, it is ignorance deeply rooted in lack of self-development. We refuse to play our own role, only to hide under the guise of God’s faithfulness to his promises; No wonder God lament over his people saying “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hos. 4:6). Friend, any faith that makes God entirely responsible for all the events of your life is an irresponsible faith.

The story was once told of two farmers, both trusting and importuning God for rain on their farmland. One of them went ahead to cultivate his farm and continued to trust God for the rain; while the other did nothing, save praying and trusting. The faithful God did finally send the rain, and I trust you already know who got blessed. Friend, we need to go all out to get ready for the rain of opportunities, God will send it when it’s time.

The scripture is filled with pictures of individuals whom despite having God’s unfailing promises in their life, still had to go all out to work out the realization of the promises. The Israelites had the promise of the land flowing with milk and honey, God even sworn that He had delivered it into their hands, yet they had to build up capacity to fight in order to take possession. Jacob inherited a generational covenant of blessing, yet he had to work his hands into the blessing; David’s promise of kingship was not delivered to him until God sent him to the college of self development for kingship and warfare.

AVENUES TO SELF DEVELOPMENT (Upcoming Part 2)