Promise

Waiting on God’s Promises

/ Jelena McClellan / Leave a comment

Some of you are currently pregnant – and I’m not just talking to the women out there.

Before you want to get all upset because you think I’m writing about some sort of new “trend” on the left or whatever other type of abomination you might be thinking of, let me assure you that I’m right there with you!

I am not talking about a natural pregnancy, but a spiritual one. Allow me to explain:

During worship a few Sundays ago, I heard the Holy Spirit say “You’re pregnant!” and my first reaction was “I better not be!” That may seem a little harsh but being that we already have two children and the last pregnancy was a high risk pregnancy which put my life and our daughter’s life in danger, unless God is working a miracle, there is no way that I could be pregnant.

So after the first few seconds of being in shock, the Holy Spirit continued to speak to me and explain more of what He was talking about.

Some of you, me included, are currently pregnant with a promise from God. If you are anything like me, you might be getting impatient because God promised you something years ago, and you have been waiting and waiting but nothing seems to be happening.

If you have been waiting to see a promise from God come to live, being birthed so to speak, then this word is for you.

Think about a natural pregnancy for a minute. There is a time when the seed is planted, then we go through a lengthy period of time during which that seed grows and develops into a baby and finally this child is born into the world.

So what does that mean in regards to a spiritual pregnancy?

Sometimes God gives a promise, He plants a seed, but it is nothing that we can see overnight. It takes time, in some cases years, before we finally see that promised being birthed into the world.

But just as life begins at the time of conception, so does the life of the promise God planted in us at some point. We just can’t see it yet.

During a natural pregnancy the first trimester is considered to be a risky one. Once we make it past the 12 weeks, we feel better about it and don’t worry as much about losing the baby. And in most cases a lot of the problems like morning sickness and the total fatigue that comes with the first trimester, are starting to ease and we get to enjoy the pregnancy a bit more.Think about the time right after God gave you a promise seed? Did the enemy attack you?

In my case it was only seconds after God spoke to me about something, making me a promise, when Satan started to speak lies to me, telling me that it would never happen, that I wasn’t good enough, that I was too young and that I should just give that stupid thought up.

He was trying to make me abort this spiritual pregnancy. Don’t let him!

Praise

So after we make it past the first trimester, we start to feel more confident in the promise, right? Maybe we struggled with it a bit in the beginning but we are starting to make peace with it and even look forward to it. We are getting excited about what the promise is and we start to make preparations.

In the natural, we might start to think about names, pick out colors for the nursery, start buying items we know (or think) we will need, read books to prepare ourselves and maybe even take some birthing classes or something along those lines.

When we look at a spiritual pregnancy however, do we really prepare for the promise God gave us?

For example, when God told me about the ministry I was to have and that it included writing and teaching about Him, I more or less expected somebody to just offer me a book contract. Crazy, I know, but then again, nothing is impossible with God (see Luke 18:27), so why not?

I pretty much wanted the result without the preparation. Comparing my behavior to a natural pregnancy, I would’ve been very unprepared, had I done nothing at all to prepare to welcome my children into the world. I would’ve been in a full-out panic mode, completely overwhelmed and probably would’ve felt like a huge failure.

But in my mind, going into ministry was going to work without me having to work for it or prepare for it, simply because God could do whatever He wanted.

Thank God He is a good, good Father and knew better than to let me go right ahead. He knew of course that I needed time not just to study but also to grow in my faith, learn a few things (or a lot) and let go of bad habits.

By nature I am a very blunt person. If you do something that makes me angry, I will let you know in no uncertain terms! I also tend to take things very personal which means I get my feelings hurt very easily.

Think about being in ministry for a second and then think about having a temper and getting your feelings hurt over everything. That does not sound like a winning combination to me. So those are things that I had to work on over the years – old ways I had to get rid of.

So there are things happening inside of you that nobody else can really see – yet. People might talk about how you changed but can’t quite put their finger on what is different about you. But you know. You can feel that promise seed growing and growing and you know that soon everybody will be able to see on the outside what has been happening on the inside.

Once you’re finally in your last trimester it feels like you have been pregnant forever. At least for me it did. Neither one of my pregnancies was easy so I didn’t really enjoy that time and was just looking forward to the end of my pregnancies and to meet my babies. I was very impatient.

And many of you are the same way with your spiritual pregnancies. It feels like God’s promise is never going to be fulfilled because  you’ve already been waiting for it for so long and maybe you’ve even had to fight one spiritual battle after another to hold on to that promise seed and you’re just tired and ready to give up.

I am right there with you!

But guess what? We are almost there!

So when it is time for your baby to be born – for your promise seed to be birthed – you have one last struggle ahead of you: The birthing process itself.

For some people this is very easy and smooth, for others it is a battle.

A lot of times the enemy will attack right before your breakthrough and throw everything he has at you in an attempt to make you give up so close to the end because you just can’t see how close you actually are. All you see is the warfare going on all around you and you’re tired and running on empty and you just want to be done.

Don’t. Give. Up. Now!

You are so close!

You know the saying “the night is darkest before the morning” and all the other cute little things we like to tell each other to keep each other motivated?

You are right there! Right at that spot.

There comes a point of no return when no matter what the devil throws at you, he can’t stop the promise of God being birthed into your life.

Remember that when you feel like nothing is happening and you’re frustrated because you have been waiting a long time already, God has not forgotten about you. The promise seed He gave you is growing on the inside of you and He will bring it to pass.

And just like soon-to-be-parents, use the time to prepare. Learn. Study. Get ready. Draw close to Him. Use that quiet time with God and let Him continue to grow that promise seed until He brings it to fruition.

Be blessed.

Don’t leave your Blessings on the Table

/ Jelena McClellan / Leave a comment

Have you ever wondered why some people appear to have more luck than others? There is always this one person that, no matter the circumstances, will always come out on top and things just seem to magically fall into place for them, while the rest of us seem to struggle quite a bit more with what life has to offer.

So is life just not fair or is there more to this?

What if I told you that you are leaving God’s blessings for you on the table all the time?

There are thousands of promises in the Word of God, but what are you really seeing in your own life?

During my prayer time with God the other day I kept asking for more. I wanted more of Jesus. I wanted everything He has for me. Every blessing. Every promise. Every gift. All the provision. I kept asking for it and asking for more of Jesus. A deeper understanding, more revelation, a closer and more intimate relationship. One phrase I said over and over again stood out to me: “Jesus, I don’t want to leave anything on the table.”

That’s when Jesus took me into a vision where I saw a huge table. It was filled to the point of overflowing with the most amazing things. It was a feast and I knew that what I was seeing was a table filled with all the promises of God, all the blessings, all the gifts and all the provision and it was all for me. All I had to do with reach out and take it.

But before I was able to do so the table grew taller, or maybe I grew smaller, either way I was barely able to see the top of the table, much less everything that was laid out on top of it. And since I couldn’t see anything that far up, my eyes began to focus on what was on the ground in front of me instead. There really wasn’t much, a few crumbs here and there but nothing that even remotely resembled the feast on top of the table.

feast

In my Spirit I knew what had happened. My expectations were so low that all I could see was what was on the ground in front of me, not what was high up on that table. My expectations were simply not high enough and so I was missing out on all the wonderful things that Jesus had laid out for me.

Then my view changed again and I was once again looking at the feast on the table. I knew I could take it because Jesus died for me to have these things (John10:10) . It was already mine, I just had to reach out and grab it. But every time I tried, I heard a voice telling me that those things were not for me. I was not good enough. I was a sinner and didn’t deserve these things. Those were only for the good people, those who pleased God, but not for me.

The devil was working hard to keep me from my promises and blessings by lying to me and it was working. Remember that he is the father of lies (John 8:44). Don’t allow him to steal from you. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).

Once again my view changed and this time I was standing right in front of the table and it would’ve been so easy to reach out and grab a hold of the promises, the blessings, the gifts and to satisfy my hunger but I kept stopping myself, telling myself that I was not worthy, that I didn’t deserve it.

So there are two options here.

First, I was acting too religious so to speak, not wanting to be selfish and staying humble. Those are good things, right?

Yes, but not if it is something I am doing to appear more spiritual to others than I really am.

At this point I was thinking about my children and how I would do anything for them. How I enjoy to bless them. My husband and I work hard to provide for our children. How would it make me feel if I laid everything out for them but they wouldn’t take it because they worried to much about what somebody else might think of them.

I think I would be pretty upset. Insulted even. It’s a good thing that I’m not God!

But it still made me wonder how it makes God feel, when we keep telling Him that we are not worthy of His blessings to us.

Of course we are not worthy. That was plain obvious back in the Garden. And no matter how hard we try we will always fall short. On our own we will never ever be worthy of anything God has to offer and He knew that so He came up with a plan to send His only Son to die for us so that through His sacrifice, through His precious Blood we would be justified (see Romans 5:8-9).

So what are we saying then? That His Blood wasn’t enough to make us righteous? Because even the tiniest drop of His Blood that was spilled for us is not just enough but it is the only thing that could ever make us be worthy because God no longer looks at us and sees a sinner, but He looks at us and sees a child that was reconciled to Him by the Blood of Jesus (see Romans 5:10).

But there is also a second option. Maybe we really don’t think we deserve God’s goodness because we have an identity problem. Maybe we just don’t understand who we are and what authority has been given to us.

I sometimes think that in our modern western societies we have lost a lot of understanding. Things like authority are somehow strange to us.

Back in medieval times for example, if I was a servant of a king, who sent me on a mission, he might have given me his ring. This ring represented his authority so if I ran into trouble, I could’ve presented that ring and it would’ve helped me, provided for me, opened doors for me and granted me safe passage (in most cases at least), because I was coming in the name of the king.

Here is another way to look at it. Let’s say you come from a rich and influential family, just the mention of your father’s name might give you favor with decision makers when you’re looking for a job, it might get you into a fancy school or allow you to go on a shopping spree and put everything you buy on daddy’s tab.

Well, you ARE the child of a King and you have a name that you can use when you need it. You walk in the authority of a child of God and “at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;” (Philippians 2:10-11).

So raise your expectations, tell the devil he’s a liar, walk in your authority and stop leaving promises, blessings, gifts and provision on the table!