Read this scripture before you continue 2 Corinthians 12:7-9
I have read this scripture over and over again and wondered why a man so anointed by God will have an infirmity in his flesh (from satan) and will pray about it three times and yet God says no.
Some self righteous people could begin to quickly dish out answers…. But hold on…. If you have had a taste of this situation like i have, you won’t be quick to conclude.
Let me ask you, Did Apostle Paul have to pray three times for Eutychus to come back to life? Did he have to pray three times for the girl who was bedeviled to receive liberation? Did he have to pray three times for handkerchiefs and aprons from his body to become channels of deliverance to people? Does it not make you wonder that the only time he needed to pray three times was when it was his matter, not a carnal matter, but a health matter; not a matter of luxury but a matter of neccessity.
Dear Pastor and Pastor’s wife, have you ever seen yourself explaining to God that if you did not have that hypertension and diabetes you would have been more useful to God, you would have been more active and productive and that more souls would have been won?
Have you been in a situation where you pray for the barren and they conceive twins and triplets yet to conceive is a matter you have prayed about for years, even if it happens, all you get is a miscarriage or still born. Have you given people life changing marriage counsels and your marriage is at the brink of shattering? Have you lost a family member despite you prayed with the same unction that healed a church member of cancer?
Have you given people ministry advice that made their ministry blossom and yours still look retarded? Have you picked up sons and daughters who you tutored in Bible school and ministry, who looked up to you as Spiritual Mentors, only for them to locate someone else who is more popular than you to submit to all because they feel that you are a smaller tree who can no longer give them shade?
At such moments, you return to God to be sure He was the one who truly called you. You ask Him questions you shouldn’t be asking him. Questions that the disciples asked their loving master, “carest not that we will perish”….. All because they were in the storm.
Please hear me, at least as someone who has been in ministry for more than a decade……. The presence of storms in your life and ministry does NOT indicate
1. That you are not called.
2. That you are wrong.
3. That you are not fit.
4. That you have sinned.
5. That God has left you.
ITS NOT ABOUT YOU!!!!!
STORM HAPPENS!!!
Don’t let that storm confuse you. In a storm you can’t see clearly! You can’t think clearly! So just walk by faith and not by sight! Refuse to listen to your senses! They will give you all the wrong signals!
Rest on this assurances:
1. God is too faithful to fail.
2. The gift and callings of God are without repentance.
3. The presence of storms is not the absence of God.
4. If Apostle Paul’s thorn in the flesh could not be taken away, cut God some slack. Let Him be God.
5. If Jesus felt forsaken, who are you?
6. Believe that God has a plan and He is working out your life behind the scenes.
7. When you can’t see His hand, please trust His Heart of Love!
Until i come your way again.
Yours Truly,
A fellow co-labourer in God’s Vineyard,
Pst Ifeoma Eze
Zion Heritage Abuja.