No More Delay

In my last blog, I talked about delays leading into the Divine that God has for you. Well, the time has come for the delay to be over! No More! Some of you may have been circling a mountain of delay for a long time. You might have gotten frustrated, confused, the feeling of deja vu. Maybe you have questioned God's reasoning behind the continual walking around the same obstacles. You pray and pray that God will remove the delay, yet it seems as if you have stayed on this path forever, and you will always be on that path. But God is getting ready to turn your mountain of delay into a brand new path. This mountain you have circled time and time again has been preparing you and the people around you for a breakthrough so powerful, other people will not be able to deny whose power it came from. There are probably some things you have done in secret to the Father that is hidden from the outside. But in this new season, God will magnify the small things done in private, and reveal himself in a public outburst that will shock a lot of people. God sees everything you are doing. Every act that went unnoticed. Every spoken prayer behind closed doors. These things that you have continued to walk around may seem, in the physical, as mere distractions from the vision God has for you. But these distractions are purposefully placed in order for you to bring more people into the plan. Every delay that feels like another setback is intentional. We might not ever know how the people in our lives fit into God's plan when we are "stuck" walking the same path. It will only be after it is all said and done that we see how every piece fits into the puzzle. When someone starts a puzzle, the pieces are scattered and in no specified order. Little by little, piece by piece, things are made clearer. They are no longer random pieces, but rather strategic connections necessary to finish the picture. When delay seems like the only thing around us, we don't realize that with each "setback", more pieces are being revealed to our eyes and every person has a part to play in bringing it to completion. 

"and swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are in it, the earth and the things that are in it, and the sea and the things that are in it, that there should be delay no longer."- Revelation 10:6

"Therefore, tell them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: No more delay! I will now do everything I have threatened. I the Sovereign Lord, have spoken'". Ezekiel 12:28

The season of delay is over. Suddenly, the mountain you have been circling, will begin to crumble into the path God has set before you. Every piece is being reshaped into a new path and every piece will align perfectly in God's divine will. Don't lose sight of your destiny, when life has you walking a path of delay. For if you stay the course, the delay will become the divine, and you will begin the journey to a new adventure. 

Adam Semple- a young man on a mission from God

The Delay is for the Divine

"For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end- it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay"- Habakkuk 2:3

In this walk of life, maybe some things have been spoken over you that have not come to pass. Does that mean that you can just forget them and move on with your life? Of course not. God did not give you a message for your future for you to just dismiss it. He wants you to treat every day as if the promise is coming and you need to be ready for it. He wants us to be like the Faithful servant described in the Gospels, known as the parable of the door keeper. The parable states that we should be ready for the Master to return. We must stand at the door expecting the Master to come home at any moment. If we are a doorkeeper to the Master's house, and we see that the master is being slow to come, it is easy for us to slack on the job and fail to do our responsibilities. When the Master is delayed, the servant thinks in his heart that he has plenty of time to make ready for the Lord, so int the meantime, he will do as he pleases, and he proceeds to do so. But God commands us to be watchful and alert, staying ready for the Master's return, for the hour of his arrival is undetermined. The parable goes on to say that if a homeowner knew of the time and date that his house was going to be broken into, he would have been watching and ready to stop him. In the same way, this is how God wants us to be waiting on his words to be fulfilled.

Perhaps there is a reason for the delay. Let's look back at the story of the girl who was dying and the woman with the problem of blood. A man came to Jesus and asked him to come to his house and touch his daughter, "for she is sick and dying". Jesus agrees to come with him, and a crowd of people begin to follow Jesus. In the crowd, a woman who had an issue of blood for 12 years, gets this revelation that as long as she can touch the hem of Jesus' robe, she will be healed. As soon as her fingers make contact, Jesus stops and questions who touched him. The disciples try to assure him that the odds of someone touching him is high, for their is a large crowd of people gathered around him. But Jesus insists that power has gone out of him because of someone's specific touch. The woman reveals that it was she who touched him, and Jesus tells her that her faith has made her well. As they go to start back towards the little girls house, a servant of the man comes up to him and says, "Do not trouble the Master any further, for you daughter has died". But Jesus continues towards the house. Upon arrival, he sees the mourners gathered around the house and he tells that the girl is not dead, but merely sleeping. He then goes into where the girl is laying and restores her back to life. Imagine if the girl's father had rebuked the woman for holding up the Lord. In his anger, he might have condemned his daughter to death, but instead he trusted in what Jesus was doing and his daughter was returned backed to him. Just because God sometimes delays what he said he would do, don't become like the servant who did as he pleased, but stay ready for when he comes, you will be able to step into everything that God has for you.  

Wait for it. For when it comes, it will be better than you could have possibly imagined.

Adam Semple- A young man on a mission from God

* Photo credit by-www.constructionlawtoday.com

What's Your Superpower?

"Look in the sky. It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman!"

In life, it is easy to see why sometimes we need a superhero. Someone who comes to our beckoning call whenever we are in trouble. Although Superman and characters like him are creations from someone's imagination, we have a superhero that has been around since before time began. The bible talks about this hero throughout the entirety of the book, a hero ready to come in a save us from our despair. This hero's name is Jesus.

Jesus was with God before the Earth was even a thought. Before time began, Jesus was. When time has come to an end, Jesus will be. He is everlasting from beginning to end, and there was a time when he was waiting in heaven for his people to call upon him. Jesus was the true hero even before he gave his life on the cross. From his birth, he was special and important in God's plan.

At the start of his journey, Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan by his cousin John the baptist. When he emerges from the water, the spirit of the Lord comes upon him in the form of a dove and a voice is heard from heaven saying," This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased." Immediately following this event, Jesus is sent into the desert for 40 days, eating nothing during this time. Here, our antagonist is introduced to the story. Satan, seeing Jesus by himself, tries to get Jesus to sin in order to find fault in him.   The temptations of Satan fall into three areas the people needed saving from.

Temptation One- boulder to bread
"If you are the Son, turn these stones into bread."
This was to satisfy the flesh. It was through hunger and a need to satisfy an appetite that Adam and Eve were drawn to the forbidden fruit. It was hunger that drew the Israelites into a complaining state that ended up being a free for all of meat that in the end made them sick. As clever as Satan thinks he is, he continues using the same methods that made the people stumble and he recycles them onto a new batch of people. When Satan uses this trick on Jesus, he is hoping for the same response. But Jesus throws it right back in his face with nothing but solid words of God. " Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Father"- Matthew 4:4. It is here that Jesus passes where man failed. Man would have given into his flesh and done what was needed to fill a need, but Jesus knew God would sustain him in his timing.

Temptation Two- leap of "faith"
"If you are the Son, thrown yourself from this cliff, for God will send a host of angels to protect you."
Here is a seed of doubt try to blossom in one's faith. If you are who you say you are, take a step. Just to sure that God will do as he says. It is times like this that our flesh questions if our faith has really been real. God came through for me before, but how do I know he will do it again? This spot is where Satan likes believers to sit. The spot of saying you believe, yet you are not willing to trust that he will always come through. Again, Jesus defends his Father with the word. "It is written again, You shall not test the Lord."-Matthew 4:5-7 Lorraine Day says this about this temptation,"Satan tempted Jesus to jump in order to force God into protecting Him. Jesus would put Himself in unnecessary danger to manipulate God into saving Him from destruction. Jesus did not have to jump to prove he trusted in the Father. He demonstrated it by trusting in God's word" *

Temptation Three- Bow now, no blood spilt later.
"He took him up on a mountain and said to him,' All this I give to you if you bow down and worship me'".
This is focusing on selfish desires. Here we have a picture of Satan presenting before Christ a contract that says everything will belong to him, and the price of it all is his soul. Worship me now and you will not have to die for this later. Sure, you will lose all power on the earth and your soul will be mine, but at least you won't have to suffer for people who 2000 years from now will not even want anything to do with you. Leave them to me, I will take care of it for you. All you have to do is bow. Imagine SAtan saying that to Jesus. If he were in it for himself, he might have skipped the food, he might have passed the cliff jump, but Satan is offering him the whole world. No brutal death on a hard plank of wood. No hatred from people. No beatings and scourges. A simple bow of the knee, putting Satan above God, and the devil would have won. It would have been all over for us. Without a moment's hesitation, Jesus gives his final remarks, " Away with you Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve."- Matthew 4:8-10

Jesus knew what he was getting into when he volunteered to die for us, just like any superhero in any movie knows the risk of the fight before they ever begin. But do they give up? Do they throw in the towel when it gets tough? No, because how awful of a movie would that be if the villain attacks and the hero just lets them win? If fictional beings can destroy the evil and save the day, what is stopping a God who loves us and will do anything to save us from doing the same? So what if he doesn't have "powers", because frankly, he doesn't need them. The demons hear his name and quiver. He has already won, and they know that. 

So I say this, Jesus is my superpower! What is yours?

Adam Semple- A young man on a mission from God

*Lorraine Day- Specific Significance of the Three Temptations of Jesus in the Wilderness

Go Where He Led, Do As He Said

"And they said to him, 'All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us, we will go'". -Joshua 1:16

Now I know, this verse is being spoken by the Israelite people to Joshua, but what if we lived our lives as if this verse was from us to God. That is what being a Christian is, is it not? Are we not called to go where he sends us and do what he commands us? If this is true, why do we not live it out. god tells us to give an offering higher than we are used to, and we rationalize why we don't have it to give. Or we will only go so far to help someone out, then when we hit that point, we leave them out in the cold, (not always literally, but you get what I am saying). We think we have the right to stop helping because it has become inconvenient for us, yet we seem to have forgotten that at any point while Jesus was on the cross, he called have saved himself, and then where would we be now. I can imagine it was not always convenient for Jesus to carry the weight of the whole world on his shoulders, yet he went through with it, because he knew the outcome, and knew it was going to work out. How would our hearts shift if we followed through with every commitment God told us to begin? How would it affect other people? It makes you wonder if the Israelite people knew what they were saying. When they told Joshua that they would go where he led and do what he said, did they really mean it, or were they speaking to make him happy? The passage goes on to say, "Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord God be with you as He was with Moses". If I were in Joshua's shoes right then, I would not have believed a word they said. Had they forgotten that it was them that stepped into the promised land, yet got scared and spent 40 years in the desert, eating nothing but bread from the sky and quail, so much so that they made themselves sick from it. These same people who griped and complained about everything. Who begged for food, then moaned when it came. The people who, when things looked grim, wanted to go back to slavery just to get "comfort". Now these people say they will follow Joshua as they did Moses. What changed? It is time to put heart behind these words. To go the extra mile with someone who is struggling. Letting yourself be pulled from comfort in order to be used by God. Sacrificing your reputation because God has promised something better. I don'y know about you, but I want to walk out these words with everything in me. If God says go, I'll pack my bags and go. If he says do, I want to run and do.
God knows what He is doing. We ask to be used by God, so God gives us assignments. if we don't like it, we don't do it, but then we wonder why we are not growing and maturing in our faith. God wants to use us, but if we are not willing to be used, He will move on to someone who is willing, and we miss the chance to be used.
Don't miss out on God because it got uncomfortable. Allow him to use you despite your discomfort, and he will do great things in you and through you.

Adam Semple- a young man on a mission from God.  

*photo credit- www.godsway66.com

When God is Silent

"God, are you there? Haven't heard from you in a while. Can you still hear me?" Have you ever asked these questions to God sometimes? Did you ever feel like God just was not listening to your prayers? When times like these come upon us, don't get discouraged. My nature is to worry about everything and stress when things go wrong. Especially in times when God seems to be distant and I feel by myself in my walk. But it is in these times when we must continue doing routine to get ourselves back into a place of hearing and receiving. What I mean by this is that we must not stop praying or reading our bible simply because we can't hear God, that is just what Satan wants us to think. Instead, we should pray harder, dive deeper and trust bigger than we have ever before. A lot of times, we will go through dry spells in our walk simply because God is preparing things behind the scenes that we might not be able to see yet. He is lining up details that we don't need to know everything about. Yet even in these times, God has not forgotten you, or abandoned you. Think back to the period of time between Malachi and Matthew in the Bible. It has been estimated that 400 years of silence from God took place. 400 years of people who, some, probably wanted to hear something from God, yet not a word was said. I can imagine that the Israelite people felt forgotten by God. Then, suddenly, an angel appears before a teenage girl and turns the world upside down. We are not giving a reason as to why God was silent during this time, but we do know that we was not sitting idly by twiddling his thumbs. He was constantly working, preparing for the right people to be in the right place at the right time. He was setting things in motion to bring forth the coming Messiah, that had long been foretold since the days of Isaiah and the major prophets of Old. For thousands of years, God gave a glimpse of his plan, starting at the beginning after the fall of Man in Genesis 3. A piece here, another over there, all connecting to form the image that would become his Son on earth. The people during the silent period had no clue what was coming, and because they had no prophets feeding them God's words, they became complacent individuals who were more focused on keeping the lw than following God. They became people not ready for what God was getting ready to do. So when you hit a dry spot in your walk, continue pressing in. For when the time is right, God will move suddenly, and if you have not prepared beforehand, you are not going to be able to contain all that he is doing in and through you. 

We have just entered a new year. A new year to make changes and resolutions that we probably be forgotten come February. Let us make a resolve to grow deeper in our faith and even in the quiet times, to continue to press in and trust that God is working behind the scenes, and we need to be ready for the right moment.    

Adam Semple- A young man on a mission from God

photo credit- ashesofdiversity.wordpress.com