Blessed are those who do not wait to celebrate God for theirs is His boundless grace. Today, Dr. Siohvaughn Funches invites us to take a deeper look into the word of God and discover the blessing and benefits of not waiting to celebrate God and all He is going to do for you! God is faithful to keep His promises and delights in prospering His people. He has proven it again and again, and there is no doubt you will see the truth of it soon! Get ready, because the same God who fulfilled His promises to every one of His children in the Bible, is the same God who will fulfill His promises to you!
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Waiting Room Wisdom (Part 10)
We’re going to be continuing on with our series, which we’ve been involved in for some time now called Waiting Room Wisdom. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. After all, God did tell us at the beginning of this particular series, wisdom is a principal thing. That’s primary. That’s top. First things first, God has told us that it’s a priority it’s by no surprise to me that God would make sure we get all the wisdom He’s giving us from these particular scriptures as it relates to us going from pending petitions before God to possessing every promise that He made us. It is God’s heart for us to do, hence Him giving us the wisdom to make it through that waiting period whenever there is one.
Before we dive deeper into that, let’s take a moment and do what we always do and that’s acknowledge God. I thank you, Heavenly Father that you, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ has given to each and every one of us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus. I thank you, Lord, that the eyes of our understanding are being enlightened that we may know what is the hope of your calling, what are the riches of the glory of your inheritance in us, the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of your power towards us who believe according to the working of your mighty power.
I ask you Lord to expound on the scriptures to us about the things concerning yourself. I pray Holy Spirit, that you will quicken your word to us. It’ll be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. I thank you, Daddy, for your promise that in your light, we see light. I thank you for revelatory light. I thank you for breakthroughs as we sit at the feet of Jesus. We do the one thing that’s needful and that’s hear His word. I thank you, God, we’ll go back to the place where we had that problem. I thank you, God, He will have changed, God. I thank you that things will have gotten better, God, or full-blown miracle, turnaround and breakthroughs will have taken place, God. In Jesus’ name, I pray.
Like I was saying, this scripture that God gave us for this particular series comes from Proverbs 4:7. Wisdom is the principal thing. God himself has said, “Therefore, get wisdom.” What are you doing in this series that the longest series so far to date? If you’ve been with me on this journey, you know that God is giving us wisdom. You’re getting wisdom. I’m getting wisdom. God instructed us to do that and whenever we follow God’s leading, whenever we do what God tells us to do, we’re blessed. Jesus told the man with the withered hand, “Stretch forth your hand.” He obeyed. He was blessed and was healed completely. Jesus told His disciples, “Cast down your nets.” They had toiled all night and not caught anything. They had reasons within their reasoning not to follow God, to not obey what He was saying but when they did obey Him, the Bible says, “They cast down their net.”
They didn’t even fully obey him, but they still got a blessing that they could barely even handle because there was much fish that Jesus calls to come into their net. It’s always fruitful. There’re always breakthroughs. There’re always blessings. There’re always sheer manifestations of the glory of God in your life when you obey God. God did tell us one thing, His need for, and that’s us getting at His feet and hearing His word. He told us to get wisdom because it’s a principle thing and we’re doing both. You can have a confident expectation of good for any labor with or in obedience to an instruction from the Lord will never be in vain. You cannot labor with or at the direction of Jesus Christ and be in vain unless the Lord builds the house, the labor’s labor in vain but to do what God has told you to do that one thing that’s needful is that labor. God said labor to enter the rest and we know that comes when we have faith.
We believe and therefore we enter into rest. We know that from Hebrew. Praise be to God who is giving us rest and giving us the manifestation of the breakthroughs that we ask Him for and long for. I think it would be good to pray and ask God, “Bless me to know when you have done the miracle. Bless me to believe that the miracle was done and show me what it is.” You may say, “Why would I ever need to make that prayer? I’ve been praying. I know what I’m asking God for. I wouldn’t know if He answered me.”
God’s Biggest Promise
God over answers your prayers. Don’t let it be that you’re thinking, “Where’s that thing I was waiting on?” God is like, “This is it but it’s much more than what you asked for or maybe wrapping around and even covering seemingly the thing you asked for.” God gives big. He’s big. Out of himself comes the fullness of Himself and He’s huge. His blessings are huge. To recap a little bit about what we’ve been talking about on this series, God has given us wisdom that will take us from having these pending requests, these prayer requests from God and these promises that God has made us. Maybe some of you, God has put dreams inside of your heart or giving you dreams that is in your heart.
That picture God put before you in that dream or that word God spoke before you in that dream. God has given plenty of His children that gift like He did with Joseph of dreams and even to interpret them. There are people who are waiting on the manifestation of the promise of God and most likely there are tons of people who’ve grabbed hold of those sheer words from God in the Bible and say, “Lord, I claim this for myself because you said all your promises in Christ.” I don’t blame you for that. I’m doing the same thing.
You have these promises, you have this hope, you have the desire and sometimes you even have a need for God to answer or it certainly feels that way. You want to go from pending and praying and believing it to come true to possessing the promise. There’s a difference between going from the promise and walking through whatever you have to get through to get there, to being in the Promised Land. You want to get in the Promised Land and more importantly, God wants you in the Promised Land. He never would’ve given you the dream. He never would’ve given you the hope if this was not His perfect will for you. He wouldn’t help you to do something outside of His will.
He is helping you even via this show, especially during this series and that first one we did about the one thing that was needful and the one that followed that about the blessings and benefits of knowing God. God would never give us that wisdom. He would never make it that plain for us if He didn’t want us to possess our possessions or inherit the fullness of our inheritance. It was God who paid the high price by giving up His only son for us to not only have all the blessings of God come upon us and to be delivered from any judgment from God or any curses from the law for not fully obeying it. It is fully God that has given us the desire for good things. The flesh dwells nothing good. To want good is something good.
In and of ourselves, we can’t do that. We can’t want what’s right or what’s good. God has given us that ability and the Bible says, “God has given to everyone a measure of faith.” God doesn’t hide the ball on how to increase your faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of Christ. You’re doing that because clearly, you’re wise. God has already given you wisdom, but He’s adding to it because God doesn’t want you to faint.
Whenever God blesses us, it’s not just a blessing for us in our family, it’s also a blessing for the entire body of Christ. It’s also a blessing for those who are yet to be saved because when they see the glory of God in your life and my life, they believe in God. We believe in God. We’re walking by faith and we’re holding onto the word. People who have not yet been born again are walking by sight. That’s what they’re doing.
God manifests blessings in our life that even those who are not born again yet can see, not only that but your other brothers and sisters who are believing God for the same thing or even something different. See and hear the testimony in your life of the glory and goodness of God. They have a reason not to give up knowing that God is not a respecter of persons. What He did for you, He is willing and able to do for me. Your blessings, my blessings and us going from pending to possessing is the perfect will of God for many reasons. God so loved this whole world that He gave His only begotten son.
God chooses not to lose one, so it’s for your sake and blessing but it is for everyone else’s as well. God has us all in mind. I believe that it’s all working together for the good of all of His children and for the entire body of Christ, Jesus. Even those miracles that we haven’t even heard that people had. It’s all like a beautiful tapestry that God is painting and putting together stroke by stroke and on different parts of the pages and in different colors He’s using. It all is one whole like we are the body of Christ. You could be a hand, someone else an arm, me as an elbow, but the point is where all the body of Christ. Collectively, we make up that body having to need for one another.
That is the perfect will of God. God ordained it. Remember that when you are receiving this strength and this food and nourishment from God. This wisdom from God to possess your promises, this endurance, and perseverance from the Lord. He’s strengthening your faith and mind, renewing our hope and confident expectation in Him and His goodness. His love for us is not just for us and our family. It’s for all of our brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s also for a world that may well perish without seeing the manifestation of God in the earth as He is in heaven. That’s through your life. That’s through my life. Far be it from God to leave it on a bad note. That’s not the will of God.
Through this series, God has been speaking all of that to us and much more. He’s been talking to us about not waiting to celebrate while you’re in this waiting room place, this place where you are, you’ve received that promise. You are laying claim on hold of a promise and believing God to manifest His goodness or breakthrough a miracle in your life or all of the above, until you get to the place where you possess it and you’re living in it and enjoying and in singing it. Also, enjoying the fruit of Christ’s labor on the cross in that particular area of your life.
In God’s Time
God wants to give us wisdom for that waiting period because God was telling us that’s where a lot of people have lost heart and have fainted on the way. God doesn’t want that. He’s correcting us. God corrects who He loves. He’s not correcting who He doesn’t love. If He’s correcting us because He loves us so we’re grateful for that. God told us when you’re in that waiting room, the one thing you don’t want to ever do is wait to celebrate. It is good to celebrate when you grab hold of the promises, when you lay hold of the manifested glory of God in your life but God is telling us. He’s given us a real key that works here.
We’ve seen it in multiple scriptures through multiple people’s lives. We know God is the same yesterday, now and forever. He’s revealing to us not necessarily something that happened through those people’s lives, but the Holy Spirit was speaking through me moments ago. This thing is printed on the pages. It’s known what happened in their life because God is revealing himself, His glory so that we who were once Gentiles, like people in the world solve the lives and the testimony of these Jewish people and we believe. Now, we’re born again.
It was because of their testimony. God manifested himself through the life of people and He’s the same God. He’s doing that through our life. It’s no different, the same way was important to God to fight for them and make things happen for them and keep His promises. He’s the same in your life and in mine. He wants to do that and we know He’s able. We know He’s willing and we looked at the life of Abraham and that particular scripture where the Bible says, “He was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God.”
We know Abraham when he was way past the age of childbearing, he and his wife had the strength to conceive and did have the son that God promised them when that was physically and biologically impossible. Everything was against them except for their faith and rejoicing. They didn’t wait to celebrate and they hailed that child that God promised them in their arms and it was not too late for God. God is not subjected to or bound by time. God doesn’t serve time. Time serves God. With God, there is no such thing as it’s too late with God. I don’t believe that. God is outside of time. In fact, God created time and He created it to serve Him for His glory. Time is God’s possession. Time doesn’t possess God.
For us, we feel like time restraints and time constrictions and we say things like, “Out of time.” You are taking a test and their timing and you hear them say, “Time’s up.” For God, it doesn’t work like that. God’s not out of time and because you’re His, you’re His beloved, you can ask God for anything. My Bible says, “With God, all things are possible.” Meaning if you need more time, pray like the prophet did, that the sun stands still. In other words, “Give me more time.” It’s basically what He was saying when they were fighting that battle and didn’t want the sun to go down on them so they had the upper hand on their enemies. They were close to that victory and finishing that war.
While they hit that momentum, they wanted to keep it. He prayed and God gave Him more time and Abraham and Sarah looked like they were out of time, well past the time of childbearing. It was not too late with God and you serve the same God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Sarah. I don’t know who that’s for, but I think it’s for the whole body of Christ. If not now at some point, it certainly ministered to me. We saw King Jehoshaphat as well and how they didn’t wait to celebrate. They worship God and that’s all they did. They didn’t have to lift a finger.
In pure celebration, it went from, “God, what are we going to do?” Trembling and shaking to not only possessing their possessions, but they took the possessions of their dead enemies. This is like extra good news at this point. You’re spoiling good. God is good and He did it for them. He’ll do it for us and then we saw the children of Israel and how they were partaking when God first instituted the Passover, which is a picture. It is a shadow of the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion and we saw how they didn’t wait to celebrate and God told to them celebrate.
We also saw how God told them to celebrate in haste because His deliverance was coming quickly. We were remembering how God is still the God of suddenly. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve waited. It doesn’t matter how much seems you still need to be done. God is a God who can speak a word and the entire thing changes. The whole thing changes with a single word from God. Sometimes there were times when Jesus changed an entire circumstance and He didn’t even say a word. He said, “Go your way and you’ll figure it out when you get there that I did it.”
He never even said anything out loud. He is God. This is amazing and I’m grateful that He called me. I’m glad He woke me up from that dead sleep that I was in and that spiritual death and revive me to life in Him because there is no life outside of Him. That’s for certain. There’s inhaling and exhaling may be but there’s no life for real. There’s no substance. God was showing me this and He didn’t show me this until after that we conclude it. You noticed how fast the deliverance came on the children of Israel when they partook of the Passover.
Celebrate Jesus
Probably most of you have read that, probably more than once, which is like a shadow of the Lord’s Supper. Jesus told us concerning the Lord’s Supper to do this often in remembrance of him. It’s for us to partake of often and the Lord supper, like what the shadow showed us with the Passover is a celebration, but the Lord’s Supper, that is the celebration of Jesus and we celebrate Jesus when we partake of the Holy Communion. We celebrate all that He’s done for us at the cross. He’s done so much already.
He’s fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law for us. We could never have done that on our own and Jesus has raised us from spiritual death. He was raised from the dead for our justification. He’s reconciled us to God. He’s revealed the father’s love to us, the father’s character to us, and the father’s wheel for our life. He’s given us victory. He’s given us power over all power over the enemy. He’s healed us with His stripe. Becoming poor that there is poverty, so we would become rich and much more.
He’s made it true that we’re heirs of God. He’s made us children of God. He’s made it where when He abides in us and His word abides, when we abide in Him and His word abides in us, we can ask for whatever we want and have it. No wonder the Bible calls Him the door. He’s a wide-open door to everything good. He is everything. In Him is life. The Bible says that in Him do we live, move and have our being. It’s true. I love that God was showing me this Holy communion that we take now. If the children of Israel partook of the Passover, which was a shadow of Jesus, the substance and they were delivered suddenly. A problem that has persisted for generations. A king that was hard-hearted and evil and never changed His ways as far as opposing them. It went from opposition to flat out, “Now, I’m ready to murder you all.”
He was on a murderous rampage before and now he’s back on it again. He’s chasing after them with his choice chariots and all the top army that he has and all his riches and resources and soldiers at his disposal. Even himself he came out to fight. He didn’t sit like an arrogant king as they fight for him. He came. He wanted himself not only to see the death or it to be reported to him, but he wanted himself to lay his hand and kill the children of God. He’s hell-bent on being evil, determined to defy the living God. None of that changed.
God didn’t need it to change. God certainly delivered His people and as they celebrated right under the shadow, which is the substance, Jesus Christ, the Holy Communion. Not only were they delivered as we’ll see, it happened quickly. God was saying, “When you partake of this, do that with an expectation that not only will you be delivered, but it’s coming quickly and it’s coming suddenly.” Eat this communion in haste. Your deliverance is here, not just drawing near. I love that because if that’s the truth for them and the Bible goes on saying how none were feeble among them.
That’s the truth of them. Obeying God, not waiting to celebrate Jesus to come and what He would do lying in His blood. We have the blood now. It’s not the blood of innocent animal lambs signifying or representing Jesus who is the lamb of God. God has provided a lamb for himself. That should remind you of Genesis with Abraham and his son, Isaac, whom he didn’t have to sacrifice because God sacrificed His only son whom He loved. If that happened under the shadow, how much more should happen under the substance? If these people can partake of an animal lamb, certainly when you eat the bread and you drink the cup, take a Holy Communion, you should be doing in celebration of Jesus. Thanking him, praising him, not petitioning Him at that time, praising Him for what’s already done. When you receive the true bread of life, the true Lamb of God, this is the actual thing that God was.
Vindication And Redemption
This is who God chose before the foundations of the world. The Bible says He was crucified before the foundations of the world and when we do this, we should do it in haste with a belt on your waist, sandals on your feet. There’s nothing less than God’s best because the substance is far greater than the shadow. We know that for sure. I believe that God unveiled to me in His unveiling to you all through me, a huge key for us. If you need to be delivered, key one, celebrate Jesus. When you are celebrating Jesus, make this a part of the celebration. Specifically receive from Jesus, the bread and the blood, the body of Jesus, and the blood of Jesus, that whole Holy communion make certain that you’d make that a part of your celebration. We’d left off on verse 25. I’m going to get into that now. I will show you something that God showed me in verse 28.
I’m not going to rush the Holy Spirit in this. Whatever God has given us, it is necessary for someone and if someone says, “That part I already knew, that’s fine. We’re a whole body.” Trust me, even if your hand is okay, you want your foot in good health too. It matters to our brothers and sisters. Let’s allow God, let’s allow the Holy Spirit to go on these rabbit trails because there’s something for us there. If you don’t need it now, you’ll be amazed at how you look back on something that God spoke to you, you jot it down or you heard and time later in your life, it comes up. God goes before us.
It is likely that the words you’re hearing are for what’s to come and I don’t mean anything bad is coming. I mean for the days ahead in your life or even people you may run into in your life in days to come. Be blessed and let God give us everything He wants to give us. In verse 25, it says it, “It will come to pass when you come to the land which the Lord will give you just as He promised that you shall keep this service.” He’s talking about the Passover that He instituted. It shall be when your children say to you, “What do you mean by this service?” that you shall say, “It is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered for our households.”
That there is a message in and of itself and is good news. He didn’t just deliver them. He delivered their households. Halleluiah. Time to give Jesus all the praise. He’s good. Anybody praying for a family member or family members, this is good news. It then says, “The people bow their heads and worshiped.” God was showing me, “Notice, Siohvaughn, that they worshiped when the word was spoken to them, they got it.” That’s another promise. That’s another prophetic word. The prophet is still speaking and at that time, God used prophets and He still does.
He was speaking through someone and giving them this word of promise from Him and they did not wait until that manifested. Once the word was spoken, the Bible says they worship. They bow their heads. That’s humility. “Yes, God, I’m not able.” You will able. I’ll worship you because if it wasn’t for you, I simply would not be delivered. That enemy is too strong for me. I would be in that bondage for the rest of my life. Nothing less. Thank you. I worship you. I praise you and only what you can worship and celebrate God when all you have is a promise. You have to believe God is who He says He is and He’s good.
It’s not good to promise people something and be lying or saying something to be saying it. That’s not good. I’ll let God judge but it in my heart, it feels like that’s evil. Don’t do that. It’s better for you not to say you’ll come through than to say, “I’m coming through and you can depend on me.” Come to find out that they are nowhere to be found when it’s time to make good on the promise. God even said, “Don’t swear neither in heaven or earth.” Don’t do it. He tells us not to do it, but He does it. He doesn’t say He promises or tells us what He’s going to do. Sometimes the Bible says the Lord swore, God doesn’t need to swear because He’s God and can’t lie. He’s Holy and just, but at the same time to give more peace to our souls, our not prone to worry souls.
He does things like, “So I have sworn.” “You did not have to swear, but I’m glad you did.” Probably I needed that considering how doubt tries to take me down. I love how they had to know God and believe God is good because they worship right then and there. They celebrated God when He made the promise, not just when He delivered the promise to them. They didn’t wait to celebrate. Let’s see how that worked out for him. The Bible says, “The children of Israel went away and did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron so they did.” This is how you know you believe God. This is how you know that you’re walking in humility. Your obedience will be a reflection of that all the time.
When you have come to a place where you’re not trying to do it anymore and you’ve given it to God and you believe God when you have entered into that rest for real, you know it because you obey God. Whatever wisdom He gives you, whatever leading He gives you, whatever instructions He gives you, you do it. You can tell. You do it. When you’re doing it, you are done thinking that you can do anything in your own strength. You’re done going to man to try to save you. You’re finished with all of that almost initial human reaction that we all can have in common, but you’ve done with that and you go and you are trusting God. You’re doing what God told you to do with no question. It says in verse 29, “It came to pass that midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captain who was in the dungeon and all the firstborn of the livestock.”
Praise be to God who strikes these demon enemies of yours and mine down. It says, “Pharaoh rose in the night. He, all his servants and all the Egyptians and there was a great cry in Egypt for there was not a house where there was not one dead.” God vindicates His people. No question. They made them cry for hundreds, probably of years and there they go with the cry that’s greater like none ever before in the history of Egypt. It’s interesting that the Israelites were in Egypt for some time enslaved. God says there was never a cry in Egypt like that one which means all those hundreds of years of enslaving them and killing all of their firstborn, when we have experienced the loss of a loved one or something tragic or something evil has come against us, it’s amazing how God keeps His people. The same thing happens to someone who’s not a child of God, someone who is an enemy of God and it’s like unprecedented breaking comes to them. It’s the same tragedy, different response.
In life, unfortunately, sometimes there are tragedies on this side of heaven, but even still then we can fear not because when God is with you and for you, even tragedy can’t be against you. The assignment behind that will never prosper. It’s amazing how God is a shield and an exceedingly great reward to His people. It’s amazing the cry that comes from the enemy, the camp of the enemy, who has rebelled against God. Later on, we see that Pharaoh says after this that He’s now got to bury His own son and He’s like, “Rise. Go out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel and go serve the Lord as you have said.”
He’s done negotiating. He was negotiating like He could do that with God like he can make a deal with God. No God told you to do something. You simply need to do that. Even for the children of God, Jonah. It’s like, “You need to do what God said.” There are no negotiations but He was full of pride and destined for destruction and doom. Pride always precedes destruction, shame, and humiliation. That’s always the case wherever you find a lot of humiliation and shame they were preceded it. There was some pride there in the camp of the enemy, no question. It says that the Egyptians urged the people of God that they might send them out of the land in haste.
They’re in agreement with God. It’s amazing how these people who strongly rebelled against God are now saying what God said. God is like, “You’re going to go out and haste the Egyptians.” They are beating up to God. You’re like, “Were they there when we took part in the Passover? Did they overhear that thing?” God has even got the devil himself in agreement with them. God knows how to get even your enemies in agreement with what God said about you. It then says, “For they said, we shall all be dead.” They’re like, “God killed them. They’re next. It’s over.”
The people took their dough before it was liven. Having their kneading bowls bound up in their clothes on their shoulders. It is what the children of Israel had done according to the word of Moses. They had asked from the Egyptians articles of silver, articles of gold and clothing. The Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians so that they granted them what they requested. Thus, they plundered the Egyptians. God is good. He vindicates you. He pays you back. God has not forgotten anything. It doesn’t matter how much time went by. The enemy may be deceived in thinking that God forgot, but He has not forgotten you and He hasn’t forgotten what’s been done to you. Certainly, He’s paying you back the things even He didn’t take away. Jesus is good for us.
I’ll tell you this much before we go. We saw the same thing in the life of Jehoshaphat and children of Israel at that time and we see it here that God causes us to plunder. God causes us to take from the enemy to gain. He doesn’t just restore or redeem us. He puts us in a position where we’re better off than before the trouble came. You read about the Lord’s restoration even in the Old Testament. That is the way that God restores. That is the heart of God. Think about when God gave to us, He could have said, “Jesus, I’m sending you to pay for their sins.” Let’s be honest. He didn’t always do that. That alone is way more than enough, is way more than we deserve, and is way more than we could ever pay for hope or imagine or think.
He went well beyond that. He’s like, “Go to the scorching post, be scorched, and be beaten.” With your strike, they’re also healed. Not only that, become destitute and poor so that with your destitution and poverty, but they’ll be rich. God did this when we were totally, completely and obviously undeserving like nothing less than our middle fingers to God and we were shouting before, “Crucify Him.” At that moment and even before that happened, before we saw a need for a savior, the Bible says Jesus was crucified before the foundations of the world. That’s the God you serve.
No matter what you’re facing, God is the God who’s going to pay you back even though He didn’t do it to you. He didn’t bring the trouble. He’s the one that’s going to turn it around for you and cause you to plunder your enemies, cause you to come out with more and make sure they pay even if it’s with lives. The Bible says, “God gives lives for your ransom.” Even if it’s with their lives, God is going to deal with the demons who’ve tried to deal with you and your house. Those that have tried to inflict you. God is vindicating you. I say that past tense because it’s true because the Lord goes before you. Praise be to Jesus and thank you, God. I love you all. God bless you all and I’ll talk to you again soon.
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