Prepared for your Promise - Ps Jim Laffoon

Hi people,

 

Ps Jim Laffoon's preaching on "Prepare for your Promise" can be found right here.

http://ronlewisministriespodcasts.com/2007/07/01/prepared-for-your-promise.aspx

If you're in a season of wandering, wondering where God is taking you or going through a tough season in your life and wanting to find break through, i hope this will encourage you. I've transcribed portions of the podcast here.. but it's still best to hear it direct from the podcast (it'll make more sense too).

 

Be blessed! :)

 

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Prepared for Your Promise - Ps Jim Laffoon (partially transcribed, with paraphrases)

 

Why would god put you into a dry time, why would God lead you through a time of financial need, lead you to a time, I keep thinking I’ll get a job but it doesn’t’ happen? Have you ever wondered, God, what are u waiting for?

 

I think if God would speak audibly, God would yell back down “you! I’m going as fast as you’d let me go!”

 

Why does God allow us to go through difficulty, need, and pain? Why doesn’t he immediately just rescue us, why doesn’t he immediately bring you to his promised land?

 

Besides being relatives, Abraham, Jacob, Isaac.. each of their wives were barren for a long time. Why did he make them wait so long? Why did they wait so long when each of them had an amazing promise about their children.

 

It’s one thing for God to give you what he promised you, but it’s a whole other thing for God to do the work in you that’s needed to be done, so you wont’ ruin it when you get it.

It was an easy thing for God to touch Sarah to get Isaac, it was another thing for Abraham to become the man he needed to be to raise the child of promise.

 

So why does God allow it?

Deu 8:2

“I led you in the desert to humble you and test you.” Why would God test you? “I am testing you to find out what was in your heart.”

Why doe he do that to us?

Because there are things in our hearts that will destroy the very promise land that god wants to give us and he’ll put u through a tough time to bring out what is on the inside of you

 

The depression, the anger.. He is giving you a deep look at what is inside of you. Beloved, God will put you and allow to make you wait and frustrate you coz he wants to show you what’s on the inside so you can see it and deal with it.

 

Things begin to come out from us when we  become frustrated. God will make you wait far longer than u want it.. the timing of God is when you don’t want it to be usually!

 

Lurking in all of us are the very things that will destroy all our dreams. It’s the attitudes, selfishness, anger. O I really want to get married God! Really? You want it bad enough to mess it up because you weren’ ready when it came? It’s easy enough for God to give you your dream, but its another thing for God to make you into the person that will not turn the dream into a nightmare.Are u willing to wait for God to prepare you not to destroy the marriage. Not to turn that dream girl into a nightmare. The guy created the environment that had not transformed her but deformed.

 

He’ll lovingly make you wait.. he’s not punishing you, he’s preparing you.

 

Punishment is to give you want you want.. and give u the agony of messing up. How ready is ready? I’ll do it! but if you’re asking that question, then you’re probably not ready

 

“I led you to the desert to humble you”.. .it’s been a long while since I prayed, ‘Lord humble me.’

 

I let you go long period of times with no food or water. I humbled you with me, I humbled you to the point that you can’t get yourself out of this, I need God. Knowing that the rock did not turn into a lake, I would have died of hunger of thirst. Realising that you can’t live without God. Realizing that my existence is not possible without God. You know when you’re humble, you pray as much on a good day and on a bad day

 

God has allowed this desert, wilderness. He’s saying,“I’ve allowed this to come into your life, not to punish you but prepare you for the very moment you were born.”

 

Lord, you and I have a disagreement of what “done” (being ready is) is.. if you were really done, you wouldn’t be griping!

 

Deu 8:5 Know this in your heart, that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God, disciplines you.

 

Discipline here is not punishment, it’s talking about lovingly training and shaping his child. God is training you in this hard time. In Hebrews, if you’re going through a tough time, God is training you. How does it train you, if you’re broke, your prayer life really goes up a notch! God is training you to pray. Some of you are very independent, no one can ever talk to you..you’ve got a better idea until all your ideas run out but He’s training you, that you need people. Beloved I wish it wasn’t’ the case, but we learn best in the hard times, we learn our need for God, we learn our need for pp. When you don’t have job, this is the best time to wait on the Lord. If you wait on him, if you learn your lesson now, you’ll learn to listen to him for the rest of Life.

 

If you’ve a healthy home life, its easy for you to make the transition to trust God.

 

The greatest job of your dad is not to bring home the cheque, but to show you every day what God is like. That’s why my heart breaks for your generation which has been ravished in the area of dads and fathers.but let me tell you, beloved, when God disciplines you,it’s not because of him, not because he’s embarrassed about your behavior, it’s for your own good. He’s thinking, how can I get them there, to the purpose they are born for.

 

Vs 7, 8.. I am preparing you for the promised land. Before the promised land, there are deserts, plural. I’ve walked with the Lord 35 years.. and you see there’s just mountains after mountains. Why is this taking so long? Coz God is going to bring you deep.

 

What do we face, what are some of these promises we go through in the deserts?

 

1) Physical Needs

Exo 15 They went 3 days into the wilderness, there’s no food. In Exodus 16 No water.

Pp woke up early to get their food before the sun came up.. God has a way of teaching us.. in Israelites case, it was get up early or starve.

 

2) Guidance challenges.. Exo 13, 17, 18 – when God delivered the children of Israel, there were 2 ways he could take them. Superhighway of land of philistines vs long road of desert, God chose the desert! They began to think , “that’s the superhighway, but whey is moses leading us this way?”

 

God knew that if they had  taken the short way they’d have seen the war and battle before they  were ready, they would have run away

 

What’s harder than the long way? The wrong way. A promise gotten too quickly, the end thereof is always bad. Don’t be in hurry, trust God. He knows the career you need to be on, he knows when u need to be married.

 

This nomadic existence, number 9,10.. everyday a big giant angelic cloud would lead us. The problem with this cloud was that it had a mind of God.. it would move whenever God wanted to move. You can just pitch your tent, the cloud will move. They were wandering in circles, has God lost his mind? No,  he’s trying to give you his mind. Because if you’re circling your destiny, its coz u’re not ready to land.

 

Why couldn’t the previous generation enter? because their unbelief would have destroyed their promised land.

 

God is preparing you, building you. God always creates need in us before he brings us into an amazing provision. Beloved, that desert is training for the very moment you were born.

Let’s be practical, I’ll share 4-5 principles I’ve learnt

 

1)      Holy Spirit: You’ve got something better thant the cloud to lead you, youv’e the HS. Jesus said its better that I take off physically, then the HS would come. HS lives in you to guide you, talk to you and lead you.. wouldn’t be great if there’s a book of bible with your name, writing what your life would be. HS is the one that personalizes the Bible for you

2)      Human Leadership

a.       Have u ever wondered if your leader is Moses, with all the miracles.. yet they wanted to kill him half the time. These pp have come out of 460 years of abuse, they have no trust for leadership..i can trust God but its hard to trust pp. there are times where God will bring people into your life, not to tell you what to do, but to lovingly bring you the reality of God to you. It’s not true that I just need God, I need people too. That’s why he puts me in a body, he gives me pp to love me,

3)      Manna

Get only enough for one day, can’t store it up. Why? John 6:47-48, Jesus says I tell you the truth..i am the bread of life… I’m the living bread, if you eat of this bread, you’ll live forever.. this bread is my flesh whichi gave for the world.

 

“My food is not to hear about Him, but to do the will of him.” Christians come to church to learn how to get fed, not get fed. Don’t just hear, do. It’s doing that feeds you. Don’t’; just hear about prayer, bible studies, waiting, do it.

(Jesus is saying) If you’ll spend time with me like I spend time with my father, if you’ll just go for walks and listen and come into my presence, that feeds you. I f you spend time with me, you’re eating smthg invisible like the manna, some thing is going to happen. He’s talking about doing my father’s will, pray, listen, spend time with me, remain in me, remain in contact with me. That’s what will sustain you in the wilderness

 

Many of you wait till the wilderness, the crisis comes, to eat (but that should not be) You’ll be flooded with peace, the presence feeds you, touches you. No amount of money, friends and popularity that’ll sustain you in desert of life, it takes manna.

 

1 Cor 10:1-5 – the rock that followed them was Christ. John 4 (woman at the well). She had 5 husbands, and she’s living with a man that wasn’t husband.. she meets Jesus. She can spot exploitation, lust. But with Christ, she let her guard down, because he’s looking at her in a way that no man has looked at her before. Jesus said if you’d drink of my water, you’ll never be thirsty again. If you drink this water, it’ll create a well. If you draw close to me, my HS will live inside of you and he’ll create a well inside of you, no matter how hard your life is, you’ll never be in an internal drought, even if the world outside turns upside down. How did the root out of dry ground become root of salvation? Jesus becoming a human is him coming into desert.. it’s like us becoming an earthworm or fly! he experience pain, rejection, friends left him, mother thought he was crazy half the time, his brothers didn’t believe him, the church he came to rescue killed him.. every day of his 33 years was a desert, and he became a living well for the whole of human race, because every day he was drinking of his Father’s presence. You can feed on him, drink from him. You can do this thing, you can have this thing.

 

Before every promise land, there’s a desert. Typically, the bigger the promise, the longer the desert.

 

SO many of you are so anxious, so frustrated. How much longer must I wait?. until you wont’ ruin it when you get there. But pastor, I feel like God is punishing me. O no, if he wanted to punish you, he’ll let u get there right now. God in his mercy, is preparing you , He in his mercy is training you, God in his mercy is preparing you for the greatest moments and promises of your life.  That’s what He’s doing.

If you’re not dreaming God’s dreams, you’re not dreaming big enough. ‘But ps its taking a long time!’ Short cuts in the end will only shortchange you. Be glad God does not listen to our pouting! “I’ve told the Lord, I’m locking myself in the room and not eating until he gives me what I need” “you’ll die before you get it” You can’t manipulate God… some of you, you’re expert manipulators, you’ll never manipulate God. He’s eternal , he’s used to waiting, u’ll never outwait him. “I’ll fast until you bless me!” don’t waste your time, he wont’ go hungry.

 

Can I make him go quicker? Yes, cooperate.. Ask yourself, what is he doing, what is he after?

 

Desert time is painful, seeing what’s inside you is painful, Not getting what you want is painful, having God work on your soul is painful, but it’s worth it. 

 

This church has been in a desert time, that’s good, coz promised land is come. Not saying that it feels good, but its good