“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18). When the bible says we are being transformed, that means right here, right now. However, more responsibility in this new life of ours, can mean we will face even more opposition … that’s also something that we need remember as we go along. BUT the Lord is way too kind to let us move from one glory into the next without Him personally preparing us. HE WANTS US TO WIN. Our God is really great at resistance training! 🤣

If you feel you have been called to do this or that, or whatever;  then you need to know that there will be opposition facing you. The upside is that the Lord knows you can go through whatever it is. Jesus will walk us each step of the way, just like He did for Peter when he was walking on the water. Christianity is not for the faint-hearted. However, we must remember, that it is always filled to overflowing with His kindness, mercy, love and grace for the timid, inept and weak. Keep praying for eyes to see these things! Our God is so incredible. Stretching our faith means developing spiritual muscles. If you read the book carefully, you will see that happening in so many lives in the bible.

Philippians 2: 3-4 “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”Now there is a great verse to remember. I urge anyone to exercise great caution when talking about the things the Lord has said about your future. Our opponent knows very little about us, unless we open our big mouths and tell him – he’s not omniscient or omnipresent like our Father. You and I must learn to strengthen our feeble knees and wobbly hands by fighting his opposition daily – through the immediate situations we face, and how we decide to face them. God trains us for this war through these day to day seemingly ordinary difficult situations.

He allows these things every day, so we can willingly learn to choose His ways – for His sake. For things like humility, preferring others, speaking well of others as well as living our lives for His Body’s sake. Our God will not let us move on to what comes next, without learning these lessons. So, sadly, some people go round and round like an eddy in a little pool, because they have not yet learnt what they need to know so they are unprepared for what comes next. That would be me with my hand up BTW. I’ve gone round and round so many times I got giddy. 😵‍💫 Then I asked Him why I was stuck … and He told me!  We prepare for WAR by fighting our daily battles.

It took me a while to understand that I actually was hobbling myself by refusing to learn His ways. We have such a good good Father. Remember He will never send us out unprepared. He also does not make a private strategise the next move on the battlefield – that task belongs to a general – that’s why we need leaders. My advice? Learn to be happy where you are … let Him arrange what comes next. Do what you can, and then turn it all over to Him and leave it there. We cannot afford to ignore any tests He sends us. Each one is building a muscle we will need when we step into what He has for us NEXT.  

Jesus came here to serve us, and when we follow Him we will always lovingly serve others. The most fun you will ever have, trust me, is when you are led to serve someone who hates you – and go and you do whatever the Lord tells you to do, and it messes with their mind. I’ve seen people ‘lost at sea,’  literally, because they do not have a pocket to put my kindness toward them in. It’s hilarious. BTW you don’t do these things as revenge, you are just following the Leader. But it still can be a tad funny!

Our God loves oxymorons. These are the things in the bible that are put together in a harmonious way, but they are actually in direct opposition to one another. So he sends a coward to fight without number, and a hater to save a particularly hated city. Plus He brings His Only precious pure Son through the lineage of a couple of prostitutes. He tells us clearly in the book, that when we are weak then the potential exists for Him to be strong IN us etc. Jesus even told us we are blessed when we mourn! So when God tells us to rejoice always you can be pretty darn sure that this life is going to give us opportunities to have that particular mindset challenged. Nothing is wasted. Opportunities will only be wasted if we don’t rely upon His word.

The bible is a road map to His heart, and His Ways. We cannot afford to lean on our own understanding, instead we need to faithfully, and progressively learn to know and lean on HIS. But, because His Ways are higher than ours, they won’t always seem fantastic, instantly, to us! There is so much more ahead of us, if we don’t waste the life we have feathering our own nests! Instead we need to progressively learn how to live for His kingdom and put that first. Training is hard. It means putting down what I want, and doing something I don’t want to do – especially not repeatedly! The benefit of this, is that as we learn His ways, we are changed, and then His Ways not only make sense, they become extremely beautiful to us.  Praise the Lord! 😂