At times every believer in Christ Jesus must have thought, “If only I could understand what God is doing in my life! Or if I could even know whether or not the present circumstances in my life are of God—maybe it is the devil, or perhaps it is only my friends or relatives that are bothering me! If only I could find out why I am going through this difficult situation, what purpose God is working in it, and how I should respond to it!” Trying to find some logical explanation of what you experience usually creates much confusion. If, however, you understand the ways of God, you will eliminate that confusion.
In the various kinds of circumstances that we find ourselves, we all experience highs and lows, and shifting fortunes. If we are believing that the fullness of God will be given to us, we must move in a sustained level of faith through these ups and downs. There are times in which we seem to experience great blessing, when it looks as if every blessing that God has is ours; it is placed right in our hand. Next it can seem as if we have lost His blessing and we have nothing; we feel so empty and completely desolate and confused that we do not know which way to go. Then again God answers our prayer, and we are on top of our mountain again.
We may not like those up-and-down experiences, but they do serve a purpose. What God wants in all these experiences is that you focus on Him. When you are looking up, praising Him for all of His blessings, you can see Him clearly; He is very real to you. But whoever said that you had to see God only while you are looking up? Most of the time when you are flat on your face in the mud, you can see God just as clearly as when you are looking up. There are revelations that flow from the Lord when He puts you down. At that time you learn to focus on something greater than your circumstances.
We do not actually make our greatest progress while we are in a state of continual blessing. Our greatest progress comes when God lets us attain one level of blessing, only to bring to us an illusion of conflict which causes us to appropriate a higher level. Until you become almost disenchanted with your present level, you do not move on to the next height. All that time, even during your disenchantment, you are nevertheless moving in the will of the Lord. For example, regardless of what God does to me, or what anyone else does to me, the Word keeps getting richer. God blesses me, and wonderful things continue to come to pass. Since we have determined that we will walk by faith, we have seen outstanding evidences of our faith.
God keeps you on your toes so that you will not sit back and say to yourself, “Now I am blessed. I can walk with God; I know where I stand with God.” The day that you know where you stand with God is the day that God will start disturbing you again, so that you will reach to Him for more. All of God’s dealings are calculated to reveal Himself to you. He cannot always reveal Himself while we are in a state of continual blessing; sometimes He must reverse it. That is what Paul talked about in Philippians 4. He said, “I have learned how to be content in any state. I can be abased or I can abound. I can have nothing or I can have plenty” (verses 11–12). Yet, with great faith, he could also turn around and say, “God will supply all your needs” (verse 19).
You cannot have a positive faith that reaches depths in God and heights in God, unless you go through these depths and heights with God. This is where you acquire that kind of faith. We need that kind of faith, because in the future we will face days when circumstances are rather bleak; but that is the time for us to believe God that they will only be temporary. I believe that we will not only survive much tribulation, but I believe that we will come to Zion with everlasting joy upon our head (Isaiah 35:10). There is a faith and a victory that we can and will appropriate in all of our circumstances.
Many of us are conditioned for this faith and victory. We have gone through many difficult things. Many local churches are tied up in their own financial problems, and others do not have the burden from the Lord for it.
God will teach His people to become miracles. Some of them may not seem to have much; they position themselves in the Lord on a basis of pure faith. God will put them through His testing’s; this is the only schooling that is valid. God brings you there, and then He brings you to the end of yourself so that you appropriate Him.
You will continually go through varied experiences highs and lows—all designed to produce a steadfast focus upon the Lord Jesus Christ. The circumstances must come to determine whether you can be distracted from the Lord to look at your circumstances. Blessed is the man who does not look at his circumstances, whether they are good or bad. Blessed is the man who does not have to look at his bank statement to know whether or not he is blessed. Blessed is the man who, even if he is forced through a bankruptcy court, does not say, “I am not being blessed any more.” None of those circumstances are really the valid basis of evaluation. The true basis is your faith. You believe what God says about Himself; therefore you believe your relationship with Him. You accept your relationship with Him because you accept what He is and what He says. This is the area where we continually face spiritual warfare.
Paul told the Philippians, Rejoice in the Lord always. Philippians 4:4a. The Lord may finally bring you to the level where you have no reason to be happy, humanly speaking, at all. There will be no happiness in you. Are you turning handsprings, exclaiming, “How happy I am because of these persecutions and these pressures and testings!” Of course not, but in the middle of them you can reach up and say, “Lord, now Your joy will sustain me.”
I think that I am more joyful today than I have ever been in my life. Someone said to me recently, “It seems that you are not happy unless you are in a corner. You like this pressure. I have noticed how radiant you become when you are in a difficult place.” I started analyzing that, wondering if I should adjust my thinking. Then I realized what it was: I function best when I have nothing to function with humanly, when I cannot meet the problem by myself. Then I live more in God. Consequently, I have more joy, more peace, more blessing, because I am reaching into Him for it. It is better to do that than to worry!
This is what Paul was telling the Philippians. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your forbearing (notice that he did not say “overbearing”; he said “forbearing”) spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing (you must decide whether your circumstances will cause you to worry or not), but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Then, when you have committed it all to the Lord, what happens?) And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4–7. That is what you really need.
You are vulnerable in your heart (your emotions, your motivations—everything on the subconscious level), as well as in your mind—the conscious level. But if you learn how to focus on the Lord and commit everything to Him in faith, He will keep your heart and your mind. He will guard it. There will be nothing that can devastate you.
Confusion comes from a lack of focus in your faith. If you have your focus on the Lord, you are all right. One of the apostles was able to go out and walk on water when he kept his focus right. However, the moment he saw the wind and the waves, he was as vulnerable as anyone else; he started to sink (Matthew 14:29–30). You can “walk on water” too if you keep your focus on the Lord; you do not need to fail.
Do not worry about your problems. Commit them to the Lord. Let me use a rather amusing anecdote to illustrate. In the middle of the night, a woman noticed that her husband was up, pacing the floor. She asked him, “Why are you pacing the floor?” He replied, “I borrowed some money from the neighbor, and I cannot pay it back. It is due tomorrow!” She thought for a moment and then responded, “Well, I will tell you what you should do, honey. You call him up now.”
“But it is after midnight!”
“That is all right. You call him up, and you tell him that you can’t pay that note tomorrow. Then you come to bed and let him pace the floor!” Be anxious for nothing, but in everything reach into the Spirit of the Lord, and say, “I commit this to You, Lord, and I believe that You will take care of it.” This assures the guarding of your heart and your mind.
Paul went on to explain this focus of faith: Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. Philippians 4:8. That certainly limits our area of thinking. There are so many matters that loom up in distortion. There are so many paper dragons which create such an illusion. Do you have fears? Dump them. Dump them!
Paul went on to say, The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things; and the God of peace shall be with you. Verse 9. Paul tried to sum up what he had been saying; then he went from here to show how the teaching applied to himself. First he told the Philippians what they should do. Later, in verses 11–12, he told them how he himself had done it. Blessed is the shepherd who can say to the sheep, “I have not only taught you, but you have also seen me submit to that teaching. This is the way it happened with me too.” No teaching will so effectively take away confusion and bring that focus on the Lord as preaching from experience and dedication.
Preaching against evil rarely eliminates it. Many years ago, I was part of a church that was gossiping a great deal. I prepared an outstanding battery of sermons about gossip! After several weeks of preaching on gossip, we had more gossip than we had had at the beginning, because the people began to focus on the gossip. They called each other on the phone, trying to determine whom I had been referring to in each sermon on gossip. Soon they were talking so much about the sermons on gossip that there was more gossip than ever. Then I realized that I was doing the wrong thing; I was focusing on their confusion and magnifying it. As I began to shift their focus to the Lord, the gossip disappeared; it melted away like the snow, and soon it was gone. Once their focus was really directed, they were fine.
Paul said, in effect, “You must keep your mind on those things that are excellent. You must keep your mind only on what God is saying and what God is doing.” When people come to you with a sad story about the “terrible” condition of the church, keep in mind that most of their arguments are probably entirely distorted. But there is one thing which cannot be distorted or exaggerated: you cannot make the Lord too great. Magnify the Lord. Place your focus upon Him. Let Him move.
You may protest, “But my problem is real—it is serious!” I am not sure how real any problem is. You might say, “But you do not understand the battle. The battle and the warfare are so terrible!” The Word says that Christ has already won it for you (I Corinthians 15:57). One of the greatest deceptions that can come to you is the one which will cause you to believe that your battle and your problems have not been provided for in Christ. Go back and focus on the Lord. He has given you the promises; He has made the provision.
Do you still feel as though you must win the battle? Do you want to be another Jesus? Then do exactly as Jesus did. Go through the whole work of redemption. Go out in the wilderness for forty days. No doubt the devil will meet you, and surely you can overcome him! Then crucify yourself. You can probably get the nails through your feet and through one hand—but you will need a friend or someone to nail that other hand down. Surely there is someone who will be willing to finish nailing you to the cross! When it is all finished and you have risen from the dead, then you have won the battle! Or—you could simply appropriate the victory that He has already won.
Let us not focus on the battle; let us focus on the victory that is in Christ (I Corinthians 15:57). Let us enter into a pure appropriation of joy and victory. Watch the doors burst open as we believe the Lord.
You may be thinking, “But, I have really gone through it.” Sure, we all have. Paul did too, but notice his reaction: … I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. (Those words could be spoken by either a saint or an idiot!) I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. Philippians 4:11–12.
The Lord does not really want you to rely on the abundance that He gives you. That is why He told the rich young ruler, “Sell everything you have and follow Me” (Matthew 19:21). That man could not submit, because he was leaning too heavily on his riches. For the same reason, on that fateful day when the stock market collapsed, a number of men on Wall Street committed suicide by jumping out of their windows. The stock-market crash had wiped out their fortunes. They killed themselves because they could not endure being poor.
We are not poor. Even in times of our greatest testing, we still have His full, complete provision—the riches that are ours in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1:18). And at our moment of greatest blessing, we must confess that we are but stewards of it; it is not really ours. What a paradox! Paul said that you must learn this—to be content. If abundance is flowing through your hands, fine. If your hands are absolutely empty, but they are raised in praising the Lord, that is fine too. If only it were as easy as it sounds—to reach that place of contentment! When you go through difficult times, keep your focus on the Lord. We could be prosperous; our finances are all in God’s hands. I have learned that when you set your eye on the Lord and on His provision, He will take care of everything, including finances.
Paul continued in Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. The literal translation reads, “in Him who strengthens me.” That is the key. You can do anything in the Lord. This emphasis is found throughout Paul’s writings: “in the Lord”; “in Christ Jesus”; “I can do anything in Him.” That reciprocal indwelling of Christ and the believer is the issue in the persecution against us. We are asked, “Just who are you to say that Christ is coming forth in you? You think you are God.” We do not claim to be God, but we know that there is more of Christ in us today than ever before. Every time we come to the end of ourselves, we appropriate a little more of Him.
Nevertheless, you have done well to share with me in my affliction. And you yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving but you alone; for even in Thessalonica you sent a gift more than once for my needs. Not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek for the profit which increases to your account. But I have received everything in full, and have an abundance; I am amply supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God. And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Now to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Verses 14–20. Paul knew that all of these circumstances would work out so that God would be glorified.
The most precious days of my walk with God have been those times of simply communing with Him. I have limited my administrative duties so that I can spend more time waiting on the Lord. During these periods, the Lord has given prophecies, several beautiful books, and a deeper revelation in the Word. The things that come out of these times before the Lord are enriching your life too.
This period of blessing actually started when I was thrown into a very difficult situation. I suffered physical, mental, financial, and emotional devastation such as I had not experienced before. I felt that everything that I have ever lived for, everything that I have ever done, had been so totally wiped out and discredited. It was in that time that the Lord became very real to me.
With that devastation came the promise of His abundance that was to come. With it came the promise of His Word reaching the world. Why is it that when we receive a promise, we must immediately be tested on it? What happens, for example, when we get a promise of healing? Instead of just clinging to that promise in the Lord, we look to see if we are feeling better; we check to see if the pain is still there. If we believe in our pains, we will not believe in His promises.
Have you ever had a time of waiting on the Lord, followed by a time of real battle? Then in the midst of the conflict, you found that all the oppression disappeared because it was all in His hands anyway!
You very likely have gone through the experience of seeing the Lord reverse your situation. This reversal of our position is the leapfrog principle. The revelation of the leapfrog principle in the Scriptures showed us a great truth about the way we grow in the Lord; yet many were bothered by it. The Timothys followed their leaders and leapfrogged over them to become leaders themselves. The ministries criticized the Timothys because it is difficult for a pastor, a prophet, or an apostle to view a young Timothy objectively when all he can see in front of him is the Timothy’s behind. He would prefer to kick it; instead, he ought to humbly leapfrog over it!
That has been one of the problems at Shiloh. The established pastors often feel, “Boy, some of these young upstarts do not respect those of us who are older.” We respect the pastors very much; they are reaching into God. Yet a thousand prophets cannot come forth unless others bow down low and allow them to leap forward. The old status of rank and file in the church must go, because the principle of the Kingdom is this: The first shall be last, and the last shall be first (Mark 10:31). This destructive process to our positions is repeated again and again in the leapfrog principle. Some may find this hard to accept. Jesus never told us it would be easy; He simply said that this is the way it will be! These spiritual secrets have been hidden in plain sight for many centuries; yet they are now becoming very real to us. What will come out of it? What will it all lead to? A thousand prophets in the land!
This leapfrog principle explains exactly what happens to all of us in our spiritual state. We look around and say, “Oh, I am last!” Well, take a few leaps over into the promises of the Lord. Then when you look around you realize, “I’m first!” Wait a while—soon you will be last again. This is the only way that no one wins but the Lord.
What would happen if the first would remain the first? Then those who are the first would know they are the first—and they would know who is the last! Then we would develop an attitude that is unhealthy in the Kingdom of God. It was for this reason that the Lord humbled Himself. He knew that He had come from the Father and He would return to the Father, that the Father had placed all things in His hand and had made Him the first. Therefore, He put aside His garments, girded Himself with a towel, and washed His disciples’ feet (John 13:3–5). What was He really doing? He was demonstrating, “I volunteer to be the last, because I am the first. There is in Me that which is willing to be last.”
Whatever our circumstances, the Lord is teaching us to walk with Him. Whatever our circumstances, He is Lord. Do you feel that you are last, ready to fall by the wayside? No, do not fall by the wayside—simply leap over into the next step. What is there to go back to? For what great cause would you turn aside from walking with the Lord? You have heard a Living Word. You have learned the ways of the Lord. Nothing is actually hindering you. Only if you get your focus off the Lord will you fail. Every time you come to the end of your strength, see it as an open door to appropriate His fullness.