"LORD, how they have increased who trouble me! MANY ARE THEY WHO RISE UP AGAINST ME.”
Psalm 3:1 (NKJV)
• The deliverance in Christ comes through righteousness.
- If you break the hedge the serpent will bite—God has made a hedge around His children, every believer, for protection.
GOD is a shield for you but the shield can only remain through Holiness and RIGHTEOUSNESS.
- “Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, A BLAMELESS AND UPRIGHT MAN, ONE WHO FEARS GOD AND SHUNS EVIL?”
- So Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing?
- “HAVE YOU NOT MADE A HEDGE AROUND HIM, AROUND HIS HOUSEHOLD, AND AROUND ALL THAT HE HAS ON EVERY SIDE? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.”
Job 1:8-10 (NKJV)
- We could see in the above passage of the Bible that Job was A BLAMELESS AND UPRIGHT MAN, ONE WHO FEARS GOD AND SHUNS EVIL.
JOB'S INTEGRITY: blamelessness, uprightness, fear for God, and ability to shun evil, made God vouch for him.
CAN God vouch for you as He did for Job? - If a believer committed any SIN, the hedge God has made around such is broken by that act of sin.
YOU give place, an opportunity, to the devil by living in sin (Ephesians 4:27).
• God is the lifter OF the Heads.
HE will lift you up, if you trust in Him.
GREATNESS in God’s kingdom comes through humility and service.
SERVE with all your heart.
IF you had ANY privilege to serve in God's vineyards, DO it with all your heart and with enthusiasm.
• “I cried to the LORD with my voice, And He heard me from His holy hill" (Psalm 3:4).
GOD answers prayers.
SIN hinders your prayers.
YOU cannot be living in SIN and want the grace of God to abound Or increase in your life (Romans 6:1).
- God will hear you if you live right as a believer who claimed to have received Christ as Lord and Saviour.
- If you call on God, bring people’s problems before God as a minister, He will answer you and do what you have asked of Him.
- God raised ministers, His servants, to serve as a medium through which He can reach out to His people.
- Your major assignment as a minister is primarily to wait on God to know what He has to say and to tell His people.
- You wait on Him to get a word for the people He has sent you.
- If you represent God well, whatever you ask Him to do on someone's behalf would be done by HIM (1 Samuel 3:19).
- However, if you do not represent Him well, your word will be nothing before Him.
GOD answers the prayers of the righteous ones.
“Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. THE EFFECTIVE, FERVENT PRAYER OF A RIGHTEOUS MAN AVAILS MUCH."
James 5:16 (NKJV)
• “I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the LORD sustained me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around” (Psalm 3:5,6).
- Fear comes when you do not know the greatness of our God.
- God keeps and sustains His elects or chosen ones—those who fear Him.
- If you lose your fellowship with God, you begin to live in fear: "FOR GOD HAS NOT GIVEN US A SPIRIT OF FEAR, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (1 Timothy 1:7).
- Strength, boldness and courage are through the knowledge of God: "... BUT THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW THEIR GOD SHALL BE STRONG, AND CARRY OUT GREAT EXPLOITS" (Daniel 11:32).
KNOW who God is and who you are in Christ, then you would be able to stand up for your right. - God will arise on your behalf as you abide in Him.
WHEN you focus on the assignment given you by God, He will deal with those who are against you.
• “Arise, O LORD; Save me, O my God! For You have struck all my enemies on the cheekbone; You have broken the teeth of the ungodly. SALVATION BELONGS TO THE LORD. Your blessing is upon Your people” (Psalm 3:7,8).
THE people of God are the redeemed of the Lord.
GOD will arise and save whoever trusted in Him.
SALVATION belongs to the Lord.
- Call on God and He will answer you.
CALL on Him based on the covenant He made with you, when He called you into the work of ministry.
GOD is a covenant keeping God.
• You will not fail in Jesus’ name.
Peace!