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At a point, God said to the children of Israel, you have stayed on this mountain for too long, move forward. The same word God is giving us. March on, wait for a progressive word from the Lord and move with it. Don’t stand on what God said in 1980 and you feel that is all about it. God is speaking, God is moving. Are you setting yourself properly to hear what he will say?
1 Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2 Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. 3 Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, 4 but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
Matthew 25:1-4. (NKJV)
It talks about the wise and the foolish and it helps us to gain understanding to be wise children of God. This is a posture, this is an attitude. All of them were going on the same journey, they were all going to meet the bridegroom, they all wanted to satisfy God, to please God. This is the same picture of all of us on the kingdom race, some people carry with them an attitude of waiting while others were not ready to wait what I am carrying now must be enough, I am not willing to wait. See what the Bible says “and the bridegroom tarried” because the bridegroom tarried, those that could not wait got tired, their lamp was a representation of them.
Their lamp could not burn anymore because they became tired. They could not march on, they had to turn back because they did not have sufficient attitude of waiting, they had to turn back while those that had the tenacity and strength to wait marched on. This is what God is saying to us, see what He said in verse 13 “watch therefore for neither know the day nor hour the son of man is coming” so you must carry on the attitude of waiting, you must wait on the Lord, you must not give in to being tired or being weary that is when you will be classed as a wise son. They were all born again because they were all virgins. They were all Spirit filled but not all of them could tarry, not all of them could wait and the Bible says those that could wait were classified as the wise.
It is not enough to be Holy Ghost talking, filled with the Holy Ghost and gyrating “I have the gifts of the Spirit”. Are you able to wait on the Lord? It takes an attitude. This is what the Holy Spirit said to me, He said “many of us begin to wait in faith. We start that way. God can do it, I believe God then later we move to God will do it, at this point, we have moved to hope.” The Bible says “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” so when God is stretching the container of the hope, we tend to be tired. You say “I have been hoping for 10 years, I have been hoping for seven years, nothing is forth coming, I am tired.”
And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13 (NKJV)
Have you been waiting in faith? It’s good, but a preliminary phase, have you been waiting in hope? It’s also good but it’s a secondary phase. Where God wants to take you and I is to where we wait on him in love. We are not just waiting in faith, we are not just waiting in hope. We are waiting in love.
For example, I remember when I and my husband were in the university. We both went to the same university. When we were in school, we were friends and I just knew he was going to be great in the future, no personal thing attached. He had always liked me from day one. He had always liked me in faith. Later on, when we left the university and went on our way and at that point he could not see me again and we were not as close as we were. With faith, you have a close contact, you believe. So, at the point, where there was distance, it had turned to hope that one day this person would still be my wife. Now, when God stepped into the situation and made sure that his hope did not become deferred.
Listen to Podcast: March On, Do Not Be Tired! – Discover The Love-Side of Waiting on God
He gave him a word and he shared it and at that point, he was still hoping. But the time came when I said yes, it wasn’t just faith and hope, it transited to love. Now this is it; even though I was far away he was not hoping, he was waiting for me in love knowing that she will come. And when I was also waiting, there was a time we were one year apart, our relationship was almost a distance relationship, then we were 6 months apart and at that point, I was also waiting and I was waiting in love. Many people came, and I will just look at them and say “I’m sorry am engaged” and I could say that because there was a word, there was a transaction. And I believe in the faithfulness of my partner. He has transited from faith and hope to love.
You could ask me at that time “why are you waiting on this guy?” Do you know what He is doing there? For me “I just love him, I know he can’t be doing anything. In fact God is taking care of him just like God is taking care of me where I am.” That is love. The same way when we enter a transaction with God, it’s not just faith, not just hope but we must get to the point of love. And that was the point where the three Hebrew brothers got to. They said “we believe our God so much, we can’t bow to your graven image and we can’t bow to you. Our God is able to save us and if he decides not to save us we rather perish because of our love for him.” A person in hope and faith will not enter that fire if God has not shown up but a man in love is a blind man.
In 1st Corinthians chapter 13, if you read from verse 1 it’s a description of love. It says “love suffers long, love is kind, love does not behave rudely, it does not rejoice in iniquity.” And verse 8 says “love never fails,” that’s why God didn’t fail them. He showed up. That’s the same approach God wants us to have in waiting; waiting in love. Even if he does not show up, He was faithful yesterday, two days ago He was faithful, He is still faithful today. I know whom I believe. That’s why Job, in the face of persecution, humiliation even when his wife came and said “curse God and die.” He said “No! I know my redeemer liveth”. That’s a man covered in sores, a man that lost everything. He was not hoping, he was in love and he was waiting in love. And that’s where God wants us to get to.
You are not waiting on God in faith, you are not waiting in hope alone, you are waiting in love. The truth is while you are waiting, the devil will come and mock you. But when you say “what God has said to me in the public and in the private, I believe it; He has not failed before and over me, He won’t fail so I am waiting on him.” That was what Job did; he waited on him until God restored double everything he had lost for his trouble. God showed up.
If wait in faith and in hope you can be tired but there is a fire that love brings, you don’t just get tired, you don’t just get weary because God will come to you again and speak to you and comfort your soul and you are on fire again. This is the word of the Lord to us, march on don’t be tired. Wait on the Lord in love, love him with all of your heart, with the whole of your soul. When you love a person, you love everything about him. There is nothing bad they will say about him that you will see it. That was the problem with Adam and Eve, their love for God was not sincere because if they love God genuinely, what the devil said wouldn’t have been taken seriously.
Their response would have been “we are okay. Just leave us.” How much do we love God because if we love him, we will believe everything He says? When you love someone you don’t find faults, you would rather defend the person. How much do we defend God? How much are we committed to him because love talks about commitment? As we are waiting on the Lord throughout our lives, it must be in love. And we must march on with this word. I pray the Lord will help us in Jesus name.
