And then…………..David encouraged himself in the Lord

And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God. 1 Samuel 30: 1 KJV

 Text: 1 Samuel 30: 1-8

The Lord says He is our help in ages past. We see in verse 8 that before David made a move he asked God first. Rather than live in peace with one another we are fighting ourselves. We must come together and work in unity to fight against the common enemy.

God is saying to us, ‘it is time for us to arise’. As a people, as a nation it is important to live for the common goal.

Have you you asked God for a way forward? Are you discouraged? Have your people turned against you? Have you lost everything and the ones closest to you risen up against you? It is time for you to look inwards and encourage yourself. Let the courage to move on and overcome from Him who has all the answers.

David encouraged himself in the Lord. Instead of him to fight with the ones closet to him that wanted to stone him because they have lost their wealth and family while following him; he chose to turn to God. He didn’t take a step without first looking to God and asking for His will.

David said God my peace, my strength, the redeemer of my soul; see the number of people who have risen up against me. Even my own brothers have risen up against me.

God was there to fight the battle and give him victory; for there is nothing that is impossible for the Almighty to do.

God is ready and waiting to arise for you today, this minute. All He is waiting for is for you to come to Him. David asked specific questions of God. David did not need to go to the mountain, nor did he need to seek out a prophet. All he did was to put God first; he worshiped God and sought the face of the Lord.

God said to David ‘you will overcome and recover all’. David went and it was exactly as God had said to him. David pursued and caught up with the enemy; he did not only catch up but recovered all that was taken from them and much more.

What is that reason why you are discouraged? Have you lost hope? Present your letters or petitions before the God of all that you can think of or behold. A king did this and got a most favourable response from the Lord.

Hezekiah got a letter from an enemy king regarding a war. Hezekiah took the letter and spread it before the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the one who’s mercy endures forever and ever. 2 King 19:14  And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD. 

For God to continually be involved in your case

• You must be in agreement with God. Can two walk together except they be agreed? Amos 3: 3. 
• You must have faith and trust in the Lord and in His word. 
• You must study the word. Study to show yourself approved as a workman who need not be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth 2 Timothy 2: 15
• Learn to praise God in spite of every situation or condition that we find ourselves in. 
• Pray without ceasing; seek the face of God by yourself for yourself. 

Who do you say you are? Pt 3

And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then shew me a sign that thou talkest with me. Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come again. Judges 6: 17-18 KJV

Text: Judges 6: 11- 18

You are what God says you are. Until you have an encounter with God you can never know who you really are. So God said to Gideon, “you are a mighty man of valour”.

I want to tell you as you read this that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. My prayer is that you discover who you really are. We have governors who are governing sheep; Moses was governing sheep for his father-in-law instead of governing the children of Israel. For a long time Joseph was governing in Portiphar’s household when he was destined to be govern over nations. So there are many people under-performing. As a matter of fact almost 90% of the world’s population is actually under performing. Then again, a lot of people have died and will die never knowing who they really are and what they could have become. If Joseph had died a day before Pharaoh had the dream he would have died a prisoner. Then they would have written the epitaph of Joseph to read “Joseph stolen from his father’s house, became a houseboy, found himself in prison and died there”. You know in this life you are remembered only for the things that you did and not the things you could have done.

So you must aspire to do all that you need to do before you expire here on earth.

1. Gideon had no relationship with God, he had not yet experienced God so he thought that God had forsaken His people. What was God doing? God was working extra hard to turn their situation around. God never leaves you, He never forsakes you; He is always looking for ways to solve your problem. He is looking for ways and means to make opportunities happen for you. He is looking for ways and means to transform the mess you have put yourself in. Here you are thinking that God has abandoned you and yet God is working extra hard to make life better for you. I want you to have this at the back of your min, “ALL THINGS are working together for my good”. 
2. The enemy was attacking. The Midianite had come against them and therefore he was hiding. There was an attack over his life; whether we believe it or not the enemy is attacking a lot of us, they are coming against us.  So we are fearful and in hiding like Gideon. Whether you know them or not, whether you have offended them or not; there are some people who just do not want you to succeed in life. Nobody can say what the Israelite did to the Midianites but they came against them. It is very naive to think you can go through this world and this world would be fair. It is naive to go through this world thinking everybody would give you a chance. Naive to think that because you have not offended anybody you are going to go free. There are some people you don’t offend but merely looking at you they are angry with you. Anywhere you go in life there will be someone who doesn’t like you for any given reason; you dress too nicely, you don’t dress nice, you talk too much, you have too many friends, you know the right people, your speak good English, you have a good job, the list is endless. Just focus on what you have to do because it is impossible to please everybody. If you go around wanting to please everybody, you will end up displeasing God and hurting yourself.
3. His father was an idol worshipper. If you come from a family of idol worship it puts you on a bad foot right from day 1. it puts you in an area of fear and neglect. 

The important thing is this, out of all the things that was restricting Gideon 7 was inside of him and 1, only one was against him. The enemies attacking, the remaining 7 were inside of him. This means that most of the failures that we experience is inside us and only one is from outside.

A lot of us focus more on the outside and don’t do anything on what is going on on the inside of us. You are the one making yourself fail because you have written failure into your being. If you can get rid of the 7 the one outside will fall. The minute Gideon got rid of the seven the one outside fell.

Who do you say you are? Pt. 2

And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then shew me a sign that thou talkest with me. Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come again. Judges 6: 17-18 KJV

Text: Judges 6: 11- 18

There are many reasons why Gideon was not the success he had the potential to be. One is very obvious and I have already mentioned it but there are a few other reasons.
Gideon was not the success he had the potential to be because

1. He was afraid. What does this mean? If you entertain fear you cannot express faith. There are many people today who are going about the world, they look bold, they look confident and in control but deep down they are fearful and they lack confidence. I used to be like that; I used to dress well, I used to be brash but really deep down I was a little bit nervous, anxious and empty inside. There are many like that. If you are deeply fearful you cannot express faith and you cannot succeed.
2. Gideon didn’t know who he was. What did he say? He said “I am the least in my father’s house”. A man can be one of 4 people; 

• Who the world has constrained you to be. A lot of the time we are constrained by the world. The bible says that some men are eunuchs because they have been made so by the world. Some men made themselves eunuchs while some are so because they perceived they were born that way. A lot of us have been put in a certain compartment, in a certain place by the world. The problem with most of us is that we chose to remain there. There are of us who people have told us that this is who we are and we have accepted this
• A man is who he thinks he is. This time around it is Gideon saying to himself that he is the least in his father’s house and his father’s family is the least in the tribe of Manasseh. That is what he told himself; it is he that put himself in that situation. A lot of us think in our mind who we think we are. There are some people that can’t look you in the eye, some people that are always bending down, because they have looked at themselves and said of themselves “I can never ever be a success”. It is all really in your mind, whether you will be a success or not is a choice that we make. I have never read anywhere in the bible where a person is referred to as ugly. God does not create an ugly person, what He does is to create a person suited to the purpose each will carry out in life. So you are what you say to yourself that you are. 
• A man is who people say he is. That is why Jesus spoke to His disciples and asked ‘what do men say that I am?” A lot of people have become what people say they are. When somebody says to you that this is what you are, you go back thinking in your mind that the person must be right and you are possibly wrong. 
• A man is who God says he is, whom God has created him to be. In Judges 6: 12 the Lord said to Gideon that he is a mighty man of valour, this is who God has created him to be. 

It means therefore ladies and gentlemen that if you don’t know God you cannot be who you are. No matter how rich or successful you think you are, if you do not know God you cannot truly know who you are. You just go through life thinking that this is who you are but you don’t really know WHO you are. There are many rich people around the world, rich or wealthy by privilege or opportunity, by  virtue of their birth, or God working in their direction but at the end of the day every worldly thing they have accounts to nothing because they don’t really know who they are.

Who do you say you are?

And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then shew me a sign that thou talkest with me. Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come again. Judges 6: 17-18 KJV

Text: Judges 6: 11- 18

The above passage is a true story of a man Gideon who judged the people of Israel after they got to the promised land. It happened after Joshua had died and at that time they appointed all sorts of Judges to look after the affairs of Israel, There were no Kings because what they had was a Theocracy; God ruling His people Himself through the mouth and  the voice of the Judges and the Prophets. But from time to time the children of Israel would forget their God and do all sorts of evil; whoring, adultery, fornication, idolatry, lasciviousness, enjoying life and God will be angry with them and He will make them weak.

As a result of their sinful act and disobedience God would allow the enemies that surrounded them, the enemies that the children if Israel didn’t refuse to destroy when they entered the promised land, to give them a hard time. This was one of the situations where a group of people called the Midianite, came and they attacked Israel and they laid siege on the them that things were so bad that there was a lot of shortage of food and people could not freely express themselves.

There was a man who’s name was Joash an Isrealite who had a son called Gideon; and Gideon I perceived must have been the youngest , the least favoured child of that family. He was there hiding by the wine press.

The wine press was a hidden part of the house where people could not easily access but they also had a place called the threshing floor which was typically to the left side of the house where people would bring their wheat harvest to thresh and bring out the grain.

This time around they had a little bit of a harvest and instead of threshing it on the threshing floor or where people could see him, Gideon went to thresh it at the back of the wine press to hide it from the Midianites because he didn’t want them to know that they had any form of nutrition. Or he was afraid that if the Midianites attack them, they would take again the food that the family had to survive on.
There are some questions I want you to ask yourself. Questions which are important to understanding the topic. My question to you is this;

• Why was Gideon hiding in the threshing floor?
• Why was he not the success that he had the potential to be?
• What was the reason why Gideon was hiding?