The Weekly Word: Born For Breakthrough
The weekly verse
”Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.“
Proverbs 13:12 (BSB)
the weekly question
Are you living in light of god’s amazing grace?
Beginning in verse 39 of Matthew Ch. 12, we find an interesting exchange between Jesus & the religious people that continued to oppose Him. In an obvious effort to invalidate Jesus’ divine authority, these people demanded a miraculous sign from Him. But instead of revealing another demonstration of His power, Jesus directed their attention to the example of Jonah the prophet.
Jesus used Jonah’s 3-day experience in the belly of a fish as a prophetic illustration of the 3 days in which He Himself would lie dead before His resurrection (Matthew 12:40). For the unbelieving crowd, this was a testimony against their unwillingness to turn from evil & turn back to God. But for those who believe in Jesus, the story of Jonah bears witness to the Life we possess in believing the Good News of Christ.
”The Lord gave this message to Jonah son of Amittai: “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.” But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the Lord. He went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket and went on board…But the Lord hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to break the ship apart.
Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship. But all this time Jonah was sound asleep down in the hold…since the storm was getting worse all the time, they asked him, “What should we do to you to stop this storm?” “Throw me into the sea,” Jonah said, “and it will become calm again. I know that this terrible storm is all my fault.”
Instead, the sailors rowed even harder to get the ship to the land. But the stormy sea was too violent for them, and they couldn’t make it. Then they cried out to the Lord, Jonah’s God…Then the sailors picked Jonah up and threw him into the raging sea, and the storm stopped at once! The sailors were awestruck by the Lord’s great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him.“
Jonah 1:1-5, 11-16 (NLT)
Like the sailors who “tried to row even harder to get to safety” (verse 13), we all face the impossible task of trying to save ourselves from the storm of God’s wrath. But it's only in crying out to Him that we begin to understand that there’s only One Solution that can satisfy the storm.
Though Jesus was innocent, He chose to carry the rebellion of Jonah (our rebellion) as if it were His own (Isaiah 53:4). When Jonah was thrown into the “sea”, this was also a picture of Jesus dying for the sins of the entire world. With one example after another, we find an ongoing illustration of grace.
Like the “awestruck sailors”, we should also be amazed by the grace of our salvation from The Lord. We should “offer our lives as living sacrifices” (Jonah 1:16), because the wrath we deserved has been undone. Since we now have peace with God, we should glorify His Son.
the weekly Consideration
”Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying: “Whom shall I send? Who will go for Us?” And I said: “Here am I. Send me!”
Isaiah 6:8 (BSB)
As Believers, it’s natural to ask Jesus to be with us wherever we go & to bless us in whatever we do. But it’s important that we never lose sight of His Lordship in our life. We have to bear in mind that we were bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 6:20), and as such, we’re no longer living for our own self-centered interests.
As people of His Kingdom, we need to live with a supernatural heart-posture of humility. This reinstates Jesus as The Lord of our life, and enables us to listen to what He has to say. The more we learn to abide in His daily direction, the more we bear fruit that makes an eternal impact. At the end of the day, we need to ask God’s Spirit to cultivate a heart that declares:
“Lord, I want to be where You are & go where You’re going. Order every step of faith I take, and bless the work of Your Kingdom & the contribution I’m called to make.”
the weekly challenge
Believe for breakthrough
”I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob; I will collect the remnant of Israel. I will bring them together like sheep in a pen, like a flock in the midst of its pasture…One who breaks open the way will go up before them; they will break through the gate, and go out by it. Their King will pass through before them, the Lord as their leader.“
Micah 2:12-13 (BSB)
In a world in which so many are led to the point of breakdown, it’s vital that we recognize Jesus as the Person of Breakthrough. Moment by moment, challenge after challenge, and even in the aftermath of what we go through, we always have a choice to make.
We can choose to believe the lies of the enemy. The lies that make us feel trapped and believe there’s no way out. The lies that darken our ability to perceive what’s good & right in the midst of all that’s wrong. Even the lie that suggests, “unfortunately, this is just as good as it’s going to get.” Or we can take God at His Word.
Through faith, we can see that Jesus is always The Way out. Through faith, we can find Light where others see only darkness. And through faith, we can stake our confidence in The One who was, who is, and is still to come. Our God is The King of Breakthrough, and we believe this is always the direction He leads His people into.
”I am convinced and confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will [continue to] perfect and complete it until the day of Christ Jesus [the time of His return].“
Philippians 1:6 (AMP)
we pray this week’s edition of “the weekly word” blesses you & the lives of those around you!
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