THE GREATER MANIFESTATION
God is a God of circumstances. I am so glad that He is, for life is made up of circumstances. Everyone’s life is full of circumstances. Many of the circumstances that we face are completely independent of who we are, whether or not we are serving God:
…he maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5:45)
God sends His blessings of sun and rain upon both the good and evil because He is a God of love.
Many of the circumstances of our lives are man-made or self-made and are brought about through our own actions or those of people and events around us. My mail every week brings thousands of letters from people in all sorts of situations, facing all kinds of circumstances. Some of these circumstances have come upon these dear friends through no fault of their own, while others have come because they are reaping the results of bitter seeds they have sown by past actions.
I have discovered that many of the circumstances facing people are things they have allowed to come into their lives and allowed to disrupt and disturb them because of their lack of understanding of what the circumstances of life are all about. Many are good Christian people who love the Lord, and yet they have found themselves “between a rock and a hard place” because they do not know how to cope with their circumstances. They do not recognize the purpose for the mountains of life’s circumstances that seemingly block their progress.
In the natural, many circumstances are crushing burdens, beyond our ability to cope with or to bear. In the natural, there often seems to be no answer, but we are not living in the natural. We are living in the blessing of the Almighty God for Whom nothing is impossible!
There is never a time when we do not have the answer, because Jesus is the Answer to every circumstance of life. Not only is God in control of all of life’s circumstances, He sovereignly uses circumstances so He can manifest His power and glory in the midst of seemingly adverse factors.
When Lazarus was sick to the point of death, Mary and Martha sent for Jesus, but He stayed where He was for two more days. By the time He arrived at Mary and Martha’s house, Lazarus was dead and in the tomb. Lazarus’s sickness had, in the natural, grown worse — he was dead. But because of this, Jesus was able to manifest His glory in a greater way. He had already done many miracles of healing. You might say that the healing of the sick had become almost commonplace to His ministry. Here, He was able to demonstrate God’s authority over an every more adverse circumstance by raising the dead (John 11:43-44).
Make this declaration:
Jesus is the answer to every circumstance of my life. He sovereignly uses my circumstances to manifest His power and glory in the midst of seemingly adverse factors. John 11:1-45
