Jesus first!

Upon who or what will you rely on? “If everything you know is shaken….. Will you trust God? Will you stand with Jesus? Will you set your feet upon the rock? I believe that there comes a time in every believer’s life where everything they thought they knew will be shaken. If they were here with us today, you could ask James, John, and Peter and the rest of the disciples that walked with Jesus. They would be able to tell you what it felt like when the one they loved, the one they followed and left everything for, was crucified. See, everyone that walks with Jesus will at one time or another, go through a season where the dream seems as it has is suddenly gone. It will seem as if it is dead. It is called the testing of your faith. (See James chapter 1) But if you wait on the Lord, if you cling to him with everything in you, you will come out lacking nothing. The trials are like a refiner’s fire. They will purify you but only if you will submit everything to Jesus. Don’t doubt, don’t analyze, don’t criticize, simply trust.

James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

The Passion Translation: My fellow believers, when it seems as though you are facing nothing but difficulties see it as an invaluable opportunity to experience the greatest joy that you can! 3 For you know that when your faith is tested[c] it stirs up power within you to endure all things. 4 And then as your endurance grows even stronger it will release perfection into every part of your being until there is nothing missing and nothing lacking.

The Message translation: Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

We are not to try to get out of hardships! I know that sounds contradictory to all we know. There are times when the enemy attacks and we wage spiritual warfare with all we have. The enemy is a thief and he comes to steal, kill, and destroy. We are not to let him! But there are seasons in our lives where I believe that all the spiritual warfare and all the intercession and laying on of hands, etc… is not going to bring us to where we need to be because there is a process that we need to go through. Remember it was the Spirit that led Jesus into the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by Satan. Also, remember what Jesus prayed to the Father right before the Roman soldiers came for him. He asked that if were possible that the cup be taken from him but nevertheless, “Not my will, but Your will be done.”. Calvary was a process Jesus had to endure for your sake and mine.

Every believer goes through a season or seasons of the testing of their faith. But remember in James, the testing of your faith develops perseverance. The amplified version says “Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience. But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work so that you may be perfectly & fully developed lacking in nothing.

Let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work… Endurance for what? 2 Timothy 4:7 says: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. The Message says it like this: You take over. I’m about to die, my life an offering on God’s altar. This is the only race worth running. I’ve run hard right to the finish, believed all the way.

This folks is a process. Dictionary: a natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular result. Did you catch that??? Gradual changes. We want someone to lay hands on us, someone to prophecy to us, or even someone to deliver us but we fail to forget when it comes to being perfect...to becoming like Jesus.. There are no overnight successes. It is a process. We must submit to God’s process and let Him develop us. It may seem like we are in the darkroom of the Spirit and it is very negative!!! But God saw the complete picture even before you were born! He created that picture in the first place! He spoke it into being! He is the photographer… only He saw the photograph ahead of time. Now you find yourself in the darkroom and He is developing. Remember that a film or negative looks like the opposite of what the final photo is to be. But that film (you) have to go through the process of being developed.

To God the most important thing is relationship. You are not to have anything else before Him and nothing else that would interfere with His process of perfecting you. During the process, it is crucial that Christ is your foundation because there will be times when the process is hard and painful and you will even wonder how you will survive. You must not take your eyes of your beloved: Jesus, the author, and finisher of our faith.

The Lord showed me 4 different processes that as believers we go through. This is not by any means a complete list and I am barely touching the surface of them here. There can easily be more studies on them. This is straight out of my journal after reading James 1:2-4. As the Message translation so beautifully puts it: “don't’ try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do it’s work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.”

Submit yourself wholly to God During the process. Let Him take you through whatever process He is allowing to take place in your life. See it as a teaching moment.

1. Perhaps you are going through the winepress. Through the crushing and through the waiting (as good wine ages) allow Him to complete the process of making new wine. Making wine involves bruising and crushing. There’s no getting around it. Remember you are a new creation. You can’t fill old wineskins with new wine. Allow Him to give you new wineskins to contain the wine. New wine must always be poured into new wineskins. - Luke 5:28 If you are going through the process of the winepress, you can trust the Master, the owner of the vineyard in the process. Remember, Christ is the vine. (He is also the master wine-maker who turned water into wine. You are the branch. Stay attached to Him and you will bear good fruit. You can be one whose life is poured out for others.

2. Perhaps you are going through the process of the refiner's fire. Although the fire is hot and all-consuming, allow Him to be your all-consuming fire, a fire that burns out all the dross, all the impurities until all that is left is pure gold. Gold is symbolic of the glory of God. Although He will not share His glory with another, He wants you to be a carrier of His glory. However, the glory can only be carried by a vessel that is pure. If you want to be a glory carrier, you must submit to the process of the refiner's fire. Remember, like with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo, there was a 4th man in the fiery furnace. Jesus is always with you as you go through the refiner’s fire. Isaiah 48:10 says Behold I have refined you but not as silver. I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. Job 23:10 When he has tried me, I shall come out as gold. Proverbs 17:3 The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts. 1 Peter 4:12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange was happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

3. Perhaps you are going through the process of the Potter’s wheel. You get used to being shaped one way, or used for one purpose, only to find out the Potter is not done shaping you! Isaiah 29:16 Who is more intelligent—the potter or the clay? Should a created thing say to its creator, ‘You didn’t make[a] me’? Should a clay pot say to the potter, ‘You don’t understand’?” The potter decides the finished shape and purpose of the clay. Isaiah 64:8 Yet still, Yahweh, you are our Father. We are like clay and you are our Potter. Each one of us is the creative, artistic work of your hands. Don’t struggle on the potter’s wheel. Trust that your Father, the master potter, knows best how to shape you, how to mold you, according to His purposes and plans for your life which are always way better than any plans or purposes you could ever have for yourself. Jeremiah 29:11. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. The reshaping may hurt temporarily but the plans of the Lord are for a hope and a good future! If you find yourself in the process of the Potter’s wheel, trust, be patient, be thankful, and know that the Potter is making you into a vessel of honor.

4. Perhaps you are finding yourself in the process of the threshing floor. Did you know that the Temple was built on a threshing floor? And you are the temple of the Holy Ghost!! King David bought the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 2 Samuel 24:15-16. Verses 18-24 says: So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 50 shekels of silver. Then David built an altar to Adonai and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. So Adonai was moved by prayer of entreaty for the lad and restrained the plague from Israel. (An angel was going to destroy Jerusalem) It was on that site that the first temple was built, and the second temple. Today the Dome of the Rick stands in its place.

Threshing is essentially dividing - separating the wheat from the chaff. Psalm 1:3-says the wicked are not so...for they are like chaff that the wind blows away. John the Baptist says of Jesus: His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He shall clear the threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn, but the chaff He shall burn up with inextinguishable fire. Matthew 3:12. This specifically talks of those who belong to Jesus and those who don’t. Luke 22:31-32 Jesus says “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. “ Yes, the enemy does come to sift us, because he comes to steal kill, and destroy. But God will bring us through a threshing process when there needs to be a separation of something that is in our lives. (think back to carnal nature, flesh) Like the winepress, this is a crushing process. The purpose when God brings us through this process is not for our destruction but to destroy all that is not of Him. He is separating in our lives all that is holy from all that is not. For a season God will allow both to grow together but there comes a time when everything the old has to go. There is a separation of the wheat and the chaff.

The testing of your faith will develop perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete and not lacking anything. During this process, you must remain close to Jesus. John 15 - stay grafted in the vine. Apart from HIm, you can do anything. It’s all about relationship with Him. The single most important thing that there is and that there ever will be is your relationship with almighty God. Your relationship with Yahweh.

See, He is a jealous God and He will not share you with another. He won’t share you with your religion, He won’t share you with your calling, (even though the calling is from Him) He won’t share you with your dreams, He won’t share you even with your family. Not even your spouse if you are married. You are married to Him first. The things in this world will all eventually pass away. The only things that stand forever are Kingdom-birthed. Sometimes He will bring you to a place where all you have to offer to Him is your brokenness. In that place, you will wipe his feet with your tears but He will take your broken heart and give you a brand new one!

Kainos: This is the season we are in right now. He is not restoring what was. He is doing something brand new inside of you! Kainos: a new kind, unprecedented, uncommon, unheard of. Never before known or experienced, unexampled, and unparalleled. We can’t cling to the old. Our old patterns, old habits, old mindsets, what is familiar and comfortable. It is a process. You are not that old person. You rose with Christ a new person. But Christ needs to be first. It’s not about ministry, being religious or spiritual. It’s about your personal relationship with the Father through Christ. Christianity isn't religion, it's relational!

When everything you know is shaken, remember upon whom you stand and remember to whom you belong!