According To The Word, Pt 3 - No. 90

Joshua 23:14, “You know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spoke concerning you. All have come to pass for you, and not one word of them has failed.” Read also Joshua 21:45 and 1 Kings 8:56.
 

5. GOD’S GOOD WORKINGS ACCORDING TO THE WORD

Psalm 119:65, “You have dealt well with your servant, O Lord, according to your word.”

The Hebrew word for “dealt well” is “asah” which actually means “to do, to work, to make, to create, to build.”

God’s ultimate plan for us is to transform us into the image of His Son. He wants many sons in the likeness of His Son. He works in us by His Holy Spirit and by the power of His Word to change us into His likeness. The more we allow the Word to dwell in our hearts, the more we will be transformed into the way God wants us to think and live.

God’s Word doesn’t always suit our circumstances but if we know what’s good for us, we’ll put aside our desires and embrace the transforming principles of God’s Word. We will resist our humanistic reasonings and allow God to fill our minds with His life-changing thoughts that He has given us in His Word.

Everything that God has written is for our GOOD. God’s ways are for our best. Deuteronomy 6:24 says, “And the Lord commanded us to do all these statues, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always…” (Deuteronomy 10:12-13)

The Psalmist experienced God’s Words changing him for good. In Psalm 119:67 he confesses, “Before I was afflicted I went astray. But now I keep your word.” Again in verse 71 he says, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn your statutes.”

Allowing God to change us can be painful. It pricks our nest. It is uncomfortable. But who wants to stay the same for the rest of their lives? How boring. God loves us too much to leave us in our shallow, sinful state. He wants to take us on to victory. He wants to lift us up to the overcoming life. He wants to transform our thinking into His thinking.

There can be times in our lives when God’s rhema word comes to us and yet we do not see the fulfillment of it. This happened in Joseph’s life. God revealed Joseph’s destiny to him in two dreams. He was going to be a ruler and his father and brothers would bow down to him. Wow, this was pretty exciting. But things didn’t turn out like the dream. His brothers who were supposed to serve him turned against him. They would have killed him except for the intervention of his brother, Judah. Instead they banished him from their sight and sold him off to merchantmen on their way to Egypt. He was torn away from his beloved father, his family, his country and everything familiar.

Down in Egypt things went from bad to worse. Although he walked in integrity and refused to give into the seducing of Potiphar’s wife, he was falsely accused and thrown in prison. Even when he sought to do the right thing, it turned against him and he was doomed to a dungeon.

Was God’s word false? No. God, who lives in the eternal and who is not bound by time, was working and setting the stage for Joseph’s destiny. In His perfect timing, He delivers Joseph from the prison. Joseph miraculously becomes second-in-command to the Pharaoh of Egypt. Then comes the day, in fulfillment to God’s promise and word, that Joseph’s brothers bow to him.

In that poignant moment when Joseph reveals himself to his brothers and they are reconciled together, he says these words, “God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God…” (Genesis 45:7-8) Again, at the death of his father, he reminds his brothers again, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.” Read these words again… “God meant it for good!”

All the suffering that Joseph endured was ultimately for his good – and not only for his blessing but also for his family and for nations.

Have you received a Word from God? Yet everything is turning out the opposite! Don’t give up on God’s promise to you. God does not work in your time. He works in His time. He sees the future. You can count on Him that He is working everything out for your good! His whole purpose is to do a good work in you.” Philippians 1:6 says, “Being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”

Love from NANCY CAMPBELL

PRAYER:

“Oh Lord, I thank you that you are a good God. I thank you that I can trust your timing to fulfill your purposes in my life. I yield my life to you and to the principles of your good Word. I thank you that you will complete the good work that you have started in me. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION: