Psalm 31:22-24. David wrote these words, “For I said in my haste, ‘I am cut off from before Your eyes’; Nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried out to You. 23 Oh, love the Lord, all you His saints! For the Lord preserves the faithful, and fully repays the proud person. 24 Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord.”
In other words, if you feel like God isn’t listening, just keep pressing on. Just keep praying and trusting Him. If you have to, take these words in Psalm 31 and repeat them to yourself over and over again. Like we talked about last week, use the Word of God and speak to your circumstances.
Notice what David realized about his own experience. David said, “For I said in my haste!” In other words, because David was impatient for the Lord’s blessings - because he couldn’t wait for God to answer his prayers and because he was frustrated with his circumstances - that was why he thought that God wasn’t listening. It was because David was impatient, and David recognized this in the end when he wrote the psalm. He realized that God WAS in fact there and He DID care and He WAS listening. It just didn’t FEEL like it and in David’s impatience, he basically accused God of not hearing him. His impatience changed his perception of reality. So when you FEEL like God isn’t there, try to remind yourself of these words so you don’t make the same mistake.
But have you ever wondered why God works like this? Why does it feel like He always takes so long to answer prayers or give us the things that we ask for? There are really so many answers to this question, and each circumstance is different, but I want to take some time to try to get you to shift your perception. Our next Key to Power, Key # 6, is Perception Shifting. This is done by trying to look at things from God’s perspective instead of your own.
Have you ever considered how most people perceive or view miracles? Really, if you look at miracles closely, there are two types. Most people, however, only recognize the first type, and that is the Supernatural Miracle. Most people think that a miracle is an instant healing that no doctor could perform, or maybe they imagine a person commanding something to happen and then having it happen, like Jesus commanding the storm to be still, turning water to wine, or casting out devils. These are all things most people would term as miracles.
Now let me try to shift your perception. Often if we simply practice shifting our perception of things, we can turn a disaster into a blessing. Nothing changes about our circumstances except that we are looking at things differently. This is VERY important to practice in life. This can be truly powerful if you learn to put it into practice frequently. Again, think of David in the psalm we just read. His perception was that he was cut off from God, but his perception later shifted and he realized that he was just being impatient and hasty. If he’d perceived to begin with that God was still with him and would never leave him or forsake him, he wouldn’t have panicked. He maybe wouldn’t have made some of the dumb mistakes he made.
So, going back to miracles, the first type of miracle is Supernatural, but the second type of miracle is Natural. Natural Miracles are ones that occur almost always over time, and the reason why most don’t really view these miracles as even being miracles is they can be explained by natural phenomenon.
But, did you know that natural miracles are actually the most common and most powerful miracles that God performs in your life? Perception Shift. Did you know that these subtle and “un-miraculous” events are actually greater and more profound examples of God’s power than most of the supernatural miracles that God performed in the Bible?
Now what would lead me to say this, and what does this have to do with why God takes a long time to answer prayers? Well, if you think about it, God has set up rules and regulations to govern everything in the universe. In order to perform a Natural Miracle, God must obey these rules and regulations to get the job done. Supernatural Miracles, on the other hand, occur when God bends or breaks these rules and regulations, making exceptions to them, in order to accomplish something. With Natural Miracles, God has to work WITH people, places and things. With Supernatural Miracles, God bypasses the will of people, places and things and simply does the act.
See? WE look at things from our perspective, the human perspective. We consider the Supernatural Miracle to be the most powerful because we see an instant move of God. Then we’re like, “God exists. See? He did this miracle. There’s no other explanation for it. Wow! So powerful!” This is why, when you really delve into scripture, you find that Supernatural Miracles are actually intended for the unbeliever or the believer who is struggling in their faith. They are meant as signs and wonders to help people see and believe that God is real and He does exist. It actually doesn’t mean they’re more powerful. It just means they’re more flashy and attention-grabbing.
Now look at it from God’s and the angels’ perspectives. Shift your perception to how THEY view it. A good ruler follows the rules more often than He makes exceptions. He does not make rules that He intends to break on a consistent basis. In fact, it is actually more of a sign of weakness for a ruler to make exceptions to His rules instead of abiding by them. If He expects His citizens to abide by the rules, He should too. Right? So, it is a far greater miracle when God accomplishes something through imperfect people and things and natural means than it is when He accomplishes a miracle simply by splitting the skies and saying, “Be healed,” and a person is healed.
Really think about it. In order to accomplish the Natural Miracle, God must arrive at the same “destination” WITHOUT making exceptions to the many laws He has established that are actually standing between Him and the miracle. In other words, to do a Natural Miracle, God must not take the easy way out. He has to line this thing up and then that thing and this and that, all just right so that everything works just the right way at just the right time, and He often has to use sinful, rebellious people, places and things in the process. He has to know us well enough to know how each of us will act and react, accounting for every sin we WILL commit, in order to ensure that everything lines up perfectly to make the Natural Miracle happen.
Therefore, it is a far greater testimony of God’s incredible intelligence and power for God to accomplish a miracle the natural way than if He simply stepped out of heaven and ordered someone’s suffering to end. It’s not always fun for us to endure, but in the end just enduring our own current circumstances for a season gives God more glory among all His creations. And He will bless us all the more afterwards because we were faithful to Him during that time.
Again, to successfully handle this, it usually requires a Perception Shift. Instead of viewing your suffering as this massive, ugly, terrible thing - as hard as it might be - try to view your suffering as an opportunity for Him to do yet another miracle in your life and gain even more glory and honor. Remember. When we are weak, He is strong. When we can’t do something, and we trust Him with it, we give Him room to do miracles in our lives.
And let’s face it, we really tend to blow up and magnify our problems so that they are far bigger than they really are; making mountains out of mole hills. Again, Perception Shift is vital here. WE blow up our problems, freaking out and panicking about them, instead of shifting our perception and viewing them as God sees them - something He has already planned for and He has already worked out - since before we were even born.
And another thing to keep in mind is that when you suffer, God suffers with you. Remember, you and God are ONE. Literally, when you suffer, He suffers. You’re literally not going through it alone. He is literally feeling your pain, and as badly as you want it to end, so does He. So, when we view our suffering, whatever it is, as an opportunity for OUR God to do a miracle in our lives, we amaze even the angels. And, what’s more, we amaze other people in our lives. When they see us suffering, and we’re walking tall and proud and expecting God to get us out of it, this makes God WANT to reward us all the more for everything we endure, just as any proud Father rewards their child who does something painful and hard and handles it like a trooper.
In fact, many don’t realize, but the Early Church put this concept into practice whenever they suffered. They shifted their perception, viewing all suffering as Jesus counting them worthy of enduring just a bit of the suffering He endured for us. They also realized that if we shift our perception in this way, rejoicing even in our sufferings, God WILL reward us for it. So they expected blessings to pour into their lives every time they suffered; knowing their blessings would come afterwards. Again, proud Papa rewarding the child for doing something hard.
But this requires Patience, the 7th Key to Power. Persistence and Patience are basically the same thing, and as Pastor E preached a few weeks ago, you aren’t going to accomplish anything if you aren’t persistent. If you are patient, you will continue doing what needs to be done while you are enduring whatever hardships are coming your way. In order to be persistent, you must practice patience.
This actually brings us to Key # 8. This is one of the hardest things for me to do. Silence/ Restraint. Patience and Silence are like Prayer and Meditation, they go hand-in-hand and unlock the same gateway to power. In order to exhibit patience, you have to learn to bite your tongue and force yourself to not react - REGULARLY. Silence/Restraint is about both NOT speaking and NOT acting, for remember, acting is executing your thoughts, just like speaking.
But, as hard as this might be - Listen: Silence kills pride. Do you want to be more humble? Practice being silent. Pride says, “I did something really good. Everyone! Look at me! Praise me for what I did!” Humility says, “I did something really good, and God knows it. I don’t need anyone else’s praise.” And the person just keeps silent about it and keeps on doing what is right.
Pride says, “Yell and scream and tell everyone you know how difficult everything is that you are going through.” This draws attention to you, and it makes you feel better for a time because you are puffing up your pride. Silence says, “Just don’t say anything. God’s going to take care of it, so I don’t need to draw attention to myself to get me through this. God will get me through this.”
Now, that said, let me be clear. It’s not wrong to share your pain and frustrations with those you are closest to. That’s sharing your burdens. Again, remember, that part of giving is telling others about your problems and allowing them to pray for you and help you through those things.
There is a fine line here, though, so we need to be sure we understand what this line is. It’s all about your motive and intentions. Is your motive positive or negative? If you are sharing your burdens, your intentions are more about coping with your issues. You are sharing them so that others can help you stay sane and endure. You may not even want advice, but you are telling those you trust because you know they aren’t going to do anything bad with what you are saying. They’ll pray for you and try to comfort you while you are going through your hard time.
If your intentions are positive, you also don’t fight to be heard. For example, ever sit in a group with someone who dominates the conversation with all of their issues? That’s pride. They HAVE to just get their issues off their chest, so they talk over people, and they’ll even get upset if someone tries to stop them. A person whose motives are positive won’t fight. They’ll share only if those around them are genuinely wanting to hear it.
And if your motive is to hurt someone, to polarize an issue, that is absolutely pride. Polarize means creating sides. It is turning people against someone or something. It can even be about a political issue or even something religious, and you’re going around slamming everyone who doesn’t agree with your view; fighting and griping and arguing and getting all worked up because of YOUR agenda.
See, practicing Silence says, “Don’t tell others that the person hurt you. Keep it between just the two of you, and go try to work it out with them. Don’t let others know. It’s wrong to taint other people’s views of someone just because of what they did to you. There’s probably something more to it. Go find out why they acted that way. Work it out. Even if they snap at you and argue with you, bite your tongue. Don’t retaliate.” Isn’t that what Jesus did when people accused Him just before He was crucified?
And, to use a Pastor E saying, “Watch this!” If you truly are right, you don’t need to defend yourself. This is HUGE! See? Perception Shift. If you catch yourself defending yourself, somewhere in the back of your mind you know that you’re only doing so because you are wrong. If you’re right, and you know you’re right, you WON’T defend yourself. You’ll speak the truth, and if others don’t listen, that’s on them. That’s not on you. The only time you’ll defend yourself if you ARE right is if someone lures you into it, making you think you need to. In either case, if you find yourself defending yourself, check yourself. Are you REALLY right, or COULD you be wrong and that’s why you’re defending yourself?
I’m telling you, if you learn to bite your tongue and/or stop yourself from acting hastily, you will unlock TONS of power in your life. Marriages can be fixed simply by husbands and wives learning to bite their tongues instead of saying everything that pops into their brains in the heat of the moment. Friendships can be restored simply by kicking down that pride monster inside that wants you to open your mouth and say all sorts of stupid things.
Over and over again, we see it in scripture. Silence is JUST AS important as speaking the Word of God in your life. Learn to stay silent when you’re supposed to, and learn to speak the truth, the Word of God, when you’re supposed to, and it’ll be like magic. Things will start changing dramatically in your life.
And, did you know, this is one of THE main reasons why God is silent in our lives lots of times. He ONLY speaks when He should speak, and He is silent when He shouldn’t speak. He has to be SO careful with His Word because His Word MUST come to pass. Therefore, He is perfect in that He ONLY says what He must say when it is the perfect time to say it, and He is silent ONLY when it is the perfect time to remain silent.
Again… Patience. Looking for the right timing, just like God. We get frustrated when He doesn’t answer us. We get mad at Him and accuse Him of things and cry out, “Why aren’t You answering me?” and He’s up there the whole time thinking, “I can’t. Not yet. It’s not the right time. If it was, TRUST Me. I’d answer you.” If the Lord loves you so much that He’d suffer excruciating pain and die for you, what makes you think He’d put you through something, even His Silence, unless it was necessary?”
Now, our final Key to Power for this lesson is Servitude, the 9th Key. We’re halfway done. In order to fully practice this key, we must understand the differences between Talents, Skills and Spiritual Gifts. Talents are natural abilities that you have that you are good at. A child who can sing well at a very young age is a talented singer. Skills are abilities a person is good at after they’ve worked hard through practice to learn how to do those actions well. A person who isn’t talented at balancing on a beam practices it for hours upon hours and is able to balance perfectly on the beam.
Spiritual Gifts, however, are supernatural abilities given to people by God’s Holy Spirit based on God’s design and purpose for a person’s life - that the person didn’t have before. The Gifts of the Spirit, the Spiritual Gifts, are NOT talents a person is born with or skills a person trains for. No matter how much you practice, you CANNOT acquire a Spiritual Gift.
See, we tend to get these three things confused, and we call them all Spiritual Gifts. According to the Bible, though, Spiritual Gifts are things like: preaching, teaching, encouraging, prophesying, healing, performing miracles and signs, evangelizing, etc. In a sense, they can be LIKE talents. The big difference is that talents come from your parents and ancestors. Spiritual Gifts come from God’s Spirit.
This is why I wanted to first discuss Natural versus Supernatural Miracles. The Gifts are similar in many ways. There are Natural Gifts and Supernatural Gifts; aka Talents and Spiritual Gifts. And before I continue, let me assure you that BOTH are from God. Just as God performs both Natural and Supernatural Miracles, so He, in truth, is the one who grants you both Talents and Spiritual Gifts. In fact, I’ll go a step further and say that even skills are not completely YOUR doing. God’s Spirit helps you train yourself to do something or know something. He gives you the power and ability to succeed so that even skills give Him glory and honor. Skills, however, are you and God working together to get good at something.
But how can we tell the difference between them? Well, talents are kinda easy to recognize because they are things a person is naturally good at from an early age. The person finds it easy to do, and they don’t have to work at it as hard as those who aren’t talented in that thing. It is usually very easy for a person to recognize their own talents.
With skills, like I said, the more you practice, the better you get, so anyone can get good at pretty much anything if they practice at it. How do you know if something you do is a skill? You had to work at getting good, and you may even have to keep working at it to stay good.
But how do you know what your Spiritual Gifts are? Ah, here’s the trick. To keep you humble, God usually makes it so that you can’t really tell by yourself what your Spiritual Gifts are. You might kinda sorta have an idea, but usually you can’t see your Spiritual Gifts in yourself. You need someone to help you identify them. Shoot. You might even think that you’re bad at whatever it is, but others tell you that you’re actually good.
For Example: Ever know someone who is asked to speak who doesn’t normally speak? They tell you they’re no good and they’re a bit shy about it, but they get up at the podium and people are like, “Wow! He/she was really good. They should speak more often.” That is an example of someone with a Spiritual Gift for speaking.
In the Bible, Moses had this gift. He originally told God that he stuttered and couldn’t speak. God gave him Aaron, his brother, to speak for him, not because He had to but because Moses didn’t believe that he had the Gifts of Speaking and Prophesying. But notice, later, Aaron no longer spoke for Moses. Moses just suddenly started speaking all on his own, just as God originally intended, and he was powerful and intimidating at times.
Why does God make Spiritual Gifts this way? Why aren’t they obvious, and what is their purpose? Judges 7:1-2 says, “Early in the morning, Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) and all his men camped at the spring of Harod. The camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh. 2 The Lord said to Gideon, ‘You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’”
In this situation, God basically told Gideon, “I CAN’T use this army because they are too big and strong on their own. If I give them the victory, they’ll claim credit for it.” This same concept applies to us and Spiritual Gifts. If we succeed in something by our own skill or talent, then it isn’t a Spiritual Gift because then it is our natural talents that caused us to succeed. Yes, God gave us those talents to begin with, but we tend to view talents and skills as our own and not gifts from God. So, we often take credit for them. God basically says that He CAN’T - meaning He won’t allow Himself to - work supernaturally through someone or something if they are going to take credit for it.
Now, here’s the thing. If you give credit to, and praise God for, your talents and skills, that’s good. Remember, I said those talents and skills are also from Him. Even if it’s a skill you worked hard for, He was there with you helping you to learn that skill. EVERY good and perfect gift comes from Him, so regardless of whether it’s a Spiritual Gift, Talent or Skill, we should give Him credit always. In fact, if you do this, He will even supernaturally increase your talents and skills, turning them into Spiritual Gifts.
So what does all this matter? I mean, whether it is a Talent, Skill or Spiritual Gift, what should we do? Back to the Keys. Serve. Key # 9. Servitude. So why differentiate? Because it is easy for us to know our talents and skills, but it isn’t always so easy to know our Spiritual Gifts. And yet, it is good for us, and it will help us unlock power in our lives, if we not only use our Talents and Skills for God, but also and especially our Spiritual Gifts.
Why? Because God gets more credit and praise when we use our Spiritual Gifts. Whereas with miracles, the natural gives God more praise than the supernatural, the Spiritual Gifts give God more praise than Talents and Skills. Think about it. How much more incredible is it if someone has never preached in their lives, but they get up and suddenly preach a phenomenal sermon? A talented preacher is incredible, but a preacher who has a Spiritual Gift, who doesn’t preach regularly, is even more unbelievable.
So, it is good to use our talents and skills to serve. We should. Absolutely. However, if you discover one of your Spiritual Gifts, it is even more important that you try to serve by using that gift as much as possible. Spiritual Gifts give more honor and glory to God and they’re a greater witness to the unbeliever. Also, like Silence, they help bring down your pride. Because you know it isn’t you doing the work, your pride is knocked down a few pegs.
Homework for this week: Start trying to think of things in your life that you think you might not be good at, but others tell you that you are. Then maybe try to see if there is a ministry in the church that you can get involved in that will help you use that potential Spiritual Gift. Maybe ask someone you trust for help. To really know what gifts you have, you need to try things out. If you try out a ministry and you discover it is frustrating you and you feel like you’re really no good at it after all, there’s probably no Spiritual Gift there. If there was, you’d be successful. It won’t frustrate you. Remember, Spiritual Gifts are from God, so you WON’T fail. You may not always FEEL like you’re doing a great job, but you ARE. Feedback will exist, and it’ll be positive. Again, you’ll be successful at it. People won’t be able to help but tell you that they appreciated you. The important thing is to explore areas of ministry to discover your gifts. In the meantime, while you are looking for your Spiritual Gifts, don’t neglect your Talents and Skills. God wants you to use all the things He has given you to bless others.
Now, before we stop for today, please keep in mind that God doesn’t necessarily want you to always use all your gifts all the time. So don’t think that just because you’re good at something you HAVE to serve by using that Talent, Skill or Spiritual Gift. God may have actually given that thing to you just to minister to you or someone close to you - and it may have been, or will be, for a specific time.
David played music for Saul, and an evil spirit left him - Talent turned Spiritual Gift. God didn’t give him a gift to chase away evil spirits so that he could go around the entire kingdom and play his music and chase away demons everywhere. It was given to David specifically for Saul at that time. Later, David used his musical gifts to write many praise and worship songs and psalms, but for that particular time in his life, his musical gift was for one person alone.
Your gifts and talents don’t always have to be used in some big way for everyone to see or benefit from. It is between you and God how you use whatever gifts He has given you. The point, though, is that using your gifts is a BIG way to gain greater power in your life. When you do good with the things God has given you, He is inclined to give you more things. The same is true with just about every avenue of your life. If you want to be a more powerful person, do good with what God has given you, even if it is something you think is small.
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