BeyondSeeLevel

In Isaiah chapter 39, King Hezekiah had been sick on the verge of dying. But the Lord promised to give him fifteen more years of life. After the king recovered, the king of Babylon sent King Hezekiah letters and a gift because he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick but was now well. Hezekiah was so pleased that he showed the Babylonian messengers all of his wealth. When Isaiah, the prophet, asked Hezekiah what exactly did he show the messengers, Hezekiah told him “They saw everything in my palace. I showed them all of my wealth.” Isaiah then told Hezekiah what God had to say about the matter. He told Hezekiah that in the future, everything in his palace and everything his ancestors had stored up until that day, would be taken away to Babylon. Nothing would be left. Even his own children born to him would be taken away. Hezekiah thought that was a good word since God promised him more years of life. But Hezekiah failed to realized that the promise was for a longer life, not for a longer life without any hardships or problems. When Hezekiah asked God to save his life, he reminded God of all he had done right in his lifetime. He told God that he had given his entire life to Him and obeyed Him. He wanted God to consider these things and heal his body and let him live. God did just that. Perhaps, Hezekiah felt that God allowed him to live because he was so worthy and deserving after he laid out his resume’–instead, of the fact that God was simply merciful and gracious enough to preserve Hezekiah’s life to be a vessel that would testify and bring glory to God, Himself. King Hezekiah did what many of us do when we’re proud of what we have. Some call it boasting. Others call it testifying. Instead of Hezekiah taking that opportunity to boast about the goodness and mercy God has showed him, he chose to boast about his own wealth. In that moment, God got no glory from Hezekiah because he was too busy glorifying himself and his own possessions. Hezekiah could have capitalized on that moment to testify how good God had been to him. He could have painted the picture of just how sick he was and was about to die. He could have told the messengers about how he cried out to the Lord and how the Lord had heard his cry. He could have told them about how when God makes a promise, He keeps it. But he didn’t.
Whenever God chooses to bless us or preserve our lives, He intends to use us as vessels to glorify Himself. Hezekiah would be stripped of his possessions because he allowed pride to come in and cause him to make his life and his blessings about himself. He was too busy boasting as one king to another, flossing all of his possessions to prove his own power. He said nothing about the power of God that gave him those possessions or that saved his life.

We can learn a few things from Hezekiah in this biblical account.

1. He was preserved to glorify God, not himself.
2. He was promised a longer life because God was so good, not because he was so good.
3. It’s ok to expect God to reward us for our obedience. But don’t cross the line of feeling entitled.
4. God’s promises are very specific. Read the fine print. He will definitely do what He said He would do–not what you assumed He would do.
5. God can fulfill His promises to do good in your life and punish you for doing wrong at the same time.

So the next time you ask God for a blessing, make sure when you tell Him, “Lord, I’ll be careful to give You all the honor, all the glory and all the praise”, that it’s not just religious rhetoric. Make sure you’re not praying a lie to the Lord. Make sure you keep your promise, cause He will definitely keep His. God makes the promise for His own praise, not for our personal pomp.

*Tressa Jo

Relationships are contaminated because people are contaminated. I don’t think it necessarily started with this generation either. But I do think it’s been severely “contaminated” and influenced by a shift from biblical standards for (marital) relationships over several generations. Whenever people do come together, the foundations are so shaky and insecure, they seldom last. More specifically, for people of God, we have allowed the world’s systems to shape our views and relationship goals, more than God’s purpose and plan for woman/man relationships. There’s been a major conforming to this world’s systems. (Romans 12:2) And it started with us first allowing the world to shape our views, goals standards and expectations for the womanhood and manhood. We’ve deviated from the biblical design of masculinity and femininity so much that we’ve lost touch with our purpose. And because we’re so disconnected from our God-design, it makes sense to me, that we’re not able to produce God-relational products–the kind that last and glorify Him. I also think that we are so pleasure-driven, carnal minded and shallow, we can’t even identify qualities that would even make for lasting relationships anymore. We’re too busy trying to be a “Power Couple” but don’t even have “Self Power”. And we sure don’t have any Holy Ghost power.  Individually, we may be secularly successful, have status and money. But  we also have so many character deficiencies. And instead of us working on those, we search high and low for someone that will accept our crap, enable us in it and won’t challenge us to do and be better. And whenever someone has expectations of us to change, grow or do better, (or at least measure up to God’s expectations of you) we X them out as just not being for us, thinking they’re too good or say they’re judging us. In other words, we don’t want to be in relationships of accountibility that mandate growth. But we seek out relationships that enable our dysfunctions and weaken our character.

Many want to blame the area of technology and social media. But we can’t blame it on social media.  Social media is just a display. But it’s not the disease.

I think that dialogues about woman-man relationships are often consumed ( and further contaminated) with “how” we come together (talk, text, FaceTime, hookup, meet at church, at a party, etc.). Which will only touch the cosmetics of the relationship. Then we talk about “when” we come together. Talked for 3 months, dated for a year, engaged after…etc. Which addresses our controls. But we need to zero in on the “why” we come together. This is the only way we will connect to the Purpose of our relationships–Our purpose and God’s. This is when we have to face the reality of our own agenda vs God’s design. We’ll be fixed on trying to figure out who the next one will be. But won’t give time to dissect our “Why”. If we did that, we’d realize that we’re motivated by things that should only stimulate us, and stimulated by the things that should actually be motivating us.

Now, we have to consider what’s motivating us as we pursue relationships–even in our marriages. Are our intentions contaminated? Is glorifying God the goal? Do we really expect to keep desiring and developing relationships outside of God’s will, design and plan, and get a God product at the end?

*Tressa Jo

A man can be wow’d about a lot of things about you as a woman. He can be wow’d about your pretty hair. He can be wow’d about your pretty smile. He can be wow’d about your body. He can be wow’d about your success and accomplishments. He can be wow’d about your status. He can even be wow’d about how much you’re wow’d about him. But as a woman of God, when a man is wow’d about the God in you, you got something worth building on. The man that recognizes and values the God in you and not just the part that keeps you faithful to him, will value you when all those other things fade or fail because he was never motivated them. Stimulated? Yes. He’s a man. But he was motived by the kind of heart you possessed and how it was exemplified in your life and lifestyle. He values the part of you that points to heaven and will encourage and assist you in building on it. And when he finds you, he recognizes that he obtains favor from the Lord. That’s for the man that’s looking for a wife, not just access to a woman.

Just because a man wants you really bad, doesn’t mean that he’ll value you. He can appreciate all of your attributes, but never really value you. But in order to make sure he values you, you have to value yourself first. Everything that you ARE and everything that you ARE NOT, is enough for the right man.

*Tressa Jo

A lot of us make the mistake of trying to validate people’s loyalty to us when we’re going through hard times. But when we’re going through hard times, it’s not about validating other people’s loyalty to us. It’s about God validating our loyalty to Him. Sometimes, God will kick the people crutches right from underneath you in order to show you the validity of your reliance on Him. In other words, don’t consume yourself being upset with human, fleshy, fragile, inconsistent and unpredictable resources when you have the Source–God. And always keep in mind that you are someone else’s resource too.

It’s about focus and intentions. The enemy will always attempt to consume us with what and who’s on the outside in order to pull us away from the God inside of us. And when this happens we fight against flesh and blood. There’s no Holy Ghost power there. We only position ourselves to be yanked around in the flesh by the enemy as he sets us up for our demise. But focusing on the God in us and dealing with things in the Spirit allows the power of God to rule in our circumstances. Even if the process hurts, God will still be glorified and we will still be strengthened.

*Tressa Jo