IF YOU FOCUS ON THE NEGATIVE—WHAT’S LACKING, HOW LONG IT’S TAKING, WHAT YOU DON’T LIKE—YOU WON’T FIND JOY IN THE JOURNEY, AND DOUBT WILL COME.

GOSPEL CORNER

27/09/24

TODAY’S WORD

Today’s Scripture
We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!”
Numbers 11:5–6, NIV

WHAT ARE YOU SEEING?
When God brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, He led them on a journey through the wilderness to the Promised Land. There were no stores or water towers, yet God provided them with manna to eat every morning and all they needed. They saw the hand of God daily, but all they focused on was what they didn’t have. Even God’s miraculous provision of manna seemed common, and what they had eaten as abused slaves seemed far better. God was in their presence, but they were ungrateful and ended up not going into the Promised Land.

The key to the journey we’re on is what we’re seeing. If you focus on the negative—what’s lacking, how long it’s taking, what you don’t like—you won’t find joy in the journey, and doubt will come. You’ll start complaining and miss God’s best. You’ll miss that all along the way, God is sustaining you, protecting you, providing for you, ordering your steps. You have to recognize His goodness. You have to take time every day to thank Him for what He’s doing.

A PRAYER FOR TODAY
“Father, thank You for the journey that You are leading me on. Thank You for all that You are doing, how You’re sustaining me and providing for me and making my crooked paths straight. I believe that You are ordering my steps and will bring me to where You want me to be. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

SECTION TWO

I used to think that among Jesus’ 12 disciples, John was the Lord’s favorite disciple and the one who was the closest to Him because the Bible calls John “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” I was under the impression that John had a special favor with Jesus, and always wondered what made him so special that he stood apart from the other disciples.

Don’t you want to be known as the disciple whom Jesus loves? I do!

Then one day, when I was reading God’s Word, the secret of John’s favor dawned on me. The Lord opened my eyes and showed me that the phrase “the disciple whom Jesus loved” is actually found only in John’s own book!

Check it out for yourself. You will not find this phrase being used in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It is found only in the Gospel of John. It is a phrase that John used to describe himself!

Now, what was John doing? He was practicing and personalizing the love that Jesus had for him.

We are all God’s favorites, but John knew the secret of accessing Jesus’ unmerited favor for himself. It is your prerogative to see yourself as the disciple whom Jesus loves, and to call yourself that!

When I started to teach that the secret of John’s favor lay in his personalization of God’s love, the people in my church literally stepped into a new dimension of experiencing God’s unmerited favor in their lives. I have seen how some of them really took this revelation and ran with it. Some of them customized the wallpapers of their cell phones to say “The disciple whom Jesus loves,” while others signed off their text messages and emails with the phrase.

As they kept reminding themselves that they are the disciple whom Jesus loves, they began to grow in the consciousness of the Lord’s love for them. At the same time, they began to grow in being favor-conscious!

I have piles of praise reports on how our congregation members have been so blessed just by being conscious of Jesus’ favor in their lives. Some of them have been promoted, some have received spectacular increments to their paychecks, and many have won various prizes at company functions and in other contests, including all-expense-paid vacations.

The world calls this “luck,” but for the believer, there is no such thing as luck. There is only the unmerited favor of Jesus!