A Laid Down Life
For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
Matthew 7:8
You cannot have the Kingdom without a laid down life. How many have heard this testimony, or had it themselves. At the end of your rope, when you can’t take it anymore, maybe things were very grim, and God showed up in awesome ways. The break-through of insight and revelation comes, the out-pouring of necessary power comes in like a flood, and He demonstrates Himself as the Lord of the Breakthrough (2 Samuel 5:20). How many have had this experience of God showing up as their deliverer, only to wonder where He is the next moment? To be overwhelmed with His goodness, only to be found back at the point of desparation, or worse, gross error or compromise from not realizing you had continued on without Him and missed a turn.
Or, perhaps a little more rare in this generation, how about standing up for what is right, and feeling the pressure, only to have the Father demonstrate His ability to deliver in the midst of persectuion? Realizing that not everyone appears to come through such tests–having God deliver them with such power. Whether visible or not quite so dramatic, do we know the experience where He shows up so that His Kingdom is vindicated? Yet, the next day, to be in the same predicament as the day before?