Patience and Glory

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It's about to start in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, and please share it around with all your friends. Thanks for listening, and thanks for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Welcome to the weekend edition of Truth Matters with Dr. Cheryl Davis, heard daily on this station at 820 AM and 520 PM. Truth Matters is a ministry of The Truth Project, whose mission is to empower men and women in the Christian faith to teach biblical truth in the culture and marketplace of ideas, using the Bible as a sacred trust of truth in sharing the message of Jesus. Learn more about the ministry of The Truth Project at www.projecttruthmatters.com.

Let's join this week's extended edition, as Dr. Davis teaches on four days to a miracle and much more. Greatness comes only by way of suffering and sacrifice. If it was good enough for God's Son to go to the cross, the way of the cross is good enough for you. If it was good enough for God's Son to go to the cross, the way of the cross is good enough for you. And this is a very important point that I want a lot of you to understand. Your suffering is by appointment, not by accident. You have asked God for a miracle, and He has sent suffering to prepare you for it. Day one, and the first concept of this message.

To reign with Christ, you must suffer with Christ. Let's move on to day two. Day two, the messenger returns to Bethany.

And if you remember, this is the middle. Day two is special, and I want to spend more time here, because this is the middle. We read before that Lazarus died on day one, but the messenger did not come back until day two. A word from the Lord said to Mary and Martha, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.

Mary and Martha are in the middle of their four days. They have experienced the death of their request, and a promise from the Lord comes after their brother's death. He is already dead. To them it comes too late. A promise from God can come at the darkest time in your suffering. You are most vulnerable in the middle of the cycle.

Why? In the middle, you are halfway there. Most times you feel that you have given it a good faith effort, and if it was going to work, it would have worked by now. If Jesus was going to come, He would have come by now. You are tempted to give up and to give out, because you think you have endured enough already. We reason our way out of the cycle, and some step out of the will of God at this point. Many fall away in the middle and miss the glory of God in their lives.

Jesus knew that Mary and Martha were most vulnerable during this time. This is why He sent His word. The very words of God are promises. His very breath is life to us. He is a God that does not lie. When He speaks, He speaks absolute truth out of the abundance of His holiness and righteousness. His words have inherent power.

They are living. Meaning, His word can literally change the spiritual and physical realms. His words are commands that even the demons in hell shudder and must obey.

The grass withers and the flower fadeth, but the word of God will stand forever. So let's take a look at the promise in the middle. Jesus promised this sickness is not unto death. He did not promise that Lazarus would not die. He promised that death would not be the end result. When the promise of God goes out and we receive it, the enemy is there waiting to confuse it. The enemy confuses the promise by planting seeds of doubt in our minds. The middle is the critical time to lay hold of the promises of God. His word is our only tangible source of truth in this life.

When we find ourselves in the middle of our situations, far from the beginning, but also far from deliverance, I like to call this place misery. Our only encouragement is the word of God. The promise of God showed up strategically in the middle of the four days, the most critical and the most vulnerable time. To be rooted in Christ, we must lay hold of the promises of God. Some of you listening today are in the middle of your situation and the enemy has confused God's promise to you. You are doubting what God said. You are doubting if you heard him right. You are doubting if he meant it for you. And some have been convinced by Satan himself or by Satan through other people that God did not promise you anything at all.

One more thing. The enemy has convinced some of you that you will die even before you see the promise. The fact that you have doubt and are having to fight to hold on to God's promise is evidence that the promise has gone forth and will be birthed into your life. The evidence of the struggle is proof of the dispensation from heaven.

I am here to tell you today, promises like God has given you and promises that God has given me, incites a riot with the enemy. There are women that are listening today that are Mary's. Every time you see Mary in the Bible, she is at the feet of Jesus. She has a pure heart for worship and she has truly communed with God.

Mary is no fake and she is the real deal. There are women that are listening that your heart is pure and you have truly communed with God and God is going to honor that purity. If you could see the manifest glory that is going to come into your life, you would know why the devil is fighting you tooth and nail on every corner and for every breath. I am here today to say that through an eye of faith, God is working great miracles specifically for what you have cried and wept for over and over and over. God is going to work a miracle in your life greater than you can even fathom.

All you have to do is lay hold to his promise and don't give up in the middle. In the middle, there is exhaustion, doubt, pain, fear, misery, hopelessness, anger, wrath, weakness, sorrow, grief, heartache, jealousy, self-pity, shortness of breath, chest pain, body aches, or just feeling like death. Sometimes you just want to roll over and play dead to get some kind of relief. Some of you have even been tempted to commit suicide. Some of you may have even attempted to commit suicide. But if despite all that, you can have faith like the grain of a mustard seed to lay hold to the promises of God, you can say to the mountain, move from here to there and it will move.

Nothing will be impossible for you. This wise lady whom I have the utmost respect for told me over and over, in the middle of my own four day cycle, you are going to live and you are not going to die in this thing. Day two, concept two, have a little faith, just a little faith to lay hold to the promises of God in the midst of the darkness. Let's move on to day three. Day three is when Jesus decides to wait another day. We see in the story of Mary and Martha that by day three Lazarus has been buried.

There are mourners at the house. The promise of God has come and they have not heard anything else from Jesus or seen him. I call this the waiting period. Really the entire cycle you wait, but you really struggle to wait when you hear nothing. Day one of the cycle you are consumed with the death of the promise. Day two you are in the middle fighting because the promise has come and you are doubting if it is even real. But day three you hear nothing.

Silence. Jesus has decided to wait another day. But why did he wait? Let's look at verse five. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was. In verse 15 he tells his disciples, I am glad for your sakes that I was not there. That you may believe. You see God operates on a divine timetable. God's every action toward us is out of his love for us. Isaiah 46 9 through 10.

Remember the former things of old. I am God and there is none like me. Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done. Saying my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. It is God's pleasure to ordain a waiting period for us. This waiting is not in vain even though it may seem that way. His word tells us what his purpose is in the waiting period. 1 Peter 5 10. But the God of all grace who hath called us into his glory by Christ Jesus.

After that ye have suffered a while. Make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you. God's love for his own is not a pampering love. It is a perfecting love. A pampering love gives you what you want to keep you happy.

A perfect love gives you what you need to make you Christ-like. The fact that he loves us and we love him is no guarantee that we will not suffer hardship or be required to wait. Sometimes we are even called to wait and we are called to wait in silence.

Mary and Martha had not heard anything from God. God was silent but the mourners were there to keep them company. Some of you listening today are in a God-ordained waiting period and there are mourners around you that are celebrating your misery. They appear to speak life into you knowing all the while they are only there because of the death. They are not looking or speaking into your situation from a perspective of deliverance but from a perspective of death or even self-gain. These mourners in your life profit themselves off your dead situation.

It may be money, power, status, or some type of secondary gain. They do not want to truly see your deliverance. They want you to continue to struggle so that they can profit. I declare in the spirit that God open your eyes to the purpose of these mourners in your life so that he can set you free from the dead weight. Some have even said God will understand if you walk out of this situation. God does not even expect us to live miserably.

This is what some have said to you. But some have even spoken into your life to say that divorce is not that bad. But this is what the Bible says to the broken, weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Romans 8 and 18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. The greater the suffering, the greater the revelation of his glory. The amount of suffering God has appointed you to, he will reward you double for your trouble, just like he did Job. If you can only see the glory that is going to be revealed, you would be willing to wait just a little longer. 2 Corinthians 4 17 tells us For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. The manifest glory of God that is going to come in your life is going to shine into eternity. If you just hold on and wait on the Lord, it will be worth it. For it is written, Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart. That is day three in concept three. Wait, I say, wait on the Lord, even if you have to wait in silence, even if you have to tolerate the mourners.

They're only going to be there for a short time. And lastly, the last day of the cycle is day four. Jesus arrives in Bethany. This is day four for Mary and Martha.

They are sitting amongst the mourners and see Jesus coming in the distance. And Martha tells him in verse 21, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Mary was in the same boat spiritually because she says the same thing in verse 32. Remember on day two, he sent the promise to say, This sickness will not be unto death. The enemy has confused their perception of the promise.

That is what is going on. Jesus tells Martha, your brother will rise again. Martha confesses her misperception because she says, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection in the last day. Martha does not understand that the promises of God are for now, not just in eternity.

They are for now. Jesus Christ tells her, I am the resurrection and the life. The I am brings together the future resurrection and the present living and breathing right before Martha's eyes. You do not have to wait on the manifest glory of God when you get to heaven.

You can experience it now. Those of you that are listening today, the enemy is telling you that you are going to remain in misery for your change will never come. So you just need to continue being obedient to God and you may be delivered, but it will be when you get to heaven. But in your heart you are dying. I'm here to say today that is religion, a form of godliness, denying the power thereof. To be rooted in Christ is to have a relationship and a heart that has communed with God and have the faith to believe the word of God. What I'm here today to tell you is the Bible says, I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Just like David, all you have to do is believe. Mary and Martha saw their brother as dead. Jesus saw him as sleeping. What is the difference between dead and sleeping?

The difference is expectancy. You've been listening to the weekend edition of Truth Matters with Dr. Cheryl Davis. Truth Matters is a ministry of The Truth Project, a North Carolina based ministry dedicated to teaching biblical truth and sound theology to those inside and outside of the church. If you'd like to listen to these messages on demand, go to ProjectTruthMatters.com and click on the podcast link. Dr. Davis is also available to speak to your ministry group or church function. She can be reached by email at CherylDavis at ProjectTruthMatters.com. Or if you'd like to send a letter, the address is Project Truth Matters, Post Office Box 159, St. Paul's, North Carolina 28384. You can hear Truth Matters devotionals on weekdays at 8 20 a.m. and 5 20 p.m. Until next time, let's all work together to teach a biblical truth, to assist, equip, edify, and encourage one another, and bring the gospel to the world, because truth matters.