I am currently reading the letters of Paul to the early churches and what an amazing excursion it is! Reading the letters of Paul can either leave you dumbfounded, sorrowful, annoyed, happy or it can give you an emotional turmoil especially if you are trying to be empathetic with the writer Paul. Of particular lesson to me was a message that the Holy Spirit put in my heart after reading the second letter to the church at Corinth. As I sat to reflect on this letter, I was taken back to when Saul was converted to Paul.(Acts 9:1-42) I kept wondering how a defunct persecutor and murderer became one of the best evangelists/teacher/preacher I have ever heard of. I wondered whether the people that knew him as a murderer thought as they saw him an evangelist;messenger of Christ. I am pretty sure no man had such an expectation of that transformation. Even to Saul himself did not bear such an expectation to himself.
Countless are the times that I have been guilty seeing less or more in people but it turns out completely differently. I know many of us have walked through the same paths. As human beings we either have high or lo expectations of ourselves or of other. Even Peter a disciple of Jesus, had a low expectation of himself. When he was called by Jesus during His fishing expedition, Peter saw the greatness of God and shied away. He felt belittled and said ‘ Go away from me Lord; I am a sinful man’ (Luke 5:8-11) Who would have thought that Peter would be the rock that Christ would build His church on. Who would have thought that the same Peter that went ahead to deny Jesus three times would later come to instigate the salvation of bout three thousand people. (Acts 2:2-41)
My point is, there is something about human expectations that either pushes us away from our purpose or directly to our purpose. As I read through the letters of Paul, God painted such a clear picture of what our fleshly minds see juxtaposed to what OUR GOD SEES. Our minds can be so fixated on what the first glance says which overrides the purpose.His thoughts are truly not our thoughts and His ways are clearly not His ways. (Isaiah 55:9) The wisdom of a man is foolishness to God and that tells us that what we expect in ourselves or in others through our wisdom is foolishness to God. The mortal brain is like an automatic engine that generates ideas, expectations, thoughts, criticisms etc instantaneously. It is so easy for us to create a facade based on baseless ideas. If I lived in the times of Paul, I would have never believed that this man Paul could be transformed. Similarly, I would have walked like Peter thinking that I do not deserve to be part of the Kingdom of God.
Human expectations are fed by the flesh through the enemy whose paramount goal is to steal kill and destroy.They influence a reality and even make us make decisions dependant on them. Godly expectations on the other hand are fed by the spirit. The Holy spirit waters our thoughts effortlessly and fuels our minds according to what the will of the Lord. Nobody thought that a small shepherd boy would turn out to be a King for God does not look at the things that people look at. (1 Samuel 16 :7)
So, maybe next time, we can really try to ask the Holy Spirit to help us see things just as Christ did. Because unless we have the insight of the spirit of God, we will always bare a facade on the things of God and those that walk not in God.
Goodnight ❤️❤️
Georgina Writes 