God will sometimes take everything you depend on to show you that you didn’t do it with your strength.
Judges 7:2-3
NKJV
2 And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’ 3 Now therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead.’ ” And twenty-two thousand of the people returned, and ten thousand remained.
Now I want us to pay attention to what God said, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claims glory for itself against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’
You see the people against Israel were like sand on the beach. This makes 300 appear as a losing number. Impossible.
God often works in impossible-looking situations. He allows the situation. It gets complicated and worse when we human beings stop looking at ourselves but look toward God.
God works where we allow Him to have all the glory. Not half, not a quarter but all the glory because God doesn’t like sharing His glory. He doesn’t want any pride to come and take His place.
God gets the most glory in the impossible. Impossible is when God’s power and glory are revealed.
My favourite line is “It just had to be God”
That line is so precious because it’s when we humans humble ourselves and realize who we serve.
That’s why God waited until Abraham was older to give him the promised child. If it was when they were younger people or even atheists could say “It could have just been them. It’s normal. If I have a child, it doesn’t mean God did it”.
If God didn’t wait till Daniel was in the lion’s den, then how would people know God the God of Daniel is real? If Abasheck, Shadrack, and Abednego didn’t go through the fire, how would people know their God is real?
Would God have gotten that amount of glory? Would people marvel and say ” This God is truly the real God”
Pride kicks in many times when we rely on our own strength, abilities and resources and believe God had little to no impact on the outcome. That’s why I love testimonies with “It just had to be God”
The ‘It just had to be God moments’ are what glorify God. It reveals God’s strength during situations where we recognise our weaknesses and limitations.
Abraham recognises his limitation (his old age) to having a child.
Abasheck, Shadrack, and Abednego recognised their weakness because they aren’t all-powerful like God to save themselves from a fiery furnace but had to choose to trust the one who can. Gideon had to see his weaknesses to recognise that God can use anyone and anything to accomplish anything He wishes.
There are many moments in our lives where just like Gideon we will find ourselves in moments where things go from bad to worse. The hope seems to be going down but just like Gideon, we recognise that in those moments that God wants to reveal His strength in our weaknesses. God wants to reveal that Him alone can save. Him alone is the best healer, He alone is the best delivery and provider.
The Result of It Just Had To Be God’s situations.
The 3 Hebrew boys demonstrate it beautifully. They trusted God despite the situation looking deadly. They kept their faith in God but what is beautiful is that they trusted God would deliver them and even if God didn’t that, they still won’t lose faith in Him, that faith led to God delivering them. The result of their trust in God during a time when all their self-reliance died and the reliance on other human beings wasn’t there, but they put trust fully in God. This led to the king declaring that everyone would serve God.
God knew that if it wasn’t for that impossible-looking situation, no one would see God’s power move. God allows those times of fiery furnace so that people can receive revelation of who He is. No one would know that God can save 3 Hebrew boys and be with them in a furnace and they wouldn’t be burnt or even smell like smoke until the situation occurred.
In every situation, God will allow it to be difficult so that He can reveal His glory. The king said how he wanted everyone to know to worship God. If God didn’t allow this situation, Abasheck, Shadrack, and Abednego would still believe in God. The same way you and I could remain Christain but without those thousands of people now knowing that God is real. That our God is real. That the name of Jesus has power. That God does miracles and wonders. People wouldn’t receive that revelation. God allows sickness to reveal He is a healer. God allows financial situations to reveal He is the provider and the one who sustains His people. God was less concerned about the Hebrew Boys comfort than the many souls now coming to Him.
That’s the power of testimonies. God allows us to go through different wilderness seasons so that the testimonies coming out of those seasons will save souls. God wants that girl who will hear how you were delivered from such and such to believe God can deliver her too, so that girl can grow, receive Jesus, become who God called her to be and do all God called her to do but if you never went through what you went through that girl wouldn’t receive the light that would set her free to reveal that God can do the same in her life.
The result of It Just Had to Be God Moments reveals the character of God. It reveals who God is and what He can do. Our purpose is to know Christ and make Him known and through our testimonies, people know Jesus is real, He moves, He heals, He delivers, He speaks etc.
In situations where no human could’ve helped you, comforted you, delivered and provided for you like Jesus, it will reveal to people that the Jesus we worship is a living, active Jesus who lives in us.
God want to reveal that He can use someone like you with all your weaknesses. That He can heal you. That He can speak to you. That He can provide for you as you enter that fiery furnace situation so that others hear and believe that our God is real.
God wants us to look back in our lives and say, “it just had to be God!”.
Who I am today
It is all because of God
If I’m in purity today
It is all because of God
I’m not a gossiped today
It is all because of God
If I’m healed today
It is all because of God
If I’m sharing God’s word today
It is all because of God
If I’m a doctor today
It is all because of God
If I’m a woman of God today
It is all because of God
If I alive today
It is all because of God
If I have money today
It is all because of God
If I have my family today
It is all because of God
And with these testimonies, the testimonies you share with others of the just had to be God moments, healing takes place in people’s lives. Deliverance takes place. Hope is restored for the one feeling bound to sin by hearing you were delivered and there is victory in Christ. Hope is restored to the one wondering how to continue paying the bills. Hope is restored for the cancer patient crying themselves to sleep. Because of your It Just Had To Be God Moments, God moves and uses them to impact the lives of people. To do mighty things your It Just Had To Be God Moments can be painful but, in the end, the impact it made for the kingdom of heaven is one of eternal value and one joyful reward.
The It Just Had To Be God Moments come from moments when we only look to God. When we can’t trust and rely on anything else. People have disappointed us; things aren’t as stable but that’s when we lift our eyes to see where our Help comes from. That’s when we stop relying on our own understanding and thoughts (Proverbs 3:5-6), that’s when we exercise our faith, put all our trust in God, all our reliance, dependency and hope in Him, and those moments of bold faith, of courage that like Gideon we have victories. We have deliverance like Daniel. We have provisions like Abraham. We have salvation and protection like David.
In those difficult times, we look to God to do what we know only He can do so that He alone receives all the Glory, honour and praise. It’s in those moments when we can have tears in our eyes and testify “It just had to be God”
Hebrews 10:35-39
ESV
35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. 37 For,
“Yet a little while,
and the coming one will come and will not delay;
38 but my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him.”
39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
Matthew 19:26
ESV
26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
~etty
