Change you CAN believe in!

I realize that successful political campaigns have been run using these words as their motto.  There are also articles and books written with these words as their title.  However, these words have left many disillusioned and disgusted as they have watched each letter drop unfulfilled to the floor. So much so, that many who once held onto these words as if their very lives depended on them, did not even turn out to vote in the elections that were held last week in our country because of their deep disappointment.  However, I want to assure you that there IS a change that you CAN believe in!

Let me explain...

God has given us a wonderful promise:  Jeremiah 29:11-14 (Amplified Bible)11For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.
12Then you will call upon Me, and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear and heed you.
13Then you will seek Me, inquire for, and require Me [as a vital necessity] and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.(A)
14I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will release you from captivity and gather you from all the nations and all the places to which I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I caused you to be carried away captive.

I remember the day that verse 11 of this passage was first introduced into my life.  It was on a wonderful fall day in October of 1998.  I don't ever remember hearing this scripture before that day but once it was deposited into my spirit it took root and I have never forgotten it.  I am not sure if it is simply because I finally recognized this scripture that it feels as if it has become so popular over the last few years but it seems to "pop up" everywhere these days...on t-shirts, mugs, plagues, and in music.

The message is Clear!!!  God has great plans for us!  He has laid out some things for us that are going to absolutely astound us!  He is and has always been "the God of more than enough"- El Shaddai!!!!  He always does "abundantly above what we could think or imagine".  DREAM BIG and he will PRODUCE BIGGER!  Imagine the BEST and He will bring about something BETTER.  See your future as being BRIGHT and he will make it BRILLIANT!!!!  HE IS GOOD YA'LL!!!!!!! And the plans that he has for you are AWESOME!!!! 

I don't care what it feels like right now.  I am not moved by what I see right now.  I am not even concerned about the impossibilities that man has pronounced over my dreams.  This one thing I am confident of: GOD HAS GOT THIS!!!!!

* dramatic pause for the hallelujah dance that I know that you are doing right here*

Until I began preparing for this sermon I didn't really understand the context in which this verse was written.

 Jeremiah 29:4-10 (Amplified Bible)

4Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the captives whom I have caused to be carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:
5Build yourselves houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat the fruit of them.
6Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not be diminished.
7And seek (inquire for, require, and request) the peace and welfare of the city to which I have caused you to be carried away captive; and pray to the Lord for it, for in the welfare of [the city in which you live] you will have welfare.8For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Let not your [false] prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you; pay no attention and attach no significance to your dreams which you dream or to theirs,9For they prophesy falsely to you in My name. I have not sent them, says the Lord.
10For thus says the Lord, When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and keep My good promise to you, causing you to return to this place.


The children of Israel had been taken captive by Babylon.  Life was not "peachy keen" when Jeremiah gave them the word that God had good plans for them.  It didn't "feel" like the truth at the moment.  It certainly didn't "look" like the truth either.  But let's look at what God told them to do while they were waiting for the manifestation of the "good plans".

Be fruitful.  Too many of God's children are living for that "when" moment.  They say things like "I will be so glad when ______ (you fill in the blank). I will praise the Lord when___________.  I will give more time, money, etc when_______."  God told them to be fruitful right where they were!  Your ability to be fruitful is not contingent on a "when moment"!!!! The time is now! Right where you are!!!

He gave them specific instructions that they "not diminish" in that place.  God was telling them (and us) DON'T DIE HERE!   If you die in this place...if you quit...if you give up after all that you have gone through...you will MISS OUT ON THE GREATEST THING THAT YOU HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED!  *look at yourself in the mirror.  Look straight into your eyes and tell yourself..."DON'T DIE HERE!!"

The bible says in 2 Corinthians 3:18...that we go from Glory to Glory.  It doesn't say that we go from one big mess to a glorious place.   I have been often been guilty of wanting God to just snap his fingers and deliver me from the mess that I have found myself in, but the truth of the matter is.....We will never go to the next level of "Glory" that God has for our lives until we MAKE THE CHOICE TO MAKE THE PLACE THAT WE ARE IN RIGHT NOW GLORIOUS!

He also told them to pray for the land that they were being held captive in.  Where are you at?  Do you pray for the present place that you are employed? Do you pray for the church that you are presently in? Do you pray for the ministry that you are presently serving under? Do you pray for the nation that you live in?  We can say all day long that we are not affected by the economy of this nation but the truth of the matter is we are affected by the place that we are in. That is not to say that we will not be an over comer in this place, but God clearly said, "in the welfare of the place that you are in, you will have welfare". Don't expect God to change where you are until you begin to pray for the place that you are in!

The prophets were prophesying (falsely) that the captivity was almost over and their deliverance was about to occur. God instructed Jeremiah to prophesy truth. As a matter of fact, he told him to tell the lying prophets that they were going to die because of the false word they were giving out. SCAREY STUFF!  The truth was...the captivity was not going to end for another 70 years!  *insert flesh cringing here*

Now I know that we all like to hear those messages that talk about God's deliverance being "in the span of a day" or "from the pit to the palace in a moment's time".  I have preached/taught these messages myself. I still stand behind God's ability and willingness for those things to happen but what we must realize is that it took a matter of time for the people to get to the point that they were willing to eat "bird dung and donkey head". Their deliverance took place in a span of a day...but it their captivity lasted much longer than a 24 hr period.

2 Kings 6:25   As a result, there was a great famine in the city. The siege lasted so long that a donkey's head sold for eighty pieces of silver, and a cup of dove's dung sold for five pieces of silver.

Joseph indeed went from the pit to the palace in just a moment's time, but it took a long journey to and in the pit before the opportunity arose that he would go into the King's palace.

Now let me make this clear:  This is not a gloom and doom message.  Let's remember how we started this message.  HE IS GOOD AND HIS PLANS  FOR YOU ARE GOOD!!! I am NOT saying that God will not perform instantanious miracles. What I am saying is...Don't you DARE give up if he doesn't!  Delayedeliverance does NOT mean denied deliverance!!!!!!

 To understand why some of us aren't seeing the manifestation of what we are believing for let's look here:

Isaiah 40:31 (Amplified Bible)31But those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint or become tired.

WHAT????? Did that say what I think it just said???? They that wait upon the Lord shall WHAT????

Yes..that's right...THEY CHANGE!

Why did God say that Israel would remain in captivity for 70 years?  70 is the number of the years of a man's life.  The bible promises 70 years, 80 if by reason of strength.  The reason that it took 70 years is because it was going to take that long for "man/flesh" to die.  You see, in order for the good plans to manifest for you and me that God has for us, then FLESH HAS GOT TO DIE!  Change has got to take place inside of us!

The quicker we allow change to manifest in us, the quicker the time of our "release from captivity" can come.  I've been so guilty in my life of wanting everyone and everything else to change but me.  I was sure that if my husband would just change..if I could just change jobs...if my children would change...if my circumstances would change...that life would be better for me.  When the truth of the matter was....the good plans could only manifest when I CHANGED.

Maybe you are thinking.."But Shelby..I HAVE changed."  That may be true.  I don't doubt it for a minute.  I've changed too.  But what if there is something more??

2 Kings 13:14-19 (Amplified Bible)

14Now Elisha [previously] had become ill of the illness of which he died. And Jehoash king of Israel came down to him and wept over him and said, O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen of it!(A)
15And Elisha said to him, Take bow and arrows. And he took bow and arrows.
16And he said to the king of Israel, Put your hand upon the bow. And he put his hand upon it, and Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands.
17And he said, Open the window to the east. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The Lord's arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over Syria. For you shall smite the Syrians in Aphek till you have destroyed them.
18Then he said, Take the arrows. And he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, Strike on the ground. And he struck three times and stopped.
19And the man of God was angry with him and said, You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck down Syria until you had destroyed it. But now you shall strike Syria down only three times.

You see..he got in a hurry.  He did just enough to "satisfy" the prophets request but did not utterly stay there until the job was complete.  Sound familiar? 

Too often, we get in a hurry for things to change.  We make a few adjustments hoping to win the favor of God and when he sees that we are not going to thoroughly allow him to change us, he allows a certain amount of "change" to happen in our circumstances.  However, it won't be long before we find ourselves RIGHT BACK WHERE WE WERE BEFORE because in our "hurry" to be delivered we didn't allow "patience to have it's perfect work" in us. 

*go back to that mirror and say this, "You are not getting out of this until you once and for all, DEAL WITH IT!" *  What is "it"?  You tell me....

The word that God gave our Pastor at VT for 2010 was this: Your Latter shall be greater than your Former.

Haggai 2:3-9 (Amplified Bible)

3Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? And how do you see it now? Is not this in your sight as nothing in comparison to that?
4Yet now be strong, alert, and courageous, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; be strong, alert, and courageous, O Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and be strong, alert, and courageous, all you people of the land, says the Lord, and work! For I am with you, says the Lord of hosts.
5According to the promise that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so My Spirit stands and abides in the midst of you; fear not.
6For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake and make tremble the [starry] heavens, the earth, the sea, and the dry land;(A)
7And I will shake all nations and the [a]desire and the precious things of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts.(B)
8The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine, says the Lord of hosts.
9The latter glory of this house [with its successor, to which Jesus came] shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place will I give peace and prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.

Now, when I first heard this word I was so excited! (still am)  I expected that God was going to swoop in and miraculously change everything in my life this year to be better than I had ever seen.  (and for the most part, so far He HAS!).  But it has not been in the way...or as quickly as I had first imagined that it would be.

Let's look at the context of this passage: If you go back to chapter 1 you will find...yes...you guessed it..they had just come out of captivity to Babylon!!  There was some building, rebuilding, and WORK that had to be done for this prophesy to be fulfilled.  It didn't just "happen".
Verse 3 says..Who remembers what the former house looked like? What do you think now? Isn't this new house so great that it can't even be compared to what you used to have? (my interpretation). 

While the children of Israel were in captivity, they learned some things.  Not only did they learn some stuff, they acquired some stuff.  They built houses, planted vineyards and thrived even in the midst of difficult circumstances.  When they were finally released from their captivity they were BETTER than they had ever been...more knowledgeable, more skilled, more determined, stronger, and had more provision than they had before they went in to captivity.

What am I saying?  The best YOU that you have ever been is just on the other side of this place!!!!!
 When you come out of this place YOU will be changed...therefore your circumstances WILL BE CHANGED! TRULY!!! Your latter SHALL BE greater than your former! 

Romans 8:18 (Amplified Bible)18[But what of that?] For I consider that the sufferings of this present time (this present life) are not worth being compared with the glory that is about to be revealed to us and in us and [a]for us and [b]conferred on us!

The suffering that your flesh is having to endure at this moment is not even worthy to be compared to what you are going to be when you come out on the other side of this!! What is the key to your deliverance?  YOU CHANGING!!!!!!

2 Corinthians 4:17 (Amplified Bible)17For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!],

While we are "waiting on the Lord " for the "good plans that he has for us" we "shall change".  How quickly the Lord is able to turn our captivity for us and set us free from this place rests squarely on our shoulders.  How long is it going to take us to make the necessary changes and once and for all..DEAL WITH IT?? 


Now THAT is a change you CAN believe in!!