Rising Up

1.    

Scripture

Is 60:1 "Arise, shine; for your light has come, And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.

Is 60:2 "For behold, darkness will cover the earth And deep darkness the peoples; But the LORD will rise upon you And His glory will appear upon you.

Is 60:3 "Nations will come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising.

Is 60:4 ¶ "Lift up your eyes round about and see; They all gather together, they come to you. Your sons will come from afar, And your daughters will be carried in the arms.

Is 60:5 "Then you will see and be radiant, And your heart will thrill and rejoice; Because the abundance of the sea will be turned to you, The wealth of the nations will come to you.

Is 60:6 "A multitude of camels will cover you, The young camels of Midian and Ephah; All those from Sheba will come; They will bring gold and frankincense, And will bear good news of the praises of the LORD.

Is 60:7 "All the flocks of Kedar will be gathered together to you, The rams of Nebaioth will minister to you; They will go up with acceptance on My altar, And I shall glorify My glorious house.

Is 60:8 "Who are these who fly like a cloud And like the doves to their lattices?

Is 60:9 "Surely the coastlands will wait for Me; And the ships of Tarshish {will come} first, To bring your sons from afar, Their silver and their gold with them, For the name of the LORD your God, And for the Holy One of Israel because He has glorified you.

Is 60:10 ¶ "Foreigners will build up your walls, And their kings will minister to you; For in My wrath I struck you, And in My favor I have had compassion on you.

2.       Introduction

• As we have gone 26 days into the year 2014 which is 7% leaving us with 339 days or 93% of days left
• You have a responsibility to set the tone and determine the direction of this year and all your life
• The decisions you are making today and those that you will make this year may determine your course of life and your eternity
• How you look at yourself will affect your actions for the year
• Our theme for the year is “Walking in the newness of life in Christ”
• View yourself in light of scripture, see yourself as God sees you
• Watch what you think, meditate on, talk as these will consequently affect your actions and what you become
• Decree and pursue what you want this year and rest of life to be
• There are doubtlessly things that will want and try to hinder, discourage and frustrate you
• But you must refuse to be discouraged and rise above anything rising against you
• Today I want to talk about the topic “Rising Up”

3.     Why Arise? (Scripture Interpretation & Application)

·         From the scripture we read, we find out that:

i)                    We need to rise and shine

·          It is our/ responsibility to rise & shine.

·         This means you have the capacity to rise and to shine or else God would not say to

·         Many a times we see ourselves as weak, helpless without power to do anything

·         Some people in their faith are so harmless they seem not even able to kill a fly!

·         Hey, arise, you are a king!

ii)                   Darkness and actually gross/deep darkness will cover the earth and people.

·         We are to anticipate troubles

·         God here does not promise that things will be all well around us

·         He actually says in the world or rather in the natural, things will be bad

·         Therefore Zimbabwe and world being in dire situation(s) is not a surprise

·         For the economy to be bad is not out of this world, it is not something new

·         For your finances to be in bad shape, for there to be high unemployment, for you to face situations, or whatever it is that you are facing is not an anormally

·         For you to face things and situations means you are in the natural world and scripture knew that

·         But, you do not need to stay there, you need to arise

·         You need to arise above those situations

iii)                 The Lord will arise on us and His glory appear on us

·         If we arise and chose to move on and walk or stand in the light of the Word by faith

·         Then we will see the victory of the Lord

·         Its like God only appears after we appear!

·         He says Arise and the Lord will arise upon you

·         The Lord and His glory only appears when we take the initiative

·         Like I normally say, Christianity is two way, there is our part and God’s part

·         If you do not do your part, God cannot and will not do His part

·         People have argued about the sovereignty of God, yes I understand that but there are laws that God put in motion to guide our relationship with Him

·         If things happening were depending on His sovereignty, then we would need not to have responsibility about anything

·         Do you want God to arise and His glory to appear in your life and situations?

·         Then you need to take the initiative, arise yourself by faith and take a stand against anything in your life that is contrary to the Word

Example

·         In the story of Peter walking on water:

i)                    Peter asked to be commanded to walk on water

ii)                   Peter stepped out the bout on his own and stepped onto the water

iii)                 When Peter began to sink, it is him that cried “Lord save me”

·         In all the above Peter took the initiative, Jesus seems passive, even when Peter is sinking, He waited for Peter’s cry

·         This should help take away the myth and error about leaving everything on God in the pretext of His sovereignty

Ps 20:8 They have bowed down and fallen, But we have risen and stood upright.

·         In Psalm 20v8 the bible says:

i)                     others will bow down and fall

ii)                   But we have risen or need to arise and stand upright

·         So it means the things that affect the rest of the people negatively in the world should not affect us

·         When others fall and stumble, we should arise and stand upright

·         When others fail in their health, finances, etc we need to stand upright in health and prosperity!

·         Notice the above scripture also says we have risen and stood upright, it doesn’t say God raises us up and makes us stand upright!

Mal 4:1 "For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze," says the LORD of hosts, "so that it will leave them neither root nor branch."

Mal 4:2 "But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.

Mal 4:3 "You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing," says the LORD of hosts.

·         Malachi says a bad day is coming, the wicked will suffer

·         But unto those that fear His Name, a sun of righteousness will rise ...

·         Some people remain indoors or shade when the sun arises

·         Again, the scripture says:  ...and YOU GO FORTH and SKIP about ...

·         It is clear that calves let from the stall do not wait for their mothers to lift them up and make them skip

·         Calves let from the stalls are not orderly, they are not calm!

·         Calves let from the stalls skip about

·         We need to go forth and skip for joy

·         We need to tread down upon anything that rises against us

·         Challenges, situations and troubles should be under our feet

·         No wonder Jesus said:

Luke 10:19 "Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.

·         He implies that we will face serpents and scorpions and the power of the enemy

·         He did not promise to remove these things out of our way

·         He says, we will have to confront them and trample them down

·         The problem is when faced with these things, we fear, run away and cry out to God

·         We should rise up, face it, confront it and trample it down!

·         I like what Joshua and Caleb said of the giants in Canaan, they said; “…they are bread for us…”

4.     Go against the tide

·         As we have discussed above, we need to rise against the tide

·         It is normal for things to be bad in this world

·         It is normal for situations to be gloomy and negative

·         It is also normal to face situations and challenges

·         BUT we are not normal!

·         We are not the natural people, we are not of this world

·         We are children of the most high God

·         We are children of the kingdom

·         We are the redeemed of the Lord

·         We are kings and priests

·         We are gods

·         We need to rise up, claim our light, glory and power

·         When these normal situations  come up against us, we need to arise above them

·         No wonder someone said:

Isaiah 59:19 KJV, So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.

·         So, when situations or the enemy throws things on us, we need to position ourselves and rise above the level

·         It is said that when the eagle faces a storm, it positions its wings and the storm lifts it up

·         When other birds cannot fly or are affected by the storm, the eagle would just stretch its wings and rise higher

·         Normally, other many birds flip their wings to fly, but the eagle would sour or just stretch its wings, its like it does not struggle to sour or fly, its natural to it

·         We are supposed to be like that, we need to just position ourselves and sour

Isaiah 40:31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

·         When situations and storms come, we need to just mount up!

Isaiah 40:30, Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

·         Do you see again here that the bible says; the world people will grow weary and faith BUT…

·         We need to renew our strength mount up

·         So, it is normal for people in the world to grow weary, to faith, give up, etc

·         It is not normal though for us to succumb to the same, ours is to rise up against the tide and mount up!

Is 52:2 Shake yourself from the dust, rise up, O captive Jerusalem; Loose yourself from the chains around your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.

·         We need to shake ourselves from the dust and rise up

·         We need to loose ourselves from the chains

·         We have the capacity, power and authority to do so, Jesus did the rest for us

Is 26:19 Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, For your dew {is as} the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.

·         Your situations that are dead need to arise

·         If you are lying in the dust you need to awake and shout for joy

Eph 5:14 For this reason it says, "Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you."

·         Paul says, Awake, Arise!

·         He says Christ will shine on you

5.     Conclusion

·         So, Arise and shine

·         It is your responsibility to arise and shine

·         When you arise, you release and activate the light and glory of the Lord over your life and situations

·         Troubles will come but instead of making you fall and fail, they need to help you to mount up

·         We need to be a people that if the devil were normal, he would be scared to trouble us because of the consequences

·         Actually, the bible says to resist him until he flees not us fleeing from him

·         So, do not accept anything less than what you are supposed to be

·         You are supposed to walk in the full package of salvation or gospel

·         Jesus came so that you be free from sin, sickness and poverty

·         You are a success and not a failure

·         You are a victor

·         You are healed

·         Walk in the light of the Lord

·         Walk in His glory

·         Like God told Gideon, walk in this your might

·         May God’s best be all yours

·         Thank you!