Turning Your Stagnation Into Motion - Newsletter

stagnation is, from God’s point of view.

ISSUE NO 1

Published by Word Of The Spirit

JULY 2008

TURNING YOUR STAGNATION INTO MOTION (part 1) The will of God for you as a Christian, is for you to experience growth and motion in everything that you do in life. God is a God of processes. Everything He ever made, He made through a process. Growth and motion are both products of the “processes of life”. Webster dictionary defines, “Growth” as, “progressive development”. While “Motion” is defined as, “an act, process, or instance of changing place”. God’s destiny for your life is “Greatness”. And greatness does not come to pass in a day, but it is designed to unfold to you in “phases”. Life is made to manifest itself in phases and God expects you to move from one phase to another unto the full picture of your destiny is unfolded. When you look at your life as a Christian and you cannot seem to see any kind of progress in whatever you are doing, then you are experiencing what is known as “STAGNATION. Proverbs 4:18 says, “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” The path to God’s destination for your life is a

forward movement. It involves you going from one level of achievement to another, be it in your finances, career, family, spiritual life, relationships, academics, etc. God does not take people backwards, He takes them forward [Exodus 14:15]. God has loaded you with enough potential to move from the bottom of the ladder to the top, from the back of the pack to the being a pacesetter in life. But if this is not happening in your life - could be in just one area then you are going through a period of stagnation, and you need to do something about it. This material has been inspired by God, to help you understand your present situation and to deliver to you some of the key ingredients, that can help stimulate or provoke motion in your life. I cannot claim that it will provide you with all the answers. But the principles shared here will help you get moving again towards your God-given destination for your life. What Is Stagnation? I know that many people will have different views on what they believe that stagnation really is. So what I will try to do n this book is to help you understand what

in this newsletter is to help you understand what stagnation is, from God’s point of view.

as it happened yesterday, then God wants you to forget about it and move on to something bigger.

Webster dictionary defines, “Stagnation” as “a state of not advancing or developing”. This definition is in line with what God said, in Deuteronomy 2 verse 3:

“Tomorrow’s success is bigger than yesterday’s success”

“Ye have compassed [roamed around] this mountain long enough: turn you northward”. When you find yourself stuck on the same spot for a long period of time, or the faces that you are seeing around you are still the same ones you having been seeing for the past three or five years, or the challenges you are facing today are the same ones you have been facing for months or years, then God is saying to you that you have become stagnated, and He wants you to move along to a another level - a level higher than where you are right now! Your life is due for new challenges so get a move on. It time for you wake up from your slumber. Stagnation does not necessarily mean that you are poor or lack any success story. When some people hear the term “Stagnation”, some of the words that first come to their mind are “poverty, failure, trials, and joblessness”. They are not necessary the fruits or cause(s) of stagnation, though any of them could result from it. Stagnation is an enemy that can destroy; we will come to that later. Stagnation relates much more to a lack of movement or lack of development.

God’s View on Stagnation It can be clearly seen from what God said in Deut 2:3,that when you camp around yesterday’s success, then you are living in the stagnation zone. It does not matter how big yesterday’s success was, as long

God does not want you to camp around “the mountain of yesterday’s success”. A wise man once said that “success without a successor is failure”. You will end up a failure when you don’t improve on yesterday’s success. When people become satisfied with what they have achieved in life, they tend to become comfortable and stay where they are. John Mason said, “The first step towards going somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are”. Again, In Micah 2:10, God says: “Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction”. It is not to your advantage to rest on your laurels. You are running the risk of polluting your tomorrow if you do so. Yesterday’s success is only good enough for yesterday. You need new goals and new dreams. The people who were singing your praise yesterday, will be the same people crying, “Crucify him, crucify him” , tomorrow, if you don’t do something new today. Your past achievements will do all they can to keep you where you are, but it is your responsibility to let go of the past and embrace the future. Apostle Paul gave us the secret of his fulfilled destiny in Philippians 3:13-14: “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”. This was a man who wrote two third of

new testaments, and did mind-blowing exploits for the kingdom of God, yet he tells us , that the secret of his success, was his ability to let go off the things he had done in the past, in order to reach out for the greater things he could yet do. Your tomorrow is far greater than anything you have ever accomplished in your past. However, I think there is a need to strike a balance here. Although, in order to explain what stagnation really is, I have been talking about you not improving on yesterday’s success. But the truth is that your situation may have nothing or little to do with your past success. There are so many reasons why stagnation can occur in one’s life. Your problem could have been caused by some other factors such as; negative attitude, unbelief, lack of commitment, and disobedience to God etc. The purpose of this book is to help you take a closer look at your life so that you can get to the root of the problem and deal with it. This book is about you and not your next door neighbour. Self Examination: The Key to Personal Freedom Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? 2 Cor 13:5 The key to personal recovery is self examination. If you are going to succeed in finding a lasting solution to your situation, then you will first have to look inwards before you look outwards. It is more easier to blame other people for your problems, but the truth is that you are responsible for whatever happens in your life. Nothing can happen in your life without your permission, whether good or bad. It is true that God has planned or designed your destiny, but it is also true that He has placed it in your hand.

This is what God said in Deuteronomy 30 verse 19: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: THEREFORE CHOOSE LIFE , that both thou and thy seed may live: A large number of the events that take place in our lives are a product of the choices we make in life. Your choice will either make or break you. Neither God or the devil can do anything in your life without you directly or indirectly allowing it. The choices you make will always give permission to something or someone to happen in your life. So examine the quality of the choices that you have made in the past, because there lies the key to your personal freedom. People fail or succeed in life by choice and not by design. Every man and woman that was created by God, was loaded with enough potential for “Greatness”. God is not a partial God and He does not favour one person over the other. God expects you to take full responsibly for the happenings in your life. It is easy to point an accusing finger at people or things. If anything goes wrong in your life, you are the first culprit, you may not know it, but it is true. Remember the story of Adam and Eve in the Genesis chapter three: And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, THE WOMAN WHOM THOU GAVEST TO BE WITH ME, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the

problem” LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, THE SERPENT BEGUILED ME, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: Gen 3:8-14 God had commanded Adam and His wife Eve, not to eat of the tree of knowledge and good which was in the middle of the garden, But they disobeyed Him when the devil came into the picture. As a result of that they lost their spiritual covering and became alienated from the nature of God, thereby dying spiritually. When God came to the garden looking for the couple He could not find them, so he called out to Adam, but he was nowhere to be found, because they had hid themselves away from God. The question I would like to ask is this. Why did God go to Adam first and not Eve or the serpent that had deceived Eve. The answer to that is, when God first gave the commandment to Adam in Gen 2:17, Eve was not yet created [v 18]. Eventually when Eve was created from the rib of Adam, Adam was made the head of that home. So when God had realised what happened, He came straight to Adam. Yes it is true that it was Eve, who by the deception of the serpent ate the fruit and gave to her husband. But God had put Adam in charge of that union, therefore he was to be held accountable for anything that happens in that home. Have you not noticed that the bible did not say, “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves apron”, until Adam also ate of the fruit. I believe that things would have been different had Adam refused to eat the fruit. A husband is the covering of his wife. “Blaming others for your own mistake will only prolong the life span of the

When God got to Adam, He asked, “Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? Adam replied, “the woman whom thou gavest to be with me”. Instead of him to take the blame he passed it on. He first of all blamed God and then blamed the woman. What he was saying indirectly to God is this, "if you had not given me a wife, this would not have happened” and “don’t ask me, ask the woman, she was the one who gave me the fruit”. Does this sound like someone you know? So God left Adam alone for a while, and went over to Eve, to hear her side of the story. She also passed the blame on. She said, “the serpent [devil] deceived me? None of them owned up or took responsibility for what had happened. And that is the evil nature of men. I believe you know what happened after that. Their excuses or blames did not spare them from God’s judgement. This should therefore tell you that blaming others or giving excuses for your situation will not solve the problem but worsen it altogether. The danger of always finding excuses for everything that happens to you, is that, it will never let you see the true cause of your problems. Be a man and take responsibly for your mistakes or problems. Have you not noticed that when you point an accusing finger at something, one finger is pointing at the thing you are accusing, one is pointing towards heaven and the other three are pointing at you? This means that at least two-third of the problem is your fault. It is time to take a look at yourself, and try to see when you have gone wrong, you may not be able to see all there is to see, but God through His spirit is ready to help you if you will let Him. In our next newsletter we will be focusing on some of the areas you will need to examine. Just be honest to yourself and make amends where necessary. To be continued....