PERFECT END 27/03/11

PERFECT END

Prayer: Lord, You speak to me, I need Your words, break it and give it to me.

Your beginning will seem so small, since your future will flourish.Job8:7

Many of you are worried about your small beginning and doubt the good end. But God says, " Your future will flourish". Say in faith, "The Lord is on my side, I am not afraid! What can people do to me?" The end of a matter is better than its beginning; likewise, patience is better than pride.Eccl7:8. Trust in Him and if God does something it will be a perfect one, He is a God of perfection. Even in your life God has many plans.

Contentment is necessary but we need to ask Him to bless us abundantly according to His riches. It is difficult to reveal the nature of Jesus Christ and to accept the false accussations like Him. We  need to go through all the troubles to become like Him. But He knows the pathway that you take; if he tested you, you would come forth like gold. That is the perfection level. I was meditating Joshua and I got stuck to it. And God revealed me four things about the humble beginning of Joshua and the perfect end of Joshua. Like unto the life of Joshua you might have a humble beginning but it will be made perfect.

1. SATISFACTION:

When Joshua dismissed the people, they went to their allotted portions of land. An Era Ends. After all this Joshua son of Nun, the Lord’s servant, died at the age of one hundred ten. Jos24:28,29.

In the beginning Joshua was in a position where he was left alone by Moses to lead the Israelites. He might have a thought and fear with a question," Will I be able to inherit this land and divide this to the Israelites?". So we see in Jos1:1-9 the Lord commissioning Joshua and strengthening Him with promises and gave Him grace to invade it, inherit it and allot it to the Israelites.

Many live in this wilderness life with a question "I have started this but will I able to finish it successfully, What will be the end?" The Lord says,"I will give you a perfect satisfactory end."

Sir Edmund Hillary, the first one to reach the Mt.Everest, was born in 1919 and grew up in Auckland, New Zealand. It was in New Zealand that he became interested in mountain climbing. Although he made his living as a beekeeper, he climbed mountains in New Zealand, then in the Alps, and finally in the Himalayas, where he climbed 11 different peaks of over 20,000 feet. By this time, Hillary was ready to confront the world's highest mountain.

Mt. Everest lies between Tibet and Nepal. Between 1920 and 1952, seven major expeditions had failed to reach the summit. In 1924, the famous mountaineer George Leigh-Mallory had perished in the attempt. In 1952, a team of Swiss climbers had been forced to turn back after reaching the south peak, only 1000 feet from the summit.
 
Edmund Hillary joined in Everest reconnaissance expeditions in 1951 and again in 1952. These exploits brought Hillary to the attention of Sir John Hunt, leader of an expedition sponsored by the Joint Himalayan Committee of the Alpine Club of Great Britain and the Royal Geographic Society to make the assault on Everest in 1953.

The expedition reached the South Peak on May, but all but two of the climbers who had come this far were forced to turn back by exhaustion at the high altitude. At last, Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, a native Nepalese climber who had participated in five previous Everest trips, were the only members of the party able to make the final assault on the summit. At 11:30 on the morning of May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit, 29,028 feet above sea level, the highest spot on earth. As remarkable as the feat of reaching the summit was the treacherous climb back down the peak. Finally they made it, what a satisfactory and perfect end! May God command this patience of unfailing trial and give you a perfect satisfactory end.

When they finished dividing the land into its regions, the Israelites gave Joshua son of Nun some land. As the Lord had instructed, they gave him the city he requested – Timnath Serah in the Ephraimite hill country. He built up the city and lived in it. Jos19:49,50

God gave Joshua the city he desired and he built the city and lived in it. God granted him his heart’s desire; He did not refuse his request. The same God will grant your heart's desire and He will not refuse it.

We went on a trip to Tulsa, Oklahama, US we could see how God honours a faith of His servant. Roberts began life in poverty and nearly died of tuberculosis at age 17. After finishing high school, Roberts studied for two years at the University. In 1938 he married a preacher's  daughter, Evelyn Lutman Fahnestock.Roberts became a traveling faith healer after ending his college studies without a degree. According to a TIME Magazine profile of 1972, Roberts originally made a name for himself with a large mobile tent "that sat 3,000 on metal folding chairs" where "he shouted at petitioners who did not respond to his healing.

1947 came as a turning point. Up until that time Roberts had struggled as a part-time preacher in Oklahoma. But at the age of 29 Roberts claims he picked up his Bible and it fell open at the Third Epistle of John where verse two read: "I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." Roberts decided immediately that it was all right to be rich. The next day he said he bought a Buick and God appeared, he said, telling him to heal the sick.At its peak in the early 1980s, Roberts was the leader of a $120 million-a-year organization employing 2,300 people. This spanned not only a university but also a medical school and hospital as well as buildings on 50 acres (200,000 m2) south of Tulsa valued at $500 million. Another part of the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, the Abundant Life Prayer Group (ALPG), was founded in 1958.
 
The Praying Hands, on the ORU campus in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1963, he founded Oral Roberts University (ORU) in Tulsa, Oklahoma, stating he was obeying a command from God. The university was chartered during 1963 and received its first students in 1965. Students were required to sign an honor code pledging not to drink, smoke, or engage in premarital sexual activities. The Prayer Tower, opened in 1967, is located at the center of the campus.

In 1977, Roberts claimed to have had a vision from a 900-foot-tall Jesus who told him to build City of Faith Medical and Research Center, and the hospital would be a success. In 1980, Roberts said he had a vision which encouraged him to continue the construction of his City of Faith Medical and Research Center in Oklahoma, which opened in 1981. At the time, it was among the largest health facilities of its kind in the world and was intended to merge prayer and medicine in the healing process.

What a honour and success from God to those who believe in His word! Roberts simply believed 3Jn:2 and the end was a perfect satisfactory one. Just believe!

Prayer: Oh Lord, You have given me things which I have not asked for. And now I want you to fulfil all my heart's desire according to Your will to my content. Fulfill my desires to the full as You did to Joshua. Amen.

2. FAMILY

If you have no desire to worship the Lord, choose today whom you will worship, whether it be the gods whom your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But I and my family will worship the Lord!” Jos24:15

Some people do not know the value of the families as that has come to them very easily. We need to understand that the family is a great gift of God. We should not forget to praise God for the wonderful family He has given to us. Today God is going to bless your family with a perfect blessing to the full contentment. When He blesses the family it means everything you own will be blessed. We read in 2Sam6:11,12 that the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite for three months. The Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all his family. David was told, “The Lord has blessed the family of Obed-Edom and everything he owns because of the ark of God.”

Any one in your family has not yet saved ?  saved but not baptized ?  baptised and till then not attending the church ? do not have a proper relationship with God? Do not worry. The Lord says, "You and your family will worship Me". 

Prayer: God, me and my family will worship You alone. I know as I worship you alone, You will bless everything I own and fulfill all my heart's desire.

3. RESPONSIBILITY

Israel worshiped the Lord throughout Joshua’s lifetime and as long as the elderly men who outlived him remained alive. These men had experienced firsthand everything the Lord had done for Israel. The bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the part of the field that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for one hundred pieces of money. So it became the inheritance of the tribe of Joseph.JOS24:31,32

Moses gave a big responsibilty to Joshua. During and after the days of Joshua people worshipped God. They took the bones of Joseph to Shechem and burried it there in the field that Jacob bought and he did it with responsibility with much perfection. God has given responsiblity to each and every one of us and He wants us to have it done responsibly.

Prayer: Lord, help me to do all the things with more responsibility and complete it successfully as Joshua.

4. TESTIMONY:

After Moses the Lord’s servant died, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant:Jos1:1

Here we are going to see the promotion of a person when he is under his master and completes his job perfectly. After all this Joshua son of Nun, the Lord’s servant, died at the age of one hundred ten. Jos24:29. The period between chapter 1 and 24 is to prepare Joshua to be promoted from being called as Moses' assistant to be called as the servant of God. The training period will be a very difficult time but when you take it and finish it, you will see a great blessing with a good testimony. We should always be ready for the day when God testifies about us. Man sees the face but God sees your heart and testify about you. Do not expect that people will appreciate for your right doings may be sometimes we will be blamed when we do something good. Only look unto Jesus for He is the one who rightly testifies about us. Jesus Himself says, "For if such things are done when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”Lk23:31. He is moulding  us to become like Jesus. So many situations will come where we cannot answer back even we are right. Jesus was led like a sheep to slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He did not open His mouth. In humiliation justice was taken from him. Who can describe his posterity? I hope we are not going through that much tribulation. Yet God will give us strength and patience to be silent and to overcome.

Mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws get testimony from each other and Husbands and wives get testimony from each other. Remember all the situations you are going through is moulding you like Jesus. This world is preparing you to be transformed and we will all be changed – in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed and taken up with Him and will inherit the kingdom of God. 1Cor15:50-52.

Prayer:  Thanks be to God, who gives me the victory through my Lord Jesus Christ! and transform me like Him. So then, let me be firm and not be moved! and always be outstanding in the work of the Lord, knowing that my labor is not in vain in You, my loving Lord.