Open Doors from Quarantine (2) ( by Fenny West)

Open Doors from Quarantine (2) Paul Acts 16

The Philippian Jailer Saved

²⁵But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.

²⁶Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.

²⁷And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself.

²⁸But Paul called with a loud voice, saying, “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.”

²⁹Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.

³⁰And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

³¹So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

³²Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.

³³And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized.

³⁴Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household.

Paul knew his purpose and embraced it. He was committed to preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles at all cost, willing to spend and be spent for it. And he constantly sought the guidance of the Holy Spirit (as we should all do) and had tremendous success.
However in his attempts to go to Phrygia, to preach the Gospel, the Holy Spirit said, “No!” Acts16:8
He then tried going to Bithynia but the Holy Spirit again refused. Now, while he was at Traos, he had a vision in which he saw someone saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us. V9
This gave him the confidence that he had heard from God and he proceeded there to the major city, Philippi with Silas.

The Macedonian Call

⁶Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia.

⁷After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them.

⁸So passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas.

⁹And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

¹⁰Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.

There he preached the Gospel and Lydia and her household believed and were baptised. V14-15
This was the first open door.

¹⁴Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.

¹⁵And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us.

Later they saw a woman possessed with the spirit of divination being used to make money for masters.
She said many good things about Paul and Silas but with the wrong spirit. Paul discerned and confronted her and cast the devil out of her. V17-18
This rattled the cages of her handlers and they were enraged and falsely accused Paul and Silas, bringing them before magistrates.
They were condemned and brutalised, badly beaten, broken and bleeding and then thrown into a dungeon of a prison with their feet in strait jackets.v17-24

However at midnight, Paul encouraged Silas for Church Service in jail. They prayed and sang loud such that the other prisoners heard them.
God enjoyed the aroma of their praise so much that He tapped His feet in heaven. This resulted in an earthquake which rocked the foundation of the prison, so much that all the doors and windows were flung open. And their chains fell off.v25-26

The prison warden heard the tumult, commotion and cacophony and leapt out of his bed hurriedly and came out with a lantern. As he saw the doors opened, his heart sank, thinking all the prisoners had escaped. He wanted to kill himself. But Paul and Silas quickly stopped him, saying, “Don’t do yourself any harm. We are all here.”
The warden was flabbergasted, wowed and so overwhelmed with awe that he said, “What must I do to be saved?”
Paul told him, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you and your household shall be saved.”
He led him and his household to salvation and there was a great joy and feasting to the glory of God.
God led him, allowed what he suffered but rewarded him with a great open door for the salvation the prison warden of household.
Open door came from quarantine and there was a great addition to the Kingdom of God.
Paul and Silas did not complain or moan for their quarantine but prayed and praised God and God gave them a great exploit and made their joy full. They could not have asked for more. God exceeded their expectations.
Therefore, in your quarantine arising from COVID19, it may look like a midnight hour. Do not complain but find a song of praise in the night. God gives songs in the night. Sing, dance, praise and pray a prayer of worship, adoration and thanksgiving to God. And God will give you unprecedented breakthroughs. He will cause others around you to marvel and be convicted to surrender to Him and you will be an instrument of reconciliation. Seize the moment when it comes. Be ambitious. Go for broke. Maximise the moment.
Your open doors could be great innovative ideas for business, teaching online, setting up a charity that will help others or reaching out to people in unique ways or writing best-seller or acquiring new skills that make you head-hunted. Go for it. Make all things, including this quarantine work for you. Because you love God and you are the called according to purpose.
Determine that at the end of the lock down, you will come out better than you went in. Make up your mind that weeping may endure for the night but joy is coming in the morning. Thanks be to God who always causes us to triumph. Praise God who enables His children who go through the valley of Baca (the valley of weeping) and make it a place of spring, going from strength to strength and from glory to glory. They may be hard pressed but they are never crushed; perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but assured that they are not abandoned. They are trees of righteousness, His treasured possession and destined to be forests. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord, shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall bring forth fruit not only in old age but in all seasons, locked down or unlocked down. They will not know when heat comes. When others are saying, “There is depression, hypertension, post-lock down depressive, traumatic syndrome.”, you will be saying, “There is refreshments, revelation, harvest, lifting up, elevation, promotion, innovation and creativity.” Glory to God!
Open doors from Quarantine is mine! in Jesus’ Name.
Open doors from Quarantine is yours! ,in Jesus’ Name.

Take it by faith and run with it and it shall be yours.

Triumphs are Hidden in the Womb of Trials ( by Fenny West)

Triumph are hidden in the womb of trials

and trials give birth to triumphs.

If you want great triumphs

you must be ready for great trials.

To expect a great triumph without a great trial

is the beginning of insanity.

Diamond is carbon under tons of pressure.

.^{33 These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”John16:33}

“… it takes putting carbon under pressure … its carbon, under tons of heat and pressure … Because extreme pressure, carbon converts in to diamond”

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Trials Will Show that Your Faith is Genuine (by Rick Warren)

“These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold.” (1 Peter 1:7a NLT)The Bible repeatedly says that God has promised to meet your needs: “And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19 NIV).

But the Bible also tells us that with every promise there is a condition. One of the conditions for this promise is that you have to trust him. The more you trust God, the more God is able to meet needs in your life.

So, how can you learn to trust God more so he can meet all of your needs? How can you learn to have greater faith?

You don’t get faith by sitting in a Bible study group or just talking about it. Faith is like a muscle; it develops by being used. The more you use your faith, the more it gets stretched. And the more it gets stretched, the more God is able to bless your life.

We call the circumstances that God creates to stretch our faith “trials”: “These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold” (1 Peter 1:7a NLT).

There are four common trials that God uses to test our faith, and, chances are, you’re in one of these tests right now. When you go through them, you can know that it is an opportunity for you to develop your faith so you can trust God more. I’ll talk about the first two today and the next two tomorrow.

The Pressure Test
The pressure test asks the question, “How will you handle stress?” Will you depend on yourself, or will you depend on God? Psalm 50:15 says, “Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me” (NIV). Do you turn to God when you’re in trouble and not to other things?
The People Test
God often uses people in your life to test and stretch and develop your faith. This test asks the question, “How will you handle disappointment?” Life is often disappointing. Careers, marriages, and even plans don’t turn out the way we planned them. But the most disappointing thing in life is people. Why? We get disappointed by people because we expect them to meet a need that only God himself can meet. This is a test!

Your problem is not the people in your life. Your problem is your response to the people in your life. People are not the problem, and they’re not the answer to the problem, either. The answer is God. When you expect other people to be your savior, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.

Jeremiah 17:7 says, “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence” (NLT). What happens if you trust in the Lord? Look at God’s promise in Isaiah 49:23: “Those who hope in me will not be disappointed” (NIV).

Talk It Over

Which of these tests is God using in your life right now to stretch your faith?
How will you choose to respond to the stress and people in your life that are testing your faith?

Zechariah 6:13

He shall build the temple of the Lord; and He shall bear the glory.

Christ Himself is the builder of His spiritual temple, and He has built it on the mountains of His unchangeable affection, His omnipotent grace, and His infallible truthfulness. But as it was in Solomon’s temple, so in this; the materials need making ready. There are the “Cedars of Lebanon,” but they are not framed for the building; they are not cut down, and shaped, and made into those planks of cedar, whose odoriferous beauty shall make glad the courts of the Lord’s house in Paradise. There are also the rough stones still in the quarry, they must be hewn thence, and squared. All this is Christ’s own work. Each individual believer is being prepared, and polished, and made ready for his place in the temple; but Christ’s own hand performs the preparation-work. Afflictions cannot sanctify, excepting as they are used by Him to this end. Our prayers and efforts cannot make us ready for heaven, apart from the hand of Jesus, who fashioneth our hearts aright. As in the building of Solomon’s temple, “there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard in the house,” because all was brought perfectly ready for the exact spot it was to occupy-so is it with the temple which Jesus builds; the making ready is all done on earth. When we reach heaven, there will be no sanctifying us there, no squaring us with affliction, no planing us with suffering. No, we must be made meet here-all that Christ will do beforehand; and when He has done it, we shall be ferried by a loving hand across the stream of death, and brought to the heavenly Jerusalem, to abide as eternal pillars in the temple of our Lord.
“Beneath His eye and care,

The edifice shall rise,

Majestic, strong, and fair,

And shine above the skies.“

Wilderness: Not a Destination ( Fenny West)

Wilderness:

Not a destination

But a filling station

Not a grave stone

But a stepping stone

Where you refuel

For your duel.

It’s for us all-

Great and small

To pass through

To a breakthrough.

It is to make you

And not mar you

David was in this place

And he saw God’s grace

Joseph was in this place

And he saw His face

Jesus was in this place

And He saw His Father’s face

You will come to this place

And you can see His face.

A place not for your death but birth

A place for His lovingkindness

A place of resurgence

We need it to grow and glow

Form strength to strength

In this place miracles can happen

As never before, like of old

Manna can fall

Ravens can bring bread

Water can come from a rock

Bitter water can be made sweet

Your Red sea can be parted.

Only those who follow whole-heartedly

Will enter the Promised Land

Like Joshua and Caleb.

Wilderness, we all need it.

It was the Father who took them through that way.

Deuteronomy 8: God’s Gracious Dealings

¹“All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to give to your forefathers.

²“You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

³“He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.

⁴“Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.

⁵“Thus you are to know in your heart that the LORD your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. ¹¹“Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today;

¹²otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them,

¹³and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies,

¹⁴then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

¹⁵“He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; He brought water for you out of the rock of flint.

¹⁶“In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end.

¹⁷“Otherwise, you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.’

Deut.

³⁰‘The LORD your God who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes,

³¹and in the wilderness where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way which you have walked until you came to this place.’

³²“But for all this, you did not trust the LORD your God, deut 1:

©Fenny West2013

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No Trials, No Triumphs

Acts 14:22

We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

God’s people have their trials. It was never designed by God, when He chose His people, that they should be an untried people. They were chosen in the furnace of affliction; they were never chosen to worldly peace and earthly joy. Freedom from sickness and the pains of mortality was never promised them; but when their Lord drew up the charter of privileges, He included chastisements amongst the things to which they should inevitably be heirs. Trials are a part of our lot; they were predestinated for us in Christ’s last legacy. So surely as the stars are fashioned by his hands, and their orbits fixed by Him, so surely are our trials allotted to us: He has ordained their season and their place, their intensity and the effect they shall have upon us. Good men must never expect to escape troubles; if they do, they will be disappointed, for none of their predecessors have been without them. Mark the patience of Job; remember Abraham, for he had his trials, and by his faith under them, he became the “Father of the faithful.” Note well the biographies of all the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and you shall discover none of those whom God made vessels of mercy, who were not made to pass through the fire of affliction. It is ordained of old that the cross of trouble should be engraved on every vessel of mercy, as the royal mark whereby the King’s vessels of honour are distinguished. But although tribulation is thus the path of God’s children, they have the comfort of knowing that their Master has traversed it before them; they have His presence and sympathy to cheer them, His grace to support them, and His example to teach them how to endure; and when they reach “the kingdom,” it will more than make amends for the “much tribulation” through which they passed to enter it.

Giving Glory to God

Is my reason for being

Standing firm on His Word

In all that I am doing.

Regardless of pressure

Regardless of the storm

His presence is assured

And I can have great calm.

His grace keeps me going

Regardless of the sea

Rising and buffeting;

He’s Master of the sea.

Hard-pressed, yet I’m not crushed

Tossed about yet standing;

Threatened yet very blessed;

Broken, sore, yet winning.

Cast Down but Unconquered

⁷But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.

⁸We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed —

¹⁰always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

¹¹For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

¹²So then death is working in us, but life in you.

¹³And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak,

¹⁴knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you.

¹⁵For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.

Seeing the Invisible

¹⁶Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.

¹⁷For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,

¹⁸while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.2 Cor4:7-15