Because Of God: Understanding God’s Hand in our Lives

By Pastor Ron McKey

James 1:17 NKJV – “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”

A lot of us tend to take credit for God’s work. When things go well, we often show gratitude for all the human actions that led to our success, forgetting the Creator. But the truth is, everything good in your life is because of God.

You may have built a good business or made a good living, but God gives you breath. It’s His favor in your life that allows you to do everything you do. God gives us help and strength. We may think we're doing it on our own, but we have a God in heaven who knows us, reaches out to us, and strengthens us.

There are spiritual seasons when God moves. The Bible says God will open up the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing. There are times when the windows of heaven open up over our lives, and God blesses us simply because He is God and He does great things in our lives. I believe we are entering one of those seasons.

There are three main things that God recently spoke to me about the season we’re in:

#1 God is Stirring the Waters

God stirs the waters to inspire faith and remind us that He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. When God sent angels to stir the waters in the pond in Bethesda, it was to remind them that there is still a healing covenant. And I believe He's doing that today in the spirit. God is stirring our lives today. He’s stirring something in churches. God is moving and reminding us of who He is.

He’s reminding us to keep walking by faith and keep our faith leveled up. I believe God is up to something, and whoever wants in, needs to get in on it because God is moving.

#2 God is Bringing New Things Into Our Lives

Isaiah 43:19 NKJV – “Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

God is getting ready to do something. I think He wants to show up, do more, move more, speak more, and show more in our lives. Whether we realize it or not, we're in a season of more.

#3 God is Rearranging the Kingdom

God is getting ready to rearrange the Kingdom. There's going to be a shift in the churches. There will be people who are looking for real answers to real questions about life. They're not going to be satisfied with filler, fluff, or religious stuff. They want God to move in their lives, and they want to be at the epicenter of what God is doing.

So, What Do We Do As Believers This Season?

Make God the Epicenter of Your Life

As believers, we're not about promoting who we are and what we can do. We are all about promoting what God is and what He is going to do. And therefore, we should keep Jesus in the middle of everything we do.

Galatians 6:14 – “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

As a pastor, I get to wear many hats, but I always describe myself as a signpost. All I do is point people to Jesus. I can’t change your life, give you purpose, or restore your joy, but Jesus can. All I have to do to be successful is point people to Him, and then ministry becomes uncomplicated.

Leave the Past Behind

In Philippians 3, Paul tells us that he knows he’s supposed to forget the things that are in the past. See, a lot of people get messed up because of the past. They never move past the bad things that have happened in their life. And so, they let those things hold them back from doing what God wants them to do. God says you must forget those things in your past.

Some people have had great successes, and they let their successes hold them back. Paul says we must forget the past and reach forward to things that are before us. This is the key to having a personal move of God in your life.

Let Go, and Let God

Paul doesn’t have a know-it-all attitude. He knows he’s got further to go and acknowledges that he wants God in his life. It's when we come to that place that we begin to think outside of this religious box. God wants to move in your life. And although we want God to move in our lives, we want Him to do it our way. We want Him to move at a convenient time because we always have this desire to be in control. But God wants to be in control.

Don’t Get Too Comfortable

Sometimes we take what is a God move and get comfortable with it. Some people have gotten too comfortable in their spiritual life. They are just cruising along with God because they’ve had success. But living a good life doesn't mean we should seek God less. In fact, it means we should seek God more. When things are going well, we begin to trust in systems instead of the spirit. While systems are important, we need a spirit of revival more than we need organization.

We walk according to formulas instead of walking by faith. We posture up rather than pray up. And we often focus more on our attendance than we do on our anointing.

Actively Seek God in Your Life

This is not a time for us to sit back. It’s a time to seek God in a way that we've never sought Him before. This is the time to cry out to God and humble ourselves before Him.

Jeremiah 29:13 NKJV – “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

God should always be our first response, not our last resort. In everything we do, we should ask ourselves, “God, what do You want? What are You looking for? What's YOUR plan? What's YOUR desire?” There are many rewards that follow seeking after God, including spiritual rewards, peace of mind, comfort, peace, rest, and mental health. Most importantly, there's the presence of God.

Be Prepared for Spiritual Warfare

Many of us are not engaging in spiritual warfare because we're not spiritually prepared – we’re failing because we give up. And God says we should be fighting. We should all be engaged in spiritual warfare. Some Christians are retreating from the enemy when they should be defeating the enemy. So, we need to rise and live the lives that God wants us to live as believers.

We know that the devil is our enemy. But Satan doesn't show up in a red suit with spiky horns and a pitchfork in our lives. And so, we often miss him. Satan often shows up through a spirit of complacency, discouragement, procrastination, disappointment, distraction, defeat, and temptation, among others. These are what the Bible calls fiery darts.

The enemy is constantly throwing these at your life to discourage you and get you to void whatever God is doing in your life. So many of us are suffering from spiritual fatigue. We're exhausted because we've not spent time in God’s presence, renewing our relationship with Him. Hence, when you get in the spirit of worship, you need to just stay there because God is refilling your tank.

God wants us to have a growing passion for Him. We need to worship and serve Him passionately. God is looking for believers who seek Him wholeheartedly. So, we must pray for God to stir our passion. We've got to learn to get in the presence of God. We've got to learn that He's a difference-maker.

We need to learn that our successes are not due to even our best efforts. Our successes happen when God shows up in our lives. Everything that we are is because of God, and that w