Hi and blessings to you all!!!

I’m not sure if you have run into this problem but bear with me if you haven’t. I am speaking of the problem of having your clothes shrunk.  You know … one day you go to put on that favourite pair of jeans and they are a little too tight.  Certainly my wife – because I don’t usually deal with the laundry and its way easier to blame someone else – surely, she set the dryer too high and shrunk my jeans.  It could not possibly have anything to do with how I’m living my life.

Well, it doesn’t take too long to determine that maybe it does have something to do with choices I am making.  Those choices can be felt.  This is true for all areas of our lives.  We all make choices with our time, effort and money that have effects on other areas of our lives.  We might choose to do a number of things that we find fun and yet discover that family time starts to feel a little tight in the pants.  We can choose to buy that big screen TV but discover that money is a little tight at the end of the month or for a few months or when insurance is due or when vacation time comes.  Or, do we get resentful towards God when He asks something of us that would not seem so tight if we had not made other choices. Jesus spoke about this principle in Luke 16:10-13:

If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? And if you are not faithful with other people’s things, why should you be trusted with things of your own?

No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

I believe there is a definite maturing process going on in the lives of Christians in this day and hour.  What was allowable in the past is not so today.  Choices will need to change.  I have read from intercessors and prophets that what God allowed in the past is not going to be allowed in this day and hour.  And so, although it is true that some choices have fattened up areas of my life and made other areas uncomfortable, it is also true that the clothes have shrunk.  Jesus spoke of a narrow gate.  Paul wrote of maturing and no longer thinking like a child.  God is desiring to raise our spiritual experience into adulthood.

I say all of this to encourage you as you transition.  I believe many of us are feeling this maturing process. The move of God’s Spirit that we all greatly desire will not happen again in the infancy of our previous walk and experience.  Father God is requiring us all to grow.  His desire is to give us our inheritance but He cannot give it to children (Gal. 4:1).  I do not think we are infants any longer but have grown into adolescence. He desires people to pick from the fruit our lives and the fruit is visible but that fruit must mature if people are going to enjoy eating it.  The fullness of what He desires for us is only a step away.  I encourage us all to follow His leading and take that step into full maturity.

I love and bless you all,

Pastor Merril