God’s word is filled with many wonderful promises. We are promised that God will direct our steps, work all things to our good, give us of His goodness and the list goes on and on. Look at Exodus 19:4-5:

You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.

One thing that is critical to understand is that God’s promises are only to those who obey and follow Him. If you look, you will notice that God’s promises always follow a command. The reason is simple, if you do not abide with God, you can’t enjoy the benefits that are a part of that relationship. We are the only barriers to experiencing God’s goodness. God will never force Himself on you. He calls and reaches out to us, but unless there is a response of love on our part, that call goes unanswered. The secret to experiencing God is to make Him the object of our affection. If we love God’s blessings more than God, our relationship with God will suffer. Our focus should be outside of our own desires. A selfish relationship never works. Both sides must be giving. God has given of Himself to us, we need to give our hearts and actions to God or we will have a one-sided relationship and can never experience true intimacy. I believe we must focus on learning how to love God. As our love for God grows, He will call us into a deeper relationship.

God only reveals to us a little at a time. If we are faithful, He will show more of His will to us. The more we align ourselves to God’s will, the more we will experience Him. One principle the bible clearly shows is that God will test our faithfulness before He increases us. A good example of this is illustrated in Matthew 25:14-30:

For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them.
And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey.
Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents.
And likewise he who had received two gained two more also.
But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money.
After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them.
So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.’
His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’
He also who had received two talents came and said, ‘Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them.’
His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’
Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed.
And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’
But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed.
So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest.
So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents.
‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.
And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

The point I believe this passage teaches is that God knows what our abilities are. He tests us based on our ability in order to prove who is faithful and who is not. Talent refers to a considerable sum of money in this passage. The first two servants were faithful with what they were given. They were not self-focused but rather were focused on their Lord. They did not cling to what was given to them because the money was not the objects of their affection. Their Lord was. Their focus was not on looking out for themselves but working to increase the kingdom of their Lord.

The lazy servant was quite the opposite. His focus was solely on himself. He was more concerned about what cost might required of him and he did not have the love for his Lord that gave a desire to work for his Lord’s benefit. The object of his affection was himself and his possessions. The risk of personal cost was more than he was willing to sacrifice. I believe we all start off as a spiritually weak person who has the self-focus. Many will remain lazy out of fear of what personal cost might be incurred. Until we leave behind the idea of fulfilling our own desires, we will never see anything but fear of missing out or loosing out on our lives. In Luke 9:23-24 Jesus says, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it".

God does not think like we do. We cling to our need to look out for number one. God requires getting outside of a self-centered way of thinking and to follow Him. If you live for yourself, that is what you will get. However, you can’t fill that emptiness inside, you can’t overcome in this life, and nothing done for yourself can be carried into eternity. If you live for Jesus, seek His will and trust in God to meet your needs, He promises to fill you to overflowing. You can’t even fill your own emptiness, but God can fill you to overflow.

We must get outside of ourselves. We must first become Christ centered and Christ focused. Then we must continue to get outside of ourselves by reaching out to others. God will fill you, but you can’t rest content with the idea that God’s love shown to you is for you alone. In Matthew 10:8, Jesus instructed His disciples to reach out and meet the needs of those around them, not to use their outreach for gaining money, but to freely give as God has given to them. That verse still holds true. A pond is filled and becomes stagnate. A river becomes filled and flows outward looking for outlets for the water that continues to feed it. I believe that is how God works. If you refuse to reach out, you will become stagnate and polluted. But if you are focused beyond yourself, as you reach out to others, God will continue to fill you and you will continue to grow. We are to be conduits of God’s love, not self-centered puddles that never serve a purpose. As I minister to others, God ministers to me. As I pray for and become a healing hand to the many needs around me, God heals me.

Learning to trust and depend on God is essential. As we grow, we need to learn to follow God wherever He leads. God never promised this would be easy. In fact, the God will put us in a position that requires us to either turn from following Him, or depend on Him. If you look at the great men of the bible, God always tests them before exalting them. Joseph was exalted above everyone in Egypt during the great 7-year famine and only had to answer to pharaoh. God tested Joseph by allowing him to get to the lowest point of his life. He was forgotten in a dungeon for years and years. I believe this test had a two-fold purpose. First it tested Joseph’s faith. Because Joseph did not give up on God, his faith was strengthened and God blessed him far above what he ever dreamed would be possible. The second purpose was to show Joseph that alone he could do nothing. If God had exalted Joseph immediately, he would have likely been lifted up in pride. He was always known as a godly man, but it is so easy to feel self-righteous. Joseph might have thought it was his own greatness that exalted him. But because all hope was lost, his dream was only to get out of the dungeon. It would take God to restore his freedom and becoming a ruler was not even an idea. Joseph was unaware that God was shaping him to be salvation to his own people, but because he hoped in God even in trouble, God was able to prepare him.

We see the opposite when those same people were delivered by the hand of Moses and lead to inherit the promised land. Israel had become enslaved. Against all odds, God called Moses out of hiding to lead his people out of slavery. The people watched the wondrous signs of God as He plagued the Egyptians into obedience, saved Israel from pharaoh’s pursuing army, fed them in the desert, gave them water, sheltered them from the sun in the day and gave them light at night, and the list of amazing proof that God was leading them goes on. God led them to the banks of the Jordan River. All they had to do was cross into their homeland. God’s tested the people before handing them His many blessings. Look at Numbers 13:1-3

And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,

Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.

So Moses sent them from the Wilderness of Paran according to the command of the LORD, all of them men who were heads of the children of Israel.

Numbers 13:26-14:3

Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land.
Then they told him, and said: We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.
Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there.
The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.
Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.
But the men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.
And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature.
There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.
So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night.
And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!
Why has the LORD brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?

Their reaction to this crisis really hits home. How many times do we do the same thing? God builds our faith by rescuing us from our troubles, strengthening us, making us strong in Him and tries to teach us to look to Him as our deliverer. God has proven Himself by His many wonders that are clearly seen when we reflect upon our lives. But a time will come when God will ask you to prove your faith. Faith is belief and trust in action. Believing in God is not enough, faith is placing our complete trust in the God in whom we believe even when the odds are against us. The negative odds are the whole point. God wants us to see that the odds are against us so that we know He is God and that we are not sufficient in ourselves.

What became of the promise? Look at Deuteronomy 1:30-36:

The LORD your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes,
and in the wilderness where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.’
Yet, for all that, you did not believe the LORD your God, who went in the way before you to search out a place for you to pitch your tents, to show you the way you should go, in the fire by night and in the cloud by day.
And the LORD heard the sound of your words, and was angry, and took an oath, saying,
‘Surely not one of these men of this evil generation shall see that good land of which I swore to give to your fathers,
except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and his children I am giving the land on which he walked, because he wholly followed the LORD.’

The promise was denied to all except the two who stood strong and believed God. Verse 38 says that Joshua led the next generation into the promise land and Caleb was the only other one allowed to claim the promise because only they believed in God’s deliverance. The power of God is great, but our faith is required. God will not force you to obey and without obedience, you can’t claim the promises of God. God will stretch your faith. God doesn’t care about lip service. Some believe that the words you speak are how the promises of God are claimed. The bible doesn’t support this idea. The bible says that God’s people honor Him with their lips, but their heart is far from Him. God doesn’t honor lip service. God honors those who trust in Him from the heart and place the hope of their lives in His hands. Those who are willing to step out in faith at God’s calling even when they know success is impossible will find God’s power enables them to succeed. I believe this is the only way to be exalted by God. Otherwise we will be lifted up with pride thinking that we have done a great work. Of course it must be God’s calling. God calls us to stretch ourselves beyond our own strength so that we will know that He is God.