The Plan Is On

Hey friends.

I can’t believe a month has already passed us by!

I had decided to take a break in January and I am glad I did that.

But I am really pumped to be back.

So I know this is late but Happy New Year to you all!

I wanted to focus on Jeremiah 29:11 today. It’s a very popular passage of scripture and it’s one of my favorites for sure!

But I want to look at in context because I think it’s even more powerful when you look at the full picture.

“These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles, and to

the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.”

Jeremiah 29:1

God’s people were forcefully taken away from their home. It had been destroyed and burned by the Babylonians.

So there they were in a foreign land with no hope for the future. They were discouraged, hopeless and lost in Babylon.

But in the midst of those grim circumstances God had a word for His people,

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Jeremiah 29:11

In that hopeless situation, God’s plan for His people was very much alive. Even though it was hard to see at the moment, God

would free them from their captives. He had an amazing plan for them!

You may be in a place today and you are hopeless and see no future for yourself but I want to encourage you to keep hoping.

Hold on to your faith in God because He has a plan for your life, an amazing life. In spite of the grim circumstances, God’s plan

for your life is very much alive. Don’t lose hope.

Bless you friends

Rolain

Wait A Bit More!

What are you waiting for? How long have you been waiting?

Waiting is not an easy thing to do. It actual is a big step of faith because you are giving up your control so God can be in control.

I love how Psalm 27:14 describes waiting on God,

“Wait patiently for the Lord.

Be brave and courageous.

Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.”

Words like, be brave, be strong and courageous are used. That should give you an idea of how hard it is to wait.

But I want to encourage you to keep on waiting. No matter how long you have been waiting, no matter the obstacles, the closed doors and unanswered prayers you have faced, keep waiting on the Lord. Don’t throw in the towel. Keep standing in faith that God will come to your rescue.

He will come through for you.

He will answer your prayers.

He will breakthrough on your behalf.

I would like to share a scripture that encouraged me this week

“I waited and waited and waited some more, patiently, knowing God would come through for me.

Then, at last, he bent down and listened to my cry. He stooped down to lift me out of danger from the desolate pit I was in,

out of the muddy mess I had fallen into. Now he’s lifted me up into a firm, secure place and steadied me

while I walk along his ascending path.”

Psalm 40:1, 2 TPT

Wait a bit longer friend.

God will come to your rescue. the word says, “AT LAST, he bent down and listened to my cry.” (emphasis mine)

It may seem like nothing is happening right now but things will change. He knows exactly where you are.

Don’t give up. God is good and He is faithful. He will not abandon you.

He knows you are waiting on Him so He will not waste your wait.

As you wait on Him be confident and assured that He has got you. Stand strong in faith as you wait on Him.

If you don’t know, I unveiled my book cover of my latest book this week.

It is almost finished so in the meantime

I created a free version (teaser) of my upcoming book. If you would like to get a copy of it please click here to get it.

And after you read it I would really love to hear your thoughts on it.

Bless you friends

Rolain

Why the Delay God?

“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, and then he said to his disciples, let us go back to Judea.”

John 11:5-7 ESV

As I read this scripture I couldn’t help but think why Jesus stayed two days longer where He was instead of going to Lazarus immediately? After all the Word tells us that He LOVED Martha, Mary and Lazarus.

Why did He delay?

Because He was about to something amazing. He knew Lazarus would die but He wanted to show everyone His glory. But He was the only One who knew what was about to happen. Mary and Martha on the other hand didn’t. And that must have been hard for them. They knew Jesus loved them so they expected Him to respond immediately but that’s not what happened.

“So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

One thing we can be sure of is that Jesus did not delay because He was trying to be mean or because He enjoyed seeing people suffer. He loved this family.

As you wait on the Lord you need to remember that the Lord makes you wait because He loves you. Even in the midst of delays He loves you and Has a plan. Behind the delays there is love and I know that’s a difficult statement because delays are not an easy thing to deal with. It’s easy to think God has abandoned us or He doesn’t care about us when delays happen. But He does care and He loves you deeply. He knows exactly what you are feeling, the fears, the confusion, the anxiety, the frustration…

He knows it all. In John 11:35 we read a very popular verse,

“Jesus wept.”

He wept because He knew what the sisters were going through. He could identify with the pain they were feeling.

As you wait and as you face delays know that God loves you so much. He understands everything you are feeling and going through. Trust Him in the wait. Trust Him when the delays come.

The Lord has a plan in the wait and in the delays. Don’t lose hope. You are not alone in the wait. He is right by your side. His purposes for your life will be accomplished as you wait on Him in faith! And always remember that He loves you so much.

God bless you friends

Rolain

Before The Time Of Fulfillment

“So now wrap your heart tightly around the hope that lives within us,

Knowing that God always keeps his promises!

Hebrews 10:23 TPT

We serve a God who fulfills promises. What He has promised you, He will bring to pass. But we all know that there is a middle between when the promise is made and when it is fulfilled and that middle is filled with trials, tests, and difficult challenges. I like to use another name for the middle stuff – crucible.

What’s your attitude like as you are in the crucible?

Have you got an attitude of faith and fully expectant that God is with you in the fire or have you lost hope? Have you given up on God because of the intensity of the fire?

I want to encourage you to not lose heart and to keep holding on to the Lord in the midst of the fire.

He will bring to pass what He has promised you. He is with you in the fire because He loves you and because he has a promise to fulfill. He will never abandon you because He is faithful.

I think of Joseph who was given an amazing promise. But instead of everything going smoothly until the promise was fulfilled, he was shipped off to a foreign land as a slave. In fact, he nearly lost his life. Things went terribly wrong for him but in the midst of the fire we see something amazing,

“Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master.”

Genesis 39:1, 2 NIV

“But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden.”

Genesis 39:20 NIV

God was with him in the crucible, in the fire. He never left him. And it’s the same with you and me. God is with you in the fire. He has not abandoned you no matter how intense the fire is. The trials and the tests and the difficult challenges have a purpose.

“Count it all joy, my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

James 1:2 NLT

The trials and the tests strengthen your faith. Through each trial and test your faith is getting stronger and stronger. The Word actually tells us to be joyful when trials come our way.

So as you go through the fire know that God is with you and there is a very important work happening in you – the strengthening of your faith in God.

Like I said earlier, God will fulfill what he has promised you. It’s just a matter of time. So as you approach the time of promise and you are in the fire know that God is with you. He will not leave you alone. Let me share one last scripture before I sign off.

“And the Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had solemnly promised their ancestors. None of their enemies could stand against them, for the Lord helped them conquer all their enemies. Not a single one of all the good promises the Lord had given to the family of Israel was left unfulfilled; everything he had spoken came true.”

Joshua 21:44, 45 NLT

Bless you friends

Rolain 

What God Does With Our Rough Starts

No matter how bad a start you have had in life know that God is stronger and greater than your past. No matter how dark your past has been, how painful and hopeless it was, know that God will turn it around. You can look forward in hope because He has better things in store for you. Don’t let the negative things you experienced in the past make you think that things will not change. They will change because God is in full control of your life and He has an amazing future in store for you.

I think of Mary Magdalene.

She had a rough start. She had been demon possessed and was a prostitute but her life was turned around when she met Jesus. He cast out the seven demons that had possessed her (Luke 8:1, 2). Her life was never the same after she met Jesus.

She was the first person to see Jesus after He got resurrected (John 20:14-17)

We don’t know much about her life after Jesus ascended to heaven but I would like to guess she was used mightily by God. Her life was never the same again because Jesus turned her darkness and rough start into something beautiful.

As I come to the end of the post I want to encourage you to be expectant for what God has in store for you. No matter how rough your start has been know that God has something better for you.

Don’t allow the enemy to lie to you that things will never change because it’s a lie. You can be expectant for things to change because God is the One who is orchestrating things in your life. Put all of your hope in Him. Trust Him with your life!

Bless you friends

Rolain

Do You Have The Full Picture?

Do you really understand the potential you have stored up in you?

Do you understand the amazing things that God has in store for you?

Because God created us He is the only One who has the full picture I believe. He is the one who sees everything and He knows what we are going to accomplish. So our job is to stop defining ourselves by the things we can’t see yet.

You didn’t create you so you need to be very careful with how you speak to yourself about what you can do and about the things that are in store for you. And you also need to be careful of the information that comes your way from other people. Because people will always have something to say about what you can and can’t do.

I think of Gideon who instead of agreeing with what the angel of the Lord told him he gave excuses as to why he was not qualified to do God’s work. And he got those opinions or ideas from the people around him. He grew up in an environment where he was constantly being told he was the least.

Jesus had this same problem. There were people very close to him who didn’t believe in him.

“You can’t become famous if you hide like this! If you can do such wonderful things, show yourself to the world! For even his brothers didn’t believe in him.”

John 7:4 NLT

If Jesus had people that didn’t believe in him what more of you and me?

So remember that you don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle and it’s okay. Press into the Lord. Spend time with him and he will reveal what He has called you to do.

Trust Him with your life.

Bless you friends.

Rolain

Don’t Be Impatient

“When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

Exodus 32:1

If only the Israelites were patient.

But they were not and because they were impatient they sinned. God had not forgotten about them. He knew where they were and He had a plan for them but the people let impatience get the best of them. And also note that Moses did not tell them when he would be back but they had an expectation of when he was supposed to be back and that expectation got them into trouble.

I am not going to sit here and say waiting on God is easy because it’s not. Courage is needed, to wait on God’s timing. But you can be assured of this one thing, He knows where you are at and what you need. He loves you and He doesn’t make you wait just for the fun of it. There is always a reason for the wait and one of those reasons is love. He loves you so much and wants the best for you.

So I want to encourage you to continue waiting on the Lord. He will come through for you. Look to Him and His strength as you wait.

God bless you friends

Rolain

How to Overcome Insecurities As You Walk In God’s Calling.

I don’t know about you but I feel inadequate often when it comes to God’s purposes for my life. I look at the things He is leading me into and I am like, how am I going to do this Lord? And with that comes the insecurities. Thoughts like,

I am not worthy

I am not qualified

Who am I to do this?

Where do I even start?

And so many more like thoughts ravage my mind.

Recently I was feeling very insecure but God reminded me of a few things that I want to encourage you with if you are facing the same feelings of insecurity.

• God’s purpose for your life will always be infinitely greater than your current abilities and strengths
• He knows very well that you are not able to accomplish His purpose in your own strength.
• He is very in tune with your weaknesses and failings but in His grace and mercy He has still chosen you!
• He wants you to trust Him wholeheartedly every step of the way because that’s the only way you can accomplish what He has called you to.

Another thing I realized is that the devil wants you to focus on your weaknesses, and sins so that you can disqualify yourself from God’s calling. Remember Moses.

When God called him, what did he do? Instead of saying yes Lord, he started giving excuses why he wasn’t the right candidate. Excuse after excuse he gave until he pleaded,

“But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else”

Exodus 4:13

The answer to feeling overwhelmed and out of your depth is not digging in and going at it alone in your own strength but it’s diving deeper into God and seeking His strength and wisdom.

Don’t listen to the lies of the enemy. You are enough because God calls you His son and daughter. He chose you not because you were strong enough, clever enough, rich enough, born in the right neighborhood, or because you went to the right school. It’s because He loved you and extended grace to you.

Whatever you do, don’t talk yourself out of his purpose. Take your insecurities to Him and drop them at His feet. Unpack every burden you feel and don’t hold anything back.

The Lord has amazing things planned for you so trust Him every step of the way.

Bless you friends

Rolain

Derailed Plans

“They saw him from afar, and before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams.”

Genesis 37:18-21

Joseph was in serious trouble. His brothers plan seemed full-proof so what chance did he have? But we know what happened. Joseph was sold into slavery instead of being killed. What happened there exactly? First of all we know that the devil was behind the plan. He comes only to seek, kill and destroy so I believe in was him pulling the strings. He wanted to take Joseph out. Now that’s out of the way, let answer the real question.

Why wasn’t Joseph killed?

Did the devil change his mind and think slavery was better than death? Because if he wanted to stop Joseph then death would have been better.

But I believe something else happened, Someone interfered in his plans – God! I believe the enemy was trying with all his power to kill Joseph. He hadn’t taken his foot off the pedal. In fact I think he pushed the pedal down harder to make sure.

But the truth was undeniable in that situation, God’s plans for Joseph’s life were stronger than the devil’s plans for Joseph. Nothing could change that. And you need to always remember that. Even though the enemy has plans for you, remember that God’s plans for your life are stronger and more powerful than the enemy’s plans for you. His plans will not succeed over you. God will derail them every time.

I think of Paul as well. There were 40 high powered officials that had conspired against him. It seemed like Paul was done for but once again God stepped in and derailed the enemy’s plan to destroy Paul. (Read the story in Acts 23:12-23)

Throughout scripture we see this truth played out again and again. So as I come to the end of this post I want to encourage you and remind you that God’s plans for your life are so much stronger than the enemy’s plans for you. The enemy’s plans will be thwarted and no weapon forged against you will prosper.

Bless you friends!

Rolain

The Big Plans of God for You

Today I want to talk about the plans God has for you. I know you have been told numerous times to pursue what God has for you but today I want to remind you and encourage you of God’s amazing plans for your life. They are pretty awesome and like nothing you could have ever imagine.

In Genesis 15:5, 6 God took Abraham outside and showed him the amazing plans he had for him.

In case you forgot, God is not trying to hide his plans for you from you. He wants you to be fully assured that his plans for your life are real, very real. You are not on this earth to just survive or to get by.

In this life we go through difficult things and at times those things can make us believe we have nothing to get excited about. We go through life thinking we are just a statistic. But it’s not true.

And the amazing thing about God’s plans for us is that it’s a gift.

God hasn’t given you purpose because you are more intelligent than others, or because you went to the right school, you got a degree, or you grew up in the right family etc

He has given you a purpose because of his grace and mercy.

It’s by faith and only faith that you can walk in the amazing purposes he has for you.

Romans 4:16-21 says,

 Therefore, [inheriting] the promise is the outcome of faith and depends [entirely] on faith, in order that it might be given as an act of grace (unmerited favor), to make it stable and valid and guaranteed to all his descendants—not only to the devotees and adherents of the Law, but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, who is [thus] the father of us all.

If you are going to walk in all the amazing things God has for you then you will have to do it by faith and faith alone. So trust God today to guide your steps.

Bless you friends

Rolain