{"id":356,"date":"2011-07-01T07:49:07","date_gmt":"2011-07-01T12:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gpc.168prayer.org\/?p=356"},"modified":"2012-06-29T21:40:01","modified_gmt":"2012-06-30T02:40:01","slug":"perseverance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpc.168prayer.org\/?p=356","title":{"rendered":"Perseverance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAnother of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, \u2018Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?\u2019\u00a0 Jesus said, \u2018Have the people sit down.\u2019 There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them.\u00a0 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.\u201d\u00a0 John 6:8-11<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

In making offerings for God\u2019s Kingdom, do we ever become disappointed when He does not seem to respond with blessings according to our timing and expectations?\u00a0 In the event of the boy who offered up 5 loaves & 2 fishes, it is easy to see the lesson of sacrifice based on Christ\u2019s call.\u00a0 But a subtle, yet important principle to realizing God\u2019s power demonstration is played out in the process of testing and preparation.<\/p>\n

After the boy offered over his meal, Christ did not respond immediately with any multiplication.\u00a0 Instead, He took the time to ask his disciples to accomplish the daunting task of organizing 20,000 or so people for large scale food distribution \u2013 when there is no food.\u00a0 It may have taken at least several hours to accomplish this task with such a large crowd mired in confusion and desperation.\u00a0 What must the boy be thinking at this time?\u00a0 Could he be regretting the offering?\u00a0 Maybe he could have saved at least himself if he kept the food.<\/p>\n

God\u2019s way of blessing the offering of our companies and careers often follows a similar pattern.\u00a0 Our offerings of faith only kick starts the miracle process.\u00a0 But to fully realize the blessings of God\u2019s power, we must persevere through a period of testing and preparation.\u00a0 It is certainly conceivable that the boy could have taken the food back and the story would have ended very differently.\u00a0 But he didn\u2019t.\u00a0 He persevered and realized the power demonstration of Christ\u2019s Kingdom economy.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s intercede this week for the many \u201cark builders\u201d who have offered up their companies and careers for Christ\u2019s End-Time Kingdom mandate.\u00a0 Like Dr. Hsin-Chia of Twintech<\/a>, many are going through a period of testing and preparation for a power demonstration of the Kingdom economy.\u00a0 Let\u2019s lift them up in prayer that they will persevere like the boy of offering.<\/p>\n

For Dr. Hsin-Chia Chou\u2019s story of Kingdom offering and last week\u2019s intercession, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAnother of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, \u2018Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?\u2019\u00a0 Jesus said, \u2018Have the people sit down.\u2019 There … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpc.168prayer.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpc.168prayer.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpc.168prayer.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpc.168prayer.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpc.168prayer.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gpc.168prayer.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":359,"href":"https:\/\/gpc.168prayer.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions\/359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpc.168prayer.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpc.168prayer.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpc.168prayer.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}