Making of a Samuel
As long as Samuel was judge over Israel, all the enemies were incapacitated. They all feared Samuel and all Israel was safe--because God's hand was heavy against the enemy for Samuel's sake [1Sam.7.13]. God allowed no word of declaration from Samuel to fall to the ground void.
We should see the Kingdom principles behind the making of a Samuel. We need Samuels today in the church. Samuels in church will render devils powerless, fearful, and frozen to inactivity against their will. God will cause our enemies to be at peace with us--because they have no choice. Being a Samuel is being God's flesh on earth.
Barrenness
God had to make Hannah barren. To produce a Samuel, God has to make you nothing. Even Christ, the greatest move of God (sending His Son), was made nothing, taking the form of a slave. Barrenness was a terrible stigma in those days, and Hannah had to undergo it--for meekness sake. God won't do anything great and powerful until he first makes his instrument meek. This is to fulfill another Kingdom principle--God is against the proud but gives grace to the meek. That grace is enabling grace.
Is your church small or almost empty and you wonder why, though the spiritual life of your church is healthy? Well, brace yourself...you may be up for a great promotion. You may be next in line to becoming a Samuel church! Just keep on pressing on towards God, and do everything God's radical ways!
Radical Break from Tradition
Elkanah just went on doing worship the traditional way year in and year out, not stopping a while to think if anything was improving. Churches today just do their traditions each Sunday year in and year out, even if what they're doing isn't bringing down the manifest presence of God any more. Elkanah's other wife still had a rotten character (the Word says a man's glory is his wife), and he still couldn't control her. What good is it for believers to worship God if the man of the house is not man of the house? A lot of Christian husbands are not men of the house, and so are a lot of pastors not men of the house of God--they just do what their members feel like doing. They're people's slaves.
The wife should submit to the husband in all things, and the husband should love the wife. In this case (for some reason men then had an option to have many wives, although Paul clearly stressed monogamy in the New Testament), Elkanah loved only Hannah.
In short, Elkanah's traditional worship was useless. Hannah was fed up with it, too. One day she finally 'stood up' [1.9] and went herself to the Tabernacle to worship in an intimate way, directly, doing away with the usual rituals and man's protocols--or worship programs, as many would call it today. It was so radical that Eli the priest thought it was drunkenness--like how radical worship was on the day of Pentecost when Peter and company were accused of being intoxicated with beer and liquor.
Power Prayer!
With one prayer, the heavenly atmosphere changed for Hannah! Heaven became busy and quick! God was excited and power was soon emitting from his presence! Angels were dispatched to start the making of a Samuel. Unlike how Elkanah's years of traditional worship didn't open anything in heaven's floodgates. We should do away with men's boring and silly traditions (no mater how good they look and how "touched" and "blessed" we feel) and do everything in God's radical and supernatural ways!
Don't settle for less than a Samuel. Don't settle for less than Jesus Christ!
God heard Hannah and Hannah was favored--not just blessed. Being blessed would have made Hannah plain pregnant. Being favored makes possible the making of a Samuel. It's a Samuel blessing we need today!
Blessing Principle Revealed
Many still don't get it, but God designed blessings to be given away--or given back to him, to be specific. To be fully surrendered. Many today still keep majority of the blessings to themselves. They still believe in tithes and offerings alone. They don't realize that it's 100 percent or nothing. They still believe that God gave us one day in 7 to offer to God. No, that's not the essence of the Lord's Sabbath. Sabbath is everyday! One hundred percent! We have to keep the Lord's Sabbath (not the traditional Sabbath) everyday. Genuine Sabbath keeping in Christ is living the LIFE of Jesus everyday--or having Him live our lives daily. That's being super God's flesh!
Hannah told God that if he favored her with a child, the child would be given back to him in full. And Hannah did exactly that. You see how God is pleased with a prayer? Prayer pleasing to God is prayer that says, "I surrender everything fully! I give back everything to YOU, leaving me nothing. Zero!" And that means everything. That's how you become poor in spirit. Blessings are meant to be given back to God. Christians are still blind to this. They still own their churches through denominationalism. They should give up their denominations and give the people back to God. They're God's people, not theirs. They feel that someone "steals" their members when they go to another church. They think they own their members.
When God heard Hannah's all-out faith in God, all heaven was stirred! Samuel was created!
After Samuel was born, we see Elkanah still pursuing his old, rotten tradition. He was not amazed by God's radical ways. He and his naughty, rotten wife went on worshiping God the traditional way, but Hannah quit it altogether [1.22]. She knew the secret--true worship is all about LIFE. If you give God your whole life, that's true worship, even if you don't have men's church traditions and programs. Hannah gave her life..and Samuel's life..fully to God.
That's the making of a Samuel. That's being God's flesh!
We should see the Kingdom principles behind the making of a Samuel. We need Samuels today in the church. Samuels in church will render devils powerless, fearful, and frozen to inactivity against their will. God will cause our enemies to be at peace with us--because they have no choice. Being a Samuel is being God's flesh on earth.
Barrenness
God had to make Hannah barren. To produce a Samuel, God has to make you nothing. Even Christ, the greatest move of God (sending His Son), was made nothing, taking the form of a slave. Barrenness was a terrible stigma in those days, and Hannah had to undergo it--for meekness sake. God won't do anything great and powerful until he first makes his instrument meek. This is to fulfill another Kingdom principle--God is against the proud but gives grace to the meek. That grace is enabling grace.
Is your church small or almost empty and you wonder why, though the spiritual life of your church is healthy? Well, brace yourself...you may be up for a great promotion. You may be next in line to becoming a Samuel church! Just keep on pressing on towards God, and do everything God's radical ways!
Radical Break from Tradition
Elkanah just went on doing worship the traditional way year in and year out, not stopping a while to think if anything was improving. Churches today just do their traditions each Sunday year in and year out, even if what they're doing isn't bringing down the manifest presence of God any more. Elkanah's other wife still had a rotten character (the Word says a man's glory is his wife), and he still couldn't control her. What good is it for believers to worship God if the man of the house is not man of the house? A lot of Christian husbands are not men of the house, and so are a lot of pastors not men of the house of God--they just do what their members feel like doing. They're people's slaves.
In short, Elkanah's traditional worship was useless. Hannah was fed up with it, too. One day she finally 'stood up' [1.9] and went herself to the Tabernacle to worship in an intimate way, directly, doing away with the usual rituals and man's protocols--or worship programs, as many would call it today. It was so radical that Eli the priest thought it was drunkenness--like how radical worship was on the day of Pentecost when Peter and company were accused of being intoxicated with beer and liquor.
Power Prayer!
With one prayer, the heavenly atmosphere changed for Hannah! Heaven became busy and quick! God was excited and power was soon emitting from his presence! Angels were dispatched to start the making of a Samuel. Unlike how Elkanah's years of traditional worship didn't open anything in heaven's floodgates. We should do away with men's boring and silly traditions (no mater how good they look and how "touched" and "blessed" we feel) and do everything in God's radical and supernatural ways!
Don't settle for less than a Samuel. Don't settle for less than Jesus Christ!
God heard Hannah and Hannah was favored--not just blessed. Being blessed would have made Hannah plain pregnant. Being favored makes possible the making of a Samuel. It's a Samuel blessing we need today!
Blessing Principle Revealed
Many still don't get it, but God designed blessings to be given away--or given back to him, to be specific. To be fully surrendered. Many today still keep majority of the blessings to themselves. They still believe in tithes and offerings alone. They don't realize that it's 100 percent or nothing. They still believe that God gave us one day in 7 to offer to God. No, that's not the essence of the Lord's Sabbath. Sabbath is everyday! One hundred percent! We have to keep the Lord's Sabbath (not the traditional Sabbath) everyday. Genuine Sabbath keeping in Christ is living the LIFE of Jesus everyday--or having Him live our lives daily. That's being super God's flesh!
Hannah told God that if he favored her with a child, the child would be given back to him in full. And Hannah did exactly that. You see how God is pleased with a prayer? Prayer pleasing to God is prayer that says, "I surrender everything fully! I give back everything to YOU, leaving me nothing. Zero!" And that means everything. That's how you become poor in spirit. Blessings are meant to be given back to God. Christians are still blind to this. They still own their churches through denominationalism. They should give up their denominations and give the people back to God. They're God's people, not theirs. They feel that someone "steals" their members when they go to another church. They think they own their members.
When God heard Hannah's all-out faith in God, all heaven was stirred! Samuel was created!
After Samuel was born, we see Elkanah still pursuing his old, rotten tradition. He was not amazed by God's radical ways. He and his naughty, rotten wife went on worshiping God the traditional way, but Hannah quit it altogether [1.22]. She knew the secret--true worship is all about LIFE. If you give God your whole life, that's true worship, even if you don't have men's church traditions and programs. Hannah gave her life..and Samuel's life..fully to God.
That's the making of a Samuel. That's being God's flesh!
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