Article: PREPARATION HAS THE POTENTIAL TO CHANGE ONE’S DESTINY! | Jacob Varghese

Being prepared is important. God puts dreams in our hearts and writes a destiny over our lives. And if we trust Him enough to take Him at His word, we will find ourselves on a journey toward the fulfillment of that dream. Unfortunately, the path that takes us to the promise is always shaped with thickets and thorns. Nothing worth having ever comes easy or without opposition. Storms will come, lions will roar, and our fears will be confronted. God allows the path to be difficult because He intends on refining us and preparing us for our place of promise. I want to share something that is in my heart through this meditation. I just came to realize that whenever any President or a Prime minister of any nation visits a city or a place, there is so much of preparation done in that place, as if preparation mirrors the importance of that visit. So much of attention is given to that preparation. I want to bring out something that the Holy Spirit is speaking to me about preparation. Preparation has the potential to change your destiny. When preparation meets destiny that is success. Let me explain if you are not prepared and the door opens for you, you will be in a mess. Imagine of a situation the door is opened, the destiny is ready but you are not prepared. So preparation and destiny must meet and that will bring real success. Many people experience failure not because they have not encountered their destiny. But they experience failure because they fail to prepare for that destiny.

We see this character Esther in the Bible. She was an orphan. The Bible does not speak about her parents. Probably her father and mother passed away. And her uncle Mordecai brings her up. And she is in a foreign land. One day there was an announcement that there is going to be a search made for beautiful young virgins for the king as the queen of that land been vanished or told to leave. And a new queen is to be elected or to be appointed. And all the beautiful girls in that land are called or invited and one of them was Esther. You see the calling is important and I believe in Calling. May be you have a call to be a banker, a singer or a media expert or a preacher. That is your calling but that calling needs to have a preparation. Here we see Esther is picked up and she has been taken to the King’s palace. But immediately she doesn’t become the queen of that land. Esther is carried off into the King’s palace. She is in the right place. But still she is not the queen. In the book of Esther chapter 2 verse3 we see “Let the king appoint commissioners in every province of his realm to bring all these beautiful young women into the harem at the citadel of Susa. Let them be placed under the care of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women; and let beauty treatments be given to them”. This sounds very simple but read the book of Esther, we will come to know that it took 12 months for them to prepare so that they could enter in to the King’s presence. “Before she could go into the king she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments, prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six months with perfumes and cosmetics.” 12 months of preparation, to enter into the King’s presence. Esther 2:4 says “Then let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.” This advice appealed to the king, and he followed it.” After the preparations, the ladies who would be brought into the presence of the King and if the King is happy with her or pleased with her, she would be queen. The few moments in the presence of King can change your destiny. But to come into the presence of the king, you need to go through preparation time. Some of us are going through the preparation process right now. Allow the preparation process of God to happen in our life. Do not rush this preparation. Allow God to have His way in your life. God will be glorified in and through your life. This time of preparation is allowed by God. This preparation will be the foundation of what God is going to do through your life. It will be a launching pad for your leap of faith. Everything needs a launching pad. Everything that God builds needs a foundation. God will not build on sand but He will build on the rock. Our tears may be a foundation for a great harvest. Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Preparation time is never a wasted time. You cannot have a great recital if you have a poor rehearsal or preparation. God will never build anything without a foundation.

You see Joseph seen a dream in which he knew that he is to be the governor of a great land. That was his call. But he was not prepared. And because of the lack of preparation, you see he had to go through many times of frustration in his life. When the traders took Joseph to Egypt, they sold him as a slave to a man named Potiphar, who was a captain over the king’s guard. God was with Joseph and everything he did go well. Potiphar was pleased with him and put him in charge of his house and everything he owed. But Joseph was thirty years old when he appeared before King Pharaoh and he became governor of Egypt. You are called to be something in life but you may think it is not happening. Yes, that is your call but the preparation is not there. That is why no manifestation of that call is taking place. Let us turn to Matthew 25:1&2 “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise.” What are the criteria for the Bible calling somebody wise and somebody foolish? If we understand this story then we made it. Those who are foolish took their lamps but took no oil but the wise took oil in their vessels along with their lamps. The oil was the difference between wisdom and foolishness. Let me take it a little further. Taking oil was part of the preparation. Preparation was the key difference between wisdom and foolishness. When we go for a job interview or an examination, you go prepared or without any preparation. Do you want to do something big for the Lord? Are you prepared? What is your preparation? You want to get married, what is your preparation? Preparation is of prime importance. Preparation is the key- the difference between wisdom and foolishness. Apply this principle of preparation in every area of your life. The principle of preparation is seen everywhere in the Bible. In Revelation 19:7 it says “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready”. See there can be no marriage without bride getting herself ready. It can happen only with preparation. The marriage of the Lamb is one of the greatest events in the Bible. The bride is the church of Christ. It cannot happen until the bride prepares herself. Preparation is the key to manifestation. The people who have taken time to prepare will be at the forefront of the manifestation. Otherwise you need to pause, sit down, understand and ask the Lord how He wants you to prepare. God’s preparation of a person is a thing of wonder. It was so in Daniel’s life, and it is so in our own. Let us look into Daniel 1:5 “The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king’s service.” Again we see somebody picked up from his home land and brought to a different or foreign place. Now these boys, they are brought from their native land to a place called Babylon. Now what does it say? The King appointed for them a daily provision of the king’s delicacies and the vine which he drank and three years of training for them. After that time they might serve before the King. The preparation was important for them so that they could come before the king. If training and preparation was necessary to serve a human king, then how can we go before the presence of the Lord, the king of Kings without preparation? God knows that if a man is what he ought to be, then what he does will be right. It was exactly that way with Daniel. God was beginning His work in the life of Daniel long before he ever came to the palace of Babylon. Daniel was a little prince growing up in Jerusalem. When we read of the great moral strength of Daniel and the courage of his character, we must remember that God in heaven had sovereignly ordained that. God’s preparation and protection of Daniel made him ready to take his great stand against the corrupting influences of Babylon.

Be prepared as God’s call is upon you. Prepare- this is what God is saying to you today. What about your prayer life? Are you taking it seriously? What about your Bible reading, study and mediation? If you wish to have a mighty move of the Lord in your life, be prepared. God will rise up people who were in hiding but know that they were in preparation. Before Moses could be manifested to Pharaoh, he was in hiding for three months. But you see he was being prepared. Moses was the first great Israelite prophet. He is also one of the greatest leaders in human history. Yet, God had to prepare Moses before using him. Moses was born a slave. He has a stammer and a temper. And the only work he did before God called him was caring for his father-in-law’s sheep. Yet, Moses goes on to challenge the world’s most powerful ruler, and lead a people from oppression to freedom. He brings down the Torah and teaches the people the Ten Commandments. How did God prepare Moses for his purpose in life? How long did the process take? I find myself at times becoming impatient with God’s schedule. Yet He always makes it clear to me that I need to wait on Him and not move ahead. When I have stepped forward in my own strength, I have always failed miserably. As we look at Moses’ early years, make note of how God prepared him for what lay ahead. Notice how negative situations were used for good in God’s plan. When you become discouraged by your own difficult circumstances, be encouraged as you study the life of Moses and his journey of faith, knowing that God can use even your difficulties and failures as He does His work in and through you. God has His hand on you from the very beginning of your life. He makes no mistakes. God had His hand on Moses from the time he was born. He orchestrated every detail of his life, in order to place him where He wanted him to be. He knew the purpose He had for Moses. He knew what would be required to prepare him and when Moses would be ready. Moses tried to get ahead of God and step out in his own strength, which led to failure. However, that did not prevent God from using Moses to carry out His purpose, but it took forty more years of preparation. Are you willing to let God use you? Are you willing to go through the preparation process and wait on God’s timing? If you have made mistakes, don’t let those mistakes defeat you and discourage you. Learn from them and move forward under God’s leading. Walk in the power of the Spirit, not in the strength of your flesh. Wait for His timing. Let Him prepare you for the task(s) He has called you to do for His glory. There is going to be a manifestation. But be careful if you are not prepared, you will not be able to handle the manifestation. Open up your hearts and ask God to prepare you. It is time for us to cry out to Lord asking Him to prepare us for the fulfillment of His plans in and through our life. Only the stones prepared by the Lord will come into the hand of David to kill Goliath. There were five stones but only one was chosen. Five were called but one was chosen. Why, because of preparation. We may be coming from a very ordinary background but ask the Lord to prepare you for His glory. If you can prepare yourself through prayer, through God’s word and fellowship with God’s people, then God can use you for His glory. Through fasting and prayer you can prepare yourself for God’s work. All your flaws will go away when God prepares. I am sure God is preparing His people.

JACOB VARGHESE

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