Wait! You're Next in Line!: Understanding the Process of Waiting on the Manifestation of God's Promises in Your Life

By Willa Dean Montgomery

Wow! The best is yet to come to those who are willing to wait on God's timing!WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING ON GOD FOR A WHILE!WHEN YOUR PRAYERS HAVEN'T BEEN ANSWERED!YOU JUST WAIT!Author Willa Dean Montgomery shares strategies that will change the way you approach troubles in your life, helping you understand the process of you waiting on the manifestation of God's promises in your life.You need to know these five keys to help you to be successful in your wait:*Everything begins with a process.*God does everything with a purpose in mind.*Your waiting on God is not in vain.*Without faith it is impossible to please God.*God cannot lie.Waiting on God will take faith and patience. But when you wait on God, God is building your character so you can become mature to handle the blessings. All blessings and promotions come from God, and God is preparing you to fulfill your destiny. This book will encourage you to remain faithful to God as you wait on Him no matter what troubles you are facing.WAIT! YOU ARE NEXT IN LINE!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098053567

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Wait! You're Next in Line!

Understanding the Process of Waiting on the Manifestation of God's Promises in Your Life

Willa Dean Montgomery

Copyright © 2020 by Willa Dean Montgomery

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Dedication

This book, Wait! You’re Next in Line! Understanding the Process of Waiting on the Manifestation of God’s Promises in Your Life, is lovingly dedicated to my wonderful man of God, James Montgomery and my two anointed children, Elijah and Desiray Montgomery, who I love so much. They have shared this journey with me as the Lord imparted to me His desires for this book. I would like to thank my husband James for being the most patient man that I know and allowing me time with God as He is calling me forth.

Acknowledgments

First of all, I would like to thank God and acknowledge Him for saving my soul when I was fifteen years old, a day before my sixteenth birthday. He had called me and imparted wisdom to write this book to His people for such a time as this. He had allowed my tests and trials over the years to prepare me, and now the wisdom I’ve gained have brought forth this book in this season.

I would like also to acknowledge my mother Herletha Capers who is affectionately known as Lisa Capers. Thank you, Mom, for always believing in me. You have told me for years that I need to write a book. Well, I was listening to you, but I had to wait on God’s timing to release me to write this particular book and what to write to His people. Timing is everything!

Mom, you have been there since the beginning when I entered this world through your womb. I could not ask God for a better mother. Thanks for everything you have done for me to raise me into this beautiful young woman that fears the Lord. You always believe that I can do anything that I wanted to do if I worked hard at it. Your training was not in vain. Your guidance has given me the wind beneath my wings so I can SOAR HIGHER!

Introduction

I am constantly finding myself waiting in line at the bank, at the gas pump or at the supermarket. I come to realize that if I wait long enough, I AM NEXT IN LINE! God has opened my eyes to these wonderful truths, and I am sharing them with you in this book. I know that they will be beneficial to you if you are open to receiving them.

We can easily miss our moment that God has for us when we get impatient with God’s timing. It only takes a split second to make a wrong decision, and it can cause you a lifetime of pain and heartache and make you have to wait even longer than you had to prior than your impatience and wrong decision.

I believe it will take discipline to wait on God’s timing in order to see His manifestation in your life and at the same time waiting is also a discipline. Only God can give us the power we need by His Spirit to help us to wait on Him. We cannot do anything without Him. We are helpless creatures in this fallen world. It is my heart’s desire to know Him and to enjoy my journey of learning and understanding the process of waiting on the manifestation of His promises for my life. I hope you will, too.

Chapter 1

The Problem

We are living in a fast-pace society, that everyone wants everything right now. No one wants to wait for anything. Majority of people don’t like cooking because it takes too long. Most of the time, when we do eat, we eat food that are microwavable. Cooking on a hot stove takes time, and there’s a process. We don’t like to wait, and go through the necessary process to get what we need or want. This is our problem: waiting. Waiting is defined as the action of staying where one is or delaying action until a particular time or event; to stay in place in expectation of. [1]

We must understand that everything that we see and that was made was made from a process. Before you saw anything that was created, it had to go through a process. Process is defined as a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end. [2] First, it started with a plan: a purpose and an end result in mind. For example, you want to build a new house for you and your family. Your plan is to build you a house with the purpose of having a safe shelter for you and your family to live in. Now, you have to find out the proper process of achieving your goal of building you a house. Once you financed the house or paid for it with all cash, you can start the process of building your new house on your lot. When a house is built, you will find that the contractors and subcontractors go through these steps:

Grading and site preparation

Foundation construction

Framing

Installation of windows and doors

Roofing

Siding

Rough electrical

Rough plumbing

Rough HVAC

Insulation

Drywall

Underlayment

Trim

Painting

Finish electrical

Bathroom and kitchen counters and cabinets

Finish plumbing

Carpet and flooring

Finish HVAC

Hookup to water main, or well drilling

Hook up to sewer or installation of a septic system

Punch list [3]

Without these necessary steps, a new house cannot be safely built. Therefore, in order to get what you want—a new house, you must go through this process and follow these necessary steps. Bypassing a step may be detrimental to you having a new house built that is safe. It is meaningless to have a new house that is not safe for you and your family to live in. This is why inspections are necessary to provide safety for you and your family.

The Lord has inspired me to write this book to inform you that waiting is necessary to get what you need and want. Your responsibility as you wait on the Lord is to hold fast the confession of your hope without wavering (Hebrews 10:23a). This information in the following chapters will encourage you and help strengthen your faith as you wait on the Lord because He who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23b). I want to encourage you to pursue God for who He is and not for what He can do for you. The knowledge you will gain from reading this book if you will apply it to your life will destroy this mind-set.

Many biblical principles and concepts are repeated in this book to help you understand and apply them to your daily life. Repetition is a technique to help instill the Scriptures into your heart and mind so you will not forget them. To bring them to your remembrance as I write this book is what God called me to do as a preacher of the gospel. Use this time wisely, to feast on the Word of God, and let your cup overflow as He empowers you to wait on His timing!

My prayer for you is you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light (Colossians 1:9–12). The process may be long, but remember as children of God, our future is in His hand, and what a bright future we have in Jesus Christ!

Chapter 2

God’s Plan for Your Life

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

—Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

Just as an architect has a blueprint of a house, so does God has a blueprint for your life. You were not put on this earth to do anything you want to do with your life. Only God knows the plans for your life because He is the One who created you. In order for you to know God’s plan for your life, you must return to your Creator in repentance.

You must confess that you are a sinner!

God is a holy God, and He created us to be holy, meaning set apart for Him to use us for His special purposes. God created the first man Adam and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend the garden and have dominion over all creation but He disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit (Gen. 2:7–9, 3:1–7). Because of Adam’s disobedience, his relationship was severed with God, and his sin was transferred to everyone born into this world (Rom. 5:12).

We all are sinners from birth! We have missed God’s perfect mark of holiness, and the penalty of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). All of us are sentenced to a spiritual death because we are already condemned and eternally separated from God because of our sins. Not only we are going to die physically where our bodies will return to the ground but the real us is a spirit, and we must stand before God and give an account of every deed we have done in our bodies. We can never be good enough to go to heaven. No good deeds, going to church, paying our tithes, singing on the choir will get us into heaven. We must be born again! God sent Jesus Christ, His only Son to die on the cross in our place so that everyone who would believe in Him as Lord will be saved from the wrath of God (Jn. 3:16).

You may say, I come from a Christian family. My mother and father are saved. God’s plan is simple: everyone must have a personal relationship with His Son Jesus Christ in order for him/her to go to heaven. Jesus told Thomas, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me (Jn. 14:6). We all must go through Jesus Christ by putting our faith in Him as our Lord and Savior and in His finished work on the cross for us. He was the perfect sacrifice for our sins because He was sinless (2 Cor. 5:21). The penalty of our sins was completely paid by the shedding of Jesus Christ’s blood on the cross (Rom. 8:3–4).

Speak the Truth to One Another!

Therefore, putting away lying, ‘Let each one of you speak truth with His neighbor, for we are members of one another.’

—Ephesians 4:25

We should confess our sins but if we don’t, our sins will surely find us out! We must confess our sins before God in order to be forgiven by Him and for Him to heal us (1 Jn. 1:9). Yes, God desires truth in the inward parts, and He expects us to speak the truth at all times. Remember, we are justified or condemned by the words that we speak. God will adjudicate us.

Everything we do should be based on God’s truth. Our so-called truth is based on man’s thinking and reasoning which leads to error. Any time we look through human lens to find truth, we are destined to fail. Our logic is deprived from humanity’s depravity. Our perspective is distorted, and we cannot tell what’s right from wrong. The line is blurred. This is why God rebuked the Israelites, and Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for calling what’s right wrong and what’s wrong right. Without the Spirit of God, we cannot make sound judgment, and we cannot speak the truth to one another. Lying is in our nature. No one has to teach us to lie. We lie to get what we want, and we lie out of fear. Lying is wrong no matter what our reason for lying. It’s wrong because God hates lying. He said it in the ninth commandment: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (Ex. 20:16). It is a sin to circulate a false report (Ex. 23:1). You may say that I am not lying in that way but any form of lying is wrong.

When Jesus Christ comes into our life, a change is going to come. Waiting is all about transformation—changing into the person who is willing to wait on God’s timing. While you are waiting on God, you are learning the ways of Jesus Christ, so your behavior will imitate Him. The Bible shows who He is and what He is like. We get to know our Savior through the pages of the Scriptures, and at the same time, He reveals God to us. We are commanded to imitate Christ.

A true witness delivers souls, but a deceitful witness speak lies (Prov. 14:17). Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal truthfully are His delight (Prov. 12:22). He who speaks truth declares righteousness, but a false witness, deceit (Prov. 12:19). Let’s look at an example of people in the Bible who lied:

Abraham

In Genesis 20:2, we see that Abraham lied to Abimelech about Sarah being his sister and not his wife. And Abraham journeyed from there to the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, and stayed in Gerar. V. 2 Now Abraham said to Sarah his wife, She is my sister. And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. V. 3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Indeed you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife. V. 4 But Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, Lord, will You slay a righteous nation also? Did he not say to me. ‘She is my sister’? And she, even she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands I have done this. V. 6 And God said to him in a dream, Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. For I also withhold you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her. V. 7 Now therefore, restore the man’s wife; for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you shall live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours (Gen. 20:1–7).

Lying can bring trouble on you and those who are affected by the lie. This is true in the case of Abraham. Abraham’s lie brought God’s judgment on Abimelech and all that belongs to him. Abraham and Sarah were the ones that lied to Abimelech, so Abimelech was innocent and God prevented him from sinning against Him. Abimelech asked Abraham why did he lied to him. And Abraham said, Because I thought, surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will kill me on account of my wife. But indeed she is truly my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, that I said to her, ‘This is your kindness that you should do for me: in every place, wherever we go, say of me, ‘He is my brother’ (Gen. 20:11–13).

Abraham lost faith in God to protect him. He forgot that he was in covenant with God, and he could not die before Isaac—the promise is born. Abraham lost his fear of GOD because he lied. We can’t control what other people do but we can control what we do, our own actions and behaviors. We must fear and reverence God because He is holy. When we fear our holy God, we will speak the truth to one another. Sarah was submissive to her husband, Abraham and obeyed him to lie. Although, she was his sister, he did not tell the whole truth. How many times we have told some of the truth but not the whole truth?

God is so merciful, He allowed Abimelech to return Sarah to Abraham so he wouldn’t die. If he didn’t, then he would become guilty before God. He obeyed God, and returned Sarah to Abraham and gave him a thousand pieces of silver, sheep, oxen, male and female servants (Gen. 20:14–16). After this, Abraham obeyed God by praying for Abimelech and God healed him, his wife, and female servants so they would be able to bear children because God closed their wombs of all the females who belong to the house of Abimelech when he took Sarah (Gen. 20:17–18). Abraham’s son Isaac lied in the same way that his father did. Isaac lied out of fear concerning his wife Rebekah to Abimelech king of Gerar. You can read the story of him in Genesis 26:1–11. History is repeating itself!

The Choice Is Yours!

God has given everyone a free will. He is a loving God, and He is love (1 Jn. 4:8b). He doesn’t make anyone to serve Him. The choice is yours. He is so good to us that His goodness leads people to repentance (Rom. 2:4). We don’t deserve many things He has done for us but He blesses us anyway. This is the goodness of God. He is a gracious and merciful God, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:9b).

Repentance is necessary to fulfill God’s plan for your life. You must confess, acknowledge that you are a sinner, and you are in need of a Savior to saved you from the wrath of God, and pay the penalty of sins. Repentance is having godly sorrow for your sins, and you are willing to turn your life around by completely surrendering your life to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior (Rom. 10:9–13). In theology, faith in the Greek means pistis (4102) to persuade, being persuaded, faith, belief, confidence in certain divine truths, especially those of the Gospel. [1]

Salvation Is a Free Gift

Salvation is the saving of the soul from sin and its consequences by faith in Jesus Christ. God has made salvation available for everyone who would simply trust in the person and finished work of His Son Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter what your race, nationality, or ethnicity. Salvation is a free gift of grace because we all don’t deserve it (Eph. 2:8–9, Rom. 5:8). We are saved from His wrath, and now, we are children of God! No more enemies but friends of God. The hostility has been removed, peace has been restored! Our faith is the most powerful weapon in this world because it keeps us connected to God (Heb. 11:1, 6). You must make every effort to cultivate your faith as a child of God by keep hearing the word of God (Rom. 10:17).

Stay Connected to God

Just as a fetus is connected to his/her mother by the umbilicus cord, so are you connected to God by faith. Faith is trusting in who God is and what He said He will do. The more you hear the Word of God, the more you build your faith in God. In the Bible, you will learn of God and His plan for humanity. As you study the Scriptures for yourself, and pray, you will find that God is immutable, never changes (Mal. 3:6). He is the same from the beginning, and that makes Him trustworthy. He is not like man who changes like the wind. You can put your confidence in His ability to perform His promises in your life on a daily basis.

Our life depends on our connectivity with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the true vine, and God is the vinedresser. We, as the children of God, are the branches on the true vine (Jn. 15:1). We must stay connected to our Source. Jesus Christ is our Life. The branch does not have life within itself. It is the true vine that gives life to the branches, so we as His children must stay connected at all times by staying in faith and walking in obedience to His word.

Connectivity fosters fruitfulness. This is the goal that we bear much fruit, and that our fruit remains, bringing glory to God. Disobedience will sever our connection with God. We saw this with Adam in the Garden of Eden. Without God we cannot do anything (Jn. 15:5). We will fail in our own strength.