Hosanna Restoration Church

Continuing on from our previous communication where we discussed the pressing down and pressing in with our giving, lets take a look at being shaken together. One thought I had was God taking all of our giving and all that we offer to Him and shaking it together and seeing how it all adds up. Lets say He shakes together the amount of money we give, with the attitude in which we give it. Or lets say that He shakes it together with what we have to see how it compares. Or as this translation says, He shakes it to make room for more. We may take that to mean to make room for Him to give back more, but it could also mean that He is making room for us to fill up the vessel that He is intending to use to pour it back out. We could include a lot of different things in this pot that is being shaken. We could through in the time we give to the Lord and on behalf of His Kingdom. We could through the fruit that we are manifesting as well as how we are pressing in. We could go further in this thought, but we will just leave this to each one to consider and move on to another form of shaking.

What is your first thought when you are shaken? Where do you turn? Where does God want us to turn? We all know that He wants us to run to Him. Do we? Or does it take a whole lot of shaking first. Have you ever given a specific seed to God? I mean made an offering for the purpose of seeing a particular need met. After doing that have you ever experienced a greater problem that you had before? Has it seemed that God forgot your offering and your prayer? Have you have been seriously shaken by the experience? Have you been shaken to the point where you were tempted to doubt that God was being faithful to His word, so that you went back and reminded Him that things were supposed to get better not worse? Perhaps this sort of thing takes place as the offering is being shaken to make room for more. What the enemy wants to do is fight our faith with the hopes of destroying it. But remember that God is just shaking things and making room for more. He is making room for us to press and add to that seed of faith.

I once gave an offering that was rather large for me and at the time I did not really understand sowing with a specific need, but rather I was doing it because I felt God wanted me to. After I gave this offering I was in prayer one day and God told me that he was going to multiply that offering one hundred fold! Wow! I was excited and at the same time doubtful. I mean I thought maybe I had come up with that myself and that it was not God. Well He assured me that I did not have the faith to come up with that kind of return on my own, and of course He was right. There was no way at that time in my walk with God that I would have dared to hope or imagine that. There have been times since then that I tried to give God an excuse not to do it. There have also been times when I have suggested that this would be an ideal time for the overflow to come. Each time God has assured me that He has not forgotten and that His promise is still true. Yes, I have even given other offerings and suggested that this one be the one that shakes the big return loose. But all in all, the time lapse has only increased my confidence that He meant what He said.

So with the pressing, there may still come some shaking, but remember that the answer is always the same. Turn to God and we find that He is right there with arms ready to comfort and assure us that something wonderful is coming.