John Bevere - The Process and the Promise
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So anyway, you know I was raised in church, and my parents would bring me every week, but I absolutely had no relationship with God—none. It was quite obvious during my high school and college years; people were witnessing to me like crazy, and I was literally clueless about what they were saying. I didn’t connect. I remember one guy told me later that he shared with me for two hours in my dorm room during my freshman year of college, and he said, «John, I walked out with tears in my eyes because you were completely unaware of what I was saying.»
But then during my sophomore year of college, one of my fraternity brothers—now you have to understand that athletics were a big part of my background. I played varsity tennis at Purdue, participated in Junior Davis Cup, and played the USTA circuit. I respected good athletes. I remember one of the best athletes in the state of Indiana, who was in my fraternity, came up to my room and started sharing with me, and all of a sudden, as he shared, things started connecting. The first thing that amazed me was that God, the creator of the heavens and the earth, wanted to reveal Himself to me personally. That blew me away; He deeply, deeply cared about me and loved me uniquely. He would make promises to me as any father would to his son or daughter, and He actually crafted a plan for my life. I remember seeing this and having my eyes opened.
When I received Jesus into my life and was filled with His Spirit, the thing that marked me was the presence of God. He filled a void that girls, tennis, success, and school could not fill, and His presence was amazing. I would go to services, just sit there, and tear up. I would listen to worship and tear up. I remember one time, so well, I was watching a storm develop and started weeping. I thought, «My dad is the one that created all of this.» I mean, He would answer my prayers so quickly. I remember one time, my cassette player was broken in my car. Do you guys know what a cassette player is? Alright, but anyway, it’s a dinosaur, I know. I was so upset because I couldn’t listen to teaching or worship music because my cassette player was broken. So I thought, you know, Jesus said, «Lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.»
I laid my hand on that cassette player, took my hands off after praying, and pushed play, and that thing worked. It never broke again. I mean, God was just showing off to me, right? But then all of a sudden, after a couple of years, His presence started becoming elusive. I wasn’t seeing prayers answered as rapidly as I used to, and in fact, the promises He was making to me seemed like I was going backward from the promises. It would seem, at times, that nothing was going right in my life, and I began to ask all these questions: «God, why doesn’t it seem like anything is going right in my life right now? Why does it seem like I’m going backward? God, why aren’t You moving in my life like You used to?»
The overarching question was this: «God, where are You?» Has anyone ever thought that? Am I preaching over your head right now, or are we kind of on the same page? Anyone here? Okay, so you get what I’m saying, right? What I didn’t understand was that there is a three-step process that God has to get us into our destiny. How many of you know that God has a personal destiny for you? David made this statement: «Every day of my life was recorded in a book that You wrote about me before a single day of my life began.»
The steps of a good man and a good woman are ordered by God. He sees the end from the beginning. He’s not bound by time; He knows your life and the plans He’s made for us. But He’s got this prize, this pathway that takes us there. The first step of the pathway is that He makes us a promise or gives us a glimpse of what He’s called us to do. If you look at David, the prophet said, «You’re going to be king of Israel.» If you look at Jeremiah, he was called as a prophet. He does this with every one of His children. You might say, «John, I’ve never had that happen.»
Well, can I be a little straightforward in love? My Bible says God rewards those who diligently seek Him in faith; it does not say God rewards those who casually seek Him and wonder in doubt. You understand what I’m saying? So He makes this promise, and then once the promise is made, the process starts. Now, what is the process? I’ve affectionately termed this the wilderness or refining. Why this process? Because it develops in you the character to handle the promise. Once we successfully navigate this process of the wilderness, then the promotion comes, which is the promise fulfilled.