Hi, I am Robert Hotchkin, founder of Men On The Front Lines, and one of the core leaders of Patricia King Ministries. Welcome to God Today. I want to encourage you today that whatever you are going through, whatever you have been through, whatever set of circumstances you might find yourself in currently – Jesus is well able to come forth from them.
We see proof of this, right at the beginning of the New Testament. Right there in Matthew 1, God chose to start the entire New Testament with the lineage of Jesus. I have written several books and worked with really great editors and publishers on my books. One of the things the editors would always work with me on is the first sentences and first paragraphs – especially the beginning of a new chapter. They would talk to me about how you really want to grab the reader right away. The reason I am bringing that up is that to my natural mind, the reason God chose to open the New Testament is not a real grabber. When you read the lineage of Jesus it is just the, “Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac was the father of Jacob, Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah…” and so on, and so on, and so on, generation after generation, after generation after generation.
It is not a real grabber in the natural until you realize what God was doing and then you realize it is the grabber of grabbers. What God is doing here as He talks about the lineage of Jesus, we read through that long, long list of all these men and women in the lineage of Jesus. Some of them we know – some of them are really well-known, sort of rockstars of the faith like King David or Abraham. Others we have never really ever heard of like Shealtiel or Elihud. If you said to somebody on the street, “Hey! Who is Shealtiel? Who is Elihud?” They probably would have no idea.
We have people who everyone has heard of, but even those like David and Abraham, have dark secrets. Abraham, as we know, he traded his wife to protect himself. Twice. King David, of course, a man after God’s own heart, an incredible man of faith, also had his own wrestles, his own struggles, his own shortcomings. If you are somebody who is really well-known, but you have some dark secrets, or you are somebody nobody has ever heard of, or maybe you have a really scandalous background. Like Rahab, also in that lineage. God starts off the entire New Testament by declaring through all the lineage of Jesus, no matter who you are, no matter what your background, no matter whether you are well-known, no matter whether you have dark secrets, no matter if nobody has ever heard of you. Jesus WILL come forth from your history, your timeline, your background, He is well able to do it and He can’t wait to do it.
I want to encourage you today. Whatever you find yourself in, whatever your history is, whatever your family history is, whatever your personal history is. If things have been going really great for you lately, wonderful. God has even more for you. If things have been really challenging for you lately, then I want you to know: Jesus is well able to come forth.
God started the entire New Testament off with this declaration: no matter who you are, no matter what you have been through, no matter what your background is, Jesus will come forth. I think He did that so that we know, going into the New Testament, every promise, every blessing, every breakthrough, it is for every single one of us. No matter whether a lot of people know our names, nobody knows our names, whether we know secretly we have all these dark secrets in our closet, or we think, “Nobody knows how I am. I have never accomplished anything.” It is not about what we accomplish, it is about what Jesus has done for us and what He is going to do for you from the situations you find yourself in.
I wanted to encourage you with that today. That no matter what, Jesus is going to break forth in a mighty way in your life and do wonderful things. I want to pray that no matter where you are and no matter what situation you find yourself in, I declare over you this morning that Jesus will come forth and do great and mighty things. He will bring forth complete, utter, and total victory. I declare over you the truth of Genesis 28:15, that God will be with you constantly and continually until He brings you into everything He has promised. Every good thing He has for you, in Jesus’ name I declare it. Amen.