Grace in Galatians (Part 180) – While I Am In The Land Of The Living

https://youtu.be/U-FKEKDnJrQ?si=d6b-x9lopL8IK0w_

Today, we continue our focus on THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, as we learn to maintain our posture of faith after God has revealed His plans for our future.

As part of this series, I am teaching a verse-by-verse exposition of the book of Galatians.

Key scriptures for this year:

2 Peter 3:18 GNT“But continue to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be glory now and forever.”

Luke 10:20 Mirror“It’s time for you to rediscover who you are from Heaven’s perspective.”

1 John 3:10 Mirror“There is a very visible and vast difference between living one’s life from your God identity or from a fallen man’s mindset.”

Proverbs 25:2 NKJV“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.”

Jeremiah 29:13 NIV“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

Scripture we will study today:

Galatians 6:9 ERV“We must not get tired of doing good. We will receive our harvest of eternal life at the right time. We must not give up!”

Supporting scriptures:

Psalm 27:13 NKJV“I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

Psalm 27:14 NIV“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”

Revelation 1:8 NIV“‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.'”

2 Peter 3:8 NIV“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”

John 20:29 NIV“Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.'”

Jeremiah 29:11 NIV“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.”

Setting the Stage:

Today, as we continue to discuss Galatians 6:9, I do not want you to miss where I am about to take you. I am taking you to Psalm 27. Read it out loud sometime today. Start to finish. It is one of the most confident Psalms David ever wrote. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” “Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.” “In the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion.” This was written by a man whose confidence was in God!

While all of this is good, watch what happens in verse 13. Right in the middle of a Psalm full of swagger, David drops his guard for one sentence. He says, “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Catch those first five words. “I would have lost heart.” That tells me David was closer to the edge than he let on. That tells me there were nights in that cave, on that run, in that waiting, when the man after God’s own heart was a heartbeat away from quitting. And what kept him from collapsing was not a change in circumstance. It was a conviction about God. He knew that God was not going to allow him to die until he saw what God said. That statement right there, if you really believe God will keep you through the most difficult circumstances. 

Here is the line I want you to underline in red. “In the land of the living.” Not in heaven. Not in the sweet by and by. Not in some day when you get your mansion on the other side. David said, “I believed I would see His goodness HERE. In this life. In this body. In this timeline. On this earth.” David believed that God was not going to allow him to die without the promise fulfilled. Do you have that same type of conviction? 

So, what does this mean for you today? A few things.

1. Eternal Harvest Is Settled. But Please Do Not Miss The Harvest Here!

The enemy is not a stupid enemy. He is a strategic one, and one of his most effective strategies against a believer is to push every promise of God into the afterlife. He wants your faith postponed to heaven, because a heaven-only faith leaves your earth-life empty. Religion partners with that lie by teaching you to be so heavenly-minded that you are no earthly good. But David did not talk like that, and Jesus did not teach like that. David wrote Psalm 27:13 while he was still very much alive, and he declared he would see God’s goodness in this life, in this body, in this timeline. Do not let the enemy steal your blessing in this world by over-spiritualizing your focus to the day you get to heaven.

How this applies to you:

— During slavery, many African Americans sang spirituals that helped their hearts remain focused on heaven because, for them, they could not see prospering in this world. I have explained this before, and I don’t want to have to unpack it again today, but suffice it to say that we are not in that situation anymore, so don’t miss out on what God has for you here because you are so focused on heaven. 

— God does not want you to live your life focused on dying and going to heaven someday. He expects you to bring heaven to the earth every day with your faith. 

— Your eternal harvest is secured. Your earthly harvest is expected. Both are true at the same time, and you are allowed to believe God for both.

— David wrote Psalm 27 while he was still alive, still on the run, and still waiting on a throne. He did not say, “I will see His goodness when I die.” He said, “I will see it in the land of the living.” This Psalm will minister to anyone who has stopped expecting anything in this life.

— Religion trained you to say, “Whatever happens in this world Lord, is just fine with me. This is not my home. Just get me to heaven, Jesus!” While that may sound good to you, that is not faith! God expects you to go to heaven, and he also expects you to make the impact that you were born to make while you’re on earth. 

— Jeremiah 29:11 is not a postcard from the afterlife. It is a promise about plans, hope, and a future inside this lifetime.

— If God gave you a vision, a dream, or a word, He did not give it to you so you could die unfulfilled and meet Him frustrated. He gave it to you because He intends for you to see it. He did not give you a picture of heaven. He gave you a picture of your life here.

— God’s goodness is not rationed for the next life. It is released in this one.

— Jesus said He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly, and He did not put an asterisk at the end of that promise that said: “applies after you die.” Abundant life is your earthly life. Receive it now.

2. God Is Alpha And Omega. He Stands Outside Time, But He Moves Inside Time For You.

Let me give you a perspective that will change every waiting season you ever enter. Revelation 1:8 says God is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first letter and the last letter of the alphabet of existence. Add 2 Peter 3:8 to it, and you see a God for whom “a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” Put those two together, and you get a divine picture. God is not inside time the way you are. He sees your end from your beginning. He wrote the last page before you lived the first one. And here is the part that will set you free. Even though God lives outside time, He moves inside time on your behalf, compressing a season, stretching a season, accelerating a breakthrough, or delaying a deliverance, all with perfect wisdom. Once you get a revelation of how God is in every time at the same time, and he can make things happen at any time, the calendar loses its grip on your peace.

How this applies to you:

— You are not at the mercy of the calendar. Your confidence is in the Author of it.

— God can compress in one day what you thought would take years. He can also stretch what you thought would take a moment, because He is building something inside the delay that instant delivery would have ruined. Sometimes the stretching is the gift.

— Time is not your enemy when God is Lord of your time.

— Some of you are running your life on a stopwatch, and every tick is stealing your peace. Stop. Put the stopwatch down. Track your life by the Word God gave you, not the clock on the wall. 

— Believers who live their lives looking at the stopwatch with endless questions to God, “When are you going to do it? When are you going to do it? When are you going to do it?” Are believers who lose the joy of their today because of the expectation of their tomorrow! Don’t let this happen to you. 

— It’s okay to live with an expectation of what God said, but if God is not going to do it today, what you can’t do is lose the joy and the focus of your today while you’re waiting on it. God expects you to balance an expectation of the NEXT with the focus on the NOW. 

— Alpha means He started it. Omega means He finishes it. Which means what is in the middle is in His hands.

— The verse David wrote right after the one we’re focusing on today says, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” (Psalm 27:14).

3. Blessed Are Those Who Have Not Seen, And Yet Believe.

Think about Thomas for a minute. He was one of the twelve, but on the night Jesus first appeared to the disciples after the resurrection, Thomas was not with them. When the others came running and said, “We have seen the Lord,” Thomas crossed his arms and said, “Unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my finger where the nails were, I will not believe.” That is a man whose heart got bruised, and now he wants evidence before he will risk belief again. Eight days later, Jesus shows up, walks through the wall like THE MATRIX, and walks straight to Thomas, inviting him to do the very thing Thomas said he needed. Thomas collapses into worship, but watch what Jesus says next. “Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Did you catch that? Jesus pointed past Thomas to a whole different crowd, and that crowd is you. 

How this applies to you:

— If you only trust God after the door opens, that is not faith; that is confirmation. Anyone can believe after the breakthrough. Faith believes BEFORE the breakthrough.

— Every breakthrough you have ever received in your life started with a believing moment that preceded the seeing moment. You did not see your way into it. You believed your way into it. Your past testimony should help solidify your present posture.

— Some of you are waiting to feel something before you believe something. Reverse the order. Believe first. The feelings will catch up to the faith, not the other way around.

— Thomas got to see. You get blessed. Read that again. Jesus did not rebuke Thomas, but He pointed to a higher blessing for those who believe without needing the physical proof first.

— You are not believing in nothing. You are believing in what heaven has already declared over your life, and the Holy Spirit keeps telling you that God’s Word is all the proof you need. Heb 11:1 from the Amplified Bible says, “Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].” 

— “Walk by faith, not by sight.” is not a poster on a church wall. It is a commandment, and it is how we are supposed to live!

4. Take Heart. Wait. Take Heart Again. That Is How You Stay In Faith Until The Goodness Shows Up.

Look at the very next verse after “I would have lost heart.” Psalm 27:14: “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Read the structure of that sentence carefully. Wait. Be strong. Take heart. Wait again. David frames the whole verse with “wait” on both ends, and in the middle he drops the two things that are supposed to happen while you wait. Get strong. Take courage. This is active waiting! This is how you can get up every morning with the mindset that says, “I will see the goodness of the Lord while I’m in the land of the living!” 

How this applies to you:

— The Hebrew word David uses for “wait” does not mean “sit still.” It means to stretch out, to hope, to expect with tension. Your waiting is supposed to stretch your faith, not shrink it.

— The longer the wait, the more God is stretching your expectation!

— “Be strong” is an imperative, not a suggestion.

— Take heart is a command your emotions have to obey, not a feeling that has to show up first. Give the order. Speak courage over your own soul. 1 Samuel 30:6 says David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. If the greatest king of Israel had to encourage himself, so will you.

— You gain strength in the wait when you wait God’s way.

— Galatians 6:9 and Psalm 27:13-14 are cousins. Paul says do not grow weary in doing good. David says be strong and take heart. Same teaching from two different men in two different centuries. That is not a coincidence; that is the Holy Spirit repeating Himself so you would not miss it.

— When the goodness of the Lord finally shows up, it will not find you on the bench. It will find you in the field, still sowing, still believing, still standing on what He said.

That’s enough for today.

Declaration of Faith:

Father, I thank You that my eternal harvest is secured in Christ, and my here-harvest is on the way.

I believe I will see Your goodness in the land of the living, not just in heaven.

You are Alpha and Omega, and my timeline is safe in Your hands.

You are not bound by the clock, and I am not held hostage by the calendar.

I am blessed because I believe before I see, and my faith is powered by Your Word.

I choose Word-faith over sight-faith, and I will not wait for confirmation to believe You.

I wait on the Lord, I am strong, I take heart, and the goodness will find me in the field.

Fear not, forget not, and faint not is my posture, and lament becomes praise in Your presence.

I am living in THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, and I have discovered that God’s goodness is mine HERE in the land of the living, not just in the hereafter.

I am living THE GRACE LIFE, and GREATER IS COMING FOR ME!

I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen!

This is Today’s Word. Apply it and prosper!