Pastor Ken…
Good morning, everyone. Happy Wednesday! Praise the Lord. Good to have you with us today.
He gives to us faith to believe…
God is so good. The Bible says that it’s not even our faith, it’s not even our ability to trust. The Word says that He gives a measure, or gift, of that faith, or a seed of that faith to each and every one of us when we invite Him into our lives. So it’s His faith that we can lean in and trust Him for where we need help or where we have unknowns or where life seems chaotic or difficult. Because it certainly can be at times. Can we just be real this morning?
In fact, I recently was just talking to the Lord. I said, “Lord, life sure can be messy and inconvenient and uncomfortable at times. I guess that’s why you gave us that measure of faith because it was going to require living by faith, by believing, and not by seeing, for us to get to where God has called us to go.”
He’s got a place for you to be…
I think it was Barb yesterday came up in prayer and just commented and shared under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost about how God has a place for you. He’s got a place for us. He’s got a spiritual dwelling place for each of us. And it’s when we give ourselves to that place, it’s when we give ourselves to living by believing and not by seeing that God then has ability to take us from where we are to where He’s called us to be. Yes, we may have to navigate through some uncertainty and some unknowns and flat-out uncomfortableness at times where your flesh is screaming at you. But make no mistake about it. We can lean in and trust the one today who is faithful. His name, in fact, can be translated “faithful.” He’s faithful. He’s going to be faithful to you. If you’re tuning in from another nation this morning, God’s going to be faithful to you, right in the midst of the chaos that’s swirling around you perhaps… right in the midst of a war zone of an economic meltdown of uncertainty in the end times. God is still able to make a way where there doesn’t seem to be a way.
God has made a way for you…
In fact, He has made a way. He’s already well ahead of the enemy before you even knew you had a problem. He had a solution. He put provision in place. He had made a way. He’s already got another step ahead or beyond what you and I know.
God wants to do a work in you so He can do a work through you…
The scripture talks about how God has prepared a table for us. I wanted to read this to you before we start with worship. Psalm 23:1 says, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters.” One translation says “the still, calm, restful waters.” And it’s there it says in verse Psalm 23:3 “He restores my soul.” In other words, He puts it back together. It’s counterintuitive to the human intellect, but when we wake, God works. When you rest, He’s able to have His way in you. And as I’ve often said, God wants to do a great work in you before He does a great work through you. Oh, He wants to do a great work through you, but He just wants you and me first so that He can have His way, so that He can work His work in our hearts, in our emotions, in our understanding, in our perspective.
God projects Himself to the world…
God set this up in such a way that He wants to touch the world through projecting Himself through human agency. In other words, He projects Himself to the world, to the nations. He accomplishes what He has for this generation through you and I as we simply come to Him, come boldly to His throne, make our hearts available to Him, wait in His presence, fall on our knees, let Him work the works of God in us. Because as a result, then He’s able to work through us and bring blessing and salvation and healing. Because in this present move, it is unfolding before us in this hour. It is a move. It’s called a “saints move,” if you will. The move in and through the church. God wants to move fully through not just one or two or a handful of select prophets or pastors or evangelists, but His intent is to work through the broad spectrum of His body.
It’s going to take all of us…
Whether you think you’re on first string or you come off the bench, we are all first string from God’s perspective. And He needs every supply now and every gift now. The scripture reads that you have been anointed by Him. You have an anointing of the holy One. There’s a gift that’s been deposited in you of the Spirit of God. And He intends to use that gift, that anointing, that calling, that grace that is in you and on you to touch the world.
There’s opportunity ahead for you…
There’s so much opportunity ahead for us. Yes, firstly in prayer. Opportunity to reroute the course of lives, to shift the momentum in the church to another level, to turn nations around that they would say “yes” to Jesus. To do so much. But there’s also so much possibility and opportunity before us in each of our individual lives and callings.
Sometimes we miss the opportunities…
But I think we miss out and we pass right by so much of it, not even realizing that that was an opportunity, that was an assignment, that was something God wanted us to do. Whether it was something simple and small or something bigger in our mind’s eye. But it’s the time that we give to Him, that we surrender to Him, that we open our hearts and let it His hand work in us that prepares us to see and seize the day. Carpe diem, right? Seize the day. Seize the opportunities. See the assignment. See what we’re to say.
Jesus was our example…
Jesus really did a great job of exhibiting how we’re to live. He is the one who went before us to pave the way, to show the way. And He sure knew a lot. He understood that anointing. The Bible says you have an anointing of the holy One. It says in 1st John 2:20, “But you have an anointing from the holy one and you know all things.” Jesus made room for His Father. He was intent daily to host the presence of God, to walk in the presence of God so that that anointing of His Father, that anointing of the holy One that you and I have, could come into fullness, be on full display, could do the work that it was intended to do, to not only heal you, to change you, to transform you, but also inform you. You have an anointing of the holy One that you might know all things.
Jesus was remarkably, astoundingly productive and supernatural in His earthly operations, because He gave place to this gift on the inside of Him. He made room. He stayed connected to the One who had sent Him. Jesus said you are connected… you’re to be connected to the vine. We know all things because we’re connected to Him.
There is an anointing in us to do the same as Jesus…
So anyway, I just wanted to kind of just highlight that. There is an anointing in us. And Jesus just navigated so beautifully in His earthly ministry because He’d already spent time on His knees with His Father. So He knew exactly what He needed to say oftentimes. Or if He didn’t when He got to that opportunity, He saw it and said what He needed to say and called dead bodies to life. Laid hands on those who were laymen. They were instantly healed. Preached messages that we’re still talking about 2,000 years later. Defy the laws of physics time and time again, and on and on and on. That’s what God intends for us and for the church. To do the same. But we have to learn how to become skillful in cooperating with that gift of the Holy Spirit in us.
So let’s go back to Psalm 23…
Verse 3 says, “He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake. Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” In other words, you may go through some tough times, right? “I will fear no evil.” Despite the fact we’re living in the end of days, despite the saber rattling on the world stage that seems to appear to be the setup for World War 3, despite the disease of the week, despite the meltdown in the banking industry, despite chaos and unknown and seemingly a spirit of offense running rapidly through our society and on and on and on. Despite that, I will fear no evil!
Jairus’ daughter…
I mean, think about it. Jesus even told Jairus… if you were to go to the gospels and read the narrative of the healing of Jairus’ daughter, it was after the report that Jairus’ daughter had already expired and was dead that Jesus said, “Don’t worry, Jairus. Only believe.” He said, “Fear not, only believe.” Don’t be impressed by what you heard or what you see around you or what the enemy’s doing. Jesus was saying, “But only believe and lean into and affirm in your heart what I’ve said. Do not fear. Only believe.” Could you do that? Could I do that if one of my children had died? And the Lord said to me in my heart, “Don’t fear, Ken. Only believe.”
The place of faith is supernatural…
There is a place of faith that God has for us that should defy the laws of the human body and the laws of physics. Last time I checked, that’s what supernatural means. It supersedes the natural. We’re living in a temporal realm, aka, a realm subject to change. And our “super naturalness” of and by that gifting of the Holy Spirit, of and by the Word of God should overturn the natural, should change and reroute things. Come on now! What a great opportunity we get every day to pray and walk with God. This is no small thing. The Devil’s playing for keeps. So we should, too, play like this is the national championship.
Seeing into the unseen realm…
I heard a story of a gentleman who… Actually, I won’t get into it. It’s pretty deep. I can’t totally cite all the sources, but I have heard that there are people who peered into the realm of the spirit. Actually this is a scientific thing, which I won’t even get into it because it’s pretty out there. That spirit dimension is all around us, and there is much activity. Of course, we know this from the scripture. Much activity. But I heard one man who had an experience where he saw demonic entities that were just hanging out. Of course, that’s what the prince of the power of the air is. He’s just hanging out in thin air. Literally, he’s hanging out in the parallel universe all around us. Demonic entities, not the Devil himself. He’s … wherever he is. But he’s got ranks of entities that are out to see whom they can devour. So we ought to live in such a way where we’re not devourable, that the enemy runs from us. You become undevourable, or not a target to the enemy, by living in the mode of faith, by living in continual prayer mode.
The Bible says pray without ceasing…
Don’t stop because it’s your superpower. Faith and your place in prayer are your superpowers. We’ve been given certain weaponry, certain implements to win every time. I mean, in one sense, spiritually, yes, we’ve already won, but we need to deploy that victory with the sword of the Spirit. We need to deploy that victory with the lance of prayer as we pray out in the Spirit and in our known languages.
I can’t do this story justice. But this man recalled seeing entities that would start following and go after certain people. Like he saw entities that were clear in the spirit dimension, go after certain people to attack them, to devour them, to overtake them, to deceive them, to lie to them. I say that because I just want to accentuate that this is a real deal we’re in, this spiritual battle. It’s not just a story that was conjured up from some history book.
So we ought to live like every day matters. Pray like this is the greatest opportunity known to humanity, to pray and shift the course of world events through our prayers, individually and collectively. I don’t know if this is making sense.
God wants to snatch people out of the darkness…
I was thinking about myself the other day and just how I’m sure there are opportunities I’ve passed up or missed because I wasn’t even aware that God wanted me to share my faith with someone. It’s a real deal. The place of hell, which was not created for human beings, by the way. God wants to snatch and take people out of darkness and into light. That happens in prayer. That happens in and through our obedience. That happens as we give Him first place in our lives.
