Pastor Dustin…
Welcome to Friday Morning Prayer. How are you doing this morning? Excited to be in the house of the Lord. Thank you for being here.
We have to keep our flesh from rearing its head…
I was thinking about this verse earlier this morning. Last night I was listening to this message and it was so good. I was listening to worship music and I felt really good. And I woke up this morning, and for whatever reason, I felt a little crabby. I don’t know what had changed while I was sleeping at night, but I felt a little crabby. And I was reminded of a quote from Smith Wigglesworth. He said something to the effect, “When I wake up in the morning, I don’t ask Smith Wigglesworth how he feels. I tell Smith Wigglesworth how he feels.” And it was such a good reminder that we have to put our bodies under sometimes. We have this flesh that likes to rear its head and try to affect us and keep us from doing what God’s called us to do in the way that He’s called us to do it.
David strengthened himself in the Lord…
And I was reminded of First Samuel 30:6. David and his army returned from battle. They came back and their children and their wives had been kidnapped. A pretty dramatic situation. Much more dramatic than just me waking up a couple minutes late and tired. But it says in verse six, “And David was greatly distressed for the people spoke of stoning him.” So his own men, David’s mighty men, had formed a mutiny, and they were planning to kill him. And it says that they spoke of stoning him because all the people were bitter in their soul. They were so hurt and offended and sad and downtrodden by what had happened. They wanted to mutiny against him and kill him. And it said they were bitter in their souls, each for his sons and daughters.
And it says, “But David strengthened himself in the Lord.” And I think it’s such a powerful truth. It’s such an important thing to remember that we have a responsibility to fix our minds on the Lord. We have a responsibility to meditate on His Word, meditate on His promises. And so I started doing that this morning. I just started going to the Word and thinking about His promises. And it didn’t take hardly any time and all of a sudden, I was happy again. I had joy again. I felt encouraged. I felt hope.
We each have a supply to bring…
And so I just want to encourage you to make an effort to do that. I think every morning is good and good throughout the day. And I think it would be good if we started with that this morning, encouraging ourselves in the Lord. And so I’m just going to begin to pray and just kind of declare God’s promises, and just start from that place. And then we’ll just allow the Spirit of God to lead us wherever He wants to. Right? And remember whether you’re here in person or joining us online, you have a supply to bring. This is not Friday morning entertainment. This is a time for us to take our authority, our position in Christ, and to speak and to declare everything that God wants to do in the earth. He has limited Himself… I want to make sure I say this the right way. But He’s limited His expression in the earth through the church. Everything that God wants to do in this earth, He does through the church. Which is us, right?
We have an important part to play…
So that means that we have an important part to play in the plan of God in this earth. And so it’s important that we understand that and then we take that seriously and cooperate with the Spirit of God and do what He’s telling us to do. And we know that that involves prayer and declarations. And so with that, let’s just begin. I’m just going to begin to pray in the Spirit. And I believe that the Lord will accomplish everything that He needs to through us.
Prayed…
So Father, we make the decision to rejoice and to be glad in it.
We know the things in the natural are subject to change… they’re temporal, they’re short lived.
But your Word is eternal.
Your Word is the only thing that we should be building our lives on.
Two types of carpenters…
Jesus talked about the foolish carpenter. He talked about two types of carpenters. He said there was a foolish carpenter who built his house on the sand. And when the storms of life came, the house that he built on the sand wasn’t able to endure the storms of life. And He said, there was somebody else who built his house on the rock. And when the rain came and the winds blew, the house stood strong. He said, whoever hears these words of mine, and builds their life on them is like the smart carpenter. You can build your life on the promises of God. You can make decisions based on the promises of God. And if He spoke something to you, if He gave you a word or a promise, if He gave you direction for your life, you can build your life on that. You can bet your life on that. That’s the only thing that you can build your life on.
Build your life on the foundation of God’s Word…
Don’t build your life and get your confidence from the words of people or the doctrines of men. Don’t build your life on the doctrines of men. Build your life on the firm foundation of God’s Word. It’s eternal. It will never fail. It might not be as popular sometimes, but it’s always right. It’s always true.
So, Father, we remind ourselves this morning of your goodness, of your faithfulness. We remind ourselves that you’re long suffering. We thank you for your mercy and grace. We thank you that we don’t have to get the bad things that we deserve, and we can get the good things that we don’t deserve because of our covenant with you.
You have an unlimited supply of grace…
There is an inexhaustible supply of grace on the inside of you this morning. If you feel tired, if you feel weary, if you feel like you’ve been asked too many questions and I don’t know how many times I can keep giving directions and answering these questions. I want to let you know that there is an unlimited supply available to you. If you’ve been standing and believing and you’re wondering, “Can I keep standing? How much longer is it going to take? How much more is going to be demanded of me?” Be reminded this morning that there is a well that never runs dry on the inside of you. All that is available to you will never run out. The Bible actually paints a picture where the greater the demand is, the more that’s available to you. The Bible says where sin abounds grace super abounds. The more that’s being demanded of you, the more you’re going to realize is on the inside of you. So have a bigger vision. Not only do you enough to survive, you have enough to accomplish the dreams and the desires that He put in your heart. You have exceedingly and super abundantly far over and above all that you could dare ask or think on the inside of you.
Get a vision…
You have more than you know on the inside of you. So have a vision of victory in your life… not just of survival, but a vision of increase. Have a vision of more. Have a vision of not just your needs being met. Certainly that’s a part of it but have a vision for what you’re going to do for when you have more than enough.
Expand your vision. Your vision for your finances, your vision for your time, your vision for what you feel called to do in this earth. You’ve got to expand that thing. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
Your vision has to be bigger than you can accomplish in yourself…
I heard somebody say once that your vision has to be bigger than your eyesight. Your vision has to be bigger than what you can see and understand in the natural. If you can accomplish everything in your vision by yourself and with your own strength, then I question if it’s even from the Lord or not. He wants to give you a vision where you are dependent on Him and reliant on Him to accomplish it. Because He wants you to live by faith and not by sight… faith and not your understanding. Lean on, trust in, and rely on the Lord with all of your heart. Lean not in your own understanding. Acknowledge Him in all of your ways. He will direct your path. You don’t have to understand it to do it. You’ve just got to step out in faith.
So, Father, I thank you for expanding our vision this morning.
That you would fill us with hope … that we would be confident in our relationship with you and what’s available to us. That we would be convinced that we are the head and we aren’t the tail. We are above only and we’re not beneath, that we are blessed in the city and we are blessed in the field. And we are blessed coming in and we are blessed going out and everything that we put our hands to does prosper. And that we do have favor everywhere that we go so that we can accomplish your will and your purposes in this earth.
God wants you to have a bigger vision than just survival…
Allow the Spirit of God to create vision in your heart. Allow Him to fill you with vision this morning. I was talking to somebody once and I told them, I’ve noticed sometimes that when you’re living paycheck to paycheck, it can be difficult to have a vision for retirement when you’re just trying to figure out how you’re going to put gas in the tank that week. And I said, I’ve realized it’s almost the same way with vision. Sometimes when you’re running from emergency to emergency and stressful situation to stressful situation, somebody asks you about your vision and it’s like “Vision? My vision is to survive.” Can I tell you that God wants you to have a bigger vision than that?
Allow the Holy Spirit to go to work in your imagination. Allow Him to begin to give you a picture of the things that He wants to accomplish in and through you. The multitudes that will come into the kingdom as a result of your obedience and faithfulness to the Lord and His faithfulness to you.
Allow Him to change how you see yourself this morning. Allow Him to change how you see your future this morning. Allow Him to create something on the inside of you. Allow Him to reveal to you who He said you are… what He has planned for you.
Don’t let the circumstances around you dictate and determine who you think you can be and what you’re capable of. Because He knows who you are. He knit you and formed you together in your mother’s womb. He went before you in time and prepared good things for you to walk in it, experience. He’ll give you vision… I’ll say it like this. His vision is the right one.
Simon’s vision was upgraded from unstable to rock…
I’m reminded of two examples in the Bible. The first is Simon. Jesus says, “Who am I?” And Simon said, “You’re the Christ.” And Jesus said, “Blessed are you. Flesh and blood hasn’t revealed this to you, but my Father.” And then He said, “I’m going to change your name to Peter.” And that’s significant for a number of reasons. But one is Simon means wavering one. Simon means unstable. And this is the same guy who cut off somebody’s ear in the garden. He did some stuff that would make you think that was probably an accurate name, right? But Jesus said that’s not who you are. That’s not who I’ve called you to be. I’m changing your name and you’re going to be called Peter now, which means rock. It’s the opposite of that. You’re a rock. You’re stable. You’re strong.
And you see in the second half of his life, that’s who he was. That’s who he was all along. But he just didn’t recognize it. He didn’t know it. He thought he was always going to be who he was. He thought that his previous experience was what his future was going to look like. And Jesus interrupted that and He said that’s not who you are. That’s not who you were created to be. That’s who you’ve been. But I’ve called you to be something different. This is who you are from now on.
Gideon’s vision was upgraded…
You see something very similar with Gideon. He calls Gideon a mighty man of fearless courage. And Gideon says, “Don’t you know I’m the poorest and I’m the weakest, and I could never deliver my people. I could never do something great for you.” And the Lord said that’s who you’ve been but that’s not who I’ve called you to be. You aren’t a farmer, you’re a warrior.
Allow God to reveal to you who you are…
God had a vision for their lives that was different than their vision. And when they cooperated with what God had said versus how they felt, they began to live in a greater way. They began to accomplish more than I think anybody thought they were capable of, including themselves. Allow the Spirit of God to create vision in your heart. Allow Him to reveal to you who you actually are and what you’re actually called to do, and what’s all on the inside of you.
Sister Barb…
I have a testimony. My daughter was home from university this last week. And we were talking. She had her computer out doing some homework, and all of a sudden, she just starts crying. She’s sitting on the couch and I’m going, “What’s going on? What’s happening?” And she said she had midterms and she forgot to turn something in in this class. And she’s studying biochemistry. She has really hard classes. So she’s like, “This is really going to impact my grade.” And she’s just bawling. It’s like, you know, as a mom, oh! In the natural, you want to do something. So I just started to encourage her. She said it’s impossible. I said, “Why don’t you reach out to the professor and see if they can do…” She said, “No, they laid down the law. They’re not going to do anything for anyone. That’s just not happening. They’re not going to change. They were really firm about that.” And I said, “Okay.”
And I just started to tell her I went through college, and I saw so many things that were impossible and they’re “not going to do this.” So she started to get a little bit of hope. So I said, “Why don’t you reach out to the professor.” So she sent out an email and I just said, “Lord, show her who you are. Show her what you can do.” Just a simple prayer. And she’s still crying. I said, “Just don’t worry about it. Go do something else. Don’t even think about school right now. Just do something else.”
Let hope rise within you…
And anyway, she went back to campus. And the next morning, I got a text and she said, “Guess what? They opened this thing back up for me and I can go in and take this test.” And I texted her back and said, “Yay Jesus.” Because what seems impossible… sometimes when you’re in that place, it seems like there’s no way. They said no. They said no to me at the bank, or they said no to me for getting this house or this loan or whatever you’re doing. You know they’re saying no. But God says yes and amen! When we come to Him, just simple faith. I didn’t pray for an hour. I just said, “Lord, show her how good you are. What you can do for her.” And it’s turned in less than 24 hours and that’s what He wants to do. He wants to get us outside. Let that hope rise up today like Dustin was talking about in your heart that nothing is impossible. Where there’s a no, where people say no, God says “Yes you can. You can have that. You can be that. You can do that.”
It’s in Him. And all we have to do is simple faith. “Lord, I put my trust in you. Turn this situation. Change this thing. Open this door. Whatever needs to happen.” He can do it and will do it for you.
God can do it in the blink of an eye…
So I’m just super encouraged by what Dustin was sharing this morning and that just came up in my heart. And just to see God move so quickly and He can. And I think a lot of times as believers, we put everything so far off. “Well maybe God could do this next year or maybe next month.” Well, how about today? How about tomorrow morning everything’s different. How about that situation is turned around now? Why does it have to be tomorrow? Why does it have to be next week? That’s us saying, “Well, okay, I can believe in you, but I don’t think you could do it that fast.” Are you kidding? In the blink of an eye… in an instant… God can change and transform any situation, any circumstance.
God can do more than you can think or imagine…
And another thing that I was reminded of and I don’t know who this is for. It’s not a scripture. It’s just a kind of a random thing that came up in my heart. My husband and I have a business, and on our wall at the business, we have this poster. It’s a quote by the commissioner of the US Patent Office from 1899. And he said, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” And that was in 1899. So here’s this man in 1899 that’s saying, “We’ve done it all.” You’ll never come up with any other idea. There’s never going to be anything that you’ll ever invent. We’ve done it all. And it’s like, oh my goodness.
And then, so what does that do to people? Where’s the hope? And so you really have to overcome to say, “Well, I have this idea. This is different. This is a new thing.” So for even people that God is giving ideas to, you know, there’s so much that God is just endless. Ideas are endless. Possibilities are endless. There is so much in Him. And don’t let a human being tell you that there’s not more. God can do more than we can imagine or think.
