If you were to specifically say to Jesus Christ, “I want a change in me, God. I don’t want to be the same. I want to be different,” what would He do?
#3. He will enable you to do what seems impossible.
He will enable you to do that which seems humanly impossible. Notice the third thing that Jesus says to this paralyzed man (Mark 2:10) “Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, ‘Stand up! Take your mat and go on home. You’re healed.’ The man jumped up, took the mat, pushed his way through the stunned onlookers. They all praised God , ‘We’ve never seen anything like this before,’ they exclaimed.” I guess not!
Think about this. Jesus asked this guy to do the very thing he has been unable to do his entire life. Jesus could have asked him to do all kinds of different things but He asked this guy to do the one thing he had never ever done in his life. This man is an invalid. For life he’s been a shut in. He has been carried everywhere he’d ever gone in his entire life. There were no wheelchairs in those days. So everywhere this man had been in his life somebody had carried him. And Jesus looks at him and says, “I want you to stand up and take up your mat and get out of here! You’re healed.” Why in the world did Jesus do that? He asked him to do the impossible. Why? He wanted to stretch his faith.
Faith is not something you believe. No. Faith is something you do. Faith is not something you think about. It’s something you act on. Faith is not an opinion or a conviction or a philosophy. Faith is an activity. It is obeying God and doing what He says to do even if it seems impossible.
What is God asking you to do that looks impossible. God is testing your faith. “This is a test. Are you going to believe Me? Are you going to trust Me? Are you going to place your faith in Me.”
You have many areas in your life that you would like to change. These are areas under your control. But you’ve decided it’s too hard, or it’s impossible or it will never happened. I'm not talking about things out of your control. For instance, no matter how much you pray you’re never going to change your height. No matter how much you believe you’re not going to grow a foot. That’s in God’s control.
But there are many things in your life that are under your control that you’ve just decided are too hard. “I’ll never be able to do it.” It’s humanly impossible. So you say things like “I’ll never be able to break this habit... I’ll never be able to recover from that failure... I’ll never be able to start over... I’ll never be able to love again… I’ll never be able to find someone I can have a relationship with... I’ll never be able to be different... I'm not ever going to see my dream realized... I'm never going to become what I’ve always wanted to be… I can never forgive that person who hurt me.”
And you’re right. Because you are emotionally paralyzed. That’s why you need Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “Without God it is utterly impossible but with God everything is possible.” Your greatest need is not for relief of your problems. Your greatest need is to see how big God really is, to understand the greatness and love and majesty and forgiveness of God. Because the more you understand how big and how loving God is the smaller your problems shrink in comparison.
The reason your problems look so big is you’ve got your eyes on your problems all the time. No wonder! But when you look at God and realize how great God is everything else shrinks in comparison. You realize, “This does seem impossible from my viewpoint but nothing is impossible with God. And if God asks me to do something, I had better do it in faith.”
I love you guys. Stay faithful. Stay the course. See how BIG God is. Why don't you give it another shot to memorize the verse we have given you so far in the spiritual growth campaign.
Ephesians 3:20 (NCV)
"With God's power working in us, God can do much, much more than anything we can ask or imagine."
Romans 6:13 (LB)
“Give yourselves completely to God, every part of you. For you want to be tools in the hands of God, to be used for His good purposes.”
No comments:
Post a Comment