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Do Not Bow to Fear
“Oh Lord, You are my God; I will exalt You, I will give thanks to Your name; For You have worked wonders, Plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness.” Isaiah 25:1 ...
Ask of God
The book of James begins with the encouragement to consider it all joy when we encounter various trials, knowing that this testing of our faith produces endurance, and if we will let endurance have its...
Do the Heavens Know You?
Y'ALL I CAN'T KEEP THIS TO MYSELF!!!!!! IT'S TOO MUCH TO EAT!!! CHECK IT OUT!!!!!!!!! I am currently reading a book called The Apostolic Ministry by Rick Joyner. I can't rephrase his words, so I am going...
ALL Who are Weary, Come
Weary…… you could probably make a long list of reasons why, but that is not the point…....
Asking for the Impossible
A quote from Ed Underwood, the Senior Pastor at Church of the Open Door, Glendora, California (from the January 18th podcast): “If you are not struggling with unbelief, you are probably not asking...
| Asking for the Impossible |
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| Written by traci shinnick |
| Wednesday, 25 March 2009 12:13 |
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A quote from Ed Underwood, the Senior Pastor at Church of the Open Door, Glendora, California (from the January 18th podcast):
In Numbers chapter 11, God told the Israelites, who were wandering in the wilderness, that He would send them meat for a whole month (so much meat that it would become loathsome to them because they had rejected the Lord and were regretting having ever left Egypt). They could not come up with a possible scenario that this could actually take place. They could not think of any possible way for Him to provide meat for 600,000 for a whole month in the desert. Would He slaughter all their flocks and herds or would He gather all the fish in the sea? Would that be sufficient for them? And the Lord’s response to these vain imaginations was, “Is the LORD’s power limited?”
“Now there went forth a wind from the Lord and it brought quail from the sea, and let them fall beside the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and a day’s journey on the other side, all around the camp and about two cubits deep (about 36 inches deep) on the surface of the ground.” Numbers 11:31. This was not one of the possible options that they came up with.1
As we read through His Word, we see Him enact solutions to problems in ways that we would never dream up, in ways that if we saw them in a movie, we would say, “That is totally unrealistic!” His reality is so much bigger than ours that His ways could be regarded as unrealistic. His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:9). Let’s be bold enough to pray for the unrealistic (the miraculous) rather than according to our own solutions and stop giving up all hope if we cannot come up with one in our limited thinking.
Are you asking Him for the impossible? Are your circumstances impossible? Are you focusing on those impossibilities, fixing your eyes on your circumstances and contemplating them all from the commonsense point of view and giving up because you can’t think of a possible solution? As you are tempted to wallow in the sin of worry, You have a God who responds, “Is the Lord’s power limited? Ask Me, trust Me, believe Me to do the impossible, above and beyond anything you could ask or even imagine. Stop trying to come up with a possible solution and stop giving into despair and worry because you can’t find one. Instead, “in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to Me. And My peace [shall be yours, that tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace] which transcends all understanding shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds..”2
“And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief.” Matthew 13:58 (Is this why we are not experiencing the miracles of God?)
“’Why could we not do this?’ …. And He said to them, ‘Because of the littleness of your faith.’” Matthew 17:19,20
Lord, we confess our littleness of faith. We confess that our eyes are too often fixed on our circumstances and not on Your sovereignty, ability, glory, and power.
I lay all the overwhelming circumstances of my life down at Your feet….and take up the faith that You freely give: faith to ask for even more of the impossible and irrational. “Everything by prayer.” Lord take care of all that concerns me the most today (and all that only You know about: the things that would concern me and may even trump the concerns I’m carrying right now if I only knew about them). I exchange these for Your grace- everything that I need: trust in Your sovereignty over these circumstances, faith that You are able to do the impossible, hope in all things working together for my good and making me more Christ-like (if I will cooperate), and joy in knowing that as I face these various trials, this testing of my faith produces endurance, and as it has its perfect result, I may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.
Oswald Chambers said, “We impoverish His ministry the moment we forget He is Almighty. We will come to Jesus as Comforter or as Sympathizer, but we will not come to Him as Almighty. The reason some of us are such poor specimens of Christianity is because we have no Almighty Christ. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment to Jesus Christ. When we get into difficult circumstances, we impoverish His ministry by saying, ‘Of course He cannot do anything,’ and we struggle down to the deeps and try to get the water for ourselves. Beware of the satisfaction of sinking back and saying, ‘It can’t be done’; you know it can be done if you look to Jesus. The well of your incompleteness is deep, but make the effort and look away to Him.”3
Fixing our eyes on the Almighty and asking for the impossible………
1 There are many of these amazing, faith building stories in scripture, but see also 2 Kings 6:24-7:20; 2 Philippians 4:6,7 Amplified Bible; 3 My Utmost for His Highest ,Feb
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| Last Updated on Saturday, 14 November 2009 15:14 |
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