Do You Believe

God has a history of getting people to do what THEY and everyone else thought they could not do

God has a bible full of people doing things beyond their natural ability

Moses had only a staff

Delivered 1 million people

Samson had the Jaw bone of a donkey

Took out 1000 men

David only had a few stones

Took out Goliath

Joseph was a slave

Ruler of Egypt

Daniel was a slave and refugee in Babylon

Became a great ruler of the whole kingdom

God put these people in the bible so we could learn something about our possibilities in God’s hands

We need to stop judging what is possible in our lives based on our idea of what’s possible

God designed you with gifting and talents

So many people never step into their abilities because:

They don’t believe they have any talent or ability

They know it but are afraid to step out into it because they might fail

The fear of failure is a very effective tool used to stop your progress

FEAR period is the reason for

Definition of fear

fear as "a distressing emotion aroused by an impending pain, danger, evil, etc. or by the illusion of such."

Fear causes us to...

Stay in jobs that are below your ability

Stay in relationship that are abusive and destructive

Fear of expressing ideas or attempting new things

The bible says something important about fear:

1 John 4:17–18 NLT

And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.

PUNISHMENT:

We as people are so used to:

Getting punished for doing wrong (some punishment was excessive and unwarranted)

Having people not believe in you or encourage you

Laugh at you when you failed

Being told we are not valuable ( through being ignored-dismissed-not being affirmed)

Believing that:

Life can be good

That your ideas will work

That its okay to even fail

THIS CAN BE HARD

But God Says.....

Isaiah 41:10 NLT

Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.

The enemy of your soul has spent your lifetime trying to tell you:

That you can’t

That you won’t

That you should not

That breakthroughs and successes are for someone else

Your purpose and greatest life is found by Following your gut (non-Christian)…or…voice of God(Christian)

…will always require risk

BUT...God does something very important when he is allowed into our life

He introduces us to the possibility of the impossible

If we get to know God well enough.....

If we step out and do things he asks us to do.......

We discover that what WE thought was impossible IS possible

If we give God our natural talents…he will give us Supernatural results

What are SUPERNATURAL results?

David killing Goliath with a stone

Moses delivering Israel with a staff

Mother Theresa building a world wide network of shelters for the poor sisters of Charity

God seems to enjoy choosing the underdogs in life to work through

God did not choose Israel because they were a strong noble people

Deuteronomy 7:7–8 NLT

“The Lord did not set his heart on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other nations, for you were the smallest of all nations! Rather, it was simply that the Lord loves you, and he was keeping the oath he had sworn to your ancestors. That is why the Lord rescued you with such a strong hand from your slavery and from the oppressive hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

Read Ezekiel 16 for a more graphic depiction of how God saw Israel’s beginning

The Church is no different

1 Corinthians 1:26 Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”?

You may seem weak

You may look like the odds are against you

You may fear that everything is going to fall apart

The little you have combined with God’s miraculous provision is enough

1 Kings 17:7–16 NLT

But after a while the brook dried up, for there was no rainfall anywhere in the land. Then the Lord said to Elijah, “Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. I have instructed a widow there to feed you.” So he went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the gates of the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her, “Would you please bring me a little water in a cup?” As she was going to get it, he called to her, “Bring me a bite of bread, too.” But she said, “I swear by the Lord your God that I don’t have a single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I will die.” But Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid! Go ahead and do just what you’ve said, but make a little bread for me first. Then use what’s left to prepare a meal for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: There will always be flour and olive oil left in your containers until the time when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again!” So she did as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her family continued to eat for many days. There was always enough flour and olive oil left in the containers, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah.