May 16, 2021
Sunday AM
Luke 11:1-13 Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”
2 So He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
3 Give us day by day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.”
5 And He said to them, “Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; 6 for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you’? 8 I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.
9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
The church is sadly lacking in bread. This is because God’s people are lacking. We want to remedy that. We have to deal with the problem and have a solution to the problem. You can know what God will do or won’t do if you know Him. You don’t have to wonder about God. He is not mysterious. God has revealed himself by His word and through His spirit. There are attributes of God. He is unchanging. He is truth. He cannot lie, it is impossible. If you know that about Him, then you read something in your Bible that He says you can have, you can be confident that it is true. He cannot lie! We have to get to know Him for who He is and forget what religion has taught us. It is impossible for Him to forsake you. Why? Because He forsook Jesus. He will never have to do that again to one of His own. He had to turn His back on Jesus. Jesus became sin and everything that broken humanity had become. God had to look away! He will never do that to you because He did it to the first born.
If you are going to learn anything in life, it needs to be how to pray. That’s how you get heaven in your life. The disciples noticed that when Jesus prayed, He got results. Jesus prayed when things were very busy. We can learn from this. He was in constant communication with His father. What Jesus did on the earth, He did not do as God. He did it as a man. He said it out of His own mouth, “I can of my own self do nothing. The Father that dwells in me does the work.” Jesus Christ never healed anyone. Jesus Christ never raised one person from the dead. The Father in Jesus did those things. The same life that was in Jesus, is now in you. That same life that’s in you has the same potential it had in Jesus, in Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John. Why don’t we see that? It begins with you knowing and believing it. You have to move past just having knowledge. Knowledge doesn’t make it happen. It is the first step.
Matthew 4:14-16 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:
15 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles:
16 The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
And upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death
Light has dawned.”
When it talks about darkness here, it is referencing spiritual death. No one was ever born spiritually alive other than Adam and Jesus. Adam went from life to death. Jesus was the only other person born with life and light in Him amidst all the darkness. You have that same life and light in you. When you called on the name of the Lord, the same thing that happened in Genesis when God said, “Let there be light,” happened in you. We have the nature of God in us! We have the same ability to do the very things that Jesus did! That’s why Jesus said, “He that believes in me, the works I do, he shall do to” The miracles of God are locked up inside people who don’t know who they are! That’s why we have the word and the Holy Ghost! We can know who we are! We can know who is on the inside of us! And we can know exactly what we can do. But you’re never going to get there, until you make the decision to refuse to accept things the way they are. Don’t accept a casual Christianity! Don’t accept a lukewarm walk! God wants to take you to a place you’ve never been before! But if you just sit back and casually go about it, you won’t ever reach it. Refuse to be a person to walk in blindness like the majority does! There are no limits to the life of God in you! You are the only limit. Greater is He that is in you than he that is trying to get in you. Do not let the enemy steal your walk with God! Jesus paid the most awesome price that’s ever been paid, so that you can be free! It’s up to you to enforce your redemptive right! It’s up to you to enforce that victory! Do you realize that Jesus died and left you an inheritance? Your generational curses have already been broken. They were all ended at the cross. You don’t have to live under any of that! It’s your choice, because Jesus made a way out! He carried them so that you wouldn’t have to! Jesus took them into hell and left them there! It’s the devil that comes from hell with them and tries to put them back on you. And if you know who you are, you can refuse to let that happen. Anything can change with prayer! Prayer will get the job done! Don’t settle for anything less! God’s very nature is giving! He wants to give the bread! He yearns to! He wants to set every captive free! The most valuable thing to exist to God is a human being. ALL human beings. Humans are the only eternal being. They will live forever somewhere. You may not have the bread, but you know who does! We have to turn from doing our own thing. Lay down our agenda and pick up Gods! When you read about people doing amazing things for God, you must see that they lived a sold-out life. God’s love can take you over! We will all get to the end of our lives, and maybe we have done good things. But were they God things? God has a purpose for your life! If you have the wrong things influencing you, you will build your life on the wrong things. You have to do what no one wants to do, to have what everyone wants to have. At some point you have to stop reading about the heroes and finished works and start to write your own story! Of course those people have important and inspiring lives, but when are you going to have your own? God is no respecter of persons. God will do anything in your life that you want Him to do. “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” In other words, when God becomes the delight and the thing you live for, you won’t ask Him for goofy stuff. You will want what He wants! You will start seeing things how they really are. He will open your eyes to who you are! He does this because He loves you! He will reveal himself to you! You will value what He values. You will value eternal things over temporal things. If you give God your best, He can start giving you His best. You have as much of God as you want in your life. God wants to be with you at all times!
Mark 1:21-24 Then they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught. 22 And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
23 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, 24 saying, “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!”
They were ASTONISHED! They recognized He was different than the other preachers of His day. The demon spirit was threatened by the presence of God. It couldn’t remain there in silence, it had to manifest. This is what we have to contend for. If we don’t, we will never have it. Anytime these things are present in church it keeps a ceiling that is hard to surpass. We have to strive to be the best we can be! We have to be tenacious and give it everything we have. You have far more potential in you than you realize! You can do far more than you think you can! You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take!
You can know things because you been with the one who knows everything! Just spend time with Him! He doesn’t have questions, He has answers! He doesn’t have problems, He has solutions. He knows everything past present and future!
Acts 3:19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,
You’re saved! You can stand before God as a blameless individual! All because of the blood. Not because of what you’ve done or not done. You got it all by grace! Bought and paid for by Jesus! He obtained eternal redemption for us! You need refreshing and refueling from time to time! You need your DAILY bread! He is only waiting for you to come and ask Him for your daily bread.