ACHIEVING YOUR POTENTIAL Part 6
Words+Pictures+Emotions =Comfort Zone We all have a comfort zone based upon our experiences, as soon as we get out of your comfort zone something is going to not feel good. For example, you are wanted on the phone! 1. You hear the word emergency. 2. Car Wreck a Picture. 3. Fear of who is it a loved one? Which brings an emotion, or feelings. Heaven or Hell which will it be? Heaven-Hell Words-Paradise-torment –Picture. Joy unspeakable-weeping, gnashing of teeth-Emotions, or feeling. Everything we do needs to be based upon who do you chose? God? or Satan? Now your imagination, I hope is working, because of the vividness of reality. So what is once recorded we’re stuck with? True or false? If you chose to make a change in yourself image, you use positive imagination to create a new sub-conscience picture of your self and this will bring about a change you desire, true or false? Can you see the reason man can become God in his own right? The strong can overcome bad habits and attitudes, but how about the weak? The poor? Let’s look at our self esteem and how important it is we learn to talk to ourselves positively. It reinforces good positive self imaging, so I’m letting God control my life by performing, for the King of Kings. That is reality, the world wants to see in Christians obedience as he did in the beginning. Positive self talk stimulates either Positive, or Negative actions and behaviors, depending upon who your serving. Note the story that unfolds for us in Judges 1 after the death of Joshua, when the people asked "Who shall be first to go up for us against the Canaanites to fight against them?" 2 And the Lord said, "Judah shall go up. Indeed I have delivered the land into his hand." Judges 1:1-2 (NKJV) Note the word picture, 1. Judah shall go up. 2. I have delivered the land into his hand. How many times do we have to experience the hand of the Lord, before we can really trust the Lord? Note Judah wanted more assurance, so asked Simeon his brother to help in verse 3. Next we see another picture of the Lord, how He delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand and they slew 10,000 men. But one of the enemy fled by the name of Adonibezek, whom they caught and cut off his thumb and toes. Brutal right? He died in Jerusalem some time latter. Then the children of Judah fought against Jerusalem and smote the people with the edge of swords and set the city on fire. Note Judges 1:19 (NKJV) And the Lord was with Judah. And they drove out the mountaineers, but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the lowland, because they had chariots of iron. Are you seeing how Judah was not obeying the Lord. They looked at the picture and knew the enemy was stronger, there emotions got the best of them and they feared. The Lord said, He would fight for them. He wants us to achieve our potential today, but we fear the addictions of sin and let them rule over us with their chariots of iron, and we (fall of the weagon). Verse 28 says Israel was strong and put the Canaanites to tribute, and did not utterly drive them out. I hope that everyone reading this web site understands the picture we have been faced with through out history. God has given us the ability to make decisions, that can either bless us, or curse us. Let’s make sure we understand our imagination of who God is, in a vivid way, so we can begin to see reality of becoming more and more like our Creator. Lord help me to understand how weak I am and in need of your intervention, in dealing with my enemies, to make sure I throw down all the alters in my life. It seems like we have a hard time learning what the Lord wants from us and we are still doing evil in our world. Judges 2:11-12 (NKJV) 11 Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals; 12 and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them; and they provoked the Lord to anger. Everyone seems to forget the blessing of the truth and just as in Judges this was a new generation that did not want to remember the past. The now is so much more fun, and please, don’t give me any rules, let me be free to do what ever I want! Just as Israel was impoverished by this type of thinking so are we today, but God had a man who was afraid hiding in the wine press Note Judges 6:12-18 (NKJV) 12 And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, "The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!" 13 Gideon said to Him, "O my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?' But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites." 14 Then the Lord turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?" 15 So he said to Him, "O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house." 16 And the Lord said to him, "Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man." 17 Then he said to Him, "If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who talk with me. 18 Do not depart from here, I pray, until I come to You and bring out my offering and set it before You." And He said, "I will wait until you come back." Does this not give us a clear picture of what God has in store for us, if we would but wait on the Lord, rather than do what we want to? Gideon took and offered a sacrifice of a Kid showing divine love unto the Lord who has just spoken to him. He takes unleavened cake, showing a sign of no malice, but praise and prayer unto God. Then he puts it all together with broth, in a pot. Showing his life is totally sacrificed unto God for His service. Presenting it unto the Lord making sure it’s not him, but God that is the answer for all our woes. Notice that God Presence came down in the form of an angel of God, taking the staff in his hand, touching the flesh and unleavened cakes and there arose fire and consumed it all and the angel departed. What a miracle right in the front of Gideon and he still needs more assurance! When Gideon understood the picture he said, Alas, O Lord God! I saw an angel face to face. The Lord said to him, Peace be unto you, fear not, thou shalt not die. Comforting right? Gideon builds an altar and worships God. The Lord is our peace; Jehovah-shalom. Is that still true today, or are we seeking peace somewhere else? Lord help, us to understand peace is something the world is trying to take away, by feeding use lie after lies. Now Gideon threw down the altars of Baal, restore order, by removing all sign of wickedness. Build instead an altar unto the Lord thy God upon the top of this rock. Christ Jesus! The orderly way is the way of the Holy Spirit. Lord help, me today to understand the power of the Holy Spirit in my life, that helps me to over come sin. The Holy Spirit is a comforter, one that gives assurance that my sins can be forgiven and I’m on my way to heaven. Not by might, nor by power, but by the Holy Spirit we are called Christians. That is having the power to pray for our enemies and do good to those that would persecute us. The people woke up the next day and were mad, who cut down the altar? They said to Gideon, bring out your son that we can kill him. Gideon said to them, will you plead for Baal? Today we are seeing people plead for the gay rights, gambling, legalized prostitution, anything goes on TV and movie houses and it is going to get worse. Sin is the source of pain and misery and we seem to enjoy it. Now Gideon needed more assurance and wanted God to reveal Him self to him in a supernatural way. Lord I will put fleece on the floor and let the dew, be on the fleece only, and all the ground around it be dry. It was so, he wrang out a bowel full of water from the fleece. That wasn’t enough assurance, so now he wanted God to not be anger with him, but I need one more sign. God let me prove you, just this one more time, let the fleece be dry and the ground be wet with dew. Sure enough the fleece was dry and the ground wet with dew. I hope you see that a fleece is something that does not make since to the natural man, it is supernatural. Is your imagination working are your seeing vividly what God wants to show us in reality. He can do the impossible for He is a God of Miracles. To be continued next Week |