Someone said that life is like flying a helicopter, and I don’t know how to operate a helicopter either….
Perhaps you heard about the two psychiatrists who passed each other on the sidewalk, and one said to the other, “You’re fine, how am I”…. Well, I want to tell you that you’re fine, and you are programmed by God for success, if you can accept His plan…
Today, I want to begin with two stories….
George Bernard Shaw, famous author and play write, was asked by a reporter, "if you could live your life over and be anybody you've know, or any person from history, who would you be?"
Shaw responded immediately, "I would choose, to be the man George Bernard Shaw could have been, but never was."
I read an interesting story of Robert Schuller who built the famous Crystal Cathedral, who tells about a seed he received one day in the mail from Ansley Mueller, a farmer from Ohio. For years, Schuller, had been teaching the principle, that any fool can count the seeds in an apple. Only God can count the apples in a seed.” Well, Mueller had been listening to this principle…. He explained that in 1977, he lost half his soybean crop. It was a bad, bad year. So, at the end of the year, in October, he was walking through his devastated fields, when he saw a group of the most extraordinary, unusual looking soybean plants standing straight and tall, all by themselves. He was shocked by the size and good looks, so he carefully picked off the pods. There were 202 pods which yielded 503 soybeans. He took them home and the next season, he planted those 503 soybeans in a little plot behind his house and that October they yielded Thirty-two pounds! He planted them in the next season on one acre and harvested 2,409 pounds! He planted those, the next season on sixty-eight acres, which was all the land he had. That year, he harvested twenty-one hundred bushels and cashed it out for fifty thousand dollars!
God programmed increase into each of those soybeans. He programmed them to multiply 30, 60 and 100 fold!
Deuteronomy 30:19 “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live”
Just like the soy bean, has built in programing, so likewise every believer has been programed for abundant life….
JOHN 10:10 “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
Not once did our Lord call you “Failure, lost cause, good for nothing, hopeless, bad seed, or a waste of space”.
He just said “Follow me and I will make you” When Jesus said that to the disciples, the word “make”, in the Greek, is to bring forth, to appoint, to ordain, to fulfill your purpose… and He speaks the same thing to every believer.
Most folks, including the disciples would not have chosen Paul as an apostle, I mean after all, he was killing Christians…. They would have assumed that Jesus never would have called fishermen, a tax collector, and the revolutionist, to spread the kingdom message throughout the earth…..and the apostles would never have assumed that they could ever be used by God in the way they were used….
But when they met Jesus, He changed the program for their life. And amazingly, He chose you and me!!! He changed your life’s programming…. (I will make you)He says to each of us!
As a believer, God calls you a Masterpiece, a Treasure, His friend, a new Creation, The dwelling place of God, a work of art, forgiven, His likeness and image, Eternally alive, a citizen of Heaven, A partaker of the glory, righteous, a diamond in His crown, A vessel of honor, Accepted in the beloved, the Apple of His eye, Blessed of the LORD, Called, and chosen, the Elect of God, He that dwells in the secret place, Conqueror, anointed, Overcomer, the Heir of God, Kings and priests, The Redeemed, the Healed, The Children of God….
Jeremiah 33:3 “Call unto Me, and I will answer you, and shew you great and mighty things, which you could not even imagine”!
Richard Evans wrote that “The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to really begin it”.
And once we do, The average person at 70 years old, Has spent 23 years Sleeping..... 16 years Working at 8 hours a day, 5 days a week... 8 years watching TV…. 6 years Eating.... 6 years driving... 4 ½ years R&R…. 4 years being sick….. 2 years getting showered and dressed.... ½ year or 2 minutes a day praying… (and that’s on the run)
Surely we can do better with our inner programing…..
The well known American artist James Whistler, was once advised that a shipment of blank canvases he had ordered were lost in the mail. When he was asked if the canvases were of any great value, Whistler remarked, "not yet sir, not yet." Last week we said that the word “Yet” is a word of expectation! (most of Whistler’s paintings sold for millions of dollars!)
Whistler’s mother, sold for 30 million!
Oh…. When Satan comes around and tells you that you’re worthless, of no value, a failure, and a lost cause…. You need to tell him, “In Christ, you are programed for success, you are programed to do great things, and to be a transforming agent of redemption in the earth!!!
Isaiah 53:1 asks the question…“Whose report will you believe? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
In a small village in Sweden lived a young girl named Jenny Lind a poor and unskilled, child born into poverty, so she could only make it by doing the most menial of jobs. She loved to sing, and She began to sing on street corners, hoping passersby would toss her a coin or two.
Each day she sang--in the wind and rain, the heat and the cold, yet barely making enough at the end of the day to buy food. One day a great musician happened to pass by and heard her. He was captivated by her beautiful voice. He took the girl home with him and began to teach her how to use her voice to its full capability. In time she became the toast of two continents and everyone knew and loved "The Swedish Nightingale."
It was always programed within her, but God gave her that wonderful thing called opportunity…. The bible calls it favor. It’s when the grace of God which gives us what we don’t deserve, meets the favor of God and we are given wings to fly!
We are all created by God, for God, to become what He
thinks we should be… God designed us, created us, desires to bless us, heal us, defend us, restores us, renew us, forgive us, and love us… But our programming got messed up somewhere along the way.
We got disappointed, or let down by someone… We experienced promises broken and vows unkept… Life bruised us, knocked us around and tromped on our dreams…. We began to believe that the good guy doesn’t always win… and it gets into our head and lodges in our heart…
We get our hopes up like Doug’s family… who was called to his bedside, when he knew his time was short…He hadlived all his life in the Florida Keys and now his family,who had all moved great distances away, his wife, his daughter and two sons, are with him along with his doctor. He asks for two witnesses to be present and a lawyer to be there to record his last wishes, and when all is ready he begins to speak.
“My son, Andy, I give you the Ocean Reef houses.”
“My daughter, Sybil, I give you the apartments between mile markers 100 and Tavernier.”
“My son, Jamie, I give you the offices over in the Marathon Government Center.”
“Sarah, my dear wife, I give you all the residential buildings on the bayside at Islamorada .”
The lawyer and children are blown away as they didn’t realize his extensive holdings. Doug passes, and the lawyer says, “Sarah, your husband must have been such a hard-working man to have accumulated all this property.” The wife replies…are you
kidding, That clown was only talking about giving us his newspaper route.
Some of you are wondering how you’re going to make it…. God says “The check is in the mail”…. Some of you are wondering what tomorrow holds, God says “I’ve been waiting here for your arrival”…..Somebody may be saying, that you can’t handle anymore hurt…. God says, “because I hurt more than you ever will, I am able finish all that I began in you”…
We are programmed for blessing….
When Paul was writing to his young friend, Timothy, he said…. “I have fought a good fight.”
Then, he said, “I have finished the race.”
That was followed by, “I have kept the faith,” And finally, he says “I have won the prize of the high calling in Christ.”
We are programed in Christ to fight the good fight…. To finish the race….
To keep the faith…. And to win the prize of the high calling…..
Paul was killing Christians, but he got reprogramed…..
The apostles were fishermen, a tax collector, a physician, and a terrorist, but they got reprogramed by the God man Jesus. It brought them into the opportunities that favor provided, so that grace could flourish in their lives….
In Christ our marriages are programed for success…..our bodies are programed to be strong, full of vitality, whole and entire….. Our life is programed for joy, peace and fulness in the Holy Spirit… “Body, body, get in line, nothing missing, nothing broken, everything working fine”….
Jesus said John 7:38…”Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture says, ‘Out of his center (Inner most being) will flow rivers of living water. This He said, speaking of the Holy Spirit..”
In order to flow in your supernatural programing, which is operating in your inner most being, (your spirit)… You must drop down from your mind, your intellect, and get down into your spirit. It is there that you will tap into your giftedness, the fruit of the Spirit, and your inner guidance….
I have always told you to lay your hands on your belly, (your center) and release your supernatural programing which is flowing up out of you…..
It is there that you will find the training to reign in life….
Hear it please…..Ephesians 3:20 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly, beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that is now working within us, (in our inner being) to Him be all the glory in the church, in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”
When we drop down and tap into what is flowing in our center, our spirit, through Christ, we begin to effect generations…..
That is where your peace is waiting to flow out into your life…. That’s where the longsuffering and patience is waiting to flow from….. That’s where your joy is waiting to flow out in your valley places, and barren mountainregions….
Drop down, and begin to flow out of your inner most being…..
Anything can be reversed, when you find out how to drop down and begin to flow out from your redeemed center……
John 14:5 “Lord, said Thomas, we do not know where You are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”.
That’s the spirit of truth, in you…. That’s the spirit of life in you…
That’s the way, when you don’t know the way or how to get there… Drop down into that, and get out of your head….
When I was in Ramrod, every Christmas I would decorate the yard, and there were some decorations that weren’t lit. So I set up flood lights to illuminate those, so they could be seen. That’s what the spirit in you does, as you drop down to your inner guidance, the Spirit throws the light on what you were missing, and illuminates it. Out of your inner most being, You begin to see what Jesus is doing so you can do it. You see what He’s saying so you can obey. You see His plan, and desires for you, so you can begin to flow and operate in that…
Roald Amundsen, was the first to discover the magnetic meridian of the North Pole and went on to do the same at the South Pole. On his trips, Amundsen would take a homing pigeon with him. When he had finally reachedhis destination in the dangerous and rugged terrain, he would open the bird's cage and set it free. Imagine the joy of Amundsen's wife, back in Norway, when she looked up from the doorway of her home and saw the pigeon circling in the sky above. With excitement and relief she exclaimed, "He's alive! My husband is still alive!"
The heavenly dove reveals to us what we could not see or know without Him. Oh, wondrous Holy Spirit, sweet heavenly dove!!!
From your redeemed center, you can reprogram things around you…. You can call things back, release things, set free, restore, redeem the times, create new beginnings and see possibilities where there were only impossibilities…..as we drop down and flow out of our inner most being….
I want to close with a simple story…. My Grandma Dalton, was very limited in her later years, but she had Grandpa set her up a garden. It was about an acre in size. Grandma used to love to walk up and down the rows of squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, peas, string beans, and watermelon, pulling weeds and worshiping the Lord in song and in the spirit.. Her garden produce was twice the size of everyone else’s, and healthier. Everyone knew why….She transformed that garden by flowing out of her inner most being as she walked up and down those rows. (she sang way off key, but with her spirit, she brought transformation) If it worked in grandma’s garden, It will work in your home, on your job, in your neighborhood, and in every area of your life….. I want to encourage you today, to come back to your secret place and you can begin to watch as the heavenly dove, leads you into your own areas of transformation and restoration….
Romans 12:1 “Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. v2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of the spirit of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God”
