“Six Little Words”….
At the university commencement exercises, the School's President rose to address the graduates and confer their degreeson them. He began by explaining the meaning of the traditional Latin phrases used to rank their performances.
For example, if a student graduates "Cum Laude," it means "With Honors."
Next, he explained that "Magna Cum Laude" means they graduate with “High Honors”. And if a student graduates "Summa Cum Laude," they graduate with “Supreme Honors”.
Then he announced, “there is a new honor I plan to use in the future to be called ‘Magna Cum Pellidentium,’ which means ‘By the skin of your teeth.” Well everyone had a good laugh,
But, too many folks, who know the Lord, and quote scripture, are trying to get through PELLIDENTIUM, “by the skin of their teeth”…. They spend very little personal bible study time, or prayer time, and very little preparation in speaking what they believe to others who might ask, in a clear, concise way…. I Peter 3:15. “In your hearts set apart a central place for Christ as Lord; always be prepared to give an effective answer to everyone who asks you the reason for the hope that you have”
Thinking of this, we might look at the story of Daniel, who along with his friends, the three Hebrew princes, were taken captive by the nation of Babylon, and who would not bow or bend to the Godless culture they found themselves in. Daniel was thrown into a pit with hungry lions in it, and we all call it the story of Daniel in the lion’s den… but what if we called it the story of “THE LIONS IN DANIEL’S DEN”
It gives it a totally different view point, because it places the authority with Daniel and not the lions! It completely shifts the center of power in the situation….
God had always intended for this incident to be the pivotal moment, where the king would know that God was with Daniel, and it would be the transitional event, that would elevate Daniel from a position of, getting by with the skin of his teeth, into graduating with supreme honors!
If you look at it the way God sees it, you are NOT in the Lion’s den, The lions are in YOUR DEN…. (six little words that make all the difference)
We need the God kind of view point to get the God kind of results.
Daniel could not be passive about His Godly convictions, even though the king’s word was law in the land…. Because Daniel served a higher power that superseded the King’s authority. The way he lived before he got to the den of lions, gave him favor when he was thrown into the den of lions….
Matthew 10:32 “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, (or lions) I will also confess him before My Father in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, (or lions) I will also deny him before My Father in heaven”.
Like Daniel, we can no longer remain passive as the world sinks further into darkness. We need to see it like God sees it and say it like God says it!!
When you see a house on fire, you take some kind of action…. When you see someone in harms way, you sound the alarm…. If there is action you can take, you are commissioned as a Christian to take it….
I heard the story of the couple who had been married for a few years. When arguments and disagreements became a constant thing in their relationship, they decided to seek counselling in hopes of saving the marriage. He was incredibly insensitive and dull, She was hyperactive and dominating… NOT A GOOD MIX.
When they arrived at their first counselling session, things did not start well…The husband slumped in the chair, while staring down at the carpet, and it was clear, he would rather be somewhere else!
The wife however launched into a 90mph conversion, describing all the wrongs within their marriage.
Every problem it seemed, could be traced back to him, his failures, his insensitivities, his failure to communicate, and she went on & on & on.
After 15 minutes of the wife talking non-stop, the counsellor stood up and without saying a word, walked around his desk and bent over in front of the wife. He stood her up by her shoulders, gave her a big hug, and kissed her long and passionately for several minutes on the lips. He then sat her down….Looked at the husband and said, “That is what your wife needs at least once a day”
The stunned husband thought for a minute, scratched his head and said;
“Well, what time would you like for me to bring her by for you”…..
Some folks are way too willing to just get through by the skin of their teeth, and let the chips fall where they may! They take no personal ownership about where they are headed, but leave it to the fickled hand of fate, where so many others have crashed and burned….
Moses would have preferred to just stay in the wilderness, with his wife and new family, off the Egyptian radar, and not do anything that would raise any red flags which would get the Pharaoh’s attention… They had a name for anyone who would dare stand up against the Pharaoh… and that word is DEAD!! They ended up dead!
You see, just like Daniel needed to see the situation with the lions, the way God saw it, Moses had to come to the place that he had to see Egypt as God saw it….The Hebrews weren’t just in Egypt, Egypt was just a player in their story, and their destiny…. JOHN 14:1"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many places prepared. if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to secure a place for you. 3 And if I go and secure a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 I can show you the way to the place where I am going."
Since we’re talking about six little words…. I came up with a few six words summaries…. Here’s a six, six word declarations….Beginning with John 14:3 …“Where I am You can be” (powerful six words)
How about….”Destiny is a journey of transformation”.
And then I wrote down….“God has purchased everyone a ticket”.
“The price God paid was Himself”.
“Find God’s will everywhere in everything”.
“God still moves in the unexpected”. (There’s a message in a message) You get two for the price of one! With all the ups and downs, the in’s and out’s, the twists and turns, God saw the Jews, not as captives in Egypt, but in the land of Canaan, dwelling in their own houses and farming their own land, ….
The challenge was to get Moses to see, what God had in store, so he could show the people! Where we are at the moment, is not where we will be when God is finished with our story!
He is the God of where you’ve been, He’s the God of where you are, and He’s the God of where you’ve never been yet! You talk to a lot of folks and they spend all the time talking about where they’ve been… Then other folks spend all the time talking about where they are now… But not many folks will spend their time talking with you about where they’re going….
There is a tribe in Africa, that has a very traditional greeting for strangers… They ask “Where did you come from”…. “What are you doing here”… and “Where are you going when you leave here”…. Boy, that covers it all!
Have you seen what God sees about you….
Here’s the way Jesus put it….”Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven”…. That’s the lens through which we are to look at the past, the present and the future….Stop regretting your past, and moaning about your present situation…. We’re getting ready to cross the Jordan and enter the future He already prepared for us!
God gave Abraham a very graphic look at what his future was and while he had no children because Sarah was barren, yet he saw his future, and it looked fruitful and abundant…. Look at it…
Genesis 22:17 “I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore”. Guess who’s report Abraham believed… It says he hoped against hope… When he had nothing but God’s promise to base anything on, he chose to believe the promise….
In other words, God is looking for people who will see the things in earth as God sees them in heaven…. Will you be that person…?
Proverbs 29:18 in the New King James version… ‘‘Where there is no vision the people cast off restraint, and do their own thing.”
The difference is in having a Biblical world view, when most of our society has a secular world view which is often at odds with God’s view as He moves us forward, into the rest of His story for our lives.
(Look at someone and ask them….”What about His story in your story”…)
Let me put two faces in front of you…. the Apostle Paul, and Osama bin Laden…..
What do you think of when I mention the Apostle Paul?
His Conversion. His Missionary Journeys. That he wrote much of the New Testament. That he shared the gospel with the Gentileworld. That he planted many Churches.
OK what do you think of when I mention Osama bin Laden?
September 11, Terrorism, Hijacked planes, and Bombings..
So what do Osama bin Laden and the Apostle Paul have in common?
They are both responsible for killing Christians, they are both responsible for persecuting the church. But it was the end of their stories that sticks the most in our minds….Paul accepted God’s vision for his life, Osama bin Laden did not!
Everyone in this room has a past! We have all been places and done things that we regret! No one in this room can do anything about where they have been…Those tickets have been bought and that journey has been taken, the passport has already expired!
But just like the Apostle Paul we can sure do something about where we are going!
We don’t have to just plod along, getting through by the skin of our teeth, hoping we end up accidentally at some sweet destination!
John 14:6 Jesus said unto him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”.
The tickets to your God ordained destination, are very expensive. As a matter of fact, you can’t afford that ticket even if you were the richest person on the planet. But the God who brought you this far, has provided a ticket to get you to where He planned as your destination.
It’s time to switch tickets!
An executive of a certain company, had to go to Sydney Australia, for an urgent business meeting. He had to be in Sydney by five o’clock or the company he was president of for twenty years, was going to be taken over and he would lose everything he had invested in all those years. When He found this out it was one o’clock in the afternoon, His secretary rang up all the airlines but there were no seats available, all the flights were fully bookedbecause it was a long weekend. He told his secretary to put his name in for any cancellations. Finally, a phone call came in at 2:00, Qantas had a last minute cancellation on a flight departing at two thirty. He threw all he needed into his brief case and raced out of the office. He rushed in the airport door at twenty nineminutes past two and raced over to the check in counter. They were expecting him and gave him his boarding pass and told him to run down to gate twelve as the final boarding call had already been announced and the plane was about to depart. He ran for all he was worth, waving his boarding pass as he was ushered into the plane. As soon as he got in, the doors were shut and the flight attendant took him to his seat. Much to their surprise the seat was already taken, the seat had been sold twice. She apologized and took him to first class and gave him the last seat there. At last he could sit back and relax. Wow, it was all going to work out after all. He would get there just in time and he even scored a first classseat. The plane roared down the runway and into the air. It didn’t seem to long and the captain came over the loud speaker, “Good afternoon ladies and gentleman I am Captain Jones, on behalf of Qantas airlines I would like to welcome you aboard. We are on schedule and climbing to thirty five thousand feet, we should be landing at four o’clock. The weather for our arrival in Perth, Australia will be a fine with a temperature of fifteen degrees…..(He had boarded the wrong flight, in the wrong direction)….
If the captain gave the announcement right now, would you be on the right flight?
Are you on flight number seven, His will in heaven…. Or flight six, six, six and you’ve been tricked!
The Apostle Paul was on the wrong flight, but he switched planes and fulfilled his destiny and made a difference in the world…
Matthew 7:13 Jesus uses these words: "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few will find it."
I like Phillip’s answer to the Lord…. He said “Lord show us the way” (A prayer we should all be praying every day)
He would not promise us that He is going ahead to secure a place for us (a life for us) if He wasn’t willing to show us the way…
But even more than showing us the way, He wants us to understand that HE IS THE WAY….
Jesus answer to Phillip is the same as His answer to each of us…. He said “I Am the way, the truth and the life”. You just can’t get there any other way….If we could do it, He would not have come, He would not have died a sacrificial death on the cross…
Praise the Lord, we are not in this alone. We can know that He is absolutely faithful in every step of the journey. It was never just up to us. He is always there assisting, encouraging, leading, comforting, giving direction, adjusting and disciplining us, as weneed it. What would you be able and willing to do beginning today, if you knew beyond a shadow of doubt that Jesus was doing it with you and through you?
Hebrews 12:2 says we are to “look (and keep on looking) unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith”.
Oh Yeah, there’s another six little words that make a big difference. “He is the author and finisher”….
I find it interesting that God wants us to focus on how we make the journey, more that where or when we will arrive. If we will focus on the “how”, then He will take care of the where and when…That’s about walking in His will and walking in His way….
Look at it….Micah 6:8 tells us the “how” of our journey: "He has shown you, O man, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you? To do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God"
So we’re not only to give priority to the direction we are going, but how we live as we’re going and doing….
Also look at Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD, trust in Him, and He will do it.”
That’s another six little words, that makes all the difference… “Commit your way unto the Lord”…
That word commit, simply means “keep giving it to Him, keep turning it over to him”…. Don’t get sucked in by it, don’t get miredup in it. Release it all to Him. When the Devil is knocking on your door, let Jesus answer the door!
It would be like getting on a bus, with heavy bags of groceries, and instead of setting all that down in the seat, you stand there struggling with the weight of it all.. No, you sit down, set the groceries in the seat, or the floor and let the bus carry the weight of you and the groceries…
That’s exactly what Paul said to the church of Ephesus….SITDOWN… Ephesians 2:6 “He has made us to sit down together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
1 Peter 5:7 says “Cast all your weight on Him because He cares for you”.
Hey, there’s another six little words that make all the difference…. “Cast all your weight on Him”!!!
We load ourselves down with the cares of life and the amazing thing is, that when it comes to your God ordained destiny, you already have all you need to arrive where you need to be… Didn’t He say, “Before you call I will answer you, before you cry out, I will hear”….Six little words…
BEFORE YOU CALL I WILL ANSWER….
let me show you this in….
Ephesians 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has already blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. 4 even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world…”
Please don’t get me wrong, we should prepare and believe that God will prosper our efforts and our labors… BUT…
Everything in this world that is good, can easily become the cares of life, and push us out of the blessing of what God has provided for us.
Scripture tells us in Mark 4:19 “For the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things enters in, chokes out the word, and it (the promised blessings) becomesunfruitful”.
The answer is in the words which David gave us earlier… Commit your way unto the Lord… (six little words) followed by another powerful six words “HE WILL BRING IT TO PASS”…
So let’s review some six word statements that we need to remember…Let’s say them together….
See what God sees about you…..Keep on giving it to Him….Commit your way unto the Lord….He will bring it to pass…..Cast all your weight on Him… Before you call He will answer…. He is the author and finisher…. He will take care of you…. God still moves in the unexpected….
let’s stand together as we pray…
*……Lord Jesus, thank You for Your deep and constant love for me. Thank You for suffering on the cross for my sake, so that I could have forgiveness and eternal life. I desire to seek you first, and love you above all things and all people in my life. It is in loving you, that I am able to love myself and others more.
Lord, let me not look and rely upon anyone and anything else for what you alone can give. Help me to love as You love, asking nothing in return. I will no longer allow past hurts, failures, or injustices to rule my present reality. I cease from my struggles and I rest in your strength and the victory which you have already given me.
Lord, through the work of Your Spirit in me, I am clean, my mind is clear, and my heart is at peace. I give the enemy no place to effect me any longer, for I receive the truth that sets me free. Thank you for protection over my mind, body and Spirit, through the blood You shed for me.
Jesus, I commit my life to you, as I seek first Your will, and the things which You approve. You know the answers before I ask the questions, so give me an open and receptive Spirit, that I may lead my heart, submit my will always to You, and walk in Your ways, In Jesus Name….
