Zach Young Servant of the King www.purleygatesretreat.org Hello family! I am so glad you are here today and I look forward to all that God does through us this week. Today we are going to discuss the topic that will allow us to get to all that God offers so we can reach all the people God has put in our path. Today I want to talk about letting go of control. Now, if any of you are like me, this subject nearly scares you to death. I am a major control freak and have a hard time if things don’t go my way. I’m working on it, but it’s still a tricky one to grab hold of.
I believe this is a major issue for many churches and individual Christians. Unfortunately, it’s not all that hard to see either. For instance, take a look at how a lot of churches operate on Sunday mornings. There is usually a pretty strict structure, and not very often do we get outside of it. We show up, say hello to the people in our area, pray, sing a few songs, listen to a message, sing another song, and go to lunch. Or, take a look at some individual Christians. Look at how many people around us are not being healed, are not being loved on, or are not surrendering their life to Christ. It’s because the people of God are too afraid to step out of the comfort zone. Here is the whole issue that we are facing. We claim that our God is an all-powerful, all-knowing God and can do anything. We say that He is so good and loving and that everyone should know Him. However, our actions quite often are nowhere near aligning with those statements. We keep the power of God put away in a little tiny box and restrict ourselves from seeing the full power of God in order to maintain a level of comfort. Sure we may have some times when people feel a little convicted after a message from a pastor, but since we lock up the Holy Spirit from really moving in our gatherings, that conviction doesn’t turn into a heart change which leads to a life change. Don’t be too surprised though. This issue is nothing new at all. We just haven’t ever really tried to address it. Take a look at Numbers 13 real quick. They are dealing with a very similar issue. In the track record of these Israelites, God has never let them down. He has gone above and beyond expectations, delivered the people from amazing things and has never broken a promise. When these Israelites finally get to scout out the Promised Land, the promises still stay true and it is everything they hoped for. However, for 10 of the spies, they couldn’t focus on that. Instead, all they could think about where the giants in the way. In their minds, they boxed up the power of God and based their decisions on their own individual power. They didn’t want to step outside of their comfort zones which inhibited them from stepping into the full promises of God. This is right where many of us are today, myself included. We pay no attention to the track record of God and His awesomeness, and instead focus on the big scary giants in our path. Instead of facing them, we set up things like traditions and order of services, and sit around in our comfort zones. Unfortunately, the saying “What you don’t know can’t hurt you” doesn’t work in this case. Not knowing the full power of God does absolutely nothing but hurt the body of Christ. If we keep hanging on and not letting go of control, there will be a lot of us that will never get to see the Promised Land. Take a moment to pray and ask God what you need to let go of. Ask Him to take control over those things so that He can come in and do amazing things. For myself, I have to lose control over my job and finances, and it’s really hard. However, I know that the vision God has for those things is much greater than what I had in mind. I pray that this challenges you today and makes you very uncomfortable. Hopefully it will lead this body of Christ to some big movement! I can’t wait to see what happens. Jesus loves you! Have an amazing day.
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