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DON'T LOOK AT YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES |
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Look at God's Power to Transform Them |
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Luke 9:1-6 - "Jesus called his disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves (a staff), nor scrip (provisional document stating that the holder would have room and board), neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats apiece. And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide and thence depart. And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them. And they departed, and went through the towns preaching the gospel, and healing everywhere." Jesus had just given the disciples tremendous power that was direct from the Father to carry on his work because he was only one man while on earth and could only be in one place at a time. No doubt that with all this power, the disciples saw great and wondrous things happen on a daily or even an hourly basis. I'm sure they were very excited when they came back to tell Jesus what happened. Imagine how you would feel if that happened to you. In verse 10 it says, "And the apostles, when they had returned, told him all that they had done." After this they went to a private place to rest and recuperate and spend some time with Jesus, but the crowd was so anxious to hear their teaching that they followed them. Jesus looked on them with compassion and began to teach them. When it was getting late the disciples wanted to send the people home before dark, because they were in a desert place. In verse 13 Jesus says "Give ye them to eat. And they said, We have no more but five loaves and two fishes; except we should go and buy meat for all these people. For they were about five thousand men." The disciples had just come back from what had probably been the greatest thing that had ever happened in any of their lives, except the time that they spent with Jesus himself. When Jesus said "You give them to eat", they immediately looked at their surroundings and it seems that their first thought was in the fleshly realm and not to the power of Jesus or of the power that had been bestowed on them by Jesus to accomplish all the wonderful things that they had accomplished and were so excited about. Think of all the wonderful things that God has done for us and all the miracles that he not only has performed, but does perform daily for us. At the first sign of trouble, though, so many times we quickly forget the ability of the Father to handle every circumstance in our life and we immediately look at our surroundings and let our circumstances completely and totally control us. We must always remember that God works in the spirit realm, not in the flesh realm. That's why it's important to stay out of the flesh realm when circumstances are beyond our control. I urge you that the next time something comes up that is more than you can handle, remember that the power of Jesus is there to handle successfully what you think is completely impossible. Look at His power even though you can't see it physically, instead of looking at your circumstances which you can see but can't really do anything about anyway. It will work out so much better that way. Pray and ask the Father to give you the faith that you need to believe in the impossible. Also ask Him to give you encouragement just as you need it when your faith starts to falter. As you see God's miraculous power start to work in your life, you will never want to go back and do things the old way again.
Article written and authored by Cathy Deaton and is her own work. |