Don’t Limit God Part 2

Don’t Limit God   Part 2

Pic of book

The way you see yourself may be a way you are limited God in the way He can work in and through your life. Many of the Hebrews couldn’t enter the land and life God promised them because they saw themselves different from the way God saw them. Moses sent 12 spies into the Promise land and they came back to give report. Two spies said it is awesome and we can do this with God. Ten said no way. They saw themselves as grasshoppers in a land of giants (Number 13:33).

          Someone defined “leadership” as influence. Everyone has influence over someone. Whoever has the greatest influence over you is leading you. I like watching the news but there comes a time I have to shut it off because it is influencing me to lose hope. Smith Wigglesworth would not allow a newspaper into his home!

          Sunday morning Pam was sharing about quenching the Spirit of God by resisting giving God our dance, our praise, our shout, because of our feeling at the moment. Quenching the Spirit is limiting God.

Pic of great cloud of witnesses scripture

Bible indicates heaven’s witnesses are watching us sometimes on earth. They must wonder at us sometimes! Why don’t we go for it, take more chances, take the risk, go all out and be radical in your witness, in your giving and in your living.

If you are ever going to experience God’s will for our life, you need to see yourself the way He sees you. You are limiting God through the way we see yourself.

“As a man thinks (imagines) in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7

Our lives go the way of our thoughts. If we want to change, the answer is first to remove the limits of our wrong thinking, because the way we think will direct the course of our lives.

Ill. I don’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings with what I am about to say. Everyone’s situation is different. I am just sharing my observation here. I have noticed that when a Xn gets injured or hurt badly physically and maybe can’t work or do the same work as before, often times they settle for less than God’s best. If they apply for disability it is almost like a life sentence they are putting on themselves. We believe God for healing so how can I pray for someone to be healed if they have already accepted they are going to be permanently disabled?

If you are imagining yourself disabled for the rest of your life, and this is not God’s image of you – are you not limiting God?

Ill. My dad died at 48 of heart problems. When I got close to 48 I started thinking I may have heart problems too. But this type of thinking limits the healing God wants to do in our bodies. Most people think if it is this way in their family then it will be that way for them! We need to change the way we think like the world.

          If you are sick you don’t have to read everything about your sickness. Don’t focus on it but rather focus on what God’s Word says. Put scriptures where you see them all the time, speak them to yourself, and shut off all that negative stuff that limits God.

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, TO GIVE YOU AN EXPECTED END.” Jeremiah 29:11

God has a perfect plan for our lives. Whether your parents saw you coming or not God had a purpose for every child. Everyone influences someone!

          Ten of these 12 spies influenced the whole nation of Israel and quenched the zeal to take the Promise land.

“Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.”  Psalm 78:41

God was ready to do the supernatural with their lives and yet they shut Him down by not willing to risk, step out of the boat and move forward.

God will always be calling you to do something bigger and beyond yourself. If you can do it on your own, then it is not God.

I think all of us have missed opportunities God had for us yet because of the fear of man we missed out. We limit god by what we think.

“Moses was a hundred and twenty when he died and his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.” Deut. 34:7

ill. We need to be careful with our words. We say things like, “I’m over 40- 50 -60- 60 -80 and things are suppose to start going wrong in my body. We compare ourselves with ourselves thinking this is the way it is suppose to be. God warned Israel about this type thing.

“If thou shalt say in thine heart, these nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them?”  Deut. 7:17

This was what Israel was saying in themselves and it affected them.

“Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or THINK, according to the power that works in us.” Eph. 3:20

(according) means “to the degree of the power that is already working in us.”

We determine the limit of God’s power in us and through us. God always moves flows through people. All the great revivals were the result of one person who pressed in and fought through unbelief and struggles until they saw miracles.

Sometimes the greatest on-going struggles we have in this life are the very areas of breakthrough where God wants us to press in and learn revelation from Him so we can help others.

Some of you are praying for your life to change because you have no joy. You may be depressed because you are not doing what God is calling you to do. God may be pulling you in one direction and you are going in another.

          We must change the image we have on the inside of us. I believe I must do this myself. I think too small and I am moving to change that as of now. I don’t know how long this will take but I have to take the limits off of God in my own life and ministry.

Concl: You need to be thinking about the path you are on.

“Am I really where I am supposed to be? Am I doing what I am supposed to be doing? Am I on target or am I off course?

Don’t be content with just surviving or just getting by. There is more to live than that. You need to have a purpose that moves you to be willing to take risks to try things. Most people play it too safe and are not willing to take a risk and try anything. Life’s biggest failure is when we play it too safe like the 4 lepers sitting outside the city gate of Samaria.

“Why sit here until we die?”

The vast majority take their potential to the graveyard.

A risky prayer:

“Father, please show me this week one area of my life where I am limiting You. Don’t let me continue to live this way. Help me to commit the rest of my life to whatever You want me to do. Help me to say this and mean it:

God, I’ll go anywhere. I’ll do anything . . . whatever You want me to do, I’ll do. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”