This will be a time of worship and reflection. As Jim said, it’ll be “In and Out in About an Hour.”

Saturday, December 24th at 6pm at the church

No service on Sunday, December 25th.

Let’s not forget that God’s provision isn’t just about dollars and cents and other physical things, but it also consists of spiritual things.

How To Receive The Unlimited Provision of God

Check out Genesis 22:1-14 and Philippians 4:19

Even though the toughest times, we need to have that faith to know God does and will provide for all our needs. You may not have figured out how to do that yet, but hang on … you will …

Today we want to learn how to exercise audacious faith in God’s ability to abundantly provide for needs in every area of our lives:

• financially
• emotionally
• spiritually
• physically
• intellectually
• relationally

We want to talk about how God wants to show His greatness not only in providing for us but also by providing through us for the needs of hurting people.

This message is extremely important because:

• Some of us are facing urgent needs.
• What we’re willing to stretch our faith and believe God to do for others can be a matter of life or death results.

Read: Proverbs 29:18

We will learn that there is always something we must release in order to have everything He wants us to receive!

As we learn to bless others, to pray for others, to sow into others, God will return those things to us.

From this story we learn four principles for seeing and receiving the audacious, unlimited provision of God in and through our lives.

We must believe that God is our unlimited Provider (Jehova-Jireh) and never limit what we believe God can provide for us and through us. Sometimes we are challenged in this area because we don’t see the big picture the way God sees it. We also sometimes don’t see God’s provision the same as He does because we often look to the physical instead of the spiritual and emotional.

Sometimes we have needs in one area of our lives because we neglect to take care of letting God work on other areas.

Read: Hebrews 11:17-19 and Numbers 11:21-23

Abraham knew that one way or another, God would provide for his inheritance. God is that same provider for us. Lean into Him, trust in Him, put your heart in Him and he will take care of you. We often think we have to take care of our needs – it takes effort to let Him take care of them.

Our unbelief and small thinking can limit the unlimited provision of God.

Start today with how much (or how little) faith you have and start moving forward. You aren’t the first to doubt God and you certainly won’t be the last. Get up and start to walk, keep walking once you start.

We must trust God and embrace the fact that God doesn’t always provide in the ways we wish for or immediately understand. Again, we don’t know the end from the beginning the way God does. This is one area where we need to learn to trust in Him because he does have our best interests at heart.

Isn’t it good that God sometimes doesn’t answer our prayers the way we expect? Sometimes we ask for the wrong thing, but He will give us what we really do need no matter what.

“God sees a thousand ways when I see only one. When I see no answers He has just begun.”

This may seem like a cheap cliche, but it’s really not. God does know what we need even if we don’t know or understand what it is.

“God is too wise to be mistaken, too good to be unkind. When I can’t see His hand I can always trust His heart.” –Spurgeon

“God will either answer my prayer and do a wonderful thing; or He will choose to not answer my prayer and do an even more wonderful thing.”

So many times we thing the answer to our prayer is one and only one thing. Yet, God knows what we really need because He is always involved in our lives. We want God to be like the drive-through at our favorite fast food place: if we don’t get what we want within 5 minutes of order we think something is wrong.

How many times to we pray for God’s will in our lives and then proceed to tell Him what that will is? He doesn’t get angry when we do this, but He won’t do what we tell Him to do if it’s not really what’s best for us.

Before we can receive there is something we must release. Provision comes through bold faith demonstrated by obedience. When we have a need God always asks for a seed.We must give all He asks before we will have all that we need. Before we reach the peak of provision we must always walk through the valley of decision. Seed doesn’t always mean just money. Seed goes into all parts of our lives.

Think about it:

• if you want to have a friend you need to be a friend.
• When you pray for others, don’t you also get touched?

Check out what Jesus said: Matthew 6:33

Read Malachi 3:10

Reasons why God requires a seed of obedience:

We go from having God as part of our life to having God as the center of our life.

Jesus said: Matthew 6:21

Think about the old saying, “Show me your checkbook and I’ll show you what’s important in your life.”

God can only totally bless us with things when our attitude towards things is what He wants.

Three attitudes (circle what is yours):

• What belongs to others should be mine
• What is mine is mine and I might share if I choose
• What is mine is God’s, He gets to choose

The truth is: What is mine is God’s, He gets to choose.

Think about it: Abraham offered Isaac on the mountain because he had already offered him in his heart years before.

Whatever it is you hold onto tightly, let it go and offer it up to God. Once you do that in your heart and for real, He will return what you really need.

We move from trusting our ability to meet needs to discovering God’s ability to meet needs for us and through us.

Check out: 2 Corinthians 9:8

What is given to God is never lost – it is always multiplied! God has abundance for all of us. When you give something to The Lord, it is not subtracted.

Jesus said: John 12:24-25

We move from small faith to big faith.

Faith doesn’t grow just by teaching but by testing. We never grow in faith until we have a great fear to face, a doubt to undo, a crisis to overcome, a hurt to release, a desperate need far too big for us to meet. If you have no pain, fears, or struggles; if you are never asked by God to give more than you can afford, you have no opportunity to grow your faith.

We discover how to receive the unlimited provision of God when we understand God’s ultimate purpose for blessing is not to just give to us but to give through us. God made us to be a river not a reservoir!

Read: Genesis 22:15-18

Obedience is the key. God has given you seed to sow to be a blessing to others. As you invest that seed you will get a return. It’s not about giving to get. Rather it’s about giving to bless others and He will fill your real needs.

Read: Joshua 1:1-11

I want to be able to share with you some principles of how to live to active audacious faith for every area of our lives.

We want to learn how to pray, believe, and possess the miracles of God for our hearts, homes, church, city, and world.

Why we’re focusing on this:

1. To help us overcome and move the mountains inside and outside of our lives. Many times there are obstacles which block our way of fellowship with God. We need to remember to pray for those blocks to go away.
1. Check out 1 John 5:4
2. and Mark 11:22
2. We believe audacious faith is a key to placing us in the middle of the move of God. We are to widen the well for 2012. We don’t want to miss God moving.
1. Psalm 25:7
3. It is an inheritance God wants us to pass on to our descendants. Our kids need to see what God looks like on people – a fresh move of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, how will they know what it looks like when it happens in their time? God will use anyone, even our kids. We need them to experience the presence of the Lord.
1. Psalm 78:4
4. It is key to helping us escape being stuck in a “survivor mode.” We can sometimes get stuck in a rut and we can miss the move of God.

The Israelites in Joshua’s day had watched their parents forfeit their inheritance and were in a holding pattern for 40 years.

• Their parents had forfeited their inheritance through unbelief. The Jordan River symbolically became a spiritual wall they had not been able to cross over.
• Look at Psalm 78:41
• and Psalm 78:33
• Dangers of a “bunker mentality”
• Memories of the past choke out dreams of the future
• Because there is no vision for the future there is no power in the present
• We become people who are sitting on the premises but not standing on the promises

“The alternative to audacity is complacency”

God’s word to them and us is that it is time to “go over” and occupy what God has promised and provided. Move from wanderers to warriors, vagrants to victors, conquered to conquerors.

Audacious faith is activated by seeing and seizing God’s vision for every area of our lives.

Audacious faith comes from receiving a clear God given vision. (A picture of a divinely planned future God wants us to possess, it is the ability to see the invisible so we can accomplish the impossible. We need to remember that with God all things are possible.

“Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of faith is to eventually see what we believe.” – St. Augustine

Our church moved from a storefront church when our lease ran out. God led us to our current location so we could move on and grow. Before anyone had an idea we would be here, we were invited to come and pray over the building. We walked around the property and prayed that God would reign over this area. Little did we know that one day this would be ours to use.

When it came time for us to move in, we had a vision for what we wanted the church to be. We worked very hard and set it up as it is now. God gave us the vision and led us to be able to make it happen.

Joshua 1:3

As we move from one fulfillment of vision, we need to ask ourselves, “What’s next?” This keeps us out of the rut.

Hebrews 11:1

“Vision is a clear sense of purpose regarding what God wants to do through our life.” – Steven Furtick

Vision comes in our life when:

• Quit resigning to how things are and start asking God how He wants things to be. “The poorest person is not a man without a nickel but a man without a dream.” We can sit around and complain or we can get up and get moving and be part of the solution. God will fit us in someplace. Go do the thing God has placed in your heart.
• When we quit living to do a job and start working to fulfill a dream. A person with a vision is on a God-given assignment that requires God’s intervention to produce outcomes that will change lives and change history. What is it that God put on your heart which you are passionate about? What assignment has God given you? Find what that is and go do it. Dream big! If you can make it happen on your own, it ain’t big enough. Allow God to be a part of the equation so that it can’t happen without Him.
• Vision comes and grows as we stay focused on God instead of our problems. Our vision grows or shrinks according to the size of our vision of God in comparison to the problems of life. Problems, hardship and troubles are inevitable. Focus on God and move on despite those things. Are you going to focus on your problems or on God’s ability? Hang on His ability and you will succeed because He will carry you to success. We need to have a spiritual eclipse – to see God in front of our problems instead of our problems in front of God.

Joshua 1:5

Joshua 1:8

“God has a thousand ways where I can see but one. When all my means have reached their end, then He has just begun.” – Spurgeon

Strugglers – tell God how big their problems are. Tell your problems how big your God is.

Romans 8:31 – This isn’t just a cliche. This is the truth. On “Veggie Tales” they sing that “God is bigger than the Boogie Man.” We need to sing that God is bigger than our problems.

Audacious faith is activated when we not only see the vision but seize it by bold obedience that aligns our actions with our beliefs. Most of us don’t live there. We may say that God is big and that He can do impossible things. We need to live like we really believe these things are true.

In other words, “Talk is cheap.” We need to align our talk with our belief. That’s where victory comes in.

People who seize God’s promises:

• Pray bold prayers
• They not only ask big but act big for God’s glory.

Check out Joshua 1:13 and Joshua 1:7

God knew there were going to challenges for the Israelites. With any God-given vision there are going to be obstacles. Victory comes through faith that He will deliver despite those obstacles. The challenge of the Lord is to be strong and courageous in Him.

People who act in faith are always on the offensive instead of the defensive: They rejoice when they feel depressed, give when they are short on resources, bless when they are cursed, and give the gift of friendship when they are lonely. They simply refused to be stopped by the circumstances of life.

Come join us for the first ever Holiday Craft & Food Boutique.

There will be plenty of holiday gifts, baked goods, coffee & drinks for sale and just plenty of good ol’ shopping fun.

7425 West Adams Ave.
Temple, TX