Welcome to the InTouch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, September 18th. The world constantly pulls at our attention, but strong faith grows when we intentionally make time to seek the Lord. Today, we are reminded of the power of diligently pursuing God.
SPEAKER 01 :
Are there needs in your life that somehow are just not being met? Do you have desires that you would say are really strong desires, and yet somehow you God’s either not listening or something’s wrong. But deep down inside, you know that these are needs in your life, and you know that these desires are very important to you, but they’re not being met. So the question is, why not? What’s wrong? What’s going on? You do believe in God. You do believe that Jesus Christ is your Savior. You’re trying to do the right thing in life, but somehow they’re not being met. Is it because you haven’t asked? You say, no, no, no, no, I’ve been asking. Well, let me ask you this. You have been asking, but have you been expecting an answer? Have you been anticipating an answer? If you’re asking Him for something very specific, are you preparing to receive an answer? Is it that you’re just talking to Him about it, or do you really and truly believe that He’s going to answer that prayer? I think a lot of people just sort of talk to God. They tell him this and they tell him that and they tell him the other and in Jesus’ name, amen. Instead of asking specifically for what they want or what they believe the need is. And so oftentimes people go through their Christian life and they get a whole lot less than God planned. He’s got something so much better and yet you’ll go through life and you’ll miss it because somewhere along the way you’ve missed something, something very important. Well, the purpose of this message is to help you to discover What is limiting God’s blessing in your life? And so I want you to turn, if you will, to the eighty-first Psalm because I believe the answer’s right here. Why is it that we are living with limited blessings when we could be living with awesome blessings of God? And I want us to read this entire Psalm and these sixteen verses. It’s all important. And the first part of it deals with how God has blessed the nation of Israel, how He has delivered them from Egyptian bondage, and then how they responded as a result, and what they’re missing in life and why. So look at, if you will, beginning in verse one. Starts off joyfully. He says, “‘Sing for joy to God our strength. Shout joyfully to the God of Jacob. Raise a song, strike the timbrel. The sweet-sounding lyre with the harp. Blow the trumpet at the full moon on our feast day. For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.'” He established it for a testimony to Joseph. That is, God established a statute, things that they were to do, and to celebrate this deliverance from Egyptian bondage. He says, he established it for a testimony in Joseph. When he went throughout the land of Egypt, I heard a language I did not know. I relieved his shoulder of the burden. His hands were freed from the basket. That is, they no longer had to carry bricks on their shoulder. They no longer had to mess with the baskets and the straw to make brick. And so he said, not only that, he said, you called in trouble and I rescued you. I answered you in the hiding place of thunder. I proved you at the waters of Meribah when they were out there in the wilderness and didn’t have any water. And he provided it for them. He says, now listen and it changes here. Hear, O My people, and I will admonish you. O Israel, if you would listen to Me, let there be no strange god among you, nor shall you worship any foreign god. I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. But my people did not listen to my voice, and they did not obey me. So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart, to walk in their own devices. Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways. I would quickly subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their adversaries. Those who hate the Lord would pretend obedience to Him, and their time of punishment would be forever. But I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with the honey from the rock I would satisfy you.” Now, you say, well, what’s that got to do with my life and my relationship to God and all the rest? It has a great deal to do with it. And what I want you to see, I want you to discover. Now, listen carefully. I want you to discover. Why is it your needs are not being met? And why is it that your desires are not being fulfilled? And so, I want us to look at this passage and realize that He is indeed a God of blessing. Because if you notice what He says in this passage, He says concerning them, He said, I, the Lord your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” That is, when he uses the word, the capital L-O-R-D, I’m Jehovah. I’m the Creator. Everything that exists, exists because of me. God is the one in all of His absolute sovereign control. He has all knowledge, all power, all resources. Every good thing that comes our way comes from Him. He says, for example, in James, that first chapter, And the seventeenth verse, listen to what he says. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there’s no variation or shifting shadow, which simply means He doesn’t change. That is, if He can provide then, He can provide now. So God is this God of blessing who delights. Listen, He’s a God who delights in doing what? In meeting our needs. He’s a God who delights in not only meeting our needs, but giving us the desires of our heart. And so because He is and because He does, we are to look to Him and we are to believe in Him. And if you’ll think about it, all through this Bible from Genesis to Revelation, what’s God doing? He’s blessing His people. He’s providing for them. And when He does not provide for them, there’s always a specific reason that He does not. And what I want us to discover is if there’s some reasons in your life that you’re missing out on God’s blessing and you know that you are and things just not coming to pass like they ought to. You know it’s a particular need in your life or maybe some desire. Why not? If you’re able to identify it, then you can do something about it. And so, since He’s this awesome God of blessing, and a God who provides, and a God who has infinite resources, then how are we to respond? Well, let’s think about in this light the fact that He promises. For example, He doesn’t just have blessing, He doesn’t just promise it, but God provides those things when we get ourselves in a position to hear Him and to listen and to do what? And to receive Him. So, notice what He says here. He says, I am the God who brought you up from the land of Egypt. And he says, open your mouth wide and I’ll fill it. And if you’ll notice in the fourteenth verse, he says, here’s what I would do. He says, I would quickly subdue your enemies, I’ll protect you. He says, I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, with honey from the rock, I would satisfy you. This is his way of saying, look, I will provide what you need. I’ll provide what you desire.” That is, he says, I will protect you. Doesn’t mean that they would never have any warfare because they did. But what he was saying is this, even in the midst of warfare, I’m going to protect you. You’re going to win the battle. There’s going to be victory. And so, not only that, I’m going to give you the finest of the wheat. And here’s the question, do you want God’s best in your life, or do you just want what you can do? He said, I’ll feed you with the finest of the wheat and the honey from the rock, the best honey. But here’s what He says, He says, But my people did not listen to my voice. Israel did not obey me, so here’s what I did. Because they didn’t want the best and would not position themselves to receive the best, I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart to walk in their own devices. And this is where many Christians are living. Instead of living in a relationship to God whereby He can bless you and provide your needs and the desires of your heart, what are you doing? Instead of trusting Him and looking to Him, you’re just ignoring Him and doing it your own way, going about. And you see, listen, there are a lot of people who are too prideful to ask God for anything. Well, I think I can handle it. Well, there’s some things in life you can’t handle. There’s some things in life that you and I are not equipped to handle without God. There’s some needs that we have only God can provide. And He is the provider of all of them. There’s some desires of our heart. God wants us to have the desires of our heart when they fit His purpose and plan for our life. And so, when you look at the nation of Israel, what does he say? He says, my people didn’t listen to me. They didn’t obey me, so I just gave them over to, listen, the stubbornness of their heart to walk in their own devices. So, either I’m going to go about things in God’s way or my own way. I’m either going to trust Him. I’m either going to listen to Him. I’m either going to obey Him and follow His plan or I’m going to do it myself. And if I do it myself and ignore Him, here’s what He says. You insist on that, I turn you over to it. I just let you handle it yourself. Many Christians are missing out on God’s best in their life because what? Because they’re going to do it their way and their way only, and they’re not going to talk to God about it. Somehow they feel that’s weakness. Well, think about what He says here. Well, let me ask you a question. For example, Give me a verse, if you will, in which God makes a very clear promise that He will meet our needs. What would be one of those verses? Philippians 4.19, what does it say? My God shall supply, what? All my needs according to His riches in glory, not mine, through Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, listen to that. Here’s a promise from God. You say, well, you can’t hold that before God. Yes, you can. That’s what He said. Do you think that bothers Him? No, it does not. In other words, you’re saying, God, here’s what you said. You made a promise. I’m coming to claim the promise. For example, he says in Psalm 37, he says, delight yourself in the Lord. He’ll give you the desires of your heart. Most believers don’t believe that God is interested in their desires. They believe that somehow he’s only interested in these bare needs of life, clothing and food and shelter and something to drive and a job and finally just sort of making it. That’s not who God is. God is a God who desires to bless us and to pour out His blessing upon us. For example, how many of you believe the twenty-third Psalm? Say amen. Okay. What about this part? The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Is that right? I shall not want. You believe that? Then why don’t you have what you need? Why isn’t God providing you the desires of your heart? If He says, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. That doesn’t mean that you have, you believe in some God somewhere. He makes it very clear in this passage. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of slavery. And this is the same God who said in the Ten Commandments, you should worship only one God. There is one God and one God alone, and no idolatry. The two things God would not tolerate, and it cost them bondage, even after they’d been His people for many, many years, He said the two things, number one, He said, no idolatry and no intermarriage which will bring about the destruction of the nation of Israel. Very, very important. He didn’t tolerate that. And when there was violation of that, God judged them every time. He raised the nation of Israel as a big, huge family through whom the Messiah was to come. He had to keep them pure, the nation of Israel. And so He said, no intermarriage, no idolatry. And violating that cost them awesome, awesome bondage. But seventy years, for example, they were in bondage, in Babylonian captivity, in Persian captivity. And so, God is so willing to bless us, but we go through life disobeying Him and wondering why He doesn’t do it. I want you to turn to the hundred and third Psalm. And while you’re turning there, I want to read the 145th Psalm, which says, The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him. Psalm 145, 18 and 19. He’ll fulfill the desire of those who fear Him, those who trust Him. I want you to go back to the 103rd Psalm. Ask yourself this question. Am I really and truly trusting Him or just talking to Him? Listen to the promise of this 103rd Psalm. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Here’s thanksgiving and rejoicing. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits. Watch what he says. Who pardons all our iniquities, heals all our diseases, redeems us from the pit, crowns us with loving kindness and compassion, satisfies your years with good things, and performs righteous deeds in our behalf. This is the God of the Bible. This is a God who loves His children, who provides for us, who is concerned about our needs, and who is concerned about our desires. And yet we go unfulfilled in our desires, unfulfilled in our needs, for example. You say, well, suppose my desires are not right. I’m coming to that in a moment. What I want you to see is this, that He is a God of goodness and love and mercy and kindness who has the power, listen, to provide the blessing, who has all the resources. You can’t think of anything that He does not have to provide to meet every single need we have. And so, when you think about that and you think about The fact that he says in this passage, but I would feed you with the finest of the wheat or the honey from the rock, I would satisfy you. I want to ask you again, do you want God’s best for your life? Are you willing just to do and just to get what you can do? Do you want His best? God’s best is the very best and awesome, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, all-knowing, unconditionally loving God can provide. He has that for His children. Now watch this. Watch this carefully. His best is not the same thing necessarily He gives someone else. You can’t compare yourself to someone else because that person’s life is not the same as your life. God’s plan for that person is not the same as His plan for your life. And it may be that where you are in life, a lot of that is because of what you’ve done in life or what you believed about yourself or how little you believed about God. And the truth is, we have to be specific. God wants us to have His best, but we have to go about it in the right light. And what He gives us here is He gives us a warning because what He says is simply this. He says, you have not because you ask not. And we just read that He pardons our iniquities. He provides the desires of our heart. He, in other words, when you go through the Scripture, and what you’ll notice as you go from Genesis to Revelation, what is God doing? He’s answering the prayers of His children. He’s blessing them. He’s meeting their needs. When they disobey Him, then they suffer the consequences. But you see, listen to what He says, and I think there’s something very significant in this verse, in these verses here in the eighty-first Psalm. Listen to the Spirit of God. Hear the heart of God. Listen to what He says, beginning in verse eight. He says, Here, O My people, He says. And again, in that same verse, oh, Israel, he says, if you would listen to me, let there be no strange God among you. And then again, he says in verse thirteen, oh, that my people would listen to me. What are you hearing? You’re hearing God saying, oh, oh, Charles, oh, Bob, oh, Mary, oh, Sue, oh, Margaret, oh, Martha. In other words, oh, if you would just listen to me, if you would just walk in my ways, look what I have planned for you. Look what you’re doing in your own devious ways. trying to devise things. When you, if you came to me, here’s what I would do. I’d give you my best. God doesn’t change. And so, God isn’t going to give you second best. Watch this. You and I determine whether we get God’s best or not by our response to Him, by our trust in Him. And so, here is this awesome God who is a God of blessing. And who is able and ready to provide every single need we have, no matter what it may be. And He is more than willing to provide it for us now. It’s very evident in this passage what He wants to do. He doesn’t change. He not only wanted to bless a nation, He wants to bless us. He desires to bless every single one of us. You say, no, no, no, no, no, wait a minute. You don’t know my circumstances? It doesn’t make any difference, just circumstances. What matters is if you are a follower of Jesus Christ. If you’re not, this doesn’t work. There’s no promise to unbelievers. Listen carefully so we make this clear. If you are not a believer in the Jehovah God of this Bible and in His Son, Jesus Christ, who reveals God to us, who makes a way to God, who said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by Me. And you listen to all the arguments you want to and all the other gods and all the other religions. Listen, the Christian faith. The God of the Bible says that our acceptance before God is not based on how good we are or how disobedient we are, but it’s based on our relationship to His Son, Jesus Christ, who paid our sin debt in full at Calvary. You have to get that straight for the simple reason that all the promises in the Word of God are absolutely meaningless if you remove Jesus out of your life. Listen carefully. You cannot ask God to bless you when you’re living in disobedience. You cannot ask God to honor your desires when you’re living in disobedience. He pours out His blessing, not upon the perfect, but upon those who are attempting to walk in His way and follow Him, the best He has in store for you. He said to Israel, finest of the wheat, best of the honey, if you’ll trust me.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to today’s podcast titled, Are You Limiting God’s Blessings? For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our 24-7 online station. And if you’d like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
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