Did You Feel That?

There is a word from the LORD from the book of Acts:

Acts 16:26 (New King James Version)

26 Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.

Intro:

About a month ago, God began to deal with me even before I received this opportunity to preach today. God said “I want you to speak just for a moment because I want somebody to know I have ordered a Divine shake up for them.” Now, I understand that we are to be anointed; shaking the foundation of the earth, but God said “I have ordered a Divine shake up.”

GMWA Women of Worship put out a song a few years ago and the song said:

Order my steps in Your word dear LORD,

Lead me, guide me everyday,

Send Your anointing, Father I pray;

Order my steps in Your word,

I want to walk worthy,

My calling to fulfill.

Please order my steps LORD,

And I’ll do Your blessed will.

The world is ever changing,

But You are still the same;

If You order my steps, I’ll praise Your name

Well that sounds good. That sounds really good. And we say that and we quote scripture: “For the steps of a good man or ordered by the LORD”.

But do you really want God to order your steps?

And to what degree do you want Him to order them to?

Because see, I believe that we want God to order our steps when it is convenient for us.

We want God to order our steps when it’s comfortable for us.

But baby, when God starts ordering your steps, God starts shaking up everything around you.

God will start tearing up some stuff.

Because it’s some stuff in some ways that WE’RE walking that ain’t the way God called us to walk. So if you want God to order your steps, you must be ready for the shake up.

Because (ready or not)…the shake up is on the way!

I. How the steps began to be ordered

Now let me share this with you. The text teaches us when we surrender our all in all to God (?); you do understand that Saul had an experience with Jesus on a Damascus road, and his name was no longer Saul but it turned to Paul(?).

When we surrender our will to God’s will, then God begins to do some things in our lifestyle.

a. The first thing God did was to order Paul’s steps. So, God ordered Paul’s steps in chapter 15 of Acts.

b. God ordered them by allowing a Divine argument between Paul the Apostle and Barnabas the Encourager. And, God allowed this argument to happen for the furtherance of the Gospel.

c. Had they hung side by side, the Gospel would have only been preached on their way (say this a little clearer).

d. But God ordered Paul to get a team mate by the name of Silas and he ordered Barnabas to hook up with John Mark.

So I stopped by this today to let you know God is about to shake some people, some places and some things in your life!

You are trying to hold on to some people, but if you don’t let God shake them you’ll never hear what God is saying to you.

God has to shake some things away from us. Because we’ve got some things my brothers and my sisters that stand in the way of our relationship with God.

e. Some of our things, OHHH LET ME GET RADICAL! Some of us, we worship our Fraternities and Sororities more than we do God. Girl! What are you? Girl, I’m an AKA, I’m a Delta…I’m a Child of the King. That’s what I am!

f. Some of us worship our men. We wonder why we can’t stay in a relationship because every time God allows us to hookup - - some of the people we’re hooking up with God ain’t called us to them…because if He did we won’t have to hook up with somebody else!

g. For some of us, God can’t allow us to have a man because we keep forgetting about the Creator. We start worshipping the gift and not the Giver of the gift.

Oh but Paul was a brother that allowed God to order his steps in the word. And that’s what God is calling for today, some sisters and some brothers that will allow Him to order their steps in the word!

II. The Shake Up/ The Plan

In chapter 15, I told you Paul and Barnabas split up for the furtherance of the Gospel. So as we move into chapter 16 we find Paul with a mind to preach the Gospel in Asia. Ain’t that just like us, we have a mind to do what we want to do. But God is shaking us up.