Missing it when God visits
Text: Luke 19:41-44
Text Verse: …thou knewest not the time of thy visitation." Vs. 44
Opening:
1. How many times have I missed a GOD ENCOUNTER simply because I saw only the natural surroundings with natural eye, that which God had meant for me see with the spiritual?
2. How many GOD ENCOUNTERS did I miss because I did not see the day of his visitation… the day he came special to visit with me.
The background motivation for this message
1. One morning my reading took me to Luke 19 and God began to do a work in me.
Later in the day I was able to have nice visit with my brother-in-law and then the window I printed for him started to mess up & I got aggravated.
The Lord stepped forward and reminded me, this is the devil trying to trip you up stand against it.
2. Do you see what had just happened. I saw a messed up sign and the Lord saw a
demon sent to harass me.
3. Several days later after a hard day, (Thursday) I had a breakthrough just before I went home. I question the Lord at home why it is so hard to live the gospel I preach.
He spoke to my sprit and said,
It’s not about taking a hit….
Its not even about going down…
Its all about not staying down. Its not whether you are in a battle and being assaulted, but are you resisting? Are you still waging war against the camp of the enemy?
Why is it so important to know the day of his visitation?
1. When God moves among us, or allows something to come our way, there is a greater picture. There is something he is wanting to teach us.
2. He could give us much needed Rhema to cause us to avoid calamity. Verse 43-44
a. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" (Matthew 23:37, KJV)
b. My sixth sense was really God spirit in my spirit warning me of impending danger
3. As the song goes, our God sees the complete rainbow. He knows the things we will face in our days.
Our Father has not left us alone in this world to figure things out
1. John 14:12-26
The key to not missing God, is learning to see him who is invisible.
1. Just like Moses who saw him who could not be seen.
"By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible." (Hebrews 11:27, KJV)
Endured- Literally #2594, to remain steadfast, be strong, to simply BEAR THE BURDEN.
2. Or like Paul
a. 2 Cor. 4:16-18
b. Paul lived regardless what life handed him with an eternal perspective that God was in control and still on the throne.
c. He lived with the eternal truth he wrote about in Romans 8:28, that “all things do work together for God, to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
3. We can see God in our circumstances through prayer and the avenue of faith.
a. Faith is nothing less than bringing that which is spiritually unseen into reality.
"While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:18, KJV)
b. Faith give substances, that which we can touch, to that which we cannot yet now see.
Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance…”
