When there is a need for expansion (enlargement, explosion, increment, prosperity, moving to the next level, promotion, advancement, progress, uplifting, success, magnification, addition, augmentation, amplification, elevation and excellence) but constriction is a challenge, then its time to break out. It may sound like a simple concept but the principle of “Breaking Out” is excitingly daunting. It takes possessing some unique qualities to live this principle out on a daily basis.
Let me try and put a definition on 'Breaking Out'. What exactly do we mean when speak of breaking out? Simply put, to break out means to overcome your limitations, the barriers that are set to limit you, the challenges; the odds staked against you and succeed in spite of those impediments and hindrances.
May I humbly propose that one of the best way to illustrate this principle is by seeing it an ESCAPE! To 'break out' therefore, is to escape from the barriers; the overwhelming odds that should have defeated you and, instead of being incarcerated or confined by those challenges you overcame them and instead of you being stopped from flourishing or blossoming with the talents and giftings God has endowed you with you, you became a conqueror – an overcomer, a success!
Let's look briefly at the scriptures in the book of first Corinthians verse thirteen we read –
“There hath no temptation taken you but such as in common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a WAY of ESCAPE that you may be able to bear it”.
Now, its interesting to see that the first thing about challenges, worldly struggles, (I mean the trials and tribulations that confronts us daily as we try to make sense of living a godly life in a world so consumed with secularism and liberalism), is that they are common. Its pretty safe then to aver that one of the things that unites humanity is our collective travails and troubles. No wonder our Lord assures us that we should “be of good cheer because in this world it is certain that we shall have tribulations, because HE has overcome the world”. But then, I find something intriguing in that verse that I would like to share with you friends, look at it there in the first four words – God warns us about temptation – the dangers of it. Now, temptation is not something you associate with trials and tribulations. its something you associate with pleasures. Temptation is something you associate with pleasure so is God saying that challenges and tribulations and trials and adversities are pleasurable? The answer is YES!
To some, they glory in and celebrate their failures. But what does the word says in second Corinthians chapter four from verse eight:
8 “We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed-- 10 always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11 For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So then death is working in us, but life in you. 13 And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, "I believed and therefore I spoke," we also believe and therefore speak,14 knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you.15 For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.16Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.17For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal”.
So, why is God or the scriptures being antithetical, since temptation is mutually incompatible with suffering?. I wondered. But then the Holy Spirit quickened my understanding and I was challenged by the revelation that one of the secrets that can help us break out of limitations is to embrace escape as the only option. Because we are of a different SPIRIT. The bible declares that:
“we have received NOT the spirit of the world, but the SPIRIT which is of God, so that we might know (knowledge, very crucial) the things that are freely given to us by God” ( 1 Cor. 2:12).
When we activate this Spirit (for spiritual verities are not discoverable by worldly wisdom)( ref: 1 Cor 2: 11, 13, 14), that's when we break out, when we break free from the confinement that that temptations and seductions of distress, despair and perplexity that wants to engulf, overwhelm us! You see when you accept the travails that confronts you as too normal then you have become enticed, seduced, lured and ensnared, trapped, enslaved by the conditions and state of your deprivations to the point that your mindset is reconfigured to be negative and defeatist that you lose sight of God's plan for your life. You are no longer motivated and challenged to want to be God's best. You have accepted defeat and mediocrity and failure as norms. You have become infatuated with, and enslaved to a sub-standard life. Say to yourself, that's not my portion!
Can you declare and affirm: 'I am breaking forth today! All barriers, all shackles, all limitations and all restrictions are off!' It seems to me therefore, ladies and gentlemen, that God is telling us that we should not love to be confined, restricted, constricted, limited, incarcerated and imprisoned by the world. That means, we need to break out of the jail or prison (of limitations and confinement) and possess the liberty that is ours through Jesus Christ. Tell yourself continually: I have become totally liberated. The bible declares “if Christ has set us free then we are free indeed” but is that the reality? Are we truly and sincerely free? Are we enjoying the freedom that Christ has given to us? Okay. Consider with me for a moment – how can we say we are free when we are in debt, when we sin, when we are losing our spouses to divorce, when we are losing our kids to the world. How can we be free when our society is discriminating against us for being who we are? How can we free when we are still sick, poor and in bondage?
Well, its all because we have subjected our minds and thinking processes to the elements, the system of the world for we know that “as a man thinketh so is he”. We have stopped living by faith – one of the most important commandments for us by God – THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH. But faith has been substituted with reason and logic. And since we now reason and think like the rest of the world, we who are people of faith have suffocated our faith. And you can tell what kind of faith somebody has by the kind of language they use. The bible says :“how forcible are right words but do your arguments and worldly mindset reproof” (Job 6:25). Reasoning, the intellectual perspective, deals with limitations, looks at things as they are and tries to come with logic and when it get stuck it cannot go further. But faith deals with expectation. Faithful people are expectant since they know that God can always do the impossible. The bible declares that “ with God ALL things possible” and in fact the bible even goes further to say of the believer : to him that believeth all things are possible.
People of God its time to distinguish between reason and faith. Why? Because, faith is always greater than any circumstance! Tell yourself and your neighbour: MY FAITH IS ALWAYS GREATER THAN MY CIRCUMSTANCE! Faith being the substance of things hoped for (expectation) and the evidence of things not seen (impossibilities). For by it the elders – the men and women of faith – obtain good report. People of God, please always remember that God always, consistently, rewards faith over reason. Faith says that God is commanding me to do something that doesn't make sense (because if does make sense, it does require faith – Whatever makes sense does not require faith!). A praiser knows nothing about reason. All he knows is faith – F.A.I.T.H! – I declare that I have got faith and it doesn't make sense!!!!
People of faith, it's time for us to resist mediocrity and logic borne of worldly science and calculations. The kingdom of God does not operate on those principles. Tell yourself, I HAVE TO BE ALLERGIC TO MEDIOCRITY.
We are in a season of overflow and abundance. I hear the sound of the abundance of prosperity, success, expansion, increment, enlargement and multiplication. God is looking for a new set of believers who will demonstrate their faith in a convincing manner. You must realise that even in your current prostrate situation you are still above your enemies. As you sit thinking about your conditions, your current indebtedness, your joblessness, your sickness, your failures, your mistakes, your losses, your regrets, your anger and your sadness, you are still above your enemies!!!! Can i ask you: "Who is on the Lord's side? Are you on HIS side?"
Let me show you a man called Peter. The pebble that became the ROCK. How he failed and then got back up. Failure is going to put you in good company friends. Winston Churchill – the wartime British Prime Minister - failed the 6th grade and was not elected into office till he was 62. Yet he went on to win the Nobel Prize. Albert Einstein could not speak until he was 4, his teacher said he would never amount to anything and he suffered several bouts of asthma and he could not breath until he was 9, yet he came up with the groundbreaker(the law of relativity) and won a Nobel Prize. Henry Ford was bankrupt five times and yet he founded the world first Auto Plant! R. F. Macy, the founder of Macy Supermarket ( UK version of Marks & Spencer) was jailed for tax evasion and he left prison to start the MACY Super Store! I can talk of Oprah Winfrey, Simon Cowell, Michael Jordan, Luther Vandross, Anita Baker, Charles Haddeon Spurgeon, A.W. Tozer, C.S Lewis, Barack Obama.....the list is endless!
If you want to understand what happened to Peter check out Luke 22: 31 – 32 when Jesus told him "Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren." But in Acts 3 we see the same Peter healing a lame man and in Acts 4 we are told in verse 13 “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus”.
In order to see a great success you have to experience a great failure. Failure is the price of success. Failure qualifies you for success. Tell somebody: You faith cannot fail! Its an expensive proposition! No matter what you are going through, I am declaring to you, in the name of the risen Christ, that your faith cannot and shall not and will not fail! I know right now some of us are like Peter, we are not keeping our focus – can you imagine that Peter walked on water until he shifted his focus. Friends, please know this: Don't shift your focus. Keep it on Jesus! I Colossians 3:1-2: “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth”
The second thing was that Peter failed to keep his integrity! Boasting he could not never deny Jesus he trusted in his own strength. But when the crunch came, he failed and failed woefully. Friends, integrity matters! Am coming back to this later but suffice for now to say that, in this day and age, when men and women are living without a moral compass, living dangerously, recklessly, we as people of faith, should promote our alternative lifestyle but we must demonstrate INTEGRITY! My failures would not sidestep and compromise my faith! Faith is a great substance! By that I mean its tangible, stable, solid, significant, meaningful and its got character. It is real!!!! After Peter failed you will think his life, his ministry was over. But despite all of his failures, Peter still got FAITH. His failure did not compromise his faith! His failure did not undermine, weaken, damage, harm; jeopardize, prejudice; discredit, dishonour, shame, embarrass his faith.
After his failure, see Peter, after the resurrection in the Upper Room; check him out in the on the streets preaching, ministering, healing and performing miracles. Check out his audacity! Check out his confidence. See him escaping from Jail, raising the the dead (raised Dorcas) and declaring the kingdom of God. Why? Jesus never lost faith in Peter and that was what brought him back. You will break out. God has not HIS faith in you so why should you? You have to shake off that despondent, disheartened, discouraged, dispirited, downhearted, downcast, crestfallen, down, low, disconsolate, despairing, wretched; melancholic, gloomy, morose, dismal, woebegone, miserable, depressed, dejected, sad; informal blue, down in/at the mouth, down in the dumps, spirit that is clobbering, massacring, thrashing, overwhelming, trouncing, inundating, devastating, steamrolling you. The Lord is set to deliver you today. You are delivered in Jesus name.
The child of God should always anticipates not apprehend. Faith is always anticipating. “By this time tomorrow”! That is the language of faith. That is the voice of anticipation. 2 Kings 7:1. That's an interesting story and the greatest lesson or moral of that story is that God does not bless you because of how good you are or how educated or how handsome or beautiful or how privileged you are! (Consider, the doubting Lord in the King's (royal) court), but God blesses you because of your faith in HIM!
The will to succeed, to win, to overcome is worthless if you do not have faith. And when you activate faith, the will to win and succeed will compel you to have the will to prepare. It is work that worketh (works, engenders, produces, performs, activates, manipulates, contrives, put to effect, galvanizes us, stirs us, creates, drives, agitates, fires, rouses, whips up, controls, accomplishes, excites, moves, compels) in us both to do and to will of his good pleasure so that His pleasure shall prosper in our hands!
How do we sustain or conservative a “break out” life or break out momentum (movimentum -!!!!)?
1. You need to distinguish yourself in HIM.
John 7: 14 – 18
New King James Version The Message (MSG)
14 Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught.
14 With the Feast already half over, Jesus showed up in the Temple, teaching.
15 And the Jews marvelled, saying, "How does this Man know letters, having never studied?"
15 The Jews were impressed, but puzzled: "How does he know so much without being schooled?"
16 Jesus answered them and said, "My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me.
16 Jesus said, "I didn't make this up. What I teach comes from the One who sent me.
17 If anyone wants to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority.
17 Anyone who wants to do his will can test this teaching and know whether it's from God or whether I'm making it up.
18 He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him.
18 A person making things up tries to make himself look good. But someone trying to honour the one who sent him sticks to the facts and doesn't tamper with reality.
We see the secret to the success of the Man Jesus. He saturated himself with the divine and consequently he excelled. You don't degrees, qualification or a good family name to excel. You need only Christ. Christ is enough! Christ is sufficient! Your excellence is found in Christ I believe we can model that same example and reflect it in our lives. You are no body until God certifies you and it is what we should all aspire for! How do you distinguish yourself in Christ? By immersing yourself in the totality of Christ. Subsumed, absorbed and completely enamoured of Christ. Let him be your all in all. In him is your life, your life is hid in him, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature and for him were all things created.....and he is before all things and by him all things consist. He is the head of the body, the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, he has preeminence in all things....it pleased the Father that in Him all fulness should dwell.Now the beauty of all these is Christ is in us AND CHRIST IN US IS THE HOPE OF GLORY! (Colossians 1:15 -19; 27). To be distinguished in Christ you need to be rooted, built up and established in the faith so that you can abound with thanksgiving/praise and you can ward off philosophies, vanity, and traditions of men after the rudiments of this world (Colossians 2: 7-8).
There is need, ladies and gentlemen for a new generation of believers who are CHRISTOLOGIANS. May I humbly propose that in order to escape the corruption (the carnality, the evil monstrosity in the world, the worldly system and culture and everything that is alien to the teachings of Christ) we need to exhibit the mindset, the thinking and the lifestyle of Christ. Christologicals are not theologians but they are Christ-centred individuals. It is not what you are that matters but who you are! And to know who you are, you must know who HE is and What he is? If you know Jesus, you will discover your real identity – who you really are – and your eternal salvation is assured. If only in this life we have hope, the bible declares, we are of all men most miserable. Unless there is a revelation of God, of Christ, there is no salvation, no freedom, no lasting success. You have got to wrap your Christology in your theology so that your ideology will become your ontology (which is the philosophical study of the nature of the being, existence and reality!). Whenever you need spiritual awakening or spiritual power, you need JESUS. He is our source! Let us become lifetime believers, unshake-able, unconquerable, unimpeachable and intransigent.
2.You need to activate the ZOE – the inherent God-life, God energy, God-inspiration and God-force in you – 2 Peter 1:3 - 4 “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust”.Christ is your life (Colossians 3:4). There is a Spirit in man, the inspiration of the Almighty, giveth understanding (Job 32:8). For me to live is Christ – Phillipians 1:21. Christ is my purpose of being! Ephesians 2:10 – “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, (which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them”!
3.Be a rigorously disciplined man or woman!
Discipline is a virtue that is in short supply nowadays. We see men and women demonstrating a dangerous lack of self restraint and discipline. People do things just because they feel like it, ignoring the consequences. What there is no restraint, no discipline is that people are destroyed. As believers we must continually affirm brokenness as a virtue. Brokenness does not diminish your strength. Once brokenness is absent in the church we lose our moral compass. Our collective consciences becomes numb. Brokenness keeps us on our toes. It refines, perfects, and purifies us. It is what makes us disciplined. A broken man who mortifies himself, who dies daily is a strong individual with a solid core. He is a true disciple. Discipline is central to our success and it guards us against temptations and mistakes. It helps us to avoid the malpractices – Kingdom Malpractices – that can destroy our faith. The secret to breaking out is discipline which helps us to avoid making serious covenant or kingdom malpractices like unforgiveness, secret sins, abuse to yourself, family, profanity, idolatry, anger, bitterness, fornication, adultery, murmurings, disrespect to authority, immoral practices, deliberately breaking the laws of the land and knowingly engaging or supporting or validating immoral practices.
4.Get yourself together.
You have to take control of you. You have to relationship with yourself and you have to get yourself together. You have to check yourself before you wreck yourself. You must learn to get along with you! When you get along with you, you will get along with me! The part you have the most control of is you and you should ask God to allow you to keep it in check. Let me tell you Truth without grace is a disaster and grace without Truth is catastrophic. You cannot continue to defile yourself and profane Godly ordinances and expect to be blessed. Learn to be honourable. Heaven cannot honour what has been dishonoured. Learn to correct yourself. You have an internal critic – its your conscience. Don't sideline it! Listen to it and let it guide you accordingly.
5.You need to develop the ability to recognize what IS important and what is NOT! Define your values. Have the courage of your convictions and avoid anything that waste your time. Luke 9: 62 “And Jesus said unto him, NO MAN, HAVING PUT HIS HAND TO THE PLOUGH, AND LOOKING BACK, IS FIT FOR THE KINGDOM”.
6.Sharpen your willpower and your determination becomes potent! The will to win is worthless if you do not have the will to prepare. You sharpen your will by being well prepared. Proverbs 24 : 27 “Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field and afterwards build thine house” Luke 14:28-32 “ For which of you intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost,whether he have sufficient to finish it”...........
Let us pray: Heavenly Father, we ask you to make us fully focused upon Jesus; recognizing that all we can ever attain in this life is only possible when our lives are entrenched in Him. We ask you Lord to help shun all forms of idolatry and secret sins so that we can become useful vessels for proclaiming your kingdom. Thank you Father and may your Kingdom become a reality in our lives. Amen
