“Do I Have Too,”
Read The Instruction Manual?
Many a time, someone has tried to put something together and muttered those exact words.
Its generally a man thing, after all we have been doing things around the house forever and a day.
I think every man has a little bit of a Macgyver spirit in them, some more than others
You know the attitude, that if you just let me think about this for a moment, I think I can figure this thing out.
Don’t need no directions”, unless it’s the kind with plenty of pictures, right?
Every body knows pictures are the universal language of directions.
Many a time, projects were all but completed and they looked good!
Until the wife says; “what’s this little piece for?” and you say, “what little piece?” and how long have you known about that little piece?
And you end up taking the whole thing apart and having to do it all over again,
But that’s not the worst of it, its those dreaded 9 words, that every wife can’t wait to say
That once her husband has heard them one time, its more than enough, to last a lifetime!
And what are those words ladies?
I told you, you should have read the directions.
Well, am I right?
Why is it, that no one wants to read the directions, or the owners manual, or the loan document papers, or most anything?
I mean after all, isn’t the main purpose of those types of things, to get you familiar with the manufacturers intended use of their product
and how to fix it, if something should ever go wrong?
Makes perfect sense, who wouldn’t want to get the most, out of the manufacturers intended use and purpose of their creation?
Sounds good doesn’t it?
But in reality, human nature, or whatever it may be,
is content with only reading or learning enough to satisfy the immediate need that has presented itself to us, at the time!
And as a result, a lot of things that everyone owns, never get used to their full potential.
You notice it, when someone is selling you something and telling all the things that its supposed to do, but its like its 2nd hand information,
because it seems like they have not experienced it for themselves, everything that it can do!
Its kind of that way, with our faith and our relationship with God and His word.
The Bible is the best selling and most widely circulated book of all time,
According to statistics from Wycliffe International, the Society of
Gideon’s, and the International Bible Society,
the number of new Bibles
that are sold, given away, or otherwise distributed in the United States is about 168,000 per day.
The Bible can be read aloud, in just 70 hours.
And yet so few are willing to read it, most people even have multiple copies of it.
In it, can be found the answer and the key, to the whole worlds dilemma,
we need to pray that there would be a renewed hunger continually,
And not just after, what seems to be a world crisis, for God’s word in the world.
If we are ever going to realize the abundant life that has been given to us,
by the One who created us,
Don’t you think it would be a good idea to learn all we could, about Him
And read His Life Giving words and get them down deep in our hearts,
so we could be prepared to live the life that He intended on us living!
He made them available from the beginning, so we could know the way!
John 1:1-3 NKJ
1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2. He was in the beginning with God.
3. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
MSG. vs. 1-5
1-2. The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
in readiness for God from day one.
3-5. Everything was created through him;
nothing—not one thing!— came into being without him. What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn't put it out.
Praise the Lord, church, for His Faithful Word!
The Bible, God’s Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.
Every answer to every question, that has ever been asked or ever will be thought of,
can be found in the Word of God, a personal relationship with God’s Son, Jesus and the Grace He extends to all who believe!
Everything was created through him;
nothing—not one thing!— came into being without him. What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
John 1: MSG.
6-8. There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.
(we need to be more like John, church,
We need to show others the way to the light, someone once cared enough to show us the way, it's time to repay the favor and help bring someone else to Christ!)
15. John pointed him out and called, "This is the One! The One I told you was coming after me but in fact was ahead of me. He has always been ahead of me, has always had the first word."
16-18. We all live off his generous bounty,
gift after gift after gift.
We got the basics from Moses,
and then this exuberant giving and receiving,
This endless knowing and understanding—
all this came through Jesus, the Messiah.
No one has ever seen God,
not so much as a glimpse.
This one-of-a-kind God-Expression,
who exists at the very heart of the Father,
has made him plain as day."
Jesus, was God in the flesh on this earth,
This endless knowing and understanding—, the Grace we enjoy, that abolished the law of condemnation,
all this came through Jesus, the Messiah.
Its only through our faith and our relationship with Him, that we find the strength and the answers that we search for on a daily basis.
I can’t even imagine, not even for one moment, life without Him.
You would think, more people would want to know Him and that more people would seek Him out.
Matt. 7:7-8 NKJ.
7. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
8. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
But before He can be found by you, you have to have the faith to believe that He exists
TBS. in Hebrews 11:6 NKJ.
6. But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
You have to have faith and believe from the start and your first reward is the promise of eternal life with Christ,
And as you walk with and grow your relationship with the Lord, your faith increases along the way,
And as your faith and walk deepens with God, the more He rewards you, the more you seek Him,
You begin to realize the true gift of His Grace, and that it is more than sufficient for anything that the accuser may try to throw at you to try to detour you in your life!
Matt. 6:34 MSG.
34"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.
When 9-11 situations come up in your life, you are prepared to confront them, the moment that they happen!
You don’t have to get prayed up, or seek someone else to pray you up,
Because when you’re a Child of God, Jesus knows you by name, He knows everything about you, He is your Greatest Advocate!
when you have a real relationship with Jesus, I’ll tell you who else knows you by name,
the accuser, and he knows better than to mess with God’s anointed!
Acts 19:1-2 Msg.
1-2. Now, it happened that while Apollos was away in Corinth, Paul made his way down through the mountains, came to Ephesus, and happened on some disciples there. The first thing he said was, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Did you take God into your mind only, or did you also embrace him with your heart? Did he get inside you?"
"We've never even heard of that—a Holy Spirit? God within us?"
The Salvation of your soul is the most important, but there is so much more to experience in the Lord, Salvation is only the beginning.
John 10:9-10 NKJ
9. I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.
10. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
The abundant life that He is talking about, is the life we live in the here and now,
Every believer will have eternal life in the sweet by and by,
but God sent Jesus, so we could experience His Goodness from the moment that we accepted Him,
He’s not a “your on your own type of guy,”
He’s an, “I want to be a part of your life forever kind of guy!”
You see, when you become a believer, you can have as much, or as little of God that you want,
You can have a mole hill experience, or you can have a mountain top experience with God!
The more of Him you desire, the more of Himself, He will give you and the more for Him you will be able to accomplish!
TBS. in Acts 19:11-16 MSG.
11-12. God did powerful things through Paul, things quite out of the ordinary. The word got around and people started taking pieces of clothing—handkerchiefs and scarves and the like—that had touched Paul's skin and then touching the sick with them. The touch did it—they were healed and whole.
13-16. Some itinerant Jewish exorcists who happened to be in town at the time tried their hand at what they assumed to be Paul's "game." They pronounced the name of the Master Jesus over victims of evil spirits, saying, "I command you by the Jesus preached by Paul!" The seven sons of a certain Sceva, a Jewish high priest, were trying to do this on a man when the evil spirit talked back: "I know Jesus and I've heard of Paul, but who are you?" Then the possessed man went berserk— and jumped the exorcists, beat them up, and tore off their clothes. Naked and bloody, they got away as best they could.
"I know Jesus and I've heard of Paul, but who are you?"
They knew Paul, because of His walk with the Lord and his faith that he had expressed on earlier occasions.
Acts 16:4-5 MSG.
4-5As they traveled from town to town, they presented the simple guidelines the Jerusalem apostles and leaders had come up with. That turned out to be most helpful. Day after day the congregations became stronger in faith and larger in size.
Not only did their faith and walk grow and deepen, but so did the others around them, that they shared the life changing message of the Gospel with,
And you want to know something?, so will yours, its not hard to do, you just have to be willing to do it!
Acts 16:16-18 MSG.
16-18. One day, on our way to the place of prayer, a slave girl ran into us. She was a psychic and, with her fortunetelling, made a lot of money for the people who owned her. She started following Paul around, calling everyone's attention to us by yelling out, "These men are working for the Most High God. They're laying out the road of salvation for you!" She did this for a number of days until Paul, finally fed up with her, turned and commanded the spirit that possessed her, "Out! In the name of Jesus Christ, get out of her!" And it was gone, just like that.
When her owners saw that their lucrative little business was suddenly going to go bankrupt,
they went after Paul and Silas right away, they had the police arrest them and had them charged in court
22-24. The judges went along with the mob, had Paul and Silas's clothes ripped off and ordered a public beating. After beating them black-and-blue, they threw them into jail, telling the jail keeper to put them under heavy guard so there would be no chance of escape. He did just that—threw them into the maximum security cell in the jail and clamped leg irons on them.
By any ones definition, this was a 9-11, emergency situation.
To the average person, to someone who didn’t know the Lord, they might have thought that this would have been the end of Paul and Silas,
Beaten severely, no doubt in much pain, but their faith wasn’t diminished,
They didn’t have to get prayed up, they didn’t need to phone a friend and ask for help, they knew that God wasn’t through with them yet
Situations arise in life, but God will give you the strength and Grace to go through them all, no matter how big or small they may seem!
Size makes no difference to God, the bigger the need, the bigger the miracle, that He is willing to deliver! Amen?
Acts 16:25-31 MSG.
25-26. Along about midnight, Paul and Silas were at prayer and singing a robust hymn to God.
( Paul and Silas were diligently seeking the Lord, in spite of their circumstance,
and knew that they would be rewarded for their efforts if they did,
When your faced with a desperate situation, don‘t just cry on your sleeve,
cry out to God and lift your praise to Him for the miracle that’s on the way, that you so desperately need!)
The other prisoners couldn't believe their ears. Then, without warning, a huge earthquake! The jailhouse tottered, every door flew open, all the prisoners were loose.
27-28. Startled from sleep, the jailer saw all the doors swinging loose on their hinges. Assuming that all the prisoners had escaped, he pulled out his sword and was about to do himself in, figuring he was as good as dead anyway, when Paul stopped him: "Don't do that! We're all still here! Nobody's run away!"
29-31. The jailer got a torch and ran inside. Badly shaken, he collapsed in front of Paul and Silas. He led them out of the jail and asked, "Sirs, what do I have to do to be saved, to really live?" They said, "Put your entire trust in the Master Jesus. Then you'll live as you were meant to live—and everyone in your house included!"
All things work together, for them that love the Lord,
What the devil had meant for bad, the Lord had turned around into something good.
And the whole jailers family, came to Christ as a result of it!
No doubt some of the other prisoners gave their heart to Jesus that day as well,
Because of their faith displayed and their love for God, many others came to know and love the Lord that day!
Your Love for God displayed in your life is the best witnessing tool you will ever possess!
Matt 22:37-40 MSG.
37-40Jesus said, "'Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them."
Love the Lord with all your heart, seek Him more and more everyday
And watch Him turn the impossible to possible every time, when you do
I’ll close with this;
A little boy who lived far out in the country in the late 1800s had reached the age of twelve and had never in all his life seen a circus.
You can imagine his excitement, when one day a poster went up at school announcing that,
on the next Saturday a traveling circus was coming to the nearby town.
He ran home with the glad news and the question, "Daddy, can I go?"
Although the family was poor, the father sensed how important this was to the lad. "If you do your Saturday chores ahead of time," he said, "I’ll see to it that you have the money to go."’
Come Saturday morning, the chores were done and the little boy stood by the breakfast table, dressed in his Sunday best.
His father reached down into the pocket of his overalls and pulled out a dollar bill-the most money the little boy had possessed at one time in all his life.
The father cautioned him to be careful and then sent him on his way to town.
The boy was so excited, his feet hardly seemed to touch the ground all the way.
As he neared the outskirts of the village, he noticed people lining the streets, and he worked his way through the crowd until he could see what was happening.
Lo and behold, it was the approaching spectacle of a circus parade!
The parade was the grandest thing this lad had ever seen.
Caged animals snarled as they passed, bands beat their rhythms and sounded shining horns, while flags and ribbons swirled overhead.
Finally, after everything had passed where he was standing, the traditional circus clown, with floppy shoes, baggy pants, and a brightly painted face, brought up the rear.
As the clown passed by, the little boy reached into his pocket and took out that precious dollar bill.
After handing the money to the clown, the boy turned around and went home.
What had happened? The boy thought he had seen the circus when he had only seen the parade!
Are you experiencing all that God has for you?
The relationship that is available with God’s precious Son Jesus, is a life changing, Amazing adventure!
Seek out the abundant life that Jesus promised to all ?
And always remember to share the Gospel, the wealth, that you have been given!
Tell someone else, you've read the manual and come to know the author personally
How it changed your life and will do the same for them.
Amen, Lets pray
