Exo 3:7 And Jehovah said, I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows.
Exo 3:8 And I am coming down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, to bring them up out of that land, to a good land, a large land (a spacious land), to a land flowing with milk and honey.
Introduction
o This is the time of the year for reflection and projection
Reflect on what has happened in the previous year or further in the past.
Project on what we want to accomplish in the coming year.
o This is the time of the year when we make our new years resolutions
o A time for making promises
o A time of expectation and all of us will say 2011 is going to be the best year ever, but nothing changes until we change.
o If we are going to get the best out of 2011 we are going to have to PUSH through some things.
It is like a farmer expecting a harvest when he has not sown any seeds into the ground.
Nothing just happens, if we want to see change in 2011 we are going to make some changes. It is a form of insanity to do the same thing over and expect different results.
We cant fully change that’s why we need God to help us change from the inside out, every true change comes from the inside first, God will help us but we have to do our part then he can do his part.
Definition of push
• to apply pressure against for the purpose of moving
• to move by exerting force against it
• to bear hard upon or press
• to advance despite difficulty or opposition : press forward
• to expend great or vigorous effort.
Psa 103:2-5 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: (3) Who forgives all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; (4) Who redeemed thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies; (5) Who satisfies thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.
This is the life god has given me and I am going to make the very most of it
Heb 12:1 Therefore since we also are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Heb 12:2 looking to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right of the throne of God.
We must notice that our life/ race is laid out before us it’s route, length and obstacles are already laid out.
In 2010 we have to push through the promises that are install for us.
1. Push through the past
• The past has a fire like hypnosis, we cant stop looking at it.
• There are two sides to the past
o Positive
all the victories and success story’s
they will build confidence but you still don’t want to live in the past because we have to push past to new levels
we can use past victories to build a memorial of what God has done in our lives, we can be like David who used his past victories to encourage himself
• I killed a lion, a bear who is this uncircumcised philistine
• David knew who God is. He knew what God can and has done
• Share my past victory stories
• Even though we have great victories we don’t want to live in the past we want to Push to the new levels
• God does not stand still he keeps on moving just like the Israelites if they stood still they would of missed out of Gods blessing and they would of never reached the promised land, we have to create a momentum.
•
o Negative
All the mistakes and bad things that we were involved in
Bad experiences that we experienced
• Maybe you stole, wrong relationships or dinking.
• Share a bit of self.
The devil will always come and remind you of all you past.
• He will come and whisper what you did, he like you to feel unworthy to do anything.
• Try and get you to live in the land of regret.
• Try and convince you that you will never amount to anything,
good news that we Serve a God that master in taking failures or people with issues and making them champions.
• Moses: a man who was a stuttering murderer who when God called him, he wanted nothing to do with it, yet God used this broken man to lead the Israelites out of captivity.
• Gideon : a coward hiding away, yet God called him to be a mighty General in the army.
• Rahab : a prostitute that God used to hide the spies
• Paul : the most viscous of all he was hunter of Christians, tracking torturing and executing the early Christians, he had a encounter with God. He is the apostle who wrote two thirds of the new testament.
Phi 3:13 My brothers, I do not count myself to have taken possession, but one thing I do, forgetting the things behind and reaching forward to the things before, 14) I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
a. 3d glasses
2Co 5:17 So that if any one is in Christ, that one is a new creature; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
The glasses change your vision, you see things in a whole different way every thing looks brighter and more alive, without them every thing looks blurry and out of focus. when you are a new creation you relies that your past can no longer define you, your past can only describe you, in my past there are many word that could have described me, words I don’t really like liar, thief, bully etc all these word where a description of me at that time they were a description of what I used to do,
In Christ we are a new creation that no longer a description of you, you are now defined by that reality and the reality of who He (Jesus) is.
God is not in the past he is in the present and the future and his definition of you is in the future.
1. For I know the purposes which I am purposing for you, says Jehovah; purposes of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jer 29:11
2. I am God’s childfor I am born again of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God, which lives and abides forever (1 Peter 1:23).
3. I am God’s workmanship, created in Christ unto good works (Ephesians 2:10).
4. I am a joint-heir with Christ (Romans 8:17).
5. I am more than a conqueror through Him Who loves me (Romans 8:37).
6. I am an overcomer by the blood of the Lamb and the word of my testimony
7. I am part of a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people (1 Peter 2:9).
8. I am the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21).
9. I am the head and not the tail; I am above only and not beneath (Deut 28:13).
10. I am the light of the world (Matthew 5:14).
11. I am forgiven of all my sins and washed in the Blood (Ephesians 1:7).
12. I am redeemed from the curse of sin, sickness, and poverty (Galatians 3:13)
13. I am greatly loved by God (Romans 1:7; Ephesians 2:4; 1 Thessalonians 1:4).
EXAMPLE OF VANISH STAIN REMOVER
b. Lean / Push forward
The past can never catch you if you are always moving forward
when you strain forward as a athlete pushing towards the finish line your past cant touch you, when you are pushing forward with every thing in you the past cant catch you.
God has placed you in the position you are in
The past wants to catch you and pull you back – but that is when we remind the devil of who he is A LIAR AND THE FATHER OF ALL LIES
If all you are is what you did all you will ever do is what you have done
2. Push away old habits\ sin.TRAINING
a. The bible call them a weight
i. something that will make you heavy
ii. something that will slow you down
iii. Something that will affect you in the long distance will make you tired quickly, will hinder you from finish your race.
b. We have to deal with the issues – can’t put our heads in the sand and hope that the problem goes away.
c. It is not worth holding on to weights like anger, unforgiveness, jealousy it is not so important to what it is because all sin is the same to God.
i. God is not shocked in what we are involved in, he knows even before we do it.
ii. God is more interested in helping us overcome and not be held back
1. God wants you to walk in victory
iii. How do you push past these weights and sin
1. have to get into the word and know what the word says about you and circumstance
2. spend time in realationship with the Lord , the more you spend time with some one the more you become like each other, the more you spend time with God the more you will begin to become like him.
Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service.
Rom 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, in order to prove by you what is that good and pleasing and perfect will of God.
3. Push relationships
We all need people
1. People who will pull you up
2. People who will encourage you in life and help reach your God given purpose.
3. People who will be there for you, who will put into you life
4. People who want the best for you
5. People who rejoice when you prosper
6. people that will challenge you when you go off course
We may have family member or relatives who lack vision and can’t imagine you achieving greatness, don’t get angry with them they are probably good people, love them and treat them with respect but understand you cannot be around them on a daily basis, you have to love them from a distance. Life is too short to be pulled down by negative, jealous, cynical people. It doesn’t matter how great you gift is or how much potential is locked inside your seeds of greatness, if you don’t plant the seed in ground that is conductive to growth it will not take root.
Some people you have to love from a distance – you need to hang around other dreamers not daydreamer’s people with big goals and dream, people who plan to do something significant with their lives, hang around people who are going to help you become all god created you to be.
Mat 7:6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.
Pro 13:20 He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.
You cannot hang around negative people and expect to live a positive life
4. Push to finish
In the far east the people plant a tree called a the Chinese bamboo. During the firt four years, they water and fertilize the plant with seemingly little or no result.then the fifth they again apply water and fertilizer – and in five weeks time the tree grows ninety feet in height. The obvious question is whether the Chinese bamboo tree grew ninety feet in five weeks or five years . the answer is that the tree grew ninety feet in five years, if at any time during those five years the people had stopped watering and fertilizing the tree, the tree would have died.
Phi 1:6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ
Hab 2:2 And Jehovah answered me and said, Write the vision, and make it plain on the tablets, that he who reads it may run.
Hab 2:3 For the vision is still for an appointed time, but it speaks to the end, and it does not lie. Though it lingers, wait for it; because it will surely come. It will not tarry.
• Many of us start things and do not finish them but God is faithful; He finishes what He starts.
• It is always harder in the middle of the race
o That were the legs are heavy and the arms are numb and lungs are burning but that is where the rubber meets the road.
o It will be easier to quit than to fight until the end
o Push through
• It is not over until God says it is over
o God never says it is over
God is committed to your dream and vision
God is more interested in your character than the speed that you can get there
Gods timing is not our timing
Never give up on your dream or vision , yes it is easier to quit than to fight but you are going to have to fight for what you believe in
• Nothing just happens
• Nothing worthwhile comes without a fight
You will give birth to more in your future than you’ve lost in your past
God never perform his greatest feats in your yesterday
a. Jesus won the victory for us on the cross.
i. We are continuing that work today.
b. Our decision to become born again signifies that God has begun a good work in us.
i. His work is a guaranteed success.
ii. We can expect to continue to go from level to level and see God’s glory in our lives.
5. Push to Win
1Co 9:24 Do you not know that those running in a race all run, but one receives the prize? So run, that you may obtain.
The message : you’ve all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race.everyone runs; one wins. Run to win. All good athletes train hard. They do it for gold medal that tarnishes and fades, youre after the that’s gold eternally.
a. We have to start the race with the intention of winning; you can’t line up at the starting line and hope and see what will happen.
b. You have to have a to get mind focused on what you have to do.
c. Can’t allow your self to get boxed in you have be in control of the race. You must break free (when I used to run cross country they used to shout maak loss, push get free.
d. We know that Jesus is our Captain but he has given you the button to run the race he has built up a lead that we can not be defeated.
e. We have to have a attitude that say i am going to win who is coming second (when I used to line up I never thought about what if I loose the only thing on my mind was finishing first across the line and setting new records.
f. When you finish the race and cross the finish line there is no better feeling of knowing that you have put your all in that race and did your best.
6. Push to enter the race
