He's Preparing the Way!
Ephesians 2:7-10 MSG
7-10 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
Im sure everyone has heard the old cliche, we sure were in the right place at the right time. Some call it destiny, some call it fate and they could be right. But for those of us who know Jesus as Lord and Saviour, we are well aware and know it could only be God.
Taking care of one of His own, going before them and preparing the way in advance. So just when they need it most, His Grace was already there, well able and ready to meet every need. Amen?
Years ago there was a hit country song called already there, it was by the group
Lone star and the chorus went like this;
I'm already there
Take a look around
I'm the sunshine in your hair
I'm the shadow on the ground
I'm the whisper in the wind
I'm your imaginary friend
And I know I'm in your prayers
Oh, I'm already there
And amazingly, that's how God is with each and everyone of us! Everywhere we go, He goes. Everywhere we are, that's where God is. Having already prepared the way for us to arrive at, without worry or care!
Deuteronomy 31:8 NKJ
8 And the Lord, He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed.”
If you are willing to seek God to be the source for the direction in your life, He won't let you down. He will keep His promises to you and He takes each one of His promises very seriously!
Psalms 121:1-8 NKJ
121 I will lift up my eyes to the hills—
From whence comes my help?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not allow your foot to be moved;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, He who keeps Israel
Shall neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord is your keeper;
The Lord is your shade at your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord shall preserve you from all evil;
He shall preserve your soul.
8 The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and even forevermore.
Illus. By Steven Grant
How Much is that?
Now Im sure you’ve heard the story that before Eve was created, God was talking with Adam. He said, “You really need a helper, don’t you?” And Adam answered, “Yeah, I really do.”
So God said, “What if I make a woman? She’ll be perfect for you. She’ll be beautiful. She’ll rub your back at night, & your feet in the morning. She’ll plop grapes into your mouth. She’ll prepare all your favorite meals without fail. She’ll clean up the kitchen & take care of the kids. You’ll never have to do a thing, just sit around & be the king of your household.”
Adam said, “Boy, that sounds great, but how much is this going to cost?” God said, “Well, it’s pretty expensive. It will cost you an arm & a leg.”
Adam thought for a moment & then asked, “How much can I get for a rib?...."
Isn't that just like human nature, always wanting the maximum benefits with the least amount of commitment?
At some point in your walk with God and your relationship with His Amazing Son Jesus,
You will come to realize. Just like any relationship goes, the more committed you are, the more you become aware of how committed God is!
Because as we read in psalms 121, God is and does all those things for all His children regardless. But it takes on a entirely different meaning, when you become aware that he wants to do them for you.
To be all in and committed for anything in life, doesn't happen all that much. For that matter, I don't think down thru the ages it has happened very many times either.
Because it requires something few are willing to give up, which is self! To be all in or committed to something, someone or a cause. You have to think about, or give more to that than you do yourself.
But when we read of the heroes in the Bible, what we find is exactly that. All the heroes and great men and women of the Bible were all in, with their relationship with God.
The amazing feats that work comp list through all of them, would've never happened unless God went before them and prepared to way and helped them come about.
*God went before them and had the right person be there at the right time, to help meet their need!
*God went before them and made a way so they could pass through safely to their destination!
* God went before them and changed someone else's mind or heart, so they would be well received!
In first Samuel 17, God had already been there and prepared the way of miracle. God was the one who went before David to not only make, but also place the five smooth stones in the brook where David would find them. And place the one that was perfect in dimension and weight to accomplish its destiny, the moment David went all in and declared boldly without hesitation!
1 Samuel 17:45-47 MSG
45-47 David answered, “You come at me with sword and spear and battle-ax. I come at you in the name of God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel’s troops, whom you curse and mock. This very day God is handing you over to me. I’m about to kill you, cut off your head, and serve up your body and the bodies of your Philistine buddies to the crows and coyotes. The whole earth will know that there’s an extraordinary God in Israel. And everyone gathered here will learn that God doesn’t save by means of sword or spear. The battle belongs to God—he’s handing you to us on a platter!”
In the book of Esther, we read of one of the most intriguing and romantic stories ever told. The story of the life of a young Jewish girl, who had lost her parents and had the good fortune to be able to live with her uncle. Who loved her just like she was his own daughter. And miracle after miracle, against insurmountable odds, God made a way!
God prepared the way and opened doors of amazing opportunity for her. Every step to the moment God for her, that would ultimately save an entire nation of people!
Esther chapter 7 MSG
1-2 So the king and Haman went to dinner with Queen Esther. At this second dinner, while they were drinking wine the king again asked, “Queen Esther, what would you like? Half of my kingdom! Just ask and it’s yours.”
3 Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor in your eyes, O King, and if it please the king, give me my life, and give my people their lives.
4 “We’ve been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed—sold to be massacred, eliminated. If we had just been sold off into slavery, I wouldn’t even have brought it up; our troubles wouldn’t have been worth bothering the king over.”
5 King Xerxes exploded, “Who? Where is he? This is monstrous!”
6 “An enemy. An adversary. This evil Haman,” said Esther.
Haman was terror-stricken before the king and queen.
7-8 The king, raging, left his wine and stalked out into the palace garden.
Haman stood there pleading with Queen Esther for his life—he could see that the king was finished with him and that he was doomed. As the king came back from the palace garden into the banquet hall, Haman was groveling at the couch on which Esther reclined. The king roared out, “Will he even molest the queen while I’m just around the corner?”
When that word left the king’s mouth, all the blood drained from Haman’s face.
9 Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the king, spoke up: “Look over there! There’s the gallows that Haman had built for Mordecai, who saved the king’s life. It’s right next to Haman’s house—seventy-five feet high!”
The king said, “Hang him on it!”
10 So Haman was hanged on the very gallows that he had built for Mordecai. And the king’s hot anger cooled."
And for those who have ever made the commitment of all in to Him. He has prepared the way for them to their destiny, each and every time all throughout the ages.
How else could have a tiny group of people, just seeking and wanted to worship their God have been able to start, develop and maintain the greatest country in the world!
The story of the Pilgrims and their quest to worship their creator, is one that's in the history books. But it's not the one about Pocahontas and John Smith. Is the amazing story of how God prepared the way, when there seemed to be no way!
It's no wonder why God has honored America all these years. It's all because of our founding fathers great faith and convictions.
God has always had great men and women of faith, down through the years in our countries heritage at the right place, exactly at the right time.
We need more men and women of faith like that today, to get involved and take a stand.
And even today, when the country and the rest of the world sometimes seems to be
off the track, you can rest assured that God still has everything under control.
Today I wanted to share a true story I discovered about the beginnings of our country,
And how God, when you seek and put him first, always takes care of you, always makes a way, always is in the right place at the right time!
Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving:
This is an article by Eric Metaxas, he has written for The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, and Christianity Today.
He said: Well, when I found out what happened, when I actually researched it, I couldn’t believe what I was reading.
I said, "There has to be some mistake here." So I read the original documents written in the 1620s and 1630s, and I was absolutely dumbfounded by what I read.
I mean this was an out-and-out miracle. If there’s such a thing as a miracle, this is a miracle. And I’m a believer, and I said, "This was God’s hand in American history." I had never heard this story.
Most of us have heard the story of Squanto meeting the Pilgrims, but really, the miracle happened long before that.
Well, this is just one of the examples of how God does things, and we don’t know what He’s doing at the time.
Most people have no idea that any white man came to the coast of New England before 1620. Most just think that the Pilgrims came, and that was the first time Englishmen came to America.
But there were many traders who would come from England and other places,
and they would come down the coast of Maine and Massachusetts, and they would trade with the Indians.
Around 1612, a trader, a Captain Hunter, came to the coast of Massachusetts and was trading with the Indians.
He was obviously a very bad man, because when the Indians came down trustingly to trade with him, he knocked them over the head, took them to the ship, threw them in the hold of the ship.
He then took them across the Atlantic Ocean, and sold them into slavery in Malaga, Spain. This, of course, was a nightmare for the Indian’s. Squanto was one of those captured and sold into slavery.
Monks in Spain, men of God, bought him, and treated him well.
There he was taught the Christian faith. Three years later, in 1615, they made it possible for him to get to England.
He went from Spain to England -- just think of a young Indian boy from Massachusetts going all the way across the ocean to Spain, and then going up to England so that he could somehow get a ship back across the Atlantic.
There were no ships. So, he worked in a stable as a stable boy for a family called Slaney. Squanto was with them for five years until a ship going back to the coast of North America could be found, another trading ship.
This was around 1620. He learned English and lived in London. He was dreaming and hoping and probably praying that he could come back to his family after ten years of exile and slavery.
He learns that a ship is going to American, he becomes the translator on the ship.
He gets all the way back, again, against odds we can’t even dream of, comes to the coast of Massachusetts, runs to the place where he was raised, but here is no one there.
His entire tribe had been wiped out by disease, probably small pox.
He was heartbroken. Ten years to get back and no one is there!
Squanto went to live with a neighboring tribe, briefly. But after a short period of time, he went to live in the woods by himself.
Remember that in 1620, a band of Pilgrims in a little boat
comes across the Atlantic, trusting God is leading them.
They land and experience hardship, the cold, and starvation. And these were faithful, faithful Christians. 50% of them died.
And so they got through their first winter, as we know the story, and you can imagine that they were probably questioning,
"Lord, how could You have taken us this far?"
Their trials and hardships were devastating, they were crying out to God. We know that these were very strong Christians.
And suddenly, out of the woods walked an Indian brave speaking English. This is 1621.
They were so shocked; an Indian speaking perfect English.
Actually he was in London England much more recently than they were.
And it just happened that he grew up on the very spot where they had settled.
This was his home that had been abandoned by his tribe. He had no place to go, They became his family. And he knew everything there was to know about how you plant corn.
Squanto showed them how to plant corn with the fish as the fertilizer - how to plant the gourd around the corn so it goes up the cornstalk.
He knew how to get fish out of muddy streams. He knew where the lobsters were and where the fish were. He knew everything.
And the Lord used him, truly miraculously to help sustain their life. What a miracle!
What an Amazing God! Nothing is impossible when you put your faith and trust in God.
Hebrews 11:5-6 MSG
5-6 By an act of faith, Enoch skipped death completely. “They looked all over and couldn’t find him because God had taken him.” We know on the basis of reliable testimony that before he was taken “he pleased God.” It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.
And my oh my, how God has prepared the way and responded to the needs of America all through out history! All because of the original group of believers and our founding fathers. And still today all those who are committed and still seek and put Him first!
All the miracles that have ever been recorded throughout history, fail in comparison with the greatest miracle of all! The miracle of salvation threw Gods only begotten
Son!
Ephesians 2:1-6 MSG
1-6 It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
John 3:16 NKJ
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Have you made a lifelong commitment to the Lord?
Are you all in to the commitment you made the day you took Jesus for your Lord and Savior? Have you surrendered your all to Him?
What will God's history book that still continues to be written write about you?
There's One thing you can be sure of....
As we speak, He is Actively Preparing the way for every step of the Journey!
Amen?
Let's pray!
