Give it all to Jesus
Isa. 40:31 NKJ
But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.
But teach me Lord, teach me Lord to wait!
When I read this verse the way I take it is, that it is a declaration of faith in Gods amazing abilities! Completely absent of self effort and self efforts ability!
With our expectations in God’s abilities alone! And if we're willing to bring our needs to the Lord and lay them at his feet. He shall indeed refresh, renew and replace our need with His abundance of every good thing.
Thing is when we normally arrive to this place of willingness and dependency, we normally feel like we have nothing left to give. By this point we normally have spent everything we have, we have exhausted all possibilities and our understanding of comprehension.
But I would contend, saying your ready to surrender the outcome of a need to Gods ability and actually laying everything down including your ability, are two entirely different degrees of surrender.
What I’m getting at here, is if you had never seen God come through for you and meet a need would be one thing as far as a trust issue and retaining your ability to fight. Because you wouldn’t be so sure of the outcome. And if someone never had a relationship with God, I could understand easier there being a trust issue!
But if you have a relationship with God and know Jesus as your Saviour and have read about, studied, witnessed others receive miracles and even experienced and tasted Gods goodness in your own life. You are, or should be fully aware of Gods capabilities!
When you have a need and you expect God to work in your life and to answer that need. Whatever you have, in whatever state you are, you still have to give it over to God! And this includes your abilities!
Mark 6:35-38 MSG.
35-36 When his disciples thought this had gone on long enough—it was now quite late in the day—they interrupted: “We are a long way out in the country, and it’s very late. Pronounce a benediction and send these folks off so they can get some supper.”
37 Jesus said, “You do it. Fix supper for them.”
They replied, “Are you serious? You want us to go spend a fortune on food for their supper?”
38 But he was quite serious. “How many loaves of bread do you have? Take an inventory.” That didn’t take long. “Five,” they said, “plus two fish.”
Mark 8:1-5 MSG
1-3 At about this same time he again found himself with a hungry crowd on his hands. He called his disciples together and said, “This crowd is breaking my heart. They have stuck with me for three days, and now they have nothing to eat. If I send them home hungry, they’ll faint along the way—some of them have come a long distance.”
4 His disciples responded, “What do you expect us to do about it? Buy food out here in the desert?”
5 He asked, “How much bread do you have?”
Both times the expectation was enormous. Both times what did he ask for from them? Both times what did they give Him? They gave Jesus what they had, right? What did they give to Him? A leftover, right? It wasn't a freshly prepared meal, it was a left over from a meal, right?
I don’t really believe Jesus was looking for a stale piece of bread! I believe what Jesus was truly looking for was faith! And when the situation was bigger than what their (ability) faith could produce, they found a substitute in case the way maker, might need help figuring out another way!
Jesus didn’t need the leftover bread, besides the bread wasn’t theirs anyways! When Jesus ask them what they had, He was asking them to lay down their capabilities and lock their faith to His capabilities!
There were two groups of left overs present that day.
1. The tangible loaf of bread
2. The useless abilities of self effort everyone possessed, though maybe even strong in the physical realm, completely useless in the spiritual realm where only faith is required for needs to become miracles!
Matthew 15:21-28 NIV
21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.
She had a need didn’t she? But Jesus didn’t ask her for what she had, because he already knew what she had. She had already left her ability behind, she already knew the feast of anything is possible had been prepared.
What she brought and what she possessed was faith! Even a crumb from the feast would be enough to surpass her need. She had never experienced anything to do with Jesus, or His Father God! That’s why Jesus commented on her faith!
She knew her abilities were useless! She laid down everything, all the leftovers of the things she had accomplished in life and only held on to one thing, HER FAITH! And that is why Jesus was moved to action on her behalf!
Human nature continually tries to figure out a plan B! Guess what people, the sooner we realize plan B will never produce the miracle we’re looking for! And take that ability of self effort and only fuel our faith for Gods plan, the sooner we’ll see our answered prayers become reality!
This story was put in scripture, not for our entertainment, but so we could learn a valuable lesson to increase our faith of expectation!
It's not up to us to decide what God can do, when He is going to do it, or what He needs to work with as He is meeting the needs of His Children. The most important thing to note here is that when we give God what we have (and that includes our ability of self effort) and expect in faith. He is moved to action and bound to His Word and Promises!
Now keep in mind, that this is shortly after what we had read earlier.
Mark 8:13-21 MSG
13-15 He then left them, got back in the boat, and headed for the other side. But the disciples forgot to pack a lunch. Except for a single loaf of bread, there wasn’t a crumb in the boat. Jesus warned, “Be very careful. Keep a sharp eye out for the contaminating yeast of Pharisees and the followers of Herod.”
16-19 Meanwhile, the disciples were finding fault with each other because they had forgotten to bring bread. Jesus overheard and said, “Why are you fussing because you forgot bread? Don’t you see the point of all this? Don’t you get it at all? Remember the five loaves I broke for the five thousand? How many baskets of leftovers did you pick up?”
They said, “Twelve.”
20 “And the seven loaves for the four thousand—how many bags full of leftovers did you get?”
“Seven.”
21 He said, “Do you still not get it?”
Human nature and the ability of self effort is really thick isn’t it? The disciples had seen Jesus do the miraculous not only twice, but TBS so many times there was not enough pen and paper to record the amount of times!!
Jesus had fed by some estimates as many as 35,000 individuals with the contents of two happy meals! And here it is some 10 minutes later so to speak and their worried wether a whole loaf of bread is not going to be enough to feed the ones who were on the boat!
Let's be truthful, if were willing to admit it we are a lot like the disciples. Human nature is human nature, isn't it? We have needs and we pray and we ask God to meet our needs and He does.
And then Life allows another situation to arise and instead of having carry over, or bridge gap faith from the last miracle God provided. Just like the disciples we revert back to square one and think, how in the world are we going to solve this dilemma? It’s Groundhog Day all over again.
And Jesus says, "do you still not get it?" No more Groundhog days! Stop holding out and start holding on to what you know!
Luke 21:1-4 NKJ
21 And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, 2 and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. 3 So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; 4 for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.”
What those two coins represented was everything that woman had, right? Her ability, her everything! But what those coins really were, were left overs!
She obviously had had more, because scripture says those were the last two she had! Two coins when you have a hundred coins, is no big deal! Two coins when you only have two coins, is a big deal!
If we are ever going to see God move and do the things in our lives, our world and His church the way we say we want to see happen! We’re going to have to give everything, including the leftovers of our abilities we have been uselessly bringing to the table far too long and realize God doesn’t need them!
All God requires is our Faith! That’s all He has ever required! Our God given faith, which He has so graciously already and adequately equipped us with! Thank you father God!
Every blood bought child of God, should be rejoicing every moment of every day in what they have been given by the creator of the universe! God left nothing out! We again, I reiterate are adequately equipped! Hallelujah!!
What we are witnessing in history is not a woe is me moment! We may not realize it, but we have been set up for a “WOW MOMENT!”
Just like the children of Israel were set up for one of the most amazing wow moments of all time with the parting of the Red Sea, we have been set up as well!! Something capable of dwarfing all of our expectations!
Let us not look at the leftovers of capability any longer! God is saying to His children, “What Do You Have?” If we are truthful with ourselves, we will realize the only thing we have worth while to offer Him, is our Faith!
Mark 10:27 NLT
Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.”
The ability of self effort, will produce results at the length of your arm. Faith in the ability of God’s hand, will produce results the whole world will witness!
Isa. 40:31 NKJ
But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.
But teach me Lord, teach me Lord to wait!
This scripture suggest the great things that can happen when you wait on the Lord! Renewed strength, the amazing ability to soar above troubles, the ability to run and not be wearing all suggest excitement!
What is possible in each one of our futures? If we are willing to have Faith and wait on God, it’s more like what’s not possible in each one of our futures!
Who knew the act of expectancy could be so exciting? Only a God capable of delivering every moment of time, the miracles faith is capable of producing!
Fellow Contributors,
If you have found this teaching helpful, I invite you to check other resources and books I have authored available at all online bookstores! Or you can follow me on Facebook at my Charlie Roberts Author page.
Available now everywhere books are sold:
I AM, I CAN, I WILL “all about exploring God’s Grace”
MY SCANDALOUS RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD “all about exposing God’s Grace”
PARKING LOT FAITH “the realization you already have enough faith to move your Mountains”
