DON’T LIMIT GOD
By: C. Mason Davis
There is a story of a man who really believed he was close in his relationship to God. The town he lived in was being deluged by rain. The flooding was getting so bad that the townspeople were told to evacuate. This man decided that he would pray to God for help and guidance and would wait for a sign. Soon after, the last vehicle was leaving town for higher ground and stopped to offer this man a ride to safety. This man told the driver that he was waiting for a sign from God and that God would take care of him. Again, he prayed. As the flooding worsened, a boat drove up to his house, but he turned the boat away as he waited for a sign from God. The flooding continued to worsen and drove the man atop his roof. Shortly after, a helicopter flew up to his house, but he waved it off. Again, he prayed for help and a sign. Finally, the flooding rose higher than his roof and the man drowned. The man was now in heaven in front of God and asked why He let him drown. God became angry and said, “I didn’t let you drown, I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter and you turned them all away.” This man did the right thing by praying to God for help and a sign, but his mistake was in not being open to His way of help.
TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
Psalm 78:41, “Yea they turned back and tempted God and limited the Holy One of Israel.”
Do not put limits on God in your life. I’m not just talking about believing in Him, but also not keeping limits about His ability to serve you in your walk of life. Perhaps you need to open your heart and your mind more to God, but also in how you ask for His help. I pray that when you leave today, you’ll be more open of His will, than to yours. That you come to understand that His will is to come in His time and in His way. Perhaps you need to show Him unconditional love and accept that His way is the only way, even if it’s not your way or in your time. Without realizing it, we limit God’s will in just about everything we do, everything we say, and everything we think and pray for. We are all too set in our ways, in our habits, in our thinking, and in our selfishness. Ask yourself…Are you open-minded enough to follow God’s will? Holding onto the God given dreams and thoughts that He’s put into your heart is sometimes quite a challenge. We sometimes have blinders on as to our path to realizing and accomplishing those dreams. When we dream our dreams, we tend give up on them when they’re not realized instantly. With blinders on you may not see God’s way for guiding us to our dreams. Afterall, He is the author of them. He is the one who put them there. In Psalms 37:4, it says, “Delight thyself also in the LORD: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”
Some of the ways we limit God is by doubt, negativity, unbelief, and close-mindedness. You need to quit your “one-way,” directional thinking and instead be open to another direction in life because it may just be His will that you do. If you become filled with doubt and unbelief, you may not realize that there have been signs of God’s blessings in your life the whole time. Proverbs 3:5-8, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord and part from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.” The blessings will be there, but you must trust in Him to see them to put them to use. Therefore, lose the blinders.
Another way we lose our connection with God is by thinking or believing that any help or signs from Him will only come in particular ways. In other words, we’ve got blinders on again. We need to remember that God works in mysterious ways. If we can learn this, we won’t have any limitations when it comes to Him, and we’ll be better able to see the signs and follow His lead in our lives. Being able to do so would be like re-opening the valve, allowing Him to shower us with His blessings.
In the book of Exodus, chapter 5, it tells us about the children of Israel when they were enslaved in Egypt. It was a pitiful situation to live through. They were very mistreated, working day and night, and it seemed that they had no way out. But then God began to intervene. Exodus 8:1, “And the Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, thus saith the Lord, let my people go, that they may serve me.” Pharoah was the King of the people of Egypt. God told Moses to tell Pharoah to “let My people go.” Well, Moses did what God had told him, but the Pharoah said, “Who are you, Moses? I’m not listening to your God. I don’t care who Jehovah God is. Go back and work.” This really made Pharoah mad and in turn he gave the slaves from Israel much harder tasks to accomplish. When the slaves didn’t fulfill their daily quotas, he’d have the Egyptian officers beat the foremen of the Israeli slaves. The people of Israel began to complain to Moses by saying, “Moses, ever since you spoke to Pharoah things have become much worse.” But the Lord gave words to Moses, and they said, “Listen, you tell the people of Israel that I’ve seen their affliction, their sorrow, and their suffering. I’m going to come down and I’m going to deliver them by My power and by My outstretched arm.” They had a promise from God that He was going to see them through.
Now, the people of Israel were in a terrible circumstance. God began to send forth plagues upon the people of Egypt. There were terrible plagues. One time Moses touched the Nile River and it turned to blood. God sent swarms of insects that infested the people of Egypt, but they never touched the people of God, even though they lived in the same land. But Pharoah was very stubborn. He would not let the people go, so God, sent the angel of death down to kill the first-born son of every man and animal in Egypt. To protect the children and animals of the people of God, He told them to put blood of a sacrificial lamb over their door so when the angel of death came at night he would pass over the people of Israel. This finally got Pharoah’s attention. Pharoah said, “People of Israel, get out of here.” They then went on their way back towards the land of Israel. By the time the people of Israel came upon the Red Sea, Pharoah had changed his mind about releasing them. So, Pharoah got on his chariot and led his army to re-capture the people of Israel. Moses then raised forth his rod and the sea parted its water. Numbers 11:23, "But the LORD said to Moses, “Don't limit my power! You will see that I can do what I say I can do.” Because of this miracle from God, the people of Israel were able to walk through the sea on dry land. Close behind was Pharoah and his army. Just as the people of Israel made it across, Pharoah and his army were making their way across, but then the sea closed up and Pharoah and his army drowned. Those enemies of God were killed.
The part of the parting of the sea reminds me of a story. An atheist wanted to rile up his Christian friends, and he always looking for scientific speculation that would throw doubt on God or the Bible. Scouring the Internet, he discovered research from a student at an obscure university who hypothesized that due to weather and wind patterns, the Red Sea was less than a foot deep when Moses led the Hebrews across it. “It wasn’t even up to their knees,” the atheist sneered. One of the Christian friends exclaimed, “It’s a miracle!” “What miracle?” the atheist asked. “Anybody could have waded across it!” The Christian grinned. “Simple. God drowned Pharaoh’s entire army in less than a foot of water!” The people of Israel were worried about whether God could, or would, continue to care for them in the wilderness. They kept asking, “What are we going to eat out here, Moses?” Psalm 78:42, “They remembered not his hand, nor the day when He delivered them from the enemy.” What I’d like us to see today is that God has done something in all our lives. Think about a time something happened in your life that you may have thought was just a coincidence or an accident.
He is always working in our lives, but we don’t always see it or feel it. It’s more up to each of us to seek and find out how. He answers prayers and does work in each of our lives, but are you seeing it? Are you open to His ways or just yours? We must continue everything by faith knowing that He’ll always show us the way. Isaiah 43:18-19, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."
If you think that the adult people of Israel were worried about food and such, just imagine how worried some of the children must have been out there in that desert wilderness. Where would their next meal be coming from? Remember, they were questioning whether God would sustain them through their journey. I can imagine if they were of our time and place that all the kids would be asking how far it would be to the next McDonald’s, or if there’s a Burger King with a playground. I could see the ladies wondering if there were any grocery stores or any other kinds of stores to shop at, knowing that by this time their husbands would be in great need of deodorant, especially after all this time in the desert.
I believe that Jesus has always had faith in me, that I’d be a steward for what He represents. I learned a long time ago not to doubt Him, not to limit Him. In 1 Corinthians 10:31, it states: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Have any of you experienced anything where it seems like there are a lot of coincidental things happening to cause a positive outcome? That is God working in your life. With God, there are no coincidences, only blessings. He will bless you because He wants you to succeed. He wants you to be positive. He wants you to know love and love Him.
About 20 years ago, I owned a company and had lost my bookkeeper. I was desperate to find another with the experience my business needed. I prayed about this and every bookkeeper who responded to my job ad just didn’t have enough experience. I was asked to visit a church by a friend one Sunday and I had prayed about my predicament, and near the end of the service, the pastor called a lady to the pulpit who made a desperate plea to the congregation for a job. She was a single mother with 4 teenage kids, one of whom had special needs. I wanted to help in any way, so I approached her and asked her what her experience was. She was a bookkeeper for over 10 years. I told her the position I’m desperate to fill is for a bookkeeper and that I would be able to put her on insurance right away. Some people would say that it was it just a coincidence that she and her kids happened to be at the same church that fateful Sunday. But I know differently. It was God working in our lives? There are many, many more instances I could tell you about and I’m sure there are instances that you could tell, as well.
God has given me so much. Not always when I thought I really needed it, but my love for Him has given me every reason to ask Him when I have wants or needs. Ask not, receive not! You must ask Him through prayer even though he knows what you’re going to ask for. But you need to show him that you have unconditional love for Him and that includes unconditional trust and unconditional faith. I’m not going to doubt or limit Him in my life through my next situation. As to whether or not He can make my dreams come true or answer my prayers, I choose to believe that He can. Not just from His word, but from his actions. He has done so much in my life already. Knowing that God has touched your life in some way should lead you to know not to displease Him like the people of Israel had on their way out of Egypt. They limited God by their doubts and worries instead of putting their faith in Him, knowing that by some way, shape, or form, He will answer their prayers. You can’t deny the power of God. No one can. When we start to doubt and believe less in Him, we limit Him by blocking Him. He has the power to do anything, but if we’re not open to His way, it’s like we stop the flow of His glory. In today’s internet terms, we block Him.
Romans 8:7 reads, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Our minds play games and get the better of us at times and in our current world, we are more skeptical than believing. We are more pragmatic, not believing unless there is proof by seeing. We are skeptical about our dreams coming true and the more this happens, and the more time this goes on, then we can no longer accomplish things that God wants us to achieve. Does this make sense to you? The Bible is very clear about this in Romans 12, to renew our minds. Call it a reboot. The battle between doing right and doing wrong is in the mind. Wise one’s say that if you want the proper answer to ask the heart, not the mind. In Isaiah 55:8, it says that “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.” Just as we limit God, we allow our minds to limit ourselves. We don’t believe that we can do things, so we don’t even try. God knows that we can do much more if we’ll only try. We need to know that God is there for us, but only if we let Him. He knows better as his thoughts are all-knowing, while ours are not. We just can’t think that big. His thoughts and ways are so much beyond our perspective because He doesn’t think in terms with limitations. When we learn to think without limits, nothing is impossible. Just remember that He created the heavens and the earth. He can do anything.
Too many times we tell God how to fix our situations or how we would want them fixed. Also, too many times we expect God to fix our situations rather than to ask Him for the answers as to how we can fix them ourselves. When financial issues arise, I pray for money instead of asking Him how I can go about earning the money. Nothing in life is free, nor are solutions. We need to put forth the effort to make God’s answers to our problems come to pass. Perhaps what we really need is to work harder in our walk with Jesus, as well as our walk within ourselves to become the person who the Lord wants us to become. Let’s limit God less and open ourselves more to His will.
So many times, we tell God that we want out of debt. We pray, “God, if you’ll give that 3% raise, you will be able to pay off my car in 4 years, you’ll pay off your house in 20 years, and in 45 years you’ll have paid off the wife’s department store credit card debt.
Take your eyes off your present-day issues and give them to God. He knows your problems. He has been sending you signs and solutions to your problems, but you may have been looking in the wrong place or in the wrong direction and totally missed what He was messaging you. You may think that no one knows how bad things in your life really are. But you are not the only one feeling like that. You are not the only one experiencing the lows of life. Be sure to turn to God for guidance and be open to His way of communication and solutions.
Don’t have preset ideologies about meeting people and making friends. They may not walk like you, talk like you, or look like you, but that doesn’t mean that they’d have no chance of becoming a great friend to you. All people are different, but we mustn’t limit them or ourselves when meeting strangers. Before you leave today, make a friend, learn their name, find out a little about them and share something about yourself. Step out of your box. You might just find one of God’s rewards where you’ve never looked.
Don’t forget about the older folks, either. They’ve lived a long life and can share a great deal of wisdom with you. An elderly lady once said not to forget the old folks. We are worth a fortune. We have silver in our hair, gold in our teeth, stones in our kidneys, lead in our feet, and gas in our stomachs. She said that she has become quite frivolous lately and that she’s seeing 5 different gentlemen daily. She said that when I get up, Will Power gets me out of bed. Then I immediately go to see John. A few minutes later, Charlie Horse comes along. When he leaves, Art Thritis shows up, and finally, I’m so tired I go to bed with Ben Gay. Just between you and me, I personally don’t call my bathroom John. I call it Jim. It just sounds better when I tell people that I go to the Jim every morning.
Today, I want you to be inspired. Don’t think that your dreams can’t come true or that your problems can’t be solved. Don’t limit Him by wearing blinders. God is an awesome God and if we trust and believe in Him, He will bring your dreams to life. In Matthew 19:26, “But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, with men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” He’s done great things for me. He’s done great things for you, and He can do it over-and-over-and-over again. I pray that He does the same for all of you as he has for me. Amen.
