Unstoppable
Posted by Dion Todd May 16th, 2021 6,552 Views 0 Comments
Unstoppable from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo.
The Apostle Paul had a "thorn in the flesh" that he asked the Lord to remove three times, yet, the Lord refused to do so. He told Paul this: "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Paul wrote about it later in 2nd Corinthians:
(2 Corinthians 12:9–10 NKJV) And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
We pass over those words without fully grasping their meaning. We don't honestly believe, "when I am weak, then I am strong." If you are like me, when you feel weak, then you just feel weak. Yet, I am learning that His word is true. For our greatest victories come from battles we think we are not strong enough to face. The times when God meets you in the furnace, and you come out the other side unbound. That is when we become unstoppable.
A typical calling of God conversation goes something like this:
* Come now, mighty warrior, and I will send you!
* I don't see how I can do that? Maybe you better get someone else that is better qualified?
* It's the anointing, stupid. The anointing destroys the yoke.
( Note: I added the stupid part. I am not saying that He would call you stupid, though sometimes we are, and there is no better word to describe our actions. )
(1 Corinthians 1:26–27 NASB) "For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong"
The Lord loves using the underdogs who are willing to risk looking like a fool for Him. Look at what the Pharisees and chief priests thought of those who Jesus chose as His apostles:
(Acts 4:13 NASB) Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.
Jesus taught them whatever they needed to know on the job. Look at this conversation that took place between God and Moses at the burning bush:
(Exodus 3:7–10 NASB) The LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. "So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. "Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. "Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt."
The Lord saw the affliction of His people. He heard their cries, and He came down to deliver them. Then He told Moses, "Come now, and I will send you." That's how the Lord gets things done - through His people. When there is a need, He sends someone.
I once read a testimony about a man who was living in China. He prayed that he might have his own Bible to read because they are so rare there. A few nights later, there was a knock on his door, and a strange man handed him a loaf of bread. He broke open the bread, and there was a Bible hidden inside. He prayed, and the Lord sent someone.
That is a perfect example of how the Lord works. If you let Him, the someone He sends may be you. Now I am not talking about a distant mission field, though it could be. Yet, it may be as simple as calling someone and giving them hope when they need it most.
When the Lord told Moses to go to Egypt, Moses began to shy away. He had a speech impediment, so he began to make excuses:
(Exodus 3:11–12 NASB) But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?" And He said, "Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain."
Notice all of the "i"s Moses used there? Who am I, that I should go, that I should bring them out of Egypt? Moses even told the Lord to send someone else! Instead, the Lord told Moses, go and I will go with you.
Decades ago, when I was working on computers after work as a hobby, the Lord began pushing me into my own computer business. Now I know today that it was to prepare me for the things we are doing at Refreshing Hope's online church, but I didn't then. I was just an uneducated house painter.
Strangers would suddenly call me to come and repair a complicated computer network when I had never seen one before. Yet, when I would pray about it, I would hear these words, "Go, and I will go with you." I felt so weak, so powerless, so overwhelmed, so dumb, so inadequate, and uneducated for the task. Yet, every single time we fixed the problem. Sometimes, it almost seemed to repair itself. That began to be typical day after day, soon it was week after week, and then year after year.
The complexity of the work increased until the point that I was taking care of data centers with systems like load-balancing Linux mail server clusters. Yet, He always came through. When I am weak, then I am strong, for His power is perfectly demonstrated in our weakness.
Moses went to Egypt, and the Lord performed incredible miracles through him. When the Israelites left Egypt and came to the red sea, Moses just waved his arms, and the waters parted. After the Israelites crossed through on dry land, the Egyptian army tried to chase them. But the wheels came off their chariots, and the water closed back over them. The enemy army drowned in their heavy armor. So Israel beat the most powerful military system on Earth at that time without lifting a sword. Moses probably stood there and went. "Wow, did I do that?" It's never about you, but who is with you.
A similar conversation happened later with Gideon:
(Judges 6:11–16 NASB) Then the angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites. The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, "The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior." Then Gideon said to him, "O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian." The LORD looked at him and said, "Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?" He said to Him, "O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father's house." But the LORD said to him, "Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man."
The Lord told Gideon to go in the strength he had and deliver Israel. Then Gideon began to make excuses. "Lord, how can I deliver Israel? My family is the least of the least, and I am the least of them! I can't do this!" As with Moses, the Lord told him, go, and I'll go with you. Gideon did go. With only three hundred men, he defeated a giant enemy army, for they turned on one another. Gideon was unstoppable because the Lord was with him.
It's ok to be afraid, but don't let it stop you. You don't have to bring anything or have any special skills for the Lord to use you. Signs follow those who believe, but they don't lead them. Also, His provision is contained in the vision. Think of a contractor making a draw on a large job. He would get a percentage based on the amount of work he had completed and not a full payment before he began. So don't expect the Lord to provide everything in advance before you start. His provision comes as it is needed while you do the work.
What the Lord needs most from you is for you to be obedient to whatever He tells you. When His task becomes our task, we become unstoppable.
You can pray this with me if you like:
Prayer: Heavenly Father, please help me get in tune with what You are doing today. Here I am, Lord! Use me! I yield myself to You and pray that You speak to me and through me. In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen!