I’M SURE ALL OF YOU HAVE NOTICED THAT MORE TIMES THAN NOT I START OUT MESSAGE. THAT’S USUALLY THE WAY HE APPROACHES ME. SO THIS PAST WEEK I ASK HIM WHY? WELL, I KNOW I CAN’T BE THE ONLY ONE THAT AS A CHILD WENT THROUGH THE STAGE OF ASKING YOUR PARENTS WHY WHENEVER THEY SPOKE TO YOU OR ASKED YOU TO DO SOMETHING. MOST OF THE TIME THEIR ANSWER WAS, “DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT” OR “YOU DON’T NEED TO KNOW WHY”, JUST DO IT!

ANYWAYS, THIS WEEK I DID THAT TO GOD AND IT REMINDED ME OF THAT TIME IN MY LIFE AND FELT THAT SAME INQUISITIVE THOUGHT THAT SEEMED SO IRRITATING TO MY PARENTS. ANYWAY, GOD INSTANTLY SAID TO ME, “QUESTIONS REQUIRE A RESPONSE, AND EVEN NO RESPONSE IS A RESPONSE.”

 

THEN HE GAVE ME HOSEA 4:6, My people are destroyed for lack of Knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. 

NOW I DON’T KNOW HOW THAT HIT YOU BUT IT HIT ME BETWEEN THE EYES AND LET’S JUST SAY THAT AS LONG AS GOD QUESTIONS ME AND REQUIRES A RESPONSE FROM ME I TOO AM GONNA QUESTION YOU AND REQUIRE A RESPONSE BECAUSE I LOVE AND I DON’T WANT YOUR DESTRUCTION OR YOUR BLOOD TO BE ON MY HANDS; SO JUST GET USE TO IT…..!

 TODAY, I WILL BE LOOKING FOR A RESPONSE TO THIS QUESTION!!!! 

 

                                                                                         WHERE DO YOU LIVE…?

 I am not asking for a state, city, or address, not even what room you spend the most time in at home! In this question "Where do you live", I am referring to where you live in your journey?

ARE YOU LIVING ON THE DOCK OF THE BAY? I LOVE IT THERE, BELIEVE IT OR NOT I DO GET A LOT DONE SITTING THERE. ON THE WATER IS MY FAVORITE PLACE TO MEET WITH THE LORD. HE CLEANSES AND REFRESHES ME.      

 

Today, I want to take you on an emotional and spiritual journey. I’m taking you to three different lands or I like to call them bubbles. I’d like each one of you to take an honest evaluation of where you live. I might bust your bubble today but that just means that you have formed your own bubble placing limits on your life that God wants to remove.

THE LAND OF NOT ENOUGH. 

Exodus 3:7-14 And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

So He said, “I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”

And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”

 Egypt was:

A) A land of affliction---The Egyptians were hard taskmasters.

B) A land of spiritual bankruptcy---They lived in a pagan society, as slaves they were not given freedom, When they asked for permission to go into the wilderness to sacrifice unto God they were beaten and punished.

C) A land of bondage

D) What about you? When you are in the land of not enough is when you are lost.

If this is the bubble you live in:

1) You are in bondage --- You want to be your own person, you’re only interested in the part of Christianity that fits your agenda. Truly, if that’s you, don’t be deceived, you belong to someone. Either you belong to Satan or you belong to Jesus.

2) Satan will lie to you, destroy you, leave you bankrupt, lonely, and miserable. Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to pay, and cost you more than you want to pay.

3) Jesus as your Lord, will give you freedom. He has paid for you a high price but He will protect, keep, love, and bless you. He is the Lilly of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star, He is the deliverer, the One and only begotten Son of God, He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. & He wants to bring you out of the bubble of not enough. Just as He broke the tie of Pharaoh on the Israelites, He will break the tie of Satan from your life. Will you have the faith to step out and say, I want to leave this land of not enough.

 

THE LAND OF JUST ENOUGH. 

NUMBERS 13:23-33, Then they came to the Valley of Eshcol, and there cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes; they carried it between two of them on a  pole. They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs. The place was called the Valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster which the men of Israel cut down there. And they returned from spying out the land after forty days. Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. Then they told him, and said: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.”

Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

 

The Valley of Eshcol:

A) Consisted of 12 spies, all seeing same things, 2- Joshua & Caleb came with a positive report.

B) A Land of doubt---God had already told them He was giving them the land, just go possess it.

1) They had already seen the hand of God in the ten plagues placed on Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, and several other miracles from the hand of God. Yet they just couldn’t take their eyes off the giants and the walls.

2) You would think that when we live in the land of just enough, we would depend on God for our every breath.

C) A land of grumbling---We want better water, we want better food….So God gave them good water and sent them quail and manna. Evidently later this became just manna. Manna had all the nutrients that were needed and had a sweet taste to them.

1) The Israelites began to grumble again. Were tired of manna. In Egypt we had better food.

2) God said O.K. "I’ll give you meat. Not just one day but every day for a month. God sent quails 3 feet deep for miles on every side of camp. The person that gathered the least had 86 gallons stored for only a couple days food supply. Because of their greed and gluttony, God sent a plague in the quail and many died.

D) When we are in the land of just enough, it is because we fail to let God form and direct who and what consists in your bubble.

1) Here we will be grumblers

2) Here we will be greedy

3) You are here because of a failure to follow God’s direction in what He wants for us in our life. You have decided what you want both inside and outside your bubble…!

 

THE LAND OF MORE THAN ENOUGH.

In Joshua chapters 3-6 you see that:

1) Joshua became the leader of Israel.

2) God said "O.K. I gave you the land before and you didn’t take it. Now go in and take this land."

3) They crossed the Jordan

4) Sent spies to Rahab

5) Conquered Jericho.

B) This being the Land of Obedience---Out of obedience you will find yourselves in the land of more than enough only when you become COMPLETELY obedient to God.

C) Land of Abundance John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

D) This being the Land that God wants all of his children to dwell in. If you are in this bubble of not enough, or the land of just enough today, you surely are not there because God wants you there. He teaches us valuable lessons in the Land of Just Enough….but it is not his ultimate plan for our lives.

If you are lost, you are in the land of not enough. If you are saved but satisfied with playing church and a stale relationship with Christ, you are in the land of just enough. God wants more for you. He wants to take you to the land of more than enough.

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

 

Today, if you are choosing for yourself the direction and make up of your bubble and it doesn’t float freely experiencing the abundance and the greater things of God; then may your bubble bust today, RIGHT NOW!!!

GIVE THE LORD YOUR PAIN, YOUR HURT, YOUR UNFORGIVENESS, YOUR PRIDE, YOUR DEPRESSION, AND YOUR PLAN THAT KEEPS YOU IN THE BUBBLE BOUND BY CHAINS EVER BUSTING BY YOUR OWN LACK OF VISION!

PROVERBS 29:18 Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.

      

ANYONE HERE TODAY READY TO BUST OUT OF THEIR BUBBLE FOR THE ABUNDANCE AND GREATER THINGS THAT GOD HAS FOR YOU?