016 - Seeing Your Divine Potential
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SEEING YOUR DIVINE POTENTIAL By Rodney W. Francis GOD SEEKS MEN AND WOMEN today who will be prepared to really believe what He says; to believe the promises of our being new creations in Christ Jesus His Son (and what that means). Through the Word – and by the quickening of the Holy Spirit – He wants us to see the divine potential that He has already placed within us . . . the divine potential as to what God can really do through us when we will give ourselves in total surrender to Him. Can you see it? OUR GOD IS A BIG GOD God is the God of the supernatural! For too long we have (generally speaking) limited God to the comprehension of the natural mind. He is BIGGER than what our tiny minds tell us! He is as BIG as His Word declares! And what does His Word declare? “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?” (Jeremiah 32:27, NKJV). God is so BIG that “the nations are as a drop in a bucket” before Him (Isaiah 40:9-18)! WHY DO WE NEED TO SEE OUR DIVINE POTENTIAL? We need to see our divine potential because only that which is “born of God” in our lives will stand for time and eternity. There is no divine potential in the works of the flesh. We must have much more than fleshly efforts or “bright ideas” if we are going to achieve great things for God. Anything less than that which is “born of God” puts us into the category of having“a form of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:5). (That type of person has no true vision, purpose or goal for life; living only from one day to the next according to the dictates of the world.) God has called us to be a different people; a people whose one aim in life is to please the Lord Jesus through the divine potential He has placed within us! It is a tragic thing to limit God in our lives – to limit Him from being Who He is, and Who He wants to be within our hearts. Let us not be like it was said of Israel of old, who “limited the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember His power: the day when He redeemed them from the enemy . . .” (see Psalm 78, especially verses 40-43). We must continually know that the great reality and experience of Christianity is the truth of the Word of God, which declares:“CHRIST IN YOU, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). Jesus Christ lives INSIDE every true believer!
BELIEVE JESUS! Jesus said: “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9:23). Jesus said: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father” (John 14:12). Jesus said: “And these signs will follow those who believe: in My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark 16:17-18).
Not one of the above Scriptures make mention that these promises are only for certain ministries, apostles, prophets, preachers, pastors, etc., but to those who BELIEVE ON HIM! Yes, Jesus was speaking of the divine potential of those who believe!
No! No! A thousand times, No! Jesus is always the same – He never changes (Hebrews 13:8). His promises still hold true to those who truly believe what the Scriptures say. KNOW GOD “. . . the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits” (Daniel 11:32). The best way to get to know God is to agree with His Word, to believe what He says! God cannot lie (Titus 1:2)! To realize our divine potential we need to be filled with God’s Holy Spirit. His Word exhorts us to “be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18), and to receive the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8). “. . . our sufficiency is from God, Who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”(2 Corinthians 3:5-6). Far too often the “letter” gets in the way and the power of God is lost. It is“the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:17) that has to be released to activate the promises of God. It does not “automatically fall into our lap.” We activate the Holy Spirit anointed Word of God through our believing what He says. The Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see and behold more of the divine potential we have in God, and that divine potential, in turn, challenges us to exercise our faith and to “launch out into the deep” (Luke 5).
GIDEON: Gideon was visited by an angel of the Lord and, after proving God, he led Israel to a mighty victory over the Midianites (Judges 6 & 7). He saw his divine potential and did something about (and with) it! Prior to that, he was a doubting and fearful nobody, who was full of discouragement and despair. JONATHAN: Jonathan realized that his BIG God did not have to have a great number of people in order for Him to work. He put God to the test by saying to his armour bearer: “Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised; it may be that the Lord will work for us. For nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few”, and brought victory to Israel over the Philistines. Only two men – Jonathan and his armour bearer! He had seen his divine potential and decided to see what God would do through him. The Philistines were routed (1 Samuel 14:1-23). ELIJAH: Elijah, “a man with a nature like ours” (James 5:17), so believed in the Word of his God that he crippled a nation, and brought it to repentance through commanding there to be no rain. He then challenged and exposed the false, religious prophets of his day and demonstrated Who the true and living God is! He saw his divine potential (1 Kings 17 & 18)! THE THREE HEBREW CHILDREN: The three Hebrew children (Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego) became an open spectacle because they refused to bow down to idolatry. Through their publicly confessed faith in God they were mercilessly thrown into the fire, but were miraculously delivered from that fiery furnace without even the smell of smoke upon their clothing! They wouldn’t bow! They wouldn’t bend! And they wouldn’t burn! The result was the changing of the laws of a nation. They saw their divine potential (Daniel 3). PETER: The Apostle Peter was greatly used of God to bring deliverance to the captives. Many miracles of healing took place during His Holy Spirit-filled ministry. The dead were raised, those with paralysis healed, and the crippled walked. Even his shadow was used to bring healing and help to many (Acts 5:15-16). After a hesitant start in his Christian walk, Peter saw his divine potential, exercised it, and rose to become a great apostle of the Christian faith. PHILIP: Philip, a wise man and full of the Holy Spirit, was serving at widows’ tables. He saw his divine potential and went down to Samaria, where he preached the message of Jesus Christ unto the people (Acts 6 & Acts 8:5-8). In his simplicity of faith he moved a city for God. Many were saved, healed, delivered and released into a joy they had never known before. Those men of God rose above their personal insecurities and fears, and dared to believe that God was BIGGER than their circumstances. They did not allow any excuses or obstacles to stand in their way to rising up and discovering what God can do through those who will step into their divine potential! WE MUST ALSO DARE TO BELIEVE The Bible is full of these supernatural “happenings” that occurred when men and women stepped out in faith. For any Christian to deny these things is really an open confession of unbelief – and the promises of Jesus only apply to those who believe. Today the need is tremendous! God is longing to meet the need of this present generation. But the only way He can do that is through men and women who will see their divine potential, and act upon it. We must dare to believe God’s Word to us. The men mentioned in this message are great examples of what can be accomplished in life, yet God’s Word gives us an even greater example: Jesus Christ His Son. As great as those men were, we today, are called to be like Jesus . . . to follow in His steps. Think about this.
HOW ABOUT YOU? My dear friend, do you really believe God’s promises to you? Have you seen the divine potential of your believing, and are you putting that divine potential into practice? Are you being liberated into action by the Life-giving Holy Spirit of God – or are you being choked by the “letter that kills”? God will not fail you. He is with you right where you are to give you all the enabling you need – just act upon your believing. Do what He says you can do through the authority He has already given. Know in reality, that through His divine power, you and I have been given all things that are relevant to life and godliness through the knowledge of Jesus – and that great and exceeding precious promises are given to us so that we might be able to share in the divine nature of Jesus (see 2 Peter 1:1-4).
May we all be seeing a greater outworking of these promises of God as we endeavour to release more and more of the divine potential that is within us! Step out on His Word and see what He will do in and through you! Do this and “The best is yet to come!” "The Gospel Faith Messenger" Ministry. PO Box 57, Paraparaumu 5254, New Zealand. Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |