God Archives | Page 14 of 16 • Spirit & Truth | Life Church St Louis

Releasing God’s Power Of Provision

God, Message / By Pastor Dan Walker / June 27, 2005

Some years ago I was working at Monsanto as a research chemist. My job was to design new research projects to discover herbicides to control weeds. After I worked out the science behind the project, I had to plan what resources would be needed. How much money would be needed for equipment for chemicals for testing? How many people would work on the project? How long would the project last? Then I had to present the proposal to management to see if they would give the resources necessary to launch the project. The more ambitious the project, the bigger the resources needed. The project had to be in line with company objectives in order to be approved. If management did not OK the resources, the project would never be started. Resources were needed to accomplish the project. I’m sure that many of you have seen the same thing in your work place.

Just as resources must be allocated to accomplish a company’s project, so God releases resources to accomplish His projects, His purposes. God has a purpose for your life, but it will never be accomplished unless you receive God’s resources, God’s provision. So you must present your proposal to God to see if He will approve your project. You present your proposal in prayer. If you are asking in line with God’s will, the objectives of the Kingdom of God, Inc., you will receive the required provision. NLT Matthew 6:33 and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern. Such a key verse. If you can grab hold of it, you’ll never have to worry about anything again. God will supply your needs, as you live for Him. Prayer will change your life

To hear more about this topic, listen to my June 26, 2005 message entitled Releasing God’s Power Of Provision

Releasing God’s Power To Others

God, Message / By Pastor Dan Walker / June 12, 2005

In Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” Ivan endures all the horrors of a Soviet prison camp. One day he is praying with his eyes closed when a fellow prisoner notices him and says with ridicule, “Prayers won’t help you get out of here any faster.” Opening his eyes, Ivan answers, “I do not pray to get out of prison but to do the will of God.” Ivan understood the main point of prayer.

When we pray we don’t want to miss the point of prayer, because if we miss the point of prayer we really haven’t prayed. NLT 1 John 5:14 And we can be confident that he [God] will listen to us whenever we ask him for anything in line with his will. 15 And if we know he is listening when we make our requests, we can be sure that he will give us what we ask for. The point of prayer is to ask in line with God’s will. If we just ask for what we want, God doesn’t even hear us. So when we pray for people, ourselves or someone else, we meed to be sure we don’t miss the point. We need to be sure that we ask in line with God’s will.

What is God’s will for people? Why are we here on this earth? NLT Acts 17:26 From one man he [God] created all the nations throughout the whole earth. 27 His purpose in all of this was that the nations should seek after God and … find him. Why did God create the people of the nations of the world? So that people would seek after and find God. So that people would know God and have a relationship with God. That is the highest goal of life, that is the ultimate purpose for a human being. To find God and know Him that is the point of life.

So today we want to look at the topic “Releasing God’s Power To Others”, praying for other people. So often we pray for things for ourselves alone: money to pay off our bills, new job, new wheels, etc. That’s good and we’ll talk more about praying for God’s provision in a few Sundays. Yet, we need to keep our priorities in proper order. NLT Matthew 6:33 and he [God] will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern. If God is our primary concern and we live for Him, everything else will fall into line. So when we pray for people, our primary concern for them, the point of the prayer, must first of all be about their relationship with God. Their finding and growing in God is the most important thing.

To hear more about this topic, listen to my June 12, 2005 message entitled Releasing God’s Power To Others

Releasing The Power Of Praise

God, Message / By Pastor Dan Walker / June 6, 2005

Prayer is simply communication with God, two-way communication to be more exact. A human being communicating with the greatest power in the universe, the intelligent designer that created us. And God communicating back to us. This is really the most exciting, the most power-packed activity that one could be involved in. I believe that when we get to heaven, one of the biggest surprises to us will be the revelation of what could have been accomplished through our lives through prayer. The Bible teaches that prayer has incredible power. NLT James 5:16 The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results. Prayer has the power to change your life, prayer has the power to change this church, prayer has the power to change St Louis.

The pastor of a church in Phoenix asked members to randomly choose 80 people from the telephone book. He then asked them to pray daily for each person for 90 days. At the same time, another list of 80 people was randomly picked from the same phone book, but nobody prayed for those people. After 90 days, members called both lists, all 160 people, and asked them if they would allow Christians to visit them to pray for them. Here’s the amazing result, only one person on the list that no one prayed for was prepared to allow Christians to visit. On the list that was prayed for, 69 of the 80 were prepared to allow Christians to visit. Coincidence? Hardly, simply a demonstration of the power of prayer.

Through the gift of prayer, we cooperate with God in bringing change to the world, change for the better, change in our lives and change in the lives of those around us. How can we learn to pray in such a way that releases God’s power? Jesus’ disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray. The answer that Jesus gave is commonly known as the Lord’s prayer. The Lord’s prayer begins this way. NLT Matthew 6:9 Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored. Prayer begins with praise,it begins with God, not your problem. Prayer has to do first of all with God, with His honor, with His will.

So today, our message topic is “Releasing The Power Of Praise.” There is great power released when we praise God, when we honor Him. Power is released through praise that can change things, make wrong things right and change people’s lives NLT Psalm 149:6 Let the praises of God be in their mouths, and a sharp sword in their hands— Here the combination of praise and spiritual warfare is seen together. Power to deal with the enemies of God is released in praise. Today, we’re going to look in greater detail at the prayer of King Jehoshaphat when faced with an overwhelming threat of a huge army poised to attack. We want to look at how a prayer of praise released God’s power to defeat the enemy. If you can learn to pray in the same way, your life will never be the same.

To hear more about this topic, listen to my June 5, 2005 message entitled Releasing The Power Of Praise

Experience Supernatural Change

God, Message / By Pastor Dan Walker / May 2, 2005

God loves diversity. He loves to see His creation change and grow. He loves to create things fresh and new. At the atomic level, God’s palette of 100 or so elements gives rise to a literally infinite number of possibilities and combinations, all with different properties and potential. The universe is filled with stars. A recent estimate of the number of stars visible to modern telescopes was just done. The number of visible stars was estimated at 70 sextillion, that’s 70 followed by 22 zeroes. Astronomers say there are more stars than grains of sand in all of Earth’s deserts and beaches. No two stars are alike, they are all different, they all have there own unique identity.

Take a look at creation. The world is filled with a huge array of animals, birds, fish and insects. To date, scientists have classified about 1½ million species of animal life, but they estimate that there are between 50 and 100 million species in the world. Science has hardly begun to scratch the surface of the diversity that God has created. People are unique as well. The world is now filled with 6.3 billion people. All of them created with their own unique divine design by God, no two alike, all having special gifts and abilities to serve God with.

Why did God create such a diverse and exciting universe? A universe that’s constantly expanding, constantly changing, constantly showing us new vistas to explore. I believe that God wanted life in this universe for His children to be an exciting adventure of walking with God as He shows us incredible things. NLT 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” But we know these things because God has revealed them to us by his Spirit. God has wonderful secrets He wants to reveal to you, secrets about Himself, secrets about His plan for your life, secrets about yourself. Can you imagine walking with the creator of this incredible universe hand in hand throughout life as He reveals more and more about Himself to you? Nothing could be more exciting.

However, the sad fact is that most people, even most believers, go through life in a boring, mechanical way, stuck in the rut of life, spinning their wheels. Worrying about whether they will have enough food, clothes and shelter. Going through the motions day after day, just trying to make it for themselves and their families.

God has so much more for you. He wants you to have your own needs met and for you to have enough to meet the needs of others. God doesn’t want you stuck in a rut doing the same things in your life day after day, month after month, year after year. God’s plan is for you to experience supernatural change in your life. God wants your life to be an exciting life, changing all the time as you grow and develop to become more and more like Jesus, impacting more and more people for Him.

To hear more about this topic, listen to my May 1, 2005 message entitled Experience Supernatural Change

Experience Supernatural Freedom

God, Message / By Pastor Dan Walker / April 25, 2005

A pastor decided to use a visual illustration to make a point in his message. He placed four earthworms into four separate jars. The first worm was put into a jar of alcohol. The second worm was put into a jar of cigarette smoke. The third worm was put into a jar of chocolate syrup. The fourth worm was put into a jar of good clean soil. At the conclusion of his message, the pastor reported the following results. The first worm in alcohol – dead. The second worm in cigarette smoke – dead. The third worm in chocolate syrup – dead. The fourth worm in good clean soil – alive. So the pastor asked the congregation “What can you learn from this demonstration?” A person in the back quickly raised their hand and said “As long as you drink, smoke and eat chocolate, you won’t have worms!” That was not the answer the pastor was expecting.

God created worms to live in a healthy environment of good clean soil and God created people to live in a healthy environment of freedom. Freedom to live a happy life of following God’s purpose. However, all too often people are making wrong choices in their lives, choosing environments and actions that are harmful and hurtful both to themselves and to their families. Many people in America today are choosing to be in bondage rather than to be free. They are choosing addictions like drinking, smoking, drugs, overeating, undereating, sexual addictions, pornography, excessive television, overspending, gambling, workaholism, internet addiction, sports addiction, anger, bad language and addictions to hurtful people, choosing bondage over freedom.

Since everybody seems to be addicted to or in bondage to something, it doesn’t seem so bad. The trouble is, addictions will ultimately kill you. An addiction is any habitual, systematic pattern of sin. Addictions put you under the influence of evil and God wants you to be free, truly free. Those who are in bondage to various addictions or habits need a supernatural miracle to be set free. NLT John 8:36 So if the Son sets you free, you will indeed be free. Jesus wants you to choose the door that leads to freedom and that door is Jesus. Only Jesus can truly set you free. What is ironic is that so many people today define freedom as the right to choose to be in bondage. True freedom comes only through Jesus.

If some of you think that you are truly free, that you’re not addicted to anything, that you have no habits that keep you in bondage, think again. The only person who was completely free from evil influences was Jesus. All of us have many bondages, many habits that keep us in prison, that keep us from fully realizing the freedom that God has for us. I want to ask three questions about freedom and find answers from God’s Word that will help us to live in the freedom that God has for us.

To hear more about this topic, listen to my April 24, 2005 message entitled Experience Supernatural Freedom

Experience Supernatural Peace

God, Message / By Pastor Dan Walker / April 20, 2005

In 2004, four successive hurricanes battered Florida, Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne. We could see them coming, but there was nothing we could do to stop the storms. People prepared their property, evacuated the area, then the storms came. They flooded blew buildings over and wreaked billions of dollars of damage. If you are trapped in the path of a violent storm, whether a hurricane or a tornado, it can be a dangerous and frightening experience, but sometimes storms uncover hidden treasures.

A wonderful treasure was discovered on the beaches of Florida after Hurricane Jeanne. Joel Ruth came across 180 near-mint-condition silver coins, Spanish pieces of eight worth more than $40,000. The coins were from a Spanish treasure fleet of about a dozen ships that were destroyed by a hurricane in 1715. Now, 289 years later, another hurricane momentarily uncovered a portion of this treasure that had washed ashore. It took a hurricane like Jeanne—a storm responsible for some of the worst destruction in recent history to Florida’s coast—to bring that slice of shoreline back to where it was nearly 300 years before. The storm exposed an impressive treasure to the one who went looking for it. Isn’t that like life? Oftentimes, storms are required to uncover hidden treasures, if we are willing to look.

Life is kind of like the weather. Sometimes our lives are full of pleasant sunny experiences. At other times, our lives can be cloudy and dreary and at times we all will face storms in our lives. Storms in our lives are times when the unexpected happens, when circumstances outside of our control buffet our lives, throwing things around. Storms in our lives can be caused by all kinds of things. A life storm might be problems in a relationship or the fracturing of a relationship through divorce or death. A life storm could be a major health problem. A life storm could be a job loss or a financial setback. A life storm could be a crisis in your relationship with God. Life storms are frightening just like physical storms and often there’s not much we can do to change them, we must just go through them.

A miracle is a supernatural manifestation of the power of God, it something outside the natural course of things. If you ever find yourself in the path of a hurricane, you are going to need a miracle of protection from God. And when you find yourself in the middle of a life storm, you are going to need a miracle from God to make it through the storm. When storms hit our lives we usually just want God to make them go away but that rarely happens immediately, we’ve got to go through them. And as we go through the fear and anxiety of life storms, God offers peace to us. NIV John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Jesus wants you to have peace as you go through the storms of life.

In the exact center of a hurricane is an unusual zone called the eye of the hurricane. The winds are calm in the eye of the hurricane, the temperature is moderate, there are no clouds, you can see straight up into the sky. It is a place of peace. God want you to find his peace in the eye of the hurricanes of life.

To hear more about this topic, listen to my April 17, 2005 message entitled Experience Supernatural Peace