Power to Succeed Pt.7

In Romans 8:28, the Word says: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” This is the source of our power to succeed in hard times – all things work together for our good. Every challenge is an opportunity. The bigger the challenge is then the bigger the reward. Everything the enemy mounts up against us works for us. Our challenges work for us as we obey God all the way through.

You will not be disappointed or ashamed by going with God and His hope. You should be expecting how God will get you out your situation. You compound your problem when you try to go with your own selfish ambitions. God upfront has already proved to us that it is going to work out for us because He has poured out His love in our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:31-32).

God richly gives us all things so that we can enjoy it. This is about relationship, not religion. A relationship with God is not about having a slave mentality. If you think that you have to get something from God, then you are in the slave category. When you understand that you have a right to everything that God has then you are in the children category.

Remember, God is on your side. He did not spare His Son at the very beginning before you ever thought about Him. He gave His very best upfront. The enemy came to steal, kill and destroy, but God came to give us life and to give it more abundantly (John 10:10). God cannot do anything to you as His child but good. He proved that by pouring out His wrath on His own Son. God is on your side. He chose to be with you.

Hope allows us to see things that cannot be seen (Romans 8:24-25). If you hope for things that are seen, that’s not real hope. If you hope for things that aren’t seen, you will with patience and endurance wait for them. Hope also gives you the power of endurance – this means that you are able to make it. You win. The world cannot control you by the things you hear, see and feel because you can see something beyond it. You can see the true God and His Word beyond what is heard, seen and felt. More importantly, with that hope that sees things that cannot be seen, you will have the endurance to make it.

How do you use this power? Hope allows you to hear the Word of God like never before. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). Faith doesn’t come by reading, fasting, praying, etc. Those things should be done, but faith only comes by hearing because God designed it that way. The primary means by which God reaches people is by hearing, which means someone has to be speaking. To increase your faith, you need to hear the Word on a regular basis. You need to have a steady diet of the Word in your life. You are spirit. You wouldn’t starve your body, so why would you starve your spirit?

In hard times, you have to pay the cost. You have to exert energy to hear the Word. You have to block out every distraction in order to hear the Word. You also have to guard the Word that you have already heard because the enemy will come to immediately steal it. If you are going to get the Word, you have to be a worshiper. You also have to honor the one who delivers you the Word. Otherwise, the Word you get will be diminished in your estimation.

Hope gives us the power to hear, give, obey, praise and pray like never before. If you cannot take the power of hope in this message and begin to hear, give, obey, praise and pray like never before, then you aren’t in a hard spot. If you are in a hard spot, then you will do something with the power of hope. You must know that God is yours because He gave himself to you (Psalm 146:5). God is faithful. He is a covenant-keeping God. He cannot change. He is our hope.

Hope in God will allow you to hear the Word like never before. Everyone’s problem comes from disobeying the Word. Hope and expectation in God will give you the sight and endurance to obey God like never before. Every word of God is good for His children. If you hear God’s Word and do it, then when the storm comes by you won’t feel it (Luke 6:46). If you don’t do it, when the storm comes your house will fall. If you really want to get power in your life, then answer the question asked in Luke 6:46.


















































































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Power to Succeed Pt.6

Faith makes the impossible possible. But without hope, you won’t have faith. We began this series with the reminder that every challenge is an opportunity. God backs up His promise with the confirmation that this hope (faith) will not let you down or embarrass you. We found in Romans 8:31, 32 that God is on our side. With that declaration, we know that God has already given us His best when we were born again. At day one of salvation, we started out with the highest gift of all! The first thing we established in hope is that you can see the promise of God. You have a different set of vision receptors that operate through the spirit. Spiritually, you can do all sorts of things that your body can’t do. The second thing we found out about is hope is that it gives us the endurance to make it. Failure is not an option. The enemy can’t defeat you; he just seduces you to throw in the towel. Hope manifests itself as zeal. Nothing by any means can stop you. Everything meant to take you out will work for you.

For the first part of this series we talked about the premise of hope. Now we’ll switch gears to learn how this hope will allow you to succeed, hear, obey, pray, give, and praise like you’ve never done before!

Our new foundation Scriptures:
Psalm 146:5 –“Happy” is not an emotional state in this text. The “God of Jacob” term calls upon God’s character, a covenant term defining God as helper and our expectation.
Hebrews 10:23 – grab on and don’t let go! You do not receive back what you sow. Expect a bountiful return.

1. Hope in God allows you to hear the Word like never before. The reason this is so important is because everything God has ever done started with hearing the Word. We live by every single Word of God. Too many Christians live by their favorite words of God. The worst case is that people have some of the Word and go without the rest of it. It’s better that to have heard all or none of the Word.

Romans 10:17 – Everything you believe you first heard. Faith in God won’t come by reading, praying, fasting, or by someone laying hands on you. Faith comes by hearing. You feed your face on the daily; feed your faith!
1 John 5:4 – Faith can only bring to pass what you hope (expect) for.

2. Now you know why you must treasure (prize) hearing God’s Word.
Luke 10:38-42

You must exert energy to hear the Word. You’ve got to tune out all the distractions around you. You’d arrange your whole life around getting the Word. Luke 5:5.

You must protect God’s Word you hear. Mark 4:15.

You must honor the one who delivers the Word to you.












































































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Power to Succeed Pt.5

The power to succeed in hard times is hope. Without hope, faith is useless. Hope drives faith, and faith changes everything. Satan is attempting to strip people of their hope in order to knock out their faith. Every challenge is an opportunity for promotion. When you are at your end, you stand at the threshold of an opportunity. Impossibilities are opportunities to show how what can’t be done can be done.

God’s Word is the source of hope. Everything works together for the good of those who obey God (Romans 8:28). The promise of “all things work together” is backed up by God’s statement that the hope will not disappoint. Hope does not disappoint because the love of God was poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5).

God is on our side, so no one can beat us (Romans 8:31-32). God already gave us His best when we were born again. This hope will not leave you embarrassed. God chose to be on our side. He says that He is for us. We received the impossible up front because the Righteous died for us. How, then, will God not also freely give us all things? In hard times, we ought to look for how God will work it out.

Hope gives us supernatural power. It comes from the power that God used to raise Jesus from the dead. Hope enables us to do things supernaturally that we could not otherwise do.

The power of hope is that you can see things that are not there (2 Corinthians 4:17-18). Hope changes the way you see. You see with the spirit. The things that we see in the natural are meant to block us. The way we get around this is looking at what we can’t see. You will go down looking at what you can see – it is an illusion to keep you trapped.

Hope also gives us the endurance to make it (1 Thessalonians 1:2-3). The enemy seduces people to quit. We have to chain him up. We have dominion. We have to partake of our inheritance. We don’t have endurance in and of ourselves, but God gives us hope. The only way we don’t make it is if we give up. We shouldn’t call it over until we win (Galatians 6:9).

To love God, you can’t sit at home – you have to do what He commands (Hebrews 10:36). Without hope there is nothing for faith to give substance to (Hebrews 11:1). If we are fully persuaded, we talk of what we know (Hebrews 11:8, 11-14). Jesus’ joy was seeing what He could not see (Hebrews 11:2).

The power of hope enables you to obey God out of your situation. While you are obeying, God has already done something. All things work together for your good while you are obeying God. When you obey God, you aren’t doing it, God is. Grace gives us the power to obey. God makes the way of escape – don’t fight Him, obey Him (1 Corinthians 10:13). The promises of God are not a menu, they are an inheritance.

Salvation is for hope (1 Thessalonians 5:7-8). This will guard your thoughts from facts. It will protect you and will give you the endurance to make it out, and you will be rewarded. We faint in our minds – this hope will keep us from the seduction to give up.

Paul learned in difficult times that he could more than make it with Christ who makes him who he is – this is the power of hard times (Philippians 4:11-13). The key is being with the one who makes us who we are. We are not alone.

We live in the presence of God. To remind ourselves that we are not alone is to live in the presence of God. God knows what you expect by the name you choose to call Him, i.e. Wonderful, Emmanuel, the Counselor, the Everlasting Father, the Might God, the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, the Alpha and Omega, etc.

The power of hope is to learn that you will more than make it!



























































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Power to Succeed Pt.4

Most of what God equips us with operates in adversity. You don’t need help when everything is going well. “Salvation” (from the Greek translation means deliverance, healing, preservation) is about God’s provision to you to overcome anything that comes against you. In the face of hard times all around, the Spirit of God reminds us in Romans 8:28 that all things work together for good to a specific group of people; those who are called and answer, and that love and obey God. This is an inclusive call of hope to everyone no matter what you’re facing. As a child of God, you need to know that with God you won’t be embarrassed, and you will learn to see every challenge in life as an opportunity (Romans 5:5). When you come to the end of your situation – whatever it is – count it all joy knowing that all things will work together for your good. Only you can define what “all things” are.

Last week, we left off understanding that God’s hope changes the way a person sees (Romans 8:24, 25). You can never allow your or anyone else’s experiences determine what your hope could or should be. Unfortunately family members stop potential and dreams through misplaced fear, just because they haven’t seen it accomplished before. God will not do what eye has seen or ear has heard so stop looking in the possibility bucket! The God-type of hope is NOT seen. If the power has been ignited, then you won’t see your seed. It’s been planted. Farmers don’t plant seed and dig it up to see if it’s working! (2 Corinthians 4:17, 18; 11). Paul’s “light affliction” included beatings, prison, shipwrecks, and abandonment, all of which he wrote off as temporary. Think of how bad Joseph had it! He was beaten, sold into slavery by his own brothers, and thrown into prison. Yet, he rose to run all of Egypt. It was all part of God’s plan. Who cares what people think of your situation? What Paul and Joseph went through pales in comparison to just about anything you’re going through.

Hope gives you the endurance to make it. Not to go 10 miles and give up short of the finish line. When you think endurance, think power; the ability to go all the way to the finish line (Romans 8:25). Why are you looking longingly at superficial things when you have the power to see what others can’t see? No one can waive something at you to drain your power! The control and power are in your hands.

1 Thessalonians 1:2-3; Hebrews 12:2 – your hope is Christ, a living hope. Look at Jesus through the Word as our example of endurance.
































































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