Oct 13, 2013

Overcoming Obstacles

Subtext: { Quoting from 1599 Genevia Bible}
Matthew 28:9 
 
" And as they went to tell his disciples, Behold Jesus also met them,
saying, God save you.."

The teaching which you are reading declares unto you how the Lord your God Jesus the Lord Messiah saves you in times of struggle.  You may be facing some obstacles today which you think you will never be able to overcome.   So did Moses and the people of Israel. 

At the end of the forty days they returned from spying out the land.  And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people 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.
And they told him, "We came to the land to which you sent us; it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.   Yet the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there.   The Amalekits dwell in the land of Negeb; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan."   But Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, "Let us go up at once, and occupy it; for we are well able to overcome it." 

Caleb had a way of looking at things through the eyes of faith instead of allowing fear to overcome him.  
Then 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."  So they brought the people of Israel an evil report of the land which they had spied out, saying, "The land, through which we have gone, to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature.  And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim): and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them."  Numbers 12: 26-33
When we focus on the obstacles that we see we remove our focus on the God who can remove those obstacles.     It reminds we of the story of Peter when he was walking on the water.  And Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water."  He said, "Come."  So Peter got out of the boat and walked  on the water and came to Jesus;  but when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord save me."   Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying unto him, "O man of little faith, why did you doubt?"  Matthew 14:28-31  
Peter saw what the wind was creating making the waves rush upon his feet and swell up high.   He took his eyes off Jesus and places them on the circumstances that were going on around him and he began to sink.  
In John 11:32-44 we see a woman who was facing an obstacle of death but she placed her faith in Jesus and she obtained her miracle. 


 Then Mary, when she came where Jesus was and saw him, fell at his feet, saying to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."   When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled; and he said, "Where have you laid him?"  They said to him, "Lord, come and see."  Jesus wept.  So the Jews said, " See how he loved him!"

 But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"   Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb;  it was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.  Jesus said, "Take away the stone."  Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days."  Jesus said to her,
" Did I not tell you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?"  


 So they took away the stone.  And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, 

"Father, I thank thee that thou has heard me.  I knew that thou hearest me always, but I have said this on account of the people standing by, that they may believe that thou didst send me."  When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice," Lazarus come out."


No matter what obstacle you are facing today if you call up on Jesus he will come and answer you and be your savior and deliverer that you need no matter what your situation looks like.