in looking at your life, have you ever felt like the odds are stack against you?
vegas is a town that is built on odds. the reality is that if you gamble the odds are stacked against you. all of the millions and millions of dollars that are spent in building all of those casinos are not being spent because they believe you will win. no, they are built because they know you will lose. the odds are against you.
have you ever had a day where you feel like everybody is ganging up on you? what do you do when you're facing insurmountable, overwhelming problems?
one of the names of GOD in the hebrew is JEHOVAH nissi which means “I am the GOD who defends you.” I am the GOD who protects you. literally, “I defend you when the odds are against you.”
one of the great examples of this is 2 chronicles 20, one of the great stories in the bible. the story goes that three enemy nations of israel decided to team up and go to war against israel at the same time. they were going to tag team israel into submission.
the king of israel at this time was a guy named jehoshaphat. you would think with the odds three to one this would be a story of defeat and devastation but in the end, jehoshaphat wins. he beats the odds because he did everything right.
it's a wonderful story that explains GOD’s protection over the nation of israel. but GOD doesn’t put these stories in the bible just to teach us history lessons. there are principles that are there for us to learn on how to handle overwhelming odds, how to handle when you’re in a battle of life.
some of you are in a financial battle. some of you are in a relationship battle. some of you are in a battle with a disease. these same principles apply to the battles of life you’re going to face this week even when it seems like there’s no way out, even when it seems like you’re going under for the last time. what do you do?
before you do anything else you go directly to GOD. you don’t pass “go”, you don’t “collect $200”. you go straight to GOD and say, “GOD, i am overwhelmed!” you ask, “GOD, what do you think about this situation?” and you try to get GOD’s perspective on the problem.
just a thought from the front porch…
2 comments:
Hi Pastor, thank you for the Front Porch! I have resently taken a job on the phones at a company, and we have to meet a quota to keep the job. There are eight people in this department and the phone system is set up to rotate to only four and then back again, only when all four in this group is on the phones simutanously do the others receive calls, yet we are still required to meet the quota. we have brought the situation up to the manager and he said he is aware of this but this is what the owners have done. so we work double time with stress wondering every day if we will keep our jobs since several people have been let go for not producing before us. I came up with this plan on a Friday to conspire with two other co-workers to help meet the quota for me and yet give them valuable leads for sales and they agreed. All through the weekend I was sooooo convicted so I repented for not trusting Him to take care of me in this situation, and that Sunday before returning to work on Monday, my Pastor turned to me and said you must bring the message this Sunday. I was not expecting this and so I asked God what He would have me say, two days went by and suddenly I could hear very clearly..."When the odds are against you." I had several scripture come to mind immediately and I also decided to google the phrase and was led to the Front Porch. a very compelling message of hope and steadfastness no matter what the situation. Today when I arrive to work my manager said he just has to let a few people go but before he would do this the owners wanted to see if a new idea would work, so the phones were reset and the group that received hardly any calls were switched out to receive all the calls first, and the numbers were reversed causing us to make our quotas with ease and the other team is now struggling like we were. Am I happy about their struggle..? no not really happy but it does feel good to be vindicated. but that's not why I'm writing...it's because even though I knew the odds were stacked against me, I choose to trust the Lord anyway believing Him to be the true possessor of Heaven and Earth and no matter what happens He would take care of me, through this job or another, it didn't matter, He's GOD! even when the odds are against us. I wanted to write and tell you thank you for helping me to express my thoughts even better for this Sunday's Message. It's amazing that my Daddy led me to this very place to see that you just preached the same Titled Message last Sunday. What a confirmation!
thank you so much for sharing that. GOD is so faithful and so good isn't HE? may this be a good day for you.
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