I was watching a Joyce Meyer sermon yesterday.  It was about faith.  What she had to say really spoke to my heart.  She started out by saying that God gave us 5,467 promises in scripture.  She said everyone may not be in agreement on the exact number, but the point is that there a lot of promises, but we don’t claim them.  We tend to claim the promise of salvation and forget the rest.  (That was paraphrased)  The rest will be direct quotes from my notes:

 “You need to get a decision that you ARE going to have the life that Jesus died to give you.  That you are not going to live some kind of low-level, no-nothing, do without everything, be miserable life all the time.   Where you go to church, go home, go to church and nothing in your life ever changes.  That’s what faith is.  Faith says, ‘Jesus provided it, I’m His child, He loves me, I’m going to trust Him for it, and I’m not going it to give up until I can see what He told me I can have come to pass in my life.”

 “We have to fight the fight of faith (1 Timothy 1:12).  If you refuse to give up, your time of breakthrough will come.  Stand firm to see the fullness of what God promises us.   Satan will test you, but nothing will upset him more than if you say, ‘I don’t care how long it takes, I’m not giving up’ “

Don’t just think God will give it to you if He wants you to have it.   No!!! You better press in.  You better ask.  You better resist the devil, and you better let the enemy know you are not going to quit, and you are not going to give up.” 

 That goes along with a series I'm watching on t.v. right now from Andrew Wommack called "Don't limit God" The key verse he uses for this series is Psalm 78:41 that says, “yes, again and again they tempted God, And LIMITED the Holy One of Israel.” 

If you read the whole chapter, that passages is talking all the good things God did for the Israelite’s. How he rescued them from Egypt, He took care of them, and He held back His anger from them, but in spite of everything God did for them, they repeatedly rebelled against God. So in verse 59 and 60 it says that God abhorred them and forsook them. God wanted good things for them, He wanted to lead them into the Promised Land, but they wouldn’t cooperate, they disobeyed and they didn't believe it when He said He wanted to take them to a land so rich it was flowing with milk and honey.. As we know, all of the older generation died in the wilderness except for Joshua and Caleb because they did have faith in God’s promises, and they were obedient. 

None of this is what God WANTED. He didn’t want them to die in the wilderness, but they limited God because they didn’t believe His promises. So they didn’t get to enter the “rest” as the Promised Land is called in Hebrews chapter 4. We also limit what God can do in our lives by not believing the promises God gave US. There are 5, 467 promises given to us in scripture, but we don't believe them, we don't have faith for them, so we don't get to possess them, just like the older generation Israelite's didn't get to possess the Promised Land. The younger generation had to first fight to rid the land from the giants before they could possess the land. We also have to fight to rid our lives of our "giants." before we can enter our "rest" or promises. Hebrews 4:2-3 NLT) says, "For this good news--that God has prepared this rest--has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good, because they didn't share the faith of those who listened to God. (3) For only we who believe can enter his rest....."

Anyway, I just wanted to share this, thanks for listening!