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July 28, 2017

Can You Trust the Master Carpenter to Build Your Life?


God's dream for you is so much bigger than your dream for you. He has promised that as His child you can prosper and have good success ... in this life.

 

The Promise

In Zechariah 1:17 God declared something pretty powerful to His people. He said that the Lord will again comfort Zion (My people), and will again choose Jerusalem. He later went on to say that if they were careful to observe and obey His laws it would make their way prosperous and give them good success. This promise is also for you today.

 

The Challenge

You have chosen to believe that God's promises are true, or you probably wouldn’t be reading this, and yet sometimes in the midst of difficulties and challenges in life, you falter. You believe with all your heart but struggle to obey His commands. You sin. We all do. We all blow it. Sometimes, because we struggle with our flesh, we can lose confidence … linking our “performance” to God’s blessing. This opens a door for Satan to come in and do his best to discourage us. In Zechariah’s vision, these discouragements were presented in the following ways:

  1. The Spirit of Lack- This spirit is a mindset: "There's not enough. There's never enough." And that is not limited to finances. Lack can oppress you to the point that you cannot even look anyone in the eye or lift up your head.
  2. The Spirit of Limitation- This spirit sets a false ceiling over your head that keeps you from living life to the fullest. It’s a mindset sent to keep you from ever experiencing the next level of the dream that God has for you.
  3. The Hindering Spirit- You have broken through the spirit of lack and the spirit of limitation and you are moving forward and making progress but it is an uphill battle. The goal of this horn is discouragement and to make you hopeless.
  4. The Devouring Spirit- The goal of this horn is to rob you of your future in Christ by coming from behind and trying to steal what you've already won. Left unchecked, this spirit can keep you looking back and even convince you that you are defeated and will never get ahead.

 

The Solution

These 4 horns (nations) had so oppressed and discouraged God's people that they could not even lift up their heads. Ever felt like this? There is also good news for you. Zechariah 1:20-21 says, "Then the Lord showed me four carpenters. The angel stated, “These carpenters have come to terrify these nations and throw them down and destroy them.” The carpenters represent Jesus who was a carpenter's son. Joseph, his earthly father was a carpenter, and Jesus spent much of his earthly life working in a carpentry shop. A carpenter is one who builds or restores things. God's dream for you is so much bigger than your dream for yourself.

 

Our Hope- The Tools of the Carpenter

No carpenter builds anything of value without tools. The Carpenter has to build you up, and prosper you, and to place the Spirit of the Carpenter in you to empower you to do what God has called you to do. God has given you some very important tools to accomplish this:

  • Abundant resources- If you refuse to quit, if you won't give up, God will give you double for you trouble (see Job 42:10). God can make you an asset owner, a land possessor, a wise investor, and kingdom builder.
  • Key People- God will send key people into your life to help you break through limitation and achieve the dream.
  • The Power of the Tongue- If you will proclaim God's Word and his promises, God will break the back of failure in your life. Believe, Respond, and God will back it up!

"No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment You shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from Me," says the Lord (Isaiah 54:17).

 

What say you?

  1. What is holding you back from being all that God has called you to be?
  2. It has been said that the hardest time to do anything is the first time. The enemy wants to hold you back with a spirit of limitation. He doesn't want you to get beyond that first try. Are you willing to take the first step in response to the Carpenter's call and to experience the abundant life he has promised you?

 

Let's Talk

 

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