Pressing Forward, Fulfilling Destiny part II, 27th Jan 08

Hello people. I'm starting to take notes every Sunday, and I'm going to try typing out the sermons and post it up the blog. If u have any thoughts on the sermon, please let me know. There's nothing as interesting as discussing God's word.

Today's message is a continuation of last week's. The Bible verse for the sermon is taken from Hebrews 12:1-2. To the keypoints :

1) There're 3 points that Ps Suresh presented on: dealing, determination, dependency. Let's start with the 1st point- dealing.

2) Some examples were taken from last week's passage. We read from Numbers 13 that the Israeilites had to fight the giants to inherit the promised land. But instead of obeying God and putting their trust in him, they lost faith. They decided that it was better to turn around and return to Egypt, where they were slaves. They were filled were doubts, and their mindset and ultimately, thier choices, were clouded by doubts. They took it to themselves that God was not being fair to them, that it wasn't possible to claim the land from such a "strong" nation. They feared the giants, when the only one they should have feared is God.

God gave his word that He'd deliver the promised land to the Israelites if they followed his word. Of course, the task would not be easy, but victory was nonetheless guaranteed. In this scenario, it wasn't the giants who stood in their way, but the Israelites themselves. They refuse to deal with themselves; they relied on human logic to scrap off the plan of attacking and claiming the land. It's not wrong to use our wisdom to come up with a decision, but when used to disobey God's command, it's a sin. It was a sin the Israelites did not listen to God. In the end, only the tribes led by Caleb and Joshua inherited the land. We have to learn to deal with ourselves; what is stopping us from growing? Is it the constant external pressure that is taking place within us, or is it merely the internal struggle that we're coping with? Pray to God that He'd give us strength to overcome our internal struggles, to lift off these hindrances which are preventing us from progressing, so that we can serve God with a faithful heart.

3) Determination. Lay aside any selfish, sinful desires so that we wouldn't be ensnared. If we're fuelled by desires, but not by a pure, genuine purpose of serving God, to reach a goal, we would fall into the devil's trap. For example, a mouse scurries along with desire of reaching a bait. It reaches the food, but falls into the trap instead of tasting sweet victory. Let's position ourselves to serve God.

4) The third point is simple to understand but difficult to apply. In everything we do, depend on God for the results. There's so much we can do, the rest, we have to leave to God.

That's all I could jot down. Hope it helps.
-TR