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God doesn't expect us to have the resources or the know-how to do His work. Do you know what He expects from us? He just expects us to take the next step. All He wants is for us to spend time with Him, to pray and find out what He wants us to do next. He'll always reveal to you the next step to take. He may not show you any more than that, but you can be sure He will tell you the next step.

I like to compare it to walking on water as Peter did in Matthew 14. You know, walking on water is an impossible thing to do! Peter had absolutely no ability to do it. Yet, Jesus said to him simply, "Come," and Peter jumped over the side of that boat and started walking. When he did, sure enough, the power of the word of Jesus took hold of him and held him up.

But then something happened. Verse 30 says, "But when he [Peter] saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, 'Lord, save me.'"

Take note of that. Peter was walking on the water just fine until he took his eyes away from Jesus and started looking somewhere else. He started looking at the size of the waves. He started looking at the circumstance; and, he started to sink.

Every failure you've ever had in your Christian life has come exactly that way. It has come because you've quit looking at who called you and quit trusting in His Word and started focusing on the problems around you instead.

That is what stops the people of God. It's not the lack of God's power. It's not that He is unwilling to move and do supernatural things on our behalf. What stops us is our taking our attention off Jesus and putting it on our circumstances.

"Oh, but Gloria," you may say, "You don't understand how really bad my circumstances are." It doesn't matter how bad they are! For years the apostle Paul was faced with the worst circumstances you could imagine. He was imprisoned, beaten, shipwrecked and abused in almost every way imaginable for preaching the Gospel. But those things didn't stop him. At the end of his life he was able to say, "I have finished my course."

Paul fulfilled an impossible call in the midst of impossible circumstances. How did he do it? He tells us in Philippians 3:13-14: "This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

Paul had his eye on the prize. He was looking ahead. He wasn't looking at today. He wasn't looking at his problems. Paul focused his eyes on Jesus and on the goal Jesus had set before him. That focus carried him through in triumph.

The same thing is true for us today which was true for Paul. If we're going to do the impossible, there's only one way to do it - by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the one who is Lord over this universe.

One thing you need to be aware of, however, is this: It's not always the problems of this life that distract us. Sometimes it's the pleasures. Sometimes we just allow the natural things of living to draw us off course. If you're going to run your race effectively, you'll have to lay aside some things. Hebrews 12:1 says, "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us."

Weights and sin are not the same thing. Most of us are willing to lay aside sin. But we're reluctant to let go of those "harmless" things that just weigh us down. Things which occupy the time we need to be spending in prayer and the Word, for example. Things that hold us down and keep us in the natural realm instead of allowing us to soar in the spirit.

Weights like that won't just go away by themselves. They have to be purposely laid aside. God won't lay them aside for you. You have to do it.

It's not easy to finish your course. It is easier to fall by the wayside—to let some distracting circumstance or some lying devil talk you into giving up by making you feel inadequate and alone. If that has happened to you, let me tell you something today. In yourself, you are inadequate. But you're not alone! That makes all the difference.

When God spoke to the faith heroes in the Old Testament—men like Moses and Joshua—He would always say, "Don't be afraid, for I am with you. It doesn't really matter who you are. It is Who is with you that counts!"

God didn't expect Joshua to be able to knock over the walls of Jericho with his own strength. Those walls were going to come down supernaturally. All Joshua had to do was trust God and take the next step. God told Joshua, "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goes" (Josh. 1:9).

He's saying the same thing to you today: "Don't be afraid. Be strong. Be courageous, for I am with you!" That's the thing we have to remember. God is in us. He is with us.

If God has given you an impossible assignment, don't worry about it. He knows exactly how to complete it. And He intends to complete it through you. It's the Anointed One in you who is going to do the work. It's the Spirit of God who will bring those impossible things to pass. All you have to do is take the next step.

Of course, you will have to do some things to find out what that next step is. You'll have to spend time in the Word, time praying in the spirit, time listening for and expecting to hear His direction. But don't expect Him to give you 10 steps at one time. He rarely does. He just tells you what you can do today.

The secret is to be trusting and simple, to come as a little child before the Lord and hear from Him every day. Don't try to figure out all the things you need to do and how to do them. Just listen day by day, take one step at a time, and you will come to the place where God wants you to be. You will finish your race.

In the meantime, don't be weighed down with the need to get everything done right now. Don't struggle along, trying to hurry up the process. Learn to obey and, day by day, let God get it done on His schedule.

Kenneth Hagin prophesied not too long ago that days of preparation are never wasted days. So if you feel as if you haven't arrived yet, relax. You haven't arrived yet! But if you're out there walking on the water with your eyes on Jesus, taking one step at a time, you're well on your way.

Excerpt permission granted by
Eagle Mountain International Church, Inc.
aka:  Kenneth Copeland Ministries

Author Biography

Gloria Copeland
Web site: Kenneth Copeland Ministries
 
For the last 50 years Kenneth and Gloria Copeland have been passionately teaching Christians all over the world how to apply the principles of faith found in God's WORD to their lives.
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