POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Let God Turn Inadequacy Into Adequate

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One day, two Kansas cows were standing at the edge of the pasture looking over the fence, watching a huge tanker milk truck come down the road. As it passed by, they read the signs on the side of the tanker that said, “MILK … Homogenized, Pasteurized, Grade A, Fortified with Vitamin D … Both Plain and Chocolate.” As it passed by, one cow turned to the other and said, “It makes one feel awfully inadequate, doesn’t it?”

The feeling of inadequacy in our lives sometimes can overpower us. We have with us the power of God which will make us feel adequate; God can give us the strength, the power, and the joy to press forward to victory in any goal we set for ourselves.

Allow me to turn to a passage of scripture where Jesus acknowledged the truth of His being. He had asked His disciples the question, “Who do men say that I am?” They gave Him many answers, and then He turned and said, “But who do you say that I am?”

Peter, who was the great spokesman for the twelve disciples, came back with the words, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.”

Jesus responded, “Blessed art thou Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father who is in heaven … “

In other words, it was a spiritual revelation.

If we are going to lift ourselves up to function at the highest possible level, we, too, must come into a spiritual realization of who we are. Sometimes, placing ourselves on this spiritual plane is a difficult task, because our five physical senses are looking out into our world, and perceiving all kinds of chaos, trial, tribulation – obstacles that seem to block the path to the higher good of God. The path to the highest good starts within, in prayer.

Some time ago, Sid Caesar was being interviewed about his early days in television.

The interviewer asked him, “What’s the funniest thing that ever happened to you?”

He told of a time when he had just come to television with his Show of Shows. It was one of the early extravaganzas of television that helped to build it into the great media that it is today. He reflected a moment, and then said, “I guess it was the time my little girl came home from school and said the children at school were talking about Sid Caesar and how funny the show was.

“My wife looked down at her and said, ‘I’m glad that you’re proud of your father.’

“My little girl looked up at me and said, ‘You’re Sid Caesar?'”

If we listened to Peter’s response to Jesus, we will agree with him about what he said about Jesus. Jesus was the Christ the son of the living God.

Jesus said things about us, which we have found hard to believe, “These things I do you shall do also and greater than these shall you do.”

So, when Jesus accepted for Himself Peter’s words, “You are the Christ,” He was making an identity that is valid for each of us.

A favorite passage in scripture is “Christ in you, your hope of glory.”

With God’s help, you can lift yourself above the reservations that you may hold about your potential. You can lift yourself above the human part of you and elevate your mind to a level of identity that allows you to feel the power of the Word of God about the creation.

I like to link the title “Christ” to God’s individual name for us as revealed in the Old Testament. It came out of the burning bush and was given to Moses. It was the time God gave Moses the assignment to go into Egypt and bring the children of Israel out. You know what Moses’ great response was: “WHO AM I to do this?”

Sometimes, that’s the way we all face life. We say, “WHO AM I to be able to handle this challenge or accomplish this goal?”

God said to Moses what God says to us, “I am always with you.”

Moses came back and asked, “By what authority can I tell the children of Israel that I have come to do this thing?”

God said to Moses: “Tell them I AM hath sent me unto you.”

He gave Moses the one name you have that no one else can claim; the one name I have that no one else can even speak for me; the great and holy name I AM. Then, God said, “I AM that I AM,” meaning “I am that I AM which is the name of what I am in you and WITH you.” When you use that name, you release everything that I AM.

Say with me: “Christ, I am – willing, available, and ready.”

Together: “Christ, I am – willing, available, and ready.”

We go to church every week, but what is the church? Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.”

Jesus responded, “Blessed are thou Simon. Flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And upon THIS ROCK I will build my church.”

Many people in the field of religious teachings see Peter as the rock, but that is not the foundation rock of which Jesus was speaking. The rock of which He was speaking was the answer that Peter gave: “You are the Christ.” And the church of which he spoke is not a physical edifice into which we enter to build our spirits and commune with each other in fellowship in the ideas of our spiritual teaching. It is the inner church of spiritual connectedness and knowing – a church not made with hands, and above human thinking.

If you want an exhilarating experience, to the degree I assure you will be transforming in your individual life, enter place of spiritual consciousness every morning when you arise, and ponder the reality of your Creator and your oneness as a child of God. Let the spiritual knowledge integrate itself, not only into your mind, but down deep into the depths of your soul where it takes over as an unconscious belief about yourself. The knowledge about who you really are cannot be given to you by human minister it has to be, as Jesus said, not from flesh and blood, but from God in heaven. You will then see the great transformation taking place in you.

Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Hell can be right here and now, when we move away from God, and dwell in worry, human anxiety and fear.

When you put God first and draw that power from prayer to your world, the gates of hell (the life filled with chaos, trial and tribulation) shall not prevail against you.

Following this statement, Jesus said, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom.”

Jesus said, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

These are the keys to the kingdom – the power to use the word in prayer.

Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount said, “In all things say ‘Yes, yes and no, no.'” Through the power of prayer, you can say “Yes!” to something or you can say “No” to it and release it spiritual power backing you up.

This old farmer had a mule and an old, dried-up well in the middle of his farmyard, barely covered with some fragments of board. One day, the old mule walked across it, the boards broke, and down to the bottom of the well he went.

The well was deep. The old farmer figured the old mule probably would not survive the fall anyway, so he decided, much to his own dismay, that the best way to handle the whole situation was to bury the old mule in the well and solve the problem of getting rid of the open well at the same time.

So he hauled in a cart-load of dirt and dumped it down into the well. But instead of lying there and being buried in the dirt, the old mule got up, shook himself off, and tromped the dirt under his feet. Soon he found himself just a few inches higher than he was before.

The farmer dumped down the second cartload of dirt, and the old mule again tromped the dirt under his feet, and he was then a little bit higher. Finally, many cartloads of dirt later, the old mule stepped out on safe and solid ground.

That’s what binding and loosing, elimination “no” prayer and positive affirmation “yes” prayer, is. Elimination prayer is shaking off the dirt that falls on you in this world, and positive affirmation prayer is tromping it under your feet and raising yourself up a little.

Those are the keys to the kingdom of heaven – heaven being the opposite of hell; heaven being movement into the total oneness with God, wherever you are.

The joy of knowing God’s Truth about yourself is so great, so complete. A little boy, 5 years old was in Sunday School it came time for the offering. He had his offering clutched in his little hand. The Sunday School teacher had all the children seated in a row in the classroom. She came down in front of them with the offering basket, and each child (one-by-one) put his or her offering into the basket.

Then she got to him, and he refused to put his offering into the basket. The teacher said, “Please put your offering into the basket.”

He said, “No!”

She asked him a second time and he said, “No!”

Finally she said, “That offering belongs to God.”

He looked her in the eye and said, “I’ll give it to God myself.”

The way you give yourself to God is to claim your oneness and let the power of the word of prayer infiltrate the whole of your being. Become one with God and become your prayer.

To be able to live in a spiritual consciousness of awareness of our oneness with God is very transformational. Then take the power of that awareness into your speaking of binding and loosing; taking hold of or letting go of the things of life that are not in agreement with the perfection of God.

I will close with a story of the young minister who was beginning in his first ministry. He had a church assigned to him up in the ranch country of Montana. This was to be his first Sunday in the pulpit. A blizzard hit the night before and was still raging on Sunday morning. The young man came up to the lectern on his church. As he stood behind the lectern and got ready to begin, he looked out at his congregation and he had one old, tough rancher sitting in the crowd – a crowd of one. He said, “You, sir, seem to be the only person here. I really don’t know what to do.”

The old rancher said, “Well, if I only had one cow in the corral, I sure would feed that cow.”

So the young minister lit into his sermon and he talked 10 minutes, then 20 minutes, then 35 minutes, then 50 minutes. It was over an hour now, and he was still going. Finally, he brought his talk to a fiery close and feeling rather proud of himself he leaned over the pulpit and said to the old rancher, “How was that?”

The old rancher said, “Well, if I went down to my corral and saw only one cow there, I sure would feed the cow, but I’d be darned if I would give him the whole barn full of hay.”

“Christ, I am – willing, available, and ready.”

Together: “Christ, I am – willing, available, and ready.”

Again: “Christ, I am – willing, available, and ready.”

Once more “Christ, I am – willing, available, and ready!”

You are equipped by God. You are more than adequate. God gives you all

that you need and will continually give to you all that you will need in the future.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION_______________________________

It is in the Holy moment of prayer that we come into the realization of God’s perfect life of each one of us in potential. May we now become fully aware of our true spiritual identity as a child of God. May we be given knowledge from on high about what we are heir to. May we now have our human minds empowered so that we can comprehend the incomprehensible. May we understand who we are and what part we play in God’s plan.

We rest our minds, our hearts, our bodies, and indeed all our circumstances of our lives in that perfect oneness of the wonderful presence of God.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

We feel the great sense of God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence.

In this moment of prayer, I am acutely aware of Your presence, and Your power touching my individual life. I release any tiredness within my brain and accept the renewing of God’s energy within my physical body. My soul is infilled with Your renewable power. I feel re-created by You my dear Creator.

Thank You, God, for the fullness of Thy Being expressing through me now, and for the joy of knowing that You are with me now.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Thank You, God, that I may lift up all the cares of my life into the light of Your Presence and release them there. We find all needed adjustments and we find the spirit of Thy spiritual success.

You now give over to God any need of healing, any need for peace, any desire for success and lets the joy of fulfillment pour through the soul and out into the world of expression.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Feel the joy! Feel the love! Feel the deep inner satisfaction that comes by knowing that life itself is adequate to supply all our needs and fulfill all our dreams, because our lives are each connected to our Creator.

Thank you God for Your ever-present help in my life and in the lives of my loved ones.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

I pray now for my loved ones and friends. I ask You dear God to watch over my loved ones and friends. Be with everyone in such a direct way that they cannot miss your guidance and help in their minds. Strengthen and renew their bodies with health. Renew and energize their motivation to do the right thing all the time. Bless their lives with Divine ideas and lasting abundance.

Thank you God for again answering my every prayer in most profound way.

In Jesus Christ’s name … Amen.

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