Pastor shares a message titled ‘Break Even or Break Through – Not just Having a Survival Mentality’
John 21:15-17
With all that is happening around the world many people have gone into ‘survival mode’. With all the uncertainties about health, finance, business, employment and society. Some people are thinking to themselves ‘I just hope I can hold on to the end.’
There are very legitimate concerns about whether a business will survive, legitimate concerns about employment and being able to support the family, buy food, pay the rent or mortgage.
Anxiety and fear about having the basic needs of food and shelter that people should not have to be concerned about. Challenging times for everyone to different degrees.
But in and through all this our covenant with God is not a covenant of survival or just getting by, it is a covenant of increase. Surviving is not God’s best for us. God’s best is more than enough, abundance and plenty.
This is not a message about financial prosperity but prosperity in every area of life which is God’s purpose for us. He wants us to prosper in our environment. God wants us to not just survive but to thrive.
There is a principle in scripture called ‘restoration’. It simply means that whatever has been lost, stolen or taken away must be brought back in greater quantity, quality or kind. New for old was God’s idea before ever any insurance company thought of it.
God wants us to declare restoration.
If we are not saying restore, crying out for restoration, then we have no expectancy. We are not thriving but just surviving. Too long we have stood by and watched the enemy, allowed the world to steal our joy, peace, marriages, money, identity, our children, our voice, our God given identity. God wants to restore those years and He is looking for a people who will cry Restore!, Restore!
Joel 2:23-24 there is a declaration to the people…rejoice in theLord your God, for He has given the early rain for your vindication; He has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before. “The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
Notice when God restores He uses words like abundant, full, overflow, plenty and satisfied.
Let us for a moment consider the life of Job, as a pattern for what God wants to bring His church into. Satan came to subtract everything God had added to Job and He does the same to us.
Most people think that the book of Job is a life time of suffering but nothing is further from the truth.
Job has an adult family before the attacks come and while there is genuine pain and loss for a season of time, it is only a season of time, it’s not Job’s entire life.
The apostle James gives us the right perspective on the reason God records the book of Job James 5:10-11 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
Satan has his intentions but God has His purposes. God’s purpose is that we live in His blessing, if we remain steadfast, if we endure.
Job’s life is not just about a life of suffering but about endurance in the midst of bad circumstances. And this is what God does for people who are consistent, patient, believing people.
We are not defined by our circumstances but refined by them.
The ultimate proof of God’s ‘desire’ to bring restoration is found in Christ Jesus. But He can only bring about fulfilment of His desire when we choose to cooperate with Him.
All of us need restoration because of a broken relationship with God, through sin in our lives.
Jesus is the only way we can know God and have our broken relationship with Him restored ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6
God uses Job as an example for you and me to be encouraged; that though the enemy has stolen from us for years. God wants to restore and bring increase in our lives.
Don’t just survive this season but thrive in it. Don’t be satisfied with breaking even but expect to break through because God promises restoration.