Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): Thanks for tuning in to join us for today's Power Walk Ministries broadcast. Endurance for a time like this, that's our current series taught by Reverend Paul Cannings. It's so easy to fret and worry over finances, health issues, even community or news events. Taking us back to scripture and Israel's history of living under Babylonian captivity, Dr. Cannings challenges us to pursue our walk with God relentlessly in order to finish this race well. Let's listen now as he brings us the message, Enduring Our Faith.

Dr. Paul Cannings: Have you ever felt overwhelmed? Overwhelmed of a loved one who's passed, or a father and mother who you've lost? It could be just overwhelmed from job loss, and overwhelmed from sickness in the family, and managing, trying to trust the Lord in the midst of all of this, dealing with fear and anxiety and uncertainty that is taking place. All of those things can lead to someone being overwhelmed.

But sometimes life just makes people overwhelmed. I never forget standing in the grocery store, Walmart, and the cashier got into a conversation. I don't know how the conversation led to kids going to college. My wife and I had kids in college at the time. She had a kid in college, and she was just saying, "Oh, when he graduates, I'm going to change the lock on the door." I don't think she meant it, but maybe she did.

She was just saying, "Hey, my check is just gone. I'm working overtime. I'm trying to make sure he finishes school, and my daughter's a senior now, so she's got all the senior stuff going on and I'm trying to keep up with that while I'm working these long hours. As a single parent, the minute she gets a check, she's trying to do this and that. I can't even buy anything for myself. I'm just constantly doing these things as I work." Just the fact that she had this going on in her life when the kids were at that age, and she was obviously deeply committed to them, she felt overwhelmed.

I remember wanting to just stop and just pray with her, but there was a long line and all that stuff. So I walked away and I said, "I can still pray for her." I walked away and prayed for her because I could sense she was overwhelmed. We've been studying this issue of endurance, and many times we feel overwhelmed in our society where there's washers and dryers and there are cars that you press buttons and they turn on and the windows don't need to turn them down. We feel overwhelmed with that.

Could you imagine in the times of Paul and the times of Moses and the times of Joshua? Two million people crossing a Jordan, dealing with giants with double built-up walls, and talking about a trumpet and walking around a city blowing a trumpet? What are you dealing with here? Could you imagine being in a wilderness and people are dying every day? For people 20 years and above to die in a congregation or a city or a nation of two million people, that's a lot of deaths. Moses is sending his wife back to her dad. He has no time for his family. Overwhelmed.

Could you imagine Mary and Martha's situation when they're trying to prepare a meal for Jesus? That had to be a fascinating, wonderful thing, but in their day, they're killing the chicken or taking care of the sheep. You're going from scratch, not like you're going and picking up some stuff at Walmart or going to pick up some stuff at that grocery store or do this or do that. No, it's from scratch-scratch. In the midst of all of this, your sister chooses to take a break and go in here and spend time with Jesus. Turning the stove on is not turning the gas on, it's really getting a stove going.

Could you imagine the time and the effort that has to be put into getting this meal done? I actually learned this not in the major city of Africa, but in the countryside of Africa. We were doing missions, and I remember being in a setting where we ordered our food and some of the missionaries with me were going, "Man, it's been like an hour." I said, "Yeah, because you're thinking of this food coming in the way it is in America." We had to learn to order food ahead of time and pay for it so they know we're definitely coming so that when we get there, we have food, not as long as sitting there waiting for as long as we did.

When you start to put those dynamics to what they're dealing with in the New Testament, sometimes life is overwhelming for us, but could you imagine when we're talking about dealing with life when it's overwhelming in their day? A whole different perspective pops up. In the midst of they don't have a hospital system like we have, when the average lifespan is 45 years, that's it. Could you imagine what is taking place? Cities of leprosy, not hospitals of leprosy.

When we come to our endurance situations, we have to take in perspective what is their life like when it's overwhelming. That's what we're dealing with with this new word we're looking at today. The word for endurance, it has to do with bearing up under a lot of pressure. It's not bearing up with the pressure from the inside, which is what we dealt with yesterday and how the inside, the stresses of it, the emotions of it, the depression that can come from it, the anxiety that can rise from it while we are trying to do different things.

As we would see, Moses is standing there and he's talking great in front of the people. He's going to put the stick over the Red Sea and it's going to open up, but then a few verses later, it says, "Moses, why are you crying?" There was a lot of uncertainty and these people are screaming at him, so he had a moment where he was crying out to God and pleading with God. That was an inner thing that took place when he's enduring this process of dealing with fussing, griping, complaining people who have been in slavery and should be excited to get out with all the miracles they see God do prior to coming to the Red Sea. But no, they're complaining and fussing and arguing.

When we get to this point where it's outside of us and it's overwhelming, the mindset he's telling us to have is where we find in 2 Thessalonians chapter one, verse four. These are the principles I would like for us to bear in mind as we focus today. What is he saying here in 2 Thessalonians? He's saying these three things we need to pay attention to. He says in verse four, "So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure."

What can be missed in the English is how this is broken out. The first thing we're looking at here is the patience and faith. The thing that is in this verse that we could miss is the fact that it enlarged their faith. What does it mean it enlarged their faith? Many times when we're challenged, you see this when David would say, "I killed a lion, I killed a bear, I'm now going to kill Goliath." His faith became enlarged.

It's what Christ would do when he comes to them on the water and he says, "Peace be still." When he says, "Peace be still," the winds and the waves obey his voice and they go, "What kind of a man is this?" But when you jump from Matthew 8 to Matthew 14, Jesus Christ is walking on the water. Peter comes off the boat and he begins to sink. Christ picks him up, puts him back in the boat, and then he says, "He is the son of God."

In other words, their faith went from what kind of man is this to he is the son of God. The same thing with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The disciples say, "Oh, no, you're not going to die, you're not going to die." "Yes, I am." Peter says blankety-blank, "This is not working out." He goes and hides. "Peter, do you love me?" "Yes." When he goes to the temple and the people are trying to kill him, Peter stands strong. Why? Because his faith was enlarged.

God has a way of causing us to experience him at the level of his ability, well, get a glimpse of more and more of God's ability as we progress forward in our walk with God when we are willing to come to those situations, study what his word is saying. We already dealt with faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. When we take that word of God that we now have and we apply it to situations that we are dealing with, we put our faith to work, so faith works.

As we keep applying God's word to the different situations that God brings us through, we start to get a whole different perspective of who God is. This is constantly repeated in scripture. It's kind of like a person who has a phone, and the more they play with the phone is the more they learn the ability of the phone other than just making a phone call. The Bible is saying this is what God wants to do for us. They don't want to go into the promised land because the giants are too large, as if God is small or something.

But God never makes the giants go away and they're shorter people when they come back 40 years later. No, these giants are still tall and still massive in their ability at war. The walls are still double-reinforced. So when you're looking at the wall, when you're looking at the giant, the situation is the same. Then God makes the Jordan flood stage. So here you go with another issue to deal with. Their scope of God now gets bigger and bigger and their faith in God is enlarged.

When we bear up under, but we apply the word of God to all the different issues we're dealing with and we don't just come to it with our feelings, with our own understanding, with all of our past experiences and calling that wisdom, we come to it with a commitment to God. What is your word saying? There are four things I tend to try to make a part of my life when I face these situations. One, I'm going to get a prayer life going even more. Secondly, I'm going to search the word of God, that's my devotions. Whatever I'm dealing with is now my devotions.

Third, I'm going to find people that I can get godly advice from. Fourth, I'm going to make a decision based on all of those situations. I'm going to make a decision to the best of my ability and trust God to make me go through it productively. As he teaches me, I adjust. I don't go into it, well, I know what God wants me to do, this is the way it is. No, the Bible says a man may decide in his heart what God wants to do, but God will guide his steps.

We still have to stay flexible. We still have to keep our minds open. Even though we have decided, we continue to allow ourselves to have the room in our lives to adjust so we grow in our faith. The Bible says when that takes place, we're learning how to deal with the bearing up pressure that comes in life to make it become no pressure at all. You start looking at people in the Bible. Abraham picked up a knife, no pressure at all.

My giant in terms of human beings in the Bible, Paul would say, "I'm broke, but I've been both places. I've learned to be content, and I can still do all things through Christ who strengthens me." I'm anxious about nothing because the pressure on the inside, the development of the Holy Spirit, the powerful movement of the Holy Spirit becomes so strong inside of us that the pressure on the outside is not pressure at all. That's how endurance makes us stronger. When we don't run from the pressure on the outside, we develop a skill set based on the word of God to see God powerfully move for us so our trust in him becomes stronger and we experience God more powerfully. Stay focused.

Guest (Male): Yes, it is, Pastor Cannings. Everything here is temporal, and as believers, we can take the challenge today to be continually productive for God's glory and share his love with those around us. To learn more about Power Walk, I want to encourage you to visit us at powerwalkministries.org. That's powerwalkministries.org. You're welcome to call us as well at 281-260-7402. That's 281-260-7402.

I am so excited about the pastors' conference coming up April the 23rd through the 25th. You cannot miss it. There's going to be such a great group of teachers teaching, well-trained, well-prepared, practicing what they're teaching in their local churches. Here are some examples: pastor and deacons functioning under the lordship of Christ, the biblical approach to resolving conflict in the church, traits of successful leaders, effective teaching methods for children, social media and how you could make it very positive for your children, developing a counseling ministry, dealing with mental health issues in the local church, marketing, moving from traditional ministry to bibliocentric ministry, how do you grow the church through evangelism.

You cannot miss this conference April the 23rd through the 25th, 2026, at 7350 TC Jester Boulevard right here at Living Word Fellowship Church. I pray you'll go to powerwalkministries.org, powerwalkministries.org. Be a part of this, you will not be disappointed. April the 23rd through the 25th, look forward to seeing you. And now remember, like Paul, we too can allow God to refine us as pure gold and increase our faith day by day. So let's trust in and rely on God to help us each step of the way.