Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us for the Power Walk Ministries broadcast. Today and for the rest of the week, Reverend Cannings continues on the teaching series, "Endurance for a Time Like This."

How did Peter and some of the disciples give up everything to follow Christ? They thought about the mission first and the money later. So how do we approach our service for God? Is our life all about him with little consideration for ourselves? Yet we have to work in order to live. So how do we make a living yet keep the focus on God?

Breaking this down for us from Scripture, here's Reverend Cannings now with part two of the message, "Not Bread Alone." Dr. Cannings.

Dr. Paul Cannings: God has taken me on a journey for many years and I can't tell you folks that I've got this journey down. But it's a journey that has kept me on my knees. Sometimes I go to God and I say, "God, why do I want to get into my prayer life where I'm not more intense when things are tense? I'm always intense because things are never sure unless you give the green light about anything."

I'm not there yet. This journey is taking me through the toughest times in ministry as God has always taught me, "don't look at the money first." It's been difficult to communicate that, to teach that because of where he started me in ministry. He taught me in ministry that if you always think of money first, you never do ministry.

The person that rings that home for me as I study this process throughout the years, and I'm still discovering more and more each day, the person that brought that home for me is Peter. In Matthew 19, they said, "God, we've left everything to follow you. Everything. We've got nothing." Remember, Peter dropped everything at the best fishing day of his life and walked with Christ.

He had a home he had to take care of while he's on the road with Christ, following him, literally following him. Christ is ahead of them and they're walking behind him. He said, "We left everything to follow you." Then the whole story about the rich young man. He says, "But look at us Christ, we left everything. What do you have for us?" Christ explained to them what he has for them and how mighty it's going to be, how they're going to lead, and how they're going to have a great representation in the kingdom of God.

He comes to his ministry and says, "Silver and gold have I none." Paul would tell us in his journey the same thing he comes to. "I counted all loss for the sake of the cross." Where does the folk of Philippi find him? Broke. "I've learned to have plenty, learned to go without. But I learned one thing: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me because I've learned to be content."

This passage that is our base passage for this week: "Abide in me." Now, God, I've got a job. I've got kids. I've got to provide for them. "Abide in me and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can he except ye abide in me." He went on to say, "Without me, you in the long run achieve nothing." Nothing in heaven. Kids grow up, have families of their own. We didn't invest in them. Nothing. Marriage, nothing.

So that's our base text to remind us of this journey. What is your focus? Have you lost focus? Why are we going to church in the manner in which we do? When we come to this situation that these great men of God came to and did great ministry things, they accomplished some awesome things. This man wrote half the New Testament, and some of the books he wrote in house arrest, being threatened to be killed when he said, "be anxious for nothing."

Come on Paul, they're talking about killing you. "Be anxious for nothing." Are you serious, Paul? "Whatever is good, whatever is right, whatever is lovely, fix your mind on those things." God became food that Paul lived on and it kept him to be strong. His work continues now. It didn't come to nothing. We're still reading it on earth and in heaven. What a soldier. He said, "I fought a good fight, I've finished the course. Laid up for me is a crown of righteousness." He's going for glory.

Folks, that's why in this journey God has taught me when I look at these great men of God. When I look at Moses walking in with a stick to deliver two million people. They've got to cross a Red Sea that God put at a flood stage with the most powerful military behind them. What does he do then? He didn't tell him, "Well, Moses, when that happens, the Shekinah glory of God is going to come down and stop this." No, he didn't say that to Moses before it happened. Moses is standing there with a stick.

God has taught me when we come to this point in life, passages like Luke chapter 12. We looked at John chapter 6 yesterday, but in Luke chapter 12, let us work our way through that. He says in verse 22, and he said unto the disciples, "Therefore I say unto you, take no thought of your life what ye shall eat, neither for your body what ye shall put on." Don't let that become every thought pattern of your life. Don't let that become what you think about all day long.

Because that is not your life. It's here today and it's gone tomorrow. There's no guarantee you would even be here tomorrow. None. He says, "Stop focusing on how I'm eating and how I'm drinking." And I'm still going to drop into this from time to time: "If a man shall not work, he shall not eat." He's not saying that a man shouldn't work. He's just saying that shouldn't be his work to work in order to eat.

A man should work because God is counting him responsible for taking care of, in their culture and their structure and agrarian society, the man's got to go plow the fields for something to grow. A man has to go out there and take care of sheep for the sheep to be able to give wool and to become lamb chops. A man has to cut it up. He has to kill the sheep. He has to follow the Levitical system and he goes to the temple. That calls for sacrifice of work.

You just don't go to follow the Levitical system and show up at the temple like Cain did. That's not going to be pleasing to God. Because worship is not just going and jumping around and praising God like we do today. Worship in their day is a gift to God. That's worship. That's why it's called worship. It's worth-ship. Your value to me in how my field grew, how my flock multiplied, how my kids were taken care of, and you kept us through the night.

We are here by your grace. So when we get old, do we know you did us a favor? So we are going to church wanting to bless you for keeping us. Bless you for letting this crop go so I could feed my family. Bless you for letting the animals multiply. We can't make them have babies. You have to be the one who multiply our flock. So God, we understand your value, so when we walk into worship, we bless you. Because we don't make it without you.

So a man must work to eat because he's working for this focus. But he's not working to work just to work so he can eat. Because he says this again in verse 23: "The life is more than meat and the body more than raiment. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap. And God feedeth them. How much more are ye better than the fowls? Which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit?" Could you decide whether or not you could be 6'6"? It's predetermined.

If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? You can't determine any of these things. That's what he said to Job. "Job, okay, where were you when I gave the horse courage? Where were you?" In other words, Job, even though you have walked with me, I chose to do those things for you. You didn't make me. You couldn't do it yourself.

At the end of the day, Job, you are who you are because I'm faithful to what I said I will be to those who are faithful to me. So even though you are faithful and a good man, don't walk around here acting like I owe you something. I don't. I do it out of the goodness of my heart. In verse 27 he says, "Consider the lilies, how they grow. They toil not, they spin not. And yet I say unto you that Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these."

If then God should clothe the grass, which is today and in the field and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? I said I'm going to take care of you. I promised to take care of you. I promised to never leave you nor forsake you. So why are we spending all of our life trying to gain food and this and that and clothes and house and all these different things and killing ourselves to make it all work, only for Ecclesiastes to keep repeating itself, repeating itself, repeating itself?

When do we stop? How many times does he have to stop us and put us on our back? Stop us and put us on our bottom? Stop us and cause us to totally have to depend on him? When do we stop and say, "God, okay now, it's time for me to focus on man does not live by bread alone. Man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." So I need to stop walking around here as a person of little faith and start walking around here just trusting you, depending on you.

Whether there's giants in the land, whether it's a big old wall of Jericho, whether the Jordan is at flood stage, whether I got to get a wall to fall. It doesn't matter what's in front of me because you're the God that can make the impossible possible. So why am I stressing, God? My focus is whatever is good, whatever is right, whatever is lovely, fix my mind on those things and just keep trusting you.

I don't control results. I just need to know what are you wanting me to eat on when it comes to your word. When it comes to how your word operates, you promised me that if I stay in your word and I walk in your word, I've never seen the righteous forsaken, begging bread. I need to focus on a faith walk, not a just a walk that leaves me faithless, frustrated, upset, angry, despondent, mad at God.

Don't know why God is doing this, why he hasn't done this. He says, "For all these things the nations of the world seek after. And your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But seek ye first"—I wish he had said here "seek ye first just the word" and be done because of faith. No. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you."

I want to jump into that tomorrow. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. Folks, I learned years ago, and it's dominated my ministry, that everything I do, it's what is your vision first, God? I don't have to see the way. I just have to know the way. I don't have to be convinced that it's going to work. I just need to know the next step and that you're with me.

And I know, God, you'll never forsake me if I keep my eyes on you no matter what. Folks, God has taught me in ministry, that's my food. Stay focused.

Guest (Male): And that's a promise, friends. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to us. Thank you, Dr. Cannings. We value your prayers for our ministry as we serve not only in our community but nationally and internationally as well.

We hope you'll visit us online at powerwalkministries.org. That's powerwalkministries.org. If you'd like to reach us by phone, our number is 281-260-7402. And now Pastor Cannings would like to share a brief word with you.

Dr. Paul Cannings: I am so excited about April the 23rd through the 25th because it is a conference with lots of notes, great teachers, well-educated, well-prepared, do what they're teaching in their churches. You cannot miss this conference. Come April the 23rd through the 25th at Living Word Fellowship Church. Come and be blessed.

The conference is "The Way Forward." How could we be productive despite the challenges ministries can experience? You go to powerwalkministries.org and you will get all the information you need. Powerwalkministries.org. Look forward to seeing you.

Guest (Male): That's powerwalkministries.org. That number again is 281-260-7402. And now remember, we never control the results for anything in our lives. As believers, may we rely upon, worship, obey, and follow Christ, as Job and Paul did.