Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): This is the Power Walk Ministries broadcast, and our current series is titled, Don't Run Aimlessly. Reverend Paul Cannings brings us this teaching with a keen desire to help us stay strong and experience an abundant life. Today he continues in the book of Revelation, encouraging us to avoid the snare and the traps of the enemy. Let's listen now as he brings us the message titled, Remain.

Dr. Paul Cannings: There's a guy that I know that didn't have a whole lot of muscles when he started working out in the gym. So he took this person and got a picture of this person, real muscular, and puts it on his wall. Every day he came home, he saw this person on the wall that he looked at, admired, and wanted to emulate, and would go work out.

He would learn how to work this muscle, that muscle. He started talking to me and I said, "I ain't got that picture, brother." And he kept working and kept working and kept working, and you started to see this muscles come out of this person that was already there, that he developed and kept developing until one day he says, "I don't want to buy a new wardrobe." And that kind of slowed him down to maintain what he had achieved, which was to me, great.

1 Peter chapter 2:21 through verse 24, Peter says, "I forgot that picture," and then it got more and more vivid at His death and His resurrection. He kept telling me He's going to die, He's going to raise from the dead. He kept saying all these things to me, but when I actually looked at the whole picture, I realized that He suffered as an example for us.

He showed us that in order to achieve the goals that God has set, in order to achieve what God wants us to do, there's a prize to win. There is a purpose for which life exists. There is something that God wants us to achieve, and that process may take us through some suffering that Paul would highlight in Philippians chapter 3:7 through 11. He would highlight that I want to become engaged in your suffering so that I will experience your power.

In my weakness is when I become strong. So when I'm in suffering, it makes me pray more, it makes me lean on your word more, it makes me trust your word more, it makes me lean on other people who have the gift of encouragement, the gift of help, the gift of wisdom, to find the strength from the body to build me up more. So the more I recognize my inability to overcome the struggles that I face, the more I depend on your ability to make it work, so I become strong when I'm weak.

So Paul would bring us home with that and say, "I want to experience that power in your suffering," because Christ modeled for us that there's no way that God would ever forsake us when we're doing what He tells us to do. It may seem like He is from the world's standpoint; He beat Him down and put Him in a tomb, but three days later they didn't.

When we look at this journey that God has us on, we have to keep the picture in front of us. We can't forget the example, the person who's run ahead of us. There are lots of pictures in the book of Hebrews chapter 11. So when we come to this passage of the church of Philadelphia and we talk about the fact that they are powerless, they are dealing with Jews who had the power in the synagogue, and they felt that they were the mainstays of the city and can manage what's going on in Philadelphia and run things.

This church of Philadelphia could have been a small church that nobody thought could ever overpower these people that had this power. And God is saying no, they're a synagogue of Satan. They tell a lot of lies. They have x-ed out Christ, so Satan runs that place. He's got them believing lies. So now it's a synagogue of Satan. I'm going to cause them one day to be your footstool.

Just stay the course because He said at the end here of verse 9 in Revelation chapter 3, "I have loved thee." Oh, that is so beautiful, that passage of scripture, because sometimes you don't feel like God loves us when we're going through what this church of Philadelphia is going through, feeling powerless. Everything is against them and they have no ability, it seems like a small church here, they had no ability to fight back against these folks that came against them.

Whether it's at their church house or people know that they belong to that church and treat them different ways, we don't know all the things that took place here. He says sometimes we feel that God doesn't love us because we're going through the pain of working out in the gym. We don't think we can arrive at that picture. He says, "No, I," watch this personal pronoun, "have loved thee."

It's a decision that I've already made that no one can ever stop. I have decided once and for all to love you. Nothing changes it. That's beautiful, man. That's exciting to me. I don't have to feel the love. I don't have to go through some kind of chills down my spine to know that God loves me. He says it in John chapter 15, "Abide in me, I'm going to prune you." You ever look at pruning? It is a painful, ugly process for that vine.

But He says the person who continues to abide, my Father will love them. Later on they will become my friend because they choose to abide no matter what the struggle is, what the pain is, what difficulty it is that they're going through. What does this mean? What is this agape stuff? What does it mean? In this text, how this word has worked itself out is that this willful decision to love you once and for all is not a feel-y love.

It's that whatever I have promised to do towards those who choose to abide in me, no matter what they're experiencing, I'm going to get it done. It's a willful decision to apply what God is saying towards those individuals and He promised 7,000 promises in the Bible. 7,000. "I'm going to get done towards you. So there's nothing that can stop me, and I'm going to continually keep my mind and my focus on you to accomplish it, even when you don't even know that it's being done."

Sometimes we look for God's love to be feel-y because that's what we have in our past, whether it's a grandmother or a mother, whoever has shaped how we think love is. Some people have had somebody that is very protective, so they see love from a protective type of standpoint. Sometimes a woman has had a father who watched out for her, made sure the car ran, made sure she had this, made sure, so love for her is someone who takes care of her.

A mother who constantly made sure that they had clothes and they had a hug, and they would sit with them and just hug them and pet their hair because they just love her son, so they shaped that love that way. So when we come to God's love, many times we reflect on how we think love is. As we are reflecting in that way, we don't think that God loves. He's saying, "No, no, no, that's not what the love He's talking about."

No one shapes love for how God loves because God is love. That's what He would talk about in 1 John chapter 4:7 on. He is love. In other words, when He is loving, here's a second thing about it: it is going to be sacrificial. This is not about Him. It's about what His word says to us, and whatever it takes for God to do what He needs to do towards us is done.

This love has to do with God deciding. No matter what, He is going to do what He needs to do towards us. He's going to do it. This love has a self-sacrificial nature about it. God is not thinking about Himself in the sense that He has to do this because it's going to do this for His kingdom. He says, "No, I already know where you are in verse 8."

"So I'm just going to give you the best I can give you when I need to give it to you. So if these people make you feel powerless, I'm going to give you inner strength. If these people make you feel powerless, I'm going to give you wisdom. I'm going to give you the long-suffering ability." 1 Peter chapter 3:13 says they can come against you, but they can't destroy you.

Paul would write it a different way in 1 Corinthians chapter 4:7 through 11. He's perplexed. He talks about how he was crushed. He talks about all these things, but no one can destroy him. That's God preserving. There's a self-sacrificial focus. And this is what He is saying here. There's a third part of this: it's compassionate.

When we're in pain and we feel lonely and we feel broken down, God is going to find a way to encourage us, whether it's a message because we happened to turn the radio on—even though we think we happened to do it, He guided us to it—whether it's a verse we read, whether it's a song we sing, whether it's a card someone chose to put in the mail, whether somebody just called to say, "I just want to let you know I love you and I'm thinking about you."

He says, "I will find a way to compassionately keep you going because I understand that the reason you're in this trial and in this difficulty is because of verse 11: you have kept the word of my patience." No matter what you were dealing with, you preserved in my word. You were watchful. Here's these three things about it: you were watchful, you were willing to surrender to whatever it said you needed to do in that particular situation you were in. You did it.

So if you were in a situation like Elijah facing the prophets of Baal, I'm going to love you, I'm going to make sure that I still do what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to make sure this woman who would decide to build a room for you, I'm going to make sure she feeds you, takes care of you. I'm going to love you because you kept my word. You preserved in it.

That's what He's saying. He's saying you kept a watchful eye, you interpreted it correctly because you wanted to do it exactly the way it was meant to be done, not legalistically, just with a commitment to surrender to it. And lastly, you had a full intent with conviction. Nothing will change you from being steadfast in it, to do what it says no matter the pain you would suffer.

Joseph, "No, I can't touch you, Potiphar's wife. You belong to another man, and I would sin against God. Not your husband, God. And I'm not going to sin against God. I'll suffer in prison for 12 years, but I still did not sin against God." He says, "Because you kept it." That's what it means in this passage. Those three things that are important in this passage: you surrendered, you understood specifically what it's saying, and then you're committed to face whatever it brings, the consequence that it brings.

Jesus Christ faced the consequences of being about His father's business. It didn't matter who spit, who beat Him, who mocked Him, who stuck a sword in His side. "I must be about my Father's business." That is keeping the picture before you, or you would lose sight and run aimlessly when the pain in the process gets too difficult. We'll run aimlessly.

Don't do that, folks. I always tell people we look at all these great people in the Bible and we don't remember the journey. We just say, "Oh, he was great, man, he did great things." No, no, no. Do you know how long they suffered? How would you like to be Abraham? 25 years, saw one kid. He never saw a nation.

No, folks. Sometimes these things last a while. Sometimes we feel powerless, but don't let it make us run aimlessly, for there is a prize. Don't let no one steal your prize. Don't become weary in well-doing. Don't let nobody take your crown from you. Nobody ever take your opportunity to share the throne of the Father that God promised you. Stay focused. Amen.

Guest (Male): Amen. What compassion God extends towards us. Christ sacrificed His very life in order to draw us to the kingdom. And yet having accepted all this, we often tend to rely on our strength and logic. But let's persevere and walk closely in fellowship with Him. Now if you'd like to obtain a copy of this message series, please call us at 281-260-7402. Again, that's 281-260-7402. You'll also find us online at powerwalkministries.org.

Dr. Paul Cannings: We do need you to partner with us, folks. You could do that in several ways. Yes, please pray for us. We travel, we train pastors and their wives and do much in ministry. So pray for us. God keeps our health and strength and continue to bless this ministry by providing us His wisdom and knowledge and opportunities to serve Him. So pray for us.

But we also can become involved in the ministry by participating on our website by buying books. It's a secure place. You don't have to worry about anything being stolen from you, and I pray that you would participate that way. Another way, you could just become one of our partners, our supporters, and join with others who partner with us to see this ministry be what God wants it to be and desires it to be and has blessed it to be in the few years that God has allowed us to serve you. So I pray you would become our partner and be active in what God is doing in Power Walk Ministries.

Guest (Male): Once again, our web address is powerwalkministries.org. And as we leave you, we too can decide like Job, Joseph, or Jesus himself that we must be about our Father's business in our short journey here on earth. Let's be steadfast and focused on God's purposes for our lives.