Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): This is the Power Walk Ministries broadcast with author and speaker Reverend Paul Cannings. Thanks for joining us today as Dr. Cannings brings the final message in this series titled "Don't Run Aimlessly."

Through the life of Abraham, Dr. Cannings draws out principles for faith and believing in God. Abraham understood God’s strength and power that he could rely on, even when faced with a situation that humanly didn’t even seem possible. Let’s listen to the final message in this series: "Be Strong."

Dr. Paul Cannings: When I look at this passage in Romans chapter 4, and we are now down the middle part of verse 20, is what we see Abraham became. Look at what's taking place here for Abraham, and you have to remember Abraham's life. He doesn't come out of Haran where God is saying, "I selected you because you're the man." In Haran, you're just preaching it at every street corner, evangelizing the word, people are just coming to know God in thousands and hundreds. No, that's not what He said.

Matter of fact, God would say, "I selected you as a nation, not because you're better than any other nation. I just selected you because New Testament tells us this nation is a shadow of things to come." We learn a lot when we become a nation unto God, 1 Peter chapter 2, verses 9 through 10, how He operates with a nation. So He doesn't stop talking to us like He stopped talking to them, and we can learn from that so that we continually bless Him and continually be blessed by Him.

That's the process. So it's not like Abraham was this knocked-down guy and all this stuff. No, Abraham, He chose Abraham because obviously, Abraham had a desire for God and there was no verse, there was no Bible, no Pentateuch. Moses wrote the Pentateuch after Abraham came. Moses is blessed because he's attached to Abraham's lineage. So Abraham had nothing, but he showed a sign like Melchizedek, he showed a sign of wanting to respond to God and listening to God, and God selected him and God brought him out.

You could tell he's not a perfect guy. I mean, there's mistakes that he's made. Who was going to turn around and say, "this is my wife," knowing this man is going to go sleep with your wife? There's mistakes that he made. The Hagar situation, there's mistakes that he made. God says, "I'm going to build you into a great nation," he laughed. There's mistakes that he made and the Bible doesn't hide them. They don't paint him as this perfect person, but the Bible shows this key thing in this verse that is powerful.

Right here, he says, he staggered not, verse 20 of chapter 4 of Romans, and staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. He was strong in faith. Abraham showed his strength when he picked up the knife to take his son out. That's when he showed the strength. But there was a process that he went through. So therefore, it's technically not his strength, it's the God-strength in him that Abraham learned to rely on.

The more he relied on God, who is obviously strong and powerful and mighty, opening up Red Seas and all this stuff, He's strong, He's mighty, He's powerful. He could speak and the winds and the waves listen to His voice. Dry bones come to life. The powerful acts of God are numerous. So God is the one who is strong. God doesn't need anything to make anything. God can take a stick and make it a snake and turn it back into this. There's nothing beyond His ability.

God can send manna from heaven all the time. Oh, you want meat? Okay, here's some birds, have them. God can say, "Oh Peter, throw the net over here in the daytime, wrong side of the lake," and there's fish. Anything. So God is the one who is strong. God can shut the lions' mouth. He's strong. So the more Abraham relied on who God is, is the more Abraham experienced an ability he never had. I can't fly, but a plane can. So I can arrive someplace within hours because of the ability of the plane, not because I can fly.

Because of God's ability, the more we rest in Him, because of the keyword again that we've discussed this week: faith. I don't know if the plane is going to be at the right airport. I don't know if my baggage is all over the place. I have no clue. I just rest in the fact that this gets me where I'm trying to go quickly, and I need to get there in a certain time. And this works. That's it. I don't see it, but the evidence says that this particular airline hasn't crashed in a long time.

So this particular airline has this kind of record, the evidence. Evidence says there's a strong potential that I will land. That's the evidence. I am expecting it, so I'm telling the person to meet me at curbside and all this other stuff, because I'm expecting it to take place. So there's actions in that direction even though it doesn't meet any human logic. When you logically think of an airplane that weighs tons flying in the skies at 500 and something miles an hour and landing, it makes no sense. It's supposed to drop.

It's not supposed to take off and fly. This violates gravity and the laws of gravity. It doesn't make any human sense, but we expect it to. So we sit there. We expect it so much we tell people to meet us in certain places. We expect it so that we end up looking for our bags to have a good time. We expect it, but we can't see it. That's why the Bible is saying what is required to surrender into God to experience His power, His strength, His ability that violates all human logic in every situation of life beyond the plane situation.

That makes us strong. So Abraham isn't strong, God is strong. He just learns to find strength when he rests in strength. This is why he says right here, he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith. This is the second aspect to that. Abraham wasn't going to change what God said. God, could we edit this to say this? No, he didn't do any of that. Abraham, God spoke, God told him what's going to happen, and Abraham is constantly wandering, wandering, wandering, wandering, expecting this nation to show up.

He never went back home. So Abraham never adjusted from that. Joseph never adjusted from that. You would see the people who did not adjust, who did not move from staying in the course of life. It's not that they didn't make mistakes. David says, "No God, I've sinned. What do You want me to do? Get out from the city. I'm on my way." Gone. "God, come back." Okay, but this is what you're going to do. You're going to establish Solomon. Done deal. Solomon, that's it.

David, you can't build a temple. You know what? He didn't say I can't get the blueprints. He didn't say I can't get the materials. He didn't say I can't get all of the stuff and put it together. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to buy the land, I'm going to put all of it together so all Solomon has to do is erect it. So David did it. He was strong because he rested on God. That's why he continues on, he says it brought what? Glory to God.

The excellent character and nature of God is displayed when people rest in Him. Moses can't open up no Red Sea, but Rahab heard all about it and caused her to become in the line of Christ. That's how much that was powerful in their day. They're worshipping all these gods. Their gods haven't done anything like this. Their God just destroyed the most powerful army in a snap. Their God is sending fire to warm them at night and got air conditioning during the day in that wilderness and it's following them around.

This cloud is just not in the sky, it's following them. There's a fire following them. There's food falling from the skies. This is incredible! This God doing this all the time. There is smoke coming down over the holiest of holies. What? We go to worship, we don't see none of that. Therefore, their God is awesome! God's ability was exposed when people rested on and trusted His word. And the more they trusted, the stronger they see. You think of the life of Paul: "I'm more than a conqueror. Learned to have much, learned to go without."

And you're talking about what? You're more than a conqueror? You make tents, you get locked up, you get shipwrecked. It doesn't look like God is with you that much. No, Paul's saying, "I'm more than a conqueror because I'm still standing, and I'm still getting the message over. I'm still writing half the New Testament. I'm more than a conqueror." The weight and the problems of life never led me to stagger, never led me to walk away from the faith. It kept me out there doing what God tell me to do no matter what I went through, no matter what situations I was dealing with.

And as 80-something years old, Anna is still there because she's looking for the Messiah, so she's not going anywhere. She's steadfast, surrendered, convicted about what needs to take place. And nothing is going on in the temple that would cause her to waver. So she's strong and she sees Jesus when no one else in the temple is excited about what she's seeing. She brought God glory. She caused people to see the Messiah when they couldn't see nothing. Mary and Joseph would have walked in there, did what they had to do, and walked right back out. No, no, nothing.

But she brought glory to God. We tend to think the worship service brings glory. When people believe that when you pull the elders together and pray God will heal us, and people pull the elders together and pray and folks get healed. Yeah! This is what I'm talking about. God gets the glory and that's why he says when this is functioning it's because of these characteristics have taken place in the person's life. In verse 21, he says, "and being fully persuaded that he had promised is able to perform."

That's where Abraham's life is, that causes it to be strong. All of us are weak. A mosquito could come and bite us and we're out. We're frail. That's why the word for flesh in Greek is just, you can't even pick up a leaf. We could go to the gym and muscle up, but at the end of the day folks fall down and hit their head and they're still out. So we are weak. The person that makes us strong is Christ. How's He do that? The Holy Spirit is poured into us.

That's why he says work out your salvation in fear and trembling. You don't get a little bit of the Holy Spirit, you don't need another anointing to get another Holy Spirit. No, Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3 through 4 says He's given us all spiritual blessings. That's why he says the Holy Spirit is poured into us. He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. The more I learn to depend on the Spirit of God because I expect God to do it, I get this strength inside of me when I am committed to believe what was spoken.

Because God said it, I am all in. The Bible says because God's word does not become void, if I stay the course because I don't waver. Because God said it, I believe it. I trust it. As a result of that, no matter what situations I face, I'm not going to waver. I'm going to hold to the faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. I expect Him to do it but it is the evidence of things I can't see. I'm not trying to see how this is going to happen. Can't see how this is going to work. I can't see how in the world the folks in Nineveh would give their lives to God. I can't see. It's irrelevant what I can see. It's more relevant what He could see, what's relevant what His word can do. So I'm not going to waver because I'm fully persuaded that God is able to do what He has promised. This is the strength. It's not our strength. This is the life. This is the glory that God experiences when we function this way because people see Him at His best. It's not how this world tells you how to live your life. You'll miss it. It's how God describes it. You'll gain it. Stay focused.

Guest (Male): God's ability was exposed as people rested and trusted His word. The lives of Abraham, Paul, and others in scripture reflect God's power and goodness only because they believed in Him. Friends, we hope that this series will really encourage you to consider your life and determine to not waver or drift along, but rather be purposeful in serving God with eternity in mind.

For a copy of this message series or any of our other ministry resources, I'd like to point you to our website at powerwalkministries.org. That's powerwalkministries.org. You can also call us at 281-260-7402. That's 281-260-7402.

Power Walk Ministries is excited to have a partnership with Central Baptist Church and Mars Hill Network for a conference we are doing on September the 19th at 8:30 in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon. The conference cost is minimal; it's $25 that includes lunch. We would love for you to be there and be a part of what God is going to do through this partnership with Central Baptist Church and Mars Hill Network and Power Walk Ministries.

It will take place at Central Baptist Church. We would love for you to be there. We need for you to go to the Central Baptist Church website in the Syracuse area, or you can go to Power Walk Ministries website or Mars Hill's website and there will be a link over for you to learn more about the classes that are being offered. We look forward to seeing you. It's going to be an exciting one-day conference where we all learn together for God's glory. Join us September the 19th at Central Baptist Church. See you there.

And if you live in the Houston area or you're planning a visit, please join Reverend Cannings at Living Word Fellowship Church this Sunday. For church location and service times, visit lwfellowshipchurch.org. And now remember, God's excellent character and nature are displayed when people rest in Him. So let's let our lives reflect His power, strength, and love as we stand on His word.