As preached by Pastor Steven Furtick
0:00
God has given me what I need for the season that I’m in. And I have a choice to make today and every day; will I weep over what I’m losing? Or will I wield the weapons that are left, prevision, perspective. The two are connected. I’ll tell you a story. I didn’t tell any of the other worship experiences because I’m kind of partial to you guys because after you I’m done. On vacation this summer, and I turned on the windshield wipers; Graham was sitting in the passenger seat. The windshield was dirty. That’s what I noticed. He said daddy, when you turn on the windshield wipers, I pretend there’s a race. He said the dirty triangle that the windshield wipers don’t get to, That’s the shark’s fin. The part of the windshield that the wipers clean, That’s a whale The wipers are the dolphin and when you turn them on, they’re jumping. If I told you that story, I was looking at a dirty windshield, he was looking into the windshield. I saw a dirty window, he saw sea world. And here’s my premise. It’s about perspective; Repeat after me, what I see, is up to me.
1:36
In life show was a seer and when he saw something, he spoke and he spoke something and he saw something and the needs of the people materialized because of a license, ability to see and to speak. There is a connection between your vision and your victory. Your perspective is connected to your provision. But my mind plays these tricks on me, I only see the dirty windshield. Here’s the thing that my mind is always noticing. I’m always noticing and asking myself the question and I have the ability to work in any situation to walk in, and I automatically notice what I’m missing. That’s what my brain tends to think when I walk into a situation. And I want you to pray for me because this is a terrible question. Just to walk into, you’ll have that question? because I want it on the screen. My brain is constantly asking the question, walking into any situation, flow with me, what am I missing? What am I missing?
2:36
I’m really good at weeping over what isn’t there, or worrying over what isn’t there. My brain is trained to do it. It’s almost as if I I feel like somewhere along in my life, I took a class on how to walk into any situation and notice what I missing, what I Don’t have, what I can’t do, what I can’t control. Now, I’ll give myself a little credit because some people don’t even notice the need. They just walk by it. It amazes me sometimes what my children will not even see that needs to be done. It’s not that they didn’t do it, It’s that they didn’t even see that it needed to be done. One of my children asked Holly the other day, you mean I have to take a bath every day? He doesn’t see the need. Because he doesn’t smell the, the stench. You know, you can get to a place in your life where you’ve been in a situation and conditions so long, that everybody else smells it but you.
3:55
I mean, you can’t get to the place where you don’t even See the need. I remember a few years ago, I took a whole group of staff members and the trash cans in the office were just overflowing, not kind of full overflowing. And I walked a group of staff around and I said answer me a question. Did you not take these this trash out? Because you didn’t, you didn’t want to take it out? Or did you not notice? and you know what, Honest to God, they didn’t even notice the need or at least that’s what they told me. And some people don’t even notice. Worse yet, sometimes we don’t see the need because all we see is the symptom.
4:41
Can I preach a little bit? in your body, this is called referred pain. It’s when you have something wrong in your chest but you feel it in your neck so you’re trying to fix it in a place that it is not coming from. When David said the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want he is also implying that God is the only one who knows what I really need. What I really need; when I pray, give me this day my daily bread as Jesus taught his disciples to pray, I no longer pray God give me what I think I need. But give me what you know I need. God is the only one who has been in my tomorrow, so he’s the only one who knows what I’m going to need when I get there.
5:30
And if he knows I need to fight a lion, so I’ll be ready for Goliath. I want to fight the lion. I don’t want him to prevent the fight. I want him to provide the faith so that I will, because if I don’t fight Goliath, I can’t get a sword and if I don’t get a sword, it won’t be in storage when I need it. God knows what I need. He is my source, somebody shop God is my source. Tell it to the person sitting next to you, your Not my source. My job is not my source, My boss is not my source. See, there are some things in life that that are nice to have. But I don’t really need them to survive.
6:22
I love when Holly says this to me and Valentine’s Day is coming up. So, maybe she’ll say this to me on Tuesday. She’ll say, I appreciate everything you’ve given me because I try to take care of her. I really do, And always to the best of my ability. Sometimes that meant water and we eat chips at the Mexican and share a Speedy Gonzales. But sometimes that meant I could take her to Morton’s but whether it was Mexican or Morton’s, it didn’t matter. I was always given her what I could, but every once in a while, she’ll tell me, she’ll tell me something like this. It’s not the things that you gave me and I think she means it. It’s not the things, cuz she was there with me when there weren’t anything it’s not the things; she loved me in Juniper terrace apartments C15, she loved me in the duplex. I don’t love you for the Denali. I love you in the duplex. It’s not what you gave me. Our love is not contingent upon a material possession.
7:29
And I wonder if I come to that place in my relationship with God, that I really believe that if He didn’t give it, I don’t need it. My brain tells me differently. My brain tells me even while I’m preaching this sermon that I am not intelligent enough, articulate enough, when I go to tell my little jokes, I’m not comical enough. Because my brain picks out the people who look hateful in the crowd every time, I don’t know how I find you, but I find you somehow. My brain will pick out what’s missing. There could be 1000 people standing up pretty much faster, but my little brain. you too. I mean, I can walk into a situation and find what’s wrong in a minute. Notice who wasn’t nice to me in a minute.
8:36
Always notice what I’m missing, Always notice what I lacked, Always notice what I’ve lost. What if I only noticed what I lack? And what I’ve lost? I will use what I have left. And what God wants to do through my life next is not contingent upon what I lack or what I’ve lost. Come on, you better help me preach. get a ball, getsome arrows, punch your neighbor in the arm and say what you have is what you need, What you have is what you need, What you have is what you need, What you have is what you need, What you have is what you need. God should have made me taller, I didn’t choose to be five foot nine; five foot nine is all I need. That’s all I need. I don’t need any extra inches. Praise the Lord.
9:34
One time I called a god and thanked him for contributing to the church. And he said, I appreciate your call, It’s nice, but I want you to know it’s not needed. And I thought it was needed because he gave a million dollars to the church. I thought if you gave a million dollars, you ought to get a phone call from the headmaster. He said I appreciate it and it’s nice to hear from you, but it’s not needed. I never forgot what he said. This was years ago. And this week, I was reminded of one time when Paul, he was in prison, right? He’s writing to the church at Philippi who just contributed toward his legal defense. And so Paul writes to them to thank them and express his gratitude. He says, Hey, I got your gift, and I was happy for it. In fact, I Rejoice greatly; This is Philippians 4:10, that you renewed your concern for me at last. It took a while. But I know that you were concerned but had no opportunity to show it. Now that’s important too, because Paul’s problem created their opportunity.
10:44
Sometimes we miss God’s provision because it is disguised as a problem. And we don’t receive the provision because it’s wrapped in a package that looks like a problem. And we keep sending back the gifts that God is trying to bestow upon us because it doesn’t feel good. Sometimes God will send correction into your life to make you better; You’ve been praying for God to make you better, but He didn’t do it through somebody telling you how good you are. He sent somebody to correct you, but you don’t like the way correction feels. So rather than receive the correction, which is a gift to take you where God is calling you to, you get offended and quit. And God’s provision comes wrapped in strange packages. And so for Paul, he’s in prison. And God provides for him through the church and he’s writing back to them and he said, Thank you for the gift, I received it. I was happy about it, and I appreciate it. But watch what he says in the next verse. He said, I’m not saying this because I’m in need for I have learned, this is something that you are not born with. You don’t know what you need. I mean, you are born just screaming. You don’t know what you need. You just, you just know that you you need to eat.
12:17
You don’t understand the process, but life is the process of God teaching you; that He is the one who feeds you. Sometimes He’ll do it over here, sometimes He’ll do it over there, sometimes He’ll do it through nobody at all. Sometimes He’ll do it when you’re all alone, But when God is your source, you will never lack supply. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, saying what shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or What shall we wear for your father knows you need these things.
Watch the full Video:
Disclaimer:
This sermon is generated out of AI-Powered assistant tool and further edited word for word manually, hence in your reading you might find some miss pronunciation and other unintended errors. It would really appreciate if you can help to point out such case, so that we can work to fix it for the greater good of our community. Thanks
