God's Way Is Best

Take our Bibles.

Our custom around here is to lift them up and wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

And let's say this together say Heavenly Father, thank God for Wednesday night live stream.

I'm hungry for the Word of God.

I'm thirsty for more of the Holy Ghost, because I know that the Word and the Spirit working together give me success.

The Word and the Spirit working together give me success in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, let's look at Psalm number one, please tonight, and we'll read the whole thing.

It's just six verses, psalm one, verse one blessed is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of the sinner, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law or in the word of the Lord, and in his law or word doth he meditate day and night, and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.

His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous.

Amen.

He knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

And then in 2 Corinthians 5, 7, it says for we walk by faith and not by sight.

We walk by faith, not by sight.

And so tonight, just a simple message God's way is best, god's way is best.

I just want to keep you in remembrance of this year, 2024, the year of momentum.

You know, god gave me that to the beginning of the year, and momentum is defined as a force or energy that is exerted by a moving body.

I tell you, we're moving, all of us are moving.

What direction are we moving?

You know, if we're moving by faith and the momentum is accomplishing things for God, if we're moving the wrong way, well then we can be, you know, frozen or stuck, or maybe going in the wrong direction.

It's also a force or energy exerted by a series of events.

You know I've found, you know, sometimes we do the first step of something and then maybe the second step, we we kind of miss it and before you long we're off the track.

You know it's.

It's easy to to to miss the, the way that God has for us if we're not, you know, diligent in the word and prayer.

You know it's a prevailing momentum is a prevailing, it results in a prevailing over obstacles.

So so we, you know, we like to say around here that that our best days are ahead of us.

Why?

Because I believe that we're all growing.

You know, like that tree that's talked about there in Psalm one, where we're to be like a tree planted by the rivers of water.

You know, like that tree that's talked about there in Psalm 1, where to be like a tree planted by the rivers of water.

You know, a tree starts off, you know, kind of small.

I mean, jesus once talked about a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds.

And then, you know, but then finally it becomes a tree for birds to lodge in.

It grows, and I've seen trees grow fast, I've seen trees grow slow, but regardless, a tree is growing.

So we're like a tree and we're becoming strong, we're becoming greater, and you know, god's not looking for perfection, but he is looking for progress.

You know, I look back and I can see that I've grown in some areas.

I see some areas that I need to keep being diligent in.

It's not that I've arrived in any particular area, but some areas are more developed than others, and so, you know, we need to keep ourselves accountable in this year of momentum, so that we can make a difference, that we can bring a force or an energy into this world, and I'm just believing that the church is on the forefront of the greatest revival we've ever seen.

So it's up to us, see, we need to keep growing, and so, thank God, we do have the Holy Spirit on the inside of us, we have the word of God to renew our minds with, and and we can grow Now here.

In Psalm 1, it tells us some things to avoid.

It speaks of growth, but it tells us some things to avoid.

It says don't walk in the counsel of the ungodly, stand in the way of sinners, sit in the seat of the scornful.

I like to point out that that's a progression.

I see a progression.

You know somebody's walking by and all of a sudden they stop and listen and the next thing you know, they sit down.

And this is speaking of the negative.

This is speaking about hanging around with people that you shouldn't have no godly purpose in your life.

I mean, you just need to keep moving unless you can witness to them, unless you can tell them about Jesus.

You need to.

You don't need to fellowship with a bunch of of unbelievers.

You know you might have to, you might have to be around them, you might have to work with them, you might have to live next door to them, but you don't have to fellowship with people that have no godly purpose in your life.

And so, uh, part of success is is what we say no to.

You know, you just refuse.

Instead, you're going to meditate in the Word of God day and night, and that means constantly.

And then it says whatever you do will prosper.

You know, a lot of people like to quote that verse out of context.

Well, god said everything I do is going to prosper.

Well, no, you've got to fulfill the conditions, and one of the conditions is don't spend time around people that have no godly purpose in your life.

And number two, that you need to meditate in the word of God and have a prayer life and let the word of God abide in you richly, and then, when you make a decision, you know that it's going to be according to God.

I like what Paul told Timothy and his son in the faith in 1 Timothy 6, 12.

He said fight the good fight of faith.

And you know, life in many ways is a fight, it's a contest, it's something where we have to face, on a frequent basis, obstacles we have to face.

You know Jesus said in the world you shall have tribulation, trouble, anguish, disappointments.

All kinds of things happen to you in the world.

It just comes part and parcel to our life here on this earth and so you're going to have that.

But the fight of faith is to overcome the obstacles.

You don't have to fight the devil.

The devil's already been defeated.

You don't have to fight sin.

Sin has been taken away by the precious blood of Christ.

We need to identify where we've sinned, where we've missed the mark, and own it and ask God to forgive us and receive forgiveness and put it behind us and turn away from it and go on down the road.

Sometimes sin can be like a besetting sin.

Sometimes it can be something that we ask for forgiveness for over and over.

Well, that doesn't mean that we haven't been forgiven.

It just means that we've got to use our faith to conquer this weakness that we have toward this particular situation.

You don't have to live that way, you don't have to live with that weakness toward ungodliness, but you can conquer it, and so it's the good fight of faith.

You're not fighting the sin, you're fighting the good fight of faith.

Your faith is going to overcome those issues, and your faith's biggest enemy is the lack of knowledge.

Lack of knowledge this is why I'm preaching this over and over.

I'm probably not new to your way of hearing.

I mean, you know, you may have heard the same thing many ways, many times over, and what I've seen is I've seen people say well, you know, I've heard that.

And then they close their mind to maybe looking at it from a fresh perspective and gleaning from it something that can increase their faith in that area.

I mean, when you just shut your understanding down, you say, oh no, I already know that.

I know that.

Well, you know, there's always more to know.

God's so big we can't know.

Know that, I know that.

Well, you know there's always more to know.

God's so big we can't know him all in one big bite.

I mean, it's just a teaspoon at a time for us to know the Lord and to know his ways.

And so the lack of understanding, you know.

Faith in Romans 10, 17,.

Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Word hearing means understanding, it means revelation.

And so many times we have to hear something, we have to go over something over and over and over and over again until it gets down in our spirit, comes out of our mind, down into our spirit, where we have a knowing, and that's when faith is born.

Just shall live by their faith.

We shall live by the just shall live by faith, not by what it seems like and it's so easy for seems like to rule over our faith.

It's so easy for our reason, it's so easy for our emotions to substitute themselves for real Bible faith.

And, of course, when that happens, you have a failure.

You know, you, you, you know you don't accomplish what God wants you to do.

You know, and God said in In Psalm 1-6, god knows the way of the righteous.

See, the way of the righteous is a faith way.

He knows their way, he knows the way of the ungodly too, and that's not acceptable.

So without faith it's impossible to please God.

So we need to pay attention to the way that God has.

You know, god's way is best.

I think about his way as his pathway.

That's one way to look at it.

His way of doing things, that's another way of looking at it.

You know, looking back over my life, from where I am today to where I started and I often preach over things where I've learned from my mistakes you know that's one way for God to redeem a mistake is for you to learn from it and then hopefully have success the next time and then you can help others.

You'll have a testimony and I have to admit that the biggest troubles that I encountered was when I walked in my plan or my way.

You know, I just I made a decision to do something without thoroughly praying about it, without thoroughly considering it, or else earlier I mentioned this I made the first step in faith on God's plan and then somehow I let circumstances get in the way and I didn't take the next step and the next step and the next step.

So the way got interrupted, and then God's purposes got interrupted, and and uh.

And then you know I had a failure and uh.

So you know, sometimes it's not necessarily seeing, it's just something that we haven't processed thoroughly in prayer and uh.

But you know, god never gave up on me.

He met me on my way anyway and he stuck with me and he blessed me as far as he could.

Now, you know God can't bless your plan, but he can help you along the way until you finally figure out.

Uh-oh, I'm the one that chose to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

You know Psalm 23,.

Yea, though I walk.

See, when we're following God, he doesn't lead us to the valley of shadow of death.

He leads us by the still waters, he leads us in the green pastures.

That's where he's leading us.

But sometimes we walk, we depart from the still water, we depart from the green grass and we go off into, you know, the valley of the shadow of death.

Well, you know what His rod and staff are there.

He's not going to quit on you.

He's going to show you the way out.

He's going to get a hold of you and lead you out of that.

And, yeah, you may suffer a while because you're down there in that valley and you may have to go through some things.

But God will redeem everything.

He turned everything the devil meant for evil into good.

It's part of his redeeming.

You know, I think about Jacob and his mother.

You know they had a plan, you know, for Jacob to get the birthright of the blessing away from Esau.

See, esau was the firstborn but he was a little bit slow on the uptake, you know, he wasn't really all the top of the top and so a little bit, you know, and they knew it and they took advantage and they got the birthright and they got the blessing.

But it really the way they did it, that wasn't God's way for that to happen.

They did it, they did it with subtlety, they did it with deception, see, so really that was an unrighteous way that they accomplished what God really wanted Jacob to have.

Did God want Jacob to have the birthright and the blessing?

Yes, he did.

He did.

He wanted him to have it because Esau wasn't the one, even though he was the firstborn.

Jacob was the chosen one.

But they substituted their plan for God's plan.

And guess what God did?

God prepared a ladder that went all the way to heaven and he provided some angels to go up and down that ladder.

So you know, all the time that he was with Laban, god never gave up on him.

He was with him.

He let him work for 14 years.

He didn't make a dime.

He worked for Laban, he worked making Laban rich and he bartered his time for two women, his two daughters.

He got two daughters and had a bunch of kids, but no money.

All the wealth was Laban's.

And then, after 14 years of that, finally, finally, he heard from God and God gave him an idea about how to gain wealth In the final six years.

He was with Laban 20 years, but the final six years he became so wealthy he was wealthier than Laban when he started following God's plan and God's way and God's ideas, concepts and insights.

I mean, god blessed him.

God blessed him.

I tell you, our God is merciful.

It's not about how many mistakes you've made.

It's about whether you'll learn from them and whether you'll dedicate yourself to growing in him.

We've got all the ingredients of growth.

We've got the Word of God and we've got the Holy Ghost.

That's all you need to grow.

So here in 2024, the year of momentum, this mighty power that God is wielding is through a moving body.

Just decide that you're going to keep moving by faith.

If you're stuck in something, you're going to get unstuck.

You're going to find out what part of it you need to change.

We've been talking a lot here recently about adjusting our receivers, and many times we have to make adjustments.

I have to make constant adjustments.

I was using this illustration recently about flying an airplane.

And you know, an airplane doesn't fly itself.

You just leave an airplane alone and it's going to crash.

It's either going to go in circles, it's going to descend, it's going to ascend uncontrollable.

It's eventually I mean, if you don't do anything the airplane will crash out of the sky.

It won't fly itself, it won't land itself.

It has to be managed, it has to be maintained and that's your life, your life that just shall live by faith.

That means you have to make constant adjustments and you have to make constant evaluation, self evaluations.

Sometimes you know, if you don't evaluate yourself, say, how can you do that?

Well, when you read your Bible and pray, that's the greatest time to know where you stand.

You stand.

So here in this 2024, let's dedicate ourselves to grow in faith and grow in the things where we know that we need help in and our greatest days are yet ahead.

Oh, I don't know why you say that.

I say it because I believe the Bible teaches that for the believer, you know, to believe otherwise is to go against the word, to go against what we read there in Psalm 1,.

Otherwise is to go against the Word, to go against what we read there in Psalm 1, to go against 2 Corinthians 5, 7, just shall live by faith and go down.

No, that just shall live by faith and succeed and be prosperous and be healthy and strong, stronger and stronger and stronger, impacting this world for Jesus.

So I just believe we're riding that ever-increasing wave, that tsunami wave of glory, and so let's just make all the adjustments we need to make to stay on top of that wave.

Amen, god's way is best.

Praise God, and I hope this encouraged you and strengthened you tonight.

Praise the Lord.