Sermon Notes

January 29, 2016

Your Set Time Of Favor


If you’ve ever been on a cruise, visited a tropical island or vacationed at the beach, you were probably inundated with local vendors selling exhilarating excursions. Helicopter rides, scuba diving, dolphin swims and . . . parasailing. It’s that last one that probably appeals most to thrill-seekers.

You’re strapped into a parachute harness, standing on the back of a moving boat and white-knuckling the ropes as you’re steadily lifted into an airy abyss. All you can do is hold on. In an ideal situation, the force of the wind keeps the chord taut and you aloft. It may be the one time in life you’re praying for tension!

But be careful out there! There are countless stories of unlucky swashbucklers who were stuck in the air (or sent spiraling down) because of stalled boats, broken ropes or weather. Without the proper tension in the boat, there is no ethereal floating going on, just a whole lot of scrambling! I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in any complimentary shark swims.

Sometimes, tension is good. Although you’ve probably come to realize, though necessary, it can be plain tough. If you are not prepared, it can leave you feeling like a waterlogged tourist.

The thing with tension is it always seems to escalate right before a breakthrough. It makes sense. Think about it; if you were the enemy, and you knew God was about to bless someone’s socks off, strengthen their faith to new levels and display His glorious power, would you not do everything you could to prevent it?

What does your tension look like? Maybe you have found yourself without a job. Or maybe one of your children is wayward and wants nothing to do with the God you so deeply love. You may feel this season has left you depleted, weary and discouraged. All you need to do is hang on! The Lord says in Galatians 6:9 (NKJV), “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”

When you finally reach the peak of tension in that rope, sailing high above the open sea, your point of view changes. Suddenly all the things you left behind look smaller and what’s in front of you seems endless!

Let your current tension serve as an encouragement to you! If you feel the pressure is surmounting and the tension seems unbearable, it’s a sure sign that you are rising further and further up to your breakthrough. And when the Lord is towing us, we are guaranteed there will be no shark-swims!

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