With the family out-of-town in Ohio, I once again returned to Elevation Church – Charleston Extension this week. This time I met up with my friends who weren’t there the last time my wife and I attended. Up until now, all of the messages in my blog have been my own thoughts, my own ideas…..well, what God has placed on my heart……but this post I will give credit where credit is due. This was Pastor Steven Furtick’s sermon this morning. And I do believe that this message can reach out and help someone right now, who may be in a dark spot….so I am going to share it.
The scripture this is based upon is in Acts 27 and 28. Paul is on his way to Rome, and even though he cautioned the crew that setting sail was a bad idea, they chose to go anyways. So a brief synopsis is that they were shipwrecked on the small island of Malta. As the inhabitants rescued them they went to build a fire. Paul reached down to grab a piece of wood and was bit by a viper. The inhabitants at first thought he must be a murderer or criminal, but as the viper bite had no affect on him they began to think he was a god. They were invited to the village chiefs house for dinner, where Paul healed the chiefs father, and later when they set sail again, the inhabitants provided them all that they would need on their journey.
Reason
The first point Pastor Furtick made was about reason. Sometimes in life when we find ourselves in a bad spot, we spend all of our time trying to figure out the reason we are there, but if we stay in the reason too long (why this something happened) we will eventually drown. In these storms in our lives, we don’t need to know the reason we are there, we just need to know that God is there with us…..whatever happened, has happened for a reason. Often when we find ourselves in the storm we blame it on the devil, but it’s not always the devil, but the decisions that we have made that have placed us there. And what’s even crazier when you think about it is that sometimes it’s not our own decisions, but those of others that have placed us where we are. The point is, if we stay stuck in the reason, we will miss the revelation. Has the devil tried to convince you that if you had a God, you wouldn’t be going through what you are going through?
Response
So now they were stuck on Malta. And this is where Pastor Furtick busted out a true revelation on how you should respond to these types of situations. He pulled out some scripture from the book of Taylor Swift. “Players gonna play, play, play and haters gonna hate, hate, hate. Just shake it off, shake it off.” You see, faith doesn’t prevent me from getting bit. Faith is just there to get me through it. After Paul shook the snake off, the people all just stood around and watched. “But they were expecting that he was about to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had waited a long time and had seen nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god (Acts 28:6.)” People will change their minds about how you handle your situations, but our response can’t be to those people.
We must all go through Malta at some point in our lives. When we are in these spots, are we going to perceive this situation as misery, or as a mission? Opportunities in life are byproducts of the adversities that you go through. You see, there is always a reason that you are somewhere, and there was a reason that Paul was shipwrecked on Malta. “And it happened that the father of Publius was lying in bed afflicted with recurrent fever and dysentery; and Paul went in to see him and after he had prayed, he laid his hands on him and healed him (Acts 28:8.)” There is always a reason that you are where you are. And what’s crazy…….the same hand that was bitten by the snake was the same hand that healed Publius’s father. So it all comes down to this…..it doesn’t matter the reason you are in that place you are in, but what matters in your response to that situation.
Release
Here’s the real deal…..Paul thought that he needed Malta…..but it was Malta that really needed Paul. While they were on the ship getting ready for the wreck, God was positioning them for a revival. Your supply that you will need in your “situation” will be provided to you in your assignment. And maybe, just maybe…..what you are going through….it isn’t even about you. It’s about someone else, and what you are meant to do for them. Because in the big picture, in Paul’s misadventures in Malta, on his way to Rome…..and in your life….is that while the winds are controlling the boat, God is controlling the wind.
Once again, this was all Pastor Furtick, not my own today….but I believed it was a powerful message. If you would like to hear it in its entirety, I use the Elevation Church app to listen daily.
However, even though this wasn’t my own, I do pray that when you find yourself in a storm you will turn to God. That you will ask for guidance and provision. Because you are there for a reason. God has placed you there to either teach you a lesson….or even better, to help you get someone else through their storm. Pray that God will use you. Pray that God will bless others through you. And when the time is right, you will leave your “Malta” and continue on with the path God has placed in front of you.
Tetelestai 