Are you facing a difficult or even an impossible situation right now? Perhaps you’re facing a major barrier and you feel stuck. It could be a relationship, an addiction, a lie you believe, a painful event, or a difficult work environment. Regardless of what it is, you desperately need God to dramatically intervene in your life. Sound familiar?
Many of us are facing impossible situations where we need this kind of breakthrough in our lives. Yet most of us sit and wait for God to make it happen, and then we wonder why it is that we don’t experience breakthrough as often or as fast as we would like.
What we need to know is that breakthrough is not something we sit around and wait for. Breakthrough is God waiting on us to respond in obedience to what He has already commanded and already promised.
Breakthrough happens when we take the first offensive step against the barriers in our life. Breakthrough happens when we say, “I’m going to trust that God is going to supernaturally do the impossible.”
God does the breakthrough, but He’s waiting for us to take that first step of faith. We have to believe in God’s goodness, that God has already willed the breakthrough for our life. Then we actually become “agents of breakthrough,” unleashing God’s supernatural power to change our impossible situations in our homes, workplaces and relationships.
Throughout Jesus’ ministry, we see him unleashing God’s power in impossible situations. He also appointed 12 young apostles and taught them to do the same.
How did Jesus teach them? He demonstrated the love and goodness of God in action by preaching the gospel of love and forgiveness, healing the sick, and setting people free from demonic oppression. Then he expected his disciples to do the same. Jesus’ goal was to help them understand that they were supposed to be agents of breakthrough too.
In Mark, chapter 6, we read that Jesus sends out the apostles to preach the gospel, cast out demons, and heal people just like he did (Mark 6:7-12). Then, later in the story, Jesus is teaching to a large crowd of over 5,000 people when He asks the disciples to do “the impossible.”
By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” But he answered, “You give them something to eat.” (Mark 6:35-37)
Jesus expected his disciples to feed the thousands of people in the crowd even though it was impossible for them. That’s because Jesus knew that it wasn’t impossible for God. Similarly, Jesus expects us to take on the seemingly impossible in our own lives. Why? God expects to do impossible things in us and through us.
How exactly does it happen? First, we need to look at what we do have and then give it to God in faith. Jesus knew the disciples didn’t have enough food to feed thousands, but He asked them to bring to him the small amount of food that they did have – five loaves of bread and two fish – and He supernaturally multiplied it. Similarly, God wants us to consider what we do have. This could be our gifts, our talents, our experiences, and unique personality. Then, He wants to use us as an agent of change in whatever impossible situation we’re facing.
Most importantly, we must believe that God is good – not just intellectually – but really believe. We must be willing to obey Him and embrace that He is willing to do the impossible in us and through us for His glory so that more would come to know Him. No matter what we’re facing, God promises to show up in our difficult situations in a way that declares and reveals His glory and goodness.
This week, we’re starting the series, Breakthrough: Unleashing God’s Power Into Impossible Situations. In it, we’ll discover God’s power of breakthrough and learn more about how it works in our lives. My prayer is that as we journey in this series together, more of us will have the courage to step out and believe in God’s supernatural power of breakthrough for our everyday lives.
For with God nothing is impossible,
Chip Ingram
Teaching Pastor, Living on the Edge
Written By
Chip Ingram
Founder & Teaching Pastor, Living on the Edge
Chip Ingram is the CEO and teaching pastor of Living on the Edge, an international teaching and discipleship ministry. A pastor for over thirty years, Chip has a unique ability to communicate truth and challenge people to live out their faith. He is the author of many books, including The Real God, Culture Shock and The Real Heaven. Chip and his wife, Theresa, have four grown children and twelve grandchildren and live in California.
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