Overwhelmed By Giants? Blocked By Mountains?

Are you going through a very tough time? Are you having a relationship problem? Is your health going through a beating? Is the medical report really bad? Are you out of a job? Are you having a financial crisis? Are you having lots of stress in your job? Is your spiritual life stagnant? Are you being overwhelmed by too many giants? Is your path of progress blocked by countless mountains?

Many cannot kill their giants or move their mountains because they have so little faith. The giants or mountains may seem to grow larger when their faith is shrinking. Their situation seems impossible and fear grows out of proportion. What can be done when faith exits your life? How to turn situation around when fear rules supreme?

Recognise that giants will not remain forever. Realize that the mountains cannot grow any larger.They are only there for a season. And God will use this opportunity to strengthen your faith as you engage them. 

Giants can be killed and mountains can be moved! Who were those ordinary people in the Bible who proved that the promises of God were more powerful then all their problems, obstacles and barriers?

Moses proved that the promises of God were more powerful when he rescued thousands of slaves from under the nose of the hostile Pharaoh. Joshua proved it with his conquest of Jericho and the most parts of Canaan. Gideon proved it by routing the large Midianite army with a handful of men. David proved it with his sling and stone against Goliath.

Gideon and his 300 valiant warriors

Every one of these people had worst situation than you would ever faced. They had believed and overcome their adversaries. This is now the the season for you to trust and believe that God's promises are far greater than all the giants and mountains combined.You simply have to accept this truth! 

Every fear situation is subjugated by the "Faith Promises" of God. The life of faith begins when you refuse to give yourself any excuse to fear and fail. God has given you more than enough "Faith Promises" to exercise your faith to conquer and overcome all giants and mountains! Every one of these promises is found in the Bible. Read your Bible carefully!

Begin today by laying all the thoughts of defeat and fear at God's feet. Ask God for a vision of victory. His vision will give you a schedule of success. Then ask Him for wisdom and strength to overcome all doubts. Remember that nothing happens outside of you until a spark of belief happens inside.

Request that He sends you people and situations of favor. Pray with faith! Pray with belief! Then command all these hindrances and fears to go... in the mighty name of Jesus! You will see your Red Sea open and your Jericho walls crumbling down. One act of favor from the Lord is worth more than tons of worries and fear!

When you trust in His promises and activate your faith, miracles are standing at your front door, waiting for you to invite them in. Do open and let them in!

"All things are possible to those who believe." 

(Mark 9:23).

"I can do all this through him who gives me strength." 

(Philippians 4:13).

Albert Kang

10 Ways to Determine God's Calling in Your Life

By John Piper

God's calling to missions is not authoritative the way the Scriptures are. Your calling is never beyond question. You can't claim it to others the way you quote Scripture to them.

Nevertheless our calling can be profoundly and durably sure in our own heart. It is the work of God to bring our heart to a point of conviction that, all things considered-including Scripture-this path is the path of obedience. The conviction is not infallible. But when it is of God, it brings peace.

How does God waken such a calling? I will suggest ten means that he uses. Only one of these is infallible-the Bible. All the others are relative. They are not absolutely decisive in your leading. They are important. But any of them can be overridden by the others. Various combinations of these are the fuel God uses to drive the engine of his calling in your life.

1. Above all, know your Bible and saturate your mind with it.

The Bible shapes our minds for mission durability (Psalm 1:1-3), and makes us burn for Christ (Luke 24:32).

2. Know your gifts and know yourself.

Every Christian has gifts (1 Peter 4:10-11). Knowing them shapes your convictions about your calling. And knowing yourself (as Paul exemplifies in Romans 7:15-24) deepens your sense of fitness for various ministries. (Keep in mind that this can be overridden by other facts!)

3. Ponder the need of the world.

The Christian heart of love is drawn by perceived needs, whether near or far. Therefore God uses what we know to awaken the measure of our desire that pushes us over the edge of commitment (Matthew 9:36-38).

4. Read missionary biography and missionary frontline stories.

Clearly the Bible treats heroes of the faith as divinely appointed inspirations for the awakening of vision and ministry (Hebrews 13:7). "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us" (Hebrews 12:1).

5. Inquire of your soul, "Where are you burdened for others?"

God sends and seeks the burden for lost people. Jesus carried such a burden: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! . . . How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings" (Luke 13:33-34). This burden was essential to his calling. What is your burden?

6. Know your circumstances.

Parents, health, houses, lands, children, age, etc. All of them matter in our calling, but none of them is decisive. They can all be overridden. "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life" (Mark 10:29-30).

7. Pray for God to throw you where you can be best used for his glory.

I say "throw" because in Matthew 9:38 that is the literal meaning: "Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to throw out laborers into his harvest." The point is pray! Ask God to use you to the fullest for his glory. "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him" (James 1:5).

8. Do not neglect passionate, Christ-exalting, corporate worship.

The most important missionary calling that ever happened took place in corporate worship: "While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them'" (Acts 13:2).

9. Listen humbly to the spiritual people in your life.

They not only confirm your gifts. They are the instruments of God to awaken in you possibilities and joys of missionary service that you never dreamed (2 Timothy 1:5-7).

10. Cultivate absolute surrender of all you are and have to Christ.

This is the person that God leads to the greatest fruitfulness of life. Woe to the person who tries to be a half-Christian and never says from the heart: "I renounce everything for you, Lord Jesus. I am willing to go anywhere and do anything at any cost, if you will go with me be my everlasting joy."

This is why Jesus said, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. . . . Therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26-27, 33).

John Piper has been the Pastor for Preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 1980. He has authored numerous best-selling books, including The Passion of Jesus Christ, Don't Waste Your Life and Desiring God. You will find 25 years of online sermons, articles, and other God-centered resources from the ministry of John Piper at www.desiringGod.org. He also has a daily radio program, called "Desiring God," which can be accessed online at www.desiringGod.org/radio.