Sunday, 20th May 2020
Rev Daniel Xi An Poon
“In the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did” (Romans 4:17)
We all have dreams and the dreams are motivation for us to move forward. Also, God gives us dreams for us to reconnect with Him and our dreams can often take us to another level of our lives. Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” God has already prepared the blessings for us, we need to work with God to make our dreams come true!
WHY?
1. We have a God, who calls those things that do not exist as through they did
God gave dreams to Abraham, Moses, David, all the prophets… and all of these dreams seemed impossible at the time, but because of the love they had for God, they were able to see their dreams come true. If we don’t have love then we can’t give because we will always want to have things in return.
Ps Timothy Zhao had a dream after WWII, to build BOL church. At the time it seemed impossible but he didn’t give up, and now in 2020, we have more that 500 branches around the world! We follow the vision of Ps Timothy Zhao, and as the children of Abraham, we have the same dream! Therefore don’t let anything stop us to continue our dreams. We are here in Bread of Life South Auckland for a purpose and we share one dream!
This year we have been talking about to arise and shine, to go and make disciples, and to take back the gold and silver to glorify God.
HOW?
2. Don’t let our thinking be limited
On the other hand, if we always think these dreams are impossible to come true, we will limit our mind, knowledge and environment, we will end up with nothing. Jesus taught us to focus on the Kingdom and eternal blessings. When we focus on God, trust in His guidance, then He will lead us out of slavery and into the Promised Land.
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)
Don’t always ask “what is this?” But ask more “what if?” God is with us and we don’t need to doubt or be afraid, when we stop being afraid we can see the unlimited God and dream the impossible dreams!
3. Get the strategy from the Holy Spirit
God is waiting for us, He gave us all His Word in the Bible, and is waiting for us to activate the Holy Spirit to partnership with Him. He has put a dream and plan in each one of our lives, we should not just live to survive, instead, we need to proclaim the Word of God, to pray and seek God’s Will.
The Spirit of God will teach us to do things in God’s way, not our ways. It’s a challenge to give up the way we are comfortable and familiar with, but God has the best way!
4. Have close relationship with those, who have the same vision
In the Kingdom of God, we should support each other, not to put each other down. We are all here for one purpose, to finish the Great Commission Jesus sent us to do. All our decisions and actions we take should go towards who God has created us to be. We are easily influenced by people around us without us noticing it, therefore it’s important to decide who we want to spend more time with.
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)
No matter how big our dream seems, it is possible, by faith we can believe in the unseen, and by trusting in God we know that we already have everything we need!
God is real and He is talking to us right now, He knows our dreams and He is providing us the way to make it come true! Stop doubting and start believing, what is our decision?