It is God’s will to lead us into supply above and beyond what we need and can even imagine. On today’s show, Dr. Siohvaughn Funches shares how God does this leading via His Spirit and not fear, panic, or worry. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but power, love and a sound mind. And with this power, love and sound mind, we will walk right into the provision God so graciously gives. As a child of God, you never have to let need lead you. God knows what you need, and is willing and able to meet those needs and even bless you with your heart’s desires!
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Listen to the podcast here:
Don’t Let Need Lead
We’re going to be starting a series titled, Don’t Let Need Lead. This is vital. At all times, it’s crucial. You think your needs are crucial. They are, but it’s equally crucial. If not more that you don’t allow need to leave you in your decision making, but instead allow the spirit of God to do so. Before we dive in deeper right into that message, let’s take a moment and acknowledge God and pray like we always do. I thank you, heavenly Father for the opportunity again to get at the feet of Jesus. I thank you, Daddy, that you’re given to each and every one of us the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
I thank you that the eyes of our understanding are being enlightened. We will know the hope of His calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe according to the working of His mighty power. I thank you, Jesus, that you’re going to expound on the scriptures to us about the things concerning yourself. I thank you for blessing us. When we come away from this day, we will know you more.
We will see your heart and as a result of seeing your heart and being intimate with you, we knowing you more and having more knowledge of you, God, I thank you that we’ll see your hand move mightily in every area of our life. We’ll see the flow of the supply that you have for us is specifically in the area of needs. Even in the area of our heart’s desires, those secret petitions, God. I thank you that we’ll see you move mightily on our behalf, and more importantly, on behalf of your perfect wheel for our life, for our family and for the destiny that you’ve called us to fulfill. In Jesus’ name, we pray.
If you’ve been with us on this journey here, we’re renewing our minds with the word of God, specifically in the area of God as our provider, Jehovah Jireh. God made sure that everybody walked away from that particular series, knowing beyond the shadow of any possible demonic doubt or fleshly doubt that it’s God’s absolute perfect wheel that He provides for His children. If you’re born again, you are a child of God. It is God’s perfect will to provide for you.
We’re continuing on in that same spirit of faith and talking about along those same lines, as far as the heart and the will of God is concerned. More specifically, we’re going to dive into the importance, the benefits and the blessings of not allowing our needs to lead us, but at all times, and all circumstances and seasons, we allow the spirit of God to lead us because we as sons and daughters of God. We’re called to be led by the spirit of God. In fact, it says in Romans 8:14, “For as many as are led by the spirit of God, these are sons of God.” “These,” in other words are the children of God. Those who are led by the spirit of God.
In this series, we’re going to look quite deeply into the book of Ruth and learn how God’s promise to provide will never, ever fail. We’re going to learn why we don’t have to make some of the same mistakes that Ruth’s mother-in-law, Naomi, and her family, the mistakes that they made in allowing need to lead them. We also are going to see the loving heart and grace of God in helping restore this family, keeping in mind that God is not a respecter of persons and what He did for them, He’s willing and able to do for us. God did this for them, even after the mess that was made was of their own making. It derived from their own mistakes.
A Light To Our Path
From them, allowing the need to lead them, instead of God to lead them. The Bible says, “The word of God is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.” That lights up the path, it lights up in a way that says, “This is the way you should go.” The Bible says, “Hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way you should go walk in it.’” Born Again spiritual people, this voice is coming from within. You want to be careful about voices from without.
God’s not dwelling on the outside of you anymore. He is, by His Holy Spirit, literally dwelling from within. There is an unction. There is leading from within that God will tell us and not necessarily in words, but He has His way of guiding us, even if it’s not articulated in the English language or whatever your primary language is, but He has a way of leading us and lighting up the path. One way He does it is not only from within, but the spirit of God is the one that inspired the writings in the Bible.
Although different people pinned the book. Like the books that God has written through me, The True Story For God’s Glory and You Gotta Let God Finish! That book, I was the author in the sense that God did it through me, but I’m not the author in the sense that the ideas, the inspiration, the wisdom, the knowledge didn’t come from me. It came directly from the Holy Spirit of God. Trust me, I’m not that wise. The spirit of God in me is the one who released that wise counsel, if you’ve had a chance to read either one of those books and it is what God did in writing the Bible.
He panned it through men, like mankind is the secretary, but the actual idea, inspiration, wisdom, knowledge, enlightenment, understanding, revelations in it, the decision of what will be written, what will not, the details given, the details with hail, all of that came from the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. He certainly is the author and finisher of the Bible. He is the author and finisher of the two books I wrote and several other books that Born Again people have written by being led by the spirit of God.
What to actually write down, what to research, what order to put chapters in, what to name them, all of that came from God for me and even for other people who are Born Again and will yield to God like that. Who would say, “God, this is not even my idea, I never even dreamed of being an author, your will be done, what do you want to say to your people? I’ll write it for you.” That’s basically what happened. It’s happening through this show.
These ideas are not my own. I have to go to God and say, “What do you want to say?” A lot of times he says it to me and then through me. It’s definitely coming from Him, which is great news for you and me, because as wonderful as we are, we’re fearfully and wonderfully made. It’s a blessing to be in the family and the body of Christ. The truth is who we need to hear from is God. We need the Holy Spirit to help each and every one of us.
True Help Comes From God
I love the fact that God will use us to help one another. The Bible says, “Iron sharpens iron.” The true help is coming from God because it’s God on the inside of me, that’s able to give to you and vice versa, God on the inside of you, it’s able to give to me. All in all, it’s definitely God. That word being a lamp to our feet and our light to our path is God leading us, not just from within, but leading us from the Bible. We read the Bible, we open it up. We want to ask God, open up the scriptures to us about the things concerning yourself. “God revealed to me more of you, bless me to know you more.”
This is getting to know. That’s what a relationship is. You spend your married life getting to know one another. Even as you change, you get to know one another through the changes and evolving, growing, hopefully changing and growing for the better. It is a lifelong process of knowing each other. Even in the Bible, when people would come together and have sex, the Holy Spirit I’m talking about it would say that this man knew her. He wouldn’t say, “He had sex with her,” he would say, “He knew her,” because that is also a deep form of intimacy.
Intimacy With Christ
People try to treat things on the surface like it was a one-night stand. No way. God said you became one with whoever you had that one night’s stand with. It’s deep. It’s serious to be one with someone because God refers to that. It’s us being one with Christ Jesus and God being one with Jesus and us being one with the Father as the son is one and husbands and wives being one. It’s more than “Just sex.” It cannot be just sex and God has called it to something tantamount and equal to what our relationship is like with Him and what our relationship as husbands and wives are like with spouses. That’s serious.
If you’ve ever been married before, you know that’s serious. God’s word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. When you read it and you ask God to open up the scriptures to you, show you, teach you, lead you, guide you and wash you with the washing of the word. It gives you fresh revelation, new insights and understanding, take you deeper, expound on these scriptures, bless you to comprehend them and understand them, not for an accumulation of knowledge, but because you know God. You reading the Bible, it’s reading you.
This is deeper than picking up a book at Barnes & Noble. Take that time and get to know God, be intimate with Him. Earlier on in this series, God did a phenomenal message on the benefits and blessings of knowing God. Sometimes we’re looking at, “How to get this?” “How to achieve that?” “How to obtain this?” Whether it’s a happier marriage or the blessing of fruitfulness in our body or a career change for the better, increase in finances.
We’re thinking of all these different ways you go about getting that and we’re on these twelve-step program type of kicks and nothing’s wrong with twelve-step programs. We’re on this like way of trying to figure it out in a world systematic way of trying to achieve something. God’s ways are simple and they confound the wise. He takes the weak things and he can confound the strong. God’s way is that we will go after him and then that He calls the blessing to go after us.
During that series in the Lord’s path, drip with abundance. In His path, that’s in His will. That’s Him leading you, that’s in His path, He’s on His path. If you’re on it, then you’re following Him. If you’re following Him in that path, He promised it has abundance, not even sufficiency, because what does God owe us in the first place? Nothing. He’s a debtor to no one. It would have been good enough to say sufficiency, but God in who He is and lavishly giving, not even knowing how to give small, gives big. He’s a big giver. He’s a big God. That’s the way He gives.
If people are full of love, they tend to give big lavish gifts, but God is not just full of love. He is love. It’s His whole genetic makeup. It is Him. It’s His essence, it’s His being. We know for sure that love gives. He gives big. He wants to lead us via his word, reading the Bible, anointed, preaches and teachings like this show, the books I’ve written, books from other anointed people who teach and God has given that gift to teach and to preach the gospel. Those are ways that God leads us.
Sometimes He does do things. Speaking to us in dreams, prophetic words, He uses a prophet, but for the most part I’ve learned, God will speak to you. Opening the book, you get the Bible open, get in there and ask God like, “This book is You. You are your word.” That’s deep. I’m not going to pretend like I know everything and that I’m going to understand it. I can dive right in as if it’s some book I’m reading that I was in the sixth-grade reading. Even some of those were difficult to comprehend.
I’m not going to pretend this one is easy peasy. I take a moment and I ask God to help me in my understanding. Teach me, show me, bless me to know you more because this is about an intimate relationship and you can’t be intimate without knowing someone and knowing them deeply. There are the real heart and spirit of intimacy. There’s even a desire there to know them. That’s what we’re doing. We’re on a journey of knowing God.
When you know God, you trust God, you love God, even if you mess up, the truth is you didn’t want to. Your flesh might have wanted to and the devil wanted you to, but who you are in Christ? It doesn’t want to have anything to do with it. You love God. We’ll at that book of Ruth and look at some of the consequences, and not only that, but we’ll look at the grace of God in restoring them, redeeming them, even when it was no fault of God’s and a fault of their own, because that’s who God is. Gracious.
As far as us being human and they say, “To be human is to err.” We need the grace of God. We need him to be like that. Praise be to God for who He is. Before anybody could pray, before anybody could fast, before nobody could touch and agree, God was love and always be loved. God is gracious. He’s always been slow to anger and quick in mercy. God is the one who said mercy triumphs over judgment. No one was here to have to pray Him or convince Him into that.
I always tell people, “You don’t have to spend time talking God into being good. God is already good.” Sometimes we pray as if we got to convince God to do the things that when we know Him, we know that God already believes that, God already desires that, that’s God’s perfect will. He wants that for me more than I do myself and it takes prayer away from pleading and into praising because you can literally start off every petition with, “I thank you God,” because it is His will to bless us. He wants to do that. Loves to give, “What do you want from me?” That’s the truth.
Worry Not About Tomorrow
God gave us the book of Ruth and we will get into that. We’re going to start off with a famous passage of scripture. I believe it will be our key passage of scripture for this entire series. It’s taken from King James Version, Matthew 6:25, all the way to verse 33. It is Jesus who was speaking and he says, “Therefore, I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? Why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow? They neither toil nor spin and yet I say to you that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. With God clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven. Will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith.”
“Therefore, do not worry saying, ‘what shall we eat?’ or ‘what shall we drink?’ or’ what shall we wear?’ For all these things the Gentiles,” this represents those who are not children of God, “Seek. For your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things, but seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things.” That went all the way to verse 34.
This is such a necessary passage of scripture. I love the fact of God knowing what we need, put this passage of scripture there for us because humans have needs, basic necessities. Food and clothing are to name a couple. We know that, but more importantly, God knows that. The enemy is crafty. He’s not this total idiot. You may want to believe he is. He’s not using things that are unimportant to try and distract you, deter you or get you to get full of fear because we know fear produces a flight or frozen.
Either paralyze or you’re piloting out of there, neither of which is God. Don’t go out in haste. Don’t be slow and certainly don’t be paralyzed. You’re going to have to move forward in life. The enemy tries to either paralyze us with fear or get us to flee and get ahead of God and get into trying to save ourselves. It’s like the drowning victim and God’s the lifeguard. The drowning victim is full of fears so they’re flailing and going crazy instead of resting in the arms of the lifeguard that is trained and well able to save their life.
Fear says, “You got to do something.” People that do that in drowning, a lot of times drown for that reason, not even because they couldn’t swim, nor were they out in tumultuous waters, nor the weather was bad. The cause of death is fear. Not even drowning. That’s what killed them. The enemy tries to use things that are very important. Vital, in fact. Matters of life and death because he’s evil and he has no intention to hold punches. When he aims, he’s going for the head or the jugular vein. He’s not there to play, which is why you cannot play with Satan.
I’m not saying that to make anybody afraid. The enemy is under your feet. He’s a defeated foe. If he convinces you to defeat yourself because you have the power. Jesus gave you and I, the keys to the kingdom, we have power over the enemy, all power over him. In fact, Jesus said that He couldn’t lie. In fact, He is the truth. If we give him that power, like Adam and Eve did in the garden, then no wonder why things are turned upside down. If they are upside down, no condemnation. We’ve all been there. Anybody wants to be honest, everybody outside of Jesus has been there. Born Again or not, to be safe for 50 years, you’ve been there and more than once. Probably, even more than once this week. No condemnation.
We’re here to help each other, pick each other up, love one another, restore one another, remind one another, refresh and renew one another with the word of God and the loving correction and truth of God. No condemnation, just correction. You can be even better than you’ve ever been before and me as well and everyone else. The enemy will try to use those things to get you in panic mode. To get you in the mode where you try to save yourself, like that drowning victim, instead of consenting to the lifeguard, saving you. The lifeguard representing Jesus. The one who is skilled, trained and will able. The enemy wants to convince you that you can do a better job than Jesus. He’s the lifeguard. He’s trying well and able and we are the person who doesn’t even know how to swim.
He wants to convince us we can do a better job in choppy waters than the lifeguard. He does that via fear. Fear is irrational, it’s ignorant. When you sit back and think about it, none of it makes sense. It’s hard to make sense of anything full of panic. Panic is not even trying to make sense of it. It’s shooting off, going nuts, running around, pacing the floor, biting nails, hair falling out. Hair falling out has never resolved anything, but why not? We have to be wise in that regard. I’m not going to tell you to spend so much time. I know people do that sometimes.
They’re like, “Know your enemy.” They can name every demon in hell. I only got 24 hours in the day and I’m either going to spend it and getting to know all the demons located in the left leg of hell, the belly of hell, or I’m going to get to know God more. I spend my time getting to know God more. That’s my preference. When I’m getting to know Him more, He wants to reveal something like this about the enemy to me, I’m all ears. Other than that, I’ve not personally been led to do a study on the enemy. These are the things that God has revealed to me and God promised to supply my needs. “This must have been what I needed to know. If I need to know something else, you’ll supply it and you’ll do it on time.”
The Lord was showing me that the enemy and using needs try to get people almost to justify their fear. More than 300 times, I believe scholars have said it’s written in the Bible that God is commanding us. “Don’t fear.” I’m not trying to say this to be legalistic. I’m simply saying He’s instructing us, “Don’t fear,” “Don’t panic,” “Don’t be afraid.” I’m thinking, “One thing God doesn’t do is waste words.” If He said that and He said that again, you mean to tell me this thing has happened hundreds of times? Nothing else is said hundreds of times in the Bible.
I don’t believe that. Maybe the name of God. Other than that? No. Like instructive things. For example, God doesn’t say don’t commit adultery. As God awful as that is, as painful as the consequences, the severity of them spiritually and naturally is He doesn’t keep repeating that. Something about the fear that God again and again tirelessly says, “If you didn’t hear me the first 275 times, here’s 276. Don’t be afraid.” We must have needed to hear that.
You think about Adam and Eve in the garden. Soon as Satan came in, the first thing they experienced was fear and it caused them to run away from God. That fear has the tendency to take people away from the will and presence of God. Which is why He is probably saying, “Don’t fear,” because whatever the issue is, whoever caused the issue, whether it’s you or something else, what you and I need is God. We certainly don’t need fear that’s going to take us away from the solution to the problem. We only perpetuate the problem.
You’re probably like going from molehill to mountain at that point. God knows what we need, but so does the enemy, unfortunately. He will try to use the things that we need to make us panic and get outside the will of God. “Your rent is due. You need a place to live.” He’s like, “You better do so and so,” or, “Maybe you better do nothing, because what if you make it worse?” He goes with all those hypothetical scenarios and God’s will is that we do not do this. We do not get into this. Interestingly, God, show me with these needs. It is the way that we use to get these needs met the majority of the time is through money.
This is not a coincidence either, which is why in the Bible in Matthew 6:24 that Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and riches or mammon.” which means riches in the original language. It’s interesting that God says as many times as He does, “Do not fear.” There is a strong, prominent purpose to that. God is not doing anything because he doesn’t have anything else to do.
God Versus Mammon
Nothing idle in action or word. It’s all with the divine purpose. I promise it was all for our benefit because that’s the way God loves us. At all the things, at all the sin, not all the wrong that could be done. God says, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” I’m not certain. I’m not saying I do this all the time, but I’ve read my Bible from front to back. I probably went in, studied and spent some time with God via the word of God. Getting to know Him via the word of God, maybe more than others. I haven’t come across thus far in my studies, by listening to anointed preachings and teachings where God said, “You cannot serve me and anything else other than riches.” That also was not a coincidence.
How do we get our needs met? It’s through riches. A lot of the time, if the enemy comes and tries to get somebody to panic about them not having what they need, he’s telling me better do something about it. You got this need and what does this need telling you that you need to do about it? It’s letting the need lead you at that point, if you succumb to that, attract from the devil. Next step, what do you need to get the need met? Money.
Mammon and riches come on the scene and says, “I’m the God of money.” “You need money? Let me be your God. Serve me. I’ll tell you how to get it.” Most of the time he says things like, “I’ll tell you how to get it quickly.” He starts to appeal to the flesh, then the flesh wants everything like yesteryear, not even yesterday. We know that. I know that. I’ve got flesh. It’s interesting that God doesn’t say, “You can’t serve God and sexual morality,” “You can’t serve God and sexual perversion,” “You can’t serve God and violence,” “You can’t serve God and lies,” “You can’t serve God and murder.”
All these things are terrible things, but He does say, “You can’t serve God and money.” If there’s anything, I think we want to say, “God, if there’d be anything of any of this in me, where I’m serving mammon or I’m letting need lead me, deliver me, in Jesus’ name. Correct me in that area. Fix that, Jesus.” Sometimes we focus on these outer things, but a lot of times the outer trouble we see, and not always, that some of the outer trouble was the devil himself. Some out of trouble are just people doing things they’re being evil. Sometimes the trouble we see is because of our self. It’s because of our self, it always started on the inside.
It’s an inner issue before it’s ever an outer issue. People have an inner issue. They’re feeling some way that’s negative, then they start speaking negatively. What God said, “We can have what we say,” “You’ve got the power of life and death.” I tell them, next thing you know, they’re seeing what they’re saying, but what they’re saying was negative.” This is worse than it was before they started. Let us let the God who loves us and instruct and teach us in the way we should go. Let’s pay heed to His warning.
It’s an impossibility to serve God and mammon. Jesus says, “This particular demon will have you hating God.” Some of the things people on offense a little bit about, but this one takes people all the way to another extreme. We don’t want to have anything to do with this one. We don’t want to have anything to do with any of them, but this one is like, “You want to take me to the bowels of acting hellish. If I’m involved in this one, that’s a no go.” It’s almost like somebody who said, “I’ll have a sip of wine.” I’m not saying that’s bad. Don’t get me wrong, but there’s a difference between the wine and heroin for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Whom The Son Sets Free Is Free Indeed
I’m saying, this one here is more like the heroin for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and coke in the afternoon as a snack. That’s way too much. We never want to go that far. If you have time for deliverance, that works. Whomever the son of God sets free is free indeed. If you don’t have to deal with those devils, those addictions, those strong holes, then by all means, don’t. It’s better to be free than to have the need to be free. It’s better to walk health and wholeness than it is to need to be healed again and again. We thank God for His wisdom, for His word and that Jesus said, “God made you.”
He knows who He made and the need of the human being. He knows how to get your needs met. Seek first the kingdom of God and not just any righteousness, this is not the right behavior. He said His righteousness, which God tells us in Romans. If you go into the New Testament, and I don’t mean the New Testament like Matthew. What I mean is after Christ died and rose again. If you go to that part of the Bible to get Romans, Galatians, Philippians, you’ll see that God expounds on this new covenant therein. In this new covenant, the righteousness of God is revealed and it is from grace to grace and it is a gift. When you believe in the Lord, Jesus Christ, you receive not only salvation from hell, but Jesus’ righteousness is imparted to you.
Like on the cross, your sins and my sins were imparted to Him. This is what they mean by the divine exchange. We got to know that first and foremost. God is saying, when you seek his kingdom, justice, joy, righteousness, and seek His righteousness as a gift. Not that self-made man righteousness where man thinks they can do good and then God is going to do this for them and making God better to them. That’s crazy. God is a debtor to no man. If good works and that old systematic way were working, God certainly wouldn’t have sent His only begotten son who He deeply loves and is well-pleased to die a horrible death on the cross. Our sins were so bad, that our good works would never fix that. We can do good deeds from here until 54 billion more millenniums. It wouldn’t have done it.
We needed the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus saves and makes you righteous. Nothing you do. What you did when you believe what He did for you, in the son of God, you become righteous with His own righteousness. That’s huge that you receive His righteousness because there is no sin stain even after being Born Again, even after receiving this righteousness, they can undo that. That’s also a crazy thought. We don’t want to have crazy thoughts. We got to know that our sin or wrongdoing or mistakes, even repeated mistakes, cannot us unclean. Like Jesus said, “What I have cleansed, do not call unclean.” If the blood of Jesus has washed you, and the Bible even says, “Put away your sins, blot it out.” Erased, in other words, as if you’ve never sinned.
Whatever God does cannot be undone. I’m not saying I don’t care what you did. I’m not saying there’s not a place for correction. I’m simply saying what you did is not powerful enough and never will it be, neither will anything I do wrong ever be powerful enough to erase what God almighty did. It is that simple. We don’t want to think too much of our self. We have some power and praise be to God. We are not overruling God. God cleans up something, we can’t make that dirty. We’re going to pick up here and next episode we’ll continue on with this series. I want to take the time that God has given and get into this because we all have needs.
The time that we’re in, this so-called crisis that the nations around the world are facing and here in America, it’s necessary for us to be renewed in our mind, refreshed, reminded even some of us that God would supply all of our needs. His way and His reason for that supply, His love for us and the fact that He’s made us righteous before Him. There are many promises for the righteous and the Bible and they’re yours and they’re mine, the children of God.
We want to grab hold of that and make sure need doesn’t lead us, but the spirit of God does. Until then, may the spirit of God lead you and guide you. I pray He blesses you by causing you to follow Him and make His word. Even the word spoken by His spirit through me be a lamp to your feet and a light to your path. May He give you fresher revelations and deeper understanding of His heart and His will for your life and your family as you open up your Bible and you get to know Him more. In Jesus’ name, I pray. I love you.
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