God Goes Before You (Part 2)

God is good and He always ends on a good note. When He is at work in your life, you will always end on the good side. God makes everything beautiful in its time. So, no matter how many challenges you face right now. Your time is coming. Just have faith in Him.

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God Goes Before You (Part 2)

Welcome back, everyone. And thank you so much for joining me here again, on the One Thing That’s Needful podcast, my name is Dr. Siohvaughn Funches. And today, we’re going to be continuing on but definitely not finishing up our series titled God Goes Before You. But before we do that, and dive into what God has for us, we’re going to take a moment and do what we always do. And let’s acknowledge God.

The Lord is the one who is going ahead of you, He will be with you, He will not fail you or forsake you do not fear or be dismayed.

 I thank you, Heavenly Father, for this opportunity to get at the feet of Your Son Jesus and to hear him I thank you that you’re granting to us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of our understanding are being enlightened that we may know what is the hope of his calling, what are all 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, thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, you are expounding on the Scriptures to us today about the things concerning yourself. Thank you, Holy Spirit, you’re leading and guiding us into all truth. And teaching us all things. I thank you that in your light, we see light in that Your word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. And I think that that path God for us who are born again, the righteous, it’s getting brighter, and brighter God, thank You, Father, in Jesus name. 

So before we get into the heart of what God has for us, today, we’re going to recap just a bit. As I said, there are people who are joining us literally every week. And then obviously, it’s been a week since you’ve heard the first message. So this will be good for every listener.  And if you didn’t hear last week, I have to encourage you to get that I have to encourage you to listen to that, because I want you to have all that God has for you.  And we know the way to possess our possessions in this New Covenant of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is by believing in order to believe you gotta have faith. And we know that faith comes by hearing and hearing and continuing to hear the word of Christ. And that is what we do on this podcast by the grace of God. 

So last week, we were talking about how God spoke to me once and said, My provision always precedes the problem. And we spoke about the significance of such a statement like that, and how it’s backed up repeatedly in Biblical truths in the actual writing of the scriptures, and how it plays out as you actually read the scriptures, in numerous people’s lives. Even though on this series, we’re going to be only looking at a few. Now when it comes to the importance of God going before us, of us getting to know God, allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal to us and God as the God who goes before us. We talked about how that’s important because, on this side of heaven, there are going to be trials, there’s going to be trouble. But Jesus said, Be of good cheer. He’s overcome the world. And I love to tell people, the truth, I’m big on transparency. So being transparent, everything I read in the Bible doesn’t make me feel happy. I don’t get a warm tingly sensation and feel to jump up and down, not at first read or hear, right? That’s being honest and transparent. 

For example, when Jesus said in John 16, In this world, you’ll have trouble with like Womp. If you don’t have to deal with it, you probably don’t want to deal with it. Or at least I don’t. And so when he says this at first here or first read, it’s like, man, that’s Wow, Joy kill, right? So, but you got to just you got to let God finish. You guys haven’t read that. You got to read that. That’s the book that God clearly wrote through me as a secretary. Trust me. He was getting me at all hours of the day and night to jot down things that were just fluid, my mind and my spirit. It definitely didn’t come from me that came from heaven. That’s one of Heaven’s best, I believe. It truly came from the heart of God and not me. And so Jesus tells us this, but he also tells us Be of good cheer because he’s overcome the world. And this is important because we know that Jesus can’t lie. So Jesus is telling the truth.

God is good and He always ends on a good note.

In Numbers 23 It tells us God is not a man that he shall lie. He’s not the Son of man that he would be changing his mind. The Word of God when He speaks and we know and Isaiah It doesn’t come back void to empty, it has to accomplish what he sent it to do. So, God, He is not only telling the truth, God is the truth, And he cannot lie. Okay. And there isn’t much God cannot do but he can’t lie. And so that means the things that make us feel warm and Tinguely. Great because that’s the truth. It won’t fail. And then the things that we read, or we hear, and we’re like, wow, Did God really say that? I kind of wish he didn’t write. But he did. So these are the cards we’ve been dealt. But if you see something, and it starts off, not making you feel warm and tingly inside, again, you got to let God finish because he’s clearly not done. God is good. He always ends on a good note. When God is at work in your life, you’ll always end on a good note.

The Bible says God makes all things beautiful in its time. That’s an Ecclesiastics I believe three, God makes all things beautiful, and it’s time so we know that if it’s not good yet, then it’s not God, God being done yet you just got to let him finish.But on this side of heaven, it’s going to be relevant that we know God is the God that goes before us because there are going to be problems. Otherwise, God wouldn’t have said, His provision, his answers, his deliverance, his way of escape his whatever you need proceeded the problem. God’s not just on top of it, he’s ahead of it. And that brings a peace and an inner rest. Like no spa can give. And I like a good massage. But like no spa can give God gifts, inner peace, and real rest, real relaxation, right? When your mind and your spirit and your heart are at ease, and they’re not anxious, or trouble or fearful and afraid. That’s real peace. And God gives us that. So in other words, the outcome is when God goes before you, you always win. I constantly tell people I run into you cannot lose with the God I choose. He is love. He loves you, and he has gone before you in all things. And God always, in all things goes before you. He’s always and at all times working everything together for your good. And that includes, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and I like to also add the indifferent. Okay, God is working it all together for our good. 

So our key scripture for this series comes out of Deuteronomy 31, and eight, and the Lord is the one who is going ahead of you, He will be with you, He will not fail you or forsake you do not fear or be dismayed. And that’s the NASB 1995 version that I read out of Farah’s key scripture. If you’ve been with me on the journey, you know, I usually go out of the or readout of I should say, the New King James Version, I try to tell you all when I’m changing it up.

So now let’s pick up where we left off. And just start afresh what else God has for us, right. And I want to take you to Isaiah 45, verses two through three, and this is out of the New King James Version. When God says, I will go before you and make the cricket places straight, I will break in pieces, the gates of wrongs and cut the bars of iron, I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places that you may know that I, the Lord who calls you buy your name, and the God of Israel. I just absolutely love it. I asked God once before about him. And the Bible constantly says The Lord is with you. The Lord is with you. I want God to reveal Himself to me as the as the Lord that’s with me. What does it mean to have God with you? It was in a really, really tough trial. And I was telling God, the last thing I need is another spectator. Right. The last thing I need is someone who hasn’t walked it out, but is I was sharing with God that the last thing I needed was someone who would be just with me to be an onlooker I needed real power, I needed real help Not just someone standing by sightseeing the pieces, right that are falling to the ground. And that’s when God revealed himself to me as the Lord who goes with you. I think it’s interesting that in the Scripture, like the other one, which is our key scripture, it talks about God going before you.

And not only that, and referring to him as Lord, that covenant-keeping part of God that God that is sovereign and in control, not just over your life in mind or over this whole thing right there we’re dealing with called life on this side of heaven, in in Heaven itself and even inhale God’s even in control of your enemies. 

So God explained to me why and what it means to have him as the god who’s with us. And on this series, obviously, he’s teaching us about what it means to have him as the God who goes before us. And I love how one of the similarities in those revelations was that God deals with those who are coming into God contends with those who contend with you, and he fights against those who fight against you and he saves you and delivers you as many times as you need saving and deliverance. And in this particular scripture of Isaiah 45, I just love it to me, it’s a scripture of warfare, but it’s also a scripture that reminds us of true warfare. For us, God told us to fight the good fight of faith, so we only believe, but the other part of the warfare you like I cannot be. So I’m just sitting back believing that all this is happening. That’s not the whole story. That’s not the whole picture. You’re sitting back relaxing because God is going to work on your behalf. He’s making the cricket place a straight, he’s breaking in pieces, the gates of bronze, He’s cutting the bars of iron down, He’s giving you the treasures. God is doing all of this God is at work in your life. And he’s doing that particular part of the fighting. Remember, the Bible says the battle is the Lord’s. So he’s doing that battle, our only fight is the fight the good fight of faith. And that’s the only believe.

Have you ever been in a fight? When everything including common sense is telling you stop believing that and just let go and accept the doubt or the fear. The reasoning is saying, Hey, man, like Rational was saying I agree. Fear is, of course, consenting to that madness and doubts, the biggest cheerleader, you’ll know on that field of failure, right. But at the same time, you keep believing even when you want to give up, God doesn’t let you it’s like you just want to steal the rest of the gas out of the tank, you don’t even want to go further anymore. God has a way of refilling your tank. Next thing you know, you’re driving off, you got another good 100 miles left when you come to find out he’s renewing your strength, because all he wants you to do is believe. And that faith to believe right comes by hearing the preach or the taught Word of God, which is why we do this, and which is why we allow ourselves to do it. So often, it is necessary to do this. And to do this often. 

I will go before you and make the cricket places straight, I will break in pieces, the gates of wrongs and cut the bars of iron, I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places that you may know that I, the Lord who calls you by your name, and the God of Israel.

Now we’re the first thing that we’re going to talk about in God demonstrating us himself as the guy who goes before us. And I mean in detail of the scriptures, going a little bit deeper, and then getting into the lives of certain people in the Bible where God is revealing himself as the God who goes before you. So let’s look. And we’ll start where God obviously hit me start on this journey. And that was at the same problem, right? Because that was one of the initial problems with man would you say? So? That problem opened up the door to the rest of the problem. No sin no death, for example, right, no death, and no decaying or illness or disease. See what I mean? Like it opened the door, the floodgates, so to speak to every other problem. So we’re going to start where God started and given me the revelation. And that was with the sin problem. And what we’re going to get out of this and see from this is how God goes before us. 

So we’re going to start in Genesis, right? We’re starting in the book of beginnings. And I’m going to read a little bit to you on purpose, because again, this is not like a novel you would pick up as nice as that may be and read, right? I like to read, but I like it more than I can read. And it’s actually edifying me, right. I like to read what’s reading me, so to speak, you know, and edify me building me up, encouraging me, and giving me the faith I need to believe. So let me read a bit to you. It says in the LORD God took the man and put them in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it and the Lord God commanded the man saying Of every tree of the garden, you may eat freely, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. That, that in and of itself, that that sentence, right, given what God has taught me along the years, is like its own series that that could last for weeks. If that were done, I’m certain but it’s interesting to me, I’ll just point out briefly here, it’s interesting to me, that of all the trees, God said, eat freely, and they seem to zero in Adam and Eve on the one thing that they didn’t have.

 I do believe that still a trap and a trick from Hale, to try to get us to take our focus off of thanksgiving and all the things God has done all the things God is doing everything he’s bestowed upon us. God has not adapted to any man, the fact that everything he’s given, he’s given it freely. God gave up his son, his only begotten son if he never gave anything else that was more than any of us deserved. But with God, as he told me before the lesser always includes the greater and God gave up his son. So everything else that you will ever need, God has given to you freely already in Christ. That is the Absolute Truth.

 As a matter of fact, man, Romans 8:32, says, He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall he not with him? That’s done already he gave up Jesus already. So how shall he not with Him also freely give us all things? I just love it. God’s love language is clearly giving For God so loved the world that he gave, right? I mean, my goodness gracious. And when he gave us Jesus come to find out in Romans 8:32, he gave us everything with him. But it’s with him. It’s with the word Jesus is the Word as we see in John one. And so let’s keep reading. But I just wanted to point that out to you, in case anybody is struggling with that the enemy tries to get us distracted. That’s like his number one tactic is distractions, and get somebody distracted on what they don’t have, or what they’re still waiting for God to finish, as opposed to all the wonderful things he has finished and that he is doing, even right now in your life. And I just believe God wants to expose that because it was a trap to them then. And it’s like a trap that the enemy sets for mankind now. 

So it says, And the Lord God sees it, it is not good, that man should be alone, I will make him a helper comparable to him than the Lord God took the man and put them in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it now like right here. It doesn’t say anything about Adam. Maybe having this revelation, it makes no mention. It doesn’t mean that he didn’t notice that it wasn’t good for him to be alone, he might have actually felt a certain kind of way. And it might have been some feelings of negativity. I’m not sure the Bible is silent on it, as far as I know. But I love how, without the Bible mentioning Adam praying, you see what I mean? God recognizes the problem. It makes no mention of Adam even realizing he had a problem, you’re in a dilemma, right? It’s not good for a man to be alone. Remember, God, can’t lie. And so he makes my help make comparable to him without prayer. And I don’t mean that to encourage anybody not to pray. The Bible says pray without ceasing. But prayer is basically communicating with God. And so you communicate with your family to communicate with them on an ongoing basis, several times a day, throughout the day is normal, depending on what sort of lifestyle you’re living, or some people I know, are away in the military, for example. So maybe they can’t communicate every day, things like that. But I just mean, on a regular basis, not any sort of very unique occupation. We are usually communicating several times a day, and that’s normal for us. That’s natural for us. Nobody ever feels like, huh, let me say hello to my children one more time, like no. So when we shouldn’t feel like that about prayer, because prayer is just communicating with God now, because God is God. And we’re people, there is a significant amount of time that’s spent with us requesting God’s help, because we need him he’s got and we’re not he ordained itself. That’s not an accident, God is not like a man should have made you more self-sufficient, you should be able to figure some of this out on your own. You know, that’s not God didn’t do that. And he did that on purpose. 

He has us dependent on him on purpose. That’s not an accident or coincidence. And it’s certainly not a sign of weakness for you, the more you depend on God, the stronger you’re getting. And that obviously, is an indication that you’re wise, that you bearing the fruit of wisdom, you can tell a wise person, and a person who’s trusting in the grace of God, they pray a lot. They’re almost like constantly in communication with God. Those are people who tend to be really, really dependent on God, their trust is in God, they’re leaning heavily on God. And I say that obviously, as a blanket statement, not as a rule of law or anything. But it’s been my experience in my own life and with a multitude of people God has blessed me to be able to meet and they help me or me help them. 

And so, I love how God pointed it out. It’s not good for a man to be alone and he doesn’t just point out the problem. He has a solution okay, I’m making him a helper comparable to him. Then the Lord God took the man and put them in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it and the Lord God commanded the man saying Of every tree of the garden, you may eat freely, it’s a smorgasbord and since it just the two of you all this is the best buffet ever. Right like ever. So but the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil God says you can’t you shouldn’t write I love you Love will tell you the truth. Love will check you at the door. Okay, love will greet you on the ledge and encourage you not to jump reminding you that when people fall from those sorts of heights, they tend not to recover in multiple ways, right? And even in the ultimate way, obviously so love will get you love will get you off the ledge. I like to say that’s what I like to say about love, love, get you off the ledge and then love hands are clean if you do jump right like I, I told you, I warned you, right? I loved you enough to tell you the truth. 

God loves them enough to tell him the truth. So he tells them all this other stuff is good. It’s been freely given, go for it. But this right here is not good. I know you. And I know the tree, don’t eat of it. And I love how the particular tree is the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that consciousness of what’s good and what’s evil clearly wasn’t good. Because God said, it would not be good for you to eat of that. Know that. How about it right? Like ignorance is bliss. You heard that phrase? in some regard. That’s true because we saw what happened. When man partook of knowing good and evil man, he says, you will surely die and surely man died. Period. Right? Like, can’t leave say God lied to you. He meant what he was saying. And so he warned them of that. But then obviously, as you know, they did it. 

Jesus told us to be of good cheer because He has overcome the world

So in verse 18, it says, And the Lord God said, it is not good. Oh, I read that I’m sorry. Going further. He says, and they heard the sound of God is after they partook of it, right, we know that Satan tempts them in the garden, they partook of it, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that God warned them not to partake of. And so now after that, it says, And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife, Eve hid from the presence of God among the trees of the garden. And see, God showed me one day, it’s like, he just opened my eyes. I read this encounter with the fall of man many times in Genesis, but God opened my eyes to see the real, the real, like the heart of reasons that God didn’t want for a man to partake of that tree of knowledge of good and evil, and it’s so beautiful. It’s such a reflection of who God is, and God is love, and he is literally madly in love with us. 

So he shows me that the consequence of sin is that they hid themselves from God, and they ran from his presence. And God told me this love wants to be with the one he loves. Okay. And so with that being said, like one of the worst things to be done is to remove themselves from God’s presence, right? That’s the break the heart of love. And so God is so beautiful, you love you want to be with the person love, you want to spend time you want to enjoy one another, cultivate and nurture your relationship. And that’s what God came to give us a relationship with Him. And so that particular consequence of sin,  that knowing what’s good and evil, it comes that sense of guilt, that sense of condemnation, that heaping of what do you call it, shame from the enemy. When someone knows, I dropped the ball I did wrong, that was not good. And the problem with all those things is instead of running toward God, right, sand is sick. It’s a sickness. Instead of running towards the healer, the physician of all physicians, it tends to make people run in the opposite direction that breaks the heart of God. 

Think about it, mama and papa bear out there. If your child has done something wrong, I mean, gravely wrong. And they’re like, Oh, so that’s why they left and then never came back. They couldn’t face you like what you didn’t kill me the fact that you left and never came back because you were too ashamed to face me is what kill me because it’s two things loss of love from me, right? Actually, three don’t get to pour out love on you. And then And then third, you didn’t really know me if you thought that, you couldn’t face me. All you can face me, no matter what the situation or circumstances because I can’t help but love you. Love covers a multitude of sins. So you don’t have to run and think that’ll cover your sin. 

You don’t have to run from God, thinking shame, be ashamed. Go away and hide come out of hiding, right? You don’t have to do that. Right? Don’t wrap yourself in the fake leaves and try to hide no need for that the blood of Jesus covers. And I’ve got even greater news in this regard. God said not only is the blood of Jesus wash you clean from all your sins. God doesn’t even remember them anymore. So just remember, he forgot That’s what he told me when you’re coming to Me in prayer. Just take a moment in Paul’s it doesn’t have to be long and drawn out. Take a moment and pause and remember I forgot this. Remember, I forgot your sins. You’re speaking to me. And I’ve put that away and I don’t remember anymore. Please remember that. Like right when you’re coming to me, you’re going to come faster, you’re going to come more frequently, right? Faster frequency, all that’s going to change in a positive direction. When you remember that God for God because unfortunately this whole knowledge of the good and evil thing, we can see the number one consequence of it, He is running away from the very one, the only one who can heal us and restore us and teach us even how to forgive ourselves. Right, but remind us, not of what we’ve done wrong. But then he loves us. He’s already forgiven us, and he’s already forgotten it right? Forgive and forget that God tomato, okay. 

And so and then the Lord calls to Adam and says it to him. And I love it. Because again, they didn’t maybe know this was a problem. Like when Adam was without Eve, maybe he didn’t know it wasn’t good for him to be alone. Maybe they didn’t know it was good for them to run in the opposite direction of God. They didn’t call out to God, they ran away from him. But the Lord even though what they did was wrong. Obviously, it hurts parents, children are disobedient. But God still called out to them. He still sought them, he still chased them down. Remember, Jesus is the Good Shepherd who will leave the 99 to go and get the one and my Bible says he’s the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. So that’s good news. That’s why the gospel is translated as good news. 

And so in verse 10, it says, so he said, I heard your voice in the garden. And I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. Another consequence of sin, fear. It’s like this warped sense not only of guilt and shame and condemnation, provoking people into flight, that flight response is coming from a deeper root. And it’s fear, fear-producing flight, right. And so that this explains why God repeatedly more than anything that he commands, in a sense like that he gives a directive about its Do not fear, do not be afraid, because this is the consequence of it, running in the opposite direction of God. And God is love and love wants to be with the one he loves, if that means in a hospital bed, beside them, supporting them, love wants to be there. If that means in an alley, where the loved one is getting high, God wants to be there, if that means that somebody has went off, you know, and they’re like the prodigal son in the PHP and everything in their life is a reflection of what they should not be doing. God’s right there in the pigpen. 

The point is, let the one the only one I just say, who can deliver you be with you to deliver you.  Like don’t run, don’t avoid, don’t deny His presence, and don’t delay the inevitable, right? God’s going to want to have a sit-down, it’s going to want to hash it out like the woman at the whale, right? Like you spoke to the lady who was caught in adultery, right? He’s gonna want to hash it out. But it’s not for your condemnation. He could condemn you, buddy. He won’t, that will never happen. There is therefore now no condemnation whatsoever for those who are in Christ Jesus. So you’re not running from this terrible argument or someone making you feel worse about yourself than you already do. That’s not what was happening. You’re running into the hands of love urine into the hands of healing. You’re running into the hands of the one who longs to be with you and love you into wholeness, restore you into wholeness.

I keep telling people God is not petty. He’s not the God to tell you, I told you. So somebody else might have told you that. But God’s not going to tell you that I know that for myself. Because I remember a time I turned around like the prodigal son and I prepared what I was going to say to God and even figured I knew what he would say. And on the issue of my waddling in the PHP in mud for years, he was silent. That’s amazing. That has never fail to amaze me. Every time I tell somebody, that particular part of my life, or reflect on it myself. It amazes me and when you think about the Good Shepherd going to get the sheep that was lost. The Bible says he threw the lost sheep on his shoulder rejoicing. were thrown throwing a party when the prodigal son came back, he’s like, give them the best robe. Okay, put a ring on his finger sandals on his feet, we’re gonna party my son who was once dead is now alive. That’s not bringing up anything bad. That’s partying not finger-pointing is partying not pointing. So let’s just let the real guy stand up and speak for itself.

God gives us peace

And the Bible is the way God speaks for himself. And obviously, the Holy Spirit, unveiling the heart of God for us and leading and guiding us into all truth and teaching us all things. So we’re gonna pick up next week where we left off here because I do not want to rush this. And it took me a little bit more time than I thought, but God knows who needs to hear it. And who needed all of that even included in the little rabbit trails that were there. So we’ll pick up next week where we left off. Thank you all for being with me on this journey again, and God bless you and protect you and keep you and until then I love you very much. God bless.

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