God is love, and He loves you unconditionally. He has good plans for your life, and because He is sovereign, His plans will prevail in your life. No matter what difficulty you are challenged with, God’s provision proceeds the problem and He will make sure it works together for your good!
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God Goes Before You (Part 3)
Hey, welcome back, everyone, and thank you again for joining me here 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 with our series titled God Goes Before You. But before we get into the heart of what God has for us, today, we’re going to recap a bit. And we’re also going to take the time and pray like we always do.
Every time you sit in humility and let God correct you, you stand tall.
So 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 given to each and every one of us the spirit of wisdom and revelation, in the knowledge of Jesus, I thank you that the eyes of our understanding are being enlightened, that we may know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the sights, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty power, I thank You, Lord Jesus, that you are expounding to us on the scriptures today about the things concerning yourself. And I thank you that you are causing us to know you more, and comprehend the scriptures more, I thank you all for your promise that in your light, we see light and I thank you, God, that no matter what Word goes forth, Lord.
I thank You, God, that you will out of this word, minister to your people in such a way that it gives them all the promises and all the provision, all the divine protection that you promised and getting to know you more, and it will also be a lamp on to their feet and a light into their path concerning those specific things that they’re facing or will face. Thank you, Heavenly Father, that they will have clarity, things will become supernaturally clear for them. And they will say I know the answer now. And they will see God I thank you for revealing yourself even as they go throughout the day as the God who goes before them. And I thank you that everything they hear, you will continue to expound on it and Bill’s revelation upon revelation. And I thank you God that as you do this, you are causing us to draw into a more intimate and personal relationship with you and I thank you deity that the fruit that comes from it is with ease and no unnecessary process or sorrow, but everlasting joy and greatness for your glory. And for our good In Jesus’ name, I pray.
So before we get into the heart of the matter today, we’re going to recap just a little bit. If you’ve been with us on this journey, you know that we’ve been talking about how important it is that God is the God that goes before us, right God’s provision, and he is the provider. So God as the provider in a provision that comes out of him always precedes the problem. We know the Lord goes before us. And God said His provision precedes the problem. So the provider who has the provision always precedes the problem and always goes before us. And this is super important. We learn because Jesus, who is the truth and can’t lie did tell us on this side of heaven, you’re going to have some trouble, right? But Be of good cheer. He’s overcome the world.
So last week, as we got into some specifics, we started in the book of beginnings, right, the book of Genesis, and we were looking at Adam and Eve in the garden. And we saw one of the reasons why God doesn’t you know that God hates sin. Well, God doesn’t have a tolerance for it in this regard, when it came to sinning, it took for His Son to die in our stead, in order for the sin problems to be eradicated, which tells you just how serious it is the answer The seriousness of the answer, tells you the seriousness of the problem. The to-do correlate and so it took for God Himself, the Son of God, to get on the cross bleeding die, and then it was like still not over and go to hell after that. Right.
so it’s a lot. The consequences of sin are terrible, and it’s not so much and we did clarify too. And if not, I want to clarify God doesn’t hate or cannot tolerate the sinner. It’s the sin and it’s because of the consequence in the effect the impact the negative, devastating deadly impact that it has. And when you love someone you hate what’s killing them? Period? I mean, like, that’s just almost automatic, you don’t have to try to do that. Love automatically does that love will hate what tries to destroy the object of their love. And so we are the object, so to speak of God’s love and affection. And I normally hate to refer to people as objects. But when I say the object of God’s love and affection, I feel it’s all right in this instant, because God’s love is perfect. No one ever leaving you to feel like you’ve been used or just are an object. God’s love is perfect, and you will feel perfectly loved when you’re loved by Him, no question about that.
So we looked at one of the consequences of sin. And how Adam and Eve when they realized they had sin, one of the first things they did is they fled in the opposite direction of God, right? It causes a man to reject God, not even consciously, but subconsciously, even, I don’t think they set out to say, we hate God, let’s steer clear of him. It was just almost like a natural reaction, when they realized, Oh, we’ve been dropping the ball, we’ve been sending, we haven’t been dotting every I and crossing every T. And it’s so plain to see our nakedness symbolizes that, I mean, it’s laid bare before us. Nothing’s hiding or covering it. And that knowledge of sin, which comes via the law, when they were exposed to it, it caused them to go away from God.
God’s provision always proceeds the problem
God doesn’t want us to run away from him. God is the healer, we need healing. And so we’re running away from the very help that we need and then suffering unnecessarily, in-process and in process of time. And that’s hard for God to even look upon and know of, because He loves us so much. And when you love somebody, the last thing you want is your loved one to suffer, right to be in pain and agony and sad. You don’t want that. And we as human beings don’t want that. We don’t want that for people we love and our love admittedly is flawed. God loves us perfectly. We’ve yet to do that. Or I’ll just say we’ve yet to reciprocate that, nevertheless, right, God still loves us perfectly. That’s what perfect love is all about. It carries the weight of the entire relationship. But even as humans and imperfect love when we love someone, we don’t want to see them suffer. We suffer with them, just witnessing it hurts you
Like a friend of mine, Martha says often about certain things in life. People go through certain things, she says Vaughn that’s probably going to be hard to watch. You know what I mean? And it’s there’s so much merit to that there’s just so much veracity to what she’s saying, When you love someone, and you watch them essentially destroy themself or give the devil the wide-open door to do so can be almost impossible become unbearable to watch. And that’s us with our imperfect love. Imagine God who loves us perfectly, having to see that having to witness that. So God again is not focused on the fact that someone’s sin, or that they’re a sinner, Jesus is taking care of the sin issue that problems dealt with. As we’ll get more into today. However, he does grieve his heart, it pains him to see us in pain as that consequence of sand flows. And worst of all, God loves us so much. And like God told me, love wants to be with the one that he loves. And so sin just seems to instinctively make us want to flee from God, and go away from him, which pains love, it pains God.
No wonder why Satan who hates God is always tempting us to sin. It’s not so much even for the fact of the sinning is so that he can bring a consciousness or an awareness that you’ve sin, and he uses the law of God himself to do that, to condemn the person, make the person feel guilty and ashamed because it’s those things is a combination of any one of those things or them, you know, in a solitary fashion working that causes someone to run away from God, which is why it’s so very important that we have a revelation of Jesus and all that he has actually done for us why God sent him What did he do? And what does that mean to me today? And for eternity, not just in the sweet by and by, but for right now. In this moment, may God reveal to us all that it means you know what I mean? May he leave no stone unturned, so to speak in our life and if there’s anything We know we’ll go to heaven and see him face to face and know him because there’s nothing more important than knowing God.
Hence the podcast title God gave me, The One Thing That’s Needful. And that one thing that’s nice was getting at the feet of Jesus and getting to know him. And you get to know him by hearing him. And you’re hearing him now, right? It’s not me. I’ve asked Jesus to show up and show out, I don’t even want to hear from me. So I always ask God to do it in me and through me and for me, and even pray for that, when other people counsel me let it be the Holy Spirit in them, right.
So let’s pick up today where we left off. And I just want to backtrack a little bit slightly, right about the portion of the Bible in Genesis, and it’s verse 10, where it’s the Lord God said, it’s not good, that man should be alone, I will make him a helper comparable to him. And honestly, I don’t remember if we actually went over this. But I definitely want to make sure that I highlight to you what God highlighted to me. So that was saying, it’s not good for man to be alone. Interestingly enough Man was with God, we know that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, as we see in John 1. So you had God the Father, there, the Son, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, in innumerable count of angels. So Adam wasn’t technically alone. So what did he mean by that? I think he meant human companionship because he said, I will make him a helper comparable to him. He wasn’t talking about itself, God always was always is and always will be. And if you’ve seen Jesus, the Son, you’ve seen the Father, for the two are one, Jesus is God. And the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus. He’s the Spirit of the Living God.
And so they were already made, the host of angels have already made who shows up on the scene after this, Eve, and I love how and you’ve heard this, maybe in a previous podcast episode series, that God did through me how God could have made him, you know, someone else’s a companion could have made him a dad, right could have made a mom could have made my brother right could have made one bestie. But God made him a wife, he made him a spouse, it’s so important the heart of God towards marriage, that it is mind-blowing. In fact, it’s mind-blowing to me, just how important it is to God. And as he reveals to me more and more why so we know that God doesn’t do things for a purpose, the order he does them in is for a purpose. And aside from I mean, after, I should say, not aside, because it doesn’t go alongside, it’s after the first order is your marriage with Christ Jesus, and after that, for married people, a significant God, the mirrors that he has put the two people together in Christ, right, joining us husband and wife.
So I love how God does this. And God looked at it as Adam alone. And he said it wasn’t good. And he made him a helper comparable to him. And so I literally love that. But God also wanted me to highlight that God said, God noticed the problem. It’s not good. The man should be alone, the Bible makes no record of Adam noticing anything. And then God takes the initiative and says, I’ll make him a helper. But the Bible talks about how God brought Adam, I mean, excuse me, Eve out of Adam, and how she actually was already in him. We know that he put out them into a deep sleep, and he took his ribs, and out of that he formed and fashioned Eve. And so he was already there, the solution was there, you see what I mean? So God’s provision always precedes the problem. And not only that, God takes it upon itself from the first initial man, you see God taking care of Adam, you see him taking care of Eve, you see that every problem that comes up, he takes care of it, you see that before they even get there, he prepares the Garden of Eden, somewhat like or kind to parents preparing a nursery for their children. And so God’s heart is to take care of us.
God made us and he never intended for any one of us, to fend for ourselves, to have to figure out things ourselves to have to provide for ourselves, or even our loved ones. Yes, that’s gonna shock some people, right? And God is the provider and everything that God does, he says, I work in you both to will and to do God is God. God is he’s Jehovah. Jireh. And he says, and that’s him in one of his many facets as God, that’s him manifesting Himself as God and he’s so much more than that. And that seems like it would even be enough. But God doesn’t know how to answer you small. He doesn’t know how to do that. It’s like Go big or go home, because God goes big every time. And so God is Jehovah. Jireh we’re not so God is God were his people. God’s the provider were provided for right God The teacher, we’re the students, you see what I mean? God’s the masters. We’re the servants. Serving out of an overflow of him serving us.
God is our provider
He never said, wash his feet. When Jesus got ready to be crucified and be raised again. He said, what you see me do to you, he was talking to the disciples. at the Last Supper, when he girded up around his waist and began to wash their feet. He said, what you see me do do it to one another. And that’s what God is doing in me and through me for you all. He’s given me the ability and the willingness, the desire to wash your feet, I’m serving you. And in doing that, I serve Christ. But But apart from Him, we can do nothing, not serve our sales, not provide for ourselves, not provide for our families, things like that. God wants to be the one to do it. Because he’s the only one who can’t produce anything. He is the producer. God has the semen, so to speak, right? And that’s graphic, but we’re all adults. God hasn’t the seed, he has the ability to produce. We don’t we’re the fertile ground. And so we got to let God be God, right? We got to let him take his place. I think life or no, in fact, life would be so much easier. Everything is not the devil and everything is not because of someone’s flesh or evil human being or an evil act of a human being. Some of it is just misguided. Just not knowing ignorance.
God even say, my people perish for lack of knowledge. Sometimes it’s just not knowing. You wonder why it’s frustrating, hard, or seemingly impossible to provide for yourself to get ahead because you weren’t called to get yourself ahead. You don’t have it in you to do that. And that’s not an insult to you. Neither do I. It’s like, you know, you make something I don’t know, a robot Dow that talks, right. And I mean, all you did was make it to talk and maybe blink its eyes. And somebody is like trying to get the Dow to walk and go get the mail out the mailbox, I’m sorry that Dow was created to do that. And if you want to go to the mailbox that now was created to be picked up and you carry it to the mailbox. And so we are the branches, right? God is the vine he produces. We’re the ones who bear the fruit not produce fruit. We simply bear the fruit. We’re the recipients of a gift every time from God. Right. That’s God’s heart that says language of love. God, so love that he gave right. That’s his language. God wants to be the eternal everlasting giver. And we are the eternal, everlasting. Yes, born again, where everlasting beings, right, truly, even people who are not born again, are going to have an eternal life. It just won’t go. Good.
So I encourage everyone to be born again. That’s for sure. Like it’s way too long to be in hell. I can barely stand the hot summer in Atlanta. Sometimes I can’t do hell-like and you know, women how we are about our hair. Like, we’re not sweating a good hairdo out. Can you imagine how beautiful your hair would be in heaven? Not like, No, we’re not sweating that out. So hell is a hard no for me, I’ll pass right. And I just thank God that we’re eternal beings. And our eternal position is to receive these gifts from him, even the gift of eternal and everlasting life. Enjoy. perfect peace, perfect bliss, perfect love, perfect harmony, perfect environment for ever. No need to look forward to the next trial. Right. Thank God. So just wanted to point that out to you because he pointed it out to me about the provision already being there and how he was the one who noticed the problem. He was the one who already planted the solution. He was the one who brought he about right now we know Satan came in tempted Adam and Eve, they sand. They did the one thing they were told not to do. They were able to eat from all the trees in the garden of Eden freely let the one jury they focused in on the one thing they didn’t have. And they fail. Okay, we know there’s a lesson there for all of us, including me, I’ll go first. Like I’ll be the first to raise my hand in this class and say, God, it’s definitely me.
So let’s look at verse 12. Because this was also interesting. Like I said, God has got such a heart for marriage. And he’s always showing me these things. He says in verse 12, right, this is after they got caught, like right God’s like, you can’t hide from someone who sees everything, but they dried anyway right, which means seeing can make you kind of slow, right slow to catch on. God is omnipresent yet you are running, ducking, and dodging. Were you running straight into him? So they seem to get a little bit slow. They got very afraid. They got started running away from God and it’s like you’re on nobody’s track team take your Nikes off and relax. They got off, you know afraid to God has been good to him the whole time and Satan was the one who was evil against them. But the Bible doesn’t say they ran from Satan. It says they ran from God who was good and His love and had demonstrated nothing except for perfect love towards them. The devil, however, was lying, deceiving, cheating, sneaking, and they didn’t run from Him, but they ran from God, I suppose that one of the consequences the seeing is just not as fast and you’re mad as you used to be when you insane. That’s for certain. So God just allowed me to see that right now. Right. And so I had to say it, I had to share it right love gifts. So that one was free.
God’s love is perfect
So it says in verse 12, Adam is now responding to God because remember, God acts the question, Who told you you were naked? And he asked him Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you that you should not eat? The one tree out of probably the billion trees right? So it says Then the man said, The woman whom you gave me right to be with, she gave me the tree. And I so this is our first introduction. This was for married people. Here goes the blame game man that that scene came on the scene quick after eating from the tree right? Man the hell would you Satan? Wow, at all the things you could have the look at what he did the blame game, so amazing. So amazing. That Adam wouldn’t man up and just say it was me. Right? God, it was me. Nope. He’s a God. It was you and Eve don’t go anywhere. He was YouTube. anybody but me. And so we’ve all been there before. That’s why Jesus sold the parable. Look how many years later that was back that Jesus is still having to talk us off the ledge of blame game before we jump and just say How about like, this may be a great idea. What about getting the plank? That’s the size of a skyscraper out of your own eye before you try to get the speck of dust that can’t even really be seen under a microscope out of your brother’s eye.
That’s a hard pill to swallow, right, depending on how you feel and depending on if you’ve been offended lately, because even offended lately, like God, look at what they did God. And it’s like, wait a minute, but for the grace of God, we all must heal, were open. And I probably go in first. So with that being said, Jesus, I let it go. I forgive God, right. I remember how you forgiving me and I forgive God. So I just absolutely, I love it. God is like a loving corrector. And God is funny. Some of the ways and times that he corrects me is literally funny. Like on that note, let’s just kind of do like the woman at the whale and I’m gonna just kind of like allude, the questions are asking and change the subject matter really fast, and act like you don’t notice a damn act like I’m smarter than you for like the next two episodes. I’m just gonna stare at the TV and act like you’re not here with me for a second. I’m standing corrected. Every time you sit in humility and let God correct you, you stand tall.
And that’s the reason he does it is never to condemn, it’s always to make you better. And he does it in a way that really only he can. And so I love you Lord for that. And it’s the love of God for taking the time to even correct us hate is to just know somebody is walking off the cliff and going to kill themselves. And you just wish him well. Happy jumping. Right? That’s that’s hate. So thankfully, God is love and he keeps us steering clear of the cliffs. And any attempts to jump that would kill us and our destiny. I’m very, very grateful for God never his love his tireless. He never gets tired, loving us, correcting us helping us picking us up when we fall. He’s the best father ever, like period point-blank, right? That’s that ever. And so. I love him. And so then, interestingly enough, right? Like ladies, I’ve probably like I’m letting my husband listen to this. But hold on ladies, wait, wait, wait, because God corrects who me love and he loves you too.
So here goes. And the Lord God said to a woman, what is this? You’ve done? Here she goes, right? And the woman said, This servant deceive me. I blame game again. He said the devil made me do it. You’re not gonna get me to turn them on. But the devil made me do it. And so hence the blame game comes in. But we just constantly see in the Bible, when people are willing to get to a place where they acknowledge a problem. God never wants you to acknowledge something as a problem to make you feel inadequate or less than God is not there to condemn you. And judgment has passed when you’re a child of God. God is not judging you. He’s your father. Now God is still a judge. But this is if your dad was a natural judge, you’re not in his courtroom stand before Him the law actually, for me, it’s that right? That relationship right there should just have him and he’s going to have to recuse himself over that case, he can’t preside over a case with his child. And the reason why the law does that is because he saw more certain that a parent would be biased. That’s the assumption. And it’s a safe assumption to make right may not be correct all the time.
Genesis 2:18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for a man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
There are some people strong enough to do that, to sentence their children to life. But just to be safe. Parents have a soft spot for their child, sometimes softer than it should be. Let’s just keep them out of the courtroom on their own children’s cases, right for the sake of justice and the sake of them, maybe needing to be corrected. So they don’t allow that. So imagine God is your Father and He is a judge. That’s his career. He has to do that. And he does it justly, right. So if you had to go in there, he would do justly. But Jesus went in there in your place. And he went in mind, just as has been done. Jesus served the sentence for us. It was death. He was executed. Okay? He was so bad where we did, right? It was execution. No, this is no possibility for Roe, we’re not speaking that language, you’re being put to death. And so it was serious. But he went in our place. Thanks be to God, praise be to God. And now we get to live and we get to be free. And we get to enjoy all the pleasures of freedom.
People say why don’t have that bond? Well, you’re one prayer away, right? Start praying and believing God, I’m gonna keep on hearing, as that’s the way to believe God. And so we know that God is that judge, he does just certain people, those are people who are not born again. Unfortunately, if they don’t get born again, they’re going to be judged. But God takes off his row. And he puts down his gavel and he leaves that in the courtroom, he comes home to you imagine that. And he’s your dad like you don’t run up to him and you’re like, hi, honorable such and such know you like Daddy was good. You are comfortable with your dad, you can speak to your dad how other people may be terrified to do so. But you know your dad, and you know, your dad is a ball of love. And you know, you touch his heart. And you know, he can’t help but to heal, you know. And so it’s just amazing to get to know God in this way as Daddy, I’m so grateful to Jesus, for so many things. But this is beyond him making us hail-proof. He’s come to reveal God’s us as the Father as deity in this, everything that everything has changed now. So it’s so so so good. But we’re going to I don’t want to rush you know that if you’ve been with me on this journey? No, I don’t want to rush.
So we’re going to stop here and pick up at verse 14. And just continue on and look at specifically how God had another solution that proceeded the big problem, right? Not just for Adam and Eve, but for all of us. But I want to take a moment if there’s someone who’s listening, and you haven’t had the opportunity to give your life to Christ, you’re not born again. I want to encourage you to do so I want to tell you the truth is I have known it, God is love. And if he can love somebody like me after you know all of my imperfections and flaws, he can madly love you. If God has forgiven everything I’ve done right and wrong, thinking I was right or wrong knowing I was wrong, he can definitely forgive you. Forgiveness has been made available.
So just repeat after me. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for your son Jesus. I believe that he is your son God he bled and died and was crucified for the forgiveness of all my sins. And on the third day, you rose him from the dead for my justification. I do believe he is the Lord and Savior of my life. And I asked you to continue to develop a relationship with me in him and I pray you reveal him to me and let my life be a reflection of your love and your power and your glory in Jesus’ name. I love you all to pick up next time where we left off God bless.
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