This is my story. It is a story of a supernatural God Who loved me so much that He pursued me for 30 years after my baptism until I finally said, “Ok, Lord, my life is all yours, be Almighty God in me.”

<p>This is my story. It is a story of a supernatural God Who loved me so much that He pursued me for 30 years after my baptism until I finally said, “Ok, Lord, my life is all yours, be Almighty God in me.”</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Pikeville SDA Church

Delighting in the Almighty

Michael Dant

1. The Great Cosmic Equation

2. How Can I Enjoy God?

3. Enjoying God to the Fullest

4. The Root of the Problem

5. Drowning in the Will of the Almighty

6. My Story

7. How to Die and Do It Right

8. Black, White, Gray and Vinegar

14. What Happens When I Fail?

11. Self After Surrender

9.The Joy of Dying

12. How Does a Christian Sin?

13. How Am I (really) Doing Spiritually?

10. Staying Dead

Welcome back to our seminar, Delighting in the Almighty, A Practical Guide to Primitive Godliness.

We are now going to look at my story a little bit.

I share my story with you not because I'm special.

I share my story with you because each 1 of us has a different way that God works with us and we can encourage each other and we can get some insights into how the Christian life works a little bit by sharing our stories with each other.

So I'm really glad for the privilege of being able to share with you this afternoon.

Before we begin though, let's have a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, we come once again to you, recognizing that only you can do it.

We ask for you to convict us, to convert us, to revive us, to reform us.

Please work powerfully in each of our hearts and minds right now, I pray.

Now in this last session, I'd like to share with you the practice in practical terms, as practical as I can get it.

In my own story, I'd like to share with you the practice in practical terms, as practical as I can get it.

In my own story, I'd like to share with you what that meant in my life personally.

There is no magic formula for the Christian life.

God works with each 1 of us in different ways.

So I'm not going to stand up here and tell you that this is the way it has to be for you.

But I do believe that there are some general principles that we can learn as we share each other's stories.

So before I do that, I'd like to share with you a parable of my story.

Now Rich was so poor that he could barely feed his family.

He had lost his business in a flood several years back and since that time he had been looking for work and barely finding it and just barely scraping through and putting food on the table and then he would lose his job and find another job and he kept on looking for work and he didn't always succeed.

But Rich's life was not all drudgery and work.

Because what else do you collect if you don't have any money?

You pick them off the ground, You find something colorful, you find something pretty, you polish it up, that's your collection.

But he got so much into the stone collection that he would spend hours polishing them and admiring their beauty.

And in fact, He had the cream of the cream of his rock collection in a bucket that he carried with him wherever he went.

Wherever Rich went, this bucket was with him.

He took it to the marketplace, he took it to all of his jobs, he even took it to church.

The bucket was always with him, his most precious possessions, the cream of the cream of his collection.

1 day Rich and his bucket were standing out on a street corner in a nearby city looking for work.

And as he was standing there, this rich-looking gentleman came up to him and said, hey, What's your story?

And so Rich told him about his business and how he'd lost it and how he'd been struggling to find food and told him the whole story.

And the wealthy gentleman says, man, that is just such a sad story.

Come to my house and I will give you gold coins.

Rich had never seen a gold coin before, but he knew he wanted 1, so he says, sure.

So they went to the guy's house, the wealthy gentleman ran into his house and he came out with 2 heaping handfuls of gold coins.

And Rich was so ecstatic, you can just imagine.

I mean, think about what he was thinking at that moment.

He ran all the way home, bucket and all, and he burst into the kitchen and he said, we're rich, we're rich, we've got gold coins.

And of course his family, when they heard that, they came running.

But you know, when they looked in the bucket, there were only 3 gold coins in that bucket.

The bucket was so full that all the other gold had fallen over on the ground, he hadn't even recognized it.

Well, his wife, being a very practical person, said, that's not going to really make us wealthy, but you know, it'll help.

So they went out and they bought some food for several weeks and they had so much food that they even shared with all their neighbors that were hungry and it was a great time but after a little while the money ran out.

And Rich was thinking, wow, no more money, my family's hungry, what can I do?

And so he said, I wonder, that guy was willing to give me 2 full handfuls of these gold coins.

I wonder if he'd be willing to give me some more because I didn't get them all that he wanted to give me.

So he kind of worked up his courage a little bit and he went back and he kind of trepidatiously knocked on the door, you know, and the wealthy gentleman opened up the door wide and said, Oh, Rich, you're back!

Last time you left with a whole bunch of gold on the floor.

And Rich says, Yeah, I don't know what happened there, but, you know, we're hungry again.

And so he went back into his house, he brought out 2 big handfuls of gold coins, and he said, Rich, this is for you, and he poured it into Rich's bucket.

And Rich was so ecstatic, he thanked the man profusely, ran all the way home, burst into the kitchen saying, we're rich, we're rich, and his family came running, and there were 2 gold coins in the top of that bucket.

This happened several times and 1 time when Rich went back to the wealthy benefactor and the guy said to him, you know Rich, I don't want to push you or anything but you know, If you brought me an empty bucket, I would fill the whole thing for you with gold coins." You know what Rich said?

I mean, these are my cream of my cream of my worthless rocks.

After a while, Rich began to think about this.

If it wasn't for that, those rocks, those worthless rocks, I could be wealthy beyond my wildest dreams.

And you know, the more he thought about that, the more he realized that that's not what he wanted, to have those rocks keeping him from being wealthy.

And after time, he began to resent them so much that he finally decided to get rid of them.

He went into the forest to a place he'd never been.

He turned his back on them, and he never came back.

And now if you go to that city, you will find a man who's going around from house to house knocking on doors, and when they answer, you know what he says?

Back to Menu

Series

Delighting in the Almighty

6. My Story

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

The Pursuing Heart of God

35m

Personal Encounters with Jesus

1. A Cold Confession

58m

Christ In You

34m

What is Your Citizenship?

53m

Restoration 2003: From Eden to Eternity

An Issue of the Heart

40m

The Eighth Wonder of the World

35m

Restoration 2009: Expect It

God’s First Promise

48m

The Darkest Hour

50m

Plenary

Wounds of a Whisperer

52m

A Praying Man

1h 3m

Practical Truth for Perilous Times

2. The Adventist Atheist

55m

Sound Doctrine