This message challenges us to move outside of our narrow thinking of why “I can’t” to what “God can” do in and through us if we cooperate with Him.

Oklahoma Family Retreat 2015: Nothing is Impossible

<p>This message challenges us to move outside of our narrow thinking of why “I can’t” to what “God can” do in and through us if we cooperate with Him.</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>

Restoration International

Alane Waters

Tom Waters

Why Not

It's kind of hard to believe in a way, isn't it?

But time keeps marching on and for this last meeting tonight, we want to say welcome to our...

It's hard to look at that light up there, but welcome to our live stream friends and viewers.

It's been a long day, but it's been a blessed day, hasn't it?

So if we were right here with you and The question that we asked tonight Why not?

Why not meet every supposed impossibility in the strength of Jesus Christ.

You know, I believe, and I was talking to my dear wife here, I believe that before we leave here, and maybe for some of us, between now and the next week, we will have 1 of 2 ways of looking at this question why not?

We will leave here believing maybe like we've never believed before that the God that we have professed to serve is really the God of all flesh.

He is really the God that can change our lives and that nothing will stand in our way as we go forward in the strength of Jesus Christ.

Or we will leave here already saying, why not?

Or he's always this way at camp meeting, but when we go home, retreat, You hear me go all the way back to camp meeting.

He always acts this way at retreat, but we won't even get home before he's back in his old character, that's why not.

I hope that we won't go there Because our perspective, not God's, but our perspective becomes our reality.

And if our perspective leaves here with we can do the impossible with God, we will be able to do the impossible with God.

But if we leave here already defeated, sometimes we'll be talking with a couple.

We've talked to lots of couples over the last 26 years and oftentimes, because we're creatures of habit, we'll be talking and we will be thrilled to see the breakthroughs that God is doing with a couple who is willing to surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

I mean sometimes it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

But quite often, near the end of communicating together with a couple who is excited, sometimes in tears, with enthusiasm and desire to change, 1 or the other, or both of them will say, but I don't know if I have much hope of seeing him change.

Oh, that's just like a kind of a blow to the to the whole spirit of the atmosphere because when that comes back in the perception of the change changes.

We go from hope, we go from yes, we can be different, to slipping back into the old ways.

We don't need to slip back into our old ways.

We don't want to have a message this evening that is just a preaching message.

We want this message to really reach every 1 of our hearts, ours included, that we make a decision here this evening right now while we're seated or for us while we're standing.

Because if we don't, if we wait till a more convenient season, we lose our motivation.

We forget the inspiration and we go out of here thinking, yes, when we get home we'll, you know, get settled in and then we'll start, you know, making this difference or that difference.

If we don't decided here what our plan is when we leave here Chances are when we get where we're going.

We will be no different than when we came and Then what have we had for the last 5 days?

Good fellowship inspiring messages delicious food hopefully good sleep, and it may be a nice getaway from the routine and pressures of daily life.

But friends, it's time that we go away with more than just that.

It's time that we go away with more than just that.

It's time that we go away with a desire a motivation a belief a conviction a drive That with God all things are possible even my own stubbornness and sometimes we don't even look at the other person sometimes we convince ourselves that we just can't do it.

And if we link our weakness with His strength, then we are fully capable of becoming anyone that He wants us to be.

We can become anything He wants us to be.

Because we're with God and with God he takes us on that journey He promises to go all the way home with us and that's what we want.

And I want to just touch again on this idea of our perception because it is our perception that shapes our reality, that shapes our commitment, that shapes our perseverance.

And there's an example in the Bible that most of us know, a very simple but powerful example that talks about perception, and that is the experience when Elisha is out there, and he's surrounded by the Syrians.

He sees the angels of God encircling him.

And his poor servant who has his perception sees only the chariots of the Syrian because the perception of Elisha's servant was not perceiving with the faith that Elisha was perceiving with.

Let's ask God to open our eyes before we leave this place.

Oh, God, open our eyes that we might see with the eyes of faith and perceive a new reality for our Christian experience.

We desperately need it, or we are destined to plateau and that plateau begins to drop off.

You want a new perception of God's reality?

I hope we want that, we need that, and God wants to give it to us.

So I hope that we will all be open to what God's been speaking to our hearts and that we will be willing to walk out of here with a perception of faith.

What has God not done for us to give us the perception of faith that he can continue to do this work in us?

And children, I hope that you're not thinking that this is just for the big people in the room.

This is for everyone who has the ability to hear and understand, whether you're 3 or 4, maybe even 2, you know what is right.

You know when mommy asked you to do something and that is the time that God wants to be real in your life when you don't feel like it.

So we're talking to everybody in this room tonight not just your mommies and daddies okay we're talking to you here in the room.

You are under different kind of temptations than maybe your dad or your mom or your grandma or whoever it is.

God is 1 who makes no mistakes and even though your circumstances may seem trying, difficult, unpleasant, whatever it may be, God is going to take you through that.

And if you go through that with God, you're gonna come out, gonna come through that out the other side, and you're gonna come out with joy, peace, and happiness that you have gone through the trials that you face with the Lord Jesus Christ.

How many of you here tonight know the name Nick Vujicic?

I thought at least half of you would know his situation.

You know that no worries, that comes from our Aussie friends, okay?

So how can someone with no arms and no legs have no worries?

It's because this young man, Nick, for those of you that don't know about Nick, he was born with no arms and no legs, a very unusual anomaly, wasn't genetic.

And so he faced for years the challenges physically, but more so emotionally, the challenges of being an oddity.

You know, like the, kind of like the circus in the old days where they had the freak shows and things, the people that had malformations?

Well, they don't do that so much nowadays, but that's what happens in the schools.

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Why Not

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