Christine Caine - Can't Stop, Won't Stop - Part 2
There is a generation looking for love in a world full of hate. Truth in an age of relativity and something to cling to when everything is falling apart. As Christians we have the go-to. So it's time to stop ignoring and judging and instead start caring and engaging. It's time to take responsibility in our spheres of influence. Are you ready? I'm Christine Caine and I have a personal mission to Equip and Empower people like you to connect with your God-given purpose and potential. I am so glad that you're joining us today, let's dive right in.
Hey, hey, everybody. I am so grateful that you've joined us today. I am so glad that you tuned in. I know that God has an amazing word for you. You have picked a great series to join us. We are talking about not stopping, doing the thing that God has called you to do and we believe that once you get touched by the presence of God and God puts a burden in your heart that you just can't stop, you won't stop until you get the job done. And we're looking at the life of Nehemiah, God chose Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. We know that he was a cup bearer in the king's court and I mean he had the, he was the dude that had the interesting job. He would get to eat the food and drink the drink before the king. So if it was poisoned he'd cark it first, that's an awesome job profile. That would be awesome and God really, really moved on his heart and he got such a burden for his people.
He found out that his people were just dispersed and they were fragmented and that the city walls had been destroyed and there was debris everywhere, there was destruction everywhere and when he heard that news he began to weep and he got such a burden for his city and thus far in the series we're learning that God gives you burdens for things and sometimes you just can't shake something and I know any ministry that I've ever started in my life has come out of a burden that God put on my heart. You can't sustain it if you start it yourself but you know what? If we walk around the world with tenderness and with an ear inclined to the voice of the spirit I think what moves God's heart moves our heart and we need to keep our heart clear.
That's why we constantly need to go to the word every single day so that it reads us like a mirror because if your heart is full of toxic waste like anger and bitterness and unforgiveness and shame and guilt, then you know what? There's not much room for the burden of God to take root in your heart. When you're too full of you there's no room for anybody else and so we wanna be a generation of Christians who have constant open heart surgery. Search me oh God, test my heart. See if there's any evil way in me. I pray it regularly, God come in and do open heart surgery. Even if I don't like it, even if its painful. I want the toxic waste out of my heart so that the life of the spirit can flow through me.
So when I encounter people I can bring the light and the hope and the life of the Lord Jesus Christ into a situation when we also see from Nehemiah's life. The Bible says that he prayed day and night in Nehemiah chapter one. He prayed day and night. In Nehemiah chapter one verse five and six, and I said, "O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant, that I now pray before you day and night". Now here is the other thing that Nehemiah did is he brought the situation immediately before God in prayer. What is your go-to? Your friend on a text? Panic, a bottle, a pill? A partner, I don't know 'cause everyone's got their go-to.
Wouldn't it be awesome if we made our go-to God? God is our go-to. That we instantly go to God in prayer. No matter the anxiety we feel, the stress that we feel, that we go to him in prayer. When there is tension, when there is a burden. Instead of going to our neighbor and you know what we do? We call one another and we pretend that we're talking about someone else's prayer needs. That is covert language for gossip. That's actually what it really means but we say you know, I'm just, I'm not gossiping but I just think we really need to pray about, or pray for. And I'm like no honey pray for yourself but here's the issue. That imagine if we actually went to God instead of to somebody else. These are urgent days and I wanna propel us to prayer. Because prayer changes things. And if we can get more of the people of God praying to the God of miracles, we would see more miracles happen.
Our worrying is not gonna change anything. Our gossip is not gonna change anything. Our frustration is not gonna change anything. Our apathy or our indifference is not gonna change anything but God can change everything and prayer moves God and when God is moved, God moves mountain, we want to be a praying people. People that go to God, straight up and pray. That's the kind of people that we wanna be. Ephesians chapter six verse 12 says for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. When we pray, it changes the atmosphere. Prayer isn't a boring, religious obligation. It's not just a series of set kind of words that we say. Prayer is when we pour our heart open before God. I love it.
1 Peter 5:7 says, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. I want you to know that. God cares for you. I love it in the new king James it says cast your cares on God for he cares for you. For someone that's a real word today. You didn't even know that there's a God that actually cares for you. You didn't even know that there's a God that thinks about you. You know Jeremiah says that the Lord says for I know the thoughts, I think toward you says the, do you know God has thoughts about you? Isn't that wild? That God, well I was gonna say he woke up, but he doesn't sleep so there you go. So God who never sleeps and never slumbers, he thinks about you. You're on his mind and he doesn't have just one thought, that is thoughts plural. God has many, and they're thoughts for good and not for evil. Thoughts to prosper you and not to harm you. Thoughts to give you a future and a hope, how wild is that? The God of the universe who woke up one day, oops earth, look what I did.
That's God. He told the sun once, I want you to rise in the morning and go down at night. He only said it once, it hasn't stopped doing it since, that God, that God cares about you. He says I care about your anxieties, I care about your concerns. Someone right now you're about to take another sip of that bottle and you don't need to do that. What you need to do is surrender your heart and your life to Jesus Christ. You don't need to pop those pills and wash them down with that gin. You simply need to get on your knees, surrender your life and your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. Friend, he cares about you. He cares about you. He loves you, he's got a plan and a purpose and a destiny for your life, you matter to God. I know that person just said to you very recently within the last two hours that you don't matter to them, that you count for nothing, that you never mattered to anyone, but I wanna tell you, you matter to God and God cares about you.
Philippians 4:6-7 says do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds. How is that in the day in which we live? Be anxious for nothing, I mean what a bold statement. Especially in our anxiety-driven generation where more people are popping pills than ever before because there is so much anxiety in the world. We would be such a testimony to the world around us if we did exactly what Nehemiah has done in this text. If we go straight to God. And now I love this. Because it also tells us in chapter one, it tells us grant him mercy in the sight of man and he says and give success to your servant today. So when Nehemiah is praying to God he's actually praying give success to your servant today.
Did you know that you can pray to God for success? For some people that's a freak-out, they're like what do you mean? What do you mean that you can be a Christian and successful? Not only that, Christine Caine, are you telling me? Well no, God is, not me. God is, it's in the Bible. In fact in Joshua chapter one verse eight the Bible says if, be strong and very courageous, be careful to do everything that's in the word of God for then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have, get ready for it. Here it is again, great success.
Do you know success is a Bible word? Some of us have been brought up under a Christianity that says you need to be a worm. In fact the bigger failure you are, the more glory God will get. I don't even understand that kind of thing. That why it would make God look good for me to look bad. The fact is he says grant your servant success. I want you to know I didn't start A21 to fail. I didn't start propel women to fail. I didn't start Equip & Empower to fail. I started Equip & Empower to reach as many people with the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ that I can. I started propel women to reach as many women with a message of empowerment and hope and life-giving thoughts as I possibly can. I started A21 to rescue as many slaves in my lifetime as I possibly can and put as many traffickers in jail as I possibly can. We set it up to succeed. I don't know what we're sitting round waiting for. God created us for great success.
So in Nehemiah chapter two verse five it says, is this so, and I said to the king, "If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in your sight that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' graves, that I may rebuild it". And the king said to me, "How long will you be gone, and when will you return"? So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time and it goes on in verse eight it says, and the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me. I can't tell you how much I have built so much of my life and ministry around that. For the good hand of my God was upon me. God I believe that you're gonna give me favor and you're gonna make people like me that don't even like me and I have seen God do absolute miracles because of the good favor of our God.
That was what was on Nehemiah's hand. I wonder if you've prayed that in your workplace. Have you prayed for favor from your boss? When you think Christine, you know they're quite militant and they're quite against it and things that I represent and that I stand for and you know, maybe they mock my weakness. Have you asked God for favor? Have you asked God to put something on your life that just makes people like you even when they want to not like you? I do that, I'm like God I know it's gonna bug them. How awesome that they're gonna do things for me that they don't even know why they're doing it. I think that's absolutely fantastic. I believe this stuff guys, I believe this stuff. And that's why I live the life that God's called me to live because he just believed that God would do it and you know the truth is that you and I can expect the assignment that God has given us to be impossible.
I've said it a million times, if you've ever heard me teach. I always say impossible is where God starts and miracles are what God does. It's the currency of heaven. When you don't need God why should God turn up? But if you are in a situation that is utterly impossible, if God doesn't turn up you're not gonna get healed. If God doesn't turn up, you're not gonna get that financial breakthrough. If God doesn't turn up, that person's not gonna get saved. If God doesn't turn up, you are not going to be able to have the opportunity of believing for. We all have a situation where we need a miracle and I'm here to tell you today that miracles are what God does. It's the currency of heaven, he loves it when his kids need him. If we can do it all ourselves he's like, knock yourself out I guess if you can do it on your own. I am so far out of the boat in my life.
People go, how do you stay so God-dependent? I'm like sweetheart, I lost sight of the boat about 10 years ago, I don't even know where the boat is anymore. And so like God you better turn up. In every realm of my life I want God to turn up. It's an exhilarating ride, exhilarating ride. The ride that Jesus Christ gives us but you've gotta step out in faith and you've gotta believe God to do the impossible. Now this job, when Nehemiah said I wanna rebuild these walls I wanna go back to my people, I want you to know that whatever it is that God has asked you to do it's not difficult. It's impossible, I just want you to grab that. I said that from day one when we started our ministry, I'm like oh no no no. Difficult we can do, no no, impossible we can't.
So what I'm asking you to do and every time, I request something from my staff I don't wanna just ask them difficult things I wanna ask them impossible things. I go in, we've got this great faith filled lawyer and every time I go into the office I'm like, tell me the miracles now. I mean and in that realm you know, they're not wired up to think of miracles. They're wired up to think of pragmatic cases and you know like precedents and I'm like whatever. Give me a miracle and I'm telling you, we're seeing miracles, miracles. Difficult, you don't need God for. The miraculous, oh yeah. The impossible, you need God for. Where is it in your life that you are so far out of the boat that you need God to do that? And so I think it's so important that all of us understand that even in our own lives, let's personalize this. So often the walls of our own life have broken down and there is just so much pain in our own hearts.
So many of us have encountered abuse or pain or rejection or betrayal, it's just part of being alive, no one is exempt and what that does is it just breaks down the walls of your life and the walls of your heart. I wonder if you've allowed the holy spirit to come and begin your, to rebuild your internal walls. And you can run and you can try to solve all the world's problems for so long, but at some point you're gonna have to deal with your internal world. And that we cannot bring healing to a lost and a broken world if we're not gonna allow God to do a healing in the broken walls. And the fragments of our own heart but I want you to know that's what God does. God is into the restoration business. God is into the rebuilding business. Some of you, you think your life is so fragmented. You think your life is so broken. You think your life is just, come into a rubble and that God can do nothing with it. The whole story of Nehemiah is that God rebuilds broken walls. That's what our God does. He doesn't judge us or condemn us. He sent his only begotten son to die on a cross and rise again from the dead.
So that we can have restoration, we can have healing and we can have redemption. You don't have to live as a victim, you don't have to live in bitterness, you don't have to live in anger. You don't have to live in your woundedness, you can allow the holy spirit to bring healing to those broken places and you can walk, heal and hold and be a blessing to the world around you. Our God is in the restoration business, it's what he specializes in. It's what our God does. It's pretty amazing, I've seen it in my own life. And I've seen it in countless thousands of other lives and the same God that did it for me can do it for you. But we have to have faith. Faith that God can do the impossible and why I have such great faith for God to do the impossible externally is because I've allowed him to do it internally in my own heart. You're not gonna ever be able to convince me that God doesn't do miracles today because you're looking at one. You're looking at one.
I am the kid that was left in a hospital unnamed and unwanted. I was abused for 12 years but the thing that I've discovered is impossible is what God does. He restored my life and then I look at the work of A21. I look at what he's doing with propel, I look at what's happening with Equip & Empower and I'm thinking wow, God still does miracles today and I want us to be a people that don't avoid any situation where we need a miracle. This is what we do as believers. We pray for signs and wonders and miracles and then, we avoid any context where you need a miracle to happen. That's what we do. We're like God, I wanna see, but no I don't wanna step out of the boat. There is no point praying for a miracle if you're not gonna walk towards that miracle. You're gonna have to take a step of faith. You're gonna have to take a risk. You're gonna have to step out of the, there is no easy way.
If you wanna see a miracle, you've gotta be in a position where you need a miracle and so at the end of the day you're gonna have to make a decision that you're gonna have to move past your past and step into, and yes it's scary. And trusting God is not easy but it gets easier. I'll tell you that much. I'm telling you, when I first started I wondered, are you really gonna be there? And I had so much hurt, so much brokenness, so much darkness in my past from abuse and abandonment and rejection. It took me such a long time to get to a place where I truly understood the scripture. In 1 John that God is light and in him there is no darkness. Do you know what a revelation it was to me when I truly believed in my heart of hearts that God doesn't have a dark side? You can trust Jesus Christ for it. He has no dark side.
You know I was abandoned at birth. I was abused and I certainly didn't trust people. My trust had been so violated. I had been so betrayed. I expected everyone I met to have a dark side and that's normally what happens when you've got a past like mine. You live a life where you're just always trying to protect yourself, where you're suspicious of everyone that you meet because you think they've got another agenda, you think they've got something going on, because people that you should've been able to trust, you couldn't trust. And then I discovered, and I truly did at the core of my being that God is light. And in him, there is no darkness. No dark-side, no underbelly, he is who he says he is. He is as good as he says and better than you think. Our God is good, Psalm 119 says. Our God does good. That's what God does, he is good. Good is his very essence. It's who he is, it's what he does.
I know we live in a broken world. I know we live in a fallen world. I know we live surrounded by people who betray us, people who use us, people who lie to us, people who violate us and it is so easy to become cynical. It is so easy to bring that into our faith and to begin to attribute to God what someone else has actually done to us but if we could elevate our thinking of God, if we can know that our God is good and our God does good and our God has no dark side then we will have the faith and the courage and the strength and the confidence to step out of the boat, to take a step of faith and to see the broken walls of the cities around us restored and reconciled. We'll bring light into dark places. We'll bring hope into hopeless places. We'll bring healing into broken places and we will exalt the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in the world around us. That's what we will do. That's what we're gonna do in Jesus' name. In Jesus' name yes we are, yes we are.