Steven Furtick - Do You Trust God Is Enough?
This is how God provides peace and joy and contentment and faith and hope and all the stuff that really matters, the stuff that doesn't perish, the stuff that doesn't get moldy, the stuff that doesn't get old, the stuff you don't have to throw out after three months, the stuff that lasts. He said, "I'm going to give you bread from heaven. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day". Somebody say, "Enough". It's in the passage. He said, "I want you to take enough for that day". "In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions". "I want to test them to see if they trust me. I want to know if you trust me. Do you trust me enough to believe that I am enough? And do you believe that if I am enough so are you? Because if I'm in you and I'm your God and I made you and I put you in a situation, I would never put you in a situation I would not make you enough for".
He said, "On the sixth day, as they get ready for the Sabbath, I want them to prepare what they bring in, and that will be twice as much as they gather on the other days so they don't have to work on the Sabbath". But it was kind of a system they set up where it was like, "Get what you need for today". "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us next week our daily bread. Give us last month our daily bread".
Do you see how it can be two things? It can be your attachment to the past where you remember what you used to eat in Egypt or it can be your fixation on the future. That's the second thing that keeps you from receiving God's provision right now. "Wish we were in Egypt. There we had…" See it? Then when the Messiah comes, then he will… Then. There. Back there. Then one day. Back there. The provision is never then or there. It is here and now. The provision is always here. The bread is always here, and what makes the bread enough is who touches it. What made the bread multiply was when they put it in Jesus' hands. See, this is the principle: it is your proximity to the presence of Christ that becomes your provision for the challenges you face. If you stay close to him… Even if it's in a wilderness, even if it's through a mistake, even if it's insurmountable, even if you don't know how, if you will stay close to Christ, your bread will be blessed, and it will be enough, and it will go around, and there will be 12 basketfuls of leftovers. He is the Bread of Life.
When they set up the tabernacle, they made a table with acacia wood and overlaid it with gold. The acacia wood is humanity; the gold is divinity. They put twelve loaves of bread, six stacks on each side, to represent the covenant God had with his people. Twelve loaves; twelve tribes. Twelve disciples; twelve basketfuls of leftovers. But they were not in the Holy of Holies; they were only close to it. They were right outside that place. It was called the table of shewbread or the bread of the presence. When it came into the temple, it was bread, but when it got close enough to the Holy of Holies where the presence of God was, it became blessed. The closer it got to the presence of God, the less common it became. When it came in it was just a loaf, but when it got close enough to the Holy of Holies where the presence of Yahweh is…
See, I'm trying to say you don't have to be enough. All you have to do is get close enough to the one who is more than enough, and I declare my God shall supply all your needs. Not one or two, not one day in the sweet by and by…here, now is the Bread of Life. Here, now. Here is the bread. That's what Jesus said. Here is the bread. It's not in tomorrow. You cannot fight tomorrow's battles with today's strength. You are wasting today's grace trying to fight tomorrow's battles. We were talking about something yesterday. She said, "Stop, stop, stop". She said, "I'm getting maggots in my manna". I'm going to show you this. You're like, "Whoa! That's a weird thing. This is how y'all talk? This is pillow talk around the Furtick house"? As a matter of fact it is, because when I preached it… The first thing is, "Oh man, the past. I used to have so many friends, but now they've all…" You just have to leave Egypt. God can bring you new friends. God might bring you some friends this time and they pick up the check. It might be an upgrade. I don't know.
When in the wilderness you have to be able to trust and not be too attached to the past. And please don't quit your job over this message. I hate it. Everybody always hears what they want to hear. I'm talking about the paradigm of the past, Egypt thinking, where they hand you your food. So, God is like, "Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to rain down bread from heaven," and then it happened. He told Moses he was going to do it, and then he did it. First, he gave them meat in the evening to remind them of Egypt. He's like, "I'm not doing that anymore. From now on, for the next 39 years, this is what you're going to eat". Now, when God switches the form of provision, your first instinct is going to be to resist it, because you won't recognize it. When God starts doing new things in your life, at first it'll just look like trouble, but you won't recognize it's really training. "Send the crowds away. I can't deal with this. Oh, this is unfamiliar". So, they wake up. Verse 13: "That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor".
Now I never saw manna, but it said thin flakes like frost. I was just picturing the Bible. I never ate manna, but it said thin flakes like frost. Touch somebody and say, "They're great". The people were like, "Huh. Never saw this before. I mean, we know how to eat in Egypt. In Egypt we had a meal card". Sometimes you don't know how to receive something God has given you, because when you've never seen it, it's hard to receive it. Do you ever wonder why you sabotage yourself sometimes when you're starting to succeed at something? Because when frustration and failure is familiar to you, you will recreate it without even knowing you're doing it. Sometimes we surround ourselves with people who treat us crappy, because being treated crappy to us is emotionally familiar.
So when somebody treats you nice you're suspicious. "What do they want"? For me, I have a hard time believing that people could just like me. It's hard for me to believe, because I think at some point during my life I was like, "Well, if I preach good" or "If I can generate a job…" Like, I have all of these staff members I'm responsible for, so there's this feeling like you start thinking you're the bread after a while, and you start thinking if it wasn't for what you did… So then when somebody tries to really love you for who you are, you're like, "Hold on now. This is too close". When the bread came from heaven that God was trying to provide and it rained down and covered the ground, look at the Israelites' reaction. Verse 15: "When they saw it, they said to each other, 'What is it?' For they did not know what it was". Because they never saw it before.
Some of us are resisting the resource God is sending into our life at this moment because we do not recognize it as his presence and his provision. Some of us right now have what we have been asking God for in a form we don't recognize that is before us. The trick is that God will give you this day your daily bread. Not there in Egypt, not then when Messiah comes, but here is the bread. "I am the Bread". The bread of presence is this: "God, give me the grace in this moment". If I try to reach back to my past mistake, I'll miss it. If I try to reach forward into my future and fixate on that and try to plan everything out, I will miss it, but here is the bread. That's the word. Here is the bread. You're pointing to the provision and going, "What is it"?
In fact, the reason they called it manna is because in Hebrew manna is an ambidextrous term. It means "What is it"? and it also means what it is. They didn't know what to call it because it was new. When God does something new in your life, at first you don't know what to call it or how to receive it. What keeps you from receiving it sometimes is your past and sometimes is your future. So they named it manna. "What is it? What it is". "What is it? I don't know. It's what it is. But I know one thing. I know I Am. So whatever it is, I Am is in the middle of it, working it out for a purpose that is beyond my human perspective".
Here is the bread. Then some of them thought they were smarter than God. The Bible says when they saw it, even though they didn't recognize it… "Moses said to them, 'It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: "Each one is to gather as much as he needs".'" It's the power of enough. "'Each one is to gather as much as he needs. Take an omer [half a gallon] for each person you have in your tent.' The Israelites did as they were told…" "Give us this day our daily bread". "…some gathered much, some little. And when they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much did not have too much…"
I like that. It's not too much. It's enough. "I am the Bread of Life". "…and he who gathered little did not have too little". It was enough. It's enough. Make the confession. Say, "It's enough". All over every area of your life where the Enemy has been speaking too much or not enough, I want you to look at whatever God put in the ground in the form of his grace and his provision in this season of your life and declare, "It's enough. He's enough. I'm enough. It's enough. He's enough. I'm enough". Give the lesson to your neighbor. "It's enough. He's enough. I'm enough".
The reason I'm enough is because he's enough. If he's enough and I'm enough, it's enough. It's not too much, it's not too little; it's enough. But some of the Israelites… Look at verse 19. "'No one is to keep any of it until morning.' However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning…" But watch what happened in the morning. In the morning, because they did not trust God to give them enough for today, the manna had maggots. God's presence and provision is always in today. Much of your stress, your ulcer, your sleeplessness is because you are letting maggots get in your manna. See, here's what happens. Bob turns to Judy, and he's like, "Uh, Moses said there'd be more in the morning, but, baby, just in case, put a little of that right there in your pocketbook. Just in case. We can't eat all of it today, because we've never seen this before".
It's hard to trust that there will be enough for tomorrow, but that's exactly what faith is. Do you see it? That's exactly what faith is. It is to deal with today and to trust for tomorrow. Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow Blessings all mine with ten thousand beside Great is thy faithfulness Great is thy faithfulness Morning by morning… When I wake up tomorrow, there will be manna. When I wake up Tuesday, there will be more. When I wake up Wednesday, in my weakness he is strong. When I wake up Thursday, he'll see me through. When I wake up Friday, he's fighting for me, and I can rest on the Sabbath, because he is the bread. I break the spirit of not enough off of your life today. I break the spirit of "I can't" and "I'll never". I break that spirit in the name of Jesus. Here is the bread. He is the bread, and he has given you right now an opportunity to trust him on the next level and to discover who he is all over again.