Don't Listen To Them

CAN’T is not in the Lord’s vocabulary.

It CAN’T be done. There is no possible way. It will never happen.

He doesn’t work inside of manmade laws, natural laws, or scientific laws. Have you read His Word? Really read it? He specializes in what’s IMPOSSIBLE.

He spoke light into being three days before He set the sun, the moon, and the stars in place. For that matter, to prove Himself, one time, He moved the sun backward. That CAN’T be done. [See Ge 1:14, Is 38:8]

And don’t get me started on God and water. He walked His people through the center of a great sea on dry land, the water standing up on either side of them. He did this again when they crossed the Jordan River. He brought water from a desert rock, enough to satisfy millions. He healed the bitter waters of Marah with the limb of a tree. [See Ex 14:22; Jos 3:17; Num 20:11; Ex 15:25]

He calmed a storm, walked upon the angry waves, then translated all of them – boat, disciples, and Himself to the other shore. [See Mk 4:39; Mt 14:25; Mk 6:48-49; Jn 6:19, 21]

Which brings to mind His apostle Philip, who ministered to an Ethiopian eunuch, in the middle of the desert, then POOF was taken where he needed to go. Or what about the time a donkey talked? There’s Balaam, headed where he was told not to go with an enormous angel standing in his path, only he can’t see it, so he’s beating and framming on the poor donkey, which gets tired of it and speaks up. “HEY NOW! YOU CUT THAT OUT!” [See Act 8:39; Num 22:28]

What about Gideon? The least of all his tribe, a man full of doubts about his calling, yet he and 300 men deliver all of Israel with the noise of broken pots. Or what about the time Samaria was shut up against the enemy, people dying and doing horrible things to survive, when the footsteps of two lepers sends the enemy running because they heard an army. [See Jdg 7:19; 2Ki 7:6]

Or Elijah calling fire down from heaven to consume a sodden sacrifice. Or the time a group of men dropped a dead man on top of Elisha’s bones and the dead man came to life! [See 1Ki 18:38; 2Ki 13:21]

Jesus did that, too. He raised a widow’s son, Jairus’s daughter, and a friend who’d been buried for four days! He cured lepers. Which CAN’T be done, mind you. And most of them didn’t even bother to say thank you. [See Lk 7:14; Lk 8:54; Jn 11:43; Lk 17:14]

He opened blind eyes. People who couldn’t see, in an age before eye doctors and vision aids, suddenly could. He healed the lame and a man’s withered arm. He once paid His taxes from money taken from the mouth of fish that Peter caught from the lake. [See Mt 11:5; Mt 12:13; Mt 17:27]

It CAN’T be done, they say. There are rules against it. It isn’t possible.

SO WHAT. Sometimes head knowledge is our destruction. We reason out why the miracle isn’t possible and lose heart. We destroy our faith.

Back to those disciples in the boat in a storm. Jesus approaches, walking on the water, and His disciples, men who should have known him, instead shout, “IT’S A GHOST!” A ghost, really? You were with Him when He multiplied a handful of bread loaves and fish into enough to feed thousands, yet you’re looking for a ghost? [See Mt 14:26]

“And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” (Mt 14:31)

O, Peter. Peter. He walks on the surface of the water, which CAN’T be done, then sinks because he considers the waves. The good news is, this same Peter, months later, proclaimed the Holy Spirit to the lost and brought 3,000 into the church. Would we all acted more like Peter, who didn’t let his denial of Christ, in Jesus’ worst hours, hold him back from that moment in Acts. [See Mt 14:29-30; Act 2:14]

Or like Jesus, who need we remind ourselves, was crucified, D-E-A-D, DEAD, and buried in a tomb behind a huge, heavy stone with armed guards. Except three days later, BOOM, there He is, speaking to Mary in the garden. Or what about how He walked through a wall into their midst? Yeah, that. He was dead, but now He isn’t, and walls aren’t a thing anymore. [See Jn 20:16, 19, 26]

IMPOSSIBLE. Physics is against it.

But wait. NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD. These were the angel’s words to Jesus’ mother, Mary. And there’s that, too. She was a virgin, espoused to Joseph. She said herself she’d never known a man. Yet, she’s pregnant? [See Lk 1:31, 34]

Get real. That CAN’T happen. But it did.

“For with God nothing shall be impossible.” (Luke 1:37)

One commentary explains this verse in a magnificent way, as if it isn’t great enough on its own. The statement is properly rendered: No word of God shall be void of power. This means EVERY WORD SHALL BE FULL OF POWER. Power to do the impossible, those things that CAN’T be done but WILL BE done. [VWS commentary]

That thing in your life which everyone shakes their head at … Don’t listen to them. Listen to the Savior, who defeated death, took the keys of hell, and handed them to you. That’s right. They’re yours. And not as decorations around your neck, but they are meant to be used.

“No weapon formed against you shall prosper,” the prophet Isaiah said. (Is 54:17)

There’s also Jesus’ words, “I give you power, or authority, over all the power of the enemy. NOTHING SHALL BY ANY MEANS HURT YOU.” (Lk 10:19)

And again to Peter, where He said, “Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Mt 16:18) Upon this rock of revelation of WHO I AM as Savior, Redeemer, Lord of Hosts, on that premise all the attempts of hell to ruin you will fail. He WILL NOT destroy my church. He WILL NOT go against my will.

What kind of God would He be if He weren’t stronger and wiser than anything else in existence? Why believe at all if the IMPOSSIBLE CAN’T come to pass? Ridiculous. And moot anyway because He’s already proven Himself. He doesn’t have to do it again.

Believe. Don’t believe. But all those CAN’TS will become CANS.

What He’s decided to do for you, for us, for them, He WILL DO no matter what we think of it. He responds to faith, and if no one else has faith right now, I do. I suspect I’m not alone. In fact, I know I’m not, and in the words of the best cartoon rabbit in existence, here’s what God has to say to all the doubters, all those who’re swimming in the bottomless sea of CAN’T.

Or maybe it’s a shallow sea. Maybe they’re drowning in water shallow enough they could stand up. Just stand, O feeble faithless man, and see the Savior of the world, who did what no one else could. Hear what He said to the enemy at that moment, to the enemies in this moment, to the doubters, the haters, the liars, those who are deceived.

To quote that wasckally wabbit, shaking his head, that silly grin on his face because Bugs always wins. ALWAYS. “He don’t know me vewwy well do he?”


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.feelgoodromance.com
www.suzannedwilliams.com