.  Living Hope Fellowship Church....Sermons by the Pastor 

I CAN DO ALL THINGS

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

One time our cat somehow got up to the finch cage and got the door open.  I caught the cat just in time.  The cat had the finch bird in her mouth!  She went after that bird, but I grabbed her by the jaw and stopped her, because that was my kids’ pet finch.  I said, Petey, open your mouth, and let go of it.  She opened her mouth and the bird dropped on the floor.  I put the cat out, but the bird just laid there.  The bird must have said in his mind, I’m dead!  I’m history.

I delivered the bird, but he believed he was dead!  I picked it up in my hand, but he was still thinking, I’m dead!  I thought animals were smarter than that.  I’m dead.  I’m just dead!  I said, Come on little bird, and I petted him.  I thought that was so neat.  I had never done that before.  He didn’t have a mark on him, but he thought he did.  This is a true story.

I laid him down and just looked at him.  He was still thinking he was dead.  I looked at him, and he looked at me, but he wouldn’t even lift his head up!  He was FREE, but he wouldn’t lift his head up!

The enemy was gone; the cat was outside and couldn’t get to him.  I was standing over him, and I was more powerful than the cat ever thought about being.  The bird still thought he was dead.  I was his rescuer; I was his savior.  I wanted that bird to fly around the room and rejoice a little bit, but he still thought, I’m dead!  Do you know how this applies to YOU?  Don’t let the devil’s fear and attacks paralyze you!

I reached down and touched him in his eye!  I thought that this bird must have taken a wound.  You can’t tell whether some things are dead or alive just by looking at them.  I was going to make him move somehow!  Once in a while God will touch you in the eye!  He says you are not dead, and He will prove it to you!  Do you understand?

If I had left the bird there, another cat would have come along and figured it was easy pickings and would have gobbled him right up!  I wonder how many times this has happened with people.  We resist God, but we don’t resist the devil!

I finally picked the little bird up.  I took my little finger and started rubbing his belly.  Then he started blinking his eyes and turned his head and looked at me.  The bird just knew he was dead.  I stuck my little finger under his teeny little orange feet and manually stuck two of his toes on one side of the perch and the big one on the other side of it.  Then I got his other foot and manually raised the bird on his feet and hooked him to the perch.  He just kind of left them there.  I set him up and he looked around and then at me.  He was perched and the cage door was still open.

You have heard the term “scared to death”, well he was really close to that.  How many Christians are like that?  God has to manually pick you up so you will do something.  I eased my finger out and then bumped his perch for him and it started swinging.  He looked at me, but he wasn’t afraid of me.  He was still thinking, I’m dead!  A dead bird isn’t afraid of anything!  How can you hurt somebody that’s dead?

I bumped him on the chest a couple of times and he kind of looked back at me.  He cocked his head and fluttered his eyes.  I closed the cage and went away and came back in an hour.  He had not moved a millimeter!  He was STILL thinking, I’m supposed to be dead. 

So much of the church world is convinced that they are supposed to be dead.  They are convinced they can’t do anything.  The devil says, Don’t you dare assume that God is going to do anything for you.  Don’t you dare move.

The Bible says we can do ALL THINGS through Christ.  Some people will fail, but you can go on with God.  When they miss heaven, are you going to go to hell with them?  When we believe what God says, it will come to pass. 

I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHICH STRENGTHENETH ME.  Those who don’t believe, even in the church, cannot stop what God is going to do in me if I hold on to God.  Hallelujah!

          Later that evening I came back again and checked that bird, and he was flittering all over that cage!  He discovered HE WAS NOT DEAD.  I thought, God, that is me, and that is what you did for me.

          In Mark 9:23 Jesus said, “. . . If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”