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

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

I CAN DO ALL THINGS

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I CAN DO ALL THINGS

Preface

(faith, unbelief, fear)

I caught our cat just as she got our pet finch bird in her mouth. I squeezed her jaw and the bird dropped to the floor. I put the cat out, but the bird just laid there. He was FREE, and he wasn’t hurt, but the bird thought he was dead!

I was the bird’s rescuer, and I wanted him to fly around the room and rejoice a little bit, but he still thought he was dead! Do you see how this applies to YOU? Don’t let the devil’s fear and attacks paralyze you!

If I had left the bird on the floor, another cat would have come along and gobbled him right up! I wonder how many times this has happened with people. I finally picked the bird up and manually hooked him to the perch in his cage. He just kind of looked at me. Later that day he was flittering all around his cage!

How many Christians are like that bird? The devil incessantly tries to scare God’s people to death! He says, Don’t you dare move, but the Bible says we can do ALL THINGS through Christ!

Make a fresh commitment to God and let’s go ON!

I CAN DO ALL THINGS

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

Philippians 4:13 says, “I CAN. . . .” so don’t you dare tell me you CAN’T! You can, and I can too! Get that in your soul! I CAN DO ALL THINGS. We are going to get to how you are going to do it, but get this down first. Don’t tell me you can’t do it.

Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”

There are only two reasons you can’t do something. If you can’t do something, you are devil possessed, or if you are a Christian, you don’t have enough of Christ in you, and you are quenching the Spirit of the Lord from moving actively. We need some foundational truths. A sinner can’t be saved on his own, because the devil has got control.

I CAN. Who is talking? It is a Christian, a Holy Ghost filled, saved child of God. This was written down not as a brag sheet, but that we would emulate Christ. These things were written for our admonition.

Say, “I CAN.” Maybe you WON’T, but don’t tell me you can’t. If you prove to me you can not, I will prove to you that you are not saved. If you will not, that is another matter. There are a lot of saved people who will not.

In the Old Testament people asked, “Can God,” and it made Him angry. He said since they didn’t believe He could, there is no way they could believe they could, so they were not able to go IN.

The man with the talent in Matthew, Chapter 25, didn’t have but one responsibility, not ten and not five. The man with the ten talents doubled it, and the one with five talents doubled it. The man with two talents doubled it. They had a lot more burden and responsibility than the man with the one talent.

Matthew 25:24-25 says, “Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.” He gave the talent back to the Lord.

That was God’s definition of an unprofitable servant. He was a servant, but he was unprofitable. He was furious with him and cast him into hell.

The first book of the Bible after Jesus ascended is the book of Acts. That is where He gave the Holy Ghost power. There was action along with what they said they believed. They didn’t do it on their own. Proof of that was that Peter was the first one to preach. I would not have picked him first. I would have given him a chance to grow.

Peter preached and won thousands to God. He was so anointed that he flabbergasted the rest of them, and he got to preach the next sermon and thousands came to God. This man had previously cursed and denied his Lord within earshot of Him. NOW he was preaching to thousands and winning them to God by the power of God working in him.

Psalm 78:19 says about the children of Israel, “Yea, they spake against God; they said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” The question was, “CAN GOD?” Around here we say, “GOD CAN!” We see in the Word of God that it is His will, so then we must say, GOD WILL! You and I make excuses and say we cannot. If we lack knowledge, then we need to fear the Lord.

James 1:5 says, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” People have told me they are not wise or gifted. Don’t give excuses for not obeying God. God has called us to action.

You say you don’t understand. If you have faith in God, you have a certain measure of understanding. Faith jumps over and believes God, but doesn’t know how he is going to do it. That is good enough. You don’t have to understand how God is going to do something. All you have to do is believe that He is going to do it.

God hung the earth on nothing. People have flown around the earth many times for years and have checked it out. People have gone out in space, took pictures, and the earth is just hanging there. It is not setting on anything. The moon, sun, and the stars are not setting on anything but air. You can’t see wires. They rotate all the time. Why doesn’t it just sling everything out? God created the heavens and the earth.

GOD CAN, AND GOD WILL. God can do what He wills to do. Romans 3:3-4 says, “For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid. . . .”

One of the most powerful NOs in the Word of God is – God forbid. It ranks right up there with abomination. There is no way that the whole wide world’s unbelief can stop the faith of God in one person, let alone multitudes that will believe the Word of God.

Shall their unbelief, non-acceptance, skepticism, mockery, indifference, laziness, rebellion, or rejection, (all unbelief) make the faith of God ineffective? NO.

They get a lot of blame. They did this, They hindered me, but we just use them for an excuse, who or whatever They are. We just blame them because it isn’t US.

“Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?” The Bible says, “God forbid.” There is no way, as long as I walk in the will of God, and those things I am pursuing are according to God’s calling in my life, that anybody can stop me.

Then we lay blame on the devil. It wasn’t human, it was a devil. He can hinder things, but that just makes us pray harder. Some people quit praying.

When you stand on judgment day, you can’t blame them, they, he, she, the situation, my past or anything. If you have been forgiven of your past, don’t use it as an excuse for failure now. If you are saved, you haven’t got a curse. Have you walked out of your salvation?

If you are born again, you are a new creature. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Don’t go back and drag up trash for an excuse to fail.

Luke 9:62 says, “And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” That means if you got saved and you are headed to glory, and you look back, you are unfit for heaven. You are not going to heaven in reverse! We don’t accidentally go to heaven. We don’t accidentally succeed.

Philippians 4:19 says, “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

Psalm 34:19 says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.” There is no way a devil can defeat a Christian. Jesus said the gates of hell shall not prevail against me. If your nose is in the air or you are looking back, you are going to fall on your face. You will trip on some little something you can’t see and you will be wiped out. It happens over and over again.

God said in John 1:2, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” He wants us to prosper, and go on beyond where we are. If it doesn’t work according to the Word, something is not according to the Word.

Philippians 2:12 says, “. . . work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” That lets me know when I get saved, I have work to do. I need to get filled with the Spirit, and I need to do what the Word says. I may lose this or that, but I am gaining a far more eternal weight of glory according to the Word of God.

I want what God has. Everybody else has problems, limitations, and world dependency. I want to love the Lord my God with all my heart, mind, body, soul, and strength. Then the Lord shall make a way. If God says you can, don’t tell God you can’t.

Some get born again, and they don’t realize they can’t keep the old creature. He changes you. You are not like you were. If you are, you are not born again. We don’t take it far enough. He will change the way you act, think, say, and react. He will change your priorities. Allow God to work in you. I love the truth that sets men free if they will accept it

Do you pull burned cookies out of the oven and say, Well, the oven made a mistake, when YOU left them in there too long? That wasn’t the oven’s fault. The equipment is no smarter than the operator. Your faith works no better than your obedience. Everyone has the measure of faith, but what you do with it is another matter.

Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” There is nothing impossible to me. I am a man who can do anything. People say God will strike me down for saying that, but God said if I walk with Jesus, all things are possible to him that believeth.

Mark 4:24 says, “. . . with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you. . . .” The more you pray, the more anointing you have in the Spirit and the more you are able to accomplish in the Spirit. The more you study and read and understand the Word of God, the more your thinking is changed. The more you obey it, more comes to pass according to the Word of God.

Psalm 34:6 says, “This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.” When we cry, the Lord will hear and deliver us out of trouble.

You may have been mistreated as a child, but that person is dead if you are born again. You are a new creature in Christ Jesus. There is a difference between the old nature and the new nature. Proverbs 3:5 says, “. . . lean not unto thine own understanding.” Lean to the mind of Christ which you have received. The way to think His way is to read God’s Word and obey it. Pray and it gives you strength to act on it.

We want revival in our youth and in our church and school. We want people who live around here who live like animals to be converted by the blood of Jesus Christ. We want the power of God to come upon them so they will go back to the gutter and preach under the anointing of the Holy Ghost of God. Then they will bring multitudes into the kingdom of God by the power of God that saved them.

They can’t come in until we get in where we belong. When we pray, God will hear our cry and the anointing of God will fall and draw them from the east and the west, the north and the south. Jesus said to compel them to come in. We don’t have to drag them, but pray and watch God work. We have to live like Jesus lived. People get all bound up when we say that, but then you can minister like Jesus ministered. Then we get happy!

Again, Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” You can, but there is a condition – it is as Christ strengthens you. Does He have a willing vessel in you?

In the use of electricity objects are wired. The ampere is like the push and the power, and voltage is like the flow of the current. There is a thing called a resister. When electricity runs into something that has resistance, it starts getting hot, and that is how electric heaters work. A wire fights against electricity going through it. Coming back and dead shorting, creating a multiplied resistance to that wire, makes it heat up in a controlled fashion. That creates heat and we have learned to take that resistance and make it work for us. However, God is looking for a conductor. He is not looking for a resister. If you think you are going to melt, He will gird you up.

Can you imagine the monumental task it was for Moses when God told him to lead the whole nation of Israel out of Egypt? No wonder he argued with Him. Moses wanted to know how he, as one man, was going to fight Egypt! He wanted to know how he was going to get the people to believe him when he told them that God could do all things.

All the plagues came against Pharoah and the Egyptians. In part it was because of the resistance of those who were going to be delivered.

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! In those days the cat had teeth. She doesn’t have any teeth now, because she is so old, and a bite from her is really gross. She went after that bird, but I grabbed her by the jaw and stopped her, because that was the kid’s pet finch bird. I said, 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 already 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. They have teeny tiny orange legs and feet. 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 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 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?

God has called me to conduct revival, to cast out devils, heal the sick, raise the dead, and to make a place for people to come to experience the presence and the power of God so thick, glorious and so heavy that when they leave, it follows them everywhere they go. When people drive by the place, they won’t feel the world, the flesh or the devil, but they will feel GOD.

When Jesus went into the synagogue, the power of the Lord was present to heal and deliver. We need to put away unbelief. 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.

God already has it in His will that I can, if I will. In Mark 9:23 Jesus said, “. . . If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” That is what He means when He talks about the mustard seed faith. You can remove mountains. Do you believe God CAN? Do you believe YOU can? I know I CAN because Christ strengthens me. Let’s get prayed up and believe more!

Romans 11:29 says, “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” The vision and God’s design for my life has not changed. If it hasn’t come to pass it is not God’s fault. If we believe God, He will strengthen us.

In Matthew 17:20 Jesus said, “. . . If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”

We need to get a lot of things done, but I see now more than ever that it is conditional. That little bird would have laid there until the next cat came along and ate him, but somebody provoked him to get UP.

When people start believing God, they will meet killjoys, people who don’t believe, and they don’t want you to believe, because it shows them up as unbelievers! Don’t pull somebody down, even if they aren’t one hundred percent accurate. Pray, and God will line them up. Thank God for somebody who believes and is willing to pay the price.

I praise God for a little bird and the incidents we go through to wake us up. I see that there is absolutely nothing we can’t accomplish if we will trust Him and put our faith in action through prayer, and fasting, and obeying God’s Word.

2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen. . . .” We are trusting God for a move of the Holy Ghost within us, in our area, and in our church that the world will wonder after.

We take the limit off of God and consequently off of ourselves. He hung the whole universe on nothing, and it is still there, with no wires attached. God can use our vessels of clay if we will let down our resistance and become conductors of the Spirit of God.

Flow through us, oh, Spirit of the Living God. Lord Jesus, move upon us for a fresh commitment to you. Amen.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111,

GRAND CHAIN, IL 62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail

livinghopefellowship@lazernetwireless.net

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord. Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.