What has you all tied up in knots? I want to talk about the can nots that frequently strangle us.

 

How often do you talk yourself out of stepping out and doing something because you tell yourself you can not do it? Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” That means that everything God intends for you to do, you can do because he will give you the strength to do it. 

 

The can nots of life will keep you from accomplishing the good works God put you here to do. Ephesians 2:10 says that we were “created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” God has a can do list for you to do, and he is totally capable of empowering you to do it. He has promised to provide the strength and the resources you need to do what he has called you to do. So, why do you tell yourself you can not do it? Why are you tied up in that knot?

 

I know, you look at the job, and you look at yourself, and you are frightened because you know that in yourself you don’t have what it takes. But this is what it means to walk by faith not by sight. If God is saying this is a can do for you, you’ve got to trust him to do through you and with you what you could never do without him. But that’s what the Christian life is all about—it’s about Christ living his life in us so that we can do what he has called us to do.

 

It has been my experience in my years of walking with the Lord that when he calls me to do something, I am always in over my head. It is way more than I can do; I never have the education or the experience or the resources or the know-how to do it, and yet as God has placed that passion and desire within me, he has always been there to accomplish what he wants to accomplish through me.

 

I want to encourage you to undo the can nots in your life. Stop feeding yourself negative messages. I’m not advocating foolishly doing things without much thought and prayer and guidance. But so many of us just stay on the sidelines and never get in the game because we are filled with the fear of the can nots.   You’ll make some mistakes along the way, you’ll have to learn some things through failure, but if God is in it, he will bring you through to completion and you’ll learn the joy of being involved in what God is doing. It’s the abundant life; sitting on the sidelines is really boring.