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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi, this is Joel and Victoria. Thanks for listening to our podcast and thanks for supporting the ministry. If you enjoyed today's message, why don't you be a blessing and share it with a friend? We appreciate you and pray for God's very best in your life. God bless you. Great to have you with us today. We are praying for you and your family. I hope you'll stay connected with us during the week.
You can download our podcast and listen to the messages anytime or go to our YouTube channel. But thanks for tuning in today. I like to start with something funny and I heard about this cat and mouse that died on the same day and went to heaven. After a few weeks, Peter saw the mouse and asked how he liked it. He said, oh, it's great, but it's so big. I wish I could get a pair of roller skates.
Peter said, no problem, got him some skates. Few weeks later, Peter saw the cat and asked him how he liked it. He said, oh, it's fantastic. And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I discovered the meals on wheels. Say it like you mean it. This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do. Today, I will be taught the Word of God.
I boldly confess my mind is alert. My heart is receptive. I will never be the same. In Jesus' name, God bless you. I want to talk to you today about special strength is coming. We all have times in life that we feel tired. We've been doing our best, standing strong, but it's been so long, nothing has changed. Now we're fatigued.
We don't feel like we have the strength to raise the children, the strength to fight the illness, the strength to pursue our dreams. A woman I know has struggled with depression for many years. She's always been so strong, so determined, but I saw her recently and she was very discouraged. She said, I don't have any fight left in me. I can't do it anymore.
Sometimes we see that as a lack of faith, but God doesn't expect you to be strong all the time. He understands there will be times that we get weary. We don't feel like we can go on. We prayed, we believed, but nothing has changed. Now the weight of what we're facing has left us exhausted. The good news is God doesn't fault us for feeling weak. He doesn't say, what's wrong with you?
You need to have more faith. The scripture says, when you are weak, he is strong. When you feel overwhelmed, like you can't go on, he comes in and gives you special strength. Strength that you didn't get on your own. Strength to move forward when you should be stuck. Strength to overcome the addiction. Strength to outlast the opposition. You may feel weak today, fatigued.
That is not your destiny. You are going to run and not be weary. You're going to walk and not faint. There's going to be a strength that's not natural, but supernatural. This is what happened with Elijah. There had been a three and a half year drought in Samaria. Without rain, the Israelites were going to perish. There was no food, no way to grow crops.
Elijah went on top of Mount Carmel and began to pray for rain, but nothing happened. He prayed again and again, had his assistant go out and check the weather, look for clouds, still nothing. But Finally, on the seventh time, they saw a small cloud start to form in the sky. Elijah told King Ahab that he better get in his chariot and quickly leave because there was about to be a huge downpour.
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Chapter 2: What is the main message about strength in this episode?
It had a vast fleet of these powerful vehicles. They could move swiftly into battle. They gave the people of Jezreel an incredible advantage. Enemies knew not to come against Jezreel. It's significant that Elijah outran a chariot. These chariots represented power, speed, the ability to dominate with force.
I can imagine Elijah standing before King Ahab as Ahab sat in his big, impressive state-of-the-art chariot. Ahab had his drivers up front, his staff in the back. Elijah looked up to King Ahab, said in effect, You have this powerful army. You command a vast fleet of chariots pulled by these fast, strong horses. I don't have your equipment. I don't have your horses.
I don't even have a chariot, but I'm not worried. I don't need what you have. I'm going to outrun you to Jezreel. I can hear Ahab laughing, saying, what are you talking about, Elijah? These are the fastest horses of our day. These are the most skilled driver. This chariot just won the J.D. Powers Chariot of the Year. You can't outrun me. They took off.
Chapter 3: How can we find strength when feeling weary or fatigued?
The scripture says the whole way, 20 miles, Elijah ran ahead of the chariot. When Ahab got to Jezreel, I can see Elijah with his feet up, drinking a glass of tea, saying, Ahab, what took you so long? When God gives you special strength, you're going to accomplish things you never dreamed you could accomplish. You're going to overcome opposition that's more powerful, that has more resources.
You may not be up against a chariot, but when you look at that cancer, it seems so much bigger. That addiction, the trouble at work, the slowdown in your business, you don't see how you're going to make it. The difficulty is discouraging enough, but on top of that, you're tired. You've been standing strong, but the famine, the lack of things changing has worn you down.
There's no way you can outrun this chariot in your own strength. You can't, but right now God is breathing special strength into you. Like Elijah, you're going to have the endurance, the stamina, the fortitude to do what you can't do on your own. You may think, how can I raise these children, take care of my elderly parents at the same time? How can I make it through this treatment?
How can I overcome this anxiety? When you are weak, He is strong. Now get ready to outrun some chariots. God has not brought you this far to leave you. Isaiah said, God gives strength to the weary. He increases the power of the weak. You may be weary today. The good news, strength is coming. Maybe you feel weak.
You're worn down by everything that's going on, the pandemic, the unrest, the uncertainty. God is saying, I'm about to increase your power. I'm about to make you stronger. It's not something you have to muster up. You don't have to make it happen. It's the hand of God lifting you, empowering you, re-energizing you, causing you to outrun chariots, giving you special strength.
That means strength to outlast strength to try again, strength to step up to a new level. When I look back over my life, I can see these times where God gave me special strength. When my father went to be with the Lord, that should have overwhelmed me, caused me to lose my passion, not be able to move forward. But I felt a power rising up in me that I had never felt.
A strength, a courage, a determination, a stamina. That wasn't just me being strong, that was God giving me special strength. God is not going to let you miss your destiny. He's not going to let you stay overwhelmed. You may feel that way at times, but that is not how your story ends. You're going to feel a strength that pushes you forward, a power to do what you couldn't do before.
When we were trying to acquire the Compact Center, it was a three-year process. After we won the city council vote, a company filed a lawsuit to try to keep us from moving in. They were the largest taxpayer in Texas, a huge real estate business. It was David versus Goliath. At first, I was passionate. I prayed, I believed, I stood strong. But week after week went by.
Month after month, nothing changed. One year, Two years, I started to get weary. Battle fatigue began to set in. Not that we aren't strong, we just get tired of fighting. I thought they're so much bigger than us. They have many more resources. They can drag this out for years. God understands that we can get tired. He understands that life can wear us down.
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Chapter 4: What biblical story illustrates the concept of special strength?
The scripture says some trust in chariots, some trust in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. God is going to get you to where you're supposed to be. The night before Jesus was to be crucified, he went to the garden of Gethsemane to pray. He knew the pain and the suffering he would face. Even though he's God, he was also human. He could feel what we felt. He got tired.
There were times he was weary, fatigued, and felt lonely. In that garden, he was so discouraged and so overcome with emotion that he sweat drops of blood. He told the disciples, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow. Here Jesus is the son of God, yet he felt overwhelmed like he couldn't go on. You would think God would say, come on, you need to be stronger. You need to toughen up.
But God understands life can be overwhelming. There are times we feel weary, tired, distressed. Doesn't mean we don't have enough faith. Doesn't mean that we're not strong enough. When Jesus felt so overwhelmed, when it looked like he wasn't going to fulfill his destiny, the scripture says God sent an angel to strengthen him.
You may be tired today, tired of believing for your dreams, tired of trying to make your marriage work, tired of raising those children. God sees what you're going through. He feels the weight of what you're carrying. He's not going to leave you there. He has angels coming your way to strengthen you, to encourage you, to lift you. Thoughts will try to convince you that you're not strong enough.
You need more faith. Look at you, tired, discouraged, letting that problem overcome you. Don't believe those lies. Jesus in his human body felt weak. He felt discouraged. He didn't know if he could go on. God sees you being your best, raising the children. fighting that addiction, facing that illness. When you run out of strength, don't worry, angels are coming. Help is on the way.
You're going to feel strength that you didn't have. Joy when you could be discouraged. Hope when you should be depressed. You're going to have the power to endure, the favor to overcome, the determination to outlast. It's not because of your own efforts, it's the angels ministering to you.
Before Elijah outran the chariot, he called down fire from heaven and defeated 400 of the false prophets that worshiped the god Baal. When King Ahab's wife Jezebel heard about it, she was furious. She sent word to Elijah saying, if I don't kill you by this time tomorrow, I will take my own life. Elijah was so afraid, he took off running into the desert.
He ended up sitting under a tree, so exhausted, so overwhelmed that he didn't want to live. He said, God, I've had enough. I'm done. Take me home. Here he had just called down fire from heaven. He had just outran a chariot. He had seen God's goodness and favor, but he got tired. When we're tired, we can lose our perspective. Problems get magnified. The sickness looks bigger.
We think the trouble at work will never resolve. We feel overwhelmed like we can't go on. But the beauty of our God is he understands what we're going through. He knows life can be overwhelming. He knows it's difficult to get out of the garden of Gethsemane on your own. Elijah was under this tree in the desert, depressed, not wanting to live. This could be the end of his story. But what happened?
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