Psalms 78:40 How often they provoked Him in the wilderness, And grieved Him in the desert! 41 Yes, again and again they tempted God, And limited the Holy one of Israel NKJV
Here we have the sobering reality about Gods chosen people who came out of Egypt, but never arrived at their destination. We are told why they didn’t enter into the promise land. They provoked, grieved and limited God. They got excited about the destination, but they lost their faith in the journey! They began to face obstacles, enemies, needs, lack or change instead of trusting God they limited God. Their faith didn’t stand under the pressure. This entire generation died in the middle, they came out but they didn’t enter in all that God had for them because they lost their faith. In fact the book of Hebrews tells us that they committed the sin of unbelief. We are given three words that describe their unbelief. To provoke means to resist or rebel. To grieve is to bring pain and anger. To limit means scraping to pieces. It is like analyzing God out of the situation. Whenever situation would arise or difficulties would come instead of believing God. They would begin to focus on all the obstacles and analyze God right out of the situation.

The enemy’s greatest weapon against us is a lie. If we take his lie and analyze it, it sounds good to the flesh. Then we start to limit God and removed Him and His power from the equation. Their faith wasn’t strong enough to believe under pressure. True faith believes under pressure, it believes in the face of lies. It stands strong under pressure because we believe in His power and promises. True faith doesn’t deny reality, but it proclaims the power of God in the face of reality. We must believe God and not let the lie of limitation, limit our revelation of God. Unbelief comes when we over analyze things. The more we do, the more our flesh gets involved and the more we limit Him. Notice that it says, again and again. They kept doing the same thing over and over. Instead they should have prayed and trusted God. Joshua and Caleb distanced themselves from the other Spy’s because they believed. They didn’t limit Him nor did they analyze Him out of the situation. Their faith stood strong under pressure. They exalted the Lord in the face of those who were limiting Him. To stop limiting God we must analyze our obstacle as an opportunity for Him to show His power and promise in our lives. I challenge you to believe, don’t limit Him, don’t provoke Him and don’t grieve Him. He is ready to reveal His power and promise in your life. Believe, trust and be established in His promises. God Bless you and I look forward to worshipping with you in this week’s services.

Pastor John F Crane