A Blockage from on High // Full to Overflowing, Part 2

Fathers are funny animals. They want the best for their kids. But when their children rebel, when they don’t play the game, that blessing dries up quicker than you can say Jack Robinson. I was listening the other day to a well known actor, Alan Alda, being interviewed by an equally well known interviewer called Michael Parkinson in the UK. Now Alan Alda, of course, became famous as the character Hawkeye Pearce in the long running TV series MASH. Alda's now over 70 years old and he was telling us how a couple of years ago he was travelling in South America and he had the most incredible pain in his stomach. They rushed him to a Doctor who detected a blockage in his intestine. Now unless the Doctor operated immediately and cut that part of his intestine out he was going to die. When it comes to life and living blockages in any part of our body are almost always deadly. In our airways, in our bowels, in our eyes, something that can send us blind. And it turns out that spiritual blockages are just the same, they're deadly. Our lives can sometimes be full of tiredness and worry and we're running out of steam and we're running out of puff and our batteries are flat. Okay, sure we have our ups and downs but sometimes our lives seem to be on this downward spiral. Day after day after day we've got this sub-optimal thing happening and that reality in life can sometimes dominate our vision. We think that that's all there is, we think that it can't get any better but that reality stands in such stark contrast, let me say, to the promises Jesus made to us, if only we'd believe in Him. Have a listen to some of those promises again today. John chapter 10, verse 10: The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that you may have life in all its fullness, in all its abundance. In fact, literally in it's super abundance. Matthew chapter 11: Come to me if you're weary and burdened because I will give you rest (said Jesus). Take my yoke upon you and learn from me because I'm gentle and humble of heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. John chapter 7: If any of you is thirsty come to me and drink because whoever believes in me as the scriptures have said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. By this He meant the Holy Spirit whom those who believed in Jesus were later to receive. And then just before He was handed over to be crucified, John chapter 14, verse 27 He says to His disciples: Friends, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I'm not giving the way the world does. Don't let your hearts be troubled, don't let them be afraid. Jesus promised us super abundant life. Rest for the weary, drink fullness to overflowing for the thirsty, peace for the troubled. The problem is that it doesn't always work out that way in our lives and so either Jesus is a liar or there's something else. S D Gordon, around the late 19th or early 20th century wrote a fabulous book called Quiet Talks On Power. He's one of my favourite authors and he kind works on a similar premise to what I'm working on with Jesus' promises except he looks at it from a perspective of God's power and he says, "Look, the natural life as a Jesus believer is to have God's power to accomplish the things that God calls us to do." And he tells this great story at the beginning of the book about a blockage. He talks about a mid western American town in the late 1800's. It was a dry area and it relied heavily on water from a dam up in the hills. Water after all equals life – no water, no town, no life. Now the town grew and prospered and filled with people until one day the water pipes ran dry. People went up to the reservoir up in the hills and it was full but there was just no water flowing down into the valley to the town. No water – no life. So people began to leave the town and the tumble weed was blowing through the main street and it became a veritable ghost town. Then one day they received an anonymous note, somebody had sabotaged the pipes right up near the reservoir. Someone had put a small plug into the pipe and the authorities went up there and checked it and sure enough they found it. They removed that one small blockage and the water started to flow again. Life came back, the people returned to the town because that little blockage stopping the water from flowing had been removed. A small blockage can have such a huge impact. Can I tell you? There are so many people missing out on Gods abundance because of blockages in their lives. They may only be small, they may only be tiny compromises, "Well I believe in God but not in this area of my life. Well you know, I believe in God but I don't think He'll ever fill me to overflowing", some people say. There is a simple name for that, it's called sin. I know it's not a popular word. I know these days people say, 'Oh come on Berni, sin, that is such an old fashioned concept'. Maybe it is but it only takes the smallest ...