Limitations

“For nothing is impossible with God.” Luke 1:37 NIV

“With God, your life can be released into the capacities of unmeasured potential.”

My thoughts today are about “limitations.”

Over lunch more than ten years ago, a friend and successful business man asked what I had hoped to accomplish in my ministry at this church, and what if anything limited that occurring. As I shared what could have been done, and explained the reasons – mostly financial – why those had not seemed possible, he asked a simple question, “If finances were not a limitation, what could better provide for the future effectiveness of this church?” Suddenly, I was free from limits – some real, some self-imposed – to dream about things that had not previously seemed viable options.

There is a revealing picture of very real limits in conflict with wondrous possibilities in the narrative of the Christmas story. God sent the angel Gabriel with an announcement to Mary, a young, single Jewish girl, that she would miraculously bear a child who would be Israel’s long awaited Messiah. Read Luke 1:26-38 NIV. She was keenly aware of limiting factors. Gabriel explained the unexplainable and then gave the supporting testimony of her cousin, Elizabeth’s miracle.

Think long about the angel’s final persuasion, For nothing shall be impossible with God,” to which Mary rightly responded, “May it be to me as you have said.” Luke 1:37-38 NIV. Mary accepted a possibility beyond previous limits. Let the angel’s words sink in completely. You believe God has no limits or impossibilities; that’s not news. But read the angel’s words again, slowly. Here’s the news; if Mary was “with God” – in His will, stepping beyond her limits, and obeying His Word – “nothing was impossible!” That could be true for you as well, if you hear God’s Word to your heart, ignore your limits, and embrace a greater potential. You know your limits well; only God fully knows your potential. Often the choice is yours. Walking with God is adventurous; walking without Him is ridiculous.

There was no natural, rational way Mary’s miracle could be possible, except by God’s involvement. Maybe that’s true for your situation today. What limits have you imposed on God in your present circumstance? The Psalmist describes a time when Israel, “limited the Holy One of Israel.” Psalm 78:41 NKJV. What limits have you allowed to lessen your potential to believe God and receive His provision? You know well what can’t be done and what you cannot do, but are you considering what God says can be done, and what God can do? With God, your life can be released into the capacities of unmeasured potential, or reduced to the confinement of real or assumed limitations without Him.

That conversation with the business man I mentioned earlier began an exciting adventure of a sequence of miracles of provision for which I had not dared to believe. The last twelve years have been a wonder of watching God work in unanticipated ways. A new 30 acre church and school campus has been built on prime, freeway frontage, very soon to be debt free. Banks, architects, and builders had told us why we could not accomplish such a project within the budget we proposed, and they were right, but they were also wrong! The experts were right about our limits; they were wrong about our possibilities, when walking in obedience with God alongside us! “For nothing is impossible with God!” Maybe the question is this: are you “with God” in your situation?

My prayer for you today is that you reach for your full potential in Christ. Ephesians 4:11-13