It May Look Little But It's A Whole Lot

It May Look Little But It’s A Whole Lot

Posted by Paula White - Sun, August 16, 2009 at 01:00 PM

Click here to download the sermon notes for “It May Look Little, But It’s A Whole Lot”.

1 Kings 18:41-46 V44 “And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down that the rain stop thee not.”

I. I Came to Declare. This Message is for Someone Who Has Had Some Issues on the Altar
a. You look nothing like what you will become
i. Your family
ii. Your finances
iii. Your dream
b. Your labor is not in vein
i. Your tears have been mattered
ii. God heard the groaning of your heart
iii. God saw the injustice
c. God says, You are going to get a WHOLE LOT out of this
i. What looks like a little, is about to overtake you
ii. God walks things out in your life

Isaiah 55:9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

d. He is continually cultivating and conforming you into His image
i. He is teaching and training you
ii. He is a strategist

II. You Were Pre-Planned and Pre-Destined
a. Destiny is a process that has to be worked out in your life
i. It is to stand with intensity
b. God often breeds greatness out of the worst situations
i. Pressure pushes you into power
ii. Trouble is the incubator for His greatness
a. Therefore in trauma or trouble, you begin to decree, “This is not my problem, but my position”

III. Paradigm Shift
a. A paradigm is formed through our windows of experience
b. Where a new perspective is developed
i. Perspective = the state of one’s ideas
a. Etymology =
i. Per = “through”
ii. Specere = “to look”
b. Perspective = “to look through or see clearly

Philippians 3:20 “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ”

Heaven (Greek) = to raise, rise, lift above through the idea of elevation
Look (Greek) = to expect fully
1. In other words, I should not see things from an “earthly point of view”, but from a “heavenly point of view” (or ascended one)…

It’s not about where you have been but where God placed you, positioned you and is taking you!!!

Ephesians 2:6 (NIV) “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus”

c. Perception is all about point of view
i. Point of view is your current interpretation based on your particular map (perceptual reality) of the world
d. The reality outside your skin can never modify your beliefs or force you to change your mind

IV. It’s Not What Happens to You, But How You Respond
a. Consciously choose how you want to react
b. Turn your reactions into responses

Acts 20:24 But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.

c. Consistently reacting to outside stimuli makes you a victim to circumstance and robs you of choice
d. When you consistently react to others = you give them the power to determine how you behave

V. Responsibility is My Ability to Respond
a. It allows you to choose “new” responses to “old” circumstances
b. It’s God working in you to work through you
i. Gods objective = the word be made flesh
a. you are a living epistle (2 Corinthians 3:3)
b. ultimately, everything preached would come to life

Ephesians 2:1 “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;”

c. When you are “born again” your spirit is quickened (or) brought to life by the Spirit of God
i. This transformation begins a re-defining process (a new perspective)
a. Define = to make up (or) establish the character of (or) to mark out the boundaries and limits of
d. By FAITH His word is working in you
i. Where the consecrate is made from the abstract
ii. Faith is not contagious, it is a personal experience
a. it is born in your life measured by your ability to withstand the opposition

VI. The Just Shall Live By Faith
a. You measure a persons faith by their ability to stand against adversity and opposition
b. Faith takes created pressure to function
c. You must refuse to give up on what you believe in
i. If you stand for something, you will eventually have to fight for that belief
d. Jesus said “I didn’t’ come to bring peace, but a sword
i. FIGHT!! In Christian warfare = you need FAITH!
ii. Our weapons of warfare are not carnal…

VII. Just Give Me a Word

Romans 10:17 “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

a. The part of our brain that houses imagination is right behind the ear
i. Dorso-lateral cortex
ii. Not connected to optic nerves or visual perception

Isaiah 2:1 “The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.”

b. How do you “see” a word?
i. We “hear” something in our spirit via our ears and it activates our imagination
ii. Even though what was “heard” didn’t exist, it was already formed inside of us

VIII. 1 Kings Chapter 17 = A Brief History…

a. First time mentioned in scripture, no mention of lineage (mother or father)
b. Elijah is from Gilead
i. Gilead = a mountain, mass or heap of testimonies (of the rejected, overlooked, forgotten and disappointed people of the church) that which rolls on forever
ii. Elijah = “my God is Jehovah”
c. Like Elijah, you are going to have one testimony after another of God, who is Jehovah
i. 450 prophets of Baal jump onto one man; the fight was not fair. But, If God be for me…

d. That trouble was created just for you!! So God could “show off”!!
i. Only He can get you out of the trouble
a. Elijah teaches us faith in 3 absolute ways

1. He gives us a sign
- God said, “Build a trench, fire, an altar, water…because I am going to give you a “public sign”
- Everyone is looking at you. God will not let you be shamed.

2. He gives us a sound
- Have you ever “heard” anything in your spirit that totally contradicts your situation?
- I “hear” the sound of abundance of rain in a dry place
- God will tell you about success when you are dealing with failure
- Elijah told his servant, “Keep going back, until you see what I see”
i. By the 7th time, the servant said, “I see something”
ii. It’s not much, but you have to learn to praise God for “a little” breakthrough

3. He gives us a storm
- Rejoice! A storm is coming
- The “rain” is inside that storm cloud
- Elijah said, “Get off the mountain, that the storm doesn’t stop you”
- God said, “It may look small, it’s a whole lot coming”
- When the storm was “announced” everything went into “high speed” and the storm brought “an abundance of rain”

God is hitting the fast forward button in your life. What looks like a little, is going to be a whole lot!!

It May Look Little But It’s A Whole Lot

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