(With Mike Dorman & Laomai, Denbigh, and Stephanie Cherry - Veribest Revival - March 2008)

     Limitless are the ways we limit God!  Two months ago I started an e-mail newsletter for churches and pastors as another way of communicating my availability for revivals and renewal events.  In two days I heard from two pastors - one scheduled a revival and one wanted a packet of information.  That experience reawakened me to this truth - how often we limit God by doing things only one way or certain ways.  I have picked up on this alarming characteristic of Christians who have the words of faith on their breath while controlling the reign of God in their hearts.  They often tell God what He can and cannot do.  I have had it expressed to me over and over again.  I even catch myself posting a God limit from time to time.

     I laugh at an incident that occurred at the start of this ministry.  A friend of mine was encouraging a pastor he knew to invite me to preach a revival.  His pastor friend was looking for a revivalist.  Several weeks went by without a word.  Finally I asked my friend whatever became of the interest in a possible revival.  My friend replied, "The pastor thought you lived too far away."  I laugh at this because if God had been permitted to schedule this revival, it would have been the closest revival that I would have preached to my home in the last 7 years!"

     Isn't that amazing?  I've had churches not call me because they thought they were "too small."  I'm sure others have passed me by because they were "too big to invite an unknown."  At one church, I could not preach on Sunday morning because I did not have a "Dr." in front of my name.  Others have thought I was too far away.  We schedule revivals when our congregations are not too busy.  We won't schedule them in the winter - it might snow.  We won't schedule them in the summer - we're too busy recreating.  We won't schedule them during the recession - they cost too much money.  We won't schedule them at all - they are a religious antique from a by-gone era.  All the while, I wonder if God has a chance to be heard in our hearts because we have already determined His good and perfect will.

     Pure and simple - limiting God reveals your faith limit.  Your faith limit is where you have put the kibosh on the Almighty!  The dimensions of your faith limit are the blueprints to your theological kennel where God is free to roam.  Hell forbid that we let God be God!  Something uncontrolled might occur.  Something phenomenal and supernatural might happen for which we could not receive the credit.  Something like renewal.....something like jubilee.....something like the kingdom of God!

     I am learning to recognize and expand my faith limit.  I am learning to flatten the speed limit signs that I have erected in my life to slow God down to a more manageable momentum.  I am learning to remember to surrender.  His ways are far above my ways.  His Spirit blows where He wills.  His power is limitless.  And so is His grace!