Our newest series of messages JUICE IT – February 5 -March 7
Squeezing the most out of your life and faith.
In this series we will looking at how to squeeze the most out of:
PRAYER – (Apples Perspective, Possibility and Prevention)
MARRIAGE – (Mangos fertility and drive to keep your marriage alive)
TIME – (Blueberries superfood)
CHURCH – (Carrots (vision) Pomegranate )
PARENTING – (Bannans – Parent panel)
FINANCES – (Grapes – Abundance)
The purposes of JUICING:
1. It’s the best way to get your DAILY SERVINGS of Fruits/Veggies.
2. It allows you to absorb nutrients BETTER with less digestion.
3. It strengthens your immune system
it allows you to MAKE SURE you are getting ALL your body needs to live in health and wellness.
Vitamines in an apple.
A/B/C
Right from childhood everyone has learned the saying “An apple a day keeps doctor away”.
Expectant mothers are given apples in large quantities so as to improve digesting of mother and health of their yet to be born child.
It is believed that a child would have least skin defects if the mother eats apples before the birth of child.
Today we are juicing Apples.
THE 15 PREVENTATIVE HEALTH BENEFITS OF THE APPLE
1. Get whiter, healthier teeth
2. Avoid Alzheimer’s
3. Protect against Parkinson’s
4. Curb all sorts of cancers
5. Decrease your risk of diabetes
6. Reduce cholesterol
7. Get a healthier heart
8. Prevent gallstones
9. Beat diarrhea and constipation
10. Neutralize irritable bowel syndrome
11. Avert hemorrhoids
12. Control your weight
13. Detoxify your liver
14. Boost your immune system
15. Prevent cataracts
JUICE HERE
Prayer like the apple is full of nutrients – B vitamins
Apples are rich source of vitamin B. It contains most of water soluble forms of vitamin B (vitamin B1, B2, B3, B5 and B9).
Vitamines to
Vitamine B-elieve.
Vitamine B-have.
Vitamine B-more.
I want to take us to a prayer squeezed way back in the obscurity of an old testament book called 1 Chronicles.
Just like a big juicy apple hidden way back in the tree…behind all the leaves and branches
There is this prayer that is like a SUPER FOOD FOR YOUR LIFE.
ARE YOU READY?
Turn then with me to 1 Chronicles 4
THE PRAYER JABEZ JUICED
Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.” 10 Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request. 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 (NIV)
Yeah, Jabez juiced his prayer life …he sqeezed everything out of it.
Jabez wanted to be more and do more for God
vs. 9 “Jabez was more.”
vs. 9 “His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.”
In Hebrew, the word Jabez means “pain.” A literal rendering could read, “He causes (or will cause) pain.”
He grew up with a name any boy would love to hate.
IT WAS THE LABEL THAT KEEPS ON GIVING!
1. PRAYER GIVES YOU A TOTALLY DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE:
– (juice this)
vs. 10 “Jabez called on the God of Israel.”
Not happy thoughts…..positive vibes!
Prayer is a powerful tool to connect you the creator of the universe and the designer of you.
Prayer postures us to begin to see things from a higher vantage point!
Prayer helps you to see your situation from God’s perspective!
Prayer helps you see the challenge you are facing from God’s eyes.
2. PRAYER OPENS UP NEW POSSIBILITIES:
vs. 10 “bless me and enlarge my territory”
– (juice this)
He looked at his circumstances and concluded, “Surely I was born for more than this!”
God’s Math
For most of us, our reluctance comes from getting our numbers right, but our arithmetic completely wrong.
For example, when we’re deciding what size territory God has in mind for us, we keep an equation in our heart that adds up something like this:
My abilities + experience + training + my personality and appearance + my past + the expectations of others = my assigned territory.
“Not by might nor by power but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).
That means God’s math would look more like this:
My willingness and weakness + God’s will and supernatural power = my expanding territory.
It’s in GOD’S NATURE IS TO BLESS
PRAYER OPENS UP GREATER POSSIBILITIES!
You can count the seeds in an apple, but you cannot count the apples in a seed!
That is what prayer does for you!
“with God nothing shall be impossible.” – Luke 1:37
O God and King, please expand my opportunities and my impact in such a way that I touch more lives for Your glory. Let me do more for You! When you pray like this, things get pretty exciting.
You can count the seeds in an apple but you cannot count the apples in a seed .
Prayer is the seed for more!
3. PRAYER IS A PREVENTATIVE:
vs. 10 “Let your hand be with me, keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.”
Prayer is not your spare tire for after you ran over the nail in the road…..its your stirring wheel to help you drive around the nail so it doesn’t flat your tire in the first place.
– (juice this)
THE TOUCH OF GREATNESS – “let your hand be with me” Changes everything!
My birth caused PAIN …..LET YOU HAND KEEP ME FROM PAIN!
You have heard, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”
Prayer is like that! – It will give you insight
Prayer has the ability to have HINDSIGHT and FORESIGHT that naturally cannot be seen.
HINDSIGHT + FORESIGHT = INSIGHT
Like the apple, prayer opens up a whole new world of possibilities and perspective that normally would not be there.
It also helps in the PREVENTION OF SITUATIONS YOU WOULD RATHER NOT BE IN.
10 Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request. 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 (NIV)
JUICE your prayer life AND GOD WILL GRANT YOUR REQUEST!
THE JUICE IN THIS PRAYER
1. PRAYER GIVES A NEW PERSPECTIVE!.
2. PRAYER GIVES NEW POSSIBILITIES.
3. PRAYER IS A PREVENTATIVE POWER.