Joel Osteen Podcast - Abraham Was A God-Made Man

Episode Date: February 25, 2020

When you’re willing to follow and believe God, He will make you into the person He created you to be. This is what happened with Abraham in the Bible. His willingness to trust God led to an incredible legacy through which Jesus was eventually brought into the world. When you're willing, there's no limit to where God can take you!Your best days are still ahead, and together we can make a difference in this world with the message of God's hope and love. To give visit JoelOsteen.com/GiveHope Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of the Joel Osteen Podcast ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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someone who had nothing and became wealthy and influential all on his own. Usually it's one of those rags to riches stories. We've all heard them, read about him, seen them on TV. But today I want to talk about a man who became wealthy, influential, and he was a legacy lever on this earth. Now, this man was not a self-made man. His label read God-made man. He was a God-made man. He was a God-made man. And the reason I say and describe him as a God-made man is because God spoke to and said something very significant to him. Now, this man's name is Abraham. Yeah, Abraham, the father of our faith, the one we read about in Genesis. He was a God-made man. In Genesis 12, 2, he was living in a land where his father had settled. His relatives were all there.

When God spoke to him, he said this to him. He said, Abraham, I want you to to leave the land of your father, and I want to take you to a land that I will show you, and I want to make you into a great nation. What God spoke to him was, I want to take you, and I want to make you. That's why Abraham wears the label, God made man. because he willingly trusted God to take him somewhere. He didn't know he was even going, where he was even going, and he trusted God to make him able to do what God had called him to do. Now, God said this to Abraham.

He said, Abraham, I'm going to make you wealthy. I'm going to make you a blessing. and I will make you where you bless other people. He said, I'm going to make you a great nation and all the people on earth will be blessed because of you. Listen, I'd rather wear a God-made man label any day, wouldn't you? That sounds good to me, doesn't it? I want to make you. And you see, he willingly went and obeyed God and God fulfilled his promises to Abraham. And today, that willing God-made man allowed you and I to stand in the place we stand today as believers in Jesus Christ. Because he told Abraham that I'm going to make you, your seed, great.

I'm going to make your seed great. And what he did was he brought Jesus Christ to this earth through the lineage of Abraham. So you and I are the seed of Abraham because we're born of Jesus Christ. Okay, that's what qualifies us for God to say the same thing to you and I that he said to Abraham because we're born of Abraham's seed. He said, I'm going to make all the people on earth be able to have this advantage in life because of Jesus Christ. So today I want to say to you,

what God said to Abraham, I want to bless you. I want to take you. I want to make you. I want to make you a blessing here on this earth. I want you to wear the label, God made man. You see, God is saying the same thing to you and I. I want to bless you. I want you to be over. I don't want you to be beneath. I want you to be the head. I don't want you to be the tail. He told Abraham, I'll vindicate you. That means he said, those who curse you, I'll curse. Those who bless you, I'll bless. In modern day terms, he says, don't worry, Abraham, I'll justify you and I'll vindicate you. And that's exactly what God wants to do in your life. But you've got to allow him to make you. You see, God's pattern is to take us and make us.

Even in the New Testament when Jesus called his disciples, you know what he said to them? He said, follow me and I will make you, fishers of men. I will make you, which means I will help you. I will enable you to become everything I've called you to be. Now, Abraham was not called by God because he had complete faith, because his faith was perfect. He was called by God because he was willing. And you read through his story, and do read his story in Genesis. It's very fascinating.

You could read it over and over again, and God will show you different things. But it says in there, as he was journeying through this pilgrimage, this journey of life, which we all do, it said that God strengthened him in his faith. So you can see he was a man in the making. He was a God man in the making. God's strengthened his faith, and he gave praise to God. When you read his story, you'll understand, and many of you know, that Abraham was not a perfect man. Abraham made his vision. share of mistakes. But you know what? God never left him. God never forsook him. When Abraham stepped out in front of God and went the wrong way, guess what? God was right there with him.

Easening back on course, strengthening him in his faith and his resolve. See, God's pattern is a great mentorship program. Many people want a mentor in their life. They think if I could just get with this person. They could tell me everything that they knew. I could glean from them. Read success books. Read leadership books. They say, get around the people you want to be like. Get inspired by them. And that's good. But God is your greatest mentor. Jesus Christ is your greatest mentor. He is the one that wants to take you and make you. He wants to make you a great parent. He wants to make you a great leader. Listen, I would rather be parented by a God-made man

than a man who thinks he could do it on his own. I'd rather be married to a God-made man than a man who thinks he's in control of it all. Listen, we wear the label. You are a man in the making. We are men in the making. But we have to understand God is not going to disqualify us if we make a mistake. He didn't disqualify Abraham and he's not going to disqualify us.

We just have to dig our hills in and try to stay the course as he's strengthening us in our faith. He's a strengthener. You know, it's interesting because, you know, you've heard that saying, I'm not all that I want to be. but thank God I'm not what I used to be. You heard that saying? If you can say that today, that's a good thing. It's a good thing because it means you're on the road to progress. And sometimes the road to progress can be messy because we're all under construction. You know, when they tear the roads up here in Houston and you're just like, man, it's a mess. It's just a mess. It's a construction site. I remember when we built a building.

our house years ago and during the different phases of construction, I would go out there, and I didn't particularly like what I saw. I was like, come on, this has got to be, this has got to progress faster than this. I remember thinking, it's a mess. Where's a broom? I'm going to sweep up. See, I didn't see always what I wanted to see until it got closer to the finish product, and then it got better and better and better. And you know what? We're all under construction. Sometimes we don't like what we see in ourselves. We don't like what we say in ourselves. But we are under construction. We're in the phases of being completed. We're in progress. And so was Abraham. But God still fulfilled his promises to Abraham, and God is going to fulfill his promises to you. Now, I want you

to be encouraged with this scripture, because this is super important in the process, in the construction phase. This is so important. Philippians 1-6 says, be confident in this. In what? In the construction phase? Be confident that he who began a good work in you. You know, you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. And in those difficult times that God is doing a work in you. Be confident in the challenges. Listen, we don't go through difficult times and challenges because God wants to punish us. We go through things because it's part of the process.

But God, the great mentor, has his hands on us the entire time. He is not going to let us fall or fail. He is going to complete us and get us to the destination that we were intended to. Now, you know what a great, if Abraham was here today and he said, look, I'm going to take you, I'm going to mentor you, I've walked with God, I can tell you all about it. You know, he wouldn't pat your hand and say, oh, it's going to be okay. Don't worry, baby. It's all right.

You just sit right there. No. You know what a great mentor does? He loves you, but he challenges you. He says, look, I've been through this before. I know God is faithful. Get up. Keep going. Stay the course. God is a faithful God. He pushes you. He sharpens you. That's what God does to us in difficult times. He doesn't pat us on the back all the time. He's a loving and kind and gentle. But he is saying, Get up. I am with you. I am for you. I'll never leave you or forsake you. You're going to be strengthened in your faith as you go through it. So when you get to the other side, you're prepared for the next level. You're prepared for me to bring forth the promises that I have in store. You're prepared to be the blessing that I am making you into. You are my man. You are my woman of faith. you are God's man in the making. Be confident of this. Remind yourself if God be for you, who dare be against you? And you are on the road to completion. Amen. Amen. He's an awesome,

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