God Can Do More in a Moment Than We Can Do in a Lifetime
By Matt Brown
A dear friend and mentor Ronnie Floyd has shared many times that “God can do more in a moment than we can do in a lifetime.” Dr. Floyd has encountered this in his life and ministry.
He built a great church and skillfully guided the Southern Baptist denomination over the years. He now travels and preaches in churches and has a powerful ministry in his latter years. At the church he built, Cross Church in Northwest Arkansas he saw this principle firsthand as in a season of spiritual dryness he cried out to the Lord and began what became a 40-day fast without food, God broke through in a profound way in his church.
God built His church. He promises to do this. God wants to move in our lives and our world. He calls us to pray and seek Him, and He will respond and meet with us.
The move of God does not come by human effort, or human skill or human influence. God’s work does not get accomplished by the genius of man. It comes through prayer and supplication and dependance on God for His work to go forth.
When we look around us and see needs in our lives and in our communities and our world, we should know that we cannot meet all of them, but God can and will respond to us as we pray and seek Him and dedicate ourselves to Him in a new way.
I want you to think about the needs that press around you in your life, family, workplace and nation, and consider how God wants to call you to a new dedication to Him to move:
1. God can do more in your life — in a moment.
What do you need God to do in your life? What problems are you facing? Have you been trying to do it all in your flesh, or are you remembering to depend on the Holy Spirit?
Bring your needs to the Lord. Bring your dreams to the Lord. Bring your goals to the Lord. Bring your desires to the Lord. He can do more than you can.
D.L. Moody once said, “Bring your life to God. He can do more with it than you can.”
Commit yourself again to your “first love” for the Lord, to the simple gospel, and to wholehearted surrender to God’s higher purpose for your life, and watch what He can do when you live for Him.
2. God can do more in your family — in a moment.
What are the needs in your family? Is your marriage growing dry. Are you frustrated with your children? When is the last time you prayed for them?
God can do more in a moment in your family, than you can do in a lifetime. Commit your family to Him. Make time to pray and read the Bible and to play with your family. God blesses these times as you commit yourselves as a family to Him. You can build a powerful spiritual covering over your home and marriage as you pray and call down the presence of God in your home. People will visit and comment on the peace they feel when they are in your home. God can do more in your family than you could ever dream.
3. God can do more in your church — in a moment.
God loves to pour out His Spirit as His people gather for church each week. Don’t just gather as a church, also pray fervently for God to show up and do the work in individual lives that only He can do.
Ask God to unify His Church. Ask God to keep His Church focused on the gospel. Ask God to bless and use His church to change the world.
4. God can do more in your community — in a moment.
God placed you where you live for a reason. Find a way to serve those in need in your community. But don’t just work, pray and ask God for wisdom on how to help, and strength and anointing to impact people for Jesus as you serve.
Reach people for Christ right where you are at. Each of us is called to focus on our own community, and together we can impact every community for Christ.
5. God can do more in your nation — in a moment.
I have been praying for America nearly every night for several years now. I am praying for a great move of God’s justice over the wickedness, corruption and tyranny we see in our nation. I am grieved in my spirit over all of the news, but I am also hopeful and expectant. God has put such a seed of expectation in my spirit that He is about to do something powerful. But is something no man or leader can do – it will be a sovereign move of the Spirit that is coming, but we need to pray fervently for our nation.
Whatever you need God to do for you, commit to pray, because when we pray, God does amazing things all around us.
Matt Brown is an evangelist, author of Truth Plus Love, host of Think Eternity with Matt Brown, and founder of Think Eternity — a ministry sharing powerful faith content through podcasts, blogs, videos, outreaches and more. Matt and his wife Michelle have four children and live near Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can follow Matt at @evangelistmatt