The God Moments of Your Life [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Allen Wright. I look back at all of these things, and now I can see in the midst of it the grace of God. I can see in the triumphant times that I know that I know that I know that God is the one who has prospered me and not that I have done something myself.

And when you begin to think like this, it changes everything in your life. The key is to be able to see God in your life. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, God Moments, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina.

If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It's Pastor Alan's book by the same title, God Moments, and it can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you a copy of Pastor Alan's book, God Moments, our special offer today. Contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org, or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching on God Moments.

Here is Allen Wright. Are you ready for some good news? Your life is connected with heaven, whether you know it or not. God's in your life every single day.

That's not the question. The question is not, is God in my life? Is God doing something? Is God with me?

That's not the question. The question is, how much of it can you see? And we're going to discover as we begin a new series on our God Moments, that how you remember your life, how you remember yesterday is going to determine how you feel today, how you act today. How much you see God in your life is going to determine how much faith you actually have. And I am so excited to begin this new series.

During Rinaldo's centennial years, we're giving thanks to God for all these God Moments. It's going to be a series that's going to be laden with testimony. It's going to be faith building. It's going to be eye-opening in the principle of Scripture on how we actually have faith in our lives. All my life, I've heard people say, you know, you ought to have more faith. But I never really knew how does faith come.

And we're going to be showing you in the coming weeks, this is God's way. He is for you. He wants you to have faith. He wants you to be able to have confidence in Him. And He wants you to be able to have a positive outlook of a destiny that He's given to you. All of this, God, is for this.

And He's laid out a way for this to happen. And we're going to be learning about this. It was some years ago I was reading the Passover story, the whole story of the Exodus. The amazing story of God rescuing the people out of their slavery through the blood of a lamb that was blood that was posted over the Hebrew homes just because God had given them a revelation of this unique way of salvation, the blood of the lamb. And how it was that the people came out, plundered the Egyptians on their way out. The whole story of how Pharaoh was fickle and stubborn and changed his mind and pursued the Israelites up against the Red Sea. And how God opened up that great body of water, set His people free on dry land and swallowed up the enemy and all of His chariots and horses. And in the middle of this story I came upon a verse I'd read many, many times, but for some reason it arrested my attention and I found myself completely surprised by it.

I was reading in Exodus 3 and came to this, then Moses said to the people, remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place. And what shocked me was that word remember, which I'd read so many times, but on this occasion it just came across my mind like this. Remember? Why do you have to command somebody to remember the Passover and blood of the lamb and the plagues against Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea? These things are unforgettable, aren't they? Why would you have to tell somebody to remember an unforgettable miracle? And I began to realize that we have a capacity not so much to intellectually forget something, but for our hearts to forget something. For us to maybe acknowledge that something has happened, but forget how much God was in that moment. And God wants us to remember, to remember, to remember. So I started looking through the scriptures and realized the Old Testament is just chock full of this exhortation. Deuteronomy 4, verse 9, do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart. Deuteronomy 5, 15, remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Deuteronomy 8, 2, remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these 40 years to humble you. Deuteronomy 8, 18, remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth. Remember, remember, remember, you come into the Psalms.

103, verse 2, forget not all his benefits. Nehemiah said don't be afraid of them, remember the Lord. Jeremiah 51 said remember the Lord in a distant land. And then you come into the New Testament and you realize that this same theme continues and Jesus says don't you remember the five loaves and the five thousand? Peter said I always remind you of these things. I think it's right to refresh your memories. The last book of the Bible, Revelation, a famous line that says you forsaken your first love.

Remember the height from which you've fallen. All of this capsulized that when Jesus was celebrating the Passover with his disciples and he gave a whole new interpretation identifying that this Passover was really about him. It became what we call the Lord's Supper and he said do this in remembrance of me. This thing I give you to do so that you will remember the death, the resurrection, you'll remember the finality and fullness and sufficiency of the love of God that you will never ever forget what God has done for you.

How quickly we can forget. So what God did for Israel was he inaugurated these series of feasts throughout the year. We're not, we'll go into some of these feasts a little bit more in future weeks but let me just highlight this for you that so you'll get this picture in your mind. If you lived in ancient Israel your life had a rhythm to it and that rhythm was defined by three seasons of feasts in Israel. In the spring there were three feasts associated with Passover. In the summer there was a feast that was associated what we call Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks and in the fall there were three feasts that were associated with Yom Kippur and the Feast of Booths and what this meant was that every year every family was going to do all these things. You would celebrate Passover in the spring in which you would eat lamb and remember that your people were saved by the blood of the lamb. There would be a moment in which you'd clear out your house of any leaven and leaven becomes a symbol for sin and it'd be a picture of how all the sin is being removed. You would have this first fruits offering in the spring in which you acknowledge to the Lord that every blessing comes from you.

We didn't make this grow. You gave us the earth, you gave us the sun, you gave us the water and so we offer the first to you. And then 50 days after Passover at this Feast of Weeks at Pentecost they would commemorate how God was with them and this becomes traditionally the celebration of the giving of God's word at Mount Sinai how God is not remaining in hiding but revealed himself. It was at this feast that Pentecost came in Acts chapter 2 and then in the fall there would be a feast of trumpets there's a celebration and then there's Yom Kippur the day of atonement in which the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies once a year the high priest going the Holy of Holies and then the Feast of Booths as it was called even if you were the richest person in Israel you were required to go and live in a leafy hut for a couple weeks to remember where you came from and that God provided for the people when they had no houses and were just in the wilderness. So kids looked forward to all these celebrations families would be together these were this was the rhythm of the life of Israel. So what was God doing in this? He was setting up a system wherein in practical ways you would have to live out the conscious collective memory of Israel and what God had done for his people. In other words here's what I want you to see God wants you to remember what he's done so that in the lean times you'll remember that God has always provided for you in the past and in the times that are prosperous that you'll remember that it is God that gives you wealth and whatever you're doing and whatever sees it in your life that you'll realize that God is connected with you and so Jesus comes and he says to his disciples it's better that I go away because if I go away I'll send the Helper the Holy Spirit will come and you know what Jesus said to his disciples he said and he will remind you of all these things he is the teacher so you don't have feasts that you live by you have the Spirit of God inside of you who is pointing to Jesus every day the Spirit-filled life is a life of daily regularly ongoingly remembering remembering remembering what God has done for you how you remember yesterday determines how you're going to live your life tomorrow people that are around me now could barely believe it if I were to tell you that there was a time in my life I may not have presented it out outwardly this way but inwardly I was very prone to negative thinking I I've been through a lot of things in my life that had shaped my soul such that I could easily feel doomed I could easily feel negative I could easily turn towards the failure and and the transformation that has taken place in my life largely has to do with this how I now see my life and I look back over my life and even the negative things in my life whether it be my family's breakup as a child whether it be the certain situations I've had to walk through with with sickness or death in the family and I look back at all these things and now I can see in the midst of it the grace of God of God I can see in the triumphant times that I know that I know that I know that God is the one who has prospered me and not not that I have done something myself and when you begin to think like this it changes everything in your life the key is to be able to see God in your life and as I began to study this and wrote a book on this years ago what I identified is that what I saw in the feast and what I saw in the testimonies that I heard over and over from people who'd experienced God that I just for ease of discussion I clumped these into five different kinds of God moments it could be more categories but these just for simplicity that I began to see that there are times in our life in which God just does something to heal us to save us to rescue us I call it amazing rescue. That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. God's always been there in every moment you narrowly escaped from danger in every moment you were surprised by a blessing in every moment you just knew the direction to take God was there your life is defined by countless moments of God's grace perhaps they've been covered by the sands of time or have just gone unnoticed in the rush of life but your life is full of God moments when you make a gift today we'll send you Pastor Alan's heart-stirring book God moments that will lead you on a spiritual treasure hunt to uncover your God moments it's Alan Wright's timeless book God moments discover your God moments in the past and be filled with fresh faith today the gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries call us at 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website PastorAlan.org today's teaching now continues here once again is Alan Wright you were attracted to something that was holy right pure good and noble and true why were you attracted your sin nature was not attracted to that God attracted you I call it God moments of holy attraction and there are times in which are just blessings that come in your life may I tell you some of the happiest people you'll ever meet in your life are the people that understand they have God moments of unearned blessing people that just go I am so blessed and I don't deserve it but man I'm blessed those people realize God has done something and it just makes you a different kind of person and there's a kind of a God moment also when you realize that God led you God spoke to you God revealed something to you I call it a God moment of revealed truth and then also is a God moment in the very darkest of times God is still with you and sometimes in your life have you ever had this you'll look back and there's an adversity that you've been through while you were going through it it just everything within you almost had to battle to go where could God even be in this only later did you realize something like what Joseph realized when he said you meant it for evil but God meant it for good there can be valuable adversity and every week we're going to celebrate some testimonies um but just kicking this off we asked a very special lady in our church and a very special lady to me because she runs our Sharing the Light office and she's works with me daily it assists me and so much of what I do and I just thank God for her and and for her family they're very very dear friends um that we love with all our heart and I couldn't think of a more fitting way than to have Laura Hull share her story in which I asked her just all these God moments all five of these that God has been active in your life because this is a woman who suffered a great deal and was one of the most unlikely people that you could ever imagine as much diseases she had to face and difficult she had to face to become an iron woman triathlete and um well we're going to give you a video and let you listen to the story from Laura Hull when I was 24 years old I saved up my money and went traveling abroad and as I traveled I began to notice blood when I used the restroom and the bleeding increased over the months until one night I found myself alone in Hong Kong scared out of my mind sobbing and just pleading with God to save my life because I was convinced I was dying I didn't know Jesus I had no idea who this God was I was crying out to but the Lord used that God moment of holy attraction to begin to draw me to himself I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis a disease of large intestine and I had the disease for 15 years and looking back I can now see those years were filled with multiple God moments of valuable adversity but at the time I was going through them it was so hard to see how anything valuable was going to come out of what we were going through not only was I fighting disease but my husband was diagnosed with cancer and in the midst of this craziness God began to shape my character he made me into someone who could endure who could persevere who never gave up and never lost hope and he did this by repeatedly showing me he was more than enough for whatever I was facing I remember so clearly times when I was in so much physical pain that I said I can't do this I cannot live another day like this and his grace carried me I remember when my husband his cancer reoccurred for the second time and he was facing a very risky stem cell transplant and I said we can't do this our family cannot go through this again my husband this is too much God gave me the strength and all that I needed to walk beside my husband and support him in what he was going through things that I read about God in scripture his grace his mercy his loving kindness his strength I began to live out those truths they became reality in my life not just words in the scripture and I am who I am today because of how God walked with me and supported me through all those times of adversity I was invited to a retreat for those leading worship at Rinaldo which is kind of funny because I have nothing to do with leading worship but the Lord knew I was there for a God moment the worship retreat leader Dan Wilt began to sing a prophetic song over me and the words he sang compared God's valuing of me to how one might value a precious blue sapphire and I immediately knew the words were inspired by the Lord because I've loved blue sapphires ever since I was a little girl and I just drank in those words of encouragement and value for my Savior and thankfully that retreat was recorded so I had my God moment of revealed truth on a cassette tape because after 15 years of battling the disease the disease got so severe that medicines couldn't help it in fact they were becoming harmful because of the high doses I was taking and I made the difficult decision to have my colon removed because when you remove the large intestine you remove the disease the surgeons made it so clear there was no guarantee what life was going to look like post surgery for me but as I recovered in that hospital room after the surgery it was one of the most glorious God moments of amazing rescue as God used that good gift of surgery to free me from a lifetime of disease I felt euphoric I felt hyperactive it was like I was being resurrected it was like my body was a dry tired sponge that had been put in God's living waters of life and my body was just soaking up this new life in a physical tangible way that I could experience and I was so so grateful 11 years after that surgery at the age of 50 I have the surprising delight and joy of becoming a triathlete I found I was pretty good at swimming biking and running I was like the ever ready bunny I could just go and go I could persevere I could endure I could push through physical discomfort and I knew I was capable of more than I thought possible and one day it dawned on me why was I so good at excelling as a triathlete and had such joy in the sport it was because of who God made me to be when he walked through 15 years of battling disease with me so by enabling me to become a triathlete he perfectly positioned me for the most outrageous God moment of unearned blessing I could have ever imagined at the age of 55 I became an iron man I swam 2.4 miles I biked 112 miles and I ran a marathon 26.2 miles all while my husband was in great health cheering me on and as if that wasn't the most astounding restoration of all the enemy had tried to steal from me and my husband God went one step further he lavished favor on me to such an extent that I was chosen by the corporate sponsor of the triathlon an organization involved in clinical research to be their athlete ambassador they wanted to use the story of my journey from illness to health to inspire and encourage others they sent a film crew to my home and film my story that film was shown to thousands of triathletes prior to the race that film was shown at a corporate rally to all their employees at which I spoke I was interviewed by the newspaper tv and radio I had the privilege of interacting with cancer survivors through the live strong program that's our Lord he's the God who delights to give us God moments that we can treasure and remember and he'll even go a step further and use us to be part of a God moment in the life of someone else that's my that's my energizer bunny I get to work with every every day God is uh how did you feel when you're hearing that it's almost like when when someone tells a story like that it's something that's spiritual that takes place it's like there's some by osmosis there's something palpable that begins to happen inside of you alan wright and today's teaching the God moments of your life stick with us alan is back here in the studio in just a moment with additional insight on this for your life and a final word unlock the power of blessing your life discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for alan wright's free daily blessing if you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement get alan wright's daily blessing it's free and just a click away at pastor alan.org God's always been there in every moment you narrowly escaped from danger in every moment you were surprised by a blessing in every moment you just knew the direction to take God was there your life is defined by countless moments of God's grace perhaps they've been covered by the sands of time or have just gone unnoticed in the rush of life but your life is full of God moments when you make a gift today we'll send you pastor alan's heart-stirring book God moments that will lead you on a spiritual treasure hunt to uncover your God moments it's alan wright's timeless book God moments discover your God moments in the past and be filled with fresh faith today the gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries this broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support when you give today we will send you today's special offer we are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries call us at 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastor alan.org alan as we kick off this new series it's God moments it's also based upon a book that you've written and it has to do with going back and looking at the places in your own life personal life where God has been faithful and has shown up it's so exciting Daniel we're looking forward to just taking listeners on a treasure hunt and so I kind of think of this series as being the treasure map God's always been there in your life he's always been there he's been there and you didn't notice it been there when you just for whatever reason weren't unable to observe it or maybe weren't watchful but it's not too late and you go back and you begin to see God at all these crucial places in your life in big ways in small ways and what happens what happens is that our faith begins to grow because how you remember yesterday determines how you're going to live tomorrow and so we're just so excited about discovering God moments of our lives today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries