Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. (Psalm 78:41 KJV)
I was in a meeting not so long ago when someone asked the group about this scripture and I felt the knowledge behind this scripture is worth sharing.
We have been brought up knowing God is all powerful, and reigns supreme over all. He can do whatever He wants and however He wants to and no man has a say in whatever God has planned to do. This is true, however not the whole truth. Hey, I know this probably rocks your theological orientation but don’t switch off just yet, give me a little time to explain this, I promise you it is not heresy.
God is a spirit (John 4:24) and He dwells in the spirit realm. We are spirit-being too because we are created in the image of God (a dog only gives birth to a dog, not a cow) (Genesis 1:26-27). He made and gave us a physical body made from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7), this functions as the suit a man will use to operate on this earth because if we could operate as a spirit on earth, then we would not need the body made from the dust of the earth. Think about it, when man goes to the moon, he wears a suit that was designed to make him survive on the moon because his natural body was designed to function on earth. Same thing here, God wanted man to operate on the earth so He made and gave him a suit designed to make him function on this earth – the physical body. He also gave him dominion over all things He has created on the earth (Genesis 1:26-27, Psalm 115:16).
With all that has been said above, it suffice it to say any spirit (spiritual being) needs a physical body to operate on this earth, even the devil and his cohorts. God, who is a spirit, lives in the spirit world and in order for Him to operate on this earth, He also needs a physical body (a man) that will carry it out because He made the world operate that way and He would not violate His own words and standards (Psalm 89:34). He also gave man a will, which is the most powerful asset and weapon of a man (in my opinion), and also the power to make decisions (Deuteronomy 30:19). God being a God of standards and principles will never violate that nor will He super-impose His will on man. He always sets the options before us and we get to chose.
— hey, wake up! Don’t sleep off just yet
As a spirit, God is all powerful, all capable and can do whatever He wants and however He wants to, He is also capable of all that even in the physical world but He has put a system in this world that He won’t violate and that is – only man is licensed to operate on this earth. —- this is true even for the devil, he needs a man to carry out his will on earth too.
For God to carry out His will here on earth, He needs a man that will corporate and yield to Him and it is to the degree to which this man yields that God is able to operate, same is true for the devil.
Spirits grow in power when they are believed, the more believe we have in them, the more powerfully they operate. When God is in a place (which He always is), all of His power is there with Him to do whatever we ask but as a spirit He needs to be believed in and acknowledged to be able to move and operate (Matthew 13:58). Where ever there is an existence of unbelief, God is limited. He can only operate to the level at which your belief is at. If you see God doing something a man’s life, this is because this man can dare believe Him to do it. Jesus himself said nothing is impossible to him that believes (Mark 9:23).
God told Abraham that as far as He could see would he posses, and that has always being the system in which God operates, everything is possible with Him because He is all powerful (Luke 1:37) but it is to the extent to which each individual can believe. You can have whatever you can believe God for but He will not make it automatically happen for you.
Our main scripture says they limited God because of their unbelief, another translation says they grieved Him. This is to say they made Him very sad because of their constant unbelief, in other words, God rejoices when we believe Him. He is happy when we trust Him to do anything, the more impossible or improbable it seems, the happier God is.
The onus is on us to always increase our capacity to receive from God. He is all powerful and can do all things but only to those that can dare to believe Him to do it, having yielded themselves to Him completely as He will not violate His set standards.
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