Emotional Ties | John Giftah | Christian Sermon | Thursday Throwback

Do you ever look around and think, Wow, the world is a crazy

place and it just seems to get crazier and crazier. Ease your mind and

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record holder, aerospace engineer, life coach, evangelist, and founder of John

Gifta International. Welcome to Fuel for the Soul with John Gifta. I'm going

to talk to you today about how God is us in terms of emotional ties.

I want to just tell you something very important to you. Right I'm

all in for having good relationships. We are to live in harmony with one

another, show love, express love, walk in love. These are all

qualities that the Lord wants us to live by. But I want you to

understand God always expects something from us that you know. As much as you

love people, you love your family, you love your friends, you love

your maybe you know if your parents you love your children, if your children

you love your parents, or you'll love your spouse, or you'll love your

grandparents or grandchildren or any relationship for that matter. There's the thing, the

love that you have for God. The level or degree of you know,

your faithfulness and your you know submission to God should outweigh your love towards anybody

for that matter. Right, And that is very very easy said than done,

because of one important thing. That is, when we grow up with

people, when we are spending a lot of time with them, we develop

a bond with them, We have emotional ties with them. And see,

God is not waiting to destroy that. He's not saying, you know what,

I don't want that to happen, But there's a place where he tests

our heart to see would we part with that loving relationship if God wanted to

test you and say I wanted to lead that right now, I want to

tell you something. When we think about Genesis twenty two, when God is

testing Abraham, there's an incident where we often look at Abraham and Isaac and

we think that isa courses maybe a little kid at this point, but you

have to remember he was not a little kid anymore. Right. If God

tested Abraham right after Isaac was born, it would have been easier for Abraham

than when he tested him at the moment when he tested him. You know

why because you see, first of all, I want to tell you that

when you look at Genesis twenty one was eight. It says when Isaac grew

up and was about to be weaned. And I was studying about this,

and it said that a child would get weaned at about the age of twelve,

okay, twelve. And when we also look at this I've spoken about

this before. When Genesis twenty two, when God is testing Abraham, it

talks about how Abraham, you know, takes you know, high second goals.

And here's the thing. It says that Isaac actually carried the wood.

Abraham was pretty old, right, he was pretty old, and Isaac carried

the wood. If you look at what was six, it says Abraham placed

the wood for the burnt offering on ice shoulders while he himself carried the fire

and the knife, which shows that he was pretty old by this time,

like in the sense Isaac could have been like maybe in his twenties by the

time Abraham was being tested by God. It was not when Abraham just received

Issac and God said, go and tests. You know that sacrifice. It

was not an instant interesting it it'll happen after about twenty years, minimum of

twenty years, because he had to be old enough, youthful enough to carry

the wood, right. And you also see he was intellectually strong when he

asked his father, I see the you know, the would I see the

all the requirement, the ingredients, But where is the sacrificial lamb? Which

means that he was not a dumb doll. He was intellectually strong too for

his age at that point of time. So when you look at all of

these things, you were unders stand that. You know that by the time

God tested Abraham, it was not right after Isaac was born. It was

after a long period. And in fact, it even says in verse twenty

two, sorry was one of chapter twenty two. Sometime later God tasted Abraham,

and this sometime later happened after when you look at Genesis twenty one was

thirty four, Rares says, And Abraham lived as a foreigner in the Philistine

country for a long time. And if you actually trace back, you see

it was not an instant in his thing. It was after a long time.

It was it was a cover many many years. So you understand something

here. There was an emotional connect. There was an emotional connect between Abraham

and Isaac. It was not just that he just got it on that day

and God tested him. No, they spent years together. You know.

I still remember when we just spent maybe four years in the residential university,

and when we were partying, many of us crying because we were like,

oh my gosh, you know, four years we spent together. In fact,

it was not even four years fully right, because you have holidays,

you get back home, you have vacations, you have so many things,

so it's not explicitly four years. But still if you look at it that

way, four years together and we start crying, like, oh my gosh,

we're going to see you guys again, you know, we're going to

miss you and all of these things. Four years and people start crying,

And I was just thinking almost or more than twenty years spent time with Isaac.

Then you can imagine the emotional bond that or emotional tie that Abraham would

have with Isaac. It wouldn't have been an easy thing. We think that

it was like, you know, look at him, you know, he

was a man of faith and all of those things. But that's a human

It would that being easy because he had memories connected with it. He was

not an ordinary thing. He had memories connected with it, He had emotions

connected with it. He had a lot of you know, cherished moments connected

with it. You know. In fact, if it says look at Genesis

twenty one was eight, it says that when Isaac was weaned, he's throughout

a celebration to celebrate the occasion and all of that. So he imagine like

in a little case like you know in today's scenario, like no, a

big birthday party for the kid by the parents and all of that. You

know, this this is the scenario there. It was not a small thing.

Abraham loud Isaac, and Isaac was precious to Abraham, and they definitely

had a strong emotional time and he always got testing him. In line with

that, you see, some people are in a place where they're like,

you know what, God, you know what, I'll do this for you,

I'll do that for you. But you know what, I can't let

go of these people because there's very close to me. You know, I

have strong emotional ties. I can't let them get hurt. I love them

so much you know, and all of these things, but you have to

get to a place where you know, like Abraham, you know, if

God wants to test you, would you pass the test? Would you be

in a place where you say, yes, I love these people so much.

I have so many memories attached to it, celebrations and so many awesome

moments that I cherish. But I still trust and obey what you have for

me. Can you get to that place of absolute trust upon the lawyer where

you say, God, I trust you what you want me to do.

I pray that you'll help me break out of emotional ties and still do what

you want me to do. I just want to close with this. Sometimes,

you know, in ministry, when you're doing ministry or when you want

to go in a certain direction that God has called you, you know,

sometimes your family, your parents can be like, you know, what,

I want you to go in this way, this is the way we want

you to go, and then they start playing the emotional you know, like

blackmailing kind of a thing. You know, we were the one who raised

you, we were the one who you know brought you into this world,

so you have bound to do what we want you to do. You know,

but that's why Jesus said, you know, if anybody you know loves

me, you know you need to take up the cross and follow me.

Hen. Then he goes on to say that you should be willing to hate

your father, mother, brothers, sister, and all your emotional ties.

In the sense he's not saying go and hate on them and say, hey,

I hate you. But what he was saying is in terms of priority.

If God wants you to do something that contradicts what your parents want,

it contradicts what your family, it contradicts what your posts wants. That's why

you say, you know what, I'm sorry. I love you, but

my love for God is greater than my love for you. I need to

obey God more than you and don't allow those emotional blackmailing and emotional ties to

keep you from doing what God wants you to do. Amen. God bless

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bless you. If your heart stops beating now, do you know where you're

going? If you can face to face with death? Now, do you

know where you're going? And this is not a message of condemnation. This

is a message of hope. That is a God who loves you so much

he sent his only son, Jesus Christ to come down and pay a heavy

price by shading every drop of his blood on the cross. Thank you for

dying for my sense. When you believe in Him, you have free gift

or salvation for you that it shows us that we will go to heaven when

we die instead of suffering in hell forever. I just encourage you today to

make the simple step of faith and say, Jesus, I thank you for

what you did on the cross. Thank you for giving me this gift of

eternal life.

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