Emotional Ties | John Giftah | Christian Sermon - Fuel for the Soul with John Giftah

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

take a break. This is Fuel for the Soul with John Gifta. We're

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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 t 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 wanted

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 love your spouse, or you'll love your

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

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

your 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 read 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 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 would have been like maybe in his twenties by the time Abraham

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

God said, go and tests. You know that sacrifice. It was not

an instant. Interesting, it happened 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 wood, I see the all the

require 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

verse one of chapter twenty two, sometime later God tasted Abraham. And this

sometime later happened after when you look at the 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 were 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 oh, 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 the 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 allows

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, brother, 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 where 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 it to us emotional blackmailing and emotional ties

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

bless you. You've been listening to Fuel for the Soul with John Gifta.

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you on the next episode of The Fuel for the Soul with John GIFTA God

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

you're going? If you came 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 sharing every drop of his blood on the cross. Thank you for

dying for my sins. 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 Him 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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