Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling11 Kings 3:9-20

“Suppose I accept this gospel, what will I find?” Brendon’s response was, “You will stumble upon wonder upon

wonder and everyone of them true!”

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

Teihard de Chardin said—We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People—Covey—319

Has our life experience somehow become just human? Where is the wonder?

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

Jeremiah 9:23This is what the Lord says, “Let not the wise man boast in his

wisdom, or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this; that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight.”

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

Graham Scroggie, in his book METHOD OF PRAYER says:One of the greatest mistakes that a Christian can make, is to

imagine that increased social or spiritual activity can be any compensation for the lack of secret communion with God…

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

A prayerful life is always a powerful life; and a prayerless life is always a powerless life. If we cannot pray, we really can do nothing right; but how slow we are to believe that. We find a spiritual law at work in the uniform experience that the more we pray; the more we need to, and want to; and the less we pray; the less is the desire to do so.

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

UNDERLYING ISSUES CANNOT BE IGNORED…II Kings 3:1-7

• Is there any evidence that they consulted God? • Is there evidence of an unequal yoke?

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

II Corinthians 6:14-16 says…Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do

righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between he temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God…

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

UNDERLYING ISSUES INEVITABLY SURFACE…II Kings 3:8-14

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

Matthew 6:8…your Father knows what you need before you ask Him

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

How many of us receive blessing because of our spouse, our father or mother or grandparents and what will we do when they are gone?

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

UNANTICIPATED INTERVENTION BRINGS WONDER…II Kings 3:15-24

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

Make this valley full of ditches, for this is what the Lord says: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle and your other animals will drink. This is an easy thing in the eyes of the Lord; He will also hand Moab over to you…

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

Jesus is the source of water. He said…If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever

believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. By this He meant the Spirit…

Are we thirsty enough to dig?

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

The water came to the desert…the next morning, about the time for offering the sacrifice, there it was—water flowing from the direction of Edom! AND THE LAND WAS FILLED WITH WATER…v 20

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

It came because they dug the ditches. They decided the size of God’s miracle, the size of the invasion of wonder by the depth of the ditches they dug.

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

Prayer is not overcoming God’s unwillingness, it is laying hold of His great willingness.

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

Let me give you 6 ditches to dig… 1. Jeremiah 33:3

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know

• God we need water and wonder

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

2. James 5:16 The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective

• God, please make us righteous

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

3. Hebrews 4:16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

• God, our desert needs your mercy and grace.

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

4. Philippians 4:19And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus

• God, we have needs that demand your glorious riches in Christ Jesus

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

5. I John 5:14-15 This is the confidence we have in approaching God; that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of Him

• God, we know that everyone in our desert needs Jesus and it is your will that they not perish without Him. Please save them.

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

6. II Corinthians 10:4-5 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

• God, bring down the strongholds in us, in our desert, in our church, in our city

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

Visit us with the wonder of water in the desert again!

Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling

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Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling