Episode Transcript
You're listening to the Travis Rutland Podcast. Travis Rutland is a spirit filled pastor and ministry leader who has been featured on International Christian Television. He serves as lead pastor of Liberty Square Church in Cartersville, Georgia and as president of Global Servants. His sermons focus on clear biblical teaching, practical truth and encouragement for everyday life. Each message is designed to strengthen your faith and draw you deeper into God's word. This podcast is brought to you to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global servants, please visit globalservants.org now here's Travis Rutland.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: This morning is Abram, who eventually became Abraham. His wife Sarai became Sarah. But at this point in the story, they are Abraham or Abram and Sarai. So we're going to talk about Abram this morning and the journey to Canaan. So this morning is the journey to Canaan. Look, if you will, at Genesis chapter 11, beginning with verse 31.
And Terah took his son Abram. So Abram's father is Terah. So Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the sons of Haran, and his daughter in law Sarai, his son Abram's wife. And they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan.
Let's stop right there. Let's pray. Lord, I ask in the next few moments that you will be with us. We want to hear from you, speak to each of us, all of us, myself included. We want to hear from you this morning. Cannot speak through me, speak in spite of me, but speak to us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte had become sort of the leader of France. In the next year, he was going to appoint himself, or anoint himself emperor of France. He hadn't done that quite yet, but he was definitely in charge. He had already been waging a number of wars against what he perceived as his enemies. And in the next year, he was going to appoint himself emperor of France. And then he was going to begin what he hoped would be a domination and conquest of Europe. And he conquered a lot of countries in Europe. But in 1803, he was looking ahead to those things, Emperor conquest war. And he realized that he needed a lot of money in order to do those things.
At the time, France still had a lot of territory in North America. And so Napoleon reached out to the current president of the United States in 1803 was Thomas Jefferson. And Thomas Jefferson was a known fan of France. He was what you would call a Francophile. He was a fan of France and French Culture and all of those things. And so Napoleon reached out to Thomas Jefferson and said, would you be interested in buying French France's territory in North America? And Jefferson said he absolutely would. So in 1803, Thomas Jefferson completed what we call the Louisiana Purchase. The Louisiana Purchase consisted of America buying 530 million acres. 530 million acres from the port city of New Orleans all the way up into what we now know as Montana and Idaho for 530 million acres. And we got it for the low, low deal of $15 million, if you can believe that. 530 million acres for $15 million.
Jefferson then realized he had to figure out what was out there. And so he began to find leaders, a couple of guys that he could trust that had the requisite skills and abilities to go into Louisiana Purchase and figure out what exactly the land consisted of. So he found two men named Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, what we now know as Lewis and Clark. And those guys set out in 1804 from St. Louis to explore the Louisiana Purchase. They did not return for more than two years.
Here's the thing that their exploration consisted of primarily, Jefferson told Lewis and Clark that they were to explore and map detail the new territory. It was unsure where the rivers went. It was unsure where things were within those 530 million acres.
So he said, I want you to do maps, details, explore, all that kind of stuff. The second thing they were trying to find was a practical travel route to cross the continent. In particular, they were looking and hoping to find a way to get from Atlantic to Pacific by water.
And unfortunately, none of the rivers exactly connect. The Missouri doesn't connect to the Columbia, but it comes close. But they were looking for a water route across the entire continent. They looked for that. The other thing they were supposed to do was document scientific discoveries and also establish trade relations with the Indians that existed in that territory as well. So there's all these things that we were supposed to do. Here's the thing that Jefferson didn't tell them to do. He didn't tell them, go and find out what's at the end.
They knew what was at the end. Oregon. They knew what was at the end. The Pacific Ocean. It wasn't like they were launching out into this thing, into the unknown. It wasn't like hundreds of years earlier with Christopher Columbus, where he takes three little ships and sails across the Atlantic hoping to run into India and instead discovers a whole new continent.
Right. It wasn't that. It wasn't like they didn't know what was out There, they knew what the end looked like. They knew where they were headed. They're going to the Pacific Ocean. They're going to the end of the continent. They're exploring the Louisiana Purchase. They're headed to Oregon. The goal was not necessarily to get where they were going or to find out what was at the end. The goal is not to figure out what's at the end. The goal, the point of the whole thing was the stuff that they were supposed to do as they head towards the place where they know they're going.
The same is true in this journey to Canaan. This is a similar issue.
God has called Abram to. To Canaan. He knows where he's supposed to be going. He's not in. He's not confused about the location. He's not confused about the land. It is the same land that the Jewish people inhabit to this day. It wasn't confused about the land. He knew where he was headed. The issue was, what is God showing him, telling him and calling him to. On the journey itself. He had been called to Canaan. But what is the point of. Of. It's not. The issue is not the destination. The issue is what is God saying along the way? So turn, if you will, back to where we were. We stopped in the middle of the verse.
They are living. They have houses, jobs, homes, families. They are living in Ur of the Chaldeans. And they are called to go to the land of Canaan. But watch what happens.
Look again at verse 31.
They go out to the land. They go out of the can of the land of. They go to go to the land of Canaan. And they came to Haran, the city. They came to Haran and dwelt there. So the days of Terah were 205 years. And Terah died in Haran.
All right, listen. The first thing on the journey is this. Don't stop too soon on your journey.
Terah dies in Haran because he is unwilling to embrace the call that God has on his life.
There are too many of us, too often who know where we're headed, know where we're called, know what God has put in our life. But we come to a place that seems good enough. This is a place that seems. All right. We're tired, we're exhausted. And we don't want to continue the journey because it's too far and too hard and too long to get to Canaan. So we'll just stay right here in Haran. And Terah dies in Haran. He never experiences the promise that is the land of Canaan. He never gets to where God has called them to be, and he's just stuck in the place where they encountered on the journey.
Now, listen, on the journey, there's going to be a lot of good places. There's going to be things that you're going to encounter. There's stuff that you're going to do, and you're going to say, this is what God called. Oh, it wasn't about re. Wasn't really about Canaan. It was about God finding out if I would obey him and start to go to Canaan.
But I'm just going to stop here. This is what God was calling to me the whole time. Look how nice this place is. Look how nice Haran is. Look how beautiful it is. Oh, look how luxurious it is.
It's a great place to live and to put down roots and to raise a family. Yeah, God called me to canaan, but that was a long time ago. I'm here now.
God has a call and a purpose on your life. And if you stop too soon on your journey, you never inherit the promised land that is out there for you.
I want to encourage you with that. And there are moments where it's difficult. There are moments where it's hard and it's not easy, but the call is still on your life to go to the place that God has called you to be a number of years ago. Courtney and I, as we've gotten a little bit older and the kids have gotten older and out of the house and things like that. So many vacations when you have little kids is all about the little kids, you know, where they want to go, stuff you can do with the kids, those kinds of things. As you get older, you're able to take more of vacations of stuff you want to do. One of the things that we've discovered over the last probably five or 10 years that we've really enjoyed is exploring national parks, and we've really enjoyed that. And we've decided what we are. We are not campers at all.
We are hikers. All right? We go to a national park. We hike for the day, we get back in the car, we. We go to the hotel. That's what the vacation consists of. Okay? I'm not sleeping in the middle of nowhere in some national park. All right? So that's what we do. So a number of years ago, we flew out to Utah, which is beautiful, beautiful country, and there's a number of national parks there, and we went to one that's a little bit more Remote, named Canyonlands National Park. So we went to Canyonlands. It's maybe my favorite national park, but it is isolated and it's remote. We went into Canyonlands. You know how when you go into the national park, they want to, you know, you have to pay to get in or they check the, did you get the pass? Or whatever. There's nobody there. You just drive into Canyonlands national park, they don't care. You come, don't come, we don't care. Right. So you just drive into Canyonlands National Park. Now here's the problem, the other problem about going on vacation. As you get older, there are things that you can't do the way that used to be able to do them. So I'll just be honest with you. You guys know a lot of the limitations I have in my life. And one of my limitations is reading a map. I am not good at reading a map. Okay, so we had this map of Canyonlands national park and we knew this trail we wanted to go on. We had researched it and there was this thing we wanted to see. There's an area of the park called Needles and it's these rock formations. It looks really cool. We wanted to see them. So we knew exactly where we were going to park and get on the trailhead and go and do this. But here's the deal. We took the map with us, but because we're getting old, Courtney forgot to bring her glasses and she can't read without her glasses. Okay, so she forgot her glasses. I was like, well, I'll just look at the map. And she was like, are you sure? And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it.
So we end up at the wrong trailhead, of course, because I can't read the map, she can't see, I can't read the map, we end up at the wrong trailhead. So what we thought was going to be like a five or six mile hike out to do it was like more than doubled. It ended up being 12 or 13 miles. But you don't know that until you start the hike and you realize we should be there by now and you're not there, but then you're in the middle and you don't know what to do and you think, oh, we can make it, it's not a problem.
Let me tell you something, 13, 14 miles through the Utah desert. We didn't meet anybody the whole time we were on that trail.
Hours and hours we walked and we got there and it was amazing and it was beautiful and I got some amazing pictures on My phone, and I'll show them to you if you ever want to see them. But here's the deal. We realized on the way back we're in trouble. Like, there was. We didn't have any water left. We had taken plenty of. No water left. We'd eaten the last banana. We were like.
And that we had seen no one. When I tell you we had passed no one going or coming. We had seen no one for hours and hours. They didn't ask us to register. They didn't ask us where we were going. Nobody knew we were in Canyon Lands National Park. And I realized to myself, if I fall down this hill, nobody is coming to get me.
And finally we get to this point, you're backtracking. And when we went down this little mountain cliff, it seemed fun and adventurous. But now we're at the bottom, looking back up at that mountain cliff, and it doesn't seem fun and adventurous at all. It seems like we're about to fall and die in Canyonlands National Park.
And Courtney says to me, I'm on the bottom underneath.
I'm standing on the ground. Courtney climbs up first in case she falls and she gets halfway up and her legs start shaking. She goes, travis, I can't do this. I can't do this. And I realized, we're going to die in this park.
I realized right then, we're going to die in this park. And so I, like, summoned all my inner coaching that I've ever done in my life, and I was like, you can do it. Get up that hill. And I started like, that's what you got to do, right? Get your knees up. More suicides. Run. Run. So I start coaching her, and she climbs up the hill and we make. But there was this moment where she was like, I can't do this, Travis. And I remember she said to me, she said, we're just going to have to live here now.
That's what she said to me.
She said, we live here now. She was like, this is where we live. I was like, no, we cannot live in Canyonlands National Park.
Listen to me. God has called you to the promised land. He has a purpose. He has a destiny. Don't convince yourself to stop too soon. Yes, the trek is difficult. The hike is hard. If it was easy, everybody would go to Canaan. But you've got something God has called you to do. And you miss out on the purpose of God in your life. Think how awesome that is that God knew that you would be created for a destiny and a purpose. And the way that you miss it is to stop in Haran instead of going to Canaan.
Don't quit. Don't give up. Don't stop. Keep moving forward. I know it's scary. I know it's exhausting. I know. I know that Haran seems nice, but no matter what Haran has, Canaan is better.
No matter what this current moment has. If you have been called to a destiny and a purpose, I promise you that what God is calling you to is better than anything that is offered at the stop.
You know, we know that we do that all the time. When you drive with kids have to stop every 30 minutes to use the bathroom, you're like, we're never going to get there.
You just say to yourself, what? We're going to live at this rest stop? We're never going to get to where we're going. You've got no matter. You can stop.
It's okay to stop.
Don't stop permanently. Don't stop forever.
Keep moving forward. Don't stop on your journey. Now, back, if you will, to Genesis. Look at the next chapter.
They go to Canaan. They stop in Haran. They live in Haran. Terrah. Abram's father dies in Haran 12 and 1.
Now, after Terah had died, now the lord said to Abram, get out of your country, from your family, and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. Look again at that, he says, get out of your country, from your family, and from your father's house.
The next thing is this. You got to leave the old stuff behind on your journey. You got to leave some stuff behind on your journey. You're not supposed to take all the baggage from your previous life into the next calling that God has. You're not supposed to take that stuff into Canaan, that thing you understand, on that trip. The luggage you pack when I fly, I fly all over the world. When I pack that luggage in Cartersville. It's the same stuff that comes out of the suitcase when I get to Thailand, when I get to West Africa, when I get to Honduras. The things that I packed in the suitcase. You're going to unpack wherever it is you're going and what you think is, oh, I'll work it out when I get there. No, you won't. No, you won't. You're going to unpack the same suitcase you packed at the last place. What you got to do is leave that stuff behind on the journey. You have to allow God to begin to mold you and form you and make it clear to you, okay, I have called you to a new place. But in order to inherit the new place, there's some things that we have to die to. There's some stuff that we have to leave behind. I want you to look very quickly at the three things that he says. Look at what God says to Abram in verse 12. Again, get out of your country.
Get out of your country. That is not to say your physical residence. That's not to say that you're supposed to leave America necessarily. Now, I could be preaching in one of you. God has called you to be a missionary. And you may be struggling with that call. And maybe that exact thing is for you.
But for most of us, that's not what God is saying. What he is saying is, this is clearly a picture of the world around us. What does Paul tell us in Romans? He says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. So there's some stuff in the world that you got to leave behind. There's ways that the world talks that you got to let go of. There's ways that the world acts that you got to let go of. We're not supposed to look like everybody else.
Get out of this country, this culture, the world. They're trying to press you, to make you, to make all of us look like how they want you to look. They're trying to conform you to their versions of truth. They're trying to conform you to their understanding of sin. They're trying to tell you that you need to look like them. And we cannot do it. If we want to inherit Canaan, we can't look like the world.
Do not be conformed. Look at what. Look at what in one John way at the end. Look at what John tells us in 1 John 2 and verse 15. Love these verses 1 John 2 and 15.
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away and the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever.
Don't love the things of the world. God says to Abram, get out of the world, the culture, the country, all the stuff that's trying to make you look like them.
The word of that is for us as well. Each of us has been promised a Canaan. And in order to get there, we can't look like the world. But God is not done. He gives Abram three distinct things. Look at the next one.
Get out of your country. Now look at verse 12. And one again from your family.
The next thing is this. It's not necessarily that family is bad, but it is this.
We have to let go of others.
Others, they're always somebody always knows what's best for you better than you do. I'm going to tell you something else. Other people think they know what's best for you better than God does.
You tell them, God has called me to Canaan. And they say, no, he hasn't. No, he hasn't. God doesn't have that purpose on your life. Doesn't God doesn't have that destiny on your life. There's all kinds of reasons that other people do this to us. They don't want you to inherit your promise because inheriting your promise reminds them of the promise that they left behind.
They are living and dying in Haran. And you going to Canaan reminds them of what God spoke to them a long time ago. And they are intimidated by the calling on your life.
There's all kinds of reasons that people do it. They just don't believe in you. They just don't see what God sees inside of you. There's all kinds of reasons that others tell us not to embrace the purpose and destiny. But just as we are not letting the world around us conform who we are, we are also not letting the wrong understanding of who we are by others conform who we are. I am not defined by the world and I am not defined by others. God Almighty has called me to Canaan and I am going to Canaan. That's what we have to do. So he says, get out of your country. Get away from your family, the opinions of others. Look at the final one.
And from your father's house.
Now you may say to yourself, well, wait a minute, that sounds like family. But I want to stretch our thinking. This morning. I want us to think in a slightly different way. Last week we talked about Adam and Eve, right? We talked about that idea that they were moving east of Eden and all of us were. I'm not going to repeat the message. And for those of you that weren't here, I don't want to talk about stuff that confuses you. But there is that idea in both Old and New Testament that Adam was the first man. But. But what do we know about who Jesus was? Paul tells us that Jesus is the last Adam. We have the first Adam and the last Adam. So look, if you will at 1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians, chapter 15. 1 Corinthians, chapter 15. Look at verse 22. Paul is writing and he says this. For as in Adam, all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. Right? He is the last Adam. Same chapter. Look at verse 45 now.
1 Corinthians 15:45. And so it is written.
The first man, Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life giving spirit.
So God says, you need to leave your father's house. Who is our father, Adam? The old man. God says you need to leave behind what? The ways that we.
The ways that we have disqualified ourselves.
First of all, he says you got to forget about what the world says, right? Because the world says you got to look like that. You leave that behind in order to get to Canaan. And then you got to forget about what others say about you. Their opinions, their thoughts. You got to leave that behind in order to get to Canaan. But finally, what do you have to do? You have to leave behind the most accusing voice of all. Which is what? Our inner monologue, the person that accuses us the most is ourselves. We are constantly. We're not good enough, we're not smart enough, we're not educated enough. We're not this, we're not that. And God calls us to Canaan. And what do we do? We immediately disclose, disqualify ourselves. Believing that we are unworthy of the promise and the destiny he has given to us. If you want to get to where you're going, get out of the country you are at. You got to forget about what the world says about you. You got to forget about what others say about you. And you got to forget about what you yourself say about you. You got to listen to one voice and one voice only. And that is the voice of the Father telling you that you are created for purpose and destiny. And he has given you the land of Canaan.
That is what we got to hold on to. We don't stop on the journey, but also on the journey. We leave the old stuff behind.
Now I want you to see the final thing. Look at verse 2, Genesis 12 and verse 2. Back to where we were.
And I will make you a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great. And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse those who curse you. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him. And Lot went with him. And Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. Then Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered and the people whom they had acquired in Haran. And they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land Canaan. He knew where he was going the whole time. It was the journey is what God was revealing to him, saying to him, calling him. God says, don't, don't stop on the journey. Haran's not the final destination.
He says, you got to leave some stuff behind on the journey. But the final thing is this.
Be a blessing on your journey. Be a blessing on your journey. I want you to look again at verse 2.
God gives Abram all these promises. I'll bless you. I'll make your name great. I'll bless those who bless you. I'll curse those who curse you. But the call on his life had two commands. The first command was what we already read. Go. He says, go to where I've shown you. Go to the land I've given you. Go. That's the first command. The second command, look, if you will, at the end of verse two. And you shall be a blessing.
That is an odd translation.
The Hebrew text. The Hebrew is very clear. God says, be a blessing. He doesn't say you shall be a blessing. He says, be a blessing. So that was a command rather than a prediction. Do you see the difference? God is not saying you might be a blessing. God is saying, you will be a blessing. He doesn't say you shall be a blessing. The Hebrew there is clear. Be a blessing on. On this journey in life. Your call. What God is asking you to be about and do as you are headed to Canaan, what you're supposed to do is be a blessing to all the people that you encounter on your way.
It is insufficient for us as believers to be making our way to Canaan and hurting everybody that we encounter on the journey.
That's not what Christ followers look like. That's not what believers look like. That's not what. That's not who Jesus was.
Jesus knew where he was headed. Jesus knew what his ultimate ministry was on the cross. But Jesus, what did he do the entire time he was on earth? Every day, every week, every month, he is healing. He is blessing. He is teaching. He is encouraging blind eyes see lame legs walk. He is a blessing on his journey. And that call is the same to us as it was to Abram thousands of years ago.
Be a blessing on your journey that is vital to our understanding of who we are and who we are in Christ.
This is the thing that I want to challenge us with this morning.
We're all on a journey, and we're not supposed to be hurting the people around us on the journey and then claiming that it's okay because we're making our way to Canaan.
Do you see that?
We have got to be the most loving, generous, kind, faithful, forgiving people that other people meet.
We can't look like everybody else. We can't behave like everybody else. We can't talk like everybody else. In the same way that we got to leave the old stuff behind, we also got to pick up some new habits.
We have to be more forgiving. We have to be more loving. We have to be more joyful. We have to let the fruit of the spirit operate and grow. We have to cultivate the fruit in our life, on our journey.
That is the call for all of us.
Talking about Lewis and Clark at the beginning of this message.
Every famous explorer from Columbus to Magellan to, you know, Leif Erickson, every famous explorer, they were taking the journey in order to find fame or fortune or power or prestige.
Jesus. God says to Abram and to all of us, this journey is not about fame and fortune and power.
This journey is about you being a blessing to the people that you encounter on the journey.
You see, we are all explorers, discoverers. We have all been called to a far country. Everyone in here has a Canaan that you have been called to.
You know where you're going.
The point is, will you be a blessing on the journey?
He doesn't say, you shall, you might.
God says be a blessing.
There's no gray area there. There's no opportunity for confusion.
He doesn't say be a blessing most of the time. He doesn't say be a blessing to the people that you like. He doesn't say be a blessing to the people that are friendly. He says, be a blessing.
As we are called to the promised land, to Canaan, we are also called to be a blessing on the journey.
Now, let me close with this.
I was thinking about this idea this morning. This week, this morning.
And I was thinking about all these things next year also. In addition to what I do here at Liberty Square, I also serve as the president of Global Servants, which is a missions organization that my dad started in 1977. So this year, we've been working on our 50th anniversary stuff for next year. Next year, Global servants will be 50 years old, 50th anniversary. I've been thinking about that.
I was thinking about my dad's journey on these things.
I grew up in the Methodist Church. My dad was a United Methodist pastor. God called him to this ministry of evangelism. He left a secure and safe pastorate in the Methodist Church and just became an evangelist, as he wrote in his book, to just launch out into the deep. That's the journey. That's the call, right?
But then God begins to work and show him opportunities for ministry in Mexico. And then God widens that and he goes to Ghana and West Africa for the first time, and then Peru and India, finally Thailand. All of these places.
You see, we miss out what God wants to do if we convince ourselves that this is the last stop on the journey.
Don't stop at Haran. There's stuff out there. There's things for you to do. You say to yourself, okay, this is the only place, the only thing I'm ever going to do. And God says, no, I've got a plan for you. Keep moving forward. Keep moving forward.
But on the journey, there's stuff you got to let go of. There's things you. You lose. You miss out on some of them. Stuff that is not helpful. But other stuff is just things that you have to make the choice on.
I give you an example. My dad was gone all the time when I was growing up.
I always say that. I always tease him. I was raised by a single mom. My dad was gone for months at a time in foreign countries. And this is in the 80s. There's no cell phones. There was no anything. We just. Mom would drive us kids to the airport in Atlanta back when you could go to the gate, and we just sit at the gate and hope. My dad got off a plane.
We had no idea he'd been in West Africa for two months. We just sit there and hope that dad got off the plane. We had no clue whether he would or not.
Okay.
He has to be willing to make some sacrifices in order to embrace the call that God has on his life.
You see that he has to be gone from his wife that he loves for two months.
He has to be gone from his kids, specifically from his favorite kid, me.
He has to be gone on this Father's Day.
You can ask him after the service. Mom will tell you. I'm definitely their favorite.
You see that?
There's also some stuff he had to leave behind. The security of pastoring, launch out into an evangelism and missionary ministry. Then you have to launch out and all these other things. He'd done admissions forever.
Then all of a sudden a university calls him and says, we want you to be the president of Southeastern University.
And then ORU calls him and says, we want you to be the president of oru. If you say, I'm never leaving Southeastern, then you never become the president of oru. You say to yourself, I'm never going to be the president of a college. Okay, me either. But there's something for each of us. I don't know what your Canaan looks like, but I know that you're not supposed to live and die in Haran.
Tara Missed it.
There's stuff you got to leave behind and most importantly, be a blessing.
My dad, my. On this Father's Day, my grandparents are passed.
But I've mentioned before how close I was to my grandfather, my dad's dad.
In their 70s, my grandparents moved to Thailand and lived in Thailand and built many, many or most of the original House of Grace buildings in Thailand.
In their 70s, I. They would. I'm thinking moving to a foreign country and building dormitories for little girls is maybe not what they wanted to do with their retirement.
But they said, this is the land of Canaan. This is the promised land. This is where God has called me. They didn't stop. They didn't quit. They moved forward. They did. That House of Grace in Thailand exists to the capacity that it is because of my grandparents.
And you got to leave stuff behind, right? They had to move to Thailand, away from their kids, away from their grandkids, of which I am the favorite.
Away. You got to leave some stuff.
Here's what I know.
We have all been called to a Canaan.
We have all been called on a journey. You have a destiny. You have a purpose.
Quit.
Leave the old stuff behind. And on the way, there always be a blessing. That is what God is saying to us this morning.
Let me pray for you. God, we thank you for this moment. Thank you for this opportunity. God, ask that you would bless every person on their journey this morning, wherever they are, as they make their way toward the Canaan that you have called them to, toward the promised land that you have given to them.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Them.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: God, help them not to quit and stop in Haran. Help them not to live there. God, help them to leave the old stuff behind. The things that would define us, the things that we think would disqualify us. Help us to put it away, let go of it and move forward. And God, above all, help us to be a blessing. God, a blessing to others on our journey. Always, every day every week, every month. Be a blessing to the people that we encounter on the journey. Be with every person here, God. Guide and direct them on their journey, on their path. Speak to them. Show them the land of Canaan so clearly. Be with all of us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the Travis Rutland Podcast. If you enjoyed this message and you're in the Cartersville, Georgia area, we invite you to join us at Liberty Square Church. You can also watch online and connect with us on Facebook and YouTube. We'll see you next week for another message from Travis Rutland. It.
