Preached @ Metro 29th January 2006 by Angie Williams

The Chinese calendar celebrates 2006 as the “Year of the Dog”, but I believe we should see 2006 as the “Year of Opportunity”.

God wants to bring opportunities into our lives this year. The question is, what will we do with them?

What do opportunities look like?

The account of the spies who went into the land of Canaan gives us some great insight. The story is found in Numbers 13: 25-33.

1. Opportunities do not always appear “golden”

• they may appear small & insignificant
• they may not come at a convenient time
• they may look like hard work

Some people only ever see the impossibilities. People who achieve great things never did so because they were champion pessimists.

Optimists see the opportunity in every difficulty, pessimists see the difficulty in every opportunity.
There is no such thing as the “perfect” opportunity.

2. Opportunity & opposition go hand in hand

Many people turn back on the path of opportunity because they don’t expect to meet opposition. The belief that “if God is in it, it won’t be difficult”, is false.

Obstacles & opposition will always be found on the path of opportunity.

Just as hunting dogs, sink their teeth into their prey and release their grip, so we need to sink our faith into our opportunities and not be deterred by opposition.

3. Opportunity may make you feel inadequate.

The Israelites saw “giants” & it made them feel like grasshoppers.

Opportunities may make us feel overwhelmed. No body likes this feeling but we have to push past those feelings if we want to lay hold of the opportunity.

Opportunities have a twofold purpose in God’s economy:

• to impact the life of someone else
• to cause you to grow in our faith

When we can only see “giants”, we need to turn our eyes to see how great our God is.

[1Cor1:27] “ God has chosen the foolish things to confound the wise & the weak to shame the powerful.”

So what should our response to opportunity be?

Our response needs to be like Caleb in Numbers 13:30:

• Let’s rise up at once
  - commit yourself to the challenge
  - move out of the comfort zone
• Take possession of the land
  - take repsonsibilty
  -  make a battle plan & move forward step by step.

This year I believe that God will bring many opportunities across our path. We may encounter opposition as we pursue them & they may seem overwhelming at times, but sink your faith into them & don’t let go.

Let’s make 2006 our Year of Opportunity and make an impact for God’s Kingdom in our world!