0618 "REFRAMING THE MIND OF CHRIST WITHIN Y-O-U"

We lack the ability to handle it well. We lack the ability to handle it gracefully. We lack the ability to handle it with faith to say, Lord, I'm late in my season. And that means that I need help. Because if I was one who would have met my season, if I was one who was able to meet my season on my own, then I would have talked to the Lord, I would have obtained the mind of the Lord, I would obtain the blessing of the Lord, and I would have prayed in the Lord, I would have opened the door, and I would have had it, right Lord? So the fact that I still don't have it means that there must be something that is either affecting the season somewhere, something that is causing the season to be delayed, somewhere something that is causing the season, not to be fruitful, you know, in some way. And then once people realize that, they begin to have so many different responses, they begin to have so many different reactions, and it's rarely the right one. It's upset, it's anger, a lot of times, especially with women, much less with men, because men tend to just go out and medicate with sexual gratification, or with alcohol, with friends and things like that. Women become despondent, women become hopeless, women become so sad, women become suicidal, women become desperate, women become so many different things. But God is faithful. Our God is so immensely and incredibly faithful, and that is why it is worth investing before anything else that you want in life, before anything else you want, professional promotion, before, you know, whatever it is that you might be pursuing, you might be pursuing independent study, you might be pursuing further study, you might be working on a first novel, you might be diversifying here, you might be stepping out into business. It is worth investing in knowing God, knowing how God operates, and it is worth investing in giving God your yes every day, giving God your yes at all times, giving God your yes in every situation, so that when you come to bumps in the road, you do not have an outlier response. Outlier response is, you either at one end of the spectrum, you give up too early, outlier response, God is not in something, and you just keep going with it, it'll work, it'll work, it'll pick up. Remember, remember, there's a lot of us who waste a lot of years, oh, you know, remember, there was opposition, you know, and the devil comes against the kingdom, and the kingdom suffered violence, in this case, the kingdom is not suffering violence, God is not in the thing, but you won't seek God, you won't hear God, you won't pivot, you will just keep on with, for instance, a man who is wasting your time, a woman who is wasting your time, a person who is just there like a space filler, they're just there to plug this available gap on your time, and you keep thinking, "Oh, they'll come around, one day she'll be interested in marriage." She's not interested in marriage. She's told you 10,000 times. She's turned you down five times, asking her sixth time is not going to turn her into marriageable material. It's worth investing time in knowing the mind of the Lord for our lives, because once we obtain God's mind through a particular scripture or set of scriptures that he gives us to encourage us, once we obtain the mind of God through prayer, if the mind of God is revealed to us in dreams, if the mind of God is revealed to us through prophecy that we can trust, having that mind goes a long way to setting the stage for how we navigate seasons where we don't have what we want. Knowing the mind of God on a matter has enabled me to stand for. In some cases, over a decade on a promise until it happened. And we're not required to stand perfectly. It doesn't mean that standing means that you will stand without tears. It doesn't mean that standing means that you will stand without fatigue. It doesn't mean that standing means that you will stand always. Oh, bless God. I'm too blessed to be stressed. No, we are real. We go through seasons. We go through emotions. We go through moments of doubt. Will this ever happen and things like that? We go through those things, but obtaining the mind of God and making time to invest in how he does his things, even in the face of steady and studied and steadfast opposition. God has a game plan for opposition situations. God has a game plan for delayed situations. God has a game plan for where Satan has sworn that it is over your dead body, over his dead body or even yours, that you will advance in a certain matter. God has a game plan for that. He's not confounded when things go to extra time. And that is the faithfulness. Oh God, my Father, there is no shadow turning with thee. Thou changeest not the compassion they fail not, as thou hast been thou forever will be. Greatest thy faithfulness, Greatest thy faithfulness, morning by morning, numerous seas I see, morning by morning. All I have needed thy hand has provided. Greatest thy faithfulness, Lord unto me. God is faithful despite the variables to the particular problem that our lives can present. Because he is the infinite integer, because he is that part of the math problem that is able to become any integer, any number, any variable, he's able to become the plus sign, he's able to become the equal, he's able to become the minus, he's able to become the to the power of 10 to the power of 20, because God is not limited. In any expression, that is why the situation is never done. And that is why we are told things like men ought always to pray without ceasing. Because when you look at the situation and it looks like a 2 plus 2 is equal to a 4, that is when God is getting ready to turn it into something else. He's getting ready to divide it and turn the whole situation into a 1. He's never done. He's never out of options. And that is why I was saying at the beginning, the work, the work that is required of us in Christianity. Quine heavenly is the battle to believe. Yes. It's not that we don't do warfare against spirits, against powers, against principalities, against princes, against the haunts, the demons, whatever. It's not that we don't do battle against them. It's not that we are not required to use the wisdom that we find in Psalm 119, we find it all to the book of Psalms, we find it all to the book of Proverbs, ecclesiastes. You know, it is not that we are not required to use the wisdom in the wisdom books to help us navigate our lives better. It's not that. The battle to be won in Christianity is the battle of faith. It is the battle of believing God. The greatest battle that we will face and therefore, the highest complexity that Christians are struggling with is why don't you believe until you obtain the result that you say makes you a believer. Why do you not believe? Why do you fainst? saying, why do you give up? Why do you quit? Why do you call the match before the empire does? You're not umpiring this match. You're not the referee. You're not calling the match. You're not the commentator. Nobody hired you to be anything here. You're actually on the team. You're on the team. How do you come on the pitch? How do you come on the field to play a match? And then when you can see that the other person has 17 goals against you, you become faint-hearted and then you walk off. You can't walk off. You get disqualified that way. Those are the rules. You're contracted to play until the end. You're contracted to play until the end even if you lose. That's your job. You are paid to play the full 90 minutes. You are paid to play the full four quarters. You can't see other things. people putting coins on the board and then because you become discovered you start talking against that's why I didn't like basketball anyway. You are in the Jersey friend. Hello. You are wearing team colors. How can you be speaking against the thing that puts money in your pocket? You weren't saying that when you were getting paid. You weren't saying that when you were getting drafted. No. You weren't saying that God was wonderful when you got a promotion. God was wonderful when you got your first house. God was wonderful when you got chosen for whatever it is that you got chosen. So why now when there's delay, when there's opposition, when there's storms, then you start crying out to Jesus, "Care you not that we die?" Is he not in the same boat as you? If you have no faith because of the strength of the storm, will you not at least extend to the Lord the respect of knowing that, "Well, if he's in the same boat as me, he must care about his life at least." If you can't see how he cares about yours, can you not extend to him the respect that well he cares about his life? He wouldn't sit here and drown. I'm in the same boat as him. So whatever it is that's happening to him is going to happen to me too. He has to care about his own life. So by extrapolation, he has to care about my life because we're in the same situation. He said, "I will never leave you. I will never forsake you." The Lord is very faithful. The Lord is very faithful. And the Lord is also compassionate. And He knows when the time is long. The Lord knows what He feels like to wait for answers for many seasons, many seasons. And that's another thing that we struggle with in Christianity. When you go through a season and you don't obtain what you want at the end of it, it's natural that you should understand there's going to be another season. We haven't lived through one winter and then we all died. That's not how it is. We know that the winter comes again. We know that the summer comes again. The spring, the fall, they come again. So we know then that seasons are cyclic because the Lord has told us in Romans chapter 1 that we know everything that we need to know about Him by just observing the nature. Just by looking at nature, you can learn many things about God. Just by looking at nature, you can learn many things about the personality of God, the characteristics of God. You look at the sea. You have to know that God is very great, very boundless and very unsearchable. The sea may be searchable by God, but it's not searchable by us. The sea is an unsearchable mystery. God Himself is an unsearchable mystery. Therefore, if you look at and observe the sea, you see a characteristic of the maker of the sea. He has made the sea unsearchable by man. And that's how He is. We can't actually search the depths of God. All we know of God, He has allowed the things you know of God are from the Word of God. He has made them available to us in anything extra. If there's any extras that He reveals through friendship, if He reveals it through prophecy, if He reveals it through a mystery, if He reveals it through just giving you insight into a particular Bible verse that allows you to break it open in a way that most people don't break it open. He's still allowed it. The searching of God can only be done by the allowance of God, by closeness with Him and by Him extending to say, I'll allow you to know me a little better here. We can know God by the mysteries of God. But then at the same time, because we don't apply our mind to study our environment, not with an interest so much. And I want to know scientifically how this works. I want to know scientifically, but let me observe nature and see that summer always comes. Summer always comes. That means that if I have not obtained what it is that I want in this season, the season will come again. The season will come again. And it won't always be like this. The Lord will perfect that concerning me. And sooner or later it'll turn in my favor. It's turning around for me. My God will perfect that concerning me. Around for me. Around for me. Around for me. Around for me. It won't always be like this. Because God is alive. The necessity to go the distance is what we are fighting to learn in Christianity. Many are reluctant to enter the ring to start training in that particular aspect. Endure rents, endurance, perseverance, that unspoken spiritual fruit. The ability to persevere, the ability to outlast the rounds that the devil is interested. Satan can be interested all the time. Satan has strong bully characteristics. Satan likes, Satan likes weak prey as much as anyone else. Nobody wants to get out there and start wrestling a wild pig. Very few animals have the stamina to wrestle a wild pig until they eat it. From hyena to a lion to a lep- yes, because those little things will fight. They will run, they will dart, they will jump in some mud, they will do everything to preserve life. They don't sit there and become easy prey. They're not like a deer that once it runs for a while or a rabbit, it just freezes. And no, no, no. Very few animals will be willing to take on a hippo. Very few animals will be willing to take on bison, take on, you know, a wildebeest. Very few predators have the stomach to want to tangle with an animal that they know. I can eat you, but I don't want to be eating you with one eye missing, one ear trampled, my thorax crushed by a horn. That's not a meal that I will think that I think I will enjoy. And the devil is no different. So sometimes in Christianity, it's about learning how to outlast the rounds that Satan is willing to go with you. And then sometimes it's just about making sure that you put out a very clear signal that you're willing to back this up that I'm not easy prey. I'm not easy prey. My children are not easy prey. My home is not easy prey. My health is not easy prey. My job is not easy prey. My aspirations, the things that I dream of, the things that I pray for, these are not easy. This is not easy prey. I'm not one of those that you attack once you attack twice and then I start crying. That's not it, devil. I am willing to go to rounds. Very few Christians are interested in learning how to do this and then making sure that they do it and then making sure that they keep doing it and don't stop because maybe a new level has been reached, a new level has been unlocked. And now I don't have to do this anymore. I do have the house. I do have the marriage. I finally got the baby and then you rest and then the devil is like, okay, round, never ending. It's about being built to last. It's about continuing to maintain an excellent quality of faith over time. If you start out with faith and then your faith begins to degrade, your faith begins to become radioactive because you're on the field and you're playing the game and you start to see the other team put up more points than you and then you get discouraged and then you start taking off the journey, the jersey and wanting to walk off the field. What kind of player are you to begin with? It means that in your soul you were only a player contracted during a winning season. You never said it when you signed up. You never said it when you got drafted. But in your heart was only the possibility of joy in the play, willingness in the play if your team is winning. You don't have the grace to lose. You don't have the grace to lose and know that just as season, just as football has seasons, just as the NBA and the NFL have seasons, this Christianity also has seasons. This Christianity also has seasons. We only want to be a part of the winning season. But the season that will outlast seasons of defeat, seasons of loss. Yes, seasons of delay to cultivate a faith that is still good. The wine of faith that whenever Jesus puts in a cup and draws that thing from your spirit. Sometimes there may be a little few tinges of sourness to the wine. But in our human, we have pain, we have disappointment, we have stress. We cry, we get disappointed. But to just sit there and actively allow the entire barrel of wine inside you to go bad. No. No. It won't always be like that. The Lord will perfect that concerning me and sooner or later. It will turn in my favor. Sooner or later, it will turn in my favor. I said sooner or later. Around for me. Around for me. Around for me. We have to learn how to wait on God. We have to learn how to love on God despite the losses. Sometimes it's the fans who will blame the coach. He's a bad coach. Fire him. How do you fire Jesus Christ? Where are you going from there? I'm going to be with you. There's no direction without God. How do you fire? How do you fire the person who's keeping you in the game? How do you allow bitterness to confuse the relationship you have with the coach? You're not the coach. Sometimes you want to play a certain way. Coach is not letting you play that way. Sometimes you want to play coaches not letting you play at all. Coach is putting you on the bench. Coach is saying to some people that you're not actually going to play any further season. They're people who are not going to be with us for very long. It's very painful to contemplate. Coach has made an executive decision. I'm not going to renew your contract. That doesn't make coach a bad person. Because for all intents and purposes, that word "coach" means the one with the best game plan. The one with the expertise to make the kind of decisions that I may not understand. Sometimes coaches cut players that make no sense. The coach has had conversations with management and everything. And they've made these decisions based on a lot of factors that sometimes the fans can't see. And sometimes the players themselves can't see. And then the decision comes down and everybody's upset and everybody's angry. He's our best player. But maybe these people are looking at the long game. Yes. Sometimes they're looking at the long game. Sometimes they're looking at factors that we cannot see. That's why some aspects of Christianity just require excessive trust in God. Yeah. They require excessive trust in God. And we just have to have faith. That God knows what he's doing. That God is making his decisions based on factors. We don't have all the information necessary. We don't have everything available to us. I am the creator. I am the maker of the universe. I am the one who spoke into nothing and all creation heard. I am He who has all power in my hands. Amen. And if you believe on my word and you can stand, I am Healer, Mander of Broken Hearts. I'll fall, Mega, you're destiny and where you start. I am the one who does impossible things. That's who I am. Just let me be who I am to you. That's who I am. Just let me be who I am for you. These are immensely powerful words. None of us is creator. None of us is maker. None of us is Healer. Even mothers who give comfort to their children cannot actually call themselves a Mander of a broken heart. A mother can be a suitor of your pain momentarily. But true heartbreak, we say that time heals all wounds and the honor of time is Jesus Christ. I am Healer, Mander of Broken Hearts. That's who I am. That's who I am. These are the meditations that keep us balanced through the seasons. Some of us are playing as if there's only one season. If I don't get it done this season, if it doesn't happen this year, that's a recipe for insanity. That's a rookie Christian mistake. A rookie Christian mistake that can be made by somebody 30 years in the faith who's facing what they think is a deadline. They facing what they think is an elimination deadline. If I don't get it done, if it doesn't happen, if nothing. It doesn't say where you end. That's who I am. That's who I am. Differentiating between where you end and where God begins is essential to a peaceful walk in Christianity. It's essential to keeping your wits about you, to not losing your mind. It's essential not to fall for the pressure of this world. Oh, if you don't get it done, if you're not married by this time, if you're not a homeowner, okay, then what? The end of the day, the day is going to end. The sun will still come up tomorrow. That's what. Mindsets like this are the kind of mindsets that add mileage to your Christianity. These things that I'm saying, these are the things that deepen your Christianity. These are the things that sweeten your Christianity. These are the things that enrich your Christianity. These are the things that take childishness out of how you approach God and how you interact. We'll ask you and then what? You ask them and then what? And then what? And then you didn't do it. Okay. And then what? What are your next steps? This is what I would always say to someone because I get tired of so much noise. And then I was praying, okay, you were praying and then what? What's your plan? You're not going to pray anymore? What are you doing? You're becoming Bahai? What's the plan? You prayed? You didn't get it. You played an ining or two, several seasons or two. You didn't take the trophy. And then what? I need to know what comes next because unless you're dying tomorrow, you must have a plan. Is the plan to then soak? Is the plan to then start a podcast to talk about God in a negative way? Because a lot of people, they don't have podcasts, but they're definitely podcasting against God in their hearts. They're talking about Him in their hearts. They're angry at Him in their hearts. He didn't do what they wanted. He didn't do what they asked. They didn't get the result that they wanted. And now there's that distance. There's that, there's that discord. There's that dislike. There are Christians walking around disliking God because they got divorced. They dislike God because their wife separated from them, went off to have an affair or just went off because she was tired or went off because she didn't want to be married anymore. Whatever reason it is, she's not there anymore. And they prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and she's not coming back. And this is not one of those miraculous situations where if you pray and pray, she's coming back. The lady has moved on. She is not coming back. It was at one, at two, at three. It ended. You prayed. And the Lord did not return her. It was not a case of cast your bread upon the waters and then after many days it will be returned to you. This lady is not returning to you. She is at present pregnant for someone else. Now what? Now what? Now what? What comes next? What's the next step to podcast against God in your heart? Coach has access to information. Coach has access to plays that you don't have. And part of the piece that comes from a mature Christianity is understanding that neither your first or last name is God. Check your passport, check your driver's license, check whatever it is. Piece of paperwork that you have. Your first name is not God. Your second name is not Jehovah El Roy. And none of those things. Richness, good aged Christianity, aged like fine wine, is coming to an understanding of the differential between you and God and then asking him for the grace to be okay with it. No matter what the season is, no matter whether you carry the cup or not in that season, whether you are benched for a season, whether you are cut from the team entirely, you can't be out, you can't be angry over the death of a loved one forever. The loved one has come to an end. You are still here. You have to go on. You cannot be angry at God since you were nine that you lost a parent, that you lost a sibling, that you got married and then within a year you lost your wife. And then I ask you how long ago that was and you're calling these big numbers seven years, nine yet you can't live like that. That's not life. That's not life. The soul cannot live without God. I am here who holds all power in my hands. And if you believe on my word, you can't stand, I am healer. Mender of broken hearts. Alpha Omega, you're destined me and where you'll start. I am the one who doesn't possible. I am just let me be who I am to you. That's who I am just let me be who I am for you. Lord I'm praying for your people today because there's so many broken hearts. There's so many broken hearts and what I would just call stalled Christian careers. There's so many broken hearts, so many stalled Christian careers, so many people that are stuck. They are stuck in the emotional bandwagon of thinking that emotion is God. How I feel about what happened emotion is not God. Emotion is exactly like a spoon. Emotion is just a tool. It has a function. A spoon gets spoonable into your mouth. You don't eat spaghetti with a spoon. It doesn't work. Spoon is the wrong implement to handle spaghetti but it's the right implement for ice cream. Spoon is only useful when you use a spoon to do spoonable things. Emotion is not useful in this Christian faith. It is just not. It's not called this Christian emotion. It is called this Christian faith. Faith is the life blender of this thing called Christianity without it. There is no point without it. There is no way. There is no path. There is no nothing. It can't work. And yet in so many areas of our lives all we have and all we bring to the table is emotion. God I feel. I feel. What is the word of God say? What is the word of God say concerning that issue? What is the word of God say concerning infertility? I will make the children of the barren woman more than the one who gave birth. That's what the Bible says about the inability to conceive. It doesn't say, oh, I'm feeling depressed because we've been trying for six months. You are okay to feel depressed but you can't stop at the depression because the depression is a spoon in spaghetti. It does not work. It cannot work. Depression is your observation about a situation about which you don't have all the facts. In the moment of depression you can't see the season that you conceive. But you won't be able to get to that season without getting a fork which is faith. We eat spaghetti with faith. We navigate Christianity with faith. We eat spaghetti with a fork and we navigate Christianity with faith. You cannot navigate Christianity by your emotions. Sorry. No way. Goodbye. The terms Christianity has been around so long that it is painful to watch people live in a way that insists that God should change the terms of engagement for them now. We're at the end. This is the end. It's too late to start expecting new rules. It's never been that way. Emotion has never been the key. It's always been faith. In order for God to fulfill his role as the one who does impossible things we need to bring faith. Now faith is. We need to bring faith. I pray for your people tonight. I pray for those who are heartbroken. I pray for the people who are disappointed. I pray for the people who really have fought a good fight. And having done all the continue to fight, they've stood and having done all the continue to stand. But their backs are burdened. Their minds are worried. Their hearts are heavy. They've sustained many losses. And it seems like it's just continually night. It seems like it's continually night. It seems like the situation doesn't want to give. It seems like the situation doesn't want to turn. It seems like the situation doesn't want to obey the word of God. Some people are standing and they're declaring the word of God. They are. are declaring it, they're speaking it over, they're situation and nothing is happening. But there's power in the name of Jesus. Giants fall. ♪ There is power in your name ♪ ♪ Miracles happen in your name ♪ ♪ Miracles happen as we lift our voice in praise ♪ ♪ It's you that I see ♪ ♪ It's you that I see ♪ ♪ At the center of it all ♪ ♪ It's you that I see ♪ ♪ It's you that I see ♪ ♪ There is power in your name ♪ ♪ Miracles happen in your name ♪ ♪ As we lift our voice in praise ♪ ♪ It's you that I see ♪ ♪ It's you that I see ♪ ♪ You are bigger, bigger than the biggest ♪ ♪ You are stronger, stronger than the strongest ♪ ♪ You are higher, higher than the highest ♪ ♪ You are greater, greater than the greatest Jesus ♪ ♪ Jesus, Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh Jesus ♪ ♪ I find my peace in you ♪ ♪ Jesus, Jesus ♪ ♪ All of my joy ♪ ♪ In you, Jesus ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪ There's people who need rest for their minds. They're tormented in their minds, and they don't understand that the reason for the torment is the picture, the distorted image of God that they have in their mind. Having a distorted image of God, seeing God wrongly, angry at God, hating God, offended at God will cause great torment in your mind. It's like taking a ball of thorns, opening your skull and putting that ball of thorns next to the tender, quivering flesh of your brain, and sealing the two of them in there. Mistaking God, miss painting God, misdiagnosing God, seeing Him wrongly, it will create agony in your soul, because we are not created to see our God as anything other than fantastic. In his right picture, in his right framing, even in times of suffering, you will feel peace. Jesus Christ is peace, bodily. He is the living thing that is called peace. But when you look at Him and see Him as He's the one that did this, He let this happen to me, no, you will be tortured. You will be in multiplied agonies of spirit. I see people suffering because of how they see God in their mind, because of who they look at Him to be, how they see Him, what they think, what they think He is. If you are walking around thinking that God is too small for your problem, you are suffering a suffering that I cannot understand. If you think that God is too small, God who created the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, the Indian Ocean, the Marianas trench, God who created these things, God who is responsible for rainbows, for rain, for snow, these mighty functionaries that Romans chapter one tells you, all that you need to know about God can be seen in the creation, in nature. These mighty processes, when it's cold, there's nothing we can do about cold. When it's cold, we freeze, that's it. The only thing that we can do is put clothing on our bodies to stay warm. That is how powerless and helpless we are in front of extreme heat and extreme cold, both extreme heat and extreme cold come from God. We can do nothing to affect them. And yet this person who has access to this kind of power, when it comes to our personal problem, our brain somewhere, somehow convinces us, he's smaller than the thing that's happening to me. He can't fix the thing that's happening to me. My problem is beyond Jesus. You will cook in the torment of that kind of ideology. Who makes God small destroys his own soul, her own soul? Nothing is beyond him. Right framing of God is necessary to even begin to understand what Christianity is. Lord, you said that at the name of Jesus, every need will bow and every tongue will confess. I'm praying that at the entrance, the entrance of the Lord's Word, it gives lights. It illuminates the mind. It takes away darkness, it removes ignorance. It brings peace. It puts gasoline in the tank, free of charge, no tariffs. The Word of God switches on the light in dark minds. It causes people to realize, to wake up from the spell of the enemy. It causes people to wake up and to realize who their God is. I pray that you will set people's minds free right now. Yes. I pray that you will open people's minds to who you are. Indescribable. Uncontainable. You place the stars in the sky and you know them by name. You are amazing God. All powerful, untainable. All struck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim. You are amazing God. Incomparable, unchangeable. You see the depths of my heart and you love me the same. You are amazing God. You are amazing God. There's a right orientation of God that is necessary for his people to even be able to navigate the storms ahead. Right orientation, a right understanding. Who is this God? Who is this King? Who is this mighty Redeemer, this door opener? In all the hustle and the bustle to prepare and procure and do everything. How are you framing God in the mind? They say that sometimes a painting can be immediately but the frame can do everything for it. The frame that you put around a mediocre painting can make it look much better than it actually is. We need to really help us to come back, Lloyd. Help us to come back to centering ourselves around you and not centering you around us. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, not the gospel of the people. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, not the gospel of the Christian. The Christian is like a bit player. The Christian is an actor in your movie, not the other way around. When people testify of the things that God has done, they don't testify of the things that God has done so that they can be the main actor or the star in the testimony. The main actor and the star in every testimony, every true Godly testimony anyway, is the miraculous thing that God has done. See what God has done. Have you heard what the Lord has done? He has destroyed the works of Satan. What's the rest of it Tracy? You've given us the victory and that's what we say. He has given us the victory. That's why we say, oh say it is it. Whatever it is. Yes, oh say it. Something like that. Something like that. It's very important to brag about your God. It's very important to boast about the God that you have. In rags. Job was able to talk about the greatness of God. Amen. You don't only talk about the greatness of God when you've been invited to the palace. You don't only talk about the greatness of God on the mountain top. You must talk about the greatness of God at the funeral. At the funeral. If that person has lived right, others will say this person's faith, her faith, to the end. It can't just be the Muslims who are converting. There was this Muslim guy. I wish his name came to mind. He found faith in Jesus Christ and converted and was a powerful voice here in the United States. And then he got sick and died. And in dying people of Muslim faith were saying, so where is the power of the God? And he was like, it's within me. He lives in me. His name was what? Nabil Koreshi. My friend always used to talk about him. He died. Praising Jesus. He died with the testimony of Christ on his lips. Not bitter. Firm to the end. Amen. He challenged his original community of faith and told them, who told you because I'm dying? I've lost. He's alive. He lives in me. Though I die, though I perish. He is alive in me. Who told you you won anything? Who told you you proved anything? Living Christians are not capable of the faith of a dying man who found Jesus after years of following another faith, another belief. Christianity is not entitlement. I'm not in here to say, okay, I get my parking validated. That's not what it's about. Lord, I pray for your people that you will give your people a right orientation of who you are. Clean their eyes. Clean their windscreens. Clean the screens of their lives. Clean their lenses. Upgrade their lenses. Sometimes you wear glasses so long your eyes are still getting worse a year by year. You need to have your lenses upgraded every two to three years. You go back to take a test to see where are you now? What's strength of glasses do you need now? And the reason we undertake that process is because we continue. We need to continue to see clearly without dated lenses, seeing gets hard, seeing gets blurry, seeing gets painful because your eyes are working with the wrong type of glasses. We need to rethink. We need to reorient. We need to upgrade how we see God. We need to reframe the Son of God in our minds. Is he creator? Is he maker? Is he healer? Or is he the one who lets you down? Is he the one who didn't answer when you prayed? Is he the one, oh, I hate to hear this thing. I hate to hear that. What do you mean God loves other people more than you? Do you think he made other people out of the good clay and then he made you out of the leftover lumps? What is that? What is happening in your brain? What is going on in your mind? To think that. That's the devil at work in your brain. And then on top of that, when you think that enough then Satan gets you to open your mouth and curse your life and curse your relationship with God. Well, I guess I saw he did it for her and for him. I guess God just loves other people more than me. Stop that repent if that is your mouth. Take your mouth back to the anvil of the Holy Spirit and let him reshape it into a vessel fit for honor so that you can say honorable things. There's this level of self-discipline that is not practiced and people like, well, tell us how to do it. You must control yourself. That is how it's done. Before you start the day, you must ask the Holy Spirit for grace to season your tongue with salt for grace to speak only good things. Positive things. I will not speak against my life today. I will not murmur or complain today. I will have expectations of good in all I do. As I go about my day, I will expect favor. I command the favor of God over my life because I am a chosen son, a chosen daughter in Christ. It's your job to learn the vocabulary of the team you want to play for. You can't come to this team and then be saying stuff like that. Next to players like me, I'll be like, what's wrong with you? You need to sit on the bench, tighten your cleats and sit it out for a couple of plays until you figure out what you're doing here. You have one life and then you're murmuring and complaining against your life because the devil has poisoned the well on the inside and darkened your lens. Darkened your eyes. Tracy, where's that scripture that I always use? The one about if your eyes dark. There's the lines of the eye being straight along to the other one. How great is the darkness of the body? Yes, I always quote that. Right now it's late. The Bible says that if your eye is light, your whole body will be filled with light. But if your eye is dark, then your body will be filled with dark. But then it gives a third category and that's where a lot of Christians find themselves. You that your eye is dark, but then you think your eye is light. It says you deceived. How deep is the darkness within you? How do you dwell in darkness and then and then still say I'm a believer? Your eye is dark. You think dark things. You have dark expectations. You see goddess dark. You see goddess far off goddess unhelpful. If you just bring that into a real life situation, you meet someone and then you say, oh, you know, I needed something and I was calling you and you didn't pick up. I guess you just didn't want to help me. 10 out of 10 ask me if that person hearing you say that about them will then want to help you. I say, oh, no, no, no, I do. I so do know they will be very annoyed. They will some people even say, that's the way you feel the last way it is. Have a good day. It's not to cut off access from God. The Lord is right there. The Lord is right near. The Bible says when you feel God is distant, it is your job to open the Scripture and read where it says the Lord is near to the oppressed. That is your job. That is how you make that false feeling of Him being far away. That's how you make it go away. You may have the feeling, but the feeling is not to be all and end all because this is not the team of emotions. This is the team of faith. That's what Christianity is. That's the team of faith. Those are the jerseys we are wearing. Team faith, not team feelings. When you feel that God is distant, it is your job to get on the internet if you don't know where to find the scriptures immediately and say, "Scripture is for the closeness of God." Then you will see it says, "God is near to the oppressed. God is near to the widow. He is near to the orphan. He is near to the brokenhearted. He is near to those who are weak and faint in spirit. I will never leave you or forsake you. It's your job to open your mouth and to begin to confess that reality against the reality that you feel and the faith, the confession of those words carries power. It will begin to cut that thick, dark cloud of what you feel, but because people elevate their feelings as God. And you cannot talk to them. Are you trying to invalidate my feelings? Yes. Over here on Master's Voice, I'm sick of all the feelings. I wish we could get some faith. I'm sick of it. It's always about feeling this is how I feel. I just feel that, well, thank you. Thank you for coming to the podcast. Now what does the Bible say after what you feel? Because that is the thing that will bring a result. A feeling never manifested squats except fleshly responses and a fleshly way of navigation and a fleshly way of doing things. It is faith spoken with absolute certainty in who God is that will manifest the result every time. I don't care how many seasons the door must open. At the Word of God, there is prophecy over me. Hallelujah. The Word of God is better than anything else. The Word of God, it will always produce a result. I cannot give up now. I cannot fail my Lord. I must fulfill my call. There is prophecy over me. It also helps to have people who pray, people who know how to pray when you are feeling down. The devil loves loan sheep. I always tell people. Everybody on the internet is a mighty Christian. I still go to church. Always have always will. I am not a symphony of one. Community. In a buffalo who will tear the enemy when he comes to try and corner you, sometimes life can take you from a buffalo size to a sheep size to even a rabbit size. Easy pray. Having connections, having people to say I am feeling down today, can we pray today? A lot of us just want to transfer everything. I am feeling down today. Can you pray for me? How about can we pray today so that you can actively participate in your renewal? Confessions over your life. Correct worship over your life. Correct songs. Correct orientation. Not only in how you see God, but how you see yourself. A lot of Christians have this which is just me against the world. You are not two-pock. There are a lot more people in your corner but because your eyes are dark, everybody in your household is your enemy. So, sometimes you are the problem in the household. Sometimes you think that your archangel Michael, so you don't have to work, you don't have to participate, you don't have to do a job. You are so busy being holy that you don't need to participate, you don't need to actually pay rent with everybody else. You are a scammer and your family sick of you. That's the problem. You want to live rent free. You don't want to contribute. How do you think that people in the world can respect you if you are part of a research team and you don't want to do the research and when they ask you why no, I was up late into the night because the Lord said they don't care. You have a job. It's a group assignment. Do your share. Nobody cares about what's going on with you and your God when there's an A at stake and you're trying to turn it into a B minus because you're lazy and you just don't want to be held accountable. Nobody's falling for that scam. There's nobody who's too holy on this earth to work. Apostle Paul had a job, okay? You're not too holy to work. You're not too holy to pay a bill. You're not too holy to pull the ropes. You're not too holy to show up and play your position. Nobody cares about all that noise. Oh, I was in a cloud. Come down, okay? And contribute to the group rents in the apartment. Thank you. Then you can go back in the cloud. Okay, you've paid your share after you've done the dishes. Terrible stewards. Oh, it's just me and God. No, even God is not part of that thing. That thing is just you. It's just you. Christianity is so complicated. It's multifaceted. I always tell people it's a full-time job to do it correctly. I'm amazed at how many people have time to run their mouth on the internet because getting this thing right is a full-time job. It shifts. It changes every moment, every second. There's another aspect of it that you need to work on. Something happens. Oh, I'm not going to get angry there. Lord, help me. Oh, Lord, they're about to close. I was about to apply for something, but it looks like they're closing. Lord, give me favor with the guy at the men ought always to pray and not faint. There's so much to be going on. I am amazed that people have time to be in the comments section of what? I don't know where they find the time. Father, I pray that you will open the eyes of everyone who hears this message. I pray you will open the hearts of everyone who hears this message. I pray that you will drive away the cop web of deception out of people. Deception that the enemy brings in, but I also pray, Lord, that you will clear away the cop webs of deceit. Deceit that lives in people's own minds, where they see themselves as something that they're not, where they see you as something that they're not. A lot of us in this faith, we practice deception, but I come against the Spirit of deception right now in the name of Jesus. That I command the Spirit of deception to depart out of the people of God. I cast out the Spirit of deception. I command the Spirit of deception to depart, to go, to be blown out by the wind of the Holy Spirit, incoming into the people, through the windows of their Spirit, their minds, their bodies, their souls. I pray for the Lord to turn the wheel again and orient the tires of His people straight, many people expecting to go in a straight line with their tires bent, the wheel fully bent to the left, fully bent to the right, unable to go straight. As long as you keep your wheels bent at about 70 to 90 degree angles or something like that, all you can do is go in a circle. You just keep going in a circle, going in a circle, then you get frustrated. No, your wheels have to be oriented straight in order for you to make progress forward. I'm not going back, I'm moving ahead, I'm headed to declare to you. The past is over in you, all things are made new, surrender your life to Christ and be moving, moving forward, forward, forward, forward. Sometimes it inch a week, sometimes 30 miles, depending on the wind that God puts behind your back. Keep trying to do something first week, second week, it's not working in a day. I can help you cover incredible ground. You get home, you are shocked at how much of the to-do list just fell into your lap. You have to give thanks, you have to give praise, you have to know where that came from. I am the one who does impound. possible things. That's who I am. That's who I am. Father, we thank you for the time in the Word of God. It's always wonderful God. Time in your presence, not planned, not scripted, not knowing what the Spirit wants to say. But it always comes out, Lord, and to you we give the glory. We give the honor, we give the praise. We give the thanks, giving. Wisdom, the Word of God says, is profitable to direct. Wisdom is better than gems. Wisdom is better than Bitcoin. Wisdom is better than stock portfolios in all you're getting. The Bible says, get wisdom. Wisdom enables us to live life well. And if we are mature, life is not only positive things. Life contains many painful things, difficult things, tearing things, heartbreaking things. How is it that we as people of God will not develop competencies to go through pain well? How? Help us Lord. Help us Jesus. Help us Lord. Help us Lord. Help us Jesus. With the down seasons, with the off seasons, with the weight gain, with the bad diagnosis. Help us Jesus. When our spouse leaves us, when our children are bad, when our children get arrested, when our children get given 23 years sentences unfairly, because of the blind and biased justice system. Help us Jesus as we lose our rights. Help us Jesus. This season is dark, that means more is required. None of it in feeling and complaining all the time or fear. Fear, fear, fear. The spirit of fear must be driven out of the house. You cannot tolerate to live with your fear. It is your job to use the Word of God. To drive it out of the house, to find the scriptures on fear and declare them until it releases your mind. Fear is like a crab in the brain squeezing your brain. You must use the Word of God until you feel the pressure. Loose, break, in the name of Jesus. Amen. We thank you Lord. We bless you Lord. We give you glory. We give you praise. We give you honor. We are grateful. Your presence is always welcome. Your wisdom even more so. Your understanding. will love you Lord. sem We love the fragrance of your holy name. You came and brought us into the reign of grace. And we sing glory to the righteous one. We hear it glory to the righteous one. How we love your name, Jesus, heal the beautiful one. We love your name, we love you. We love your name. Lord, we live out of a posture of love towards you. We live, we must live, we must love our God. If you love someone, you just won't keep talking about them the way that some people do. You just can't run your mouth on someone that you love. It's impossible. Someone that you love, the way that you present them to others, the way that you talk about them to others. Even if he had a weak spot which he doesn't, which God does not, you would never expose his weak spot to others because of love. It's when there's discord inside you, it's when there's disdain, disconnect. When you don't see enough of yourself in Jesus, then you start talking about him a type of way. Then you just stay dry. I said your life would dry up like corn caught in an endless season, a blitz of drought. If you don't know how to talk about God and the training comes in training your tongue to present him only in positive terms, no matter what. Because he's good all the time. He's good no matter what's going on in your life, my life. God does not change his orientation according to what's happening to you or me. It doesn't work like that. He's not the pearl of great price to become the rusty nail in another season because something's gone wrong. No. We loved the fragrance of your holy name. We love you. Yeah. Came and brought us into the reign of grace and we sing glory to the righteous one. We love you. Glory to the righteous one. We love your name. We love your essence. We love your presence. We love your book. We love your stories. We love your doings in the cave of Adulam running from Saul and false accusations. We love you. We love you. Because who reads the word knows that you can't live in a cave forever. Eventually the unjust government falls. Eventually the unjust king is removed. Eventually the wicked are handled. They're eaten by worms. Eventually the lying tongue, the forward tongue, the perverse mouth is destroyed. There's no situation that lasts forever. It's that Christians have not learned how to last longer than the season. This is the tragedy. This is the problem. You can't just say I'm disappointed and put a full stop there. Okay. You're disappointed and then what? What is your plan for tomorrow? I don't know what to do. Okay. Is your ignorance eternal or are you planning to learn the information that you don't know so that you can become knowledgeable and take next steps? What's happening? What's going on? Yes. There has to be a backup plan. There has to be a next step. We don't just make pronouncements. My heart is broken and maddened and then what? What are you? What are you doing about it? Are you in counseling? Are you in therapy? Are you talking to someone? Are you praying? Are you taking walks on memory foam sneakers? What's happening? Father, we thank You and we bless You. We love You. We thank You so much for Your presence. We thank You so much for Your goodness, for Your love, for Your mercy, for Your kindness. You are loved Jesus. Jesus you are I loved you. You are loved Lord. Yes, you are. I know. Bless you Lord Jesus. I love you. [INAUDIBLE] Amen. We end with an oldie, but a goodie. Hmm. First of all, I found the verse. It's Matthew chapter 6, 22 to 23. It says, "The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, the whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness." So therefore, the light that is in you, if therefore, the light that is in you is darkness. How great is that darkness, that's the verse I was looking for. But here, it's an old time-honored verse, Matthew 7 and 7. And it says, "Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find knock." And it will be opened to you. Verse 8, "For everyone who asks, receives, and he who seeks, finds, and to him who knocks, he will be opened." It's not just to say, "Well, I asked and he didn't do it." There's nothing like that. If you listen to this, then you know that there's 100 billion dynamics. The Bible goes with each other, you know? You can read a verse like this, and it says, "Everyone who asks, receives." And then right in the same Bible, it will say, "You have not, because you ask not." Then you can say, "But I did ask." And then that same verse will answer you and say, "But you ask to spend it on your lust." "Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh." "Yeah, I'll see myself out." "I'll see myself out." "Yeah." "Who, but I asked." And then God said, "Yeah, but it was for your lust." It was for no good cause. I saw your heart as you asked. "Yes, it's not just a blank check, you know, ask and get." And then you'd like, "I ask for my 15-year-old neighbor to love me in my old age." "No, Mr. Nasty." "No, it doesn't work like that." "No." This same Bible, you have to learn, that's why it's essential to learn the word of God, because it actually layers itself in the most wonderfully complicated way. And you can't just say, "Well, it says here, yes, but it says in another place, did you know about the other place?" Because they go together. Nobody makes a sandwich of just bread, that sounds like a choking hazard. There's a lot of things that go into a sandwich. That's why dexterity, skill, with the word of God, built up by reading it, by learning it, and going, "You know this part matches something else I read on this side." That's how you build skill in warfare. That's how you handle the sword of the word of God, better and better and better. The more chapters you add, the more verses that you add, the more that you read, the more that you continue to say, "Holy Spirit, don't let this book sit in front of me like a brick, but open it up to me that I get the goodness in it." The Bible is to some people like a coconut, uncrackable. They're just rolling it around like a sealed coconut. On, in other people's lives, the Holy Spirit is breaking open that thing and feeding them both the water and the meat inside it. Lord, we thank You for Your presence. I really appreciate how You always come. You always give us Your time. I love You, Lord. I love You very much. You are loved by Me and by all who love You. In Spirit and in Truth. We thank You for this time, Lord. In Jesus' name, we've prayed. Amen. Amen.