Day 23 (2011)
7:10 - Opening Prayer - Thanks that you set the record straight. You showed us who you are through Jesus. ➡ We’ve been looking and seeing that you sent Jesus to come as you are and reveal truth to us - not a truth - the truth. Continue to teach us through your life - your example. Thank you for renewing and restoring our minds back to the way….
8:30 - 1 Corinthians 13 - Recap - v.1-3 - Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. -
Aspire to a pure motive of love - Love is selfless - no ulterior selfish motive - If you don’t have love you don’t have anything. So our motive is love. One simple reason. Love is SELFless. So whatever you do, it has to be fueled by love because it is selfless. If you are doing things for yourself - selfish ulterior motives - then there are strings attached - to draw attention to yourself, etc. It makes it muddy - the strong grace of God isn’t on that stuff.
Wilderness Experiences - Selfish vs. Selfless
9:25 - In the wilderness - The Israelites were selfish - Jesus was selfless - Children of Israel as a warning - 2 Cor. 10 - We talked about the Israelites. Written so that we don’t follow them and make the same mistakes. Jesus’ life is written so that we do follow Him. The Israelites made a lot of mistakes. Why? They were thinking for themselves constantly (selfish). They were in the wilderness with God - but they were concerned about unimportant issues - complaining, opinions. But God was there. Missing the big picture due to frustration. There’s always something to be thankful about. God is there. What else matters?
10:40 - Keep your heart in a thankful place so that you don't miss the beauty of what God's doing in the midst of life. Even when things are challenging.
11:25 - You're never going to die - That takes fear out of your life. Gives you a bigger picture than just right now. Jesus had way bigger vision than right now and He wants us to have that too. Or you will be driven by need and circumstances.
12:10 - Israelites in the wilderness - God wanted to make Himself known through His children - But they could only think of their comfort - God took them that way because the other way was even tougher: Philistines. They would have lost heart because of war. They complained, “It would be better for us if we were back in Egypt.” There is the deception. It’s all about God’s glory, His image, His name. When you say, “It would be better for ME...,” you’ve already missed Him. They weren’t going to the promised land just for them. God was going to make a statement for His name through the people. He let other nations know that the Israelites were His children. God is with them. They were feared. They were to manifest God. But they were thinking for themselves.
13:40 - Jesus in the wilderness - Jesus was there for God and for us - Right after baptism led into the wilderness. The only difference in the experience of the Israelites v. Jesus in the wilderness is perspective. The Israelites didn’t want to be in the wilderness and were thinking for themSELVES. Jesus was led into the wilderness by God’s Spirit and was there for God and you. And He didn’t lack anything. His flesh hungered but His Spirit was full. The Israelites had meat hanging out of their teeth and lean souls - fat bellies and lean souls.
15:00 - There was a drastic difference in outcome - Jesus succeeds where the Israelites failed. 40 yrs v. 40 days. Jesus come out in the Spirit and power. They wandered in the desert and died and never saw the promised land. Only one difference - motivation - self and selfless.
15:50 - Deny yourSELF to pick up your cross - You have to deny yourself first - Luke 9:23. If you don’t deny yourself first, you won’t pick up your cross because the first time something goes wrong you are frustrated. How are you going to carry your cross if you are living for you? How are you going to walk through injustice if it's all about fairness and people treating you right. We've reduced Christianity to a prayer for blessing and a prayer to go to heaven. Christianity is about being transformed - restored back to who God created you to be. Here is what love is...
Love Defined
16:45 - v.4 - Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, -
Become love - Love includes patience, kindness, goodness etc. - Here is what love is. Attributes of love - Prayer for patience - Don't pray for patience, God just might give it to you. Love is patient - just become love. When you say, “I need patience,” you are just saying that you lack love. You're just splitting up love into attributes. Why get an attribute of love, when you can become love.
18:20 - kind - It enjoys loving you. Not selfish, frustrated. It's not frustrated because it's not violated because it's not selfish. You can't break loves heart. You can't mess up love's day. It's an amazing place to live. You are not waking up for you.
18:30 - “Living for God” - living with the motivation of manifesting His name and loving the world that He died for.
19:20 - The gospel demands change but God isn’t pushy. He just came in the beauty of Jesus’ life. We just love Jesus. But we don’t understand that He wants to reproduce Himself in us. He is making us one.
21:05 - Love doesn't parade itself around. It's too busy looking out for others. Not puffed up. Not proud.
21:30 - We were born into attitudes that are counterproductive to the kingdom - Really listen, because we have been taught attitudes that have nothing to do with the kingdom. They are counterproductive. Born into counterproductive attitudes.
22:30 - We all need to be born again one day - Good mothers think they are doing something wrong - when these attitudes arise (in the child). The child will just need to be born again some day. Just keep modeling Christ. She throws a tantrum because she is thinking for herself. Mothers get in condemnation. We're born into the fall of man - selfishness. Selfishness is the opposite of love.
24:10 - You and I grow up in those mentalities. They are normal. It's the way that seems right.
24:20 - Jesus wasn’t born into Adam - He was born of the Father - Didn’t have these self centered attitudes. He never sinned. We are born of the Father through Christ. Not the will of the flesh or the will of man but of the will of God. We get re-fathered. Now His Spirit comes into us. But the mind is what the gospel wants to renew. But you’ve got to “want to.” The flesh and the world will try to crush, suppress that “want to.” The war is against the things of the spirit.
God gets the Blame - "God Allowed It" Mentality
26:15 - Yesterday you spoke about man’s lack of knowledge, power of the tongue and we reap what we sow - Could you expand on this? (Is God to blame for the bad things that happen? If not, why not?)
The "God allowed it" mentality is contrary to the gospel - He gave us the kingdom - We are to rise up and subdue - God made man to have dominion over the earth, gave Him authority and told him to subdue the earth. That is still in place. When man surrendered and gave up the life-line, the love-line to God, he became subdued instead of subduing. Christ comes and subdues - wins everything back and gives us the kingdom. And we are still blaming God for stuff - when God has given us the kingdom. He has given us: the power of His name - the authority of the name of Jesus, the truth of the finished work of Christ and He told us to live by faith. If we decree a thing, it will come to pass. If we gather, agreeing, touching anything with faith, not doubting, believing, according to the will of God, it shall be done. Whatever things, all things, whatever you ask in prayer, believing, shall be done. There is a place to grow in authority - selfless - fearless - full of courage without being in presumption and pride and subdue the earth.
27:35 - That’s the restoration of Christ. He put the kingdom back in our hands. He put you back in the position of reigning - little k - King of kings - little l - Lord of lords.
28:10 - We have not realized our role and responsibility - So we are destroyed for the lack of knowledge. Hosea 4:6 He gives us the knowledge but we reject it.
28:20 - God has given us an abundance of knowledge through Jesus. But we are still debating over what God is like. Letting our experience in life support our theory of what He is like. We are looking at life going, “See because this happened God is this…” “Well, you can’t tell me this is true or this would have never happened.” We are over-relying on our experiences not realizing the responsibility that we have - to live in faith and not in fear - to live selfless and not selfish.
28:50 - Not everything that happens is God's will - Man opens doors - So every time man lives in that opposite way (from the way which is revealed so clearly through Jesus), he opens the door to things that aren’t the will of God.
29:05 - Everything that happens is not the will of God. We were taught that everything that happens is the will of God. The Bible doesn’t teach that. The Bible teaches that you are destroyed because of a lack of knowledge not because of the will of God. Get the knowledge, stop the destruction. God has given the understanding through His word.
29:45 - Power of life and death in the tongue - God can will life and men speak death and reap what they sow. Why? Because He made man to govern the earth in His image (love), in His glory and by His Spirit.
30:10 - Not everything that happens is God’s will - God’s desire is that all men be saved and filled with the knowledge of truth. 1 Tim 2:4 Are all men saved? Does God want all men saved? Yes. Are they all saved? No. Well then everything that is happening is not the will of God.
30:35 - God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked would repent. Ezekiel 33:11 Do all wicked repent and return? No. Does God take pleasure in that? No. So He didn’t orchestrate that.
31:00 - The lie that everything is God’s will ("God allowed it") is interjected to keep us from intimate relationship with God - To stop the kingdom from being manifested through us - Do you see how little lies (that everything is God’s will) were interjected into our lives all along the way? So that we wouldn’t press in and seek God and become what we were created to be - so that we would just put it all (blame everything) on God - and take on the attitude of whatever will be will be. Then we learn to live life as it comes and come up with an explanation (of why God allowed it) as we need one. When the Bible says study and show yourself approved. Blame shifting to God to protect ourselves - So who are we falsely protecting all along the way with that kind of language - (those explanations for what is happening in life that we wrongly attribute to God’s will)? Protecting ourselves (from blame for not fulfilling our responsibility in bringing His will to pass and opening doors for things that are not God’s will. And we do this) at our own cost because we are never growing up in truth and truth makes us free.
31:55 - You reap what you sow - Why do we say that that has anything to do with the will of God? If you sow into the flesh, of the flesh you reap destruction and corruption. Is that the will of God? No. But can you reap that? Yes. Why? Because you chose that.
32:15 - It’s amazing how we grew up to think. If someone gets murdered, hit by a car, in a wreck and automatically the world brings God into the conversation. “I don’t know why God allowed that to happen. Why would He do that?” Because God is the culprit people don’t want to get intimate with Him.
33:20 - God on trial - We’ve got God on trial. Song. “You have me on trial but it is your mistake.”
33:40 - Grumbling against God like Israelites - We are just like the children of Israel wandering through our whole life, grumbling and complaining and falling dead, when there is a promised land. It’s the same exact scenario happening today and it is even happening in the church. Or you can follow Jesus. The wilderness is not a bad place. God’s there. Who cares where I am at if God is there?
Death Had No Power Over Jesus
35:00 - Death had no power over Jesus - Jesus’ Death - Participant’s comment on your spirit never being separated from God, even in death. Jesus had to be separated from the Father at death but we don't have to be separated ever.
37:15 - Parallels of the cross - That is one of the parallels of the cross - He was separated so that you could be forever joined.
38:00 - Romans 5:12 - The only way Jesus died - Separated from the Father and seen as sin - He was made to be sin - that's what separated Him. He took on the position of a sinner. So that you could take on the position of a son - a saint. He became what we were on the cross so that we could become what He is.
38:35 - Remember how Jesus said, nobody takes my life - I freely give it? Was Jesus totally and completely innocent? sin free? He never sinned. He was raised from the dead by the Spirit of holiness. Death couldn't hold Him. Innocent blood was shed. Through His innocence, the guilty go free. By faith in Him, our guilt is washed away.
39:20 - Have you ever wondered how He could be beat beyond description and not be dead? It's not possible. All that time He is still preaching truth. Even in the midst of all of that pain.
41:30 - Description of the pain He went through. Movie: The Passion.
42:30 - Rom. 5:12 - Death entered through sin. But Jesus never sinned. So I'm thinking - no wonder they couldn't kill Him.
42:50 - Why was Jesus so troubled in the garden of Gethsemane? Was He getting cold feet? No, love never fails. It doesn't change its mind. If there is any other way... but if not then let's go for it. Then what was going on? He knows that He is going to pay the price for every sin and yet not even be able to escape through death.
43:30 - Death had no power over Him. He had to be made to be sin. Then He was in the position of a sinful man. Jesus couldn’t die while they were beating Him because He had not sinned. The whole time they were beating Him, He is still Life - the author of Life - the resurrection and the Life.
44:20 - He was marred more than any of the sons of men (Is. 52). Think of what has been done to men over history. This was worse. You couldn't tell who He was. And He is still alive and He is talking.
45:10 - They couldn't kill Him until He was hanging on the tree. At that point God cursed sin on the tree. God wasn't cursing His Son. He was cursing sin.
45:30 - So God dealt with sin forever. Sin will have no domion over you. Jesus took on that sin and its curse so that we could be made right with God.
45:40 - Parallels of the cross - Beat beyond description - He was beaten until unrecognizable so that man could regain his appearance. Man lost his appearance and identity when he ate the fruit. Man looked nothing like the image of God.
46:25 - That's love - to go into an areana for that kind of beating and not even be able to escape through death.
46:40 - Mocking - Pharisees. Man is thinking save yourself. But Jesus was there to save them. That's love.
48:20 - I don’t believe Jesus could have died until He was put on the cross and made to be sin. And still it was a willing thing (voluntary). He never sinned.
The Mind of Love - Phil. 2
➡ 49:00 - Back to love - You've got to get this cross thing. It's the story of our lives. It's not some sentimental Easter story - and "Oh, poor Jesus..." He doesn't even want you to cry for Him. Because He knew in three days He was going to rise from the dead and sit at the right hand of God and be King and Lord forever. So it was not death unto death but death unto life. But not just life unto Him... Go to Phil. 2. I want you to see how many place this stuff is at in the Bible.
49:50 - Philippians 2 - v.1-3 - If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. -
50:05 - So there is encouragement through Christ, comfort through the love of the Father and intimacy - koinonia fellowship with the Holy Spirit.
50:15 - The mind of love - Like minded - one accord - one mind - He's talking about the mind of love - selflessness. Unity - different callings, graces, people but all waking up for the same reason: God’s image - to manifest His image. One mind - one accord - It's called love.
51:30 - Nothing means nothing.
52:00 - Lowliness of mind - humility.
52:10 - Better than themselves - In direct contrast to the mocking of the Pharisees. "He saved others. Let Him save Himself. Come down from the cross if you are the Son of God." Well, if I am selfish right now and come down from the cross, you will be lost forever. See how deceived the Pharisees were? They have no clue. Forgive them Father, they know not what they do. [Acting out that scenario] Love holds Jesus on the cross. He has no clue. But if I am lifted up I will draw him to Myself.
53:15 - Better get a grip on love. Jesus had every right to be right. But He said, Forgive them Father... See how opposite the two are?
Getting Off Track in Ministry
53:30 - Esteem others more highly than ourselves - The leaders of the day were considering self higher than anything. Jesus exposed the motive behind what they were doing - self. It had nothing to do with love and truth. When love and truth came it was totally opposite of their motives.
54:00 - Minister the kingdom that already exists - And they would rather hold on to the kingdom that they were building than hold to the kingdom they were called to minister. Don't ever let yourself get trapped in that. Mocking Jesus on the cross. We’re not called to build a kingdom, we are called to minister one that is already built.
55:30 - It's easy to get off track in ministry - 30 years into church history - Phil 2:19-20 No one like minded like Timothy who will sincerely care for you. For all seek their own, not that of Christ Jesus. All - whoever else is ministering. If that's what it's like after 30 years, what's it like after 2000 years?
58:00 - Shared that scripture at pastors conference - 4 mos a pastor - to 60 pastors - It didn't fly well - disdain of other pastors - doesn’t matter how young - threatened by the word of the Lord - kingdoms being protected.
100:10 - Praying for the pastors from a wrong heart - starting to feel hurt - Shhh, that has nothing to do with you. Fulfill what I have called you to do. I was praying from the problem instead of the answer - instead of just enjoying my life in Him. Now I have an issue. Makes me seem spiritual.
102:10 - Pray with compassion, not because we are ticked.
Love Defined (cont.)
103:55 - 1 Corinthians 13 - Camping in love because we just read that the people mentioned in the first two verses would be Christian icons.
104:25 - v.1,2 - Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. - Describing Christian icons, keynote speakers.
Aspire to a motive of pure love - Not just to enjoy the response to God working through you - All mysteries, all knowledge, all faith to move every mountain - but without love it’s a zero. He is amplifying on purpose. Here's the point: That love has to be your motive or it will be your downfall. You’ll be doing things for the wrong reason. Fall into pride. Using the gift to draw attention to yourself. You’re not going to be able to sincerely care for the state of the people. You just like how people respond to how God moves through you. You just like how people respond to the move of God in your life. But God is all about sincerely caring for people - laying down your life for the sake of others - considering others more highly than yourself - without the need to be esteemed because God is rocking through your life. And you go to bed feeling good about yourself because everybody loves you because God moves through you. He is saying that that is twisted.
106:00 - All mountains - Sounds like that man has arrived. You haven’t arrived until you have become love. He wants us to be selfless so that we can sincerely care for the state of others. Just be sincere. Care for others - God can work with that.
107:20 - History records many people who moved in gifts but had secret alcoholism, spousal abuse, etc. They were identified by the way God moved through them instead of their heart being one with Christ. That causes a lot of problems. But if you sincerely care for others there is nothing to be exposed.
108:45 - v.3 - Good deeds with twisted motive - And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. - It doesn’t profit you even though you did it for you. If you do what you do to be seen by men, you have your reward already. The best you can get from men is all you get. Because it’s for you. It’s not for His name sake and for others. False motive. God’s grace is not on a false motive. Nothing eternal.
1:10:10 - It’s possible to live this way (with false motive) in the name of the Lord...
Your Christian Life - A Foundation is Laid & Something is Built
110:15 - 1 Corinthians 3 - v.10-11 - According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. -
There is a foundation laid - God is building something in our lives - For no other foundation… other than Jesus Christ. Remember the hearer and the doer (Mt. 7:24-26)? Hearer and the not doer? Same storm comes to both. The storm is trying to tear down what was built. God is building things through our lives. We lay the foundation in Christ - deep, solid. Now there is something built. So there is more than a foundation. You don’t just have a Christian confession. God is building something in your life.
111:30 - Picture: Standing on quartz rock. The rock said “Christ.” There were 4 vines / bands coming out of my feet going around the rock tied in a big knot at the bottom of the rock. On every band it said “Love.” I’m founded on the rock, held there by love - rooted and grounded in love on the rock.
112:30 - It’s not just a confession, it’s a life change. It’s a motivation lived. It’s not just going to church and singing the right songs.
112:45 - I’m founded on the rock and I’m rooted and grounded in love and my life is being built up in Him. And we are stone upon stone being built into a spiritual house. God is building something. It’s called His Church - not buildings but people. He is building His church.
113:15 - The storms of life come against what is built - The adversity is to stop the kingdom - What are the storms after? You? Or what is being built? If you are selfish you think that the storms are against you. “Why is God letting this happen to me? How come everything bad always happens to me?” No, it’s against (the bigger picture of) the kingdom.
113:45 - See the storm for what it is (clear perspective) - Live by faith and let His grace see you through - It’s not you. If you are in this for you - for blessing - for heaven, it’s going to be hell on earth. Because your perspective will make it that way. You see right - if there is faith, there is always grace. You are saved by grace through faith. Grace brings the salvation of the Lord - not talking about heaven - talking about saved, healed, delivered, protected, preserved, made whole, kept safe and sound. And if there is no faith through a clear perspective, then there is no grace to save. You’ve got to have faith. If you have a selfish mindset, are you going to be in faith or in despair? If you are only thinking for yourself and you don’t have God’s interest - God’s name and others - in your heart.
114:45 - Your life speaks - You model something - Let it be more than self-centeredness - My life is called to be a model and a living epistle written in the hearts of men and so is yours. It’s mine not just because I teach, it’s mine because I’m in Christ. Your life is called to be a model and a living epistle written in the hearts of men. Your life speaks, way more than your words. A good name is more valuable than gold. You want to model something - reproduce something. Or we are just in this for us - just trying to catch a break - and God bless me.
False Motives - Your Legacy Depends on Your Motivation
115:40 - v.12 - Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; -
Your motivation determines what you leave behind - Builds - three little pigs - big bad devil. Building your life on self-centered desire. Or laying a foundation in Christ and letting your life build in a little self-interest / passiveness. Huff and puff and put a little storm in your life. And everything you have in life, we’ll see, it’s shallow. It will come crashing down. And in one breath of adversity you find what you are standing on. Run to your brother, but he’s got some of the same motivations, so he’s not got the best shelter either. They built with what was easy - the shortcut way. There is a house that stands. He blew and blew. Sounds like Matt.7 to me. Two little pigs found grace in the third pigs house.
119:00 - v.13 - Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. - Each one’s work will become clear - Time is going to make it evident what we have built. In the day of trial and testing / adversity not just in “that” day.
120:00 - Don't let the pain of yesterday be your motivation - Some of us have heard and haven’t done and feel like we have suffered loss. And instead of getting the right understanding and repentance and regrouping, we’ve just been hurt, discouraged, disappointed, sorry for ourselves and we’ve been overrun. God has given us an answer. But we are busy still muddling through the rubble.
120:35 - Sometimes you just have to push things to the side like a bulldozer and start building again. There are people He is talking to right now. You are letting every day be built on the pain of yesterday. And God is giving you the ability to start afresh with a clear foundation and build a brand new house. And you are still milling through the rubble of the last hurricane. I am talking to a handfull of people in this room. Be very careful that you don't let that happen.
122:10 - Don't let offense be your motivation - Trapped being offended - Misty Edward’s song - I don’t want to be offended if it’s all coming down (Baptize my Heart). I don’t want to be end up caught in offense, when Christ gave me everything. Hurt and offended, when God’s good pleasure was to give me the kingdom and I couldn’t see past people to receive it.
123:20 - I wake up thankful for another day - the gift of life. Forget the challenges, the trials, the bills that need to be paid. That’s minuscule, petty, natural reality. That has nothing to do with who you are. He lives inside of you and wants to get in touch with you.
False Motives - Trials Reveal Motivations
123:50 - v.13 - trial by fire - the motivation of your life - the why behind your life.
124:15 - Measure your heart - One of the first messages I preached was on this text - 1 Cor. 3. Dec ‘95 - Living out of the motivation of your heart - this scripture.
125:00 - Fire reveals the quality of motivations in your life - Materials / Motivations - Gold, silver, precious stones - they have already endured fire. But not wood, stubble and straw. No wonder some of us experience such intense heat - there is so much to work with. When you tolerate a little bit of a wrong motive in your life, you’ve got a bonfire coming - selfishness.
126:10 - Satan loves it when people go to church and have wrong motivations. He loves it when people have a need to preach things and it is not the reality of their heart. Then he can pummel them in the very thing they are preaching.
126:40 - Wood, stubble and straw - wrong motives - makes for a pretty serious fire. And then we say, “God, why are you allowing this?”
127:10 - God wants your motives purified - Even if it involves some fire - God allowed it - the most damaging phrase in the church. God would say, “Why are you in position for it? I’ve done nothing wrong. Your mistake.” God didn’t administrate or orchestrate it at all. And He’s not obliged to just jump in and save you all the time. He wants to transform you and get your motive clear so the fires in your life stop getting ignited. It’s not about just snatching you out of the fire all the time.
128:00 - Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego went through fire - We might too - Did He stop the fire for Hebrew boys? No. He is greater than the fire. Those boys had the great privilege of showing what they were saying was true. Intense heat but no smell of smoke, nothing singed. But guess what was burning even brighter? The faith in their heart, the confidence in God. What they said they believed when they went in, they knew when they came out. Increased passion and intensity.
129:30 - It’s no longer a doctrine / theory when you go through a fire. It’s our lives. He is Lord over the fire.
130:25 - v.13 - of what sort it is - different motivations for doing what you do. Outwardly it looks like they are building on the foundation. But fire reveals the quality of motivation.
131:10 - Satan knows this - that when he puts a little pressure on people he finds out what's inside. Satan risks the fire because usually the motive exposed is not pure. Most of the time he finds despair, discouragement, complaining, frustration and backsliding after a while - with justification. "Well I tried that brother and God didn't help me. What's the use of going to church? It never worked for me anyway."
131:45 - Push the rubble away and let's build something new - that will stand.
132:00 - v.14 - If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. - work endures - that’s legacy - a selfless life that speaks for eternity.
132:10 - v.15 - If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
132:15 - He wants to transform you - Not leave you in self-centeredness - burned - Some people say, “Oh well, what does it matter if everything is burned up. At least I am saved.” You would have to question if you are saved since you don’t even care. God didn’t write that to give you a cop out of lethargy - "Who cares what I build." If you were selfless, it would matter what you built. If you’re selfish, you don’t care. God’s not writing this to give you a choice. He is making a point that He is merciful and amazing. And even if you get wires crossed and you let things falsely motivate you, at least you have ladi a foundation.
133:25 - Carnal Christians - this verse is not an excuse to live like the world. “We are carnal Christians. It will be through fire. But at least we know we are saved.” That is not a Christian at all. Why? Because of verse 16.
134:00 - v.16 - Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? - You probably ought to care if the Spirit of God dwells in you. You are not your own temple. You are the temple of God. You are not your own, you have been bought with a price.
134:30 - v.17 - If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. - If you see the truth and ignore it, defiling who you were created to be… The temple of God is HOLY and that’s who you are.
135:00 - v.18 - Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. - If anyone seems to be wise in this age, get a new grip. We value our opinions so much because we are still thinking for ourselves. For my whole life before Christ, I valued my opinion but didn't even like who I was.
135:35 - v.19 - For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. -
➡ 135:45 - 1 Cor. 3 Recap - I just wanted you to see that there is a foundation laid and there is something built and your motivation determines legacy.
136:00 - BREAK
Self-Centered Thinking - Discouragement
➡ 136:30 - 1 Corinthians 13 - Let’s try to wrap this up real quick. I’m going to go into some serious stuff. It’s confrontive, challenging. It’s going to stretch you.
136:50 - It’s easy to slip into old ways of thinking and hearing for yourSELF.
137:00 - Discouragement is not of God - We talk like we expect people to be discouraged. I wish you would see discouragement as an enemy. It’s not the way of God. If God was discouraged, He would have no hope and He is the God of all Hope. And He sees everything all the time. Is He in despair and discouraged? Discouragement is not normal.
137:35 - Discouragement has to do with considering yourSELF - In fact the Bible in Heb. 12:3 teaches that discouragement comes from considering yourself. If you are discouraged it’s because your eyes are turned inward and you are thinking for yourself. Where else would discouragement come from? You are looking at how things are affecting YOU - when your whole purpose should be - how are things affecting God and the kingdom and others. You want to live in a manner that is profitable in that direction.
138:00 - Paul in chains was not discouraged - So no matter how hard the hit is that you are taking, your response should be encouraging, edifying to the whole. When Paul is in chains and says it’s for your glory because he hasn’t lost his disposition, his worship, his zeal and his love for God just because he’s in chains. He’s getting the opportunity to live what he’s preaching. He’s not saying here we go again - his flesh might. You are not asking for that (persecution and chains), but when it comes his perspective is so clear that he says, “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” And then he goes on to say, “Look, I haven’t always had enough - full belly.”
138:50 - We often misrepresent faith - shifting the blame for lack of faith to the one in trial - Our circles today would tell Paul he needs to spruce up on his faith and get a little closer to God - to get plenty. We just judge one another with “faith”. Faith becomes a curse instead of a blessing - a hardship to people - and we don’t even like the word any more. Yet it’s impossible to please God without it and the just live by it. Satan is very strategic in how he represents and misrepresents things. Then when you start talking about faith people get defensive. “Don’t you tell me that I didn’t have faith.”
139:35 - We feel like when someone is in a trial - “Well, you had to open a door.” We miss that in Matt. 7 the same exact storm comes to the wise and the foolish man. And during the whole storm the wise man is wise. It doesn’t say he did anything wrong. The trial is coming to wreck what is built. It doesn’t want (to let stand) revelation, what is built.
140:15 - We’ve made adversity personal. And if you are going through something you have to be the cause. Sometimes you are just getting tried.
➡ 140:25 - 1 Cor 13 is going to have to wait.
140:30 - Fill your heart with the word - So your mind doesn't take over and come up with opinions - The Bible’s answers for every question of your heart - You want to get so filled with the word that the word answers every question in your heart. Do you see how there is always somewhere to go - some scripture? Camp out in the book. Fill your heart with the word. Otherwise your own mind will try to answer the questions and you are reduced to the way that seems right to man. Or at best, call a friend and ask their opinion - and sometimes we answer out of our own pain and confusion. We tell people what we would do instead of what Jesus would do.
Big Picture Perspective - Eternal Perspective
141:45 - 1 Peter 1 - v3-5 - Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. -
142:05 - Live from a bigger perspective than just today - This passage: It's the promise of eternal life - and living bigger than today - and a picture that is bigger than just what you are going through (the adversity you are going through) - knowing that heaven is reserved for you - that you are being kept by the power of God to a salvation ready to be revealed - that when we see Him we will be like Him. I take that personal for today - the more I see Him now, the more I’ll be like Him now.
142:30 - But we know that in that day we will be changed in the twinkling of an eye. Mortal will put on immortality.
143:00 - Camp there - turn everything off that is winning your attention - your heart, your mind - long enough to get established in truth. What is turned on keeps us from ever getting established. We can be too occupied to get established in what is eternal.
143:20 - v.3 - born again - what caused it? The mercy of God. He loves us. He knows who we are - our destiny. He knows the truth about you. You're worth the blood.
143:50 - v.4 - kept by the power of God through faith...
144:00 - v.5 - faith - keep your eyes on that truth. When everything is going wrong, that’s not the time to question faith - you better already have faith. When you have prayed and sickness is still in your body, you better have faith. If you don't have faith you are going to let go and take the sickness personally and question God.
144:30 - Stay in faith even when healing is not happening - Taking sickness personally. Lack of faith will subpoena God and He will be on trial again. Now His word isn’t true because of your experience. We are so busy saying faith is needed for the healing - no, faith is needed when when the healing is not happening like you think it should be happening. Have a higher integrity for God than you do for yourself or you will be stumbled. If you are in this for what He can do for you then you are going to fall flat on your face. You are in this for how He makes you more like Him. If you are in it for you, then you are a sitting duck. Adversity will come time and time again to derail you.
145:35 - Healing methods v. faith that works through love - We are not applying principles to get a result - In technique (principles, methods) you are going to apply promises to your life to prove God and in the process disprove Him if things don’t change. You subvert relationship and faith that works through love and knowing Him. You are applying God to your life instead of Him becoming your life. And you are left stranded in your own soul.
Faith & Disappointment
147:35 - How can you say that I didn’t have faith? How do you get over the disappointment? - I was so sure that I had faith. And it didn't happen. How do deal with that.
150:35 - You are going to have to really love me - (because my answer is probably going to upset you). The feeling and emotions of man are a very powerful thing. Here is how you get over it. You honor the word of of God above everything. We call - intense desire, intense hope - faith. But the Bible says when we believe, we receive. That’s not my sermon. I don’t know how I could have believed any more than I believed but still nothing changed.
152:25 - The evidence of faith is the mountain moving - Epileptic Boy - Matt 17:20 - Why couldn’t we cast it out? If you have faith, you can say to the mountain, “move” and the mountain will move. The evidence of faith is not speaking to the mountain, it is the mountain moving. Stay humble - we take things more personally than we realize. We don’t want a loved one to die, so we are praying hard. We are praying harder than we are actually believing. We think it’s our works - how hard we pray. The Bible says that faith moves the mountain.
153:50 - You put yourself in a precarious position emotionally when you say, “But, I had faith.” There have been times when I have said I just know it is going to happen and it doesn't happen. Every time that happens to me I say, “Father, I understand that faith moves the mountain. I feel like I’m believing - it seems like I’m believing and I was actually surprised when I got that phone call. And I thank you for working your kingdom in me because I know that if Jesus touches that situation it’s changed. And Christ you are in me and I worship you. And I submit my feeling to the honor of who You are.” I lift His word way above what I was sure I was feeling. I honor the word because He honored His word above His name. Or you are just set up for the rug being pulled out from under you.
155:10 - Stay in faith after a bad report - If you get a bad report after you have prayed, that’s where faith really comes in. Do I really believe God? Do I really trust His word? Or you lift your feelings above His word, have the bad report and then how can you ever be intimate with Him again until that is resolved?
155:55 - Faith is not the same thing as need - Faith v. need - It’s that twist to where I need you (Father), rather than I love you (Father). Because if I don’t get what I need most from you, then God is in limbo - when God is who we love more than anything.
156:10 - Don't be mad at God - Don't love His gifts more than you love Him - Your spouse is a gift - So we never covet the gift of God at the cost of who God is. Your human emotional value for your spouse can never get in the way of the position of who God is. This happens, you lose a spouse and people get mad at God. You are coveting the blessing of life above the giver of life. And when life doesn’t seem blessed just cut off the one because it is not blessed anyway. And you are reduced to thinking for yourself again.
156:55 - Satan is out to show that we really love ourselves more than God - Satan believes none of us love God. He believes that we love ourselves and the things around us more than God and that we use God to keep things straight.
157:15 - Respond in faith - You have to wrap faith around that disappointing experience and not be shaken from your faith.
157:20 - Wrap faith around disappointment - Father, with all of my heart I felt like I was in faith. And when I got that report, You know what I thought - rock bottom - I couldn't even speak. God, but I thank You that we haven't had a surgery. Here is my husband. I hold him every day. We go to bed every night. And I thank You that You are working a good thing. And God, grow me in faith because I want to be in a place where I am believing and mountains are moving. And that aneurysm is nothing in the light of You. I put my honor in You. Father me. Mature me. And grow me up. It feels like I have faith but I believe You are growing me into a revelation that when I touch, it is as if Jesus touched. I honor You above how I feel...
158:30 - Participant comment - living in expectation v. faith - it’s already done. Expectation says, I'm waiting. Faith says, It's already done. If I live in expectation, I have a certificate of divorce in hand, at the ready, if you don't come through the way that I expect you to come through.
159:05 - Disappointment arises out of self-centeredness - Here's the key: The way you felt when you got that report... we all understand that response. Most of us expect to be disappointed and call it normal. It reduces us to being motivated for our own wellbeing. And as soon as our wellbeing isn't fulfilled we are shaken. We pray for our sake and forget that we are living for His name's sake. So integrity towards His name doesn't fall apart there, it presses in MORE. It honors Him MORE. It seeks Him MORE.
200:00 - Faith lifts you out of disappointment - Those disappointments try to mark you, scar you so that you don’t want to try again - hope again. Faith lifts you above that and gets you growing again. Our losses, our disappointments should drive us TO God, if we are selfless. We humans expect the response of disappointment if the report is bad. But we are preaching faith.
201:45 - Stay in an attitude of "God keep growing me" - Not "But I was in faith" - Considering the unlimited promises of the Bible, humility says, “God, just keep growing me. Thank you for victory” - not hanging on to loss. When you say, “But I was in faith,” subconsciously you are saying that God’s word can’t be taken literally and He’s not faithful. That's a scary place. You're saying that God is not faithful.
203:00 - [Example of praying for little child and the emotions involved]. [Praying for loved one]
203:30 - Some people are crushed and don't get back up. Which means that the motivation for the prayer was not for the promoting of the kingdom. It was rescue and us and help... which leads to let down / disappointment.
204:00 - The motive behind your prayer should be to respond through God's heart - Make sure your motive is crystal clear - not using the gospel just to rescue my loved one. I'm becoming Christlike and standing in the face of adversity. I’m advancing the kingdom. I’m not praying because there is trouble. I recognize what it is through light and the word and I’m responding through God’s heart. That's a very different approach than the way most Christians live.
204:20 - Trouble driven prayer - We're always a step behind. We turn the gospel into a method by which we get help. And then we get disappointed in that method and we don’t grow in intimacy with the Father.
205:20 - The whole church was praying. Are you saying that no one had a mustard seed of faith?
Feelings of faith v. actual faith - Faith has to do with the finished work of Christ - Mustard seed of faith - While I was preaching one time someone said, “Aw come on Dan…” All I’m doing is reading God’s word. It’s not my doctrine. “It only takes a mustard seed. Are you saying the whole church is praying for them and nobody comes up with a mustard seed?” That's exactly what the word is saying. We confuse our deep down, not wanting them to die, with faith. That motivation might not have anything to do with the finished work of Christ, the legality of it, the conquering of darkness, hell and sin. It may just be because you have desperate need. So you set your heart emotionally on a promise and you’re just sure it is going to happen.
207:00 - ICU experiences - language of faith without life of faith - a high hope because that’s where love is at - it's what you want so badly that you block everything else out.
208:35 - Be careful that you are not demeaning the word and raising our feelings and human thinking above the word. If Jesus says “Assuredly, if you have faith, the mountain moves.” There is a place for me to grow into that - where I speak and the mountain moves.
209:00 - Don't let desire for the supernatural be your motive in praying - The why behind our praying - just trying to get the supernatural. No, get perfected in Christ - get formed in love. And let Him flow out of us. So that the why behind our praying isn’t fear that our loved one is going to die. The why behind our praying is the profuse, unstoppable, unfailing, immeasurable love of God that was manifest through Christ.
209:40 - So the humble response (of faith) is: God keep growing me, keep Fathering me, keep leading me because your word says that there is a way… And continue praying for the loved one. “We speak to that aneurysm… And you thank God…”
209:50 - How can we change our mindsets to a mindset of faith? - It’s up to Holy Spirit. We get zealous and we go after what the book says. And when it doesn’t pan out the way the book says, we come up with a reason why and we paint another picture. But you can’t find those reasons in Jesus’ life and He declared the total opposite. All the things that we say about God apart from Jesus and His life lived are made up through human wisdom.
112:00 - Jesus is our One teacher - Don't be taught by the circumstances of life - It’s our circumstance, our experience being our teacher instead of God’s word - Jesus. So we let a lot of things teach us when Christ is the teacher. Don’t let life teach you. Don’t let human wisdom teach you. Don’t let circumstances teach you. Don’t be conformed to the world. If you are in Christ, set your mind in heaven where Christ is, not on earth. You died. Your life is in Christ. That’s why I can’t get frustrated anymore.
213:00 - Let God give you a bigger perspective than this life - bigger than loss - We’re saved to write legacy, to live for His glory, to reveal the heart of God in love. We’re to love (agape) God, like He loves (agape) us. A love that believes the best. If God loved us any other way, we would be in big trouble. So even when it appears that God is not good, know that He is good.
214:50 - [Teaching from knees in home group]...
215:20 - You can’t touch me now - New perspective - even if wife and kids lost. People didn’t understand. We are so in this for our little bubble. God’s our home security. But if a crisis comes, we are toast because we don’t understand why we are here.
216:00 - Loss of child - How do you cheer them on if you don’t understand what I am saying? The best you can do is sympathize with them and the pain is never gone. But what if you have a bigger view and there is no pain that subverts your ability to live. You have faith in a way bigger picture. [prayer example]
216:50 - Most don’t understand this kind of perspective - crisis / loss doesn’t change a thing. Home group didn’t understand - family didn’t understand - it doesn’t change a thing.
217:20 - Loss - It’s no reason to be discouraged, to be selfish, to complain - it’s all the more reason to manifest what you say you believe.
217:30 - When satan sees that we lack of a bigger perspective he wants to callous us to the gospel - Satan takes advantage of our lack of bigger perspective.
218:15 - Satan loves to box us into a belief system that makes it hard to preach the truth because we can’t hear it (because of regret and hurt).
Elijah's Discouragement
218:45 - Participant comment - Elijah’s discouragement
219:45 - Learn from Elijah’s discouragement - Don't be intimidated by the enemy - Learning from Elijah’s life - an instant move of God - fire comes down - one lady (Jezebel) continues to oppose - After this great victory... The devil is an intimidator saying, “You haven’t moved me at all. And I'm coming for you.” Jezebel threatens - Elijah runs - discouragement dismantled Him and that mantle came on another who was willing and ready. "I can't take it any more."
222:30 - Discouragement dismantled him. Then came another man that was willing and ready.
223:30 - We are living for generations to come. That's what selflessness does.
223:45 - Intimidated by the enemy - Jezebel gets in Elijah’s face as if there was no victory and undermines the victory. You would think he would stand strong. But instead he runs. Feels sorry for self. Then he was given minor assignments and told to pass the mantle. We are privileged to carry callings and mantles. The mantle is not about the individual but about the God who is amazing.
225:10 - Run well - What we are teaching is: run the race worth of a prize and reach the goal, the high mark, the high call. And don’t be intimidated by the enemy at all.
225:25 - After some of your greatest victories, the enemy wants to turn it to you because you are gaining ground, and get right in your face as if to say, “I haven’t gone anywhere. You haven’t won.” To give you the opportunity to pick back up your own life and do something for your own sake.
226:00 - You love not your own life unto death because you are never going to die. We have surrendered. He is growing us up into a place of integrity. That's when faith is really required. Death is not even the issue.
226:50 - How do expectation and hope fit with faith? - Faith is the realization of my hope. Examples: Funeral of the widow’s son. He's not questioning on the inside. Take your mat and walk. He wasn't surprised. God uses us in mercy anyway. Our reactions show what our faith level was when we prayed. “Really? You don’t have pain?”
228:55 - So is it wrong to pray in expectation? - How do you try to have faith? Faith is the substance of hope and your hope comes from knowing Him. Faith is the spontaneous result of your relationship with God. It’s knowing Him. It works out of love.
230:00 - Faith comes from knowing Him - Faith works through love - We’ve let faith come from what we know from the Bible concerning our situation. And now we are putting our expectation in the fact that that will happen. And it could be apart from knowing Him. So when it doesn’t happen we are very confused as to who He is. “Where were you?” Just because you have found what the Bible says about your situation and you quote it, (doesn’t mean it’s faith).
230:35 - Faith works through love. It’s a relationship. Faith is the spontaneous flow of my life through knowing Him. If I am trying to have faith, I am revealing that I don’t. At best I’m reduced to, “I’m hoping this works.” And if it doesn’t, I can be very disappointed.
230:05 - The enemy seeks to subvert your connection to God - "You are just using God" - You’ve got to love not your own life unto death. The accuser is accusing day and night, day and night. Accusation - that you love yourself more than you love God. That you are incorporating Him into your life and applying Him to your life in hopes of a better life. And I’ll disappoint you. That’s the devils initiative right there: “I will disappoint you. Make your best charge but I will knock your feet out from under you. I believe that you are in this for what God can do for you.” And our minds say, “Why doesn’t God protect me?” He has by showing you the truth of living selfless.
231:45 - Overcome adversity through a changed perspective and loving not your own life - In the world you have tribulation but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. - John 16:33 Some would say, “Well, if you have overcome the world, why do I have tribulation?” We think overcoming the world means glassy seas. Overcoming the world means He took you out of the perspective, mindset, way of the world and you have a way bigger picture called everlasting life. It’s not about now, it’s about Him. That doesn’t open the door to defeat and remaining sick. But you have to lay that as a foundation or all those other things (adversities of life) are going to get you striving, scrambling, reading faith books, quoting all these promised and getting discouraged because it’s not your not your works. It’s His already finished work.
232:45 - Praying for the sick - We put our faith in what we are praying, how we are praying and it’s about what He has already done and His love for us. We pray “hard.”
233:10 - When we pray for the sick we get more conscious about what we are saying and if it sounds spiritual or right. It’s a lie. It’s not even what you pray, it’s what you believe.
Faith in the Face of Trials
233:40 - Back to 1 Peter 1 - v.1-3 - Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
234:20 - v.4 - To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, - There is a bigger picture - And we are going to run well by faith despite adversity because we see a bigger picture - We’ve got to get a bigger picture - for the joy that is set before us, press through. We’re going to run this race worthy of a prize.
234:45 - v.5 - Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. - Kept by the power of God through faith - Faith is having a crystal clear perspective in the face of chaos. When nothing's making sense, you still understand He is good. You still understand that it’s not about you and there’s a bigger picture. And even if you can’t dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s, you still believe. Still believing despite the arguments / challenges of others.
235:35 - We try to find the validity of God through the expression of life. But the validity of God is revealed through Christ.
236:15 - Living by feelings - the devil will eat your lunch.
236:45 - v.6 - Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: -
Joy is found in the salvation that has been provided - Not in the circumstances we are going through - I don’t know how many of us are rejoicing in the three prior verses. A lot of us let our rejoicing be dictated by how we feel (instead of the truth, 3 verses). If things are going well I rejoice. There is not a lot of joy in the church because we are trying to find it (circumstantially) somewhere else. It’s a salvation that is revealed. I'm saved forever. I'm alive forever. He will never change His mind about me. But we are just living for a better day. I’m in Him forever, what can you do to me now?
238:45 - Trials are a privilege to work kinks out - In the fire is where you find Him - if necessary - The trials are a great privilege to work kinks out - to solidify and work in you truth. And if it wasn’t for the trial you would never really know.
239:00 - The fire is where you find Him - Daniel and the lions den is just a philosophy until you have been in there. All you can do is rejoice in Daniel's revelation. But what if you get a revelation. We’re so afraid of the lions den - we are so self-centered and self-serving - we are trying to stay out of it - Get in there and find out He is God.
239:40 - We are so afraid of fires. We want them put out. We are living for circumstance free living. The fire is where you find Him. He is in the fire.
240:00 - Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego - I wonder if you are entitled to that revelation? You are in a covenant with greater glory and greater promise. But it takes the integrity that they had for you to get there. If you are just worried about the fire, your eyes aren’t on Him. And the only reason you call on Him is the fire. It’s not even your love of God but the fear of the fire. But it sounds like prayer and it sounds like faith. But it’s motivated by fear and flesh.
241:10 - grieved by various trials - A wrong perspective enrages that thing (the trial) and keeps you in there longer. It can mark you for a long time. And now you are a living product of what you have been through instead of what He has been through.
241:20 - v.7 - That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: - So that the genuineness of your faith - Here’s why God doesn’t stop it. If God jumped in the way every time… Satan takes a risk every time He touches you that he will perfect you in Christ. But he doesn’t believe you are sincere. He doesn’t believe you love God more than your own life. He’s sure you love yourself more than God. He’s sure that you are incorporating God into your life for a better day. God doesn’t get in the way because it’s your opportunity to be perfected - fine tuned.
242:20 - Faith is needed to endure the trial. Faith is needed in the heat of the trial. Faith is needed to press through.
242:55 - The trial brings a revelation of the finished work of Christ when you stand in faith.
243:05 - v.8 - Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: - Rejoicing in the midst of adversity. Standing in the wave break zone. Getting hit again and again and again. Rejoicing because it’s not about the fire raging but about the God who saves you. That’s not accepting defeat, it’s staying in a place of faith and faith will bring victory.
245:30 - v.9 - Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. -
The salvation of your souls - You get restored back to who you were created to be - the outcome of your faith - is the salvation of your soul - not your spirit. The redemption of your mind in a place of faith - your mind gets restored back to the beginning where all you see is God - where all you hear is God. And even though there are whisperings and feelings, you are back on track and walking in truth and your soul is redeemed and restored back to the beginning before sin and it’s effects. And you are living in truth.
246:00 - What is the purpose of your faith? The redemption of, the salvation of your mind and emotions. It’s starting to happen to me. I’m in that process.
246:30 - God takes no pleasure when you draw back because He can't fulfill His purpose through you - Drawing back - My soul takes no pleasure - because He can’t fulfill the reason He brought you forth and predestined you. So if you draw back you step out of the provision of destiny and grace. And God can’t write His story any more. When you step back you take the pen out of His hand.
247:00 - But you are not those who draw back - but those who press forward to the salvation of your soul. So if you don’t deny yourself and die to yourself and surrender yourself, you’ll never live that way. At best you’ll incorporate Him in. And that’s why so many people aren’t encouraged in the face of life even though the giver of life is here.
247:30 - That is what happened at Lazarus’ tomb. All they could see was the chaos, the loss, the blame shifting. And He is the resurrection and life. He’s standing right in the midst of the fall of man and all anybody could see was the fall. Their eyes were all on the wrong things.
247:50 - Closing - prayer