I want to share the Scripture in second Peter chapter one it says
and so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do
well to heat as a light that shines in a dark place until the
day dawns in the morning star rises in your heart.
Knowing this that no prophecy of scripture is of any private
interpretation for prophecy never came by the will of man,
but holy men of God spoke as they were removed by the Holy
Spirit. I have over this scripture
prophecy. I'm going to call it now the
inspired word because this is such an important thing for us
to understand. I love the Bible.
We should all love our Bible Bibles because the Bible says
that we should study the Bible and show ourself approved unto
God, a Workman that needeth not to be ashamed.
But we have to understand it's no ordinary book.
The purpose of the Bible is not to reach just our mind, although
that's a part of it for sure. But the Bible is a powerful and
in some ways mysterious book because it can come to us by
inspiration. What does that mean?
To inspire means to breathe life into something.
And God through his Holy Spirit, comes to each and every one of
us to breathe life into us. And concerning the Scriptures,
Jesus said my words are spirit and they are life.
So whenever we read the Bible or study the Bible, we should
always look for inspiration from God that the Holy Spirit would
come and breathe that upon us and make it alive to us.
And that's basically what the Bible says when it speaks about
prophecy. Prophecy is when someone has a
word from God and God breathes upon them and that word gives
life to other people. It's so important that we
understand what we call the prophetic word because God still
speaks today. But it was life changing for me
earlier in the year. I might even have been into last
year one day or when I was reading these scriptures and I
just never really thought of the Bible as being prophetic as well
as thinking about prophecy today.
But the Bible was prophecy that has been written down.
And because of that, we call it Scripture.
And through what's called in scripturization for a long term
there the Christian Church, and then going back into the Old
Testament, the Jewish people, there are certain prophetic
words that they said, no, this is God's word for us to become
Scripture. And so it's powerful for us to
read scripture, but it's also important for us to know God
still speaks today, not on the level of scripture because
that's something different, but he does take scripture and
inspire it to us. So it becomes living to us.
And today I'm going to share with you some of the thoughts
I've been hearing the Holy Spirit speak to me lately.
Because as long as I've been reading the Bible, hearing the
stories of the Bible, I can still say that I can read the
Bible and all of a sudden I can look at it and it'll come alive
to me and God will speak something to me.
I'm like, wow, that's amazing. Either I haven't seen it that
way before or just all of a sudden God says, no, that's for
you, take it. It's my word.
So the Holy Spirit comes to inspire us by the Word of God,
and I love that it says. And holy men of God spoke as
they were moved by the Holy Spirit, because from the very
beginning of time, God's desire has always been to use people.
And that's very important for us to understand that he uses
people. And so the Bible was written by
men of God. They're called holy simply not
because in necessarily they were separate from other people, but
they obviously had a close relationship with God where they
would let God speak to them and inspire them to give a message
to somebody else. Now most religions of the world
have been given to one person. They'll claim an Angel came to
them or claim some revelation came to them and they'll come up
with a religion. But as Christians, we have the
Bible that was pretty well written over a 2000 year period
of time, and it was written by many different people, but every
one of them was inspired by the Holy Spirit.
God uses people, and that's so important for us to understand
because oftentimes as Christians, we're looking for
God to move outside of the human condition.
But God moves through the human condition and we have to
understand that God still speaks today.
God wants to speak to every single one of us in this day and
recognize how He uses us. Now, it's important to realize
that because when God speaks, often times when he speaks to
somebody, he'll use their life experiences.
He'll use what kind of a person they are as a part of how he
speaks to and through them for other people.
Now, I wanted to share that with you because today we're going to
be reading and talking about Matthew chapter 2 for the last
few weeks and talking about the Christmas season.
We've been sharing from the Gospel of Luke.
Now these are two different stories read by two different
men. We receive them both as the word
of the Lord because they were inspired by the Holy Spirit.
But as you read it, you began to realize how that God used the
individual for the specific scripture that was given to
them. Luke was a physician.
He travelled with the apostle Paul, wrote the book of Acts and
also the book of Luke. He would not have been an
eyewitness of those events. He would have heard things from
other people, but the Holy Spirit would have inspired him
to write those things. Writing the book of Luke, we
notice he focuses on Mary, the mother of Jesus.
He tells the story about the virgin conception.
As a doctor, he would have certainly understood the details
of that, and he also told about the story of the mother as she
had to travel as a pregnant woman, have birth in a barn, and
all the different aspects that would be a part of that.
He would have had insight into that because guess what?
He was a physician and he gave to us really the mother's point
of view. Now, what we're going to read
today is from the Gospel of Matthew.
Now, Matthew was a disciple of Jesus Christ.
He was a tax collector. As a tax collector in those
days, he would not have worked for the Jewish government if you
would, he would have worked for the Romans.
They were the ones who taxed the people.
So he was very aware of the pitilitical condition of the
country and the high iron care of the land.
And so when you read the Gospel account in Matthew, we get
insight into the king, the establishment.
Why? Because God used him in a
different fashion. But what I also want to point
out today, that from Matthew's perspective, we see the Father
perspective because the Father perspective becomes the major
part of that story. On Wednesday for, or excuse me,
yeah, it was Wednesday for the Christmas Eve service.
I was sharing how that when I was a kid, I always wanted to
take care of animals. When my brother Matt was born, I
thought I'd take care of him. Well in time, whether it was
animals or people, I found out I wasn't much of a nurturer in the
long term. When Bonnie and I had our first
child, I thought was amazing. It was life changing.
I can't even express how awesome it was to have a child and to
see our children born. But in actual taking care of the
children, that was something that the nurturing part, I was
glad to hand that over to Bonnie.
Yesterday I saw my granddaughter and she's carrying around a baby
because the girls often times when they're little, they want
to take care of dolls and when they get older, they want to
take care of the baby. They have been given a nurturing
side. Now for the men, there's a
different aspect of how we work with the children and often
times we have to understand that's more in the section of
life where they need more protection or instruction.
In our children's department, we have the nursery and then we
have The Walking ones. I would say walking ones is when
they become real to me. You can actually do something
with them. You can see them play and when
they talk. I find that to be so incredible
to me. It's nothing like when your kids
first start talking and you're like amazed that came out of
that person. You know, it's just so strange
how it works. But that's why Matthew's story
is a little different, because this is the father's role.
It's important for us to see how these two things work together
for the purposes of God because in the earth God our Father
works, and then he also works through his church, which the
Bible says is the mother of us all in the family.
He gives mothers and he gives fathers.
And certainly in this story we have to say the two aspects of
how these things work together. Now having said that, I want to
end the story in the book of Luke it says and one they had
performed everything according to the law of the Lord.
They returned on to to their own town of Nazareth.
So notice after Luke is finished, they're going back to
Nazareth, which is where the story picks up in Matthew
chapter 2 is then the child grew and became strong, filled with
wisdom and the favor of God was upon him.
So how long would have it they would have been in Bethlehem as
we talked about the fact they went there because there was a
census. Everybody had to be registered
in their own country. Since Joseph and Mary of the
lineage of David, they had to go back to Bethlehem.
Now, when the child was born, and I'm sure their mind, it
wasn't the best time to go to Bethlehem.
The child, as we know, was born in a stable.
Now, according to the Jewish law, as we've rehearsed in one
of the messages, it's always necessary for the child to be
circumcised on the 8th day. Now when the Law of Moses came,
there also were laws of purification that he put upon
the people. And for a woman, after she had a
child, there was a time of purification, if you would,
before she could even leave the house.
And so that's when the circumcision experience would
have happened. But after the baby was
circumcised, there was another 35 day period of purification
before they could have actually went to the temple.
And to have dedicated the child in the holy place of the temple,
because there were other purification rights that were
necessary in their mind to be ready to go to the very presence
of God at the temple. And so the dedication would have
taken place about 35 days after that.
So all told, they probably were in Bethlehem just a little bit
over a month, maybe two months. And then the story picks up in
the book of Matthew, chapter 2. Now, often times people don't
understand this because most of what we've learned about the
Bible story of the Nativity are the things that we've learned.
And plays that we had in Sunday school when I was a kid, they
actually had those kind of plays at the public schools.
And you'd go there and you'd have at Christmas, you always
had a Christmas concert, whether you were in church or in school
in those days. Easter, all these religious
holidays that now have been kind of taken out of the public
school used to be all a part of it.
And so all of us have these mindsets about the stories.
And how many know if you're putting together a story of the
nativity on a stage, it had to kind of compress the story a
little bit, and that's what has happened overtime.
So because of that, oftentimes we don't really quite understand
the sequences of events that took place, but we need to go to
the scriptures and then we can find out what those things are.
Now, one of the reasons I want to share this today is because I
believe it's so important that we would understand that often
times we pick up traditions and concepts of the word of God
based on tradition or life experiences.
And sometimes a part of that inspiration is we have to go to
the scriptures and see something there and say, wait a minute, I
didn't read it like that before. Why did I think that way?
Well, it's because of our traditions, because of something
somebody's told us. But when God does something new
like he did when Jesus Christ came, just like I really believe
God's doing something new in the earth today, how do you know?
We have to be willing to lay aside our traditions and we have
to let God inspire us so that we can hear the word of God.
And so now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the
days of Herod the King, behold, wise men came from the east to
Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the
Jews? For we saw his star when it
rose, and I've come to worship him.
Now again, in the Matthews story, I call it the after story
because we have to realize this is a different setting than the
time when they were in Bethlehem and they were there in the
stable and the things that were going on there.
As a matter of fact, they may not have saw the star that we
often like to put in our plays because it was at a different
story. It was a part of the after
story, if you would. And the wise men, as we call
them, we're not really known as wise men in that day, but if
they're the translation of the original word, it's Maggie.
It's where we get the word magic or magicians, because in the
Eastern world that they were a part of, they were a part of
perhaps a religious group of people.
They were the experts at the time in some ways because they
believed that you could understand what was going on in
the world through astrology. We call it not astronomy, which
is science, but astrology. You might have noticed this in
the newspapers when I was a kid. Most people don't read
newspapers anymore, but we would always go to the comics and
underneath the comics there was the horoscopes.
That's a part of astrology. And of course, as a Christian,
we were told don't look at the horoscopes.
You can look at the comics, but not the horoscope.
Anyway, that's what these guys would have been familiar with
because to them the stars said something.
Most of the earlier religions that were not Christian or
Jewish in nature, they would have these pyramids and all
kinds of different things for the worship of the sun, worship
of the moon, worship of the stars.
So they weren't just wise men. There were people who were wise
in the traditions of their country.
They would have been looked at as experts for sure.
All we know is they come to Jerusalem and because of their
background, they think they know that the king is going to be
born in Jerusalem and it will be the king of the Jews and have,
you know, they were right there. And that's important to
understand because God often times uses people that we least
expect as a part of his process. So when you're a person wanting
to look for the purposes of God, you have to sometimes look
beyond your prejudices, beyond your perspective to understand,
well, God might be doing something bigger than you can
even fully understand. Now put up there the three wise
men because I want to emphasize the fact that, well, the Bible
doesn't say that there were three of them.
If you look it up in research and say, well, why did they say
3 wise men? Well, it's because of the gifts,
gold, frankincense, and mirror. 3 gifts must have been three
people. So that's where they come up
with the three wise men. When I was in 7th grade, I was
singing a solo in one of those Christmas programs.
They had me sing the first verse of We 3 Kings.
Most of you know that we 3 kings of Orient are bearing gifts.
We travelled so far filled and fountain more mountain following
younger star. I used to have a good voice back
in the 7th grade. I was a mezzo soprano they
called it, which is a very high voice.
So for those of you who don't think my voice changed when I
got older, it actually did. It just didn't fall far enough.
Amen. But anyway, we sang about the
three wise men. That's a part of the song.
That's why we believe there were three, but the Bible doesn't say
there were three. Again, that's just a part of the
tradition. And we look at church traditions
going all the way back. They've actually given the three
wise men names. They've had songs, they have
stories. I mean, there's so much
embellishment to the story and none of it come from the Bible.
Amen. That's just what we do as
people. That's why from time to time we
got to say, well, what embellishments have we added to
our religion? What embellishments have we
added to our relationship with God?
Because from time to time God wants to correct those things,
Amen. We need to be corrected.
When Herod the king heard that there was another king, he was
troubled, and all Jerusalem with him, and assembling all the
chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired to them
where the Christ was to be born. They told him in Bethlehem of
Judea. For so it is written by the
prophet, And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Jewa, by are by no
means least among the rulers of Judah.
For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people,
Israel. Now, Herod was called Herod the
Great in history. And the reason for that was he
was a man who built some awesome things.
He literally built a whole city on the coast so that they could
take advantage of trade, so that everybody was benefiting from
that city. He built a fortress called
Masada for his own protection. But even stands today as a place
you can go to say, wow, look at that thing built way up there in
the air, in the mountain top if you would.
And it was an incredible thing. One of the things that he
rebuilt was the temple in Jerusalem.
He didn't do it because he was a religious man.
He did it because he wanted to impress other people.
So the temple that was rebuilt when the children of Israel came
back from Babylon really was kind of a simple structure.
They didn't have much money. Everything they did was by
faith. And So what he did is he rebuilt
the whole thing and build a awesome thing where people would
come to the city and say, wow, look at the temple.
There's even a story where Jesus and his disciples are going in
the temple, and they're all struck at what they see, and
what they see is happening in this awesome building.
If you go to Israel today, there's only one part of the
former temple there, the Western Wall.
Again, that wasn't part of the original temple.
That was one of the things that Herod the Great had built.
Now, he did these things because he wanted everybody to call him
Herod the Great. So I'm sure he was glad when
people start calling him Herod the Great.
But he was a very insecure person, doing everything he
could in order to impress people, but also doing some very
bad things, as we'll read here today, because he was so
insecure about his position back in the day.
Often times kings and families of royalty would intermarry with
each other. It's kind of like a contract to
kind of keep the royal stream going, if you would, in all the
different countries. Well, one time Herod had married
a woman for that very same reason.
But he got the idea that his mother-in-law was going to try
to make that family the really family.
So this is what a bad person he was.
He killed his mother-in-law, he killed his wife and he killed
his two sons. How we know that's an insecure,
evil person. Amen.
So if you were compared to modern history, he would be a
Hitler, he would be a Stalin, he would just not so great.
He was quite evil. So call him here, the evil would
be good. And in this situation, when he
hears that the wise men are coming with this news, the
King's going to be born. He's going into defense mode
right away. He's ready to kill.
He's ready to destroy. He's ready to do anything evil
that's necessary. But he does it in such a nice
way. There's a king going to be born.
Tell me about it. When did it happen?
Where is it going to be? I mean, you know, he had his own
plan of action. But I wanted you to point to
note how that it wasn't just Herod who was fearful of the
things that were come. It said all of Jerusalem because
Jerusalem was the capital city. So where all the establishment
elites lived in the last election.
They used to talk about draining the swamp.
Well, every capital has a swamp. And when they drain them, they
start new ones all over again. Because capital cities are
filled with people who have positions and they want to
predict them. And unfortunately for the Jews,
it was all we also the religious system as well.
And remember those two forces aligned that 30 years later, 33
years later would consent to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
And unfortunately, even religious people get concerned
when it feels like their positions are threatened.
I remember growing up in a small church and they're always
talking about evangelism. We got to grow.
We got to reach people and so they do these different
evangelistic campaigns. Sometime has special services.
The problem came is when a new person did come and they
actually sit accidentally sit in the wrong person's seat.
How many know most of us have our own seat claimed on Sunday
morning. How many know if you came in and
somebody sit in your seat, you're not sure if you'd want
them to go to heaven or not. They're in your seat.
If they seem good and you're the worship leader, It's like, am I
threatened there? I'm threatened here.
And so oftentimes when personal interests become involved,
everybody changes. Unfortunately, that's the way it
was in Jerusalem. Everybody was out to find out
who this new king was, but nobody for the right reason.
As the story continues, Herod summoned the wise men secretly,
and a certain from them what time the star had appeared.
He wanted to know everything, all the details, so he could
come up with his plan. And he sent them to Bethlehem,
saying, go and search diligently for the child.
And when you have found him, bring me word that I may come
and worship him. And I put over there the
intrigue of the thing. He wanted to know the timing
because he's kind of like, I got to know how old this kid is.
That's why if you notice later on in the reading, he killed up
to two year old because it wasn't an infant at this point.
It would have been a while. And so he need to know the
timing because when the time came, he had everybody killed
under 2 years of age because he wanted to make sure he had the
right timing. And again, I put up there, the
politics are involved because all he cared about is how he
could put this system in place that would secure his role.
Again, can you see how God would have chosen a person who had
political experience, who was involved in that, to be able to
tell this story? There's a lot of people today
who flow in what we call the prophetic movement who could
learn a little bit from this story because often times people
are prophesying about subjects they know nothing about and
they're not accurate simply because they don't have the
right information to discern even what God is speaking them
for some from time to time. That's why it's very important
for us to understand how there is a connection between the
natural and the spiritual. Now the star returns.
Excuse me, I missed the verse here.
When they heard the king, they departed and behold, the star,
which they had seen in East, went before them.
OK, now keep in mind they've heard the king.
He's told them to go to Bethlehem and what happens to
them? The star which they had seen in
the East went before them. So they're not being guarded by
guided by the information, they're being guided by the star
till it came and stood over where the young child was.
When they saw the star, where it stopped, they rejoiced with
exceedingly great joy. And when they had come into the
house, notice this not the stable.
When they came into the house, they saw the young child with
Mary, his mother, fell down and worshipped him.
And when they had open treasures, they presented gifts
to him, gold, frankincense and myrrh.
And so this is very important because it seems like the star
had disappeared, because then it comes back and I'm like, wow,
there's a star. And it gives them directions.
Again, very important because God's working in this situation
to make sure that Herod doesn't have enough information to get
involved in his purposes and his plan.
So when the star returns, it takes them to a house.
This house happens to be the house that Jesus Christ lived
in. And when they got there, they
had a pure motive. They really wanted to worship.
They had insight into this situation.
Lord only knows how, but God had called them to be a part of His
plan. And that's when they gave the
very precious gifts I put there the treasures.
Now, if you read the Bible story, gold, frankincense and
myrrh, everybody wants to have an opinion.
Well, why is it gold? Why is it frankincense?
Why is it incense? And, and the incense, of course,
they'll say is always a part of worship experiences.
Gold represents royalty. And so they try to give a, a
mystical meaning to each and every one of the gifts.
I'd like to point out that it was a treasure, it was something
very valuable because they're going to need some money for the
next phase of what God had for them.
That doesn't sound too spiritual, does it?
But always remember, God has a plan, and that plan will be
executed in His way. So they were divinely warned in
a dream they should not return to Herod.
So what did they do? Well, they went back to their
own country, because God spoke to them after that.
It says that when they had departed, an Angel of the Lord
appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, rise, take the child
and his mother, and what? Flee to Egypt?
Remain there until I tell you, For Herod is about to search for
the child, to destroy him. And he rose and took the child
and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained
there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill again,
something we've constantly seen, a word that was spoken by the
prophet out of Egypt. I have called my son.
So he had to go to Egypt so that when it came time, God could
call him out. But I wanted to point out how it
was an all expenses paid journey.
Joseph and Mary, there's no indication they were people of
money or wealth. And so they did a whole lot of
traveling in a very short period of time.
There wouldn't have been a planned account they had set
aside for traveling to Egypt. They would have had no idea they
were going to go to Egypt. And how, you know, if you go to
another country all together, a whole different civilization, in
reality, how many know you're not going to be able to get a
job right away, You're not going to be able to just fit in right
away. And so God had a provision for
them. I think this is so important to
understand because oftentimes we have surprises in life.
But I want you to know something.
God is never surprised, Damian. And we have to always know at
all times that God, who is our God and our Father, is always at
work on our behalf. And we have to understand this
because we're living perilous times in a lot of ways.
There's a lot of tumultuous change going on.
There is a reordering of the world order.
There is a reordering that we're going to see of the economic
world. There's going to be a lot of
things that are going to happen that are going to make people
wonder, what exactly am I going to do?
Well, trust in the Lord and lean not unto your own understanding.
Amen, Church. We need to be prepared as the
people of God that no matter what comes our way, we're not
caught up in the intrigue of the moment.
Joseph and Mary, they could have heard about conspiracy theories.
Guess what, there was one. How many know God was over the
conspiracy theory? God is always God church.
And so we need to be careful about any kind of information
that we listen to that's going to rob us of our peace, take
away our rest, because God has called us to a place of rest.
He's called us to a place of peace.
And you need to understand that Jesus Christ is the Prince of
Peace. And his story shows us how God
is able to do such awesome things.
But Joseph, and this is where it's important, he had the
father role because it would be him that would protect the
child. He was the one who would be
responsible for taking him to the land of Egypt, accepting the
responsibility, respect, very accepting all of the uncertainty
that that situation would be protect, projecting upon the
family and all these things. But he had this confidence as
the father. And I really again want to
emphasize that God is our father.
And the same thing is happening that we have the church need to
know that our God is with us every step of the way.
And we have a father who can nurture, but he has a father who
can protect. And most importantly, we have to
understand, no matter what our world looks like, God has a
purpose, and we have to focus our purpose on Him.
Amen, Church. Give him a praise on that.
I think that's good. Then Herod, when he saw that he
was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry, sent
forth and put to death all the male children who were in
Bethlehem and in all his districts from 2 years old and
under, according to the time which he had determined from the
wise men. Then was fulfilled what was
spoken by Jeremiah the prophet saying, a voice was heard in
Rhema, lamentation, weeping, great morning, Rachel, weeping
for her children, refusing to be comforted because they are no
more. Even this unusual situation was
prophesied ahead of time. And we have to understand that's
just how wicked Herod was and how we know there are a lot of
wicked people in the earth. And oftentimes they can extend
their hand in ways that many times people become victims of.
But as Christians, we have to understand, just like in this
particular story, our pain becomes travail because God says
to us, there's times when you go through pain, times you go
through what the Bible calls travail.
And the reason it uses the word travail because that means to
labor, because God says whatever we go through, it can produce
something good as long as we keep our focus on the divine
purpose. And that's so important for us
to understand because God has a purpose in all things, and when
we trust in Him and lean not into our own understanding, we
can find out. He will direct our steps, He
will work on our behalf, and He will do what's necessary to get
us through every situation. And that's so important for us
to know. When Herod was dead, behold, an
Angel of the Lord appeared in the dream to Joseph in Egypt
saying, arise, take the young child and his mother, go to the
land of Israel. For those who sought the young
child's life are dead. Then he arose, took the young
child and his mother and came into the land of Israel.
God sent the all clear sign because of course He was the
Father and he had a work that he was seeking to accomplish and
now really he could take him to his forever home.
I'm calling it because that would be the area he would be
raised until the time that he would be at age 30, anointed of
God for his eternal purpose in life.
But the thought I wanted to leave and summing up all of this
is from First Corinthians chapter 2.
It says no temptation and that can mean trial, difficulty,
snare. Nothing has overtaken you.
That is not common to man, meaning that well when we go
through things, don't think well you're the only one suffering.
Suffering is pretty common out there in the world.
But always remember God is what? Read it with me.
God is what? God is what and he will not let
you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the trial
temptation, conflict will provide the way of escape that
you may be able to endure it. Notice beyond your ability.
And that's why I've emphasized how God uses people.
Everything about this story was how God used people and
sometimes not the people you expect and sometimes people had
evil means, but God used it to bring forth his eternal purpose.
But what God wants all of us to know is each and every one of us
has an ability because God formed us in him before the
foundation of the world. He knows what we're able to do.
And he says, if you'll tune yourself in, just like Joseph
had to tune himself in, if you'll tune yourself in, God
will communicate with you. God will give it the means by
which you can get through the situation.
There might be some endurance necessary, but God says he will
do that for you because he is the God who's able to do all
things. Can we all bow our heads for
just a moment, Church? I believe with everything
within, we're moving into a new season in God.
I believe with all my heart that it's a season when God's saying
to us that there's a different level of strength that we're
going to be able to walk in, a different level of wisdom we're
going to be able to walk in that He has prepared you for this
time. You have abilities you don't
know you have. You have a strength that only
God can give you, but God wants you to know.
He's called you for such a time as this.
This is your story. It's your life, and God is in it
and he has a plan of action. He has a purpose, and he wants
you to know today. So we think about the special
child, Jesus. Jesus says, well, you're my
special child. You belong to me, I have a plan
for your life. It will come to pass, but I'm
looking for you to give your ability, turn over your
controls, surrender yourself to Him, and see how God is able to
do something amazing in your life.
Father, I thank you today as I pray for every person here
today. I know Lord, you're preparedness
for a season of power, a season of great and good and awesome
things. So Father, by the power of the
name of Jesus, I just bless everyone here today.
And Father asked that we would walk in a fresh rest revelation
of all that you have for us. We ask it in Jesus mighty name.
This is Pastor Lorne Coverbius from Mount Zion Church.
We thank you for joining us today and invite you to connect
with our church family by visiting mountzion.org and
following us on social media. God bless you.