First Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 23.
It says this. Now may the God of peace, is he
a God of peace himself Sanctify. You say sanctify set, set you
apart means make you in a way so that you look nothing like the
world. All right.
Sanctify you how, though? Entirely.
Thou may the God of peace himself.
So who's doing this? God himself.
May the God of peace himself sanctify you.
How entirely? And may your spirit and soul and
body be preserved, complete without blame at the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you believe Jesus is coming?
Could he come tomorrow?
He could. Some people believe He just
might. He's coming though.
I said he's coming. The new English translation says
that this way. Now may the God of peace himself
make you completely holy, and may your spirit, soul, and body
be kept entirely blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, I love this passage of
scripture because this passive scripture communicates how man
is made man being in, having three aspects of man.
I heard one minister say it this way, which I thought was really
awesome when he talked, when he talked about the Trinity,
because a lot of times we say Trinity, we say 3 and one,
right? And three and one.
You know, you're trying to figure out how 3 become one.
But when they said really, when you're talking about the
Trinity, you're talking 1 * 1 * 1 because 1 * 1 * 1 equals not 1
+ 1 + 1 = 1 because that doesn't work.
But 1 * 1 * 1 does because the Father times the Son times the
Holy Spirit makes God. Now we have a spirit.
Now a lot of times we say we are spirit, and I don't technically
have a problem with that. But again, I do want to say
this, just because we know there are layers doesn't mean things
are supposed to remain separate. Brother Hagin would say this
when ministering on the gifts of the Spirit out of First
Corinthians chapter 12. He said we separate the gifts
for the sake of teaching. However, the greatest gift is
the one needed at the time. We tend to emphasize specifics,
but God only sees things as a whole.
And one day I'm going to minister a message on that
because, you know, the the problem with understanding
specifics is we can forget that it's actually connected to
something and there's nothing in the planet today that's not
connected to something. If you develop if the systems
that are within our society, when I say I'm talking like the
water system evaporation, you know, precipitation, although
that whole little water cycle, if you pull that system out, it
will affect every other system. In fact, if you pull one element
out, it can hinder or even cause the death of every other thing.
So God never intended for us when we talk, teach the word
about anything to just hold on to 1 aspect.
He always wants to know these are all connected.
So when we say we are spirit, we have a soul, we live in a body,
that does not mean that we are different, because the reality
is, in the end, you'll still have a body, you'll just have a
glorified one. You'll still have a soul and you
still will be a spirit. And so they are connected.
So if we emphasize just the spirit of the man, we can hinder
the soul and body of a man, and those two aspects can affect the
spirit of the man. Can't do so.
That's why First Thessalonians 523 is really powerful, because
it's the God of peace. Did he bring you peace?
Did he bring you Jesus? Did Jesus die and and be raised
from the dead so that you can have life and life more
abundantly, that you have a new spirit in you?
You're a new creature in Christ. Yeah, sure.
But here's the thing. He's not here just to give you a
new spirit. He's not here just to set your
spirit apart. The God of peace himself is
working on every aspect of you. And so the spirit that you have,
that's changed, only God could do that.
You cannot get your spirit right.
You cannot make it right with God.
We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Our our spirit man was cut off from God.
We were spiritually dead, although breathing, thinking,
filtering emotions, navigating in a world within our bodies and
going through life fulfilling the lust of the flesh, the lust
of the eyes, the pride of life where we're doing it all.
But we were dead in our trespasses and sin, and it
didn't matter if we tried to do it.
It didn't matter if we try to follow God on the inside.
We were empty, bankrupt, could not do it.
We're filthy rags. But God, while we were yet
sinners, died for us, right? He died on the cross.
He raised from the dead on the third day, poured his blood out
on the mercy seat of God in heaven.
And when we call on the name of the Lord, we are saved.
The old spirit is evicted out of this skin suit and we become a
new creature in Christ. The old pass of the way.
All things become new. And what's even better, the Holy
Spirit then comes and dwells on the inside of us to bear witness
with our spirit. We are children of God and only
God could do that. But the reason he does it is He
needs your spirit alive so that you can take construction in
order to now have your mind sanctified and your body
sanctified. So now the Bible tells us that
we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
Now that doesn't mean we work salvation.
Salvation is a work of grace through faith.
But what we are working is the renewing of our mind.
And Pastor Joshua talked about renewing your mind some last
week and you understand it's important.
That's our responsibility because we now are alive to God.
We can go into the scripture and have the teacher on the inside
of us to give us instruction. He's given us the five fold
ministry in the church to equip us so that we can grow in the
things of God and develop the mind of Christ.
So we have the renewing of the mind.
That is our responsibility as believers that are alive unto
God. And He wants our mind, our soul.
And we're going to talk about that here in a minute.
Entirely sanctified, set apart. He wants you to be, to have a
mindset that can always go to the Word of God and not go to
the world that has the power to take captive thoughts.
You can work your mind muscle, your soul realm so strong that
anything that tries to infiltrate it that's contrary to
the word, it will shut it down. It's kind of like an antivirus
to your whole body and your spirit.
It will attack it when you get filled up with the Word and it
renews your mind. Then when another thought comes,
you'll go and attack that thing. You are not kind to it.
You don't stroke it. You don't pet it.
You're like, you're out of here. Because the Bible says that we
are to take our thoughts captive, and that is in the
context of crucifying. Then we are to crucify the
flesh, which means our body, its desires that are attached to the
world. We can put it under our
submission to where it no longer rules us, but yet we rule it
now. We will not have a glorified
body in this life. It will come, but it's a hope we
can have. But until then, by the stripes
of Jesus, this body can maintain health.
It cannot stop from breaking down.
Being born again does not give you immortality in your skin
suit, but it does give you the healthcare system of the Kingdom
so that you can walk in health and healing for the purpose of
caring. Bring out God's plan for your
life and when symptoms come and when sickness comes, then you
can stand on the Word of God and receive healing through God and
by His power to be able to walk in divine healing.
Amen And that mean does not mean that at times when you have
symptoms that you don't need to go to a doctor.
You definitely should go to a doctor if you don't, if
nothing's changing so you can find out what's going on so that
you can then get it under the blood and get it under the Word
and begin to move forward because God wants you healthy so
that you can walk around doing what God's called you to do.
Amen. So again, he says to sanctify
you entirely, say entirely. So salvation was never designed
to leave your soul and body out. It was never designed.
In fact, he says at the coming of the Lord, he wants your whole
man to be blameless, say your whole man.
All right, so let's look at Mark chapter 12.
The reason why this is important because Jesus makes a demand on
it. It says one of the scribes came
and heard them arguing and recognizing that he had answered
them well, asked him. This is Jesus.
What commandment is the foremost of all.
Now you know that they came to Jesus on more than one occasion.
The lawyers describes the Sadducees, the Pharisees, not
because they wanted to know something is because they were
trying to catch him in something so they could accuse him and
have him killed. They did not like Jesus, all
right. And Jesus had more problem with
the religious than he ever had with anyone else.
He didn't even have this kind of problem with the Roman
government, OK. However, this one particular
person recognizing that Jesus is well equipped to answer
questions, he says this which is the foremost commandment.
Jesus answered the foremost here, O Israel, the Lord of God,
the Lord God is 1. The Lord our God is 1 Lord.
Now you understand, he says commandments, There's
technically more than 10. There's more than 10 actual
commandments. We just quote 10.
We speak about those 10. All right, There's actually more
commandments than that. And this individual is saying
which one? And he is going to summarize
them in a statement. Now this one obviously is #1
we're to love the Lord by God, but Jesus goes and breaks this
down. Now, Jesus has had the habit
when preaching to tell the religious, you're saying
something, but you're not having my father's interpretation.
And I'm going to bring clarity. This is why a Sermon on the
Mount said this. You've heard the ancient, you've
heard them say the ancient said thou shalt not commit murder,
right? And did the father say that?
Absolutely. But then he gets to the heart of
it, he said, because what you're doing is you're only defining
murder from an external perspective of actually killing.
But I'm going to tell you that if you hate your brother, well,
now this jacks you up because there was a lot of hatred among
the religious. And they really hated Jesus.
I mean, they hated him. They wanted to kill him, but
they weren't going to do it themselves because, you know,
the law says thou shalt not murder.
So I'm not going to kill him. But Bull, we're going to do what
we can to get someone to kill him.
He said, now, if that's in your heart, you're already a
murderer. And then the one that jacked
them up the most was the next one.
You've heard it say, thou shalt not commit adultery.
But I say, if you lust after a woman in your own heart, you've
committed the sin of adultery. Now the sin of adultery again,
that the, the, the law said that when this took place that you
were to stone the individual. So these guys dealt with that
subject through Jesus's ministry, kept bringing this one
conversation up about adultery. It was very problematic to them,
all right, but Jesus was what? Going back to the heart, What
you're doing is just doing this external thought process.
But none of the things that you can do externally will ever make
you right with God because it's a nature issue.
Jesus comes in and begins to communicate that if you're going
to love God, this is the way to do it.
Now, I'm not saying this. Jesus is saying this.
Are we to obey Jesus? Is Jesus the one we're
following? Are we followers of Jesus?
OK, so this is what Jesus said. Jesus says you shall love the
Lord your God with. What's the next word and what
does all mean? If you look it up in the
original Greek, it means it means all.
Now all is all. All is not halfway, not half
hearted, not 85%, it's not 90, it's all.
And yet if we don't watch out in our modern day Christianity, we
stop. We don't make that a comma, we
make it a period and we exclude the next statements.
Well, you know, I love the Lord with all my heart.
God knows my heart. I love the Lord with all my
heart. Well, you're that's one point.
You need to love him with your whole heart.
However, there's more. And this word heart, if we were
to use it over into the Old Testament and sometimes in the
New Testament, if it doesn't clarify, heart can be the spirit
of the man and the soul of a man.
It can be both aspects. Why?
Because the spirit and the soul are extremely close.
I mean, and they are two separate things, but they
function so much together. There's only one thing that
brings its division and that's found in Hebrews chapter 4 verse
12. In Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12,
it says this. It says for the Word of God is
living inactive, sharper than any 2 edged sword and piercing
as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints of
marrow, which is the body. So that's spirit, soul and body
and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
So again it's the Word of God that lets you know what's of the
Spirit of God and then what's of the soul of man.
And what it does is it can cut you to where it can determine is
your spirit man functioning from the soul of man or by the Spirit
of God. Are you hearing me?
Because again, we can do accolades to God, but God really
knows what's going on. Amen.
And again, when people say, well, the Lord knows my heart,
it's easy to say yes, he does because He does.
And we know this about Scripture.
God is not mocked. Whatever man soweth that he'll
reap. So you again, you know, I heard
one person say this, you can fake a praise, but you can't
fake an offering. Now, unfortunately, you can't
fake an offering And, and I can show you that in Scripture.
That's the the two mics with the woman because the wealthy gave
out of their surplus, which means that's a pretty large
amount to try to get attention of the teacher.
But the woman who gave 2 gave all she had.
So she gave a real offering and they just gave something that
didn't even affect them. But man, in modern day people,
if they would have saw the wealth wealthy give that number,
they'd be inviting them to dinners.
They would be asking them to support their projects because
they would say, well, you can't fake an offering.
Well, they may have faked an offering and got all around you
with your with their money to be able to sit at your table so
that you can, you know, continue to talk to them about financing
your ministry when the one who gave the most was the woman who
had two mites. Sounds good.
It's not scriptural. So you can fake a praise, you
can fake an offering, you can fake a lot, but you don't fake
God. That's what I'm saying.
God does know your heart, but there is a difference between
your heart and sphere. So the Lord says you're the love
the Lord your God with all your heart.
Then he goes on back over to Mark chapter 12 and verse 30.
You say I love the Lord your God with all your heart.
Here we go with all your soul, all your mind and all your
strength. I want to stay here on verse 30
for just a bit. In this one we see there are 4
aspects that God is dealing with us.
Now when I say 4/2 are in the same place, so it's it's the
entirety of man. In essence, God wants to
sanctify you. He wants you once you're born
again, he wants all aspect of you to be wholly set apart for
him. He gives you the spirit that now
has the ability to hear God and run with God.
It's through that spirit you now have to say soul, you're going
to get it together and body. You're not going to tell me what
to do. You now have to take the
responsibility as a believer because God has now empowered
you to be able to sanctify with Him the rest of who you are.
So you're no longer this sorry Sinner saved by grace.
You were a Sinner. You've been saved by grace
through faith. Now you are a believer, a child
of God, who has the third person of the Godhead on the inside who
speaks to your Spirit, who will reveal Scripture to you so you
can renew your mind. You are to study, to show
yourself approved unto God, a Workman who needeth not be
ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
God will not put His Scripture in you without you taking the
time to feed on it. Man, wouldn't it be awesome if
we just got it by osmosis? That would be great if we were
born again a boom immediately our whole he took a brain out.
He's changed our whole body. It'd be amazing.
But that's not how it works now you say, why is that?
Well, you understand God wants to know that He knows that He
knows that you're his because you understand this.
It was God's original intent that your whole all of you were
to be would glorify him. How did God made man originally
in Genesis chapter one verse 26, he said let us make man in our
image according to our likeness and let them have what dominion
or rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky,
over all the cattle, over all all the earth and over every
creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
So he made both male and female. They both had to me or rule.
And so Adam and Eve are in a garden without sin, on a planet
without sin that mirrored heaven.
And the glory of God would come down in the cool of the day and
begin to converse with him. And he was to love God.
All he had to do to demonstrate that love was to not eat of the
tree of the knowledge of good and Evil.
So his spirit was alive unto God, no sin.
His mind was not corrupted by sin at all.
His body was glorified and would live forever.
For God said, if don't eat the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, for the day you eat you will surely.
So if Adam had never eaten the fruit, he'd still be here today.
However, he was tempted. His wife was tempted by the
tempter. She was deceived.
Adam rebels against God and eats of the fruit.
At that point his body starts to take decay, although it took 903
years for it to get into the grave.
His his mind immediately got disconnected from the Spirit of
God, where now he had to live life by his five senses in the
soul realm. That's where that exists.
So he lived by what he saw. He lived by what he tasted, what
he heard, and what he smelled and what he could touch.
He lived by his senses, natural. We were never to live by what we
see. We were to live by faith, which
is we are to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth
of our king. Can I get an Amen?
So he's saying, now listen, you're not just going to love me
with your spirit. You need to love me in your
soul, but not just your soul, your mind.
So what he's doing is there's two aspects of the soul and
Jesus clearly identifies here. The soul aspect is the seat of
your emotions. So so your emotions are never
supposed to rule your decisions. That just makes me so mad.
I'm going to That's not how you make a decision.
Oh, they are so gorgeous. They look so good.
I just feel like I want. Feelings are not why you're
going towards someone. Amen.
I just don't feel like I love them anymore.
Feelings is not why you're divorcing.
Feelings are not an indicator to make decisions.
But the Lord is saying your feelings should be mine.
You should love me with your feelings.
You should cause your feelings to submit to me.
Are you hearing me? So what I rejoice in, you should
rejoice in. What I'm grieved in you should
be grieved in. Amen.
And so we have to make sure that our emotions are in line.
The next thing is mine. Mine is intellect.
God never intended for us to be born again and then act like we
don't need to discover him. He said, I want your whole mind.
I want you to discover me. In essence, the Lord's like,
let's have an intellectual debate.
Ask me, come talk to me. I mean, I'm only the creator of
heaven and earth. You want to talk about
photosynthesis? I created it out of word.
You want to know how everything went, Just come talk to me.
The most intelligent being ever is God, and God doesn't want us
to follow him without intelligence.
He wants us to discover His wisdom, his knowledge, his
understanding. He wants to have an intellectual
conversation. I mean, some of my greatest
times in prayer is like, Lord, can you talk to me about this?
God wants me intellectually engaged.
Now my faith is not based on intellect, but man, because I
have faith, He will change my intellect.
He'll change my mind. He'll give me the mind of
Christ. He'll give me ideas.
Listen, I'll give you a case in point, Jacob.
The Lord says, look, you need to go back home.
But before you go back home, I need you to give you the wages
that your uncle stole from you. So I'm going to give you an
intellectual idea on how to transfer the wealth of Laban to
you. And that was a natural thing
that he did with these the what are his sub branches?
He stripped it down, you know, and had them, you know, taking
care of where all of a sudden he gets these big sheep out of the
deal and layman gets all the weak ones.
That's because God has do you understand?
God will give you intellect in your businesses.
But see, if all you're doing is following with your heart, then
you've cut off the business ideas.
If all you're doing is following with your heart and you don't
allow your emotions to be restrained, well, guess what?
God can be speaking to your heart and He knows you love Him
from the Spirit, but He needs your love from you, the the
emotions and the intellect. He needs you to come to Him.
And then the last is with all your strength.
Now this one's tough. OK?
So please go ahead and pick your feet up off the ground.
That way you don't think I'm stepping on your toes.
But this is he says seek first. The Kingdom church should not be
the last thing you're thinking about because Jesus is the head
of the church. Yet we will give our strength to
business. We'll give our strength to our
families and yet when it comes to the assembling of ourselves
together and do what God's asked us to do as a corporate body to
really bring an influence to the community, we're too tired to
accomplish that yet, he says I'm supposed to have all your
strength. It would be more fitting for you
to say, I cannot do that because it will affect what God's asked
me to do in His church. It would be better for you to
let go of other things. If all of these other things are
running you racket, you need to say wait a minute.
God gets my best first and the rest of these come as a as
something after I have done what God's asked me to do first.
Now this also has to do with your physical body keeping it
under so that you're not getting into immorality because your
body talked to you and try to get it to do things that will
bring sin against your body and he doesn't want that.
OK y'all doing all right all right let's press on real quick.
He goes on and says this them so he says the second is this you
shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these.
So again, when you give yourself entirely to God's your spirit,
soul and body, then you can actually radiate the glory of
God to your neighbors and your neighbors are going to be more
drawn to you when you are doing that.
They're like, how do you keep How do you do this?
How come you're never sick? How come I don't see this happen
with you? And how come your mind's always
together? How come you never you're not
falling apart over what just took place in our nation And how
come you you're like, man, I'm just following the Lord.
He has me entirely. You begin to radiate his glory
and then you can really be it have an effect to your neighbor.
So he goes on and says, right teacher, let me see verse 32.
He says the scribe said to him, Right teacher, you have truly
stated he is the one and there is no one else beside him.
And to love him with all your heart, with all your
understanding, with all your strength, and to loved one's
neighbor as himself, he goes on to say, is much more than all
burnt offerings and sacrifice. And if you were here Wednesday
night, you know that 100% obedience is better than 85%
obedience and a sacrifice. In fact, you know, we said this
when we make these statements. Well, it's better to ask for
forgiveness than permission. Jesus doesn't say.
He said it's better just obey. Because this had to do with King
Saul. He did not follow the word of
the Lord concerning a particular nation.
He he conquered about 80, destroyed about 85% of it, but
left about 15% of it. And that is not the word of the
Lord. And God calls the anointing to
leave him as a result of not repenting.
So God wants entirely say entirely.
So again, it's not about doing wrong so we can be forgiven,
although we are forgiven now that we are new creatures in
crisis about becoming those who entirely want to always be in a
state of obedience. Can you make make a mistake?
Yes. Will God forgive you?
Yes. But I don't live trying to, you
know. Well, I'll just get him.
I'll just ask him if I know I shouldn't, but I'm going to do
and I'll just ask God to forget. No, He loves obedience more than
burnt offerings and sacrifice, so let's just obey.
Amen. Then he says, when Jesus saw
that He had answered intelligently, He said to him,
you are not far from the Kingdom of God.
After that, no one would venture to ask him anymore.
Now this statement that Jesus said comes from Deuteronomy
chapter 6, verses 5 through 9. It says this.
He said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your might.
These words which I'm commanding you today shall be on your
heart. Verse 7 you shall teach them
diligently to your sons and, and, and shall talk of them when
you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you
lie down and when you rise up, you shall bind them as a sign on
your hand and they will be on your on the frontals of your
forehead. You shall write them on the
doorpost of your house and on your gate gates.
Notice how important this is in Deuteronomy.
And this is before they could be born again.
He's like loving with all your heart, your soul and your might.
Everything we do is to be centered around God and you need
to teach them. Know what's awesome is when
families are demonstrating to their children, we're going to
church, we're following God, we're going to not forsake the
assembly of ourselves together. We're going to be a part of that
outreach. We're going to come and help,
you know, do demo. We're going to do this because
God speaking to me to help. And when you're doing that, what
you're doing is you're teaching them that not only is your heart
right, that you go to heaven when you die, because most
people just live that existence. You're saying everything about
us is to fulfill what God has asked us to do in the earth
today through his church so that people can see the Kingdom of
God and people can come into the Kingdom.
Amen. Because again, there are
students right now at Osceola that are are wanting, you know,
and there and the and the school system's even asking can a bus
again, you bring somebody to help influence our students.
I mean, how do we deny that opportunity?
Now, I'm only one person. I can only do so much and God
doesn't want me to be everywhere.
That's why he sent you. But I'm telling you there is not
we are not lacking for opportunities that when we
again, spirit, soul and body say, you know, we're going to do
something for the Kingdom of God, then it's going to cause
you to have to move and navigate and some things that are where
you're just not thinking about yourself, but you're recognized.
And those are examples to your children because again, parents,
you know, if you're, if your children are let's go to church
and like, well, I'm tired. I mean, that's where you just
put the flesh down. In fact, I just heard someone
not too long ago give that testimony.
They didn't want to come, but their child wanted to.
And they came. And then God ended up doing
something real amazing in their life, that particular service.
And they were like, thank God that I listened to my child, but
they themselves still had #1 the authority to say no.
But number 2, they submitted to the thought of coming to church,
put down their flesh, said, I'm not going to be so tired.
I'm not going to come. And they came same in anyway.
All right, so Matthew Chapter 7, verse 12 through 14 says this
and everything. Therefore treat people with the
same way you want to treat them to treat you for this is the law
and the prophets. Notice the other two, He said
all of the prophet, all the law was summarized in these two
statements. If you give God you entirely and
then you love your neighbor, meaning you're going to do this,
you're going to treat them as you would want to be treated.
Now, Jesus elevated the love your neighbor's yourself
commandment in John chapter 15, he said, I give you a new
commandment. You're to love one another as I
love you, man. Now, how did Jesus love us?
Jesus doesn't even let a physical beat and say, yeah, I
don't think I'm going to be able to go to cross right now.
I'm just not feeling it, right? Like when he was in the garden,
everybody's sleeping. It's like I'm tired too, you
know, I think I'm gonna take a nap too.
At his most pivotal moment, right?
No. Jesus stayed submitted to the
will of the Father for us. And he said, now this is how I
loved you. You can love this way as well.
Amen. You understand, anytime you obey
God, there's always reward. It's worth it.
So in everything, therefore, treat people the same way you
want them to treat you for this of the law and the province.
I find this interesting. This is what we call the Golden
rule, but it's just above these two verses.
The next two verses says this. Look what it says.
Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way
is broad. That leads to destruction, and
there are many who enter through it.
Now we know that's not a good place, but then he says verse
14, but the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to
life and there are few who find it, which tells us are we we
need to ask the question, Are we not reflecting God enough to our
neighbors that there's only few finding because again, you may
have a spirit right with God, but you forfeiting your soul,
your mind and your body where your conversation, the way you
handle things and the way you go around around with your body
looks like the rest of the world.
And they didn't realize you were right with God.
They didn't have a clear understanding that you weren't
of this world. Hallelujah.
So we need to make sure in these last days that we are
exemplifying the entirety of a sanctified life.
I got my mind together. I got my emotions up underneath
the word. I've got my body in submission.
It doesn't tell me what to do. I tell it what to do.
I keep it together. I'm moving forward.
I'm going to do the plan of purpose of God until he returns.
And man, he may come in our lifetime that we're changing a
moment in the twinkling of an eye.
Hallelujah. So with that being said, we'll
close with this passage and Proverbs chapter 3.
We'll start in verse 5. Trust in the Lord with all your
heart. Now there's that word again.
If you're going to love the Lord your God with all your heart,
your soul, your mind, and your strength, you're going to need
to trust Him because again, His ways are higher than our ways
and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.
He's the creator. We are the created.
We don't go to God and negotiate how to live this life.
We say, how do I live this life? You gave me life, Now how do I
live it? How do I live as an ambassador
for you in the earth so that people can see you?
Well, you have to trust in the Lord from your spirit, but not
only from your spirit, from your soul realm.
And do not lean on your own understanding.
And many of us, you know, we're born again, but we'll try to
navigate in our own understanding how we can make
more money and how we can take care of this or take care of
that. And we don't even take time to
say, Lord, what do you want us to do?
Command the Lord, Do some crazy stuff.
Now I say crazy. It's not crazy to him.
It's only crazy to us. And it's only crazy to us
because it falls in the impossible category, man.
Well, if I did that, that's impossible.
The Lord's like with man, it's impossible.
But with me, all things are possible, Especially when I say
it, because when I say it, I do it, Hallelujah.
When I say it, I do it. So in all your ways, acknowledge
Him. If you want straight paths, it
requires you to trust in the Lord with all your heart and
lean not on your own understanding, but in all your
ways acknowledge Him and He'll make your path straight.
They may be crooked today, but if you'll do the first part,
then He'll make it straight. And that's just you waiting on
the Lord and taking the time. And again, when you give him
your soul, then the chaos you're in, your emotions don't get the
best of you. Where you making choices that
ultimately keep you away from God's blessing, but in essence
you gain control of it and say I'm going to wait on the Lord so
I hear from him. Then I'll step out and when you
step out on the word of God, man, you'll never fail.
Verse 7, do not be wise in your own eyes.
Fear the Lord turn away from evil.
It will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones.
Here it is honor the Lord from your wealth and from the first
fruit. First of all, your produce so
that your bars will be filled with plenty and your bats will
overflow with new wine. This here, verse 9 and 10 is
speaking about your strength. So you love the Lord your God
with all your heart from your spirit, from your mind, your
soul, that area. And then here when you're
working and laboring, guess what?
You're to honor God with that wealth.
Meaning God is always in your mind that when you're out and
about in society, it's not like you're not thinking about him
and bringing your physical body supply to the House of the Lord.
Verse 11 My son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord or
loathe his reproof. Because here's the thing, if
you're going to love him with all your heart, all your soul,
all your mind and all your strength, the minute he makes
your spirit man alive to him man, it's perfect.
It's ready to go and there's nothing else to do but allow it
to grow, grow, grow. Meaning it has you let it grow
so that it dominates your decision making.
And as it grows, then it will cause your soul and your mind
realm to change. You'll be conformed to the word
and plan of God and then you won't, your body won't take you
places anymore. You're like, I'm not doing that
anymore. I'm not putting that in me
anymore. You know, things don't tell me
what to do. I don't let plants rule my life
and tell me I have to ingest it. No, I'm free from that.
And so you have to allow God to speak to you.
He's going to correct you. In fact, because we were all
sinners, there's a lot of correcting to do.
God affirms you when you're born of him, and He bears witness
with your spirit. Now you're one of my children.
That's affirmation. But since you're one of my kids,
I have a right to correct you because you're thinking is not
in line with the Kingdom. And don't give all your study to
the world. Don't give all your thinking to
philosophers, to all these other things, to all these little
clips. I mean, we can get lost in
Instagram clips and all kinds of things.
And then and they're so small, they don't even give you
context. And most people hear a little
clip and then begin to talk about it like it's reality.
Amen. Don't give yourself to that.
Let God reprove you. For whom the Lord loves, He
reproves, even as a father corrects the Son in whom he
delights. So I'm always excited when the
Lord's like, hey, since you're mine, let's talk about this.
And I'm like, thank you, Dad, because my soul is yours.
My mind is yours, man. I want to Lord's like, no, we're
not going to go there. We're not going to do that
because you're mine and I love you and I just want you to have
life. Now, I understand this doesn't
feel good to your flesh, but that's OK because we're giving,
we're giving occasion to the life and the Spirit of God so
that you reflect the glory of God.
Because if you do it my way, I'll take care of it.
Not only does he take care of you, but he'll take care of your
enemies. But if there are enemies out
there and there are got to take care of that, you don't have to
do it. You just follow the plan and
purpose of God. You just allow your mind, your
will and your emotions to stay submitted to him.
And then you say, body, we going to do what God's called to do
and we're going to run it at a in a way that allows us to
accomplish your purpose. And in doing so, then the world
can see that the Kingdom of God is near, that the Kingdom of God
is near, because God's able to demonstrate his life through
you. Amen.