The Blessing 3-22-2026

If this is your first time listening you can check us out at lifefamily.church or on Facebook and Instagram at @lfcbeardstown

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Life Family Church Sermon Podcast. If this is your first time listening, you can check us out on our website at LifeFamily.church or on Facebook at LFC. Now let's get right to the message.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Have you surrendered to the Lord this morning? Have you made a commitment that I'm just gonna serve you because I love you? Lord, we surrender all. The good, the bad, the ugly, we surrender it all to you. We give it to you because you are the only way, the truth, and the life. Lord, we thank you. We thank you, we thank you, we thank you, we thank you. That you're a good God. If you serve a good God in here, can you just lift your hands up right now and just for a moment say thank you, Jesus? We love you, Jesus. We worship you, Jesus. We love you, Lord. We turn our face to you. We turn our attention to you. Jesus, we love you. Thank you, Lord. If you can't just look at the person beside you and say, I love you, and you can be seated this morning. The Bible says the Lord is good and his mercy endures forever, right? Do you believe that? Say it with me. Say the Lord is good, and his mercy endures forever. We serve a good God, a God that is not mad at us. He's mad about you. He's mad for you, he loves you. You know, you might have had a bad week, you might have made a lot of mistakes, but I'm here to tell you, God loves you, and he is not mad at you. Obviously, he wants you to just make the corrections that's necessary. Make the correction, make the adjustments. The adjustments are a good thing, it's not a bad thing. God wants you to adjust your life to fit him, not adjust God to fit our life. You get what I'm saying? It won't work out for you, so stop trying. You can't change God to fit who you want to be. You've got to change and adapt to who he is. Amen. Everything flows from that position of obedience. Amen. Amen. I can't go on that because if I do, that'll be a long rabbit trail, and I've got somewhere to go. I've got 17 pages to get through. I hope you're ready. I told Jimmy on the way over here, I said, you know, if I printed it on front and back, it'd only be eight and a half. So we're not as bad as you think. But I will let you out of here at least by 2.30. Um, so if you have, you know, uh something cooking in the crock pot, you know, if you have to leave, I understand. I won't, I won't call you out, but um, we won't go that long. But I do want, I do have something I want to share with you this morning that I know will bless you and encourage you and strengthen your faith because God is a good God. For too many years in the church, we've preached a God that is judgmental and hates people and hates what they're doing, hates them, hates everything about everything. We've we we have this picture of God that He's a mean God up in heaven with an iron fist ready to pounce on whoever makes a mistake. Anybody ever heard preachers preach that way? You don't have to raise your hand because that preacher might be in here. I have for years dealt with the picture of God being mad at me. That's why every time I come up here, I remind you: God is not mad at you. He's he looks at you and he just gets excited. He wants to brag about his children. Just like a grandparent wants to brag about their grandbabies. He gets his wallet out every time the angels come around and say, You see Lyn? Look at this is Lynn. This is look look what he's doing. He's lifting his hands in worship. I know that sounds silly, but the Bible says God has your name tattooed on him. That's why people are like, well, tattoos are sins. Well, God had tattoos. It's not the tattoo that's a sin, it's the meaning of why you're doing it. And are you doing it for the wrong reasons, right? Well, God is a good God. He's not judgmental, he's not looking down at you and wanting to throw down. He wants to express to you every opportunity he has to bless you. Say this with me. I'm loaded. Say this again, I'm loaded. The Bible says that he loads us with benefits. Every time you look in the mirror, you need to look in the mirror and say, I'm loaded. You need you need to gain the voice of victory. When you look in the mirror, do you look at yourself and get disgusted and look at all your imperfections, look at all the problems in your life, look at all the situations, or do you look in the mirror and say, I'm loaded, I'm blessed, boy, I'm good looking in Christ. There's nothing to improve on when I'm in Christ. Amen. There is nothing to improve on. Glory to God. When you're in Christ, there's nothing to do to improve on it. Perfect is perfect. Amen. When he created the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day, what did he do? He rested from all his work. Why? Because it was what? Finished. It wasn't because he was tired, it was because the painting of what he created was perfect, and one more brushstroke could have messed it up. There's nothing more he could have done to perfect perfection. So when he created you, he created you perfect, and he created you in his image, in his likeness, and with his abilities, and with his talents, and with his wisdom, with his knowledge, his power, his authority. He gave it all to you. He says, You're blessed. He created you and then he blessed you and he put you in the garden and you messed it up and started to listen to an old nasty devil who wanted to take the word and twist it. You see, the world would twist the word, try to convince you you're no good, you're a nobody, you're narrow-minded. You have to use God as a crutch. I don't use God as a crutch. Amen. I don't need a crutch because I'm healed because I have God. Amen. God wants to show you you are blessed, and he wants to reveal to you things that are areas in your life that can take you from where you are right now to where you've always dreamed of being. God is a good God. Now, He loves this church, and I believe He gave me this word for this church. So listen closely because I want you to get a hold of some revelation here. Today, I want to speak this truth, not into your head. I want to speak this truth into your spirit. Alright? So pay attention with your spiritual ears. Your natural ears and your natural eyes, sometimes they can get in the way of what God wants to say. Because if you listen to the Spirit, he'll bring you life, he'll bring you hope, and he'll reveal things to you about yourself that you can change and develop into the full nature of Christ. So today we're going to talk about the blessing. The blessing. The blessing. Everybody say I'm blessed. The blessing is not dependent on your circumstances. The blessing is not dependent on four dollars a gallon of gas. The blessing doesn't look at circumstances and say, oh, yeah, it's pretty tough. I don't think we're gonna make it, Lord. That's not how the blessing operates. Many people believe things like this, if I could get a better job, I would be blessed. Or if I could just get a better into a better environment, I think I would be blessed. Or if people would treat me better, I'd be blessed. But that's not what the word teaches. The Bible shows us clearly the blessing is not based on where you are or what you have or who you're around. It's based on what God has already declared over your life. The blessing is not tied to your environment. Go over to Genesis chapter 13. Let's go to Genesis thirteen. Verse number eight. And between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before you, please separate from me. If you take the left, then I will go to the right, or if you go to the right, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted his eyes and saw the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go towards the or. Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east, and they separated from each other. Now here's what was going on. Lot was loved by Abram. Abram loved his name, he loved him. But their herdsmen were fighting amongst each other. There was a civil war going on in the camp. Why? Because they were so blessed, and they had so many crops, cattle, they had so much cattle that there was no room for them to graze, and they were fighting on who would get the best land. So Abram decided, my blessing is not based on my environment. So what did he do? He said, okay, you just pick wherever you want to go. And what did Lot do? He picked the very best. He looked down at the land and he saw the plain of Jordan, and it was beautiful. There was rivers flowing through it, there was plush greenery, it was perfect for cattle, it was perfect for what he wanted. So he chose the best land. And Abram said, That's fine, you take that, and I'll go with God. You didn't have to get offended. I was just talking about the blessing. So Abram understood something that a lot of people don't understand. The blessing is not dependent on where you are. Because the blessing wasn't on the land, it was on Abram. It was in him, it was on him. And it worked through him. So no matter where he went, guess what? The blessing went with him. No matter where you go in your life, no matter what you attempt to do in God, guess what? You're blessed. It's not going to stop because you didn't get the job you wanted, because you didn't get the promotion you wanted, because you thought you should have a better boss or better environment. That doesn't determine your blessing. What determines the blessing is are you in Christ Jesus? And is he in you? Because the blessing is not dependent on your environment. See, what Lot was looking at was the natural. You see, if you look at the natural, you'll see things for how the world sees them. But we don't look at the things which are natural. We look at the things from the spirit. And in the natural, it looked perfect. It looked exactly what they needed. But do you know what happened to Sodom? It all burned up, didn't it? You see, you might think you want that friend, you might think you want that girl or boy or vice versa. You might think you want that land, that property, you might think you want that promotion. But I'm going to tell you something, if it's not from God, you don't want it. I don't know how many times that I want it so bad to have that car. I wanted that house so bad I could taste it. But did God tell you to get it? Did God put it on your heart to do it? If he did, then you'll have peace. You'll have plenty of peace, and you can step in there and the favor of God is on you. But many times, and this is a little encouragement, many times we press past the peace and we do what we want, and we get ourselves in trouble. Amen. Thank you for that thundering silence. I know this is blessing you. But it's true, we need to follow after the Lord in every decision we make. Now, don't let this be a God that's standing over you like a micromanager. He placed his spirit in you to lead and guide you and to teach you into all things so that you could walk in the truth and you could be free. Because walking in Christ brings freedom, walking in your flesh brings destruction. Amen. So understanding that it doesn't matter necessarily where God places you or where he puts you. Well, I don't like the position I got at work. Maybe he put you there for a reason. Maybe you're there being positioned for a blessing and you don't even know it. You don't even know it. You don't even know it. See, he's not going to show you what he's about to do. It's like it's like Christmas. Do you want to show your kids the presents before they open them? No, of course not. You want to wait till Christmas, or at least normal people do, Tiffany. You don't show them their presents. You know that's true. God, He will hold back surprises for you because He wants to reveal His goodness to you and He wants to show you how much He loves you. But sometimes, well, not all the time, we have to walk by faith and not by sight. Amen. We're walking one step at a time in God's promise, in God's blessing, in God's future for your life. But you have to trust God. The whole time the children of Israel were on that trip, God was trying to put something in them that they just couldn't get a hold of. And it was simply, trust me, look to me, follow after me. And he's saying that to you today. I have blessed you. Stay in the blessing. Stay in position. In the blessing, stay there, stay put. Don't run from church to church, from meeting to meeting, from revival to revival, from job to job, from this to that, all over the place. That is what the Bible calls a double-minded man who's unstable in all his ways. Stay put. The Bible says, be like a tree planted by the rivers of living water that will bear fruit in its season. Stay put. Stay planted. Get a foundation of God. Get a foundation of his word. Put the word in you. And then eventually the fruit will start to manifest in your life. Glory to God. The blessing will start to manifest in your life. And it will be something that happens naturally, and you won't have to force it. You see, a blessing is not something you have to force. I'm going to make this happen. Grip my teeth, and I'm going to make a blessing happen. You can't make a blessing happen if you tried. You can't figure out God. The moment you think I got this thing figured out, God will give you 10,000 reasons why you don't know what you're talking about. Stop trying to figure out God and just know I'm going to stay planted and be blessed. I don't have to be chasing after blessing. The blessing will chase after you. Amen. You stay put, you stay planted, you keep your feet firm in the word and you listen to God and you follow after him and you stay put right where you are until he says, move. And this will help some of you. Because I'm going to tell you, God has got a blessing for you, but you're about to quit from where you are. You're about to leave because you're mad at this person. And if I could get away from this person, my life would be better. That person has nothing to do with your life being better. Your life is better because it's in Christ. Now the way you handle that person will determine a lot of things. Amen. That might have been a word from God for somebody. So listen. Abraham was looked, or Abraham was left, was what looked dry and unproductive. You see, the land that Abraham was given was a land that wasn't as beautiful, didn't look as nice as what Lot took. So in the natural, he could have said, you know what? This is going to be rough because I don't have all the streams and all these things taking place. All I have is rain. And that I can't make. Let me tell you something, guys. You can't make the rain. You can't make it rain. You can't. You can do everything you want. You can do your rain dances and all your little jigs or whatever you do. It will only rain when the Lord says it will rain. Spiritually speaking, the rain, it's there, it's ready, and it's pouring, but you got to get, well, remember the old saying, you got to get under the spout where the glory's coming out. You got to be in the right place, in the right position to be ready to receive what God has for you. Many people are out here chasing the rain, looking for it, and they're looking for everybody else's rain. Well, if I could just hook up with this minister, whoo, I'd be blessed. Or if I could just go here or do this or that, I'd be blessed. Let me tell you something. It's not based on what you do, it's based on what he already did. Here's a revelation. The blessing. Was not on the land. The blessing was on Abraham. You may be in a negative workplace, a difficult season, around people who don't support you. I've talked to many people who had horrible parents who did horrible things to them, hurt them beyond what anybody should ever have to endure. But your life does not need to go in the direction of your past. The blessing is ahead of you, not behind you. But if you hold on to what's back here, you're going to get what's left in Egypt. And you don't want that. The past, the hurts. You need to march on to the blessing of what God has for your life. Because He wants to take you forward. Because there's more for you. You're blessed in spite of anything. You carry the blessing within you. Now I wanna I wanna stick right here for just a moment. Go to Deuteronomy 28. We're gonna look at verse one and two. Here's what it says. Now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments, which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord. And then it goes on to talk about how blessed you are, blessed shall you be in the city, blessed shall you be in the country, and it just continues on and on. But I want to bring out something that I don't know if very many people have heard. This was conditional promises. But I want to say something that you probably won't hear in very many churches today, is that the blessing on your life, the only condition there is, is that you are in Christ Jesus. It's not based on how you perform. Your performance does not dictate the blessing on your life, it's your position. Now, your performance is important. Don't get me wrong. You should do right. Live according to the word, follow after the Lord with all your heart. Be diligently about continuing to grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not saying those things aren't important. They are vitally important for your life because you can be over here doing whatever you want to do and end up in a bad situation when God's over here wanting to bless you and strengthen you and take you from where you are to a better place. So those things are very important. But I want to read this the way now it should be read in the light of Jesus Christ. Are you ready? Now it shall come to pass because Jesus diligently obeyed the voice of the Lord God. He observed carefully and all his commandments and did them perfectly. That today I will set you high above all nations of the earth, and all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because of what Jesus did when he obeyed the voice of the Lord God. You see, we're not under the law anymore. We're under grace. And grace is not a works mentality, grace is a faith mentality. I put my faith in Jesus alone. You see, we could try as hard as we could to be perfect, and let me tell you something, we'll always end up short. The Bible says if you mess up in one law, you've broken all of them. How many of you all have broken one law this week? Don't get too excited. We've all broken the law, we've all messed up, we've all did things we shouldn't do, we've all, you know, but God, who is rich in mercy, wherewith he loved us and gave us Jesus Christ to be our set our substitute. He took upon himself the sin of the world so that we, through his, through his life, might receive an abundance of righteousness. You see, we don't have to live in fear anymore. We don't have to live in unbelief anymore, but we can put our trust in Jesus. That's hard because that's a spiritual thing. Because it's easy to put my trust in my abilities and my talents or my giving. I can get myself out of this problem. I can make a way where it looks tough. I can fix this. Let me tell you something. Stop trying to fix your life and look to God who is able to actually do it. Amen. You can't fix it, it's too broke. If you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, your life's too broke to fix on your own. You can't do it. You need a savior, you need to put your trust in him, and he will be exactly what you need him to be. The blessing comes from God, not from things. But we often think, like we were talking about, that if I had the position or the promotion or the money, it would bless me, it would help me. But money isn't necessarily good or bad. Somebody says, Well, money, the money's the root of all evil. No, no, no, you got that wrong. Money's not the root of all evil. The love of money is the root of all evil. Money is what they call amoral. It's not good or bad, it's just a thing. Do you know money doesn't necessarily bring you blessing, it reveals to you who you are. That's why it's so important to give. It reveals to you who you are. Money is a tool that God uses for the kingdom. Obviously, we need money to operate. If you don't need money to operate, give it all to me and I'll figure out a way to operate in it. Amen. You know? We need money to operate. But we don't look to money to solve our problems. Let me say that again. We don't look to money to solve our problems. Because money doesn't solve anything, it reveals things. If you're a knucklehead before you had money, you get money, guess what? You just gonna be more of a knucklehead. If you're a redneck before you had money, and then after you got money, guess what? You're gonna have 15 four-wheelers, you're gonna have speakers everywhere, blaring country music, you're gonna be having a good time on the farm. Let me just tell you. You just gonna have more opportunity to be a redneck. Amen. You're gonna have a big old jacked-up truck and just have a good old redneck time. Amen. So money reveals who you really are. So where your treasure is, there is your heart, right? So God He gives you the opportunity to give so you can prove to yourself, I'm a giver, and I love the Lord, and I trust the Lord, because your money is not the solving problem supplier. Your God is. Your God is. You could be broke as a joke and be blessed and highly favored, and you come out better than someone who's got hundreds of millions of dollars and thinks they got it all figured out, but you just keep on walking in the blessing. It's not about how much money you have, it's about how big your God is. Amen. Guess what's gonna happen when we all get to heaven? What a day of rejoicing that's gonna be. And you ain't gonna be looking at your bank account in heaven and wondering, where is my money? Because you're gonna see what God has, and then you're gonna look at what you have, and you're gonna think, oh my goodness, I am broke as a joke. And you might be a billionaire, and you're looking at what God has, and you're thinking to yourself, I have nothing in comparison to this guy. God doesn't have to have your money, he wants your heart. He's not interested on when the when the offering buckets come down, he's not interested how much money you put in that offering bucket. He wants you to get off your chair and crawl into that bucket. That's what he wants. He wants you in that bucket. That would be kind of hard, Chuck. Where are you at? You think you can handle if everybody jumps in that bucket? We're gonna have to have a bigger bucket. Some people think if I just get that position, if I could only have that position, man, I'd have it made. If I could only be the pastor of that church. Woo! Glory to God. If I could only be the, you know, people think this way. But how many, remember the old story about Mary? Now, if your name's Mary in here, no offense. Remember the old story Brother Hagin used to talk about Mary? You don't remember that, do you? Good. I'm glad you don't, because I'm I shouldn't have said it was Brother Hagin that said it now. That story I tell about Mary. There was this guy hanging out with his preacher, and and he was very interested in this girl named Mary, and he was excited to meet Mary. And Mary was this, she's just Mary's gonna be my wife. I'm gonna marry Mary. I love Mary, and he was just going wild over Mary. And and this guy said, I want to take you somewhere, so he took him to this insane asylum, and he's walking around and he's showing him these people, and he's like, Okay, there's this, there's this, there's this, and he's showing all this, all this stuff, and these people are just doing wild things. And he goes to this one room and he looks and he's watching, and he's watching this person with a helmet on. It's a young man. He was in a padded room with helmet on, and he would scream to the top of his lungs and run and bang his head on the wall. And he'd watch him and say, What is he doing? And then he'd go back and he'd do it again. And over and over he'd watch this guy go and scream this name and then run right back and bang his head up against the wall. And he said, What's what's what's the name? What is he screaming? He said, He's screaming Mary. He said, You screaming Mary? He said, Yeah. He goes, Why is he screaming Mary and then banging his head up against the wall? He goes, That's the one who married Mary. You see, sometimes we want what everybody else has, but when we get it, you really don't want it. Because he got it and then ended up banging his head up against the wall. You see, a lot of people are looking for promotions, they're looking for opportunities. That's a horrible joke, isn't it? But, anyways, it's Brother Hagin that did it, not me. He's gonna come back and beat me over that one. But see, God wants us to have our focus on him, not everybody else. Not everything else is a blessing. He is the blessing. It's all about him. You see, when we focus on him, we're gonna start to see things from a different light. You might not have a lot, but in him you have everything you'll ever need. Amen. We look at others, we look at the Facebook, we look at all these people, and they're showing you their highlights of their life. You know what I'm talking about? Facebook is only the good things they do in life. You know, look at me with my brand new car, look at me on my vacation, you know, and my big tan and and all this, look at my brand new purse I got. I don't carry it like that. I don't know why I did that, you know. I don't know what this is, my purse. What is that? I don't, Kindle. It's a man bag. Yeah. Everybody has to have what everybody else has. You see, stop looking at everybody else and thinking, wow, look at what they have. Start looking at God and say, wow, look at what he has. Amen. Amen. The world's always gonna leave you wanting more. You'll get what you wanted, but then you'll want more. There's never enough. Your flesh always desires more. I know this is a brand new, I know this is a brand new purse, but I gotta have another one. Now I know it's it's it's it's a$2,000 purse, but I gotta have a$5,000 purse. I'm helping some of you guys out here right now. I know I am. Like, why do you want a purse that's$5,000 and have$10 in it? All right, I'll move on. I want to say something that I want you to hear very closely. Ephesians 1, verse 3. Ephesians 1, verse 3. I'm using my um my new Bible here. So Ephesians 1 verse 3. It says this blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has, everybody underlined has, has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. I want to re-it reiterate, reiterate what I just said. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us. Do you notice that you can't be blessed unless you have something in him? Without him, there is no blessing. No matter how healthy you are, no matter how wealthy you are, no matter how good you are, no matter how much you give to the poor or whatever you do, unless you're in him, you're not blessed. You don't understand blessing apart from God, who is the author of blessing. You can't know him apart from the blessing, and you can't know the blessing apart from him. They're one and the same. He is the blessing. And you can't give what you don't have, so if he has it, he has it to give. Do we have a God that owns a cattle on a thousand hills? Yes, we do. Do we serve a God that hung the stars and the moon in their place? Do we have do we serve a God who's able to do anything and everything according to the power that works in him? We serve a God who's powerful and mighty, and he's all sufficient in all things, and he's more than enough. And if you need it, he can get it to you. We don't have to search for the blessing of God. We need to put our eyes and our focus back on the God of the blessing. Keep our focus on Him. Don't be looking at what everybody else has, don't be worried about what everybody else is doing. Focus on Jesus. In this last day, that I believe we're living in the last times, and I'm not a doomsday preacher, but I just see that things are wrapping up in the kingdom, right? That God's about to take us to another place. I believe that. But the Bible says there's going to be perilous times coming. Right? But he said it'll be like the days of Noah. What happened to the righteous when the perilous times came in the days of Noah? What did they do? They rose above circumstances, didn't they? When everybody else was drowning, drowning, drowning? When everybody else was suffering, when everybody else was dying, the children of God, the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus rose above the circumstances and continued to flourish. And when God planted them back on dry ground, guess what they did? They multiplied and replenished the earth. They continued to flourish. Did you know that the kingdom of God will suffer violence, but the violent will take it by force, meaning you're going to have to take it. You can't just sit back and expect it just to happen. You have to keep yourself in a position. You have to continue moving forward and following after the Lord, and He will bless you. Now, one thing I want to I want to end with this. The blessing overrides circumstances. Abraham stayed in what looked dry, but it became fruitful. It became the land that God called the promised land. He took a land, and in the natural it didn't look good. But God knew something that those in the natural could not see. Also, the blessing is not natural, it's supernatural. So look at it this way. Remember the three Hebrew children. King Nebuchadnezzar was gonna heat up the fire. The furnace was hot, so hot, they turned it up. I think it was seven times hotter. And they threw these young men in the fire. These young men were in the right place, hanging out with the right God. Everybody else bent their knees to the king of the country. Do you know what they did? They kept their eyes on Jesus. They kept their eyes on God their Father, and they would not yield to the temptation of the world. It would have been easy for them just to eat the king's meat and do whatever the king said, bow to the king when he walked into the room. But we're not bowing to a king. We're not bowing to a governor. We're not bowing to a president. We're not bowing to the government. What we're doing is we're bowing ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ, and we're going to keep our focus on him. And when you do that, yes, the heat is going to be hot. Things are going to get hot, but guess who's going to be in the fire with you? The blessing, the one who blessed you will be in that fire with you because it's not based on natural circumstances. You see, in the natural, they should have been burnt up. But in the spirit, guess what? Not even the smell of smoke was on their clothes. What was that? That was supernatural blessing. You might be going through a situation in your life right now that it seems impossible, but let me tell you something. There is nothing impossible with God. And if you're in the spirit, you're going to live, you're going to make it. It's going to work out. It might seem bad, but it's all going to work out. Remember the story of Paul when they We're in a shipwreck and he was on the island of Krate and it was cold, it was rainy, and they built a fire. Do you remember what happened to Paul when he was gathering sticks? A viper jumped up and grabbed him and latched onto him. What did Paul do? He shook it off into the fire. Everybody just shake it off. You're going through a trial right now? Shake it off. Shake it off. Don't look at the problems, look at Jesus. Keep your eyes off the problems, look to your answer. Keep your eyes off the situation, look to the blessing. Look to him. Because when you keep your eyes on him, the Bible says God is spirit. You're not looking, when you look to God, guess what? You're looking in the spirit realm. When you look in the word, guess what? The Bible says, My word is spirit. When you look at the word, you're looking in the spirit. Do you remember the story of Elijah and Gehazar when they were trapped in a valley and the armies were surrounding them to kill them? And Gehazi walked out of the tenant, looked up, and saw the army of the Philistines coming to destroy their lives. And he went, ran in there, and he woke up Elijah and said, Get up, get up. The army's here to destroy us. And Elijah said, Lord, I pray that you will open his eyes, that he can see. And what did he do? He walked back out and he looked, and what was on the mountain was the army angels of God. The angel armies. Let me get that right. Standing there ready to destroy them. You see, there's things in your life you can't see in the natural. Because in the natural, it looks like your life is going to be destroyed. It looks like you're going to get your house taken from you. It looks like you can't make it to work because you don't have enough gas. But let me tell you something. Keep your eyes on the Lord, and supernatural things will begin to happen in your life, and he'll supply all your needs according to his riches in glory through Christ Jesus. It's his riches in glory. It is his riches in glory. When you get into the Word of God, guess what happens? You get in the Spirit. In the Spirit, you'll live. In the Spirit, your perspective changes. What looks bad in the natural looks good in the spirit. Whoo, glory to God. What looks bad in your life, in the spirit, man, it looks awesome. You don't realize what's going on in here. We talked about it Wednesdays. There's so many angels in this room right now. You don't realize it. You don't see it with your natural eyes, do you? There's an angel up here right now. He's just standing guard, waiting. What's he waiting on? He's waiting on us to speak the word. Speak the word. And here's my next thing, and I'm going to end it on this. Our job is to speak the blessing. Our job is not to talk about the circumstances. Our job is to speak only the word. Speak the word. Speak what God says about it. Did you know your words are seeds? That when you speak the word, the word goes into a person's heart like a seed. And that seed will begin to grow. And as you water that seed, it will come up and it will be a sprout. And then all of a sudden it'll grow and continue to grow. Did you know your words have power? Your words can change things. Amen. Somebody, well, now you're getting into that. Name it, claim it, grab it, blab it stuff. No, I'm not. I'm getting into the word of God stuff. The Bible says, call those things that be not as though they are. How can we do that? Because in the spirit, it is. I saw something in my spirit yesterday when I was studying. I got really excited about it. And I hope I can tell this story better. I got so fired up about it because I saw this. And my wife looked at me when I told her she's like, huh. So I don't know how this is gonna go. But I want you to hear this. This is so important. When you remember back in the day, some of you all don't remember this, when we used to write letters and would put a stamp on it, and we would like close up this thing called an envelope, and we would actually go to the mailbox and put it in there and send it off. Y'all remember those days? Yeah. You see, I saw this the other day. Is when you speak the word of God, you're wrapping up God Himself, putting Him in an envelope, closing it up and sending it. That's exactly what you're doing. Because God Himself is in your word. Because His Word is who He is. And you can't separate His Word from who He is. You can't separate it. So when He spoke, He cannot lie because He spoke of who He was. I hope you're seeing this with more than just your natural hearing ears. I want you to see this in your spirit. When God spoke over you the blessing, He can't take it back, Athena. He's not going to take it back. He gave it, and it's as good as God is. Glory to God. I hope you see this. So when He released a word over you, some of you all forgot that word that God spoke over you through a man of God or a woman of God. I don't know who you are, but I want you to remember those things. Remember what God placed in that prophet to speak to you. Because those things are going to come alive on the inside of you. When God speaks to you, it's as if he packages himself up and he sends himself to you. And when you open it, you're not just getting a word, you're getting God. You're getting God. I really want that to sink in because I see something here that's so valuable. You see, when he called you healed, it was as if he came and he laid hands on you. Come on, somebody. When he said you're blessed, it's as if he did all the work and he's handing you everything. He did it all. And he's standing before you through his word. And he's saying, Take it, take it, take it. And our mindset for years has been, I'm just not worthy, Lord. I'm just not worthy. Well, guess what? The Bible says he made you worthy. He made you worthy to be accepted in the beloved. You are accepted. He loves you. And when he gives you a word, he said that word will not return unto him void. So when he sends a letter into your life, you open it. Don't just leave it sitting there in the junk mill area in your junk drawer. Open the letter. It's not trash, it's not spam. It's a word from God. Open it. And when you hear it, it's as if God himself did it. Amen. Let's all stand up this morning. God cannot be separated from his word. But it's up to us to reject or to accept what he's given us. You see, when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, what you're doing is you're saying, I receive everything He is into my life. And I yield myself over to Him and I give Him everything. You see, when you got born again, it wasn't just a ticket out of hell. It was you received God Himself. Holly. He came to dwell in you. And He said, I bought you with a price. What was the price that He's talking about? It was through the shed blood of His Son Jesus Christ. Without the shed blood of Jesus, there would be no remission of sin, meaning we were hopeless. We didn't have any help. It was over. We were all doomed to die and go to hell. But because Jesus stood between the Father and between hell and said, I'll be the sacrifice. I'll take their punishment. I will take their shame. You put all their sickness and all their disease on me. I'll take it all. I'll take their poverty, I'll take their pain, I'll take everything, Father, put it all on me. And the Father put the curse on Jesus. And Jesus died. He went to hell. And because he had never sinned, and because he had never failed, and because he always obeyed the law perfectly, hell couldn't keep him. And the earth had to release him. Not even a rock the size of this church could hold him back. Because there was resurrection power that went down to the very heart of hell and delivered Jesus from the dead. And that power, because it was on Jesus, when you receive him as your Lord and Savior, then you have the same power in you that raised Jesus from the dead. Resurrection power dwells in you. So you're not defeated trying to get victory. We're victorious, guys. Enforcing our victory. Everywhere we go, we're blessed. Everywhere we go, we're loaded. We're ready. Whatever the world throws at me, I'm prepared because I got God. I have him and he has me. And you can't separate his word from him. So wherever I go, I speak the word only. I speak the word only. In the situation you're in, stop speaking about the issue. Start talking about the word. Stop talking to your mountains about how big, how big he is, and look at God and tell him how big he is. Focus on God. Put your concentration on him, and he will lead you out into the promised land. Amen. Amen. Glory to God. If you're in here today and you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, this is a great opportunity for you to slip out from where you are and come up here to the front. I'm going to pray with you and lead you to the Lord. If you're in here and you're not born again, come on up here and get born again. Are you in here? Anybody? Amen. Amen. Well, we all born-again people, I think. And that leads me to my next thing. I want to see people in here that aren't born again so that we can see some people saved. This season is an opportunity for all of us. Miss Chris came up to me and she handed me a card. Actually, a piece of paper she had drawn. And uh I've spent all week, haven't I, working on it? And I'm gonna have over 500 invitation cards made. And uh we're gonna have them back here, and we're gonna give them to you guys to have. It's like a business card. And I want you to hand these out. Why? Because I believe what we have, everybody else needs to know about. We have victory. I want this whole community to see this kind of victory. Amen. I want this whole community to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. We shouldn't stop as a church until everyone in this area is saved and filled with the Holy Ghost. Amen. Well, that's that ain't there's no way that could happen. Oh, really? We serve a pretty awesome God. You want to change the government in Illinois. Do you want to change the government in Illinois? No matter what you believe, you know how you change things? You sit God on them. Go get them, God. Go get them. Go get them. And you know what you do? You win people to the Lord. That's how you change things. Are you is it is it easy to complain about what's happening in this area? All the bad things that are happening at school? You know bad things would stop happening at school if all the kids were born again. Amen. Why don't we focus on that? Let's just go get them all born again. We have an opportunity here in a couple days to get them all born again, don't we? Amen. All right, let's all bow our heads. Father, in Jesus' name, we thank you so much for your goodness. Thank you for blessing us. Lord, we thank you that your word is not separable from who you are. So when we speak your word, we see results. And that word will not return void, but it will accomplish what it was sent to accomplish. And Lord, I thank you, you came to seek and save that which was lost. So, Lord, use us as vessels to go reach the lost, to go lay hands on the sick and they shall recover, to make disciples, go into all the world and preach this gospel. That God is good and his mercy endures forever, that he's not mad, he wants a relationship with you, and he provided a way to do it. And Lord, I thank you for that. And Lord, we yield to you, and we want to serve you based on a friendship and a love that's inseparable. And Lord, I thank you, Father, for it. And I praise you for it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Look at somebody and say, I love you. God loves you. And get out of here, amen.

SPEAKER_00 59:50

Thanks for listening. We hope that this message helps you draw closer to God as you walk out your faith. We'll see you next week.