You are invited to step into the light God has already granted you, recognizing that your testimony is a heritage meant to be shared. Start by obeying the specific, small instructions God has placed on your heart today, whether it is an apology or a moment of prayer. As you break your own will to follow His, you will find your desire for Him growing deeper.
We're in a series titled testimonies, and I love the series. I believe God led us to do this series. I know he did. And I and in this series, what we're gonna do is we're we're we're gonna have a couple of testimonies from people in the church that each each message, you're gonna hear from a couple of different people, and it's gonna be awesome. But before we do that, I want to review what a testimony is each time and also so a truth that we've learned and also impart a new truth about testimony so that as you're listening to testimonies, you can receive that and your life can be transformed.
K? So the review part here, 1, what is a testimony? A testimony is any written or spoken record, a written or spoken record of the **supernatural working of god**. There it is right there. Written or spoken record of the supernatural working of god and here's 2 truths I want you to "walk away with today".
First 1 is review. *Testimony* helps me to experience new promises of God in my life. I want you to say that. Say, testimony. Testimony.
Helps me. Helps me. To experience. To experience. New promises of god.
New promises. New New my life. In my life. I'm going explain that scripturally so that all of you will believe it and then when we say it again, everybody will say it. Okay.
Second Peter *2 Peter-1*. This is review. Verse 3, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us his very great or his precious and very great promises so that through them, you may become partakers of the divine nature having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. Now, that's amazing and wonderful.
We can pick that apart but I want to 0 in on a *word* there, has granted. As you find it twice in those verses, has granted. And if you'll just bear with me, I'm going to go linguistic on you. We're going to get into the Greek. Okay?
So just this is important. This word has granted in the original text is perfect middle indicative. Don't worry. I'm gonna explain. Perfect means it's something that has been done in the past, done.
It matters in the present and has ongoing effect in the future. So has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness according to these very precious promises. These promises He has granted are promises that have been granted in the past. They matter today in the present, and they will continue to have an ongoing effect in the future. Yes.
Yes. That's good. Amen? Amen. Come on.
Alright. Alright. Yeah. Alright. So that's that's the perfect aspect of has granted.
The middle aspect is the subject plays some role in that. So meaning God play has played a role in granting us these promises. He also plays a role in helping us to receive these promises, but it's some role. We have to these promises are grace to us. They're a gift.
We have to. It's by grace through faith. So we have to hear them, receive them, and walk in them. There's a there's an aspect of our receiving, believing, and doing what he has said by grace through faith. Remember?
Faith comes by hearing. You're hearing these promises but faith without works is dead. Without putting them into practice, it's not complete faith. And faith only works by love, meaning, oh my gosh, you love me so much that this is better for me because you love me, and I realize you love me. It's better for me to do the promises that you said than to sit in my unbelief.
You guys follow me? Okay. Cool. This is review. So we have learned with all of this, these promises.
We're talking about testimony now, connecting the dots here. We've learned according to Psalms-1:19 1 11, test your testimony, which is a testimony. We're not the main character. God's the main character, and it's his supernatural working. We get to play a part in it.
*Testimony* from Psalms-1:19 1 11 is our heritage. We're heirs. A heritage is something given to an heir. We've learned that. We're heirs of god.
Right? So, when we hear of a supernatural promise of god, that is our, it's ours in him as an heir. Okay? We also learn that heritage and I know this is a lot. Go and listen to the podcast.
It's on our website. If you want to understand these so that you can walk this out, dig in, seek it out. Don't just come here and walk away and not write it down or not not go back and because otherwise, it won't become a part of you. Right? So so allow it to become a part of you by putting in some some, some work to to remember.
Okay? Alright. We also learned that a heritage is something transmitted by or acquired from a predecessor. Follow me here. What that means is if I share a testimony with you, I'm sharing a promise of God that I'm walking in.
And if it's not something that you're consistently living out or it's not something that you've ever experienced in God, meaning you don't understand it, then what is happening by me sharing this *testimony* is I'm transmitting to you the knowledge that you can live in this very same promise. And you, by listening and honoring it, are acquiring from me the realization that you can live out the very same promise that I'm testifying about. You guys follow me? That's the power of a testimony. So number 1, testimony helps me to experience new promises of God in my life.
That's all review. Number 2, testimony delivers me from darkness or it delivers the hearer from darkness. *Revelation-12:11* says, they overcame or conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. For they did not love their lives even under death. They being Christians, overcame him being the enemy, the prince of darkness, Satan.
How? Number 1, by the blood of the lamb, by what Jesus did for us. We talked about that in communion. Sorry, not sorry for my passionate expression of that. And number 2, and by the word of their testimony.
Remember, we believe in our heart that Jesus died and rose again, and we confess with our mouth as testimony, saying what God has done. And I'll I'll give you just the the practical example and scripture of how this works out in your life, and then we'll have our testimonies. *Ephesians-5*. Verse 8. For at 1 time, you were darkness.
When I have somebody read this, they always say they always input the little preposition in. For at 1 time, you were in darkness. That's not what it says. Did some of you put that little preposition in your mind as you read that? Yeah?
Let me be honest. Most people do. But it's not it's not what it says. It says at 1 time, you were darkness. And then they put the little preposition in on the next part too, but now "you are light".
Then say you are in the light. It says, you are light. Put that in your little theological cap and think on that for a little while. For once you were darkness, now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light.
For the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true and try to discern what is pleasing to the lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness but rather or instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret but when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible and anything that becomes visible, everybody say, is light. Is light. Good.
So, I'll just put that into practice or I'll share a practical, sorry, *testimony* of of this in my life. It says, verse 12, for it is shameful even to speak of the things they do in secret but when it's exposed by the light, it becomes visible, and anything that becomes visible is light. If you've been coming to our church for any amount of time, you understand this. If not, this may be a shocker to you. In college, I got stuck on pornography.
18, 19 years old, and and it's really kind of the first time I saw it like video, and I was stuck on it for a while. And then I even got married in the marriage aspect of my life. He thought that would go away. Nope. Didn't.
Matter of fact, just made things a little worse. And that pornography was a part of my life for 5 years of our marriage. We've been married 15 years. And that first 5 years sucked. There's no other way to put it.
Just was tough. And thinking about that at that time, it was shameful for me. I felt shameful about it. I didn't want to go to counseling. I would prevent her from talking about our marriage issues.
Why? Because I wanted to hide secret sin only grows more dirty. Write that 1 down. That's a life principle. Secret sin only grows more dirty.
And so what happened? Well, I was a Christian, and I was living in this area in darkness. And when your your identity is in Christ and you're living the opposite of your identity, it creates all kind of stress because you're not being who you are. And so it came to a head where I remember calling a prayer hotline and asking for deliverance from this, but I wasn't willing to reveal. And the woman said on the line, I asked, should I tell my wife?
She said no. The Holy* *Spirit said, yes, you should. So I hung up and I went home and told my wife. I confessed my fault 1 to another. She prayed for me and I was healed.
And there was a a time after that of renewing the mind and learning how to walk out that freedom. Praise the Lord. It's awesome. But here's what's happening right now. I shared to use with you something that I was ashamed of, but I was freed from because it became visible.
Now it turned into light. See, as I'm sharing it, I'm not ashamed of it anymore. I'm proud that Jesus has "set me free" in showing his *supernatural working power*. That's not the best part. So as I'm sharing it, it's light now.
It's not darkness. And it's exposing darkness in some of your hearts. Because as I'm sharing it, there's things that are starting to pop to the surface. You're like, he's talking about me. Oh, that's me.
Oh, I feel that very same. I'm doing that same thing or or some some kind of addiction or some kind of thing that's similar that the that is making you uncomfortable. That's because the light that of what used to be shameful but god has transformed it from darkness to light coming out of my mouth is exposing darkness and giving you the opportunity to not do what Adam and Eve did. Adam and Eve hid. It's giving you the opportunity to expose it, let it become visible so that's transformed into light, and you are set completely free.
Amen? So number 1, everybody say with me, testimony helps me to experience new promises of God in my life. When you hear these testimonies, don't just excuse it as, oh, that's what God did in them, but he could never do it in me. No, he loves you the same way. It's the same spirit in them that's in you.
And then number 2, *testimony* delivers me Delivers me. From darkness. From darkness. Let's hear some awesome testimonies. I'm gonna invite my beautiful wife.
Would you come up here, baby? She's amazing. And I got your microphone for you. There you are. You would have a seat.
We're doing these testimonies talk show style. How are you? You guys speak in the mic.
I'm good.
Okay. So with this, *testimony is a written or spoken record of the supernatural working of God*. So with that being said, beautiful, would you share a testimony
with us? Yeah. He he told me share a story and for anybody that's been at Real Church for a little while, y'all know I like telling stories.
Oh, she does.
But it takes me a while to get through a story because I tell the longest intro and then the shortest story every time I speak. So I'm a try to keep it short.
Yes ma'am.
This is a testimony about me understanding that my prayer life, couple of years ago, I had to trust my prayer life to God. Does that make sense? A lot of times we think about, you know, increasing our prayer life and like I wanna learn to pray better and everything, But there's it's something special that happens when you learn that you can entrust even that to God. So 2015, God called our family of 4. I was pregnant with Eden, called us back to Louisiana and my memo Sue called me.
Now she didn't I mean she came and visited and she call and just check-in on me, but she called me and she said I need to talk to you and I was like, oh crap I'm in trouble. And sorry. It's it's real church so that's how I talk. So she called me and I I pulled in to where she worked and she said, darling, I need to tell you something. Now just a little backstory on her, she had been dealing with cancer for a while and it was really taking a toll on her body.
And I was like, what my mom? And she said, I know the Lord. And I my whole life I was like I know you know the Lord. That's not a surprise to me. And she just said and this was so sweet of her.
She was like I just know that with cancer there is the potential that that it's gonna kill me and I just know this would be really important for you to to know. And I was like, you're right. I wanna know that everybody that I know and love knows the Lord because I I want them to spend eternity with the Lord. And so she told me that. She told me her testimony about how God saved her.
She told me the story of how she she used these words. She was like, I tried to lose my salvation. And I was like, that is such a profound way to put it because she ran from the Lord for a while and she confessed a lot to me and we prayed through it. It was just this beautiful moment of her almost assuring me, hey, even if I die prematurely, then the Lord like, I'm gonna be with the Lord. And so it wasn't super impactful to me other than, oh, that's so sweet.
Like, I'm so glad she told me. Until 2017. So God called our family of 5 to Florida. We moved here and cancer was really ravaging her body pretty bad at the time. And in October 2017, we went to went back to Louisiana for a wedding and my memo happened to be on her deathbed in the hospital.
And you know we took the kids in so that they could give her hugs, know the nurses were telling us this is a good time to say goodbye. And the kids left with my mom and it was just me and my mom in there. And my mom warned me, she's she's going through it. And so just kinda giving you all a preface, this has been an emotional thing for me to remember, but it's it's a beautiful thing, but what God did. But there's also a little this is real life.
She yelled at the top of her lungs, "kill me court". And she said, please just kill me. And I looked at her, was like, no, my mom. I'm not gonna kill you. Like, no.
And she's like, please, please, I just wanna die. And it was there's that's some words you can't unhear, you know? And I was like, no. And and then she was like, Jesus please just take me home and I did not understand it to this day I don't understand why she walked through that. You know, we can I can try and figure it out, but like I don't fully understand and that's something that I have to trust the Lord with that I in my unbelief or not my unbelief, in my understanding, Lord help me understand?
So I prayed the only way I knew and really I just wanted her to stop saying it. It was super selfish but I was like in Jesus name you will get up and you will not. And I was just doing all the things I knew and and she just got really quiet and she was laying there and I was like cool, she's healed and she wasn't. And so I was like, ugh. And so I sat back, it was really quiet.
I knew that I was gonna have to go get the kids and I just said, God, how do I even pray here? This is it's it's all well and good praying for someone with a headache but like she's dying. Like what what do I do? And I said, God, I want your will to be done here done here. And so I know she knows you, so if she's if she has completed the race that you set out for her to run then please just take her home.
And that's a pretty tough prayer to pray when you're looking at losing someone that you love. It's like, please just take her home. Take her out of this world. Let her let her die here so that she can be with you. But if she's not done, *God I pray that you'll heal her, give her strength in her bones, and that she will* rise up, and that she'll finish out the mission you've given her, and then take her home.
And I was fully expecting, and this is just I I believe it's important for us to expect God to move when we pray. Right? But I was fully expecting 1 of 2 things to happen. I was expecting for the monitors to go off and for her to be gone right then, or for her to yank that tube out of her nose and be like, alright darling, let's go. We got work to do because that's just her personality.
And so I waited and waited and nothing happened and you know I was just like, man, *God I prayed what I believe is your will*. 1 of those has to be your will somewhere in there. And so I left and we, I told David about the prayer and I said you know that's the first time I've ever prayed something like that. I I literally gave God permission to take her from me and that's a hard thing to do when you when you wanna cling to someone. And so we came back to Florida and kept getting reports from my mom letting me know my mom's not doing good and you know there was 1 day that she called and she said she's you know she's not in a place to talk on the phone right now but you know, just brace yourself.
And this happened for months and I was like, Lord, I just I just will you just take her? Like if you're if you're not gonna heal her, then just take her. And I get a call, I think it was either the November or the December. I get a call from a number I didn't recognize and y'all know how scammers are. Don't answer numbers we don't know.
Well I answered it and I hear, hey darling and I was like memo and she was like I heard that prayer you prayed for me and I was like oh I'm in so much trouble. I prayed that my memo would die like and she heard me and now I'm gonna get fussed at and She said, court I was praying that same prayer. And just so you know, I'm sitting in a I think she said she's sitting in a recliner in her backyard. This is from Louisiana. They do things different.
And so I'm sitting in a recliner in my backyard and and just so you know, *God wasn't done with me. I have energy. I'm strengthened and this is the first time since I had cancer that I feel like I'm on mission and so I'm calling everybody I know. People are bringing us food but I'm forcing them to sit down and hear the gospel and I and she was just she was just literally *living her last days** like out for the Lord. Like she's like I don't know how long I have left.
I know that it looked like I was done and so I'm gonna live every single day as though I'm about to die, and I don't have much time to finish out what God wants me to do. And I was like, woah. That's okay. That's a lot for me to take in after the prayer that I prayed. And then on December 7, that same year, she died.
And I was like, wow. God did answer my prayer miraculously. Every doctor, every nurse was like, tell her goodbye. Tell her goodbye. You know, and then she calls me and she's at home in a recliner in her backyard doing fine.
Like, was eating something and she hadn't eaten and who knows how long. So
And sharing the gospel with everybody she knew.
Everybody. Like, everybody. She was ordering from Amazon so that the people would come to her house so that she could tell them the gospel.
She was on mission.
Yeah. And so I guess testimony, *God* answered my prayer, but he didn't answer it in the timeline or in the way that I wanted him to. But that just helped me to learn to trust him with my prayer life. Like, you know what? I don't understand why or how or what you're gonna do here, but I know that my job as a believer is to pray according to your will**.
And if I don't know it's your will*, I'm just gonna trust you that you know what your will is and that you're gonna translate what I say into your will and you're gonna do what you wanna do as long as I'm faithful to pray*. And so that's my testimony I wanted to share.
It's awesome. Well, baby, thank you so much. If you could scoot down because you're not done.
I'm not?
No. But just scoot down to the edge of the couch. It's like a talk show. You know, scoot down, bring the next person up. So if Moriah could come up, I think she's walking in the back.
There she is. Could you guys give Moriah a big old hand? I don't know if you've gotten the opportunity to get to know Mariah, but Mariah "drips Jesus". You just you just hang out with her and and you're you're probably gonna get a little Jesus on you. And so it's couldn't help but ask you as well to share your testimony.
She is the wife of Gabe who, was the 1 that looked like Waldo yesterday or last Sunday sharing a *testimony* and they're both an amazing couple and, we're thankful that they're on the team. So.
Thank
you. As far as testimony goes, a written or spoken record of the supernatural working of god in through on or around your life. Share with us a testimony. I haven't heard this. So, I don't know.
It's it's
it's a fun 1. I I'm going tell you about a time that I I was living in Maine and if you don't know, I my husband and I, we lived in Maine for a very short time before we moved here and I met a young woman named Ali and Ali had just accepted Jesus into her heart as her savior. Like the week that I met her was was kind of the timeline of that and so we became really close friends really quickly and I just wanted to encourage her in her new faith. I wanted to talk to her about it. And so we would hang out and talk and and she was just being chatty, telling me some of her stories, some of her life, and all of a sudden while she's talking, I feel this heavy weight of the Holy Spirit and he's trying to get my attention and this is kind of how the Holy Spirit talks to me sometimes.
So, don't don't be too concerned. But the Holy* *Spirit weighed on me and he was like, this is a really important moment. Pay attention. Pay close attention. Which translated is "shut up and listen".
That's what it means. shut up and listen. Don't say anything. Don't mess this up. Like, I'm about to do something here.
You gotta you gotta listen to me. You have to pay close attention. So she's talking, and she's going through all of these topics, just telling me about her past that I would normally interact with. And she grew up in a environment that I would call kind of new age. It was spiritual, but not God, not Jesus, not Holy* *Spirit.
It was you know, she brought up things like dream catchers and praying to them. She brought up things that like I wanted to interact with. I wanted to like grab hold of that thought and and and talk to her about it. Other things that were brought up were like having sex before marriage. Like, that's another conversation I would have loved to have with her and and it wasn't wrong for me to want to interact with this new believer and give her some insight.
She needed healing and I really wanted to talk to her about healing. If anybody knows me, they know my favorite conversation is to talk about healing. And the Holy* *Spirit said, no. And this whole time, I'm like feeling the weight of it because I'm like, well, how about now? Can I say anything now?
Can I like, are you sure? I shouldn't say anything like now is the time to say something and and have these really deep and wonderful conversations and he didn't say anything. So, a discipline that I've tried to create throughout my walk in my Christian faith is that I only do the last thing that I feel the Lord told me to do. So it wasn't that he reminded me. It wasn't that he said, no.
No. No. Not yet. Just wait. Hold off.
But but he didn't say anything. So I'm saying, well, Lord, how about now? Well, my gut reaction is, like, he's got to want me to say something. Like, he has to. But because the last thing he told me to do was to shut up and listen, that's all I felt that I was allowed to do.
And she's going through all these different stories, and then she gets to a story where she says, "I had a knowing" about a friend. And she had this insight that she just kind of felt about this friend of hers and she ended up sharing it with a friend and it impacted them. So, so her story, I'm not going to kind of get into the details of how that impacted her friend. It's not important but she kept saying, I had a knowing. I had a knowing and the Holy* *Spirit said, tell her to give god *glory* and I felt, no joke, I felt like an arrow being shot out of a bow like boom.
I'm allowed to say something now and I had to also be be on top of the moment where he said like, now, you can say something. I was really excited. I'm like, oh, we're going to give god glory for that. Yeah. Yeah.
So, the lord gave you that insight. So, we started to change her vocabulary. In a very simple moment, like a very simple sentence where she she was saying, I had a knowing and suddenly it changed to, I felt like the lord told me, like the lord told me about my friend and the lord guided me and she started changing her entire story where her vocabulary, her language started giving god glory for every little step in her life and had I interacted the way that I normally would have, I would have highlighted the distance that that she had with the lord. I would have highlighted the the oh you didn't grow up in church. You don't understand.
Let me give you this this insight but rather the Holy* *Spirit said, I was there the whole time and that that was the moment that he wanted to highlight and I got to say, the lord was there through every step of your life and she started telling her stories of of how she got to Maine because the lord guided her there even though she was just Christian for less than a week. Like, she didn't even know but she knew the voice of god. She knew what it was and she's extremely prophetic. She knows the voice of god. She's now a strong, powerful woman of the lord living in The UK and and ministering to young children.
So, that that's my that's my testimony where it's it wasn't just important that I, you know, did what god told me to do. It was that I didn't do something that I would have done. You know, it was like the shut up and listen is probably the most common word that I get from the lord. It's like, this is a moment. Shut up.
Like, listen, figure it out. Don't say what you want to say but just say what I'm going to say.
Alright. You guys stay here. I I gotta get something. Amazing. 2 testimonies.
Maybe you guys listen to that and you're like, I wanna hear the Lord like that. I wanna know, like, not just guess, but really know that God's leading me and be able to obey and have him impact someone else through me like that. Maybe some of you, I won't say that 1 yet. I'll say that in a second. But Romans-12:2, and I say this all the time, but I I think if we really grasp this, then we'll be able to grow in what's happening here.
It says, do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. So "renewing of the mind" transforms the life. Okay? Renewing the mind transforms the life. Then it says, that by testing, you may be able to discern what is the will of god, what is good and acceptable, and perfect or is good, pleasing, and perfect acceptable will.
Alright, the NIV says, then you will be able to test and approve what his will is. Meaning, as we renew our mind to the reality of who he is and what his word says, then we're able to *discern* what's the Holy* *Spirit and what's my normal. And we're able to submit our normal to the Holy Spirit and our life looks more like Jesus. That's what you heard there. So renewing the mind though goes along with what we talked about before.
Renewing the mind is not just this mental ascent to memorizing the scripture. It's a it it has the concept of transforming the life. If the life is not transformed, the mind's not renewed. In any area of your life that it's not transformed, your mind's not renewed. So that means it has that concept of understanding too, which I understand mentally and I put it into practice.
Now, it becomes a part of my life and the more that I do that, the more I'm able to hear what god is speaking in the moment as I interact with people or what I should do in the big and the small things in my life because I have relationship with him so I can. Amen? Amen. What are your guys' thoughts? Amen.
I I I gotta say, Moriah, just to thank you for what you shared and to be transparent with you, but also to you guys. I haven't been great at doing what she said, at not saying something I know because it's more beneficial to be quiet and more loving to the other person to listen and understand waiting on what the *Holy *Spirit** wants to say instead of what I'm used to saying in that moment. It makes sense? And meeting Mariah and Gabe and our families hanging out, you get that sense from her. This is something she lives out.
And I have actually gotten better at doing what I just said I used to be really bad at because of her testimony of this. Not even sharing it in a way, me just hearing those principles lived out in the way she's talking about how God used her to impact someone. Probably on my couch as me and Courtney and Gabe and Mariah are talking about stuff. I heard it and it Holy* *Spirit said, there it is. And then I begin to walk that out in my relationship with him, putting it into practice, and it's becoming more and more a part of my life.
That's how testimony works. You hear someone else walking with the lord and that promise is something that he wants you to walk out to if you can hear and combine it with the faith knowing that the way that god's using them, he wants to use you not because of your prep, your effort, or anything like but because you're his son, because of Jesus. Amen? And I love Courtney's testimony because it's just vulnerable. There's a lot of people going through really tough stuff.
And I have to say as well that it's just a supernatural to heal heal a headache as it is to raise someone from the dead. Still takes god's supernatural working but the willingness to is say, god, your will** be done in this situation. We trust you and we we know that his will, Jesus taught us to pray on Earth as it is in heaven. You know, so we want on Earth as it is in heaven and we also know there's a time. And so selfishly, not just you, but, you know, I want to raise up everybody.
And sometimes, it's better for them to go be with Jesus. And discerning that is is difficult. We got time for 1 more testimony. Anything else? I
mean, I got a whole slew of them. Why
don't we do this? Yeah. When we talk about Jesus and stuff all the time, it's awesome. Why don't we do this? Why don't we end with both of you ladies praying for the people in the congregation?
And just take a moment to I taught I I teach our dream team this all the time and and if you've been coming here for a while, you might know this. The Bible says in 1 John-5:14 and 15, if you ask anything "according to his will", he hears you And if you know that he hears you, you know that you have what you've asked. I mean, that's a big deal. So, if the Holy Spirit tells you what to pray, you're hearing his will. It's guaranteed that it will happen.
That's straight Bible. 1 John-5:14 and 15. If you ask according to his will, he hears you. And if he hears you, you have what you've asked. Okay.
Well, we know we can test and approve what his will is as our mind is transformed, our life is transformed, we can hear his will more clearly. So as we grow in relationship with him, we learn how to pray his will, and we see more prayers answered, which is awesome. So I'm just gonna ask that the Holy* *Spirit show you guys what to pray and by faith, you pray over this congregation. And after that, I want you guys to process what it is, how God wants you to respond to the today's message, how he wants you to walk away from today and then Imma have Olivier come back up and close us out which will be awesome. So, would you guys take a moment to pray for us?
Our gals, ladies?
Yeah, I just I just want to say 1 more thing before I pray. That that the lord's kind of putting on my heart is that the the things that I wanted to share about that the Holy* *Spirit said no to, they weren't wrong, incorrect, but he's such a relational god. He's such a, he's not about legalism. He's so about communicating to you where you're at and there's there's been things about me that I know the lord has given grace for because he's working on something else in me.
Yep.
And you can think about that and and look at others in that same light and say, the lord knows that there's some really good ground in this person that he's trying to put a seed in right now and and you could till the wrong ground or you could, you know, seed the wrong ground. And and it's it's about being in relationship with the Holy* *Spirit. There's nothing better than just knowing him. There's nothing better than just sitting in his presence. If you haven't done that before or even if you have, man, I encourage you to just go home and spend some some time with the Holy Spirit.
I have I have a 1 year old at home who is loud and fun and gets into all sorts of things and I've been learning how to still have that time with the Holy* *Spirit with his distraction being there and the lord has grace for him too. Like, the lord still shows up even though things don't look perfect and how I would set up finding the Holy Spirit and having alone time with him. The Holy Spirit wants to meet with you and he wants to be with you. So, I just I just want to encourage you like, go go somewhere by yourself if you can. If your 1 year old's with you, he'll still show up and and sit there and wait on him and just listen and maybe tell him that you love him but you're just listening for what he's going to say to you and he'll always speak.
He always comes to those who seek him. He always comes to those who desire to find him. He wants to be found by you.
Amen.
So, I'm going to pray. Father god, thank you so much for the love that you have for us that we get to love you because you first showed your love for us. We desire to grow our desire for you. We desire to know your voice. We desire to be more in tune with you.
Father god, I pray that you would give give a real tangible example to each and every person here, the presence that you are, the the weight, the love, the glory that you are. The the perfect, beautiful righteousness that you are and lay that on each and every person here that we would know what that is to be that, to be light, that we are no longer darkness but we are now light and we get to live in this relationship with you. Father god, I thank you so much for your glory and your power and your beauty and your might and the ways that you interact with us and that you allow us to come boldly before your throne of grace and just be in your presence. So, father god, we we want to give an offering of our time and sit in your presence. We want to give an offering of our life and sit and wait on you and know your voice because it's worth it.
It's so worth it to know you and be loved by you father god. I pray that you would just grow our desire and our understanding of how to love you well and how to love each other through your voice well. In Jesus name.
I talked to David yesterday about will, about true and it's funny that I didn't know what you were sharing but it truly is about breaking your own will and what you wanna do, same as me, breaking your own will in order to do what *god* wants to do even if we don't understand it. Yeah. And in just a conversation yesterday, I was saying, you know, I don't want god to bend his will to me, like deep down. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I'm like, I feel like I know better than you do and god's like, no, you don't.
But I believe just as we were praying or as I was praying a while ago that there are a lot of people in here who truly, truly desire to bend their own will to God, but you don't know how. Like, how do I even how do I even know God's will? And I think that there's a special place that I'm in with a lot of things where I've had to say, God, I wanna understand your will and your purpose in this and your intent in this. I wanna fully grasp it. And sometimes, I do believe that he's kinda like I am with my kids.
I'll like, I'll tell you when you're older. I feel like sometimes he's like, listen, this is, I'm going to share this with you. I'm going to reveal this to you but you're going to have to wait on my timing to reveal what's next. Yeah. You're going to have to wait on me to deem it the best timing for you to fully understand all of this because right now, it might be a little bit too much for you.
He's a loving daddy. And so, you know, Dave's not going to tell our 6 year old all the things, right? And but god is so good and so near what Moriah did was okay or what she continues to do and I think we can all learn from her is, what is the last thing he instructed me to do? What what do I know that I know that I know? And I I bet everybody in here knows the last thing god instructed them to do.
Might be fighting it, might be justifying, continuing to do something different but you know what god has asked of you and he wants to reveal things to you as we put into practice what he's instructed us to do because he is all about his own glory. He we we need to bend our own will to him and if you don't know how to do that, I do believe that the first step is to just say, god, I'm just going to do the last thing you told me to do and I'm going to listen to you and that listening to god, it comes from spending time with them and in a relationship with them and so I just I felt like while we were praying, there are a lot of people that want to know how to follow his will, want to break our own to follow his but don't know how. And I believe that that's probably the best first step that we can take is choose to break our will and do the last thing he told us to do even if we don't wanna do it. So.
It's powerful.
I'm afraid.
Yes, ma'am.
Yeah. God, thank you that your will is good and it's pleasing and it's perfect. It's so sweet. God, teach us to renew our minds to your way of thinking which comes through your word. It comes through spending time with you and and god, I pray that we can learn to break our own wills in order to follow yours And as you reveal "step by step", 1 foot after the other, god, that we can learn to just choose obedience every single time.
Mhmm. To say, okay, the last thing god told me to do was to put the cigarette down. The last thing god told me to do was apologize to my son. The last thing god told me to do was was to to set aside some time for you. The last thing god told me to do was be consistent in a Bible study.
Whatever it is that god told you to do last, god, whatever it is that you told them to do last, god, I pray that you will empower them, you will motivate them to obey because obedience is our success with you. And as we follow you, as we follow you step by step, god, you reveal more and more of your plan and your purpose and we know that it's so beautiful, god. And as all of us are continuing to do that, I know that your kingdom is going to expand, that others are gonna come to know you, God. We love you, God. Thank you for this day.
Thank you for everything that you've done. Amen.
Amen. Would you guys give give these 2 mighty women of God a big old hand? Thank you for "tuning in today" to the Real Church podcast. I pray that you walk away from today encouraged and with a deeper understanding of how much God loves you. If you'd like to connect with us, we can't wait to reach out to you and pray for you.
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