God's power is for you, which means it keeps showing up in your life ready to work on your behalf, even on the days you have not walked in the fullness of it.
You know, when somebody's for you, they keep showing up, don't they? They keep cheering you on. They keep encouraging you.
That's what the power of God does. It keeps coming and it keeps encouraging you. Even though we may not be walking in the fullness of it, it shows up again and says, "I'm here, ready to work. I'm here, ready to work."
We have to become convinced that his power is for us. And not only that, we have to become convinced of how great it is. If it seated Christ far above all principality, power, might, and dominion, is there anything it cannot do?
That is the power that is for you. It's for you every day of your life. It's for you when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed.
It's for you after you made a mistake. It's there to redeem you, to set you on a firm foundation, to restore you. His power is for you, and it's so great we have to use multiple adjectives to describe it.
God's power is for the benefit of the church, which means God intends to benefit you directly, not just the people out there who still need to come to him.
Y'all realize the power of God is for the benefit of the church?
And the church is his body. It is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself.
People are gripy these days. People are so gripy that if you do something nice for your family, they say you should have done that for somebody else. If you do something nice for your church, you should have done that for somebody else.
I can tell you that's not God. That's somebody trying to talk you out of what God does. Because God blesses his children.
He gives good gifts. He is a good father who gives good gifts to his children. How foolish of us to reject the gifts that God gives.
God wants to benefit you. He's loading you down daily with benefits. I just marvel at how hard a time we have wrapping our heads around this.
How can we think that God is short on resources? That if he's good to us, somehow he's not going to have enough goodness left for the world that still needs to come to him?
God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him, and the idea that he only wants you to love him and suffer through life does not hold up against the whole of Scripture.
God wants to reward you. God wants to bless you. God wants to benefit you.
Well, God's not into this blessing stuff. He just wants you to love him and suffer through life. That's a load of it. A full load of it, because I can read my entire Bible and see that ain't true.
I look at Abraham. Then I look at Solomon. Then I look at David, and so many more.
Well, that's just the Old Testament.
There are people who think Jesus was poor. That's pretty funny, because I used to think that too. Then I'm like, wait a minute.
The Bible makes a point that he was loaded down with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Some people think it was just three wise men. It was three gifts, not three wise men.
Can you imagine being Joseph and Mary? Wow. Jesus's full childhood is already taken care of by this gold they brought when he was born.
Jesus had more than enough for every good work. Jesus was so confident in the vastness of God's provision that he said anything you give up for me, I'm going to return to you a hundredfold in this life. I've got so much that I've got to give you a hundredfold return.
The assignment is to make sure you know who God is, because if we have a misunderstanding of God going into revival, we will not unpack everything he has for us in it.
If we have a misunderstanding of God, we struggle to deliver the goods that he has for us to deliver to other people. If we have a misunderstanding of God, we struggle to live in his blessing ourselves. So how are we going to give that blessing to somebody else?
There's a lot of religion out there that teaches you things about God that are not true. There's a lot of teaching in the church that makes you believe things about God that are not true.
I've been praying for us that we would have the spirit of wisdom and understanding so that we can know him. I hope you all have noticed the effect of my prayers, that wisdom has been showing up and you're like, "What's this?"
Don't just look at it. Do something with it. Grab it and say, "I'm receiving that."
Psalm 84 calls the people who dwell in God's house blessed, and the word blessed there means happiness and blessedness.
Psalm 84 gives us a great understanding of who God is. I would ask you to read this with fresh eyes today and say, "God, I want to know you."
I'm reading out of the New King James.
How lovely is Your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even Your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; they will still be praising You. (Psalm 84:1-4)
What did he call the people who were in the house of the Lord? Blessed. Y'all know what blessed is?
Something tells me we don't have a full understanding of what it means to be blessed. So I'm pulling out my Strong's concordance.
The word blessed there means happiness and blessedness. That's what it means. So be happy.
When you're blessed of the Lord, you can't be nothing but happy. Happy are those who are in the house of the Lord.
How silly would it be for us to be sour and go proclaim Christ? You want some of this? Come join my misery.
They will still be praising you. You know what that tells me? When we're miserable Christians, we don't have an understanding of who God is.
It's not that he's not blessing us. It's that you haven't been able to step into the blessing, because you keep pushing it away for some reason or another.
When the people of God pass through a valley, they make it a spring, and they go from strength to strength instead of getting weaker.
Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring; the rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength. (Psalm 84:5-7)
What happens when we pass through a valley? We make it a spring.
What normally happens when we pass through a valley? We gripe and we complain and we talk about how hard it is. No. We're like, "Oo, look, we're going to make this a spring."
Spring, come forth in the name of Jesus. This is what the people of God do. We ain't bothered by the valley. We see an opportunity.
The rain also covers it with pools. Come on y'all, call in the rain. We need it around here.
Rain, come in the name of Jesus. Water our land and nourish it, for this land belongs to the people of God. Our cows need grass.
So for those of you who think it's crazy, the people who are out there commanding the weather with the authority of Christ, there's your scripture to back it up. Just don't be fighting against me when I want it to snow and you're chasing it away.
Blessed is the man whose strength is in you. Our strength is in Christ. May we not be strong in ourselves, but may we be strong in Christ.
They go from strength to strength. This is the story of our life. When we go through a valley, we turn it into a spring, and when we go through life, we go from strength to strength.
No backsteps. We ain't getting weaker. Every step we take with the Lord, we're getting stronger.
The Lord God is a sun and shield, which means he is faithful to show up every single morning, whether you earned it or not.
O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! O God, behold our shield, and look upon the face of Your anointed. For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly. (Psalm 84:8-11)
Behold our shield. We're learning about God here. Does God want to protect you? Yes.
So what happens when fear shows up? Behold, he is our shield.
Then it says the Lord God is a sun and shield. Sun. S-U-N. So we're relating God to something we can look at.
What does the sun do for you? It warms you. It gives you light so you can see. There's nothing as bright as the sun.
It causes things to grow. If you didn't have the sun, you wouldn't have oxygen. And don't worry, God doesn't give you a sunburn.
The sun is faithful. It always shows up. Every morning there's a sun.
The sun shines on the righteous and the wicked just alike. You didn't have to earn the sun today. It came up whether you earned it or not.
So God is our sun. He keeps showing up. He keeps shining light, he keeps us warm, he keeps us nourished, he causes things to grow.
Even when you are a punk, the sun comes up. On your bad days, the sun comes up.
You have to get this revelation about God, that even when you've missed it, the sun comes up. Even when you miss it, God shows up. He says, "I'm here with your answer. Are you going to hide in the shadow, or are you going to come out into the light?"
No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly, and that means you should be looking around expecting good things instead of bracing for bad ones.
No good thing. No good thing. Are y'all able to distinguish between a good thing and a bad thing?
Some people see the bad things and they think it's God, and then they see the good things and they don't think it's God. God would never do that. He withholds no good things.
I pray this a lot. God, we know that you don't withhold from us.
Because we're walking uprightly. We're putting on Christ. We're walking in the righteousness of Christ.
That was the condition. Put on Christ's righteousness. Walk in that righteousness, and what's going to happen? He's not withholding any good thing.
So you should just be saying, "Where's the good things?" They're all around me. I got lots of good things coming for me. So many good things, and they're running after you.
God gives grace and glory, and his glory is his goodness, which means he is trying to hand you something we usually try to hand right back to him.
Have y'all ever thought about how he gives you glory? God gives you his glory. Can you all receive that?
Every time I read scriptures like this, and it's in more places than one about God giving us his glory, I start to wrestle with the things we say. Like, "All the glory belongs to you," which is true. We're always pushing the glory back to him.
I wonder how many times he's trying to push it to us and we're like, "Oh no, it just belongs to you, Lord." Have y'all ever thought that he's trying to send it down to us? He's like, "Here, have some of my glory, because I give my glory."
We're hitting it back up to heaven. Here, you keep that, that belongs to you. No, his glory belongs to us whenever he gives it to us.
That's a hard one. I can feel y'all. Well, start knowing it, because the scripture said it. Let the scripture renew your mind.
Expect his glory. Moses described his glory as all of his goodness. What would happen if all of God's goodness came on you right now?
God's glory is God's goodness. Unless you're unrighteous, and then it strikes you dead. Not because it's bad, but because his glory is so good it doesn't operate in the midst of that.
We need his glory just to show up in these areas of human trafficking and stuff. It could just clean house real quick. We should just show up and take his glory there and see what happens.
God's grace never puts you down for your sin, it lifts you up out of it, and it rescues you from the guilt and the shame along with it.
So many people don't see how full of grace God is. Jesus came full of truth and grace. So much grace, which gives you the power to live a righteous life.
When God's grace shows up, it never puts you down for your sin. It lifts you up out of it.
God's grace is kind of like the boat when you're sinking. It comes by and says, "Get in. I got you. I got your rescue right here."
God's grace is rescue from sin. It's rescue from the guilt and the shame, and it's rescue from it altogether so you don't have to deal with it anymore. God's grace rescues.
Jesus never disqualified anybody from healing, and I know that because I went back through the scriptures looking for a case where he did and could not find one.
We have to see God's grace. That way, when people come to us for ministry and they need a touch from God, we don't deal with these thoughts of, well, maybe they don't deserve it. Maybe they haven't earned it yet.
I used to be so entrenched in the wellness realm about what you eat and what you drink and all of that. I did it so well that I was really sick, because I didn't eat enough. I was so skinny and ill all the time.
I was eating so good that I was sick. That's because I'm an all-in kind of guy. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it.
For years I would learn everything I could about what we eat and what it does to our bodies. I got so knowledgeable in these things that when people came to me for prayer, say for diabetes, I'd be thinking, "Yeah, you're probably eating too much bread." I had all the reasons why we struggle with diabetes going through my head.
So I was disqualifying them from God's power because of what I knew.
Then I got to reading the scriptures. I had to go back and find out if Jesus ever disqualified somebody from healing. I searched the scriptures and found out that Jesus never disqualified anybody from healing.
It's not like the woman with the issue of blood came up to him and he said, "Well, you've been to a lot of doctors, so just go ahead and keep doing what you've been doing." He didn't say that to her. He didn't have to say anything. She touched the hem of his garment and she was healed.
How about the guy at the pool of Bethesda, sitting there waiting for the angel to stir the water? Jesus actually had to ask him if he wanted to be healed, and he said he didn't really know. God didn't say, "Well, if you don't know, then forget it." He preached the gospel to him and gave him a choice to come into it, and then he received it.
How about the man who was dropped through the ceiling by his friends? Jesus didn't say, "If you couldn't get here yourself, then you don't want it bad enough."
I love how in that moment Jesus asks what's harder to do, forgive his sin or heal him. Some people would think healing is harder, because they'll tell you that you can be born again and forgiven of your sins, but don't expect God to heal you because he doesn't do that anymore.
No, Jesus is making a point in that story for us. They're the same. I can do both of them. I want to do both of them.
He forgave his sins first, and then said pick up your mat and walk. And he did. God is merciful.
Don't y'all want to make sure you don't have any of this junk in your head, where when somebody comes to you for healing or prayer, you come up with all the reasons why they can't be healed? Don't you want to live a life where, when you need healing in your body, you don't come up with all the reasons you can't be?
Don't you want God to cleanse us of all doubt and unbelief? You know how he does that? By helping us know him.
Because if we knew how merciful he was, and how eager he was for us to have his goodness, and that he was giving us his glory, then there wouldn't be any situation where we think, "I wonder if God wants to do this. I wonder if God can do this."
God does not accuse you, because Satan is the accuser of the brethren, and one way to tell the difference is that there is no help in the accusing.
I can remember a day I was walking around my backyard praying, and this thought came up. Something hadn't gone right in my life and I was trying to figure out what I had done wrong to cause it.
You guys ever do that? You're just like, "Okay, what have I done wrong?"
Not that that's a bad thing. I would say though, stop trying to figure it out yourself. If you perceive that something needs to change, just say, "Lord, search me and know my heart," and let him reveal it to you.
You can come up with all kinds of things yourself that God's not ready to deal with yet. You need to lean into where his power is for you right now, what he wants to deal with right now. So ask him to do it.
By the way, who's the accuser of the brethren? Satan. So does that mean God will ever come to you accusing you of something? No.
So what do you do when that accusing comes? Shh. What if it's your friend doing it? No accusing. Don't you accuse me.
Get feisty with it. God doesn't accuse you. He helps you. He helps you out of it. He also doesn't leave you in your mess.
So there I was, trying to figure out what I did wrong. And the Lord was like, "You really think that I would do that because of some foul play from you?" My heart's turned toward God and I want to do things right, and I don't always do things right. Sometimes I get things wrong.
The Lord showed me that I had a belief that if I misstepped in my walk with him, he was going to punish me for it. He revealed this and opened up my mind to it. And then I see his mercy and it shocks me.
His mercy is so big. Have y'all ever seen his mercy in your life? Did you notice how big it was?
Then I had to go and repent, because I hadn't been merciful to people the way he had been merciful to me. I found out I'd been a little hard with people and harsh with people.
It was such a great change in my life when I realized that God doesn't accuse. I was hearing a lot of accusing, and in all the accusing I thought God was trying to refine me. Then I found out it wasn't him doing the accusing, because there was no help in the accusing.
Sure, there was a revealing of things that needed to change, but there was no help in the accusing. And it's amazing how whenever you get wrapped up in the accusing, you struggle to get out of the thing you're being accused of, even though you want out, because there's no help there.
You're yielding yourself to the plan of the enemy, who wants you so wrapped up in what you're doing wrong that you can't get out of it.
I had to get a revelation of his mercy before I could actually learn to walk in his mercy toward other people.
Y'all realize you have to receive it for you before you can give it to others? Some of us are so busy trying to give it to others and we haven't received it yet.
Receive his mercy. God is full of mercy. God is full of grace.
He is our sun. He is our shield. He wants to give us his glory. He wants to give us his goodness.
He is a good father who gives good gifts to his children. That's not just something we say hopefully. That's something we say knowing who our father is.
Our father is the best father that ever existed. Every good thing in my life is from him. He is full of goodness.
So let's remember that as we minister to people this week who come in here needing healing from grief, or healing from sickness, or freedom from whatever they need freedom from. Let's realize that the father is not withholding. The father is not withholding from you.
The more I know God, the more tender I see him, and the more tender I become. He is very tender-hearted.
The more I know him and the more I walk with him, the more I get a revelation of his mercy and his goodness. And it's amazing how that changes the way you act. You're no longer trying to do what God wants you to do. It just becomes who you are as you know him.
It doesn't even make sense to my mind. You'd think that if people knew how tender he was, they'd take advantage of it. Maybe they would, but he would continue to be tender and loving and full of grace and mercy.
Somehow in the midst of all that, he still corrects me, but it's still a correction of tenderness. The correction is wrapped in tenderness and mercy and help and power.
Your life will go the direction you're focused, so if your focus is on what's wrong, you will have more of what's wrong.
If your focus is on what's wrong, you will have more of what's wrong. If your focus is on the Lord, you will have more of the Lord. If your focus is on the love of God, you will begin to know his love more and walk in his love more.
It's such a discipline of the mind to live a life of faith, to live a life toward God.
Why do you think I shut my eyes so often? It's so I can remove the input to my mind, so my mind can lean into what the spirit is saying and what I'm hearing in my spirit. I love how one minister says it: "I close my eyes a lot because I can see better with my eyes closed."
This is his instruction for our church and where we are with him right now. Get your eyes off the problem. Get your eyes off the mistake.
Get your eyes off the things that go wrong. Get your eyes off the bad things. Get your eyes off all of that and set your eyes firmly on Jesus.
It's the only way forward. It's the only way. You're not going to get anywhere looking at the wrong thing. You're going to go the wrong direction.
My three girls are in horse lessons right now, and the teacher is always telling them the horse goes the direction you're looking. Sometimes they'll move the reins over, but they'll be looking the other direction, and the horse doesn't listen.
I guess horses have a sixth sense or something. But over and over again the teacher tells them the horse will go in the direction you're looking.
That is so true for our lives. Your life will go in the direction you're looking. If you're looking at trouble, you will have more trouble. If you're looking at your errors and mistakes, you will have more errors and mistakes.
So what do we do when we find ourselves in an error? Look at the one who has no error. Look at Jesus. Redirect your attention.
There's not one mistake that the Lord will not bail you out of, and he never lets go of your hand while you're stumbling.
The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand. (Psalm 37:23-24)
I think we talk about the directing of the steps a lot, but I don't think we put enough emphasis on "he delights in every detail." Isn't that wonderful?
I want to release those of you who are worried about making a mistake. The Lord knows you will stumble along your journey with him, but he's holding you by the hand the whole time.
There's not one mistake that the Lord will not bail you out of. The Lord is always there to bail you out. He never let go of your hand.
What about the biggest, greatest, monumental mistake? You made a mistake that cost the business a million dollars. What's going to happen when you turn to the Lord? He's going to bail you out of it.
Those of us who are perfectionists don't like this, but we see it in the prodigal son, don't we? He wasted half of his father's wealth, and then the father not only bailed him out, he threw a party.
No mention of the mistake. Just, "I'm glad you're back." That's it.
And that's the Lord. That's the Lord's response to us when we make a mistake. We come back and he's like, "I'm glad you're back. Check out this coat I got for you."
"Let me see your finger. I'm going to put this ring on it. I've been saving that for you because I knew you'd come back. And I've also been fattening up a cow for you. It's going to be the best steak you've ever had."
Get the right view of your father, so we can live effectively and minister effectively.
Would you be okay if he just continues to give you revelation this week, that he showers his goodness on you and chases you down with his goodness and mercy? So just open your arms and receive.
Be open to receiving all the goodness that God has for you, because there's a lot of it. You can't even wrap your mind around how much there is.
Is God's power really for me, or just for other people?
His power is for you. It keeps showing up in your life saying, "I'm here, ready to work," even when you haven't been walking in the fullness of it. It's for you when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed and it's for you after you made a mistake.
Does God want to bless his own children, or is that selfish?
God blesses his children and He is a good father who gives good gifts to his children. People will tell you that if you do something nice for your family or your church, you should have done it for somebody else. That's not God. That's somebody trying to talk you out of what God does.
Does God ever withhold good things from me?
No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly. Some people see the bad things and think it's God, then they see the good things and don't think it's God. God would never do that. He withholds no good things.
Does God give his glory to people, or does all the glory belong to him?
God gives you his glory. We're always pushing the glory back to him, and all the while he may be trying to push it down to us and we keep hitting it back up to heaven. His glory belongs to us whenever he gives it to us, and his glory is all of his goodness.
Does Jesus ever disqualify someone from being healed?
Jesus never disqualified anybody from healing. Not the woman with the issue of blood, not the man at the pool of Bethesda who wasn't even sure he wanted to be healed, not the man dropped through the ceiling by his friends. When Jesus asked whether it was harder to forgive sin or to heal, he was making the point that they're the same and he wants to do both.
Is God the one accusing me when I feel guilty?
God does not accuse you, because Satan is the accuser of the brethren. The way you can tell the difference is that there is no help in the accusing. God doesn't just reveal what needs to change, he helps you out of it and he doesn't leave you in your mess.
What does God do when I make a really big mistake?
There's not one mistake the Lord will not bail you out of. Even the biggest, most monumental mistake, the one that cost the business a million dollars. We see it in the prodigal son, where the father not only bailed him out but threw him a party and never mentioned the mistake.
Why does it matter what I focus on as a Christian?
Your life will go the direction you're focused. If your focus is on what's wrong, you will have more of what's wrong. If your focus is on the Lord, you will have more of the Lord.
What does it mean to be blessed according to Psalm 84?
The word blessed in that passage means happiness and blessedness. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, and they will still be praising you. When we're miserable Christians, it's not that God isn't blessing us, it's that we keep pushing the blessing away.
