Chapter 4 is where we're at this morning. As you're filing in, I'm excited about service.
I'm excited about the service up north. There's just a lot to be excited about.
So, there's been a lot of good things that have been happening.
Some prayer requests have come in, and so we're going to deal with that this morning.
James 4-8 is powerful.
The King James, I believe, says it.
Draw near to God, and he will come draw close to God, and he'll draw close to you as one version.
Come near to God, and he will come near to you as another version.
But it starts out with one that we quote when we're riled up about the demonic realm
and about attacks against us, and that is,
Then to God, resists the devil, and he will flee from you.
Come near to God. It's almost like an instruction manual.
You know, I find it interesting. If you look at shampoo, they actually tell you how to wash your hair.
I don't know. They're like, and then do it again, then rinse.
But this is a good instruction manual.
So then, what happens is when I read that one, well then I got to go back and see what came before it.
And then what came before that because it's literally how you put something together for success.
Even the verse before ends with God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
And so the amplified says grace is poured out daily for those who are humble enough to receive it.
And so God opposes the proud.
You know, he's just, he's for the person, but he's against the pride.
So if you got the pride oozing out of you, you're just caught in the trap, right?
He's opposing that. That doesn't mean he comes against you and, you know, attacks you or whatever.
It's just, he opposes that. Nope, not going to participate.
And so what Pastor Igor has been talking about, what God's leading us into is really understanding how to go low
or to humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord that he might lift us up, right?
If we need to be lifted up, he'll do that. We don't have to worry about it.
We don't have to put on a plastic face to try to get something to be accomplished
or take on a role or be a certain avatar. There's all kinds of ways of saying that.
And so he gives us more and more grace. It says the verse before, he gives us more and more grace.
That is why the scripture says God opposes proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Submit yourself, and we've talked about that much here, where submit literally means to come under the mission of God.
Then to God, resist the devil. And if there was a zist to begin with, you're going to redo that, right?
Anytime the word re is in front of something, resist the devil.
It's like you're in motion of continually doing it. It's kind of like rejoice.
So if you ever experience joy, rejoice right now. You can do that by choice, right?
And so resist kind of works the same way. It can happen at any time you think, well, I did that already.
Well, keep it up. Keep it up. Keep opposed to it.
Get in the place where God is at, where he's opposed to the proud things.
And be opposed to that same thing, because sin has pride written all over it in it, and it's anointed with it.
And so any form of sin is going to have that pride thing in the middle of it.
And so to position ourselves in the vein where God is flowing, we just humble ourselves. We humble ourselves.
But to get there, many times we have to resist.
We have to say, no, I am not. This is how this is going to go. And so then we move over into where grace is at.
Submit yourselves to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Now in the word picture in the Greek, it means as if in terror. I like that picture.
So if I'm resisting, and I'm under his covering, I'm going about his mission.
Because I'm part of his mission, I already know the Lord's going to deal with stuff.
If I'm outside of his mission, then I'm like, eh, it's iffy here. I don't know, I'm on my own.
But I get into his mission. That's what gives me the confidence to be like, no, I am serving him.
I'm right where I'm supposed to be. I've submitted myself to him.
And so then I resist the devil, and he will flee as if in terror. He's going to freak out over it.
And I kind of get joy from that. I'm just not going to lie to you.
Come near to God, and he will come near to you, which is right behind in the conversation.
It's right behind. You just got done resisting. You're submitted unto him.
And so you're in that spot. Well, then what do you do? You draw close to him.
Tuck right under the shadow of his wing. Get up in there and be protected by our God, right?
So come near to God, and he will come near to you.
Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts.
Well, what are we doing? What happens? Why does that come next?
Because we're tucked up close to absolute holiness.
You can't just pop in there and be like, I'm good. All of a sudden you become aware of yourself.
Like, oh man, it's not a condemnation thing. You're like, I fell short of the glory.
I fell a long way. And that only fell I face planted when I did.
And so you realize, wash your hands, you sinner, purify your hearts. You double-minded.
So if you're in unbelief at all, and you come under his mission,
you begin to resist the devil, and you tuck up under the shadow of his wing,
all of a sudden where you're not believing, shows up big time.
It shows up big time. You can't see that otherwise, by the way.
A lot of times we'll think we're in faith, we're operating a certain way or whatever,
but we don't see ourselves.
We've been talking a lot at two different churches, sometimes three,
about self-awareness, and self-awareness only really comes as you push into the presence of God.
He begins to show you yourself. Otherwise, you're really not aware.
I gave the example the other night of when I was not saved,
and I thought Ted knew it was everything. Not against you, Ted. I'm just saying.
But I mean, and so had my rock and roll band, I'd be in the barn that we had that was still shed,
doing the thing and screaming and all of that kind of stuff.
And I was singing the song Cat's Gratch Fever, and I thought it was the coolest thing.
Cat's Gratch Fever, and I was doing that, and had my cousins there with me and all that.
We thought we were pretty cool.
And then I got born again and tried to sing that song, and I felt conflicted,
and some other songs too, but then I remember my mother saying to me,
you know, you sure you're not supposed to give that stuff up? That's kind of evil.
And I was so ticked off that she, who does she think she is?
And I remember I dishonored her. I mean, I went the full gamut when I was like,
don't tell me what to do, blah, blah, blah, you know.
So there was a pride there, right? Pride, the coolness of my music.
I'm going to be like Ted.
And so I was not submitted to her authority. I was not submitted to the authority of the church.
I was not submitted to God, but I just got born again.
I didn't know how to do that.
And so here's the thing, until I pressed up close against God, got under the shadow of his wing,
I didn't even know what I was saying.
The song is about a venereal disease.
And I sang it to my aunts and uncles when they wanted to say,
what are you into now? How can you play or whatever?
And I remember doing all the bar chords and just being, you know, the stance, the whole thing.
And they were like, that's so good and whatever.
And then after I found out there was a bout of venereal disease,
why didn't I see that up to that point?
You don't see these things. You cannot see yourself.
You cannot hear the words.
It's right in front of you. It's so obvious.
But you're like, but I like the beat.
That's the number one thing people say.
Yeah, but it's a cool song and I like the beat.
It's not like I'm taking that in. Yeah, you are.
And you're honoring it by singing it.
And so just an example of a silly example, but it was something I was willing to defend.
Like this was war.
And then it ended up being war in my soul.
And then my spirit got tight with God.
I drew nigh to Him and He was up close to me.
And then I realized, oh, something fell short here.
And it's so obvious to people who know it, but it wasn't obvious to me.
So then it makes you wonder, what are we into right now?
That's so obvious. It's so obvious.
But we ain't seen it.
Huh?
So I had somebody ask me, and I don't want to get in some debate about Harry Potter or whatever.
There was a big discussion at something.
And I just basically said, you know, you can sit and logically try to figure out if this is right or this is wrong.
But if you submit yourself to God, come under His mission.
Well, you got to know what His mission is.
I am under God. Do you know what His mission is?
Right?
So cat scratch fever had to go.
Once I understood what His mission was, it was like, that's not jiving somehow.
It doesn't fit with His mission.
And then when I went to resist the devil, I was participating with the devil.
Glorifying something that kills people.
Adultress, fornicating behavior.
But I like to beat.
Anyways, so come near to God and He will come near to you and then wash your hands.
That's what it requires.
Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts.
You double-minded.
So in some sense, double-minded means to be duo, to be standing in two places at the same time.
So some people are participating in witchcraft-like things, but they're over here thinking they're in the glory.
It's not the way to live.
It's very yo-yo-like.
It's very... you can't be in two places at the same time.
You won't receive anything in that.
Scripture makes that clear.
The double-minded man will not receive anything.
Because you're not in full faith on either side.
You're just hanging in whatever feels good in the moment.
And so, here we are.
Come near to God and He will come near to you.
Wash your hands, you sinner.
Purify your hearts.
That's a process.
That's not an overnight thing because when I came up close to Him,
I realized sin still has an effect on my thinking.
And then I can't purify my heart.
Can you?
No.
I have to stay tight with God under His mission
and receive what He's given to us from the cross.
And so I got to stay tight to Him and keep in that receiving mode.
Ah!
Then it goes down.
Grieve morn and wail.
Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up.
Why is that scripture in between about the morn?
Why do we got to do that?
Why?
Right?
There's something about repentance that sounds like that.
There's something about just realizing He's God and you're not.
There's something about coming up under the shadow of His wing
where you get to see how what glory looks like.
See, the word glory, that's what we felt short of.
You've heard me say before, one of the meanings is the way God does things.
If you say glory for most groups, they'll think a mist that comes down through the air
and, you know, the glory you've got.
It could appear like that.
But what it produces is that part was like,
oh boy, we're going to line up with the way God does things.
Because that's the thing I felt short of.
Amen?
So I'm bringing this up this morning because we go back into,
no matter if you're learning about tithing, whatever it is,
you're not going to hear things on the outside.
You're going to hear things when you're under the shadow of His wing,
under His covering.
Your ears open up different, right?
This is where witchcraft sometimes flows from the pulpit
because people are outside of things
and the pastors want this thing to happen so bad.
They'll say whatever they have to say to manipulate you to get you to do that thing.
Just letting that sit for a little bit.
And so stuff comes out and it's like, you know,
whether it be by giving or whatever, won't you help me?
And you hear all this stuff when it comes to giving.
If you give now, we're going to do this or whatever.
And it's like, no, no, no, no.
It's really up to the person to decide if they want to be under the shadow of His wing.
If they want to submit to His mission.
If they want to come near to Him.
Now there's an immature thing that when it comes to healing,
when it comes to just about anything,
where this is why the Lord says,
be perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect.
And the word perfect there is be mature.
And I like that He puts the word be before it
because He's literally calling that over you.
Right?
Be.
Light be.
Be perfect.
He's calling that and I'm going to answer that call like,
okay, I'll mature and I move on over to that.
But there's something about when we can't see ourselves,
we can't even tell if we are maturing.
You have to have a measurement that's higher than who you are.
And so if religion's in the house,
we don't measure anything against the word or God
we measure it against each other.
What the highest group in the church is,
well maybe that's what we need to attain
and it can be very fleshly or whatever.
But when we live singly before God,
now there's a corporate anointing where we get together,
but we're going to stand before God on our own.
I'm not going to answer,
my husband's not going to, you know,
be held accountable for me.
He's going to be,
I'm going to be held accountable for me.
Right?
But we're individuals before God.
And when we see that,
then everything comes down to a choice.
And the choice in healing,
the choice in whether or not you give,
the choice in all those things,
can't be coming out of your frontal lobes.
You learn something in your frontal lobes,
you receive it, that's your processor.
If I've said this before,
if you took out the emotional state out of your brain,
which is your underside of the brain,
your digital part would sound like this,
and now I know this information, we must hide.
It's very robotic.
Right?
And the underside of your brain
is really supposed to support
what it believes.
It comes up out of that,
that choice of your will,
because when you make a choice
in the singular area of your brain,
what that does is it says,
yes, I believe, or no, I'm opposed, right?
And so when you say,
yes, I believe,
your emotions start to line up
regarding the thing that you believe.
And so we're going to put ourselves in a spot
where if we just try to do that all on our own,
it has to be a thing where we've spent time with Him.
It has to be a thing where we were in His presence.
Heaven's a place.
The kingdom of God dwells in us.
The kingdom of God is what connects us
to the kingdom of heaven.
And we're supposed to be pulling heaven down.
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done.
On earth as it already is in heaven, right?
We're not pulling from the best of what we see on the earth.
If our measurement is like,
well, who's doing what and how's that going so good?
I'm going to copy that.
That's not our measurement.
Our measurement for our personal life
is when we spend time with God
and we pull the heaven thoughts down
by being under the shadow of His wing,
under His understanding.
And in His presence,
well, now we're hearing bigger things.
Now we're hearing more accurate things.
Now we're hearing the things to,
yeah, I'm going to submit to that.
And sometimes what you're submitting to nobody else is.
They're rolling like the world
and we're trying to roll like the heavenlies said to us.
Right?
So that's called revelation knowledge.
So when it comes to receiving from Him,
I just want to point out
because we pray for the sick a lot.
We pray the prayers of all kinds of different things a lot.
And approaches everything.
And so I just want to let you know
when you approach the throne of God,
you come boldly before the throne of His grace.
In your hour of need.
Well, that's easy to say.
But if we haven't been with Him,
if we haven't sought His face,
if we haven't been in His presence,
how bold are you when you come boldly?
Because what happens when you're in His presence
is He reveals Himself to you.
You see how the heavenlies operate.
It's so opposite of the world.
You're like, no.
It takes you a bit, right?
And then you have to resist your training
and resist the things that you've been trained
by this wicked world.
And submit yourself to what He's saying.
And then you draw nigh to God.
And you also will be aware
of where you're double-minded.
You'll be aware where your heart needs to be purified.
You'll be aware that's all in this, right?
And then the end part is
humble yourselves before the Lord,
and He will lift you up.
Well, when I'm under the shadow of His wings,
I'm fully aware He's God,
and I'm not.
When I'm out on my own,
I'm pretty sure my body,
my soul thinks it is God.
Because I got all kinds of great ideas.
And so do you.
And they're like, no, I know.
I went to school for this.
You haven't been with the Master
on this subject.
It doesn't matter what your frontal lobes know.
That's a digital thing that can be knowledge
and understanding.
But wisdom comes from the fear of the Lord.
The fear of the Lord is cultures
and developed by being with Him.
It's seeking Him
and being with Him.
So.
And that runs in such a spectrum
of deepness.
It gets jiggy.
I remember having
the presence of God just
renovate me when I first got born again.
I was at the altar crying.
I mean, it's not dripping, mascara running
just for hours.
I was getting it out.
And then all of a sudden it seemed like
as I got it out, there went this thing of like,
where are you?
God, where'd you go?
He wanted me to seek Him.
He didn't leave me.
He'll never leave me nor forsake me.
But His hand lifted in such a way
He's like, now come follow.
I wanted to stay in this like cleansing
and I just want the intense,
you know, let's stay in that spot
where it's all up to Him
to be doing something.
No, He gave me enough of doing something
so that I could get up and follow Him.
I didn't know how to do that.
I didn't know how to submit to Him.
I didn't know necessarily how to resist the devil.
But that all comes in the follow.
And in order to do that,
I remember trying to copy people.
You know, like, they look like
they're doing the right thing, so I'll just copy that.
I'd copy people's prayers.
You know, sometimes people will copy
mannerisms. We knew a guy who
he went to some classes or whatever
for Kenneth Hagelin.
Next thing you know, he's walking across the platform
like Kenneth Hagelin.
And all of a sudden, because you want the thing so bad,
you will imitate a person.
You'll do whatever you have to,
but you're still not submitted to God.
You're submitted to your
surroundings.
And you don't even know it.
Praise and worship can be like that.
Healing lines can be like that.
Where you're just
imitating something and like,
whatever I gotta do to get this to happen for me.
And so when you look at
draw close to God, the immature part
that I never dealt with,
but going back to now, the immature part
is the way of
thinking of this world
that moves into
to like your approach
is off. Your approach is like
I just been waiting. I shot up a prayer to God
and I don't know, he just doesn't heal me.
I said this to him about my finances.
Nothing.
I did this over here.
Nothing.
That's totally different as you mature.
That's how I was when I asked God
for anything three days
after I was born again. It was like
bam, bam, change, change.
And then he said, now I want you to get up and follow me.
He's going that way anyway.
The kingdom of God is moving.
It's not waiting on us.
It's advancing forcefully.
And forceful men and women lay hold of it.
So, you know, we're trying to
get in that flow and don't know how to get up and do it.
Well, then what ended up happening
is I had to change my approach.
So I went from almost manipulation
to try to get him to do some.
Then I'd even try to cry hard.
I thought, if I just let this out and cry really hard
he'll have to answer this prayer.
He doesn't have to do anything.
He sees you and he's like,
aren't you being silly right now?
Why don't you just get up and follow me.
I'll take you where you need to go.
I can't. It's too hard.
I'm waiting on you to come to me.
Don't you find it interesting that it says
draw night to God. It says you draw night to God.
Yes, but I'm the wounded one.
I'm the child. I'm the whatever.
Well, there's a time and a place.
A baby cries out for the mom and you come.
Right? You should.
You get there. Take care of the needs.
But then after a while it's like,
you know those conversations where you have
like, don't stay in the basement yelling
and think I'm coming down here
just every time you yell.
You come to me.
You got legs.
Did you get that speech?
You never got that speech in your life?
I gave that speech and I got that speech.
And so it's like, you should come to me.
Well, there's a maturing process that
changes in everything. It's like,
well, I know what to do. I'm going to submit
myself, therefore, to God.
And then I'm going to push under
the shadow of his wing,
resist the devil as much as
I have to. No, I'm going there.
No, I said I'm going there.
And you get under the shadow of his wing
and then all of a sudden there's repentance.
All of a sudden you realize where you're double-minded.
All of a sudden there's like, oh man,
this is where I got to grow.
But you're well protected.
It's a painful spot to be,
but it's the best spot ever.
Amen?
So,
change your laughter in the morning
and your joy to gloom.
Humble yourselves before the Lord
and he will lift you up.
Last night I talked about,
on Wednesday I talked about self-regulation.
Wherever sin has touched us,
at least you can come,
wherever sin has touched us,
we are dysregulated.
Where the high highs are the low lows.
You know, we hear things
weigh volume or we can't hear them at all.
It dysregulates us.
We can't figure out if we're up or down.
And God is that constant,
same yesterday, today and forever,
same yesterday, today and forever.
It's almost like
that expectation
of a singer
that is learning to sing
if I would come to
the voice coach.
And I would say,
here's how I sing.
Isn't that good?
It's wonderful, right?
So, if I'm asking
the voice coach
to come to my standard,
my level of how
I hear things
and they're like here.
Right? The only way you're going to learn
to sing is to come to the tone
that regulates you.
You have to hear the tone and hear the tone
and hear the tone.
We had an exercise that my choir teacher would do.
She wanted you to hear the tone so bad
that she would do things like
just play one note on the piano
and you had to stand with your back to the piano
and then go find that note first time.
Right? First time.
I'd get close, I'd be too off or whatever.
She'd play, you know, middle C
and then do the sound of it
and then you knew it had to go
down from there or up from there
and you had to listen for the tone
until you find it.
It's immature of us to think
that I can be like
and God's just got to come to that
and be like, well, whatever you need
I guess I'll have to know.
He's like, I am the tone.
You come to me.
I'll regulate you.
Sickness in the body
many times is dysregulation.
Disease is dysregulation.
Demonic things cause dysregulation.
Poverty is being dysregulated.
Here's his tone
and we're...
That's what we sound like.
I didn't know I sounded that way until
I got under the shadow of his wing.
I was like, look what I can do.
And he was like, um, yeah.
Here's my tone.
I want you to hear it.
Hear my tone.
God has not given us the spirit
of fear but of love.
Right? And a power
and a sound
to mind and that word there
doesn't just mean, you know,
crazy.
There's a tone.
He's given us a tone we need
to go to.
So we come there this morning. Let's stand.
If you're dysregulated,
you know it's like I am not
regular in this area.
Or my body feels dysregulated.
I want you to come to the front
and we'll just agree
in his tone.
Can we do that right now?
Hallelujah.
That area that's in your brain
that you know if somebody touches
this button, I'm gonna lose
more stuff.
That's dysregulation.
The area where you keep going
to an unsafe thing
and calling it something that's safe,
that's dysregulation.