Drawing Closer To God

So if you've been around here a little bit, you know it's about time to stand for the word.

Thank you, worship team this morning Great job.

So on April 23rd we have our Baptism Sunday and actually we're going to be doing a welcome to new members as well.

So we're going to do it all in one day, one awesome day of baptism and welcoming new people to the family, and so make sure you are here for that.

The sign-up sheet for the baptism is out there in the foyer, so make sure that you go out there and find it.

Look with me in Matthew, chapter six, verse 33, matthew chapter six, verse 33, chapter six, verse three, three seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

Let's pray, father.

We thank you so much for your presence here today.

We thank you, lord, for your sacrifice.

I pray God that your spirit continue to move in this service.

In your name, we pray Amen.

So if you've been following along, in the last few weeks, we have been walking through, almost crawling through, what seems like maybe forever of a Choose First series.

Why?

Because we want to choose before we end up going through the valley.

We want to make up our minds before we hit the circumstance.

We want to choose first what our actions are already going to be.

We want to walk through the valley, determined in our mind that whatever comes in front of us, whatever happens to us, we're going to allow God to move through us.

And so we make that decision first.

And then, when things happen in life, they don't shake us so greatly.

That's why I issue the challenge of 17.

Five, five and five.

Five minutes of prayer, five minutes of reading your word, five minutes of worship in the morning before you start your day.

Why?

Because I want you to understand the power of being consistent in the word of God, the power in being consistent in praying, the power in being consistent in praising God Before you know what's going to hit you for the day.

Because if you set your mind up and you decide first, before you step out of your house, to wherever you have to go for the day, and you choose that you are going to serve the Lord now, no matter what happens later, you're setting yourself up for success, not only mentally, emotionally and physically, but spiritually.

We have weak Christians in the church house today because we don't make decisions first.

We try to pray to God after.

And then we wonder how we got where we are in our life.

It's because we didn't choose beforehand what we were going to do when the circumstance came to us.

Because how many of you know that, no matter what happens, you can plan your day and your day will probably not end up the way you saw it, because life happens.

So what can we do in life when life can be so unpredictable?

We can choose first how we are going to respond and react in a circumstance and we're setting ourselves up.

It's called this terrible word that we hate maturity.

Kids and children let things happen to them and they freak out about it.

Something happens, they freak out.

Oh, I told you.

My wife uses this all the time.

We're never going to name our kid this, but she says like little johnny or little timmy or something when she says an example of a little boy.

Like little Timmy, I told you to put your knee pads on and your helmet, but what did you do?

You went out on the skateboard anyways and you got a boo-boo.

Now you got to come to mommy.

I got to make it better.

I got to put ointment on it.

You got to put some salve on it Anybody.

Come on, old school people where you at, you got to put some salve on it, that'll heal anything.

And we do this all the time as grown adults.

We don't take the precautions, we get up to the line of temptation and we don't choose first that we're going to not sleep around in our pants.

Hey, sleep around in our spouses.

I was thinking.

The next point I was going to we will obey our parents.

Come on, oh, man, man, last night was the best night of sleep I got all week.

It looks like I need to wake up more.

So the power of consistency last week let's just move on past that one fast.

The power of consistency how we started with the why.

We figure out our why and it will make you actually try.

When you get past just a want or a desire and you get to devotion, you begin to stay consistent.

We started with the why.

We plan to fail.

We have to give ourself room for mercy and grace.

We have to give room for mercy and grace with each other, because there's not a perfect person that comes here and if you like the disciples did well, who's going to sit at your right hand?

Jesus, and they had their mommy go and ask.

I guarantee you, out of all of you, my wife will probably be there.

She's the most perfect person I know and she still needs Jesus.

She still needs mercy and grace.

Why?

Because we all get attitudes with each other.

You can love someone to death and you can still fight with them.

This happens in relationships, so why do we expect it to be different in church?

Just because you like somebody doesn't mean you're not going to eventually fight with somebody.

Matter of fact, the closer you get, the more vulnerable you become and the more extreme you can hurt each other.

And we also have to understand some people claim church hurt, when really it was just church discipline, hmm, that somebody was just trying to help you and correct you in love and you took it as oh, don't tell me what to do, that's my life, I'm just doing me boo.

Well, doing you is what got you in the place you're in, because we are sinful nature.

I talked to the youth Wednesday night about we are born into sin.

We have sinful nature.

We have to be able to have mercy and grace for ourselves.

Sometimes, when we come back to God and we start living our life right, the hardest person to forgive is ourselves, because when no one else knows what we did, we do, when no one else can see behind what happened behind closed doors.

Nobody knows, and yet God knows, and he still loves you and he still sent his son for you.

Plan to fail.

Give yourself room for grace and mercy, and you've got to fall in love with the process, because life is a process.

If you want to get to the promise, you've got to go through the process, and a lot of times it's through the valley of pain.

So what does this mean?

When we say this is our title today, we're talking about drawing closer to God, drawing closer to God.

So what does that look like?

What does it mean to draw close, to get close?

What does it mean to do that with God?

Well, if you put it in terms that all of us really understand, we want, as it says in Matthew, chapter six, to seek first first, seek first, choose first.

Are you catching the relation here?

Choose first the kingdom of God.

This reminds me of Sandals Jamaica.

I've never been.

If anybody wants to sponsor, I'm available.

Sorry, sandals Jamaica, have you seen?

Seen the commercials?

They got a drone shot coming over.

The sand is glistening in the beach.

They got the clear water and they they got hotels and for some reason it's windy there.

So the curtains to the room are going like this, in the slow motion, and people are walking with their little sandals in their hands and they're walking down to the beach and not a care in the world and they're like baywatch you I'm not sponsoring but Baywatch it was all slow motion.

It was like we're just having fun in the sun.

Come out.

They're like all inclusive sandals, jamaica, you know, they got all this.

The guy that does the talking over and he's all like come on, you can pay just one price for 20 amenities.

And so they're trying to hook you with an all-inclusive deal.

Everything you need is already there when you go.

The plane is paid for, the place you stay oh, it's covered, the food it's comped, everything you need has already been paid for, it's already been arranged and included in the package.

So if we are choosing first to seek first the kingdom, this passage says that maybe it's all inclusive.

Then when you begin to seek first the kingdom of God, when you put your selfish ambition and the pride of life aside and you begin to seek first the kingdom, he says that everything you need will be taken care of.

Now, if you need food, it's included.

The whole trip.

And you know, and I know, that life sometimes can be a trip.

Thank God that Jesus came to the cross and paid it all All-inclusive seek first, choose first.

Now, this can be really tricky in our selfish nature because we think, because we have in our mind that we deserve something, that that is what God is promising us Entitlement, entitlement, entitlement.

We think, because someone else has the house that I think I deserve, that I want to pray and agree and I'm just going to get what I want.

Find it in the Bible.

It ain't there, because blessings are not always in the package of gold and silver and the things that you need are not always packaged up in what everyone else has.

Matter of fact, distinctly, in the Bible, majority of the time, the things that they need are not what everybody else has.

Let's move on before we get too deep.

You have to understand that what you think you deserve is not always what God is saying that he's going to give you.

And I don't know about you.

But when I think in these terms and break it down pretty simple, it starts to make me feel like a little kid standing before God saying I want it now.

It starts to make me feel like a little kid standing before God saying I want it now.

Think about it.

So let's not put it on you, let's put it all on me.

I am selfish by nature.

I was born this way.

I'm sorry I had to, but that's fact.

We are born into sin, and fine.

If people that are living a certain lifestyle want to say I was born this way, that's fine.

Be born again, because there's nothing that you think that you deserve is promised to you that you will have.

Let me back up a little bit and land the plane softer, because y'all are getting into some turbulence.

Let me back up a little bit and land the plane softer, because y'all are getting into some turbulence.

We think God isn't providing because he's not producing what we want.

Think about it for a second.

We think that God is not showing up in circumstances because we're not in the pleasant situation, that he's not producing blessings over our life, because we're not in the pleasant situation that he's not producing blessings over our life, because we're not in a season that we're enjoying.

Blessings do not equal a humdrum, fairytale life.

It doesn't.

When Sister Jessie and I found out that we were pregnant majority her, but I'm there.

We were pregnant.

Majority heard, but I'm there.

And it was the very next day that three separate people sent me a text throughout the day, almost spaced perfectly.

One was in the morning, one was in the afternoon, one was in the evening and said just want to let you know, you've been on my heart, I'm praying for you.

Her reaction was oh no, what is coming?

My reaction was maybe people are praying for us so we don't have to go through the valley.

And so it was a little bit nerve wracking before we went and saw the little flood of the baby's heart on the screen.

Because we didn't know why, because doctor said wasn't sure if she could have kids.

So we had no clue what was up ahead.

But we knew that God's blessings would be both in yes or no.

Whether it was a yes, the baby is good and all there.

Or it's a no, I'm sorry you had a miscarriage.

Now we don't listen to this a whole lot because it's not pleasing to our ears, but sometimes God's blessing is to us getting a no, because sometimes what we could have went through if we would have went through that decision or that blessing was not something that would have kept us but would have destroyed us.

That would have kept us but would have destroyed us, we think, because he's not producing what we think we need or what we want that we deserve.

Now this is how churches and pastors become false idols to the congregation.

Because someone can communicate well does not mean they have a calling on their life.

Just because someone is charismatic and can keep your attention and tell a few jokes and mention one scripture does not mean you need to follow that person.

I've told you this before and I'll say it until the day that I die Do not follow this pastor.

Do not come or go to a church because of a pastor or a worship team.

You better be led by God, because if you are not led by God, you are willfully and wholeheartedly placing a person or a place in the place of God in your life, because people create, and we do this in church all the time.

Listen, I like a certain style of music.

Probably some of y'all like a different genre of music.

Who likes country in here?

I can't stand it.

I think it's all the same song.

I think it's all I mean.

It's really it's the same type of music.

I mean, there ain't much different to it.

Now you get some R&B going.

You play some rap.

I'll be bobbing my head with the windows down.

I'm just saying that's my style.

You get some rock and roll going, man, electric guitar playing.

Woo, jesus, man, I hate.

Don't say George Jones, I'll faint.

But I'm telling you I don't like country when I hear it at the gas station.

Actually yesterday I got gas at the pump and I heard country music playing over the speakers outside.

I said out loud to myself stupid music, I don't like it.

That may put me down a couple of notches on where you think I am, I don't know, but it's just not my flavor.

That I like to savor that, ain't it?

Some of you may like the worship music we play, some of you may not.

But the church has become a place of preference instead of a place of praise, and so we get angry when they don't play what we want.

We get mad when they don't get the color they want, that we want in the seats or the carpet or the walls.

Oh, the pastor.

He preaches too soft.

Oh, this Sunday he was too hard.

Look at his stupid shoes.

No grown man would be in skinny jeans, and some of y'all are like that's facts.

I'm here to tell you I don't care, because here's what we do and we're talking about a big sanctuary here.

But here's what we do and we're talking about a big sanctuary here.

But here's what we do.

We take the place that is supposed to be for proclamation of praise to God and we turn it into a place of preference.

We do the same thing in this temple, a place that is meant to be the temple of the Holy Ghost, and we make it a place of preference to.

Maybe you try to please everybody else, or maybe you're just doing the Almighty God of preference to.

Maybe you try to please everybody else, or maybe you're just doing the Almighty God right here and you want to please you.

But, baby, let me tell you, when you do that, you're going to get what you always got, because you ain't going to get any better and you are not good.

You are not good enough.

I know that's hard to hear.

That's why, as God's creation, we are supposed to turn back to him and receive him as the Lord of our lives, because you are not strong enough to make you stronger.

You are not wise enough to make you wiser.

The Bible says that God's wisdom will make the smart people in your lives look stupid.

Some of you have conversations with me and you're like man, you're wise.

How did you get so wise?

I said I have no clue, except that I prayed for it.

I've been through a lot of things in the short years I've been alive, but there is nothing that will give you wisdom like God.

There is nothing that will give you favor like the favor of God.

I don't pray for the favor of man, I pray for God's favor in my life, god's favor in my life.

What does that mean?

That means that when I step on the scene, sometimes it's going to upset the circumstances.

Why?

Because what's inside of me is disrupting the evil around me, and if you're not disrupting anything around you with the God that lives inside of you, you ain't living right.

You've made your worship a preference.

We all have preferences.

I'm not speaking against preferences.

I'm speaking of the place in your heart has become something that you worship when God should be sitting.

We oftentimes put ourselves there and we're very selfish, because we've created a place of preference instead of a place of worship and praise.

We approach church with our hands out instead of our hands up.

This is why I've been reciting the proclamation of faith.

We'll have it on the screen up here.

I want you to speak life over yourself.

All the time we have things interjecting into our lives that are in our inner circles, that have no business speaking into our lives, and we receive it as it is the gospel truth.

But I want you to wear and say I am ready, I am consistent, I am devoted, I am generous, I am faithful and I am a finisher.

Well, today we're talking about devotion.

You can't draw closer to God and get in his will if you do not have devotion to him.

Why?

Because you won't include him in what you say.

You want him to be a part of Anybody.

Want God to be in your finances?

Probably all of us can say yes, some of us don't even tithe Come on can say yes, some of us don't even tithe.

You want God to be Lord of your finances, but you won't let him have it.

You want God to be Lord of your marriage, but you won't let him have it.

Can I be first to say that I don't know if it's a male thing or it's a Stephen thing, but you go to my bedroom on my side of the bed and the remote is right there, and if I can't find it when I go into the room I'm asking everybody where it's at, because it ain't where I put it, why it's called control issues.

And if you think that don't apply in your spiritual walk, you're living a lie, because you ain't understanding that those little things that just kind of let people see into the window of who you are is actually how you've been living spiritually.

So how do we get devoted to God?

I will seek first the one that matters the most.

So how can we be devoted to Jesus today?

Turn with me to Acts, chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Two little verses, that's chapter 2.

We'll have it on the screen Verse 42 and verse 43.

All the believers devoted Turn to your neighbor and say devoted.

The believers devoted turn to your neighbor and say devoted, devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship and to sharing in meals.

Somebody say man for meals.

Church people love food and it wasn't.

It's not anything new today.

They were doing it back then too.

All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship and to sharing meals, including, like we did today, the Lord's Supper and to prayer.

You want to have a healthy church.

Adhere to the teachings of godly men and women in your life.

Come to church hungry, but know that you coming to church is the beginning of the week and you got to do something the rest of the week.

Verse 43 says a deep sense of awe came over them all and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders.

Now here's some facts for you.

Okay, now this is something that every single person has in common in here today.

Every person has the same amount of hours in a week.

You can't work no more or no less to get the same amount of hours as your next-door neighbor.

Now, if you're devoted to something Now, if you're devoted to something, you probably agree that at some point in the 168 hours that are in a week, you are doing something to show your devotion to that thing.

Can we agree on that?

Pretty simple.

If you want to learn a new instrument, you can really get the basics down to play a little something within 20 hours.

Within three months I think it's three months you can actually rewrite the wrinkles in your brain to make new habits.

You can literally transform your mind to be a different person by repetition and consistency.

So all of us have 160 hours a week.

Well, what do you do with 168 hours a week?

Well, let me help you, because I know you.

Why?

Because I know me.

I've done the research and here it is.

Anybody like sleep in the house today?

There ain't nothing like a good night's sleep.

Sometimes there ain't nothing like I'm going to do this Sunday afternoon and take me a good old nap.

I'm going to get all fat and sassy eating some lunch and then I'm going to lay down and have a good old nap and come out about 6 o'clock.

Maybe there ain't nothing like a nap.

But if you have a good night's rest, out of the hours you rest every week, one third of your time is sleeping, so then you spend another third of your time at work or school, which leaves you with about 56 hours of flexibility left in your week.

Anybody got any social media?

Now we're going to get real deep.

Anybody got TikTok, facebook, instagram?

Linkedin counts too.

That is social media.

Okay, probably majority of everybody in here has some sort of social media.

We like saying contact with each other.

You can literally look at people's lives and not get arrested out in their front yard looking in their window.

It's literally the legal window to their life without getting arrested.

So, okay, now, if you're on social media the average now this is average don't get offended.

But if you're probably getting offended it's because it's probably you.

The social media user uses, out of those 168 hours, about 17 hours a week on social media.

On social media, 17 hours.

Now, if you compare it to 168, that's not that bad.

Now, granted, this is an average.

There are less and there are a lot more.

You know who you are.

So, after taking out the 17 of your 50-something hours, you have about roughly 39 hours left.

Now this is what I'm going to call room for the other stuff.

So what's the other stuff?

I'm glad you asked Taking your kids to everything.

They got to go to Stopping by and getting gas in your car, like I did yesterday.

You got to go to dance.

You got to go piano I have baton practice and you got to go algebra lessons.

Then you got to keep them, go, pick them up when they stayed after school.

Then you have to clean your car once every seven months.

Amen to that.

I am terrible about this.

Thank you for the rain, lord, because nobody can see on the inside.

Then you go to the grocery store.

You're buying groceries, you're cooking Well then you got to clean up what you cook.

Well then you got to clean the house Paying your taxes, paying your bills and then you got to mow the yard at some point.

Then you got to do yoga and maybe you got to go to the gym, be with your friends, have a little after church party where you go and you hang out with some people, and after all these things you got about an hour left.

You're like, oh yeah, I'm a Christian at some point I got to read or pray One hour out of 168.

You say, oh, that's not true.

Add up the five, five and five every day, and you're approaching about that.

And a lot of us don't even do that.

Now we're supposed to be Christians.

Okay, you may not be a Christian today, that's fine.

I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to the people next to you.

And if you add all the things that we have to do, anybody got a busy life in here.

Sometimes being self-employed is awesome, but at the same time I'm never off Like I'm working up until I go to bed, usually at night on the computer in my office, just so I can get up, wake up, get the kid off to school and do the same thing all over again the next day and then fit everything else in at the same time, so saying an hour I have left during the week if I don't make time of devotion to God.

An hour is probably given a little too much.

So why is it when we break it down like this and we get the hours out there just for one week?

It makes me feel about that big when I don't read Because I make time for everything else in my life.

Now what does that mean?

That means that I'm not putting God first.

That means that in my life that I'm claiming Christianity.

That means that I am supposed to be devoted to the God that I say that I serve, and I put him last on the list in the last hour.

Now to put a comparison in your pocket, so you don't feel so bad Jesus even begged the disciples just to stay up and pray a little longer, and they couldn't do it.

But I want you to think about this, the reason I say five, five and five.

It's so simple, it's so small, it's such a little bite.

Y'all don't even eat cake like that.

Now we're talking about food again Getting hungry but we do things like this all the time we are in America.

We do things in abundance.

We have Sam's.

I haven't bought a six-pack of toilet paper since 2005.

We do everything in our lives with abundance.

I fill up my gas tank until it pours out because I want to get every little drop I can in the tank.

But when it comes to spiritual stuff, we run bone dry.

And then we come in and get our fill on an hour on Sunday morning and then by Tuesday you've run out of gas, because your devotion is only when it's convenient.

We invest so little into our relationship with God and wonder why our spirits are weak, dying and dry, wondering oh how did I get in this situation again?

How did I shoot my mouth off again?

Anybody been there?

That's where I spent that last hour.

Our spirits become so malnourished and we think we do good because we make it to Sunday morning service.

We leave giving ourselves a pat on the back like we've done something phenomenal and we don't think about God until next Saturday night maybe.

Jeremiah, I'm sorry John, chapter 15, 4 and 5, it says this Mark this in your Bibles, write this in your notes.

John 15 · chapter mention

You need to understand where you're drawing your power from.

You need to understand where you're grafted in and you are pulling your nourishment from, because a lot of us, we do this that we just mapped out and you're wiped out by the end of the week and then we make excuses to not come to church because I'm tired, I'm exhausted and blah, blah, blah, whatever.

But we haven't been feeding our souls.

We've been tapped into the wrong vine.

So John, chapter 15, verse four and five, it says remain in me and I will remain in you, for a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.

John 15 · chapter mention

Yes, I am the vine, you are the branches.

Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing.

You cannot make yourself more spiritually healthy.

You don't have what it takes.

That's a branch tapping into a branch and then you just got two dead sticks.

You don't have what it takes.

You are not equipped.

You don't have the spiritual necessities it takes to be spiritually whole in you.

Your neighbor doesn't have what it takes.

Your pastor does not have what it takes.

The worship team does not have what it takes.

Any person who does a class or board member does not have what it takes.

Only God can make you spiritually whole.

Only Jesus can wipe away your sins and make you new again.

This spiritual malnutrition can only, spiritual nutrition can only come from the true vine.

We are the branches, we are not the vine.

The funny thing in the church house and this is what we do you can read it in the scripture.

I can't think of it off the top of my head, but it talks about where we are saved by grace and faith alone, that you have done nothing to deserve this salvation.

You have done nothing so good that it has made God make you a mansion in heaven.

Because it doesn't work that way.

You don't have what it takes, you can't get you saved.

We do this in the church.

To where we get saved.

We start going to church and all of a sudden it's like we elevate ourselves up and we begin to look down at everyone else, all the commoners.

Oh, you don't know that scripture.

Oh, my goodness, do you even know God?

And all of a sudden you have become the Lord of your life, you have become the God that saved you.

You have become the Savior of the world.

You are not divine.

You cannot become spiritually well from a pastor, a church, a relationship, no amount of money that you can make will get you one more minute into heaven.

Everybody loves to claim being a follower of Jesus, but we end up being it by label only and not by definition.

We end up being it by label only.

We wear that label proud.

Oh, I go to church.

I go to church.

So what?

In Job, the devil went to heaven.

I go into McDonald's does not make me a happy meal.

We begin to wear things that has been a blessing and mercy and grace from God as if we have done it, as if we have arrived.

We end up doing it by wearing a label and not by definition, and we certainly don't do it by devotion.

Do it by devotion.

Let me tell you, sunday service is just the beginning for relationship with God and it's just the beginning for what this church has to offer.

Yes, we offer things.

Matter of fact, if you don't know, on Tuesdays at 10 am we have prayer meeting, and on Tuesday nights, if you work and you can't make the morning time, we started.

On Tuesday nights at 7 am we have prayer meeting and on Tuesday nights if you work and you can't make the morning time.

We started on Tuesday nights at 7 pm.

We have classes Wednesday night and youth right here at this church.

We served at the House of Hope yesterday and went and handed out food to the homeless people living in hotels, people addicted.

I told my wife this a couple weeks ago.

The church loves wearing the label of we want the unchurched, we want the sinners, when the truth is we want the kind of unchurched we don't want to have to do too much work Because sinful nature is dirty.

God didn't design you to get saved, to hold on to what you have gotten.

He has set up a system to where his last commandment was to go and make disciples.

The last thing he said before he ascended to the Father was to go and make disciples.

And that is the heartbeat of this church to bring up mature Christians that can get in fights and talk and love each other.

Next week Because you may not know this, people got different personalities that rub the wrong way, but when you love each other, it looks past hurt, pain and mess ups.

Why do we do that for each other?

Because God did it for us.

We are meant to be vessels and channels that God can pass through grace and mercy, not just stop and we take it like we've done it.

I believe that God is calling the church back to devotion.

He is breaking out revivals across this nation, out revivals across this nation.

Is your level of devotion?

And a posture ready to receive revival from God in this church Is my level of devotion?

Have I been praying and seeking God like I'm supposed to, like I need to and, better yet, like I want to?

Devotion causes you to do something, even when you don't feel like it.

What is your devotion to God?

God is calling people, his people, to draw closer to Him, to have hearts chasing after Him, hearts postured before Him.

That God, whatever you want to do in my life and in the life of my family and in this body of believers, you can have your way.

What selfishness have we allowed in our hearts?

What other gods and idols have we allowed to be in the place of worship in our lives?

And God is not moving, god is not pouring out because we will not get out of the way.

We are not willing to part ways with things that we have made idols.

Our desire is great, but our devotion is lacking because we won't remain in the true vine.

We will try to put roots in everything else to make our lives better, except for the true vine.

I don't know about you, but I want to rekindle the fire of devotion in my own life.

That when God speaks to me, my ear is already turned to him.

That when God is wanting to pour out his spirit on my life, whatever he wants to do in my heart, through me, I'm already willing and I'm already aligned with his will.

A lot of times I think we miss what God is trying to do because we have to spend so much time realigning, because we wait till Sunday to do this.

But God wants devotion to be a part of every single day of your life.

Every single day.

Give everything that you are over to God your finances, your marriage, your kids, your parents, your church, your jobs, everything in your life.

God wants to be not a part of it, but he wants it to be centered around him.

We don't want God to be just another addition.

We want him to be the center.

Everything surrounding him, not everything surrounding us.

Whatever God asks, I will obey you, lord.

I want that to be your prayer today.

Whatever God requires of me, I will listen to you, god, whatever you are telling me to give up, I will lay it down.

We have churches that have people who know God but still do not have freedom from the bondage in their life.

God still is in the delivery deliverance business.

He wants to break the chains of the people, because when you begin to find freedom in your life, that fire catches.

People want to know where you've been drinking from.

People want to know what's going on in your life.

How did you just go through that?

And you're still smiling.

You don't know where my joy comes from, because the joy that I have no person can steal, no devil in hell can take it from me.