Putting Your Words to Work - Part 5 - Pastor Michelle Steele - August 30th, 2026

To dominate with his peace, to dominate with his glory.

Hallelujah.

Let your name.

Let your name.

Let your name reign over every thought that's introduced into my thinking.

Let your name reign over every attitude and action.

Lord, let your name reign.

Over the peace in my home.

Hallelujah.

Glory to God.

What a different technique.

What a different activity to make our fight and the colour.

But the name of the government.

The name of the governing authorities under that name with an indication to him.

Redirect every uh flow in your life towards his path.

Glory to God.

I thank you for it, Lord.

Thank you for the power of your name, the authority of your name in our lives.

We submit to that authority and we welcome your rulership, your lordship over our lives.

What a safe place to be.

Under Him.

Submitted to Him.

Hallelujah.

Well, praise the Lord.

As you're seated, give God glory.

Look around at somebody you haven't seen yet.

Let them know how glad you are to see them here at Life of Faith.

So good, so good, so good, so good.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Hallelemustora de Dishto Lare Mare Sutora Me to the visitable ne Stoba.

Navosutubru is devili Ante me ndovade mbosutuli bishtimi ante mokorite kara marite candi.

Na ezedi musta ble tono isitibudu koshta katambariahai.

There is no mystery in my plan.

There is no confusion when you're walking in the spirit.

What I design, what I have prepared is the light for you to walk in.

The light of my word provides the clarity to the situations on every hand.

There is no situation where you are concerned, where you have to remain in the dark.

The details are in the spirit.

The details are available to you.

I will show you things to come.

I will reveal to you.

I will labra item.

There is a necessity on your part to develop yourself in the hearing and to develop your sensitivity to my impulses, my promptings.

My way of dealing with you is the best way because it is the way that the enemy cannot duplicate.

The witness of my spirit is a priority for you to gain skill in.

Hearing the witness of my spirit, recognizing the witness of my spirit, because the details are going to come by the spirit, not by the understanding first.

It will be revealed as a spiritual understanding that you can take into the mind and renew the mind with it.

But the understanding is a revealing.

The spiritual understanding that is necessary for you to see details that eyes haven't seen and ears haven't heard.

Your spirit needs to be tuned into my frequency.

Your spirit needs to be listening.

Not another day settling for obscured vision.

Not another day.

Not another day settling for obscured vision.

Confusion is not permitted.

If there is confusion, come to me.

Seek my face.

Open my word.

Declare it out of your mouth.

And the light will shine.

The light will shine upon your path.

The light will shine.

The path of the righteous grows brighter and brighter, even as the noonday sun.

Any confusion is not of me.

It is not my plan.

And I'm not satisfied with you living in any sense of mystery, confusion, obscurity.

I desire for you to walk in the light.

You're a child of the light, a son of the light, a daughter of the light.

Walk in the light.

Would you lift your hands and submit to walk in the light?

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Lord.

Hallelujah.

Oh, thank you, Father.

Thank you, Father.

For the light.

Oh my.

Oh my.

Oh my.

We're not supposed to be caught off guard.

We're not supposed to be caught.

Off guard, shocked.

I didn't expect that.

God will keep us ahead of anything the enemy attempts.

He'll prepare us and he'll put us out ahead of every situation, every thing the enemy does.

God has advanced notice.

He's not caught off guard.

He doesn't want us caught off guard.

We're his children.

He wants to prepare us.

But there is a part we play in that preparation, isn't there?

There is a part that we play in that preparation to give him our attention, to allow his spirit to have a place of leadership in our life that he always has our eye.

When my children were teenagers and I would be preaching, and they would be goofing off or something, I would look at them.

And they were supposed to know the look, right?

My son reached a certain age where he decided he was going to be, and then the and I'm looking at him while I'm preaching.

I'm looking at him like this, and I'm preaching like this, and I'm looking, I'm giving him the look.

And from the back row, he says, What?

What?

You know what?

The look, right?

God says, I will guide you by my eye.

That's how he desires.

He says, do not be like the the donkey, the mule, that must be must be directed with the force of the bit in their mouth.

Don't be the person, and and when I would be, I I've had a horse that was very hard-headed.

This horse had been dealt with with a a heavy bit.

And if I wanted to stop her, I it took all the strength in my in my biceps to pull back.

I mean, all this, not only my biceps, but my whole body leaned back to try to pull that horse back.

I finally had to let Pastor work with her because he he would just work her back and forth.

But because she had become so calloused in her mouth, because the other people who had had her before had trained her on a heavy bit, she wouldn't respond the same way.

But then I've ridden horses that you didn't even have to touch their mouth, you didn't even have to use that.

You could just, with pressure of your legs, you could just squeeze them the right way and they would know where to turn because they'd been trained differently.

They've been trained to respond to the touch and not to have to use force to get a response out of them.

Our Heavenly Father wants to have such a light touch with any dealing with us that it doesn't take him having to send uh sign after sign or or or you know confirmation after confirmation, but that the peace is enough.

The witness of the Spirit is enough.

Hallelujah.

To do that requires that we spend time constantly inquiring of him.

Is this what you want?

Is this the direction I need to go?

And then, and and here is an area that that I've learned by walking it out.

When you get the prompting, and then the thoughts begin to bombard your mind, is that really God?

Is that really God?

Is that really God?

Don't miss it.

You know, don't miss it.

If what if that's not really God?

What if that was just you?

And I I've learned if I had the peace, if he was dealing with me with peace, then I'm going, and I began to use my faith.

I would say, Lord, I hear your voice.

Another voice I will not follow.

I sensed in my spirit that you're prompting me to do this.

Now I'm gonna do it.

I'm gonna I'm gonna do this because that's what I picked up in my spirit.

Hallelujah.

That's what I that's what came on the radar of my spirit.

And so I'm gonna go with that.

And I'd have to learn how to cast down those imaginations of doubt, in my of doubting, because if if the enemy can, he would love to use your flesh to get you afraid of obeying the Spirit of God.

And he'll do it with those sensings of doubt.

And and I don't want to miss it, I don't want to miss it.

My father, your heavenly father, is a good enough parent that he's not gonna let you fall flat on your face if you miss it, especially if he's teaching you to follow his spirit, he's going to give you the clarity that you need and the understanding that you need so that you can walk in that light.

Amen.

Let's look at Psalm 119 because what the Spirit of the Lord has spoken to us is quite straightforward about the light.

Psalm 119, and let's look at 130.

Psalm 119 and 130 says the entrance of your word gives light, it gives understanding unto the simple.

The entrance of your words give light.

And what the Spirit of God is saying to us is that if we're identifying an area of not knowing, we don't have to settle for that.

We can go to him because he knows.

And if we will seek him, he will reveal to us what we need to know in that situation.

But his word will bring light to us for us to live by.

So there are some things that you may be dealing with and you don't have clarity.

So open up your scripture and begin to say, God is a revealer of secrets, He will show me.

Hallelujah.

Let the scriptures begin to quote scriptures that deal with that situation.

If it's about hearing from God, begin to quote the scripture where Jesus said, My sheep know my voice.

Another voice they will not follow.

Hallelujah.

I won't follow the enemy's temptations, I won't follow the enemy's promptings.

I'm not going to be deceived by him.

Why?

Because I have a shepherd.

The Lord is my shepherd, he leads me.

He's the voice I'm following.

Amen.

So the entrance of the word gives light.

The entrance of the word.

So the words of God have to be put into the situation.

And so instead of saying, I don't know what to do, just stop and say, the greater one in me knows what to do.

Greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world.

Hallelujah.

Because the more if you've ever heard Brother Keith Moore, the other brother Keith Moore, if you've ever heard Pastor Moore say, uh the the Lord told him, don't talk about what you don't know.

He said, never talk about what you don't know, uh what you what you don't have and and what you don't see.

Hallelujah.

Why?

Because the more you say it, the more you you say those things, the more darkness comes in.

The more he said, never talk never say, I don't know, I don't understand, or I can't.

The Lord told brother Pastor Moore that.

Never say, I don't know.

And you know, y'all, in that time that my little one was always saying, uh, mommy, why, mommy, why, mommy, why, mommy, why?

And I would say, I don't know, I don't know why the sky is blue, I don't know why there's clouds or white, I don't know, I don't know.

And then I heard myself, it was like the Holy Spirit played a recording of my voice of how many times in that day I had said, I don't know.

Praise God.

I've I began to say, let's find out.

Let's go to the library and look that up.

You know, that's a we didn't have internet at the time.

It was, she was this was some years ago.

Uh but but I had to stop saying I don't know.

I had to stop saying I don't understand.

I don't understand why we don't have enough.

I don't understand why this is happening.

I don't understand.

And the more you say that, guess what you're gonna get?

A harvest of a lack of understanding.

So the Bible says the the Spirit of God dwells in you and you know all things.

Says that you can understand because his word will bring understanding.

Didn't it just say that in Psalm 130?

It gives understanding.

So I can understand it.

And then to say I can't, I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me.

So there are situations that will open up to us when we'll respond with the word, putting the word in there as the light, and then we'll see.

You may not see it until you apply the word to that situation, until you introduce the word to that, until you speak the word over that, and and say, I am not at a loss because God always causes me to triumph, and I'll triumph in this situation.

Hallelujah.

And then answers will come.

Then you'll see how to respond.

So when the questions come, you've got to answer the questions.

When those questions come to torment your mind or come to put that pressure on your mind, you've got to bring the word of God.

I want to look at 2 Corinthians chapter 4 because we're talking about the light.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 4 gives us a clue not only to how our enemy operates, but how we resist him.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

We have an enemy.

Right?

So this is speaking of how his operation, how his method of operation works against people.

It says in 2 Corinthians 4, 4, in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest or so that the light of the gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, the glorious gospel of Christ, should shine unto them.

What does he do to stop the light from shining?

Mind blinding.

Mind blinding.

It's a spiritual action.

It's a spiritual weapon, mind blinding.

This mind blinding technique is the deception that he uses.

It is putting that cover over, keeping that confusion, that mystery.

I don't know what to do.

I don't understand.

I've tried this, I've tried that, I've tried this, I've tried that.

And and that confusion that just it leads in this circle, and you feel like you're on that hamster wheel, right?

And so the enemy, his mind blinding is the opposite of what the word does.

Word, the entrance of the word brings light.

So you could say the entrance, uh, the entrance of the word brings light, but when the enemy wants to work, it he brings darkness, he brings confusion, he brings a lack of understanding and tries to deceive.

Adam and Eve personally walked with God, talked with him.

He came for his afternoon walk, his evening walk with him, didn't he?

Why?

Because that was his custom, that was his routine.

That was his desire to walk with him, to commune with him.

Man is created, mankind, we're created for fellowship.

We're created to be with him, to be interacting with him daily.

He doesn't want to be a faraway God.

He doesn't want to be an absentee parent.

He wants to be an integral part of our life.

And so he created us for fellowship.

We are the only creatures, even above angels.

Angels cannot fellowship with God the way you and I fellowship with God.

They can worship him, they can honor him, but they can't fellowship with him as family, fellowships with a child-parent relationship.

Only you and I.

And God created us that way.

His design was for us to be able to receive all of his thoughts, all of his understandings, and walk in them and live in the light of his plan, his understanding, his thoughts.

Glory to God.

And he gave Adam and Eve his word to live by.

But Satan came.

And Satan, he didn't attack, he didn't pull a knife, didn't put a gun up to Adam's head.

There wasn't anything threatening about his conversation to Eve.

As if he was interested in what God said.

As if he was interested in God's plan.

Did God say?

At first it was just, did God say?

Just a question.

But that question was a trick to find out what she believed God said.

Did God say, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree?

She said, God said, now listen to Eve.

Can you look at it?

Look at it.

Genesis 3, or uh Genesis uh two.

No, it is three.

Verse 1, has God said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it lest you die.

Can we review?

Can we back up and look exactly?

What did God say?

Go to 2, 15.

The Lord God took the man, put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

What?

How do you dress it and keep it without touching it?

Have you ever had a garden that you had to keep?

Did you have to touch it to keep it?

What was their job?

To dress it, to keep it.

Right?

And the Lord commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it, neither touch it.

Is that in your page?

Is that in your Bible?

No.

It's not there.

God didn't tell him not to touch it.

He told him to dress it and keep it.

Touching it wasn't the problem.

Eating it was the problem.

Tasting it was the problem.

Ingesting it was the problem.

Why?

Because God never intended for the knowledge of evil to be a part of their being.

He never, when you eat something, it becomes a part of you.

You remember that poster on the wall in the cafeteria at school that said, you are what you eat.

Y'all ever had one of those posters at your school?

You are what you eat?

Right?

He did not want them to eat the fruit of the tree.

But she said, He said, Don't touch it.

He didn't say don't touch it.

And now Satan knows how to attack.

Oh, really?

Is that what he said?

You don't know what he said, girlfriend.

You don't know.

She doesn't know.

She don't know.

Why?

Now I know where I can deceive her.

Because it says the woman was deceived.

Adam transgressed in full knowledge.

But the woman was deceived.

Why?

Because this hadn't been rehearsed.

This hadn't, evidently, when we read in 12, it was before he had created Eve.

And so Adam knew it, and Eve was deceived.

So she'd heard, don't eat the fruit of the tree, and then she'd either added to it or misunderstood.

And so she'd added this, don't touch.

And the enemy said, You shall not surely die.

You shall not surely die.

For God does know in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, and you shall be as God's, knowing good and evil.

So when he identified that she wasn't established on the word, he took her over into a place of deception, and she being deceived, notice what happened when deception entered into her mind.

Because before this time, she was walking in the light of don't eat the fruit of the tree.

But now something has come that has changed her mind.

It says, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, it wasn't.

And that's what the enemy's aiming at.

The enemy is desiring to change the way you see things from the word, to twist it so that you don't see it as as clearly as God said it.

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired.

None of these things are true.

A tree to be desired to make one wise, how much wiser could she be than she already was?

She had access to know every thought of God.

All she had to do is ask him.

All she had to do is commune with him.

She had revelation knowledgeability.

After the fall, she did not.

When you read Genesis after the fall, people thought God was in the moon.

They worshiped the Nile.

They worshiped trees.

They worshiped the sun.

Why?

Because they're limited to sense knowledge and they're trying to explain God with sight, with feelings.

Well, God must be the sun.

The sun must be our God because it comes up every day, and it is what causes our crops to grow.

And so the sun must be our God.

And for our crops to grow, our whole life depends on the sun.

And so they began worshiping the sun.

Why?

Because that's how they could explain it with sense knowledge limitations.

So this tree was not going to make her wiser than she already had the capacity to be.

This tree was going to bring limitation to her wisdom.

Why?

Because it was going to drop her down from revelation knowledge to sense knowledge.

And now she's going to be limited in her knowledge.

But thanks be unto God that Jesus Christ has come and returned us to revelation knowledgeability.

Because in Christ we have access to the Spirit of God.

And the Spirit of God in us reveals to us things that I has not seen and ear has not heard, things that have never entered in naturally into the heart of man can come into your spirit, can come into your spirit by him revealing things to you.

Hallelujah.

So we've been returned to a more sure flow of the revelation knowledge of God through Christ because the Spirit of God lives in us and He can speak directly to your spirit.

You're not even under the disadvantage that the Old Testament had of the that you had to be led by a prophet's ministry.

You're not under that.

The prophet's ministry in the New Testament doesn't have the same position of authority to lead the life.

Why?

Because God Himself dwells in you and the Holy Spirit leads you, and you don't need to be led outwardly when you have the inward witness.

You've got to know that He has given the prophet's ministry for edification, for encouragement.

He's given the prophet's ministry to help point people to Jesus in the New Testament.

But I don't need a prophet for me to know what the next move is for my ministry or for me to know the next uh uh person I need to you know have business relationship or or uh cut a covenant with.

Or no, I've got the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit wants to lead each and every individual believer because the enemy cannot manipulate when you learn to live by that leading, he has no inroad to it.

He can't he can duplicate a dream.

The enemy can send a bad dream, he can send a dream and make you think that was that must be a dream from God because that was so spectacular.

He can send a vision, Satan can appear as an angel of light.

You can have a vision of an angel appearing before you saying, Thus saith the Lord.

But if you don't have the peace of the Holy Spirit, don't act on it.

Why?

Because the greater one now lives in you.

And because he's in you, he can show you things specifically, and the enemy won't even know it if you don't open your mouth.

The enemy cannot read minds.

He figures he now he's he's astute, he's he's conniving, and so he watches and he pays attention and he listens to people's words and he listens to things that are being said and the way that they're acting, and that's why if you're governed by peace and the joy of the Lord is your strength, and he can't use situations and circumstances to get you over into a place of of depression or worry or fear, then he can't get any response out of you.

He can't pull your strings like a puppet.

Why?

Because the Holy Spirit's pulling my strings, the Holy Spirit's the one I'm responding to.

I'm conditioning my spirit to be governed by peace and governed by joy.

The fruit of the spirit is being cultivated in me, so the enemy cannot access me through the flesh.

Why?

Because I'm walking in the spirit.

And if you walk in the spirit, you shall not fulfill the desires of your flesh.

And the only inroad the enemy has is through the flesh.

Hallelujah.

So Eve was in the light, but through deception went into the darkness in her thinking.

When the woman saw the tree was good for food, that wasn't true.

It was not good for food.

When the woman saw that it was pleasant to the eyes, it was not a tree to be desired to make one wise.

It was not that she saw it that way.

She saw it that way.

We use the phrase, the scripture uses the phrase renewing the mind.

Her mind was renewed in the opposite direction.

It flipped the way that she saw things.

So that once she was seeing it correctly, God said, Don't eat the fruit of that tree.

But then the enemy brought words that she allowed to have a place of authority higher than God's words.

Second Corinthians 10.

I'm just following the Spirit.

I had I had just a couple of scriptures here, but I'm responding from what the Holy Spirit said to us in the beginning of this service, this light that we are to live in.

Second Corinthians 10 verse 3 says, For though we walk in the flesh, we're walking in this natural life.

2 Corinthians 10:3

We do not war after the flesh.

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal or fleshly.

So it's not natural weapons, it's spiritual weapons.

The weapons of our warfare are mighty through God to.

Now we're going to talk about three things that your weapons accomplish.

Three things that we are to gain skill in because this is how the enemy is working.

He's working to blind the mind.

He's working to take us from seeing it the way the word said it to seeing it how reasoning looks or how it's being presented.

So he used words that made thoughts.

God has established his word to be the standard or the framework of how we think.

What does the scripture say?

Well, you know, I believe.

But what does the scripture say?

Hallelujah.

Because God's word is truth.

Jesus said in John 17, 17, sanctify them by your truth.

Thy word is truth.

It's not a truth among many varied truths.

There is one absolute truth.

One, God's word sets the standard for absolute truth.

Walking in the light is walking in the truth.

Truth is absolute.

God's word is absolute truth.

It's not this mindset of, well, that might be truth to you, but the way I see it, that's not that won't work anywhere.

That won't work in any society, any civilization, for everybody to have all these different attitudes.

And that's why the enemy has been successful in the lives of so many people.

Why?

Because he's convinced them that if this is true to you.

If marriage between a man and a man is true to you, then it doesn't matter what other people think.

It matters the one who created us, it matters what he thinks.

The one who created us set the standard.

I can't go to my creator and say, You got it wrong, buddy.

Because he created me.

I did not, I am not in a position to school him.

That's right.

He's the one who's in the position to say, no, you're seeing it wrong.

And so this truth has to become the governing over our thoughts, over our perceptions, over our attitudes.

And so he says, the weapons pull down strongholds, cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

Now let's stop right there for just a minute because that's what happened to Eve.

The enemy brought a thought and said, You shall not surely die.

God's just trying to keep you from something.

And she took that, she accepted it.

She didn't cast it down.

You know, every temptation of the enemy to Jesus was a presentation of a thought, and Jesus' response is totally different than Eve's response.

Jesus did not argue with him, Jesus did not try to reason with him.

Jesus pulled out Deuteronomy.

Jesus answered every temptation with Deuteronomy.

And you've got Ephesians and Colossians and 1 and 2 Corinthians.

But he defeated the enemy with Deuteronomy.

Every answer came out of the book of Deuteronomy, and God he said, It is written.

So what is he saying?

Let's go back to the standard.

Let's go back to the Creator's manual.

Let's go back to the Creator's standard.

It is written.

He could have said so many things.

He could have said, I am the Son of God.

I was the Word in the beginning.

I am the Word made flesh.

He could have, he could have, he didn't.

He didn't talk about his identity.

He didn't talk about his position as the second person of the Godhead.

He said the standard.

It is written.

It is written.

Why?

Because that's how you deal with deception.

When the enemy's coming, he's coming to try to change the way you're seeing the word.

The thought, the pressure, the worry, the fear.

And you know, there's there's real feeling with the fear.

Do you remember Brother Hagin talking about how that he was in his room and he was experiencing the symptoms of the same symptoms he had been healed of when he was healed of that that?

Heart condition where his heart would stop and his whole body, his hands would start to go numb and cold, right?

And he said, I was there, and I my heart was doing those same symptoms, and the thoughts were coming against my mind.

The enemy was saying, You're you're not gonna get healed this time, you're not gonna get healed this time, you're not gonna get healed this time.

And he said, he said, I just started, I he said I was he was in a parsonage of another pastor.

He was there as a visiting minister, and so he said, I didn't want to wake them up, so I just pulled the covers over my head and I put on a laugh.

He said, I didn't feel like laughing, but I said, har, ha, ha, ha, ha.

That's how Brother Hagin would say it.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

And he said, I just sat there and laughed.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

And he said, I laughed until the thought came to me, what are you laughing about?

The enemy coming to him.

What are you laughing about?

You're not gonna get healed this time.

You're not gonna get healed this time, you're not gonna get healed this time.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

And the third time he's he did that a number of times in his story, and he said, the third time the thoughts were coming to me, you're not gonna get healed this time.

What are you laughing about?

You're not gonna get healed this time.

Ha ha ha ha ha, devil.

I'm already healed.

By his stripes I was healed.

I'm already healed.

I'm not gonna have to get healed, I'm already healed.

And the enemy, then here, the temptation came to him and he said, Look at your hands.

And he said, I looked down and my hands were shaking.

They were shaking because my body remembered what it felt like when my heart would stop before.

And do you remember when he talks about in the book, casting your cares upon the Lord?

He said, when he came to the scripture in Matthew chapter 6, and the Lord said to him, he was reading Matthew chapter 6, and the Lord said, Take no thought for your life.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention Matthew 6 · chapter mention

He said, Lord, that's not fair.

My heart stops.

He's in this, he's in his bed.

He's stuck in this bed, he's paralyzed from the chest down.

Some days he can't even see because this blood condition was causing him to go blind for hours.

And and he just in the mornings when he had energy, he could get up and he could read.

They would prop his grandmother's Bible up on his knees and he would he would read.

He had made he said, I don't have time for the Old Testament.

I got it straight to the New Testament.

He's made it up to chapter 6 in Matthew, and he comes to that scripture that says, Take no thought for your life.

And he said, Lord, that's not fair.

He said, Every time my heart would stop, I would reach back to the bedpost.

He had a spindle bed.

I would reach back and I would grab the spindles on that bedpost.

I had done that so much I wore the varnish off the spindles.

Holding on for my life.

Holding on to not die.

And he said, Lord, it's not fair.

And he said, I shut the Bible and didn't read it for like 40 days.

He went, he went another month and a half of not reading it.

Why?

Because he was so upset that it said, Take no thought for your life.

He said, What do you mean?

I can't worry about my life.

My heart is stopping.

And so finally he opened the Bible back up and he started back at Matthew chapter 6 and he said, Lord, I'm saved now.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

He had gotten saved during that time.

He said, I'm saved now.

And if I do go, I know where I'll go.

So I'm not going to worry about my life anymore.

Before God ever got him over to Mark 11, he had to deal with Matthew 6, had to deal with the worry.

So now the enemy, here he is, a man of God preaching the gospel, been healed all these years, and these symptoms are coming back to him.

And his he said, I'm already healed.

And the enemy says, Look at your hands.

They're shaking.

Why?

Because his physical body was responding to the memory of what it felt like when his heart would stop.

And he said, I am not my body.

I am a born-again spirit.

I am not my body.

So even when those feelings of fear come and they feel real, they feel real.

You've got to identify greater is he who is in me.

I am not limited to this physical body.

I'm not limited to how I feel.

How I feel doesn't dictate to me how I respond.

How I believe dictates how I respond.

And I believe God.

Hallelujah.

I believe his word.

And so establishing that truth.

Now let's look here again.

What did Eve do?

Eve, she allowed what the enemy said to be exalted against the knowledge of God.

The knowledge of God from his word has to hold that place of authority.

No feeling overrides it.

No previous experience.

No what happened to somebody else in their life.

Well, they were Christians.

And look what happened to them.

That does not override the knowledge of God.

What the word says, the word says.

And I've got to hold it in that place because the enemy previous experience is what caused Peter to begin to sink.

He looked at the wind and the waves.

And I'm sure having been a fisherman all of his life on that same sea, he knew this is the kind of storm that have taken out boats before.

They've taken other people off course and they never came back.

And so he began to fear.

Why?

Because he allowed the report that was coming from the wind to his senses.

The report that what he could see when he saw the wind, he began to fear.

So the wind said something, the wind reported something that he allowed to exalt itself higher than the word come that Jesus had given him.

Jesus gave him the word, and as long as that word held the authority, he had water walking ability.

But the moment that he allowed something to be exalted above the knowledge of God.

This is what Eve did.

She allowed another knowledge, sense knowledge, reasoning.

The enemy doesn't want you to know it's him.

He doesn't come saying with full disclosure, this is the enemy.

You've got to recognize, like Brother Caps when he was praying and saying, Lord, it's not working, and the Lord said, Who told you that?

That was who's like, oh, wait a minute.

Maybe that was the devil.

It must have been the enemy, because you're sure not going to tell me it's not working, right?

So it's either an unrenewed mind, and sometimes it can be, sometimes it's not the enemy, sometimes it's just a carnal mind.

An area of your mind that needs to be renewed.

Either way, if it is a carnal mind, the enemy would love to pounce on that.

He's looking, that's an open door, that's an entry point.

That's what he's looking for.

Where can I get a sense, knowledge, imagination in and put it up above what God said?

So three things pulling down strongholds, casting down imaginations, every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

That's under the casting down action.

And then number three, bringing into captivity every thought.

Does your Bible say every thought?

Every thought?

Can you do that?

You can do it.

You can do it.

The help of the Holy Spirit is available to you to bring every thought.

So when during a time that we lived in Kansas, I wasn't always babysitting when when there was a certain time that I worked at a management company that had properties all over Kansas City, Greater Kansas City area, Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Kansas.

And I would go to these management properties that people had either been evicted or moved out, and I would get the property ready for the next tenant to move in.

And my job was to clean out the house from the previous tenant, to paint the walls, you know, clean all of the appliances, get it rent ready, you know, get it ready for the next person to move in.

And it was we would tease him about it being a slumlord, but he there were a lot of evictions that took place.

And a lot of people that didn't take the extra step to get their deposit back, right?

So they would leave it trashed.

I mean a mess.

I was so shocked at the mess that some people would leave.

I mean, they'd leave food in the refrigerator, and the refrigerator's off, so it stinks, you know, and I they would leave clothes, old clothes and and and broken down furniture.

And most of the time, you know, the maintenance men would come by and they would check to see what kind of maintenance needed to be done, and they would, you know, try to determine how long it was going to take me to get it ready for them to come do their part.

And most of the time, it took a whole day just to get the trash out of the house.

Most of the time, I would take a whole box of big hefty trash bags and just go room to room getting their trash out of this house.

And and dragging it out there for the trash men.

And I couldn't clean till I did that.

You can't clean around all that trash.

I couldn't paint around all that.

I couldn't, I I had to do the I couldn't do anything till we got the trash out.

And when you're first born again, you're coming to God with lots of trash from the previous way of thinking.

Lots of broken down ideas, lots of discarded things that won't fit you now.

Right?

And so it may be that that first part of a person's life after they've accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, that first time, they're gonna have to spend that extra time going through and getting all that wrong stinking thinking out of their life.

For those of you who have been blessed, have been raised in the word of God.

You know, I can look at Denise.

Denise has been raised in church, Eric raised in church, y'all were raised in the word.

You don't know what it's like to have a house full of trash in your mind.

Right?

Why?

Because you were raised in that understanding of the word.

So when I first came to the Lord, that's what I felt like I was doing.

I was having to go through and clean all that thing.

I would go into, listen, y'all heard my testimony where God brought me from.

I was from a life of drugs, from a life of crime, from a life of addiction, right?

And and there were when I went into a convenience store, I had a habit of counting cameras.

None of y'all would ever think to look to even see where the camera is.

But if you've ever robbed a convenience store, you look for them.

You're counting how many cameras, what kind of security they got in this place.

Like, why am I thinking about this?

Right?

There were certain things that, and you can anybody who's ever dealt with addiction or or or uh drugs, there are certain things that would just trigger a thought.

And I would be, I would feel so condemned.

I would be like, Lord, forgive me.

I am not an addict anymore.

Why do I look at that and think that?

Why do I look at a spoon and my body respond to a spoon because I used to do my drugs out of a spoon?

I can't throw away every spoon in my house, right?

I'm gonna have to override this.

I'm gonna have to renew my mind to it.

And I would get so condemned.

I would drive through town, and there would be certain places that would just trigger memories, and I would be repenting.

Lord, I'm sorry.

Forgive me, forgive me.

And I felt like I was a sinner because the thoughts would come.

And what it was is those dirty thoughts, those wrong, they weren't vulgar, dirty, but it was uh about the addiction, about that bondage.

And and I would I would get under condemnation until the Lord began to tell me, you're gonna have to replace that thought.

You're gonna have to cast that imagination down and take that imagination captive, take that thought captive, because those thoughts have got to be trashed out, you've got to get them all out.

And so just like I had to go into those homes and clear all the trash out before I could clean and paint and set up the new life.

You have to renew the mind and clean out that wrong thinking and establish the right thinking.

But that's not going to be, you don't have to trash out every day if you maintain.

If you maintain your thoughts, it that's you get into a place where every thought's captive.

I every thought, I'm bringing it into obedience so I don't have any wrong thoughts.

If I do, if they're presented to me, I'm taking it captive right away before I get a plethora of them.

Before they get out of hand.

Right?

So Isaiah 26.

Isaiah 26.

Let's look at verse three.

You will keep him in perfect peace.

In the Hebrew language, the word perfect and the word peace are the same.

In King James, they have uh translated it, but in the Hebrew, you will keep him in shalom, shalom.

Well, the Hebrew word shalom is not talking about an emotional feeling of peace, it is a condition of your life in which there's nothing missing and nothing broken in your life.

The peace of God is a state of being.

The peace, this shalom is a state of being.

When they would greet each other, instead of saying hello, they would say, How is your peace?

Shalom with you, when the servant of uh the prophet went to when Gehazi went to confront the woman who they saw coming, he said to her, Go ask her, is it peace with her?

And so Gehazi comes to her and says, Shalom with you, shalom with your husband, shalom with your son, how is the peace of your husband?

And what was her response?

I have the peace that comes from being made whole.

I have shalom.

Well, was it true?

Her situation, her son was on the bed of the prophet, lifeless, his blood wasn't pumping through his body, his heart wasn't beating, his lungs were not working, he had passed.

But she was saying her covenant of the condition of my life is nothing missing, nothing broken.

Now you get here because we're I'm not settling for anything else, but nothing missing, nothing broken, because that belongs to me.

The idea of shalom.

So God says He can keep you in this condition of life where your life is not missing or broken in any way, shape, or form, dependent upon your mind being stayed on him.

You will keep him in perfect peace.

Shalom, shalom.

You could say it this way: a condition of shalom, a condition of this peace of God that is perfected and maintained, whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusts in thee.

I want to read to you the Knox translation of this verse.

Because this phrase, the mind stayed on thee.

I like the way the Knox translation translates it.

It says, Our thoughts wayward no longer.

You will maintain us in peace, peace that comes surely to those who trust in you.

Our thoughts wayward no longer.

Our thoughts wayward no longer.

Our mind stayed on him.

That word stayed gives you the idea of something that is fastened, something that is anchored, something that is zoned in.

I'm dialed in.

I'm dialed in to him.

I'm focused on him.

Why?

Because what the enemy uses is thoughts.

He has no other weapon against us.

The weapon that he used against Eve is the weapon that he used against Jesus, and it's the weapon that he uses against the believer today.

Wrong thoughts.

Wayward thoughts.

Thoughts that violate truth.

Thoughts that deceive.

Thoughts that bring confusion.

Hallelujah.

I don't have to take them.

I'm under no obligation to accept them.

Every thought that comes to your head is not yours.

You're not obligated to think it.

You are obligated by Scripture, you are instructed by Scripture to take thoughts captive.

Strongholds are thoughts that have been repeated and practiced until they gain an ascendancy, till they gain a momentum.

To stop a freight train takes a few minutes.

It's not an immediate hit the brakes and stop right there.

It takes them a distance, depending on the velocity, the momentum behind the train.

It's pushing that train.

Even though full brakes are applied, that momentum behind and the weight behind that train, same thing with an 18-wheeler.

To stop that, there's a momentum of the weight of that vehicle that continues to push that vehicle even after full brakes are applied.

And in your life, wrong thoughts that have gained momentum have a strength, they have a velocity to them.

And praise God, you are equipped with weapons to pull that down.

In the Old Testament, a stronghold meant something different.

In the Old Testament, it says the name of the Lord is a strong tower.

That was a place of refuge, a place of safety.

But by the time that it's used in the New Testament writings, and he's in Corinthians using this, it has changed meanings.

And it no longer means a place of safety, a place of refuge.

This word stronghold means a highly fortified prison from which it It's difficult to escape.

And phobias are thoughts that were rehearsed.

Addictions are thoughts that were rehearsed.

Nobody came became an addict in one day.

It was practicing yielding their body to that drug.

It was the practice of it.

And that's why it comes as a deception of we're partying.

We're getting ha! We're having fun.

Yeah, until it has control of you, and then it's not fun anymore.

Until you've lost your job and and your family, and and and you, then it's not fun anymore.

Until that alcohol has such a hold in your physical body that your physical body will respond to the the withdrawal of it.

Then it's not fun anymore.

So the enemy brings that deception to to make make it look like it's fun until that person continually submits to it, and then it holds a stronghold over them.

But we have weapons that pull down strongholds.

So no matter what the stronghold is, if it's a fear that's been rehearsed, if it's a um uh a prejudice that's been rehearsed, if it is a fear of being alone or a fear of being rejected, whatever it is, you have the power to stop its velocity, to stop the momentum of it with the weapons of our warfare, the word of God.

The word is the weapon, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

So the weapons of our warfare, the blood of Jesus is another weapon.

Praise God, because with the blood of Jesus you can cleanse and purge your conscience.

And the enemy can't use condemnation and guilt of a person who's got a cleansed conscience.

So this pulling down strongholds, casting down imaginations, an imagination would be a step down from a stronghold.

A stronghold is the optimum strength of that thought.

That thought has gained such a working in that person's mind that it now has the dominating influence over that person's activity.

So the second step down from that is that imagination.

And an imagination has a video with it, it has the plan with it, it has the details with it.

You can see it.

And so anybody who's ever wondered why your children are late getting home, you gave them a curfew, right?

And they're not home yet, and and you're looking out the window, and and thoughts are coming.

Maybe they had a cart wreck.

Maybe they got her pulled over, maybe they got this.

Maybe what those are all imaginations being presented to you.

And the enemy, he's got his flip chart out there, and he's saying uh they they they got arrested.

No, no, they wouldn't do anything.

Okay, well, look at this.

They they ran up, they had a flat tire.

Would you take that one?

Maybe they did have a flat tire.

Let me see why they haven't called me yet, right?

And so that imagination, it's got to be cast down.

Yeah, casting down imaginations and high things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, and then finally bringing into captivity every thought.

If you bring it captive at the thought level, it will never become an imagination, it will never turn into a stronghold.

And so if you'll train yourself to bring the thought captive, and and I have found myself in the kitchen banging pots and pans before I realize what am I upset about?

Anybody else ever done that before?

I mean, you find yourself you're just slamming something down.

What am I upset about?

I'm upset about that phone call that I got that said I missed that bill and I didn't pay it, and now they're gonna add a charge to me, and now I'm upset about it, right?

And so the thought came and it's got me over here thinking about it, and I'm I'm responding to it instead of taking it captive.

Hallelujah.

So I had to train myself because I would get over into worry.

You know, you heard me talk about that time I had one of my children had uh attempted to take their life a number of times, and and I'm worried about them, and and and I'm sitting up and Pastor has already cast his care upon the Lord and he's sleeping, and I'm midnight tossing and turning over here in the bed.

And every time I would say, every time I would say, I cast this upon you, Lord, I can't do anything about this.

I'm trusting you.

I would cast the care of it, and then a few minutes later, it turned my mind, just turned itself back on.

I tried to turn my mind off, it turned itself back on.

Like, no, no, no, we're not done.

We are not done thinking about this.

And then before I knew it, there I am again with the whole imagination.

If she would just listen to me, I would tell her this.

If she would just take my advice, I would tell her, and you know, I got the answers, and it's going through my mind, and I'm rehearsing it and rehearsing it.

And I would roll back over, Lord.

I cast this upon you.

I am, and and pastor's sleeping soundly.

I would try to cast my care, but my mind, my mind had such a, I had so yielded to that worry about this situation because it had been ongoing.

I was so concerned, and and this is like a serious thing, God, you know, and and my mind, I had practiced letting it go there.

I thought, okay, I've got to get some sleep.

If I if I get up, he's gonna be awake, and then we're both awake, right?

So what do I do?

And I had memorized Psalm 91, and the Lord said, You're gonna have to take control over your thoughts.

And the only way, I knew the only way you get control of your thoughts is your mouth.

You gotta use your mouth.

And so I began to whisper He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High God shall abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge, my fortress, my God, in him shall I trust.

Surely he shall deliver me from the snare of the fowl and the noise and pestilence.

At his thousand shall fall at my side and ten thousand at my right hand, but it shall not go.

I'm going through the the song, right?

And I may have had to go through it 30 minutes.

I would get to the end of it and start at the beginning and just repeat it and repeat it and repeat it until my mind shut down.

Why?

Because it it was clicking itself back on because I had allowed it to continually rehearse those thoughts of worry.

And I had to take the word in my mouth to govern the thoughts in my head.

You cannot defeat thoughts with thoughts.

You've got to use the spoken word to defeat thoughts.

Jesus resisted every thought with spoken words.

It is written, and he spoke it though.

He didn't just think it, he spoke it.

Why?

Because the sword of the spirit's in the mouth.

Jesus, Revelation chapter 1, verse 16, it says, in his right hand there's seven stars, but in his mouth there's a sword, a double-edged sword.

Revelation 1:16

Hallelujah.

In his mouth is the sword, not the hand.

Not the hand.

In his hand was the seven stars, the churches.

In his hand, the sword wasn't in the hand.

It's it's not in the natural, it's in the mouth.

And so for us to speak the word overrides thoughts.

So for you to take thoughts captive, you're gonna have to open your mouth, and you're gonna have to exercise dominion over the thoughts with spoken words, with God's words.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

What the Holy Spirit spoke to us by the Spirit tonight is that He does not desire any confusion in your life.

So that means we should not allow confusion to remain.

If we're sensing an area, a decision we need to make, something that we're trying to press into, if we encounter confusion, he wants us to find the light on it.

The entrance of his word brings light.

Because the confusion is where the enemy will operate.

To try to, if he can't get you to move off course, he'll at least sidetrack you or distract you in that confusion.

Thoughts have substance in them.

Thoughts are not just thoughts.

They're not just air.

God's thoughts bring his substance.

Peace.

His blessing.

Healing in the thoughts of God.

He puts his thoughts in word form to transfer or transmit or transport what's in his heart, those thoughts, to us.

And we take words and we transport God's thoughts to override thoughts that are trying to gain ascendancy in our thinking.

Wrong thoughts.

Worry thoughts don't need to have a place of operation in your mind.

Your mind worry, worry has been scientifically proven to cause high blood pressure, ulcers from a thought, from a thought, a thought of worry can affect my body to the point that it causes ulcers in my stomach.

It can cause my blood pressure to raise from a thought.

Yes.

Wrong thoughts can do that.

They're designed to do that.

They're designed to transport that destruction into your life.

But you're under no obligation to accept them.

You are instructed to take them captive.

And you're equipped to do it.

You're not a victim.

I remember sitting there in times when I was a teenager, and when I was a teenager, I would have thoughts of suicide.

I've got the scars on my wrist from where I tried to take my life.

Because the thoughts of you're worthless and thoughts of destroying my life would come to me.

And I would sit there and I would hit my head.

I wasn't in Christ.

I wasn't in the Word.

I didn't know Jesus.

I was a victim to those thoughts, but you are not.

You're never a victim to thoughts.

If thoughts come, you're equipped to overcome them.

You're equipped to deal with those thoughts.

You've got to identify them.

You've got to recognize them, and then you've got to dominate them.

No, I don't think that way.

So you're going to have to open your mouth.

No, when the thought comes, don't just let the impact of it bring tears to your eyes.

If you're sitting there crying because of things that are coming against your mind, think about that.

Sitting there with thoughts coming against your mind, and it's got you twisting your hands or crying about the situation.

Think who's behind that.

Is God feeding you those thoughts to get you in that state?

Heavens, no.

It's not from him.

He would like for you to set your mind on him.

He's able to keep you in perfect peace when?

When is he able to keep us in this condition of nothing missing, nothing broken?

When?

When we've got our minds fixed, fastened, anchored, trusting in him.

I'm not trusting in him if I'm allowing the thoughts in my mind.

I'm not trusting.

Oh, I trust God.

Do you see that?

I trust God.

No, no, that's an oxymoron.

For me to be and saying, I trust, I believe God.

No?

I believe God.

I believe God.

There's there's a there's a uh there's a note of victory in your faith.

There's a note of victory when you're recognizing and dominating those thoughts.

If the thoughts are getting you over to think I'm a victim to this situation, why is everybody always picking on me?

Why me, Lord?

That thought, that victim thought, the enemy would love for you to have a pity party.

I'm closing my back.

He would love for you to have a pity party.

Because you can't be in you can't be in victory and be the victim at the same time.

You gotta choose one.

God says he always calls you to triumph.

God says he'll always cause you to triumph.

Father, thank you for your light.

We embrace the light and we take our position in the light, and we refuse to settle for any confusion, any uncertainty.

We desire to seek your face and find the clarity in any situation, every situation, and we thank you for your faithfulness that you will prepare us with the answers we need before any situation the enemy would bring to us arrives.

We've already got the answers.

We've already been prepared because we're listening to you, we're tuning in to you, and we're following your lead.

In Jesus' name.

Hallelujah.

Glory to God.

Before we dismissed it.