Overcoming the Lie of Worthlessness

Welcome to the Illuminate Church podcast.

We hope today's message is encouraging to you.

Today is Week 2 of Weeds in My Garden and the the idea of this

series that we keep trying to tell everyone we're totally fine

when that's simply plainly not completely true.

Certainly there's seasons where we're greater than we are at

other times and we're walking and healing and health and other

times we are suffering. And I want you to know based on

last week, which we said it's OK to admit you're not OK, that the

admission that you're hurting is the beginning of healing.

And so we were creating the safe hospital here so that the doctor

can come in. And remember we said last week,

it's the sick that need a doctor.

So this is a safe hospital so that the sick can come in and

say, doctor, I need healing. And the healer has come.

His name is Jesus, praise the Lord, and I want you to believe

that you can be healed. I am living proof, having lived

for years with a mental health issue, and God's healing has

come upon me and not just me. Wait till you hear next week's

message. Somebody else is going to be

here sharing their testimony. And it is profound, the healing.

I hope that you'll be here. Would you agree with me that it

seems like every generation faces tougher battles than the

one before due to rise in immorality, the pronouncement of

harder problems that get harder to manage?

The help seems to be more and more scarce, more and more

confusing. It seems to be harder for each

generation that follows the next generation.

Would you also agree with me that worldwide church attendance

is in decline? Yes or no?

Are we talking or we're not talking?

Good, We're talking. Would you agree that the outcome

of less church attendance is also lessening people's ability

to face what the world has to offer?

OK. Could it be that mental health

disorders, at least partially, are on the rise because church

attendance is in decline? Is the correlation there?

And you've already said yes. Really.

What I'm saying by church attendance is engagement with

the divine, not just attending church, but participating with

the Lord Most High. And if people aren't

participating with the Lord Most High, not entering His house for

healing, then where are they going for help?

And is it actually help? Or is most help secular help,

worldly help, help that just soothes the symptoms but does

not heal the root? And now hear me, there are

seasons of our life where we need to sue the symptoms so that

we can heal the root. I'm not casting out the fact

that we need to sue some symptoms.

For some people, it's medicine for some people, it's

counseling. For some, whatever it is to get

me off of redlining so I can get to the place where I can process

what the Lord has to offer. So I believe that's why we're

doing this series, because it's the local church that breathes

the word of God, that believes in the power of the Holy Spirit,

that offers avenues of healing. It's the local church that is

the hope of the world as it pertains to mental health.

There is truly no other answer. That's why we're doing this

series. I'm glad that you're here.

I hope that you're glad you're here.

Five of you. In Idaho, there's a pastor named

Jim Putman. And in his community, small

community in Idaho, there was an outbreak of suicide.

We're going to be addressing suicide in week 6 of this

series. But a lot of today's message

centers on this. For this reason, Jim Putnam in a

city, the one of the most prominent political figures, the

head of the school board committed suicide.

And in a small town, that's big news.

Right after that, the captain of the football team also committed

suicide. It's rippling through the town

and his gym. The pastor Jim looked around.

He realized especially in youth in their town, suicide was

becoming this mini epidemic in their town.

And as a pastor of a town, it broke his heart as it would

anybody doesn't have to be a pastor is breaking everybody's

heart. And he knew that he must do

something. So he wrote a series and he

entitled it with the inspiration, the Holy Spirit,

irreplaceable. And what he found doing his

research is that there's three primary lies that Satan gives to

people in all mental health and specifically with suicide.

He got this information where he gleaned it was from people who

had attempted suicide but had not been successful.

Their testimony, what they said, what led them to that.

And he researched suicide notes. And as he read these notes and

he did these interviews with these people who had

unsuccessfully attempted suicide, he uncovered these

three lies from the devil. We're going to be addressing

those three lies today, next Sunday and the Sunday after.

Although I need to tell you, if you're looking at the posters

and it matters to you, we swap the next two weeks.

Next week is am I loved, and the following week, the last week is

am I accepted. They're backwards on the poster.

My fault, no one else's. I messed up the schedule.

True story. Thank you for your forgiveness.

So we're going to address these three lies starting today.

Here is the first lie that we tend to believe, and it impacts

our mental health and certainly impacts those who are

considering suicide. My life is meaningless.

My life is worthless, so what's the point?

What's the point? Many of you in this room have

had this thought at some level in your head at some point, and

some of you are sitting here today with these exact thoughts

racing through your mind. I'm a nobody, Nobody cares.

I'm worthless, I'm meaningless. What we want to address today is

where does this lie come from? What's contributing to this lie?

And most importantly, how can we move against it?

Because we can move against it. Amen.

In the 1990s, an era in American history opened up, which is not

a great era. It's the era of school

shootings. You might remember Columbine,

Aurora, Co, Sandy Hook, Texas here in Florida too many to name

Dartmouth College one of the Ivy's as a result of this did a

study. They released it in 2003.

It's called Hardwired to Connect.

They put this study together with the help of 33 experts,

pediatricians, research scientists, mental health

experts, young youth, service professionals, all of these

people. They gathered together,

hardwired to connect. Here's the opening statement of

this research report. What is the crisis?

They're asking why is all of this happening, this sudden

spiral and violence and brokenness?

What is the crisis? They say the crisis comes in two

parts. The first part is the

deteriorating behavioral and mental health of United States

children. We are witnessing high and

rising rates of depression, anxiety, attention deficit,

conduct disorders, thoughts of suicides and other serious

mental, emotional and behavioral problems among US children and

adolescents. The research scientists, the

doctors, all collaborating and coming to this conclusion that

this is on the rise and this is the crisis.

Now, if you read the report and get to the end, this is what

they conclude. The main cause of the crisis in

American childhood and adolescence is a lack of

connectedness. It's the root of this mental

health epidemic. And our kids, and really all

these kids grow up and become US, me.

They say close connections to other people and watch this

connections to moral and spiritual meaning are lost.

This study was not written by Christians.

This is a secular study. Dartmouth College used to be a

Christian place. Now not so much.

And this is their conclusion. Moral and spiritual

underpinnings and community are absolutely critical to our

emotional well-being. Now, of course, underlying this,

it would be easy to see that there are destroyers of these

critical connections. For we can have these

connections and at times you have maybe had these

connections, are searching for those connections today, but

something is destroying them. Let me just name a few.

Won't be big. Aha for you.

These are obvious. The breakdown of the nuclear

family, divorce, busyness of schedules, shallowness of

relationships, a lack of honesty, candor in

relationships, and we live in the most transient time in our

nation's history. People don't do what they used

to do. I was born in one place, raised

at that place, went to high school that place, went to

college, maybe came back to that place, raised my family with my

family and their family and their family for generations and

generations and generate right now, we're moving all the time

and because of it, we're disconnected from family,

extended family and close friends.

We are disconnected when we were wired hardwired, according to

the study, the professionals for deep and intimate relationships.

But because most of our relationships are no longer deep

with each other, with moral and spiritual meaning, then we see

the rise of anxiety and depression.

Between 2007 and 2 thousand, 2017, the numbers of those

suffering with anxiety and depression tripled in teenagers,

tripled. The Journal of American Medical

Association stated people in each generation of the 20th

century were three times more likely to experience depression

than the people of the preceding generation.

Can I just step to the side and say this?

As I read these words? It's almost sounding like I'm

sentencing you to have to experience depression and

anxiety if you're in that generation.

Well, I guess that's what our generation does.

So that's what's coming for me and I want to say to you do not

have to agree with these things or receive them into your

spirit. As you've heard with other

things. You don't have to become a

statistic, right? Here's what I read before For

the power of God. I'm sorry for you're clapping.

Is is it there or not? Sorry.

The Bible says the Lord has not given you a spirit of fear, but

of power, love, and a sound mind.

So I declare that you can be, if you will receive it, a

generation of peace, not of anxiety, not of depression.

So don't have to agree with these statistics.

I'm aware as I'm reading them. It can sound like a death

sentence. Now, of course, our behaviors

contribute to our disconnectedness.

You're going to be tired of me saying this, but you're tired

because you know it's true. But our phone addictions are

ruining us. Absolutely ruining us.

Just getting personally convicted before you.

We cannot shut off our brains because of our addictions to our

phones, whether it's news media, social media, gaming.

Here's what happens from a physiological biochemics,

chemistry kind of standpoint. We overwork the stimulation

network of our brains, the serotonin and the dopamine, and

we get these dumps secretions into our body when we're looking

at our phone and scrolling and scrolling a new story, that

thing and this thing or whatever.

And we overworked this till it's almost burnt out so that a

normal stimulus no longer produces in you what it should.

It's not enough. I need 6 hours of YouTube in

order to get one drop of dopamine instead of seeing a

sunset. And so these systems begin to

shut down or are rarely used. And let me tell you, serotonin

and dopamine are what produced in you joy and peace.

And so for missing the very chemistry that God gave us to

produce joy and peace because we're addicted to our phones,

that's a problem. We are part of the reason we are

disconnected. Not only are we disconnected

because we're losing our serotonin and our dopamine, but

you know that when you're in your phone, you're not with

people. It used to be that we hung out

in the yard and that was enough. Or sat on the porch.

You remember the days where boredom was the genesis of

creativity. Kids making up games, making up

stories, playing war in the front yard.

That's what I did a lot. Or street football, also known

as war, for sure. All of this is contributing, but

today what I want to address is what the world does not address,

the secular world does not address.

That's actually the root of our problems, and we have to

consider it. I would say we even need to

focus on it. It's the spiritual meaning part

of the Dartmouth study. What spiritual implications are

impacting our mental health? If the lie is you're

meaningless, you're worthless. So what's the point then?

Where did that, like, come from? What contributes to it, and how

can we move against it? I'm going to ask you to turn to

Psalm 139, though I'm not going to start there.

If you have a Bible, open it up. If you don't bring your Bible to

church. It's like going to the mall

without your wallet. OK, bring your Bible.

If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand.

We'll bring you a Bible, not a wallet.

Turn to Psalm 139. We're going to get there

eventually. We're bringing you Bible right

here. We're coming.

I'm going to read to you a famous scripture.

When I say that, I mean all the scripture should be famous, but

there's some that are hallmarks in the faith that just stick to

us and help us as believers. This comes from Ephesians

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6. I know you're in Psalm 139.

We're going to get there eventually, but Ephesians

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6, this is what the Lord says to us.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.

That should be enough. Put on the full armor of God so

that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

He's a schemer for our struggle. No, this is not against flesh

and blood, your own flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of

people around you. Rather, our struggle is against

the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers

of this Dark World, and against the spiritual forces of evil in

the heavenly realms, The raps, rulers, authorities, powers,

spiritual forces arrayed at you. I want to be very clear about

this because there is a lot of confusion in the church today.

But Satan is real. The enemy is real.

The battle is absolutely real, whether you acknowledge it or

not. Your life is in the crosshairs

of an enemy, and that enemy is unseen to you, is stronger than

you, bigger than you, and smarter than you.

It's the truth Jesus spoke about your enemy himself, John chapter

John 8:44

8, verse 44. You belong to your father the

devil, and you want to carry out your father the devil's desires.

The devil was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to

the truth. There is no truth in the devil.

When the devil lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a

liar, and the devil is the father of all lies.

Any lie that's going on in your head that is causing you mental

distress comes directly from the progenitor, which is the

producer, the creator of lies. It comes from the devil himself

seeking to deceive you from the truth.

I mean, it's pretty clear the devil is a liar and his lies are

meant to kill you. He's a murderer from the

beginning. He will try to take your life by

a lie, either all at once or typically by erosion, little by

little, one piece at a time. Satan creates a culture of

darkness and death with lies. That's what he do.

That's his job description. He creates a culture of darkness

and death with lies. We are experiencing it.

We feel it and often times we don't attribute it as we should.

This is the work of the devil. This is a trick he's trying to

play on me. It's a scheme.

It's a scam. He partners with our culture, so

where the lies kind of seep into us unbeknownst to us.

It's like our oxygen and we're just breathing in these lies.

It's like mold in the closet that you don't know is there

until you open the closet. Like, oh, I've been breathing

this the whole time. Let's open the closet and expose

the mold. One of the ways that he lies to

us is to our academics and sciences.

Now let me be clear, God gave us the academics in the sciences.

They're good. Physics, biology, chemistry.

They're really, really good. But in the midst of this,

there's a scheme the devil has put into it.

It's called evolution. Now, before you clinch, I want

to show you how the lie works. And then you can make your

judgment. But evolution basically states

that there was a large boom, and then there was rocks that flew

everywhere. Where those rocks came from, who

knows? And one of the rocks happened to

be so far away from this gaseous bulb of heat and light that it

produced a perfect atmosphere to grow water.

And from that water, all of a sudden primordial muck came

about. And you are the great, great,

great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great,

great, great, great descendant of the muck.

It muck turned into something that swam, swam all the sudden

on the land, in the air, and on the land.

All the sudden they went from all the force to standing up.

And then you now. We could argue whether or not

that's true, but let me show you the lie that's right in the

middle of it. Evolution is a lie because this

is what we're taught. You are the product of

randomness, which means that you are an accident.

You were not purposed. You are not special, not

important for sure, and in this universe you are small and

insignificant. This is the lie that is given to

us through the science of evolution.

If this is true, then there's no such thing as a spiritual realm.

There's no divine creator, there's no intelligent design,

and certainly there's no enemy after us, which is perfect for

the devil. Satan loves for you to believe

that he does not exist. What a good scheme, What a good

ambush. Just think what he's able to get

away with just in this one lie. That's just here it is.

If there's no spirit realm, then it's just your own voice in your

own head. There's no God.

There's no spirit speaking. If it's real, then there's

nothing after you die. You just die.

And since you're in pain, why don't you just go ahead and die?

It won't really matter because you don't matter, because you're

an accident. It's a lie.

Another way he lies. He lies to us about the

consequences of our behavior. The devil will tell us that

there's no moral absolutes. The devil will tell us.

The way that you decide truth is get a group of people together

and they decide together what truth is.

And then if humanity has the power to decide what truth is,

then each man or woman, could you just decide for yourself.

Secular humanism, if it's good for you, then do it.

If it's right to you, then do it.

The Bible says that all the Israelites did what was right in

their own eyes, and God condemned it.

So that's going to hurt you. That's going to crush you.

If you want to be happy, you're going to have to make that for

yourself, says secular humanism. And if it's true, then it's OK

to step on others on the way up to the top.

If it's true, then it's OK to bully people.

If it's true, then it's OK to post whatever you want to post.

As inflammatory is or as revealing as it is, just post

away. There's no consequences.

It's OK to have sex before marriage.

Outside of marriage, if you get pregnant, it's just a fetus.

I know that's heavy, and I don't mean it to be condemning.

I mean it to be revealing. How the devil is confusing us

that there is no absolute morality.

It's a lie. It's seeped into our culture.

He lies to us about the nature of who we are.

Essentially, he wants us the devil.

The scheme is that we're all just animals.

Act on your impulses. Act on your innate.

Yes, mine. Take get.

You know what we do to animals? We kill them.

Arby's. We have the meats.

Where did the meats come from? If we're animals and you have no

intrinsic value as a human and we just kill each other, then

why not? Let's kill each other because of

our skin color. Let's say that Social Security

has too many people needing it, so let's institute human

euthanasia. I don't like saying these

things. I can't imagine you like hearing

these things. It's the culture of death and

darkness that is seeped into our reality.

It's a scheme of the devil. Let's get some good truth.

Here's how we stand against it. God, in the opposite of Satan,

creates a culture of light and life with actual truth.

And I want, Yep, go ahead, get in there.

I want God to tell you your true nature, not what the devil is

scheming to try to make you believe about who you are.

You're meaningless. Nothing.

You're just an animal. Kill or be killed and you don't

have to go very far in the Bible for the Lord to tell you your

nature. In fact, it's on page one,

Genesis chapter 1. We're almost to Psalm 139.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

I know you got your Bibles open now.

Now then God said, let us make mankind, and when mankind is

there, it's humankind in our image, in our likeness, so that

they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the

sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals and over all

the creatures that move along the ground.

Verse 27. So God created mankind in His

own image. Did you hear me?

In the image of God? He created them.

Did you hear me, male and female, He created them.

A few notes. This is good news.

You are created in the image of God.

Remember at the beginning I prayed that you personally would

receive this. I'm not talking to people around

you. I'm talking to you.

You were created in God's image. What does that mean?

My son, my daughter, and my other son are created in the

image of my wife and I. They look like us.

They have attributes like us. They're like us.

They're not us. They're distinct beings, but

they're created in our image. And God says Father, Son and

Holy Spirit, the three, the two of us made children.

The three of these together made you, which means you have his

attributes. You are like him.

You're not him, distinct beings, but you have qualities within

you like Him, which makes the next part of Genesis chapter 1

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

possible that you would rule over the earth now without

question. There's only one indisputable

person who has the right to rule, and that's God.

Because He's the Creator and He's all powerful, all wise,

it's Him. He has all authority.

Yet because you are like Him, you are given privilege to rule

over the creatures of the earth, which means we are not simply

animals evolved. We are image bearers of the one

true God. Hallelujah.

And Please note this, this is very important.

I know if you ever put this together, Genesis chapter 1, God

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

says you're to rule every, every creature that crawls along the

ground. And then Genesis chapter 2 and

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

three, the devil shows up. Does he show up like an Angel?

Does he show up like another man?

He shows up like a snake who crawls along the ground, which

means from the very beginning, humanity was to have dominion

over the devil, but we messed up.

We're going to talk about that in just a minute.

So note this, and I did already kind of point this out.

God repeats himself three times. And if you and I know what

emphasis means, like when you're talking to your children or

coaching A-Team or whatever, you say it in front of you, say it

again. You're like, are you getting me?

Like this is very important. I'm repeating it to you.

God says it three times and he absolutely knows what emphasis

does to our hearts. And he says, I created you.

I created you. I created you, Trita.

I created everyone. I created all of this which goes

to show that this world is not an accident and that you are not

an accident. You were made on purpose.

You are very special, incredibly special to the Lord.

You have a quality within you that will outlast the world.

Write this down. You are known.

If you're insignificant nothing, then nobody knows you, nobody

cares. If you're an accident, a random

act, nobody knows, nobody cares. You just another flesh BLOB

taking up space, but you are known.

Genesis, excuse me, Psalm 139 verse one.

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.

I don't think that we understand what it means that God knows us.

So God continues and says this is how I know you.

I'm going to change the words from what you see on screen.

He knows when you sit and He knows when you rise.

He perceives your thoughts from afar.

He discerns you're going out and you're lying down.

He's familiar with all of your ways before word is on your

tongue. The Lord knows it completely,

which is kind of crazy because we drive on I-4.

He knows those thoughts. God hems you in before and

behind. God lays His hand upon you.

Think of this. We don't let a lot of people

touch us. I mean, the handshake's not a

touch, OK, but like a hug, Arm around, hand on a shoulder, hand

on a head. We don't let a lot of people

touch us. And God says my hand, because I

know you, is upon you. This is how intimate we are.

I'm touching you and I'm this close to touching you.

Such knowledge, David writes, is too wonderful for me, too lofty

for me to attain. Like I can't even comprehend how

well you know me. God, the God of all the universe

knows you intimately. God made you and he made you

uniquely. There's no one like you, no one

remotely like you. You are a masterpiece of God and

he signs his work. Amen.

The psalmist continues. He says, for you created my

inmost being. This is verse 13.

Jump your eyeballs down. You knit me together in my

mother's womb. I praise you because I am

fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful.

I know that for well. My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in a secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes

saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me

were written in your book before one of them came to be.

I want to put this gently into the room, so please receive it

gently. Some of our greatest mental

health issues stem from problems we have with our birth parents.

Abusive mom, abusive dad, absent mom, absent dad, the list goes

on. For some of you, that's a

massive reality. And I don't mean this

disrespectfully when I say this. Your biological mother and

father certainly participated in your birth.

But it was God that created you, him, and him alone.

Which means what anyone has done to you, said to you, or not done

or not said to you, pales a comparison to the One whose

opinion matters most. He knows you, He created you,

and He values you. If you ever doubt that He values

you, consider that He sent His one and only Son to die in a

cross and outstretch His arm to redeem you, to save you, to

bring you back to life. That's how valuable you are to

Him. That's how much He knows you.

Consider this also. God tells you the true reality

of your behavior. He creates a culture of light

and life by telling us the truth, and the truth is in

regards to our behavior, that we are sinners.

I have it, you have it, I've done it.

We've all done it a lot. There's no excuses.

You can blame God if you want to about why you're struggling, but

the truth is either you or someone in our history all the

way back to Adam has sinned and so therefore caused this great

cascade of a broken and fallen world that we are now living in.

This is reality, but glory be to God.

The Lord has intervened. I'm wondering if you've seen his

intervention. Isaiah saw it.

Isaiah is a prophet who lives 700 years before Jesus, and he

said this with his own mouth. The people walking in darkness

have seen a great light on those living in the land of deep

darkness. A light has dawned.

Then the apostle John, who knew Jesus himself, kind of finished

Isaiah's thought. He says the light shines in the

darkness and the darkness has not, will not overcome it.

And the finished work of Jesus on the cross and the fact that

he rose from the dead, he proves that he has power over sin and

death, all authority. And because he loves you, he

died and he rose for you. Even though we're sinners, Jesus

can make us clean and new. And it's at this point, usually

in a church service, where the lies start to pop up from Satan.

I don't know if that's true. I don't know if really.

And if it is true, does it count for me?

Because I've been, I've been way off track.

I thought that the way that heaven worked, as you had to be

good enough and then God would receive you.

And so there's a scale up there and there's a good deeds and bad

deeds. And I hope that mine goes like

this. It's all lies from the enemy.

It is by grace you have been saved, and that by faith,

meaning all you have to do is believe and the finished work of

Jesus is applied to you. You are known, you are not a

random accident. You're not an insignificant

speck that no one will miss. You have purpose.

You have a plan to live out here in the earth.

There is a spiritual realm. There is an enemy who's trying

to kill you. He lies to you and surrounds you

with lies. The devil is a liar and he's

trying to disconnect you from the Father and disconnect you

from one another. One last scripture, first John

chapter one verse 5 says this is the message we have heard from

him and declared to you. God is light in him.

There is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship

with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live

out the truth. But if we walk in the light as

he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and

the blood of Jesus Son purifies us from all sin.

The Dartmouth study said that we are dying internally because of

a lack of connectedness. They even said they titled the

report hardwired to connect, which when I read the word

hardwired, which I read, is this created by God to connect, It's

in US and the devil spends his entire existence trying to

disconnect us from the Father and front of one another.

And 1st John says that if we walk with Jesus, beginning in a

relationship with him by faith, then we will be connected to one

another in ways that we can't do otherwise, and he will wash away

that which disconnects us from the Father, our sin.

And so connection with one another in connection with the

Father is restored by faith in Jesus.

We've come to a decision moment here for all of us in two ways.

First of all, if you've never put your faith in Jesus to start

a relationship with him, it's a decision that you and you alone

can make. No one else can decide for you

to believe. And the Bible says if you

confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus

is Lord, you will be saved, purified from sin, thanks be to

God, reconnected to the heart of the Father.

If you need to make that decision today, then make it.

Here's the other decision and we'll pray through both of these

yesterday our family we're we practice the Sabbath Friday

night to Saturday night and on Saturday we spend time reading

the scriptures and I was reading out of Joshua Chapter 11 and in

Joshua 11 · chapter mention

Joshua Chapter 11, Joshua is taking over the promised land,

Joshua 11 · chapter mention

leading Israel to conquer the land and establish it for the

Lord. And then Joshua Chapter 11, the

Joshua 11 · chapter mention

the armies of the north up near where Syria and Lebanon are the

far northern part of Israel. They band together make an

alliance to come and destroy Joshua and Israel.

And the Bible records in Joshua 11 that the army was more

numerous than the sand and the seashore, a massive army.

You following along. And Joshua must have been afraid

because the Lord said to him, don't be afraid.

And He said these words, Joshua Chapter 11, verse 6.

Joshua 11:6

By this time tomorrow, they will all be in your hand slain, all

of them vanquished and dead. And church, hear me now, believe

me later, as soon as I read that Scripture, you came to my mind.

And I felt like the Lord wanted me to proclaim over you

something, encourage something in faith that whatever army,

whatever legion, whatever fiery arrows have been pointed at you

specifically in the realm of mental health, by this time

tomorrow will fall out the way of the roadside.

Listen, you don't have to faith this up.

I keep trying to say this like if I just believe enough, God's

going to do it for me. All you have to do is receive

it, His healing upon you. And as His healing comes upon

you, it may look like now and it may look like a door that opens

to the place of your healing. Either way, God is opening the

door that these demons die in Jesus name.

So I'm going to pray first for that, and then secondarily, I

want to pray for those who want to choose Jesus as Savior.

Would you bow your heads, close your eyes?

Thank you, Lord, for your word. Thank you that we have victory

in you. Thank you that the work is

finished. Lord, we want to be able to

receive the finished work of Jesus.

He has overcome and therefore made us overcomers.

Lord, we're just declaring your word that our enemies will lay

in our hand, slain, dead by the roadside.

These traveling partners that have been with us for years,

maybe decades, gone, dropped off, never to be picked up

again. If that's you here today and you

want to receive this finished work of Jesus, would you just

boldly raise one or both hands and say, I I need this for my

mental health, Go ahead. I know it takes courage.

Come on, Father, for those raising their hands, we loose on

earth the victory of heaven and you promised in your word that

what is loosed on earth will be loosed from heaven.

So Lord, send your victory. Gone is depression, gone is

anxiety, gone is these mental health issues that have been

lingering because of the power of Jesus.

God, I don't know how you do it, but I know that you can and you

will. We declare your healing in this

house. If you receive that into your

spirit, say I receive your healing Jesus, he can put your

hands down. If you're here today and never

received Jesus as Savior, then the whole church is going to

pray this prayer and you prayed along with them.

Church repeat after me saying Father in the name of Jesus.

I recognize that I am a Sinner in need of saving and Jesus is

that Savior. I confess and believe that he is

Lord Jesus. Come and live your life through

me. Thanks for joining us today.

We hope God is speaking to your heart through this message.

If you'd like to connect with us, you can text Connect to 4:07

588-0115 or visit Illuminate dot Church.

Have a great week.