God's Word, God's Plan | The Power Of Imagination 2 | Pastor John Greiner

Glory to God.

Let's reach down and pick up our Bibles.

Thank you, worship team.

Beautiful job today.

Glory to God.

Let's wave those Bibles around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

I'm excited about living right now.

I wouldn't live any other time.

Let's say this together.

Say, Heavenly Father, I'm so glad to be here today among people of like precious faith.

Love plus unity equals miracles.

There's a miracle atmosphere.

And Lord, I intend to tap into it.

I'm not just a hearer of the word, I'm a doer of the word.

And I've received the benefits of the word in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Praise God.

You could be seated.

Let's turn in our Bibles to the book of Romans.

And we're going to read first out of chapter 12 and then out of chapter 8 our foundation scriptures for this series of messages.

And Romans 12, verse 1.

Romans 12:1

Paul's writing to the church.

He said, I beseech you therefore, brethren.

See you can tell he's not talking to the heathen, he's talking to us.

He's talking to the church.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

And be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

And then Romans chapter 8, verse 5.

Romans 8:5

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit.

For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

And I wanted to read that out of the Passion Translation.

I think it helps shed more light on those two verses.

Those who are motivated by the flesh only pursue what benefits themselves.

But those who live by the impulses of the Holy Spirit are motivated to pursue spiritual realities.

For the sense and reason of the flesh is death.

But the mindset controlled by the Spirit finds life and peace.

In other words, Zoe, the God kind of life.

That word life there is what Jesus came to bring us: abundant life.

And shalom, health, prosperity, and peace.

Those who are motivated and are controlled by the Spirit.

And so I'm preaching a series of messages.

This is a second one on the power of imagination.

The power of imagination.

We've discovered that we are spirit beings.

We've been born again.

We live in a body and we have a soul, which is our mind, our will, our intellect.

When we got saved, God made us new creatures.

We're a new species of being that never before existed.

We're made in his image and likeness.

We're in the God class of being.

A lot of times we look at ourselves as just in the natural.

We look at our flesh.

We look at what our flesh wants to do and we feel guilty.

There's a we have a shame because our flesh always wants to do what it always did.

I mean, you know, if you were a drug addict, it would love to get back on drugs.

If you were an alcoholic, it would love to have another drink.

Your flesh wants to do what it's always done.

But when you got saved, you got in charge.

That's the real you, not your flesh.

See, we're we live in a body, but we are spirit.

And then we have a soul, we have a mind, a will, an intellect.

And so in Romans 12, it tells us to do two things with our other two parts of our being.

It says to present your body a living sacrifice.

Other places it says, crucify the deeds of the body.

In other words, don't let your body do anything it wants to do.

You tell your body to shut up.

Paul said, I keep under my body.

Or I keep my body under subjection to my spirit, lest while having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.

So Paul had trouble with his body.

Paul's body wanted to do what it always did.

And so, you know, it's not a mystery that our body wants to do these things, and we can't allow ourselves to feel guilty just because we have these desires.

You know, you've got control over that.

But then where do you vote?

See, your body wants to do one thing.

The spirit always wants to do the right thing, the body always wants to do the wrong thing.

Where do you vote in your mind?

The mind is the battleground, the soul.

That's why he says, okay, now you do something with your body, but now you've got to do something with your soul, with your mind.

You've got to not be conformed to the world's way of thinking, but be transformed by reprogramming, renewing your mind to the word of God.

You've got to change your thought process.

And so we've been talking about the power of imagination.

God wants to tap.

You know, God gave your mind the power of imagination.

He gave that to you.

And he wants you to use it in the right way.

You know, he's created us for success.

We talked about Joshua last week, Joshua 1.8.

You can imagine how intimidated he was tempted to be.

I mean, he's following the greatest prophet in the Bible, Moses.

Man, I mean, golly, you can't get more powerful than him.

But he's coming along behind Moses, and God said to him in Joshua 1.8, Joshua, this book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth.

In other words, you're going to keep this word right on your mouth in tongue.

You're going to be speaking it all the time.

This book of the law, what book of the law is that?

Well, it was the only thing he had was the first five books of the Bible.

We've got the whole thing.

And he had a covenant with God.

We've got a better covenant with God.

But he told Joshua, he said, This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall do what?

Meditate in it day and night, so that you may observe to do all that is written therein.

For then you shall have good success.

Then you shall make your way prosperous.

See, God's interested in our success and prosperity.

And he told Joshua how to get that, how to do that.

How so?

Meditate on the word.

So meditating means to speak and turn about on the tongue, the word of God.

Speak it backwards and forwards and inside and out.

Think about it.

Think about yourself with it.

That's what's called meditation.

Now the devil robbed that.

See, people of the East, they didn't have a million things to do for entertainment.

I mean, they're they're sitting back and they've got to work all day long just to live.

I mean, they've got to go raise the food, they've got to harvest the food, they've got to.

I mean, just to take a bath is a major issue.

To live with any kind of personal hygiene is not easy to do.

And we take all these things for granted in the Western Hemisphere, and this is what the devil wants to destroy.

He wants to destroy the West, the West.

He wants to destroy the Judeo-Christian ethic in the world.

He wants to destroy that.

But we're not going to let him.

We're going to rule and reign while we're here.

After we're gone, he can do his best, but in the end, we know who wins.

But anyway, so meditation was was something that the patriarchs practiced in the Bible days, even if they weren't Jewish.

I mean, anybody that that could look up at the sky and see the stars, they knew that they didn't do that.

They knew there had to be somebody bigger.

All they had to do was look around in nature, and the Bible says that you are without excuse, you have to know that there was a creator greater than you that did that.

But then some men and some women, that's just too hard to do.

So they decided to make their own gods and they'd whittle a stick or they'd chip on a stone until they made their own idols and they would bow down.

Isn't that stupid?

I mean, how stupid can you get?

You made the thing and now you call it God.

Psalm says, you know, eyes they have and ears they have, they don't see, ears they have, they don't hear, feet they have, they don't walk.

Mouths they have, but they don't speak.

And those that make them are like unto them.

So they were willing, see, there were heathens by by choice.

They chose to reject the God of creation when he had witnessed that he's there, you see.

So that's, I mean, you know, they're there without excuse.

And so in modern times, now we've got all these worlds' religions, and it's the same kind of process.

They decided to go by the rules of a false god.

And we've imported these gods into our country.

We need to drive them back where they came from.

Well, we have freedom of religion, not that religion we don't.

We don't need to let that go unchecked.

I think any Iman that gets up and starts uh criticizing America and saying death to America on American soil, they ought to be thrown out.

That's not freedom of religion, that's garbage.

Anyway, I I digress, which I many times do.

All right.

So imagination is the product of meditation.

When you meditate on the word, you will begin to get a series of images that God has authored into your into your mind and into your heart that his intentions are for you.

And we talked about the little pelican out there that I watched the pelican flying down the Galveston ship channel, and he and God implanted in his little pea brain the image of a mullet.

That's his prey, that's his food.

He knows what it looks like, he knows where it is, and he's looking down and he sees it, folds the wings, goes down, dives, comes back up, you know, throws his head back, and and the mullet's, you know, swimming around in his pouch, you know, and he pops it back down his throat, swallows it whole.

And he, you know, he didn't just stay there, he picked back up, took off again, and did the same thing.

And he, I mean, he went five times in my eyesight.

I mean, he didn't stop till he was full.

See, we need to pursue God's plan for our life and not just get one mullet.

Let's get let's get a series of images from God.

Let's turn, let's turn God's plan into a full-length movie.

See, it just takes some effort.

I mean, it's it's up to us to pursue that by meditating in the Word day and night.

He said, day and night, don't just do it a little bit, don't just do it once a week, once a month.

No, do it all the time.

And so God is implanting the image of his desires in us.

And while, and during that whole time, we've got to maintain our thought life.

We've got to take authority over it.

We've we've read Philippians chapter 4.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

And uh, I'm gonna read that in the message Bible because it's so powerful.

Let's see here.

I've got my little iPhone, and I'm getting more adept at handling it.

All right, and it says here summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'd do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious.

The best, not the worst, the beautiful, not the ugly.

Things to praise, not things to curse.

Put into practice what you've learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized.

Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

Isn't that good?

I mean, here your life is humming along and you're humming in harmony with the Father.

I mean, I mean, your life can become a new song.

I mean, God's got new things for us this year, doesn't he?

And we can obtain those things with through uh meditating the word of God.

Now, let's look at Isaiah 55.

Talking about the power of imagination, so powerful.

I've lived this, I continue to live it.

This church is built on imaginations that God gave me, his will.

Isaiah 55, verse 6.

Isaiah 55:6

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found.

Call upon him while he's near.

See, that's what we're doing right now.

We're we're asking, seeking, and knocking.

We started that, you know, some some weeks ago when God gave us that word.

Behold, I I make I make all things new.

He told John, write that down.

His words are true and faithful.

Write it down.

So John wrote it down.

So it was spoken so it could be written, it was written so it could be spoken.

We need to be speaking it, we need to be doing it.

If we don't ask and seek and knock, it won't, we won't know what it is that God wants to make new.

Make also means to throw overboard things that are, you know, lighting the ship, in other words.

There are some things that have become obsolete that we're doing all the time, and God has been through with those things, and we're still doing them, and they're obsolete.

God's finished with that.

He's wanting you to move on to.

I mean, my whole life has been like that.

I've had to throw so many things overboard, it's amazing.

We could have loaded a whole fleet of ships with all the things I threw overboard.

We can't carry everything forever.

He's got new things for us.

Oh, what a life he.

We've got a life.

It's just amazing.

It's an amazing life.

Praise God.

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found.

Call upon him while he's near.

Let the wicked forsake his way.

See that when you don't do that, really, God can call you wicked.

I don't want to be wicked.

And the unrighteous man, his thought, his thoughts.

Forsake your thoughts.

When you got saved, you had to forsake that way of thinking and that way of acting.

Forsake means turn away from it.

Yeah, it leaks back in occasionally.

Yeah.

Yes, our past will kind of leak back in and we have desires and things, but look, we that's what the blood is for.

You put it under the blood and eliminate it.

Let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, saith the Lord.

And if we stop there, we'd be hopeless.

But no, we can have his thoughts and have his ways.

His word is our, you know, is a is the is his thoughts and his ways right here.

We have it.

We have it.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts and your thoughts.

For as the rain cometh down and watereth and snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth in bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth.

Behold, I make all things new, came out of his mouth.

If we'll sow that seed of that word in our heart, we can have the new things.

See, it's pretty simple, isn't it?

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth.

It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

And as a matter of fact, since we're in the God class of being and we're made in his image and likeness, we can have what we say.

We can send forth the word into our lives, and it won't return to us void.

It will prosper in the thing whereto we sent it.

It'll accomplish what we please.

So we gotta we gotta have a desire.

We've got the desire of faith.

We've got to desire what God desires.

We've got to find out what his desires are for us and like and desire what he wants.

And you do that by meditating in the word.

Uh and in uh so we just haven't, you know, plumb the depths of what God wants for us.

In Psalm 40, verse 5, it says, How numerous are your thoughts toward us?

Psalms 40:5

If they could be numbered, there's more than we could count.

I mean, God is thinking, we just sang that song this morning.

I mean, he's thinking about us on a constant basis.

He's got thoughts towards, I know the thoughts that I think toward you, thoughts of plenteousness, thoughts of victory.

I mean, God's not thinking about crud for you.

He's not talking about punishing you.

He's thinking about how can I lift them up, how can I get them to succeed.

I want them prospering.

Don't think you want that for your children.

Amen.

Well, he wants he's no less a good father than we are.

I thought we talked about Moses and Solomon.

They had a detailed plan that God gave them.

God gave Moses a detailed plan of the tabernacle in the wilderness.

He didn't know what uh God said, I want you to take an offering and get all the gold and silver and blue and purple and badger skins and fine linen and get all that together and build me a house.

I want a shekeno with my people.

And he went and lived in a box.

You know, he couldn't just live outdoors with them, co-mingling with them.

They'd drop dead with a glory.

They wouldn't be able to, they wouldn't be able to stand that.

So he he had he had a plan and and he had to he had to build the whole thing according to the to the plan that he got from God.

Well, where did that plan come from?

His imagination.

And he's not even born again, like we are.

And same thing with Solomon.

Solomon uh imagined and got the plan of the temple in Jerusalem.

I mean, detailed every little thing in there, all the curtain rods and the ooches and the ouches.

You read it for yourself.

It's so voluminous, it's it's amazing how detailed every little thing that he received and he built it.

Talk about a builder, Solomon was some kind of builder.

So, you know, 25 years of building, I mean, I had to have detailed sets of plans to build a house.

And it was really an amazing thing to have a two-dimensional thing, just a piece of paper, you know, and it's just got drawings on it, and I'm sitting out there in front of the house that I built with the plans, and I look at this plan and I look at the at the finished product.

It's a pretty amazing thing to look at that and say, here it was.

I imagined it, and here it is in three dimensions.

And that was before I was a lot of that was before I was even saved.

I mean, I didn't even know what that God was creating in in me the the ability to build.

This is a pretty big construction project, and God is using these words to build into your life good things.

Are you with me now?

All right, let's look at Luke 6.45 today.

Again, if you weren't here last week, get the media and begin to listen.

And you might have to listen over and over and you know, spend some time thinking about it as it applies to your life.

Luke 6.45 says, Jesus is speaking.

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good.

And an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil, for out of, or of the abundance of the heart, uh his mouth speaketh.

So whatever you're thinking about continually is going to come out of your mouth.

And so if you're meditating on the word, the word's gonna come out of your mouth.

And again, see, uh imagination is the product of meditation.

The more you meditate, see, your imagination gets involved.

You start to speak that word, you turn it about on your tongue, you speak it backwards and forwards, you think about yourself having it, and you pick yourself with it.

And and the next thing you know, it gets down in your heart.

See, meditating is really like a farmer taking a plow and running through the earth.

You've got this beautiful pasture out there, it's just sitting there.

And what do you got to do to have a crop?

Well, you've got to break it open.

You've got to take a plow and break that land open, and you open the earth, and there it is, and then you put that seed down in there, and then you come back over and cover it over just at the right depth.

Hopefully the land has got a residual moisture, enough moisture in there for the seed to germinate.

But if it's got enough moisture, if if there's been enough moisture, not too much, not too little, just enough, that seed will just suddenly it'll shoot, it'll it'll roots or go downward and shoots or go upward, and the next thing you know, you've got a crop.

And the Bible, Jesus talked about that in Mark chapter 4.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

He said, The kingdom of God is if a man should uh cast seed into the ground and sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up, he knoweth not how.

First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.

But when the When the harvest is come, immediately he putteth in the sickle for the harvest is ripe.

So that's how the whole kingdom operates is the seed sowing principle.

You want to know how to sow the word of God into your heart.

You meditate in it.

I mean, if you just throw it out there, most people just throw the word out there and they don't really think about it again very long until maybe they're having another emergency.

Well, in between that and the emergency, the devil has already stolen all the word off the surface of the ground because you didn't plant it in there.

Or else you planted in a bunch of soil that's got rocks in it and junk in it.

Or you planted in a bunch of soil that you've got a bunch of cares of this world, the deceitfulness, riches, the lust for other things entering in, and it chokes the world.

See, there's the three kinds of dirt that won't produce a crop.

But if you if you pay attention to your spirit, man, by praying in other tongues and reading your Bible and meditating in the word, your spirit then is a right place.

It's a place where it's going to produce what the word says it'll produce.

You're going to have victory after victory, blessing after blessing.

Are you with me now?

All right.

And in Proverbs 14, verse 14.

Proverbs 14:14

Remember, you know, Jesus said, out of the tr out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Either good or evil.

We look around, I keep hearing these people saying, how can people think this way?

How can the Democrats uh vote for transgender?

How can they how can they side with uh against uh everything that we're trying to do?

How can they say that we don't need a vote uh uh an ID to vote?

When you have to have an ID to do anything in this country, it's not a matter of being too stupid to have an ID.

Everyone's got one.

Give me a break.

It's the illegal aliens that shouldn't that don't have one.

That's the answer.

Why don't you quit asking the question and realize that evil people always do evil things?

They're evil because they don't know God.

That's all.

They can get saved.

Jesus still loves them.

In fact, he died for them.

All right, Proverbs.

I digress again.

I'm sorry.

I keep going.

You know, Trump does that.

He goes like this.

He learned it from me.

All right, Proverbs 14.

I can teach him if you thought.

All right, Proverbs 14.

Where did I say?

Verse 14.

The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways, and a good man shall be satisfied from himself.

But let me read it to you in the amplified.

The backslider in heart from God and from fearing God shall be filled with the fruit of his own ways.

And a good man shall be satisfied with the fruit of his ways, with the holy thoughts and actions which his heart prompts and in which he delights.

Isn't that good?

See, so the more you meditate on the word of God, the more good things are coming out of your mouth, and the more good things are produced in your life.

And so here's the principle that I want to make this morning.

You will never have more or accomplish more than your thoughts allow.

Now, you know, Pastor, that sounds like psychobabble.

No, it's word.

It's the word.

You'll never have or accomplish more than your thoughts allow.

I mean, your thoughts are the limiting factor.

That's why the devil works so hard to pollute your thought life, to get you to think about the bad stuff, to get you to think about the past, to think about the things you didn't do right, the hood, woulda, coulda, shoulda.

He tries to lay a guilt trip on you.

He tries to uh convince you that you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, you don't have it, you can't get it, that's it.

I mean, you're you're limited, there'll never be any more uh healthy than you are now.

In fact, you're sick, you're gonna get sicker.

If you're broke, you're gonna get more broke.

That's what he does.

And what do we have to do?

We've got to think differently.

God's got some new things for us to think about this year.

And so we find from that that the unsaved are basically capable of all evil.

I mean, just re just listen to the news and watch the news and see what people are doing that are unsaved.

And I'll be honest with you, the the carnal Christians are in the same category.

Because if you don't bridle your thoughts and you don't control your body, even though you're saved, you could possibly, if you keep going down that road ignoring God and just saying, oh, I'm saved, but I eh.

You're capable of doing some pretty terrible things.

No, we've got we've got to get in control.

Our spirit's got to get in control.

Hebrews 4, let's look at that one.

Oh, this is so powerful right here.

See, what's the difference between being saved and unsaved?

Well, here it is.

Hebrews chapter 4.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

What did I say?

We're three-part beings.

Spirit, soul, and body.

But look at Hebrews 4.12.

For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

So when the gospel is preached, the word of God goes out and a lost person hears it.

When they receive that that word, the conviction of the Holy Ghost comes into them and they realize, oh my God, I'm a sinner, I'm going to hell.

I don't want to go to hell.

And that's when they when they begin to turn.

It takes the Holy Spirit to convict them of sin.

And He can't convict them of sin if there's no message, if there's no Bible word.

Because the Word will come in and cut and separate the Spirit from the soul, and now the Spirit can be saved.

So in lost people, their spirit is just like their soul.

Their mind and spirit are one and it's apart from God.

It's lost, it's separated from God, it's dead to God, it cannot ever please God, it can never do God's will.

But when the word comes, it separates the two, and now the spirit of a man becomes born again, new creatures, old things pass away, and suddenly a new sheriff's in town.

Comes down on the inside, and now the Holy Ghost comes in there with you to help you.

Oh, isn't that good?

Come on, lift your hand right now.

And so now, according to Romans 8, 5, and 6, we can be spiritually minded now.

We have the possibility of actually being spiritually minded or having the mind of Christ and have Zoe and shalom.

Isn't that what Jesus came to give?

He came to give Zoe and more abundantly, superabundant in quantity, superior in quality.

That's what he came to give.

That's ours.

We can have it.

We can have some new things this year that we haven't had before.

Might have to throw some things overboard that we've been carrying along.

It's not that they're sin, it's not that they're bad, it's just that God's done with them.

They're obsolete now.

And now it's time for the new.

Let's pick up the new.

Let's find out what the new, whether where the new doors are, where the new opportunities are, where's the new favor?

Where's the fresh anointing?

Come on, lift your hands right now.

There's fresh anointing.

Glory to God.

There's a fresh anointing.

New anointing.

Help you to get through the new things.

Glory to God.

Hallelujah.

Well, I've got a testimony I want to share with you.

I've shared it before, but uh I wanted to share it with you because it's kind of an illustration of how this worked out in my life as I've lived this.

But uh you've heard me say that, you know, when Gladys and I moved back from Corpus Christi, we were broke, had to move in with my sister.

I I looked everywhere for a job.

Oh no, you're overqualified, blah, blah, blah, couldn't find a job.

So I networked with some people that I knew.

And uh I've I had a banker friend that uh used to borrow lots of money from, and he and I were partners for a while in the building business.

He'd gotten out of banking into building, and he quickly figured out he'd made a big mistake, so I helped him get back out.

But I I went to visit with him, he said, I've got some somebody's telling that I've a customer of mine, a custom builder in the woodlands, is looking to open a remodeling firm.

And so he introduced me and got me a job with this guy who started a remodeling firm.

He hired me to run it.

And I ran it for about a year.

Finally, I've got a job after about three months of unemployment when we moved back to town broke.

I mean, man, we did just living off of my sister's mercy and love and brother-in-law.

And uh and so finally I'm getting a little salary.

It's not what I used to make, but it's it can pay some bills, and we and uh and about after about uh it was close to a year, uh I read an article.

And well, I'll back up.

I was at I was at Lakewood one night for a special prayer meeting, and and this prayer warrior lady that I knew, I didn't know her well, but I knew her.

And I was sitting, you know, and she walked and she walked by me and she says, Oh, Brother John, she says, I've been praying a lot for you lately, and all I get when I pray for you is is promotion.

God's got a promotion.

I said, Well, I I believe that, sister.

Thank you.

I preached, I received that.

So I took it and ran with it because I knew she's a prayer warrior, and I respected her.

And uh, you know, she didn't prophesy it, she just told what she heard in prayer, you know.

So I received it.

And I had been meditating on Isaiah 45, and I'll read it uh to you.

I can quote it, but I'll read it because you know Isaiah 45, and it's it's talking about Cyrus.

But one day when I was reading my Bible, God put my name there, it became a Rhema word.

That's how God used God uses the word, and he'll he'll make a word personal to you.

And it says, Thus saith the Lord to Cyrus, his anointed.

Put John Griner there.

Thus saith the Lord to John Griner, his anointed, whose right hand I've strengthened to subdue nations before you.

I will loose the lorns of kings to open for you the two leaf gates, and the gate shall not be shut.

I will go before thee and uh make the crooked places straight.

I'll break in pieces the gates of brass, cut asunder the bars of iron, and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, hidden riches of secret places, so that you may know that I, the Lord, which call you by your name, am your God.

So that's how I received it.

And I started praying that, I started seeing that, I started seeing.

I didn't understand all of it exactly what it means to loose the loins of kings, but I assumed it meant that I'd have favor.

And and I, you know, and uh subdue nations.

I didn't understand that, but that's what we're doing right now.

That's what we're doing right now.

I said that's what we're doing right now.

And this is 1988, long time ago.

Sometimes, you know, we think something's gonna happen tomorrow when God speaks.

But anyway, I'd been, and then I read an article about West University Place that they were tearing old houses down and building new ones.

And I was intrigued by that.

And that's the first time I'd even even kind of even thought at all about getting back in the home building business.

I really, when I when I got out and I went through all what I went through, I was just so beat up and tore up and failed so badly that I never wanted to hear or even think about it again.

I figured there was going to be some other something some new thing.

I didn't know.

Really, ministry was in my heart the whole time.

I kept thinking maybe I'm gonna get back in the ministry full time.

I I wasn't sure.

So um uh so I uh approached uh my boss, the guy that owned the remodeling company, because he's a custom builder in the woodlands.

And he's an older fellow, him and his wife, had no kids, not a Christian, but a nice guy.

And uh I knew that the company that we'd be I'd been running, it wasn't making a lot of money, it just barely enough maybe to pay my salary.

I don't think he was putting much money in his pocket.

It wasn't that successful.

It was difficult to make that the way that we had that arranged, and it was a long story.

So uh I was concerned a little bit that that he was gonna probably want to end it.

And so I just threw it out there.

I said, you know, I was reading an article about West U.

Have you heard about what they're doing?

He said, Oh yeah, I've read about it.

I don't I'm not interested in doing it.

In fact, really, John, I'm thinking about shutting everything down.

I'm trying to exit because I'd like to retire.

Well, when he said that, I knew I was cooked.

You know, I knew that there was no future what I was doing, see.

So I drove over to West U one day and to investigate, to see what was going on.

I drove up and down the streets, and golly, they're just the ugliest.

I mean, the how the new houses didn't have any personality, they're all the same red brick cubes with green shutters and flat fronts and little narrow driveways that will not accommodate any kind of a other than a Honda Civic.

If you've got anything like a, you know, a suburban, forget about it.

You're not driving down the driveway.

It's no room.

50 by 100 foot lots and just cube that's going straight up, you know.

And so I saw this house under construction and old houses on either side built in the 30s or 40s, you know, 1100, 1,200 square foot up on blocks, you know, old houses.

You know, kind of dilapidated.

Some of them were pretty dilapidated.

Some of them were had been remodeled and painted.

I mean, I saw a couple of, one of them was bright purple.

I thought, my God, who picked the color out on that thing?

But anyway, here's this brand new house.

So I stopped the car, got out, and I started walking across the street, and immediately I was hit with a sensation.

I best I could say it just all it just washed over me, this desire to be in the building business again.

It just all at once, it was just like hit me, and I teared up because I smelled the lumber.

I smelled the new concrete that had been just poured, I smell the earth that had been turned over.

I heard the nail going pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, and all these guys crawling everywhere, putting the first floor frame up.

And I just knew that I wanted to get back in the building business.

And I knew that my other thing was, you know, gonna end at some point.

And so I got back and I kept meditating.

I'm see, you you what are you doing?

Well, you're meditating on the word of God, you're beginning to imagine yourself in a in a place where that that lines up with God's plan for your life.

Are you all with me now?

So about two weeks later, the boss calls me and wanted to meet.

I went to pick up my check, is what it was.

I I went to pick up my my paycheck and he let me go.

No notice.

And it's I got my two weeks' pay, and that was it.

No severance, no nothing.

And they felt bad.

Oh, John, what are you gonna do?

I said, I'm gonna do what I did before I ever knew you.

I'm gonna depend on God.

God's my source, He's gonna take care of me.

He's already got the next thing.

I'll find out what it is.

The next thing is already open out there.

I'm gonna I'll find it.

I I put on a good face.

I was grateful to thank you for the opportunity, appreciate it, and uh wish you well.

And as I was backing out of the driveway, I knew I was having to go home, tell Gladys this news.

And I just talked into the Lord.

I said, Lord, I can choose to believe the devil stole my job, or I can choose that this is a promotion.

I choose to believe that this is your promotion.

I choose to believe that.

I just talked to myself all the way home.

I talked about, God, you said you'd go before me and make crooked places straight.

Look kind of crooked right now, but I know you're straightening things out.

I've got favor someplace.

I know I've got favor.

I know there's favor to be had.

And so I had been thinking about what I would do because I just didn't have the faith to get back in the home building business from where I was, because now I've got my last paycheck.

We're gonna, we're gonna pay, we're gonna tithe and we're gonna and we're gonna pay uh some bills, and when I when that finished, we had$35 in the bank.

You don't go knock on a door of a of a bank and say, I'd like to get back in the building business.

I want to borrow some money.

You know, there's no way I can get into the building business in that case.

So what can I do?

So I see, God can't can't move a can't steer a ship sitting at the dock.

You've got to start moving.

I I didn't have God's plan, but I had to have a plan.

I I sat down at my kitchen table and I started doing some figuring.

What can I do?

And you know why I went back to a business where I could do rehab on empty houses.

I knew that there were 1,100 vacant houses in Bear Creek Subdivision, 1960, and Clay Road, right next to Attics.

And in the 80s, all those guys got laid off and those houses got foreclosed on, and banks had acres of land and houses and real estate.

They had to, they, they, they had, and one thing I know about bankers, you might be a banker, and I'm not being ugly, but I mean I know bankers don't like to get their brogans dirty, their hands dirty, their white shirts stained up.

They don't like walking around on construction sites, and they don't care uh anything about trying to do anything about an inventory that they own.

They want to hire it done, and I'd already done that for a couple of banks before, several years before.

So I had some built-in references.

So I figured a plan, a kind of a loose business plan of going to these banks and saying, look, I'll take care of these vacant houses, I'll make sure the locks are fixed, I'll make sure the houses are clean inside, get the yards taken care of, fix the broken glass, make sure there's nobody squatting in there, and I'll do it for this amount of money.

And I had that kind of a loose plan.

I said, so how much can I believe God for?

And I looked at my bank account, it's$35.

I said, you know what?

If we give$25 in the offering, and I can do like Moses, Moses said to Israel in Deuteronomy, the Lord make you a thousand times more numerous than you are today.

I said, I a hundredfold won't do.

I need a thousandfold return.

I believe I sow a$25 in the offering tonight, and we are going to get$25,000.

With$25,000 cash money right now in my hands, I can go and I can execute my business plan.

Is this helping anybody today?

I want you to see that you don't always know everything at first.

You just have to do something, lest you do nothing.

Don't sit there like this.

Get moving.

This is for somebody, maybe more than one.

So I, you know, I did that.

We gave that off in the offering, you know, and Gladys and I agreed.

I said, okay, and the next morning, Thursday morning, was a Wednesday night, Thursday morning.

Now see, it's already been, you know, last week, and I got laid off, and now, you know, this Sunday, and now this wedding.

I mean, time's clicking and I'm broke.

$10 in the bank.

I can't even believe they kept the bank account open.

They didn't, they didn't, they kept it open.

I don't know why.

How?

Favor.

Anyway, so I uh I said, okay, Lord, what's next on my faith action?

What do I do?

What how do I prove to you that I've got faith for this to happen?

What's my next faith act?

And I mean, the Lord put in my heart to call three businessmen at Lakewood that I knew, prosperous guys.

He said, You tell them, ask them to agree with you in prayer for the$25,000.

I said, God, I can't do that.

If I call them and ask them to agree with me for that, they're gonna think I'm hinting for them to give it to me.

And I don't want to do that.

I mean, you know, I've I've got a, you know, by then I'm I've got a place at Lakewood.

I'm in front of a lot of people, and I've got a reputation, and I didn't want to harm my reputation and have people think I've got my hand out begging.

And uh he said, he said, no, you call them and tell them I told you that they had the faith to believe for$25,000.

Not everybody's got$25,000 faith, but they do.

I said, okay, Lord.

I mean, yeah, I just had to humble myself, I had to cast the care of what people might think of me because I had to follow what the Lord told me to do.

And so I did first guy, he kind of liked the idea that God said that he had$25,000 faith.

He agreed with me right away.

And second guy agreed with me right away.

The third guy, oh John, come to my house.

Wife and I, we want to pray.

We want to agree.

Come to my house.

I want to pray with you in person.

I said, Well, okay.

I've been to his house.

I mean, you know, he lives in Kingwood and I live in Springs, so it's a good drive, you know.

So I, you know, pull up to his house, ring the doorbell, and he brings me into his music room.

I probably don't have a music room, but he had a music room.

That's how big a house, 11,000 square foot house.

And we stood in the music room and we joined hands and they prayed and they both were weeping, and they the Holy Ghost fell on all three of us.

And I mean, I thank them profusely.

Thank you so much.

Uh, you know, and uh I left.

And so now that's third, uh, you know, whatever day it was, like Friday by that time.

I think it was Friday.

So it's been a week since I've been laid off.

Ten dollars, in fact.

I want you to see this now.

It's Friday and nothing.

Say, I've got somebody praying in agreement with me, but there's no money yet.

So uh Sunday is church, and so I I I see these people and I see this this next man that the last one that cried, and he said, Oh, John, he said, ever since Friday, I I when I'm praying, I just you come before me, I can't get you off my mind.

I uh man, can't I think we're supposed to do something together.

So, well, I'm not really looking for a partner, I'm just looking for$25,000.

And he said, Well, I can we have lunch?

I said, Absolutely, sure.

So after Sunday service, we went out to Luby's and we sat there and our families, and and uh he leaned across the table and he said, This morning, as I was waking up, I heard the voice of many waters, and he said unto me, just like this, prosper, like that.

That's how he reached across, he got up out of his chair and kind of leaned out across the table like this.

Prosper! And I went like this.

That's a command.

And he rocked back like that.

He says, That's what Brother Osteen said.

And I kind of smiled.

He said, John, I just believe we're supposed to be in business together.

I said, Well, I said, frankly, the$25,000 was for a business that's just gonna kind of get me in the door that I can parlay into getting back in the home building business.

Really, home building is really the only business I know.

It's the only business I'm interested in being in.

Well, I don't know anything about home building.

I said, You don't have to know anything about home building.

All you've got to do is have a lot of money.

And if you've got a lot of money to invest, we can be in vet in business together.

That's what I said.

But I'm still gonna have to pray with, I'm gonna have to find out what God's plan is.

I mean, you're I wasn't planning on having a partner.

I'll just be honest.

I just need to lay it off.

See, I if I'd been desperate, I'd have just said, Whoa, anything, whatever you say.

No, but I had to go by what I had in my heart from God.

Are y'all getting it?

Are you talking about a power of imagination now?

So he said, Okay, I'm going out of town for a week.

I said, A week, another week.

And when I get back, we'll talk in.

I said, All right.

So I went to the Lord and said, Lord, you know I don't want a partner.

I've had partners, it's problematic, the home building business.

And he said, I want you accountable to a partner.

He's gonna be your partner.

Okay, that was humbling, but it prepared, it prepared me for being a pastor because I'm accountable to you, I live in front of you, and I have to do the right thing.

I have to.

I'm accountable to God, but I'm accountable to you.

I'm accountable to my family, I'm accountable to my staff, I'm accountable.

I've been accountable to other men of God, women of God over the years.

You have to be accountable.

You can't be a uh a person that's just proud and arrogant.

There's a lot of those around.

Do they just because they think they have the power to do it?

Well, they really don't have that power to do it.

So, anyway, uh so you know, a week goes by, and man, it's just getting, and we're running on fumes.

You know what I'm saying?

Anyone ever run on fumes?

Running on fumes spiritually and every other way.

I mean, it's hard.

It's hard to get up every day and pray in faith and keep my confession, and you know, it's tough.

So he didn't call me, so I called him.

And he started crawfishing, backing out of the deal, and he said, Oh man, I I I just can't do it right now.

I I know I said I would, but I just can't.

Uh I'm so sorry.

I said, it's all right, it's okay.

God's got a plan.

I'll I'll be okay.

I thank you for praying for me in agreement.

You know, I'm just believing God.

And I couldn't wait to get off phone because I was mad.

I was just frustrated.

I said, God, I wasn't very polite with God.

Don't look so innocent.

I didn't blame him, but I mean, I'm just frustrated.

I mean, he knows I'm frustrated.

Doesn't do any good to put on airs and put on an act.

I said, God, you know, I just I never wanted a partner, and you said he's my partner.

And I said, I never wanted to do any of this.

I said, I just wanted$25,000.

That's all I wanted.

Now where we are.

And so I said, I I thought I heard from you that he's my part, my partner, and then we're gonna go in the building business, and and uh uh X'd off the first plan I had about rehabs and all of that kind of thing.

I said, uh, I said, God, you said that you would loose the loins of kings to open before me the two leave gates, and the gate shall not be shut.

And I was about to quote the entire Isaiah 45, 1 through 3, and I was only through the verse 1.

And I'm I'm kind of loud now.

You know, standing kind of over the phone, glad this is over cross away from me.

And I'm quoting Isaiah 45 back to God.

God, you said you'd loose the loins of kings to open before the gate, two leave gates, and the gate shall not be shut.

And then before I could take a breath and say the next verse, he said, Where do kings live?

What?

Where do kings live?

And it just hit me, kind of like that first morning when it washed over me, you know.

When he said, Where do kings live?

I realized that this man lived in Kingwood, and not only in Kingwood, he lived in King's Forest.

And not only that, he had two leave gates, he had two wrought iron gates that that uh that on his driveway that I had to go through to go into his front door.

I had a picture of it in my head, and I just started laughing.

And I said, So he's uh he's kind of in a hot seat then.

I mean, in other words, this is really what you're playing, is it?

Yeah.

I said, Well, what do I do now?

He said, call him, tell him I said so.

I said, Oh, God.

I keep thinking about Brother Hagan.

He would always say, Beware of prophets who prophesy money out of thy pocket.

Brother Osteen used to say the same thing.

And that's how I thought about it.

I thought, oh God, you know, he me and my reputation, me and my, you know.

I said, Oh, God, I can't do it.

Yes, you can.

Call him and tell him I said.

Okay.

So I called him back.

And I said, Look, I know what you said, but I've got to say this.

On your side, you do whatever you can do.

I mean, if you're out, you're out.

But I've got to tell you what God said.

And so I told him the whole thing.

And he starts weeping.

He said, God, it, John, it's just fear.

I let fear in.

That's all it is.

I, you know, I'm all right.

We'll we'll go, we'll get together.

We're gonna do it.

I've got$100,000, we'll we'll put it in the bank, we'll get started.

And so, less than three weeks later, we had$100,000 in a joint bank account.

We started our business to build houses in West University.

And we built houses together for three years.

Come on, lift your hands right now.

Glory to God.

God's plan.

I said, God's plan.

Imagination.

The power of imagination.

You know, they have uh, I got three things for you before we close.

Um we have uh the power of imaging now in medical science.

We have x-rays, we've had had x-rays for a long time, but now we have MRIs and we have uh magnetic resonant imaging, and then we have CT scans.

We have all these diagnostic tools that mean that we don't have to have exploratory surgery.

You know, back in the old days, when I was growing up in younger days, I mean, that's what you did.

You went to the doctor and they didn't know what was going on.

A lot of times they didn't have these fancy diagnostics, and so they had to cut you open to see what was going on.

And of course, when they did, well, that that could be risky.

But now they have all these wonderful things, and we we've got the power of imaging, we've got the power of being able to look behind what our eyes can see in the natural and get back into the spirit realm and get exposed to what God's plan is.

Is this helping you now?

So there's three things.

Number one, let's pray Ephesians 1.18.

Let's look at that one.

That's one of the Ephesian prayers.

I pray it every day, still, all the time, every day.

It's my my normal praying.

And in verse 18, we pray that the eyes of your understanding be enlightened or be flooded with light or be illuminated.

The eyes of your understanding.

What does that mean?

The eyes of your spirit.

Not your natural eyes, but the eyes of your spirit.

Pray that they be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and that you may know what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.

See, we talk about our inheritance that God has for us, but God has an inheritance in us, and we need to know what it is.

And what is that?

That is his plan for you.

That is the new things that he has for you.

Those are the things that he wants you to throw and lighten the ship.

Those things are his inheritance in you.

Inheritance.

Plural.

See, don't just don't just settle for one mullet.

Keep diving until you get the whole picture.

Are y'all with me now?

I'm telling you, God's expecting great things.

Don't you nothing, nothing does you your heart any more good than when you see your children.

Some of you got younger children, so they're not accomplishing that much.

But when they get older, I mean, I a so a great source of gladness and I've comfort is just watching our kids operate.

I mean, we're just proud of them.

They're just high operate at a high level.

They are beyond anything I ever dreamed that they would do.

And besides that, then they're working with us right by us, and I can delegate to I know that whatever it is, they're gonna do it.

They're gonna do it with excellence.

Better than me.

So many things they do better than I do.

That's what's necessary.

That's God's the same way.

Number two, meditate on all the in Christ, in Him, through Him, through Christ, all those that you see in the epistles.

Every time you read it, underline it, meditate on it.

Why?

Because that's who you are.

You've got to change the way you look at yourself.

You you are a spirit.

You live in a body and you have a soul, and your soul is getting renewed.

So your mind has got to get renewed to how God sees you, who you really are.

And you need that imaging.

You need you need an MRI.

Because all you do is look in the mirror and you think about all the junk, you think about all the stuff.

No, that's not you.

You need an MRI to see you.

Are y'all with me now?

Abraham.

Let's look at Romans 4.21.

Romans 4.

Verse 19.

Being not weak in faith, talking about Abraham.

Abraham considered not his own body now dead when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb, who was 90.

But, and he staggered not at the promise of God.

What was the promise of God?

You're going to have a son.

His name is Isaac.

It's going to happen in about a year from now.

He staggered not through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he or God had promised, God was able also to perform.

He was fully persuaded.

So let me just talk a little bit about Abraham.

Abraham, I mean, he had a he had a long life.

He's 100 years old, but God brought him out of Ur at age 60.

And then he spent all those years in in Horon, 15 years.

He's been married all that time, no baby.

And then, you know, he gets into his 80s, still no baby, has a counterfeit child with Hagar at Sarai's insistence, and that wasn't God's plan.

But, you know, he'd been he'd been hurt, he'd heard that he's made the father of many nations.

He he had heard that in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

He heard that on the front end of that whole deal.

Years, night when he for 40 years he'd been he'd been hearing about what God's plan was.

Everybody say 40 years.

40 years is the number of testing.

You're gonna, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to pass a test to believe what God has for you.

Because it's bigger than you can imagine.

And so in Genesis 13, you know, he was having a little trouble, and he said, look, and and him and uh uh Lot split up.

Lot went to Sodom and Moor.

That didn't turn out too good for him.

And after Lot separated, then God said, Okay, Abram, look to the north, the south, the east, and the west.

All that I'm gonna give you.

That's Israel.

See, I'm gonna give you all that land to inherit.

He said, Your your descendants are gonna be like the dust of the earth.

See, what's God doing?

He's getting his imagination to start seeing himself bigger than he dreamed.

He's married to a woman who can't have kids.

And yet you're gonna have all this multitude of descendants, like the dust of the earth.

I mean, was God exaggerating?

God doesn't exaggerate, God tells the truth.

That God be true and every man a liar.

And then in Genesis 15, he came to Abram after, and he's 86, I think, at the time.

I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.

And he said, Well, you keep saying all these great things.

How do I know this is gonna be?

He said, Look up at the stars.

See, if you can count how many stars, that's how many your descendants are.

What's he doing?

He's getting his imagination kicked in again at 86.

At 60, at 75, at 86.

He's spurring his imagination.

Everybody say imagination, power of imaging, see.

He's not thinking right yet.

And he said, Well, how do I know you're gonna do this?

He said, Get me a heifer.

I'll cut the covenant with you right now.

You do it on my behalf.

You kill that heifer on my behalf.

And Abram cut that animal in two lengthwise, and God came down and consumed the sacrifice and cut the covenant with Abraham so that Abraham could know and put it in the bank that it's gonna happen.

But you know, he still didn't have a baby till now he's a hundred years old.

And what did God have to finally do to sell the idea?

He had to rename him, and he had to say, your name is no longer Abram, it's Abraham, which means father of many nations, and your wife is not Sarai, it's Sarah, which means princess.

And they both had to believe that.

He was fully, by the time he's a hundred, it took him from 60 to 100 to become fully persuaded.

Let's not wait 40 years to believe God.

Come on.

Let's believe God right now.

Let's be keen in the spirit and quick to obey.

Amen.

And within just six weeks, then, between the time, well, really 90 days, I guess, between the time that he started saying, introducing himself, hello, my name is Father of Many Nations.

This is my wife, Princess.

And it took more than just speaking, they had to act on the word.

You know, I don't have to paint you a picture with the birds and bees, what had to happen between a hundred-year-old man and a 90-year-old woman, but that's what had to happen for them to have the child of promise, which they did.

Are y'all with me now?

Everybody say fully persuaded.

And then the last one is Psalm 40, verse 5.

Psalms 40:5

I've quoted it already, but we'll look at it.

Are you getting anything out of this?

My heart is to get you lined up with the new things that God has for you.

That you'll be walking in the fullness of His plan for your life.

And as a builder, I used to have to really do a lot of work to get the object that the plan was for to line up with the plan.

It was a constant issue.

I had to walk the house every day and make lists of things that were not right.

I had to make lists of things that were out of kilter that had to be corrected before the next stage.

Otherwise, you're going to have a mess.

You can't just, you can't just ride by the house.

I used to call them alligator shoe builders.

I mean, all they did was ride in their Cadillac with their alligator shoe and their fancy looking suit.

They had these uh leisure suits.

Do you mean these, remember these leisure suits?

Bell bottom pants, big old wide lapels with all this floral.

I mean, I knew one guy, he just drive by with his pinky ring.

He got a big old diamond pinky ring on his Cadillac, button window down.

Boys, you need anything today?

No, we're fine.

Okay.

Shh.

Drive to the beer joint.

Wouldn't see him again.

Those houses were a mess.

Psalm 40, verse 5.

Psalms 40:5

Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are toward us, they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee.

So God has a multitude of thoughts that he's thought toward you.

So don't stop at just one image.

Keep going.

Keep in the presence of God.

Keep meditating the Word of God until it all unfolds what God has for you.

For sure, you're gonna have to make some steps, you're gonna have to do some things.

That's part of walking by faith.

You sometimes you don't know, you don't have faith, but just for one step.

Well, take that step.

Don't stop and wait for all the steps to show up.

You've got to start moving along a line and trust that God can turn you.

God can even bring you back to the boat if you've gone in the wrong direction.

But you've got to move because you know there's a multitude of good things that God has in store for you.

The power of imagination.

Come on, lift your hands and receive the word today.

Glory to God.

Hallelujah.

Come on, let's shout, let's shout the victory right now.