Saving Your Souls

Let's just lift our Bibles up.

This is our custom around here.

We'd like to wave our Bibles around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad, and let's say this together say heavenly Father, I have tuned in tonight to listen.

For myself, I have need of more revelation of the Word of God.

I want to enter into rest, the rest of faith, so that my knowledge and revelation of the Word grows.

My faith automatically grows and so does my victory, because faith is the victory that overcomes the world.

Hallelujah in Jesus' name, amen, amen.

All right, let's look at James, chapter one, the book of James, and of course James here is the Lord's brother, his flesh brother, and let's start reading with verse 17.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and coming down from the Father of lights, in whom there is no variable-less nor shadow of turning Of his own will.

Begat he us with the Word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the engrafted Word which is able to save your souls.

But be, ye, doers of the Word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves.

Now let me read to you verse 21 and 22 out of the New Living Translation.

And it says so get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives and humbly accept the Word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.

But don't just listen to God's Word.

You must do what it says, otherwise you're only fooling yourselves.

So tonight I wanted to share a message entitled Saving your Souls.

Saving your Souls.

Now, here Jesus, the Lord brother, is.

He is writing to the church, not to unbelievers, and he's talking to them about how they've been begotten or born again by the Word of truth.

Their spirits are saved, their destination is heaven.

I mean, they're in the church, they're not lost people, and yet he talks about that.

They need to save their souls.

There needs to be additional work on their souls.

Their souls need to be saved.

You know, when you look at that, you just read over it quickly and you don't understand what he's saying.

He's talking about two completely different things.

The new birth is what God does.

The minute we believe and confess Jesus is Lord.

We're born again, we're new creatures in Christ Jesus, but that's an instantaneous thing.

I mean you just pass from death into life, from darkness into light.

You pass from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God.

But the saving of your soul is more of a process, and so our souls need to be saved.

That word save means healed, delivered, protected, made whole same word that's attached to when we get born again, except it's for our soul.

You know there are millions of believers who are born again, whose souls have never really been saved.

Born again, yes, but their saved soul is a process that they've never submitted to man, not even know about it.

You know, one of the greatest things that I learned when I first got saved and sitting under Pastor John Osteen's ministry, was the first Thessalonians 523, that we are triune beings, that we are a spirit, that we live in a body and we have a soul or a mind, a will and intellect.

And so I learned this early on.

You know, with your spirit you contact the spirit realm.

With your body you contact the physical realm, and with your soul you contact the intellectual or the emotional or the mental realm.

So here God saves your spirit.

But there's two other parts of your being.

We're triune beings, much like God, the father, the son, the holy ghost.

Here we are spirit, soul and body.

Our spirit is born again when we get saved.

But there's things that we have to do to the rest of our being.

We have to number one in Romans 12, one, it says, to present our body a living sacrifice, which is necessary.

And the Bible says here, brother James says you don't lay apart all evil, clean yourself up.

You know God's not gonna clean you up.

You've got to turn away from evil things.

You've got to quit giving yourself permission to do things that are wrong.

Once you find out what's wrong and what's right, you plead to what's right and get rid of everything that's wrong and Hebrews talks about.

You know, lay aside the sin and the weights that does so easily beset you and run with patience your race.

That's set before you.

So we have to do it.

You know we're gonna have to do something with our body.

In Romans 8, 13, it says we should mortify the deeds of our body.

What does that mean?

It says put the death, the fleshly things that our body wants to do, and so to get rid of sinful habits.

That's up to us.

We can't ask God to do it Now.

He can help us, but we have to be the initiators.

And then, of course, what I'm talking about tonight is the mind.

You know the mind.

In Romans 12 too, it says and be transformed by the renewing or the refreshing of your mind that you might know what is the good, acceptable, perfect will of God.

So we've got to do something about our mind.

We've got to renew it with the word of God.

Ephesians 4, 23 says to be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

So again, it's not talking about you getting saved, it's talking about you submitting to a process whereby your soul becomes saved.

And I happen to believe that that happens in degrees, as we are faithful.

You know we've got to be faithful about these things.

We've got to have some amount of consistency.

And so, looking here in James, I want you to look at this.

Well, pastor, I'm a veteran.

I feel like I've submitted this.

Well, you know I'm preaching this because none of us have arrived and graduated, so we all have a room for improvement.

Number one.

Number two we need to know enough about the Bible to help others, especially younger Christians, Because when they come into the kingdom of God.

This is kind of their description right here in James chapter one.

And look at it here with me James 1, 9.

And it says let the brother of low degree rejoice, and that he's exalted, but the rich and that he is made low because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away".

Now, you know, that used to give me a little trouble.

There he's talking about the rich and the poor.

The rich is exalted, the poor is demeaned.

What does that exactly mean?

Well, first of all, when you get saved, you're no longer poor, you've just been made rich.

Christ redeemed you from poverty and lack.

This is the first thing that was on Jesus' list in Luke 4.18, when he said the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's an ornament.

To do what?

To preach the gospel to the poor.

And so when you get saved, one of the greatest things after I got saved was I learned that God cared about my money, he cared about my business.

I never in all the years I was a Catholic and I prayed, but I always prayed religious prayers.

I always prayed those Hail Marys and all of that, our fathers.

It didn't really mean a whole lot to me.

And when I found out that God, that Jesus, died to take my poverty so that I could have an abundant supply.

I was amazed and I thought, my goodness, if I had just known he was interested in my business, I would have asked for a whole lot more help.

And so let the brother of low degree rejoice, and that he's exalted.

I mean, when you're on the bottom and you get saved, let me tell you something.

You're now on the top, that's what that means.

And then, but the rich?

In that he's made low.

Now what does that mean exactly?

So I went to the Lord about it and I just I'm going to run this by you.

The rich man fades away in his previous ways because, ideally, his mind becomes renewed with the Word of God and his soul is saved and his wealth is redeemed for godly purposes.

You see, when you're a rich man and you get saved, you've got to relearn.

You can't keep doing the same things that made you rich, because those are carnal In many ways, there are sent and many times they're sinful.

I mean, a lot of times rich people have gotten rich by being, you know, lacking in integrity.

They're they're kind of, you know, try to rob people as much as they can, you know, take away from them.

Not everybody is like that, but many people are.

They've gotten their riches with, with stealth and dishonesty.

When you get saved, you can't do business like that anymore, and so then you are humbled until you get your mind renewed to God's way of thinking in every area and then you begin to increase.

God will bless you as you get your mind renewed to the Word of God.

So, anyway, I want to get back to the message here.

To save your soul.

I've got three things we can do that we need to keep in mind, no matter what stage you're in, whether you're a new believer, a intermediate believer, I don't know.

We don't have any grades here.

We don't try to mark people down at a particular stage, but we all have room for improvement.

That's our biggest room, and so the first one that I want to talk about to save your soul, put the word first place in your life.

Put it over television, movies, secular reading.

People always ask me have you read such and such a book, and even spiritual books?

I don't have time to read everybody's book, I just don't.

I read the book.

Now, you know, I might read a book at Brother Mark Hankins has out, or Brother Copeland or something.

I read a lot of their materials but I don't make it a habit to just go around reading everybody's book.

I read the book because this book is written directly to me.

I need to feed on this right here, not that the other can't do me any good, but I put that down the list, hobbies and everything else.

I mean you know we can get so busy doing things.

Having you know, I remember when I first got saved I was in a bowling league.

I had to get out of the bowling league.

That thing was taking up all my time.

I had to start serving God.

You know, it's not wrong to go bowling, it's not wrong, but I mean it was taking too much of my time.

When Jesus is Lord, he wants to say something about how you spend your time, and so put the word first place.

John 6.63 says Jesus said the words that I speak to you.

They are spirit and they are life.

Read the Bible like your life depends on it, because it does it really.

Does you hear me?

I know I sound like a broken record, but I keep stressing it because a lot of people just they leave off reading their Bible, they put it off.

They know they should, but they don't Listen.

Quit, quit doing that and put it first.

Matthew 4.4,.

You know, jesus said man should not live by bread alone, but by every rama of God shall man live.

This is where you pick up a rama.

When you're praying and reading your Bible, god can drop a rama word into your heart, and it's so important.

So put the word first place.

Number two bring every thought captive.

Let's look at that verse in 2 Corinthians 10.

We just went over these verses on Sunday night, if you weren't here, be sure, and get the media for that message.

2 Corinthians, chapter 10 verse.

2 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

See here verse four.

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but they're mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

So I want you to see something.

It talks about strongholds, imaginations and thoughts.

That's in reverse order of how they occur.

Everything starts with a thought, and so we have to bring every thought into captivity.

We quit owning the thoughts that come into your mind, because many times the devil throws a thought at you and accuses you.

Well, if you were saved, you wouldn't think like that.

Well, you don't think that.

You, your spirit, you're the one.

Your spirit is what saved, right, your spirit is what saved.

You're working on your mind being saved, your soul being saved.

So you know your mind is susceptible to the devil.

He's got access to your brain.

He can throw thoughts at you and then accuse you for thinking those thoughts, but you didn't think them.

They're his thoughts that he threw at you.

You bring that thought into captivity and you say uh-uh, say you refute that.

You say no, sir, that's not my thought.

I don't own that thought, that is not my thought.

I mean, you know, if you ever driven down the freeway and had a thought to drive into the barrels that are sitting there in the median between two freeways, going this way and going that way, and they've got the barrels out there, have you ever thought about steering your car into the side of the freeway?

Yeah, you know, we all have these weird thoughts.

They come from the devil.

We didn't think that and we didn't obey that.

But bring every thought into captivity, because if you don't bring the thought into captivity and refute it, then it becomes an imagination.

It went from a thought, which is just a flash, a picture if you will, to a little video clip.

All of a sudden you've got a video clip.

Now it's not just a thought, it's not just a picture, it's a video, it's a moving video clip.

That's an imagination.

That's a little more serious.

And then it says casting down imaginations.

Well, how do we do that?

Well, you've got supernatural weapons, you've got the Word of God, you've got the name of Jesus, you've got the power of the Holy Ghost.

When you, if you've let a thought kind of sit there and you didn't do anything about it and it became an imagination, when I get on top of it and get rid of it, drive it out of your mind, cast it down, and then, when you go to the third stage, if it's undone, if your thought is not confronted, it's not brought into captivity, then it becomes an imagination that hasn't been cast down.

It will become a stronghold, and a stronghold there means the Greek means a castle or a fortress.

What in the old world not so much nowadays, but back in the old world what was a castle and a fortress?

Well, it was a protective place, but it was also a place of offense, because they could stand on the wall and shoot down at the enemy.

It was a place of great power.

So when something's been erected in your mind, it's going to create more thoughts, it's gonna create more imaginations, it's going to grow into cities, it's going to grow into a whole emotion picture.

You see what I'm talking about now.

Then you're in trouble.

You're gonna almost have to have some outside ministry to help you get back what ground you've lost to the enemy by not doing what the Bible says.

We're talking about how to get your soul saved and this is one of the major things.

It takes diligence and consistency to keep things in the thought stage from growing into imaginations and then finally into these strongholds.

You see, our faith comes from revelation.

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

That word, hearing really means revelation.

You know, jesus told Peter.

He said flesh and blood didn't reveal that I was a Messiah.

He didn't.

Flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you, peter, but my Father, which is in heaven.

And now I'm gonna that revelation.

Your little stone, your name, means little stone, but upon this great rock, the rock of revelation, I will build my church.

Jesus builds his church on revelation.

Christians who get revelation of the Word of God.

That's where your faith comes from.

Revelation is the ingredient that God uses for miracles to occur and then, in a light way, strongholds, strongholds in your mind is the ingredient that the devil uses to manifest himself in your life.

So that's how important strongholds are to get rid of.

You've got to get rid of them.

You've got to have revelation.

You should be.

You should be living by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, instead of whatever word that proceeds out of the devil's mouth.

See, this is where this playground right up here.

That's why it's got to be saved.

Your mind has programmed from the time you were born in the negative and that doesn't change when you get saved.

Your spirit saved is saved, but your mind is the same old mind you grew up with and it's programmed in the negative.

It thinks negatively all the time.

So why do we have to be saved?

We've got to teach our mind how to think like God thinks.

We've got to show our mind and we've got to demand our mind.

Who's the we?

Your spirit, you're in charge, not your mind and not your, not your flesh, amen.

So, and then finally, the last one is renounce and break any ungodly soul ties of previous unhealthy relationships.

What in the world is a soul tie?

Well, your soul, you have a soul tie with your mama and your daddy.

I mean that's what makes a family, you know.

You have an emotional connection, hopefully, and some people have unhealthy emotional connections with their parents because of a dysfunctional upbringing.

Sometimes people have alcoholic or drug addict parents or they've got abusive parents.

They've got they've got all kinds of problems.

So those those kind of unhealthy soul ties can give you trouble in your life.

Having a soul tie with an ex, an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend, an ex-spouse, I mean those can be unhealthy, those soul.

What's a soul tie?

Where you had an attachment in your mind and your heart like your love, you love these people emotionally at one time and so there's a string, there's a tie, there's a line between the two of you.

I like to use this analogy and I haven't used it in a long, long time, but when I was a kid we used to fly kites.

You know we love flying kites and I made my dad made a kite one time and that thing I was amazed at how it got so high you could barely see it.

It was a kite about maybe this wide and about double that amount long.

It was a big kite made out of like paper, you know, like a paper sack kind of paper, kind of thick, and he had this thin wood and everything.

He made it, you know, for me and me.

And that thing went up and had a big long tail.

You know we put rags on the bottom of the kite to balance it so it wouldn't go like this and it had like a 10 foot long rag tail on it and it went up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up up.

Until it was just almost you couldn't even see it.

It was way up there.

I was thinking God, what if a low flying aircraft hits it?

You know, I'm just five years old.

And he said, let me show you something, son.

So he took a paper bag and blew it up and kind of watered it up at the end and put a paper clip in it and hooked it on that line and that thing just traveled right up the string all the way to the top.

It just kept going on and on, and on, and on and on.

So evidently his hot out later on is an engineering thing.

I thought about it.

And his hot air out of his lungs is warmer than the air that it was in and it just like a hot air balloon and it traveled down that string all the way up.

We had 10 or 15 sacks stacked up against the kite way up there in the air.

And so, in the same way, demonic powers can travel on these soul ties between any unhealthy relationship that you have and you've got to renounce those.

You've got to renounce any soulish tie.

Does that mean you deny that they're your father?

No, you're renouncing the soul tie.

You're withholding permission for the devil to bring familiar spirits who know all about your family, they know all about your friends, they know all about your life and they can bring trouble into your life.

They can bring thoughts into your life, they can contribute to imaginations, they can contribute to strongholds, or y'all follow him in now.

And so, in order to have your soul saved, you've got to do some housekeeping and I see people just hanging on to old friendships and old relationships that serve no godly purpose in your life.

Now Quit looking back.

Let's look to the future and let's live in the now.

Let's not look back on things.

I'm not saying deny your family and I'm not saying deny who they are, but don't attach that same, don't let that soul tie.

Be a conduit for familiar spirits which are familiar.

Spirit is a demon power, and demon powers like to erect strongholds in your mind.

That way they can multiply in your mind and they can hold you back.

You can start having all kinds of trouble believe in God for simple things because you've got strongholds that you've let grow in your mind, or hope this makes sense to you.

You know there's three avenues to the realm of the spirit, and that's faith, anointing and glory.

Our faith is an access to the supernatural, to the spirit realm.

So anything that interrupts your mind and gives you trouble in your thinking can cloud your faith, it can diminish your faith.

Even though faith is of the heart.

Your mind can give you such trouble that you don't pay any attention to your heart.

It's screaming louder than your spirit is.

And then, of course, the anointing is not only your anointing but the anointing of the pastor, the anointing of some other minister, and so even if you've got strongholds, there's another person in your life hopefully that can be used, that God can use to help get you delivered out of these things that are afflicting you.

So anointing is another access.

And then, of course, the glory.

When the glory shows up, you don't need a man, You've got Jesus, you've got the anointing, you've got the glory of God.

And the glory of God, I believe, is increasing in the church.

Amen, everybody say faith, anointing and glory.

So keep those in mind.

And when you're having your mind renewed and you're saving your soul, it just makes you more efficient in those realms of the supernatural.

So be diligent to do your house cleaning.

Inconsistency lies the power.

I mean when these thoughts come into your mind, take care of them right now.

Don't wait.

You've got the Holy Ghost, you've got your mouth, you've got your faith.

You can cut these things off before they get very far.

And the Word of God inside you, that engrafted Word, is able to save your soul.

See, that's what it says.

The engrafted Word is able to save your soul and you're discovering how to know God's perfect will.

You'll never be deceived.

When your soul is saved, come on, lift your hands and receive.

Praise God, all right.

So let's pay attention to that.

I believe that this message will help you.

It'll help people that you're ministering to.

There's lots of you know.

I was just talking to a young believer the other day and he said well, I see on your website that you preach the prosperity gospel.

I said, well, which gospel do you believe?

The poverty gospel.

And I had to go a lot, you know.

I mean, he's been told something that's a lie, see, but all the gospel's prosperity, jesus is all about prosperity.

I mean, what's evil about it?

There's people in some places that call it a, you know, a cult, or they call it heresy.

You can help people.

They need their soul saved.

Their soul has been hijacked and corrupted with the spirit of this world.

So this is good ground for you to get knowledge in.

You can help others.

Praise God.

Let's just lift our hands.

Father, we thank you for the Word of God tonight and we thank you that we're on the track of getting our soul saved.

We're in the process of it and every little bit we find other areas in our mind that need to be saved, and we're not gonna quit till our mind is thoroughly and completely the house cleaning has occurred.

In Jesus' name, amen, amen, praise God.