The Power Of Imagination 2

Amen.

Let's lift our bibles up and give them, and let's say this together Say Heavenly Father, I'm so glad to be here today.

I wouldn't miss what you have for me.

There's no way.

I need the Word and thank God for the Holy Ghost that gives me revelation so that I can be a doer of the Word, not just a hearer, and be deceived along with the rest of this world.

I'm rising in revelation, knowledge.

I'm succeeding in life.

I am blessed in Jesus' name.

Amen, praise God.

All right, let's turn in our bibles, please, a couple of places.

Well, actually, romans, chapter 12, and also Romans, chapter 8, both of our foundation scriptures are found there Romans 12, 1, both of these, of course, written to Christians.

Romans 12 · chapter mention Romans 8 · chapter mention

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 one version says and your spiritual worship.

And be not conformed to this world or this world's thinking, 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, in Romans, chapter 8, verse 5, you page is over to the left, for they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, or that they're flesh-minded, but they that are after the spirit, they mind the things of the spirit.

Romans 8:5

In other words, they're spirit-minded.

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

And so I'm sharing a message that I may not get done today.

Thank God, being a pastor, I can spill over to next week if I need to to get information.

We need information, and out of that information, yes, we can be inspired, but inspiration by itself is not worth much.

You've got to have a basis.

The Word of God is your basis, your rock.

We're building our house on a rock, and people that build their house on motivation and inspiration, well, trouble comes to everyone, and most of the time, in my experience, people that build it just on excitement and all of that, and thank God for excitement.

I think we ought to be excited, but we need more than that.

We need the rock of revelation, and upon this house I shall build my church.

The gates of hell shall not prevail against the God.

Jesus wasn't talking about Peter the Pope, he was talking about Peter means rock.

He's talking about revelation, and I'm so glad Brother Mark shared those messages with us last two weeks ago.

And so this is just picking up on what he gave us.

And so, you know, god created us for success.

He told Joshua this book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate there in day and night.

You'll meditate.

People of the East, people of Bible times, had a revelation of the power of meditation and of course the devil has hijacked that transcendental meditation where people sit in a lotus position with their hands like this.

You know, I saw one of the actresses doing that.

You know, goofball, if you meditate, you know you can't meditate on nothingness.

The devil will come and give you all kind of crazy demons that you can't get rid of.

But thank God, when we meditate on the Word and so imagination and don't get turned off by the title.

Sometimes people get so religiously spiritual that they think, well, imagination, that's just that mind over matter.

And so God gave you the mind.

You have Our whole spirit, soul and body.

God gave us that.

We're not our own, we've been bought with a price.

Sometimes we just think about just our spirit.

Well, yeah, our spirit was saved when we got born again.

That's the part that's gonna live forever.

But you have a mind, a will and intellect.

God expects you to use it as a tool, as a way to launch an obedience to what His Word is giving your spirit.

And without a mind you can't really go forward.

You gotta have a mind, you gotta make a decision and your mind is where you make that decision.

We are not puppets on a string.

We're not robots.

We don't just obey God just because he said we have to agree, we have to process what God puts in our spirit and when our spirit communicates to our mind, our mind has got to be renewed.

A better word for renew is refresh.

You know, god told me that years ago.

He said when you say be transformed by the renewing of your mind, people out there in the pew, most of them, are saying yeah, thank God, I got my mind changed, my mind was renewed back when I got saved 40 years ago, he said that is not true.

You have the same stinking mind you had when you were lost.

It has to be what Reprogrammed.

It has to be renewed, it has to be refreshed.

And even I mean every day.

You need a refreshing, you need a download from heaven every day.

Why?

Because you are being assaulted 24-7, with all of these data points out there that your eyes can see, your carnal flesh is taking in information that has to be refuted and in the aff Dat is dyed out.

So imagination is so important, because imagination is what God gave us to where it becomes the roadmap, it becomes the blueprint for what God wants to do.

Imagination is a product of meditation and my imagination image, and we talked about the.

You know, a couple of years ago I preached on the Pelican because I went to Galveston and saw a Pelican feeding out there in the ship channel, galveston ship channel.

It goes from the Gulf, you know, right on past the port and on into the Galveston Bay and so it's kind of a place where all kind of different fish are and there's a lot of meat eating fish, so their food is out there, so they're there.

So a lot of guys are out there casting and fishing and here you've got big old tankers going in and out and they eventually go to the port of Houston through there and it's quite a place.

I like to receive communion when I go to Galveston.

My custom is that I'll go down to close to East Beach and park there on that channel and receive communion and kind of get my trip lined up while I'm there and just pray a while.

And often I'll see things out there that just really God uses nature sometimes to start talking about.

You know, what did they?

What did they do with Abraham?

He gave, he used.

He said Abraham, look, lift up your eyes.

After they parted company with Lot, lot left and God waited for Lot to leave and then started talking to Abraham about the future.

He said look out there, abraham.

Abraham is kind of disappointed because he doesn't have any kids yet.

He said look out there, look at all everywhere that you can see.

That's where that's yours, just tread upon it.

And he said your descendants are going to be.

If you could count the dust.

And boy, I've been there and there's a lot of dust in Israel, a lot of rocks.

You can't count them.

And that's what God used.

He said just look at the dust, look at the rocks out there.

That's how numerous your descendants are going to be.

Genesis 13, genesis 15,.

He was discouraged again.

God cut the covenant with him.

How can, how do you keep telling me?

You keep saying I'm going to have this, how do I know?

And God said I'm going to cut the covenant with you.

He said look up at the stars.

You can't count them.

That's how numerous your descendants are going to be.

So don't tell me imagination is not important.

We must have that it is.

It is the tool that God can use for our mind to vote correctly.

You know you're going to vote one way or the other.

Your flesh is going to want to go one direction, your spirit is going to go God's direction, and where your mind says you're going to go is where you're going to go.

If you've got carnal mind, if you've got a flesh minded mind, if you've got a mind, that's just no imagination.

You look at the immediate at the expense of the important.

Yes, see, we're long term, those songs that we were singing forever and ever.

We're going to praise his name.

You know we're going to be around a long, long time, and a lot of times God is talking to you and we're thinking immediate, immediate, immediate.

Man, I've got something.

Right now it's pressing on me.

Oh, I got to have an answer.

And then we skip over that.

God wants to talk to us about the, the important.

And if we'll, if we'll just get our minds and our imaginations tuned into what God wants to talk about the big, big picture things.

He will give us what we need for the immediate thing that we're facing.

Come on, let's lift our hands.

God doesn't want listen, he doesn't want you to fall, he wants you to succeed.

He's on your side.

Well, we've got to have a mind that's been refreshed, it's got to be reprogrammed and it has to be more than just Sunday.

It's every day.

I said it's every day, so we talking about these things.

So here's his pelican.

He's out there.

I watched one particular pelican.

There was a bunch of pelicans flying with the wind.

It was a real strong Southeast wind, which is all the time, except when there's a norther, blows in the gavist and then then it flattens out the surf.

See, the surf is coming in and the North wind is blowing, flatten the surf out and it gets real, real calm.

Then not calm, but the waves get smaller.

But that day it was blowing, man, it was really.

And so the pelicans were flying with the wind.

They didn't even have to, just kind of stretch their wings out.

You know pelicans, huge, big old wingspan.

And then they just kind of just did this.

You know, just just soon, all flying in formation like B 52s I think about bombers when they're all flying like that and then one lone pelican.

He is just struggling into the wind, going the opposite direction, all by himself, and all of a sudden he just folded his wing, dove right down and he came up with a mullet.

How do you know it was a mullet?

I just said it was a mullet.

I don't know if it's a mullet or not.

You can't prove it wasn't a mullet.

What else good is a mullet?

Some of you used to wear mullets back in the 80s, but anyway, 90s maybe, I don't know, I don't think.

But uh, so he goes in and hey, listen, I mean, he knew right where the mullet was.

He had an image of his prey, he had an image of his lunch.

I mean, if a, if a pelican brain can have an image of his lunch, how much more can we have an image of what God wants us to have, what Jesus already bought and paid for, ie, our inheritance God is working to create in us.

And where does he start?

He doesn't deal with your mind.

Primarily, he deals with what your spirit.

It's spirit to spirit.

God is not a mind, he's a spirit.

He's not going to talk directly to your mind.

I know a lot of Christians still.

They just try to hear voices.

They try to hear with their brain.

God talk.

Well, you know what.

You're going to flunk, you're going to fail, because that's not how God operates.

Well, why can't he just do that?

Well, you know what, when you're a baby Christian, god will do a lot of things to get information to you.

But he expects us to grow up, and that's what this church is all about.

They're helping you to grow in God's ways, amen.

And so God is implanting the image of what he has in your spirit.

But then, if you don't renew your mind, then your mind cannot receive that image.

It's going to travel from your spirit into your mind at some point.

A lot of times it happens to me when I'm praying in the Holy Ghost and all of a sudden I'll just have a knowing.

That's how this church was built.

I didn't know where we were going to start a church.

My pastor told me the phone would ring at Lakewood.

Somebody from Timbuktu would be calling Lakewood.

Oh, we're in trouble, we need a pastor.

If you got anybody you can send us.

He said yes, sir, I'm going to send them to you and Gladys.

You and Gladys.

That's how it's going to happen.

You're not going to have to start a church.

John God's got some place out there and he gave me a couple examples that they didn't call him.

You know, if a boy had called me, I would have sent you in a heartbeat.

That's the kind of conversations he and I had when we had time to have one.

So I wasn't really prepared to start a church.

My pastor didn't know that.

Why that information was reserved for me and my wife.

It wasn't even going to come through my pastor, as well-meaning as he was.

You know why.

I think he just didn't want me to have to go through starting a church.

Well, I'm glad I did, because why?

That was God's plan.

I said that was God's plan.

How did I know?

I'm telling you, I meditated on the Word, I meditated on His words, I meditated on what my pastor told me.

And then, when God gave me a different plan, you know I had to say yes to it.

It wasn't an easy thing to go tell my pastor.

Well, I'm not going to follow your advice.

I'm not going to wait for the phone to ring.

God's ready for me to go now and we're going to start a church right here in Houston.

Oh man, I didn't want to tell him that, but that image was so powerful inside of me there was no getting around it.

Are y'all with me now?

That's how this church was built and it wasn't built on one image anymore than that.

And that pelican could live on just an order of one mullet wasn't enough.

I mean he had to keep diving.

He kept diving into that water and catching those mullet as far as I could see, and finally got the lost side of him.

You know he was headed out to the sea, I guess.

He kept on flying to the Gulf and I mean, his last vision I had of me was diving down there and getting another.

Listen, we need to keep diving for more information that God has for us and that's why I say every day God's got something that he wants to implant into us, another piece of the puzzle, another puzzle piece of the picture, and it's long term.

It's not always just immediate, something just in front of our nose.

Yeah, I know you're facing things this morning.

You've got some things that are right here on top of your nose and you need answers.

God knows that.

But don't just listen, don't miss the important.

Looking at the immediate, that's for somebody today I don't know who.

All right.

So as we pray and meditate on the Word, god implants the image of His desire in us, and and so we, we read you, philippians, chapter four, talking about thought, life, your thoughts and the message Bible.

Philippians four, eight through nine.

So good, summing it up, friends, I'll say you'll 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.

He will work you into His most excellent harmonies.

In other words, we're not in this as lone rangers.

We're not in here, in this thing, into this life, into the body of Christ, disconnected from other people.

We are making a sound, we're we're making a coordinated effort.

We're making a coordinated movement in the body of Christ, and we need each other.

That's why church is so important, that's why it's so important to have a pastor, that's why it's important to just do things the way God's Word says and to think the way just when you, when you measure your thought life against these words here in the message.

I mean that.

That that'll tell you what not to think about some of those old negative internal dialogues that you've been having.

See that.

I say that frequently here, because people I've learned have a pattern of thought that's negative.

Why is that?

Because your brain was programmed that way in the world.

That's why the Democrats are so negative.

They had just look at the hatred they have.

They look like fools up there trying to impeach the president for nothing.

The facts were not there.

There was no reason to spend all this time and money.

They are dementia.

They got dementia.

They're, they're, they're, they're so filled with hatred.

Why?

Because they, they're children of the world.

That's all you need to know.

They're not Christians.

They don't know the Lord.

Pastor, you're judging, though, by their fruit.

You shall know them.

Come on, let's, let's quit being so religious.

Well, you just judge.

No, I'm not job judging their actions.

Their actions are nuts, their policies are nuts, but they believe them.

I think they've just, I think they've said these things they the big lie.

See, that's, that's communism is the big lie.

Go back and read how they took over Russia, how they took over China by saying the big lie.

Well, that's what they're involved with, except, I think now they've said it so much, they believe it.

The Bible talks about them.

They love a lie, they love deceit, they hate God and they hate God's people.

That's the only explanation you have.

Well, pastor, I didn't think you'd get into the negative so.

Well, listen, we all have that brain that they have.

The only difference is we got saved.

That didn't affect our brain.

Y'all are looking at me like you're stunned.

It did not affect your brain.

You've had the same brain you were born with, right, I mean, god didn't do a brain transplant, he did a spirit transplant.

So that's why we have to do something with our mind.

We have to reprogram it.

It is wired negatively.

So that's why many of you struggle with this negative thought process.

This internal dialogue says oh, you're just not worthy.

Oh, you know you've got a terrible past.

Oh, you're not educated.

Oh, you've done this.

Oh, you did that.

Oh, this fell apart.

What a good, or should a?

You've got to use what God gave you to stop that.

You can do it.

Or God lied, which is it?

Oh, you can do it.

You can do it.

You can change what you're thinking and start thinking and having your thoughts line up with Philippians 4, 8, and 9.

And when you do you start thinking those kind of thoughts, now your imagination is going to kick in.

You're going to see things you never saw before.

I love what brother Mark was talking about.

He wants us not only to hear, but he wants us to see.

The spirit of seeing and knowing is coming on the church, and how much I mean listen.

It is time, it's high time.

We know Jesus is coming soon.

So we've got it.

We've got to clean some things up.

Are you getting anything out of this today?

All right, so today let's look at Isaiah 55, talking about the power of imagination.

I mean, your thoughts are so important and we dealt a lot with this, these verses, back when God gave us the greatest year.

Yet we started looking at God's perspective.

Isaiah 55, verse 6.

Isaiah 55:6

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found.

Call ye upon him while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him.

And let him return unto our God and he will abundantly pardon For my thoughts.

God is saying my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways, saith the Lord.

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

For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven and my water of tomball and Cleveland and the other north north, not even be Houston, I don't know as the snow comes down from heaven and returns not to heaven, but waters, the earth makes it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater.

So shall my word be.

So.

His word is just like rain, like snow, like moisture falling down.

His word is like that it goes forth out of his mouth.

It will not return unto me void, but it will accomplish that which I please.

It shall prosper in the thing where to I send it.

Praise God, his word will prosper where it is sent.

So now the word is being broadcast, it's going into your hearing and hopefully it's broadcasting and you're hearing in another level, see, because you have eyes and ears of your spirit.

So the word is supernatural.

It's Jesus said.

The words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life.

This is spirit food.

I said it's spirit food, so it's going in there, it's being broadcast.

It won't return to God, void, but what can you do to enhance its effect?

Meditate on it.

That's when you have to start thinking about that word.

But you know what?

God has said some things to me and he's going to.

He's going to.

It's not going to return void, it's going to prosper.

That word that he told me is going to prosper.

He told me that that 20 when I look back on 2020, it'd be my greatest year yet.

We mailed you back your little.

How many of you got your envelopes?

Where you, where you got what you wrote down here?

And I looked at mine and I rejoiced.

I had quite a number of things that have happened on there that I was believing for.

I've got a few other things that I'm still believing for.

That's why I believe it's just going to continue on.

Don't give up, don't just so well, that was for the end.

I guess we won't know.

No, god, god's word will not return to him, void.

There again, let's not get all caught up in the immediate and forget that we're in this for the long haul, that there's things that God wants to do that he can arrange in this realm that take longer than just a snap of the finger.

You know, one of the things that takes longer than anything is money and financial breakthrough.

Why is that?

Well, let's think a minute, a minute.

There's somebody needs to hear this.

But healing is between you and God.

Healing is not between you and the doctor.

Doctors don't heal.

Medicine doesn't heal.

Doctors treat.

Medicine can aid your body to do what it's designed to do, but healing is really between you and God.

I mean, it's a matter of you being fully persuaded, down in your heart, that healing is yours and you hold on to that profession and that confession of faith, regardless of the symptoms, regardless of how you feel.

You know the just shall not live by how they feel.

They live by faith.

They live by faith, amen.

And so you take a hold of that and that there's nobody, there's no other in between.

There's no.

There's no one else needed in between.

That it's when you just hold on to God's word.

Healing comes, bodies change, pain leaves, or else God lied.

No, we know God didn't lie.

So we have a strong basis for believing in healing and it doesn't involve anybody body, but just us and God, that's it.

But money's different.

Why?

Because God doesn't have any money, does not bring money out of heaven and send it down here.

All the money that you need, as far as supply, is down here and it's in the hands, many times, of ungodly and wicked men.

So when you're believing for a financial breakthrough and you have sown your seed and you have contended, you said God, I've sown generously, thank God, I'm reaping generously, hallelujah, glory to God.

Well, it didn't show up.

You know, payday doesn't come just on Friday, it doesn't come on the 31st of the 15th.

Payday always comes.

That's what you've got to hang on to.

Well, I don't understand.

I needed that.

Well, two things are going on.

First of all, you've got to work on your faith, because now you're saying you didn't get it, you're kind of half mad at God.

I can tell it.

I can tell by your attitude.

You're kind of blaming God for the fact that it didn't show up on time, instead of looking in the mirror and finding out what part of your faith needs to grow and how generous were you.

You might have been generous in your sight, might not have been so generous in God's sight.

I mean, you give him a nickel.

That's not generous, right?

I mean, you can't even tell when you reap.

Some people give so little that's not you, but some people that I know give so little.

They don't even know when God shows up, because if he multiplied what they sowed, it would be so little they wouldn't even notice it.

That's kind of pathetic, isn't it?

Isn't that pathetic?

No, we ought to give it such a level that a multiple of that is amazing, because we still remember what we gave and what we had to give up, and what we had to put off and what we had to rearrange.

I've had to rearrange a few things in my finances in order to give in the past.

God had to teach me that over a long, long period of time.

Amen, are y'all getting this now?

So I'm going to go ahead and get started.

So we have to get our eyes off of the immediate and get it on the important.

God is always right, god is always faithful, god is always true.

If there is a problem, it's probably on our side.

Let's find out where the gap is.

Let's find out where we haven't connected the dots.

I've kind of got off my notes here, because this is important right here what he's planning on saying to this In 2016, god brought a word and Gladys and I had gotten away for a few days, one of the things I had on my list of things that I wanted for 2020.

That would make it the greatest you get.

I said I want a two-week vacation, uninterrupted, a two-week vacation.

How many of you think Gladys and I would have two weeks off in a row?

We hadn't worked out yet, but it's coming, praise God.

We're going to have two weeks and where we go is not going to have to be a place where we have to quarantine for two weeks and then come back home.

Wouldn't that be a lot of fun?

You leave town, you get to where you want to go, you have to quarantine there two weeks and then you have to come back home.

It's kind of stupid, isn't it?

So we won't be going any place like that.

All right, but he spoke to me and I was just meditating in the Word.

I was meditating.

We had this mortgage to pay off and it was getting.

It was dicey there for a while to pay that $31,900 a month payment.

So I was reading my Bible and I came across First Corinthians, where it says what soldier goes to war at his own expense.

What soldier goes to war at his own expense?

And man, it, just like it, leafed off the page, hit me in the face.

I said, lord, when did I do that?

When did I go to war at my own expense?

He said, well, have you told the church how much your payment is?

Well, no, and then he started showing me how I had cheated you for years and kept you at arm's length from how much it takes to run this church financially, and I didn't even give you a chance to be part of it.

I'm not asking you to pay all of it.

I'm not asking you for anything in particular.

I'm not going to put a guilt trip on you, and that's one side of it.

I'm not going to hire some company to come in here and twist your arm up behind your back in a capital campaign and get you under the threat of blood to pledge a big amount of money that somebody is going to be calling you every couple of weeks until you pay it.

Well, that's good.

I think that's a positive side, but on the other side, not to even let you know what it takes.

He let me know that I had robbed you of the opportunity to be part of the solution.

Are y'all with me?

Yet Y'all are looking at me like, oh God, is he going to take another offering?

No, I'm using this as a point of illustration of how important it is to meditate on the word of God and how to receive instruction and how to know.

It's a roadmap.

It's where you're.

You know, here I am talking about this loan getting paid off and he's like you haven't tapped in to hold.

The whole congregation needs to be believing for this and they need to see how huge that figure is.

Are y'all with me now?

And then you know missions.

You know I don't know how many years we supported India $3,000 a month, I mean.

Missions has never been self-contained.

We've always given.

We went to war at our own expense.

We weren't wrong for us to give that money.

But what was wrong, and far as God was concerned, was we weren't sharing the information with you so that God, god could speak to you and say look what they're doing.

You need to be part of that.

So in that sense, as pastor, I had gone to war at my own expense.

So we made some adjustments and I just opened up a whole another way of doing things and we started putting the buckets up here and rejoicing.

He said you know, quit just handing the buckets out and people throw their time.

Have them dance their way up.

Let them rejoice when they're given it's happy time.

So I never will forget the first time I told y'all $31,900 a month was our payment.

I mean I thought I mean it was like a morgue.

People were shocked, totally shocked, and you know that money started coming in.

People started giving extra to make that payment until we sold that and sold that property.

Thank God we had opened the door for that property to get.

So we rearrange some of our financial connections.

He said I want you to end this one over here, start this one up over here.

And we made some adjustments on where we were sowing seed.

I mean, tell you within a year and a half, on less than two years, that property was pay, that, that mortgage was paid for.

Are you with me now?

And our finances, finances just turned right around.

We've been paying for all of this improvement here and really I can't see that it's that's come out of a.

I mean I know we haven't received any special offerings.

Really we just put great, greatest year.

Yet Some of you played on your faith promise.

That wasn't a pledge, it was between you and God.

But I mean, out of that, I mean we, we basically cash flowed, all of these improvements.

How do you like our big center screen up here?

I mean, how much was that?

A hundred and what?

80,000?

No, 120,000.

It was less.

Okay, that's a lot of money.

You can see how much brighter it is in the side.

So the sides are just the old tech.

Those are temporary, but they're in the right aspect, and the old screens are old, old, old, and so now these are more efficient, but look how much brighter the LED is.

So we're eventually going to replace the two sides and then we might look at doing something down there.

I mean, you know we, as we expand the sanctuary, people sitting on the edges, they need to be able to see the screens.

So I don't know how far we'll go.

We might have to have another screen over there.

I don't know.

We'll see.

But what is my point?

My point is meditating.

In other words, god has a blueprint, a specific.

Everybody say specific will See.

That's exactly what Romans 12 to is saying that you may prove what is that good, acceptable and perfect will of God.

Because I hadn't, I hadn't really opened up to you the need.

See, I went too far the other way to protect you, feeling like, well, they get overwhelmed if they knew how.

No, you need to share the burden.

We're all in this thing together and you want to know, you don't want to be kept in the dark.

And so you know, I just had, I just had sneaking thinking on that.

So God had to correct me.

How did it happen?

I threw the word and meditating on that word, and I began to make adjustments.

He began to show me all of a sudden.

I mean, we made a series of adjustments in how we were doing things and I mean things turned around quick.

Come on, let's lift our hands, thank God, they can do that for you.

I said these, those things can happen for you.

Praise God, as I shared with you when we opened the service, psalm 40, verse five, god's thoughts toward us are so numerous we can't even count them up.

So that tells me that if we're not receiving those thoughts that he's thinking toward us, we're way behind.

We don't even know what he's got in mind.

He's busy thinking this and thinking that oh, I've got these.

You know what?

God's got great plans for each one of you.

He doesn't have just average things, he doesn't have just yeah, in the middle of the road.

No see, this is part of that negative programming that happened to you as a result of the fact that you were born into this world.

That's why you've got to be completely transformed by reprogramming that negative thinking and you start thinking the way God's thoughts.

The God's thoughts are higher, they're greater, they're more in number.

There's great things that God wants to do between now and eternity.

You know, eternity is a long time.

He's got a lot of plans for you.

We think about next week, we think about next year.

He's thinking long term.

Come on, come on.

Glory to God.

Immediate, immediate.

See, the devil wants us to immediate.

Get this.

This is a fire.

Look at the fire.

Look at the fire, and God has got the more important things that he wants to talk to us about.

Hallelujah.

All right, let's look at Luke 6.

Praise God, are you getting anything out of this?

This morning I kind of deviated there for a moment and I'm telling you, every dollar we need to improve this inside and outside is coming in.

We're going to let you know just what it's going to take.

Whatever it is you?

Just let God tell you what part of it you need to be.

Nobody's ever going to twist your arm, amen.

But we're going to keep you informed.

Luke 6.45.

A good man this is Jesus 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 of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

That's why I was talking bad about the Democrats.

Just listen to them talk.

You see what's filled their minds and their hearts.

All right, and then let's look at Proverbs 14.

You probably read this today, but if not, I'll read it for you.

Proverbs 14.

And I'm going to read it in the amplified because it's louder Proverbs 14.14.

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.

So there is the plumb line.

It's so easy to see the difference in our society.

It's so easy to see the difference in our political discourse.

I mean people who want to pray for unity are wasting their time.

Well, you know we ought to pray for our president.

Well, you know, do what you want.

You can, if you want, to pray for him, but when we're praying here, we're mostly praying in the sense of crying against his policies, praying for the failure of his policies, because they're ungodly policies.

He's part of a crime family.

He is definitely a criminal.

His sons are criminal and they're being exalted as if they're the most wonderful people on earth.

And a guy that did nothing but good for four years has been just.

Thank God he got acquitted, but it's a shame that he even had to go through that.

It's so silly, but this is part of the world we live in, so let's not get all confused.

Well, we ought to pray for his salvation.

Well, you know, what do you do with somebody that lived in America, has grown up in America?

How many times has he heard the gospel?

Countless, he's rejected it.

So let's.

I want to say that if you feel a religious obligation to pray for the president's salvation, I think you're misguided.

If you want to waste your time doing that, you go right ahead.

Follow the Holy Ghost.

If the Holy Ghost puts a burden in your heart for him.

Well, fine, I mean.

But how about the other 7 trillion people that live on the planet, or billion, however many there are?

I mean, 7 billion people live on the planet.

How about them?

Aren't they worthy of your prayers too?

Where are you going to draw the line about praying for people to get saved?

And do you pray for people to get saved or do you pray for laborers in their path?

So you get back to the fact that he grew up in America.

There's been plenty of laborers.

He went to church at some point, he's heard the gospel, he knows that there is a God, he knows there is a Jesus and he's not following the mind-ball.

It's not that we want him to go to hell, it's just that we've got more.

You know more pressing concerns.

He's in charge and he's made more executive orders in his short time up there than the last three presidents put together.

You know how many Obama did.

Bush didn't do that Many, but he did a few.

And then Clinton.

That's amazing.

He's done more than those three presidents put together.

20 years of presidents, executive orders for 20 years.

He's done more in four weeks.

Talk about a ruler, talk about a dictator.

Of course they criticize Trump for what he did.

Oh man, they're doubling down, tripling down, quadrupling down.

Pastor, why are you getting on this?

Because I want to help you.

Listen.

We have to pray correctly.

I want to make my point.

I mean, I know it says pray for the rulers and kings, but he's not a king and actually he's not a ruler.

He is really.

It's the government of the people.

He's supposed to be accountable to the people.

He's unaccountable to us.

So in my opinion, he is a despot.

You can't find any scripture where they prayed for Herod.

They didn't pray for Caesar.

There's no scripture.

Caesar had a witness.

Caesar had a witness.

It was important to God that Caesar have a witness.

Isn't it strange that nowhere does it say Paul prayed for his salvation, just that he had a witness.

Oral Roberts helped me with this more than anybody.

He said it's just.

God wants every man, woman and child on the planet to have a witness.

That's the main thing.

You want to pray?

Let's pray that.

And I just again.

He grew up in America.

Our president did, the president did.

I guess he was not my president, but anyway, I don't claim him.

I'm sorry, have to correct my English Because I don't want any part of the flashback that's going to happen to our nation because of his policy.

See, there are things that are happening right now that our nation is going to have to pay for, and when that begins we're just the beginning of judgment.

Now I could teach on judgment a whole another while here, but I'm not.

But our nation is under judgment now.

But we see, we're free because the church, the church, we're forgiven, we're cleansed.

So don't get yourself mixed up with America.

And when we're praying, when we're praying for a nation, let's pray for repentance, let's pray that they bow their knee, let's pray that they, we can pray that.

That's a good way to pray.

And when they don't, or if they don't, it becomes their judgment.

God said well, god's going to send a witness, god's going to show them, god's going to, god's going to knock on their door.

And when they reject it and say, no, we want abortion, then they will be without excuse.

One day, when they stand before God, they'll have no excuse.

That's what oral Roberts helped me with is because God wants every man and woman child to have a witness.

So we can pray for that.

Are y'all getting anything out of this?

Today, I don't seem to be able to get on my message.

I'm going all the way over across.

These are tough times and I'm sensitive to you because it's so hard to live through.

It's hard to live through and I just have to look past it to know that Jesus is coming.

He's coming soon and I'm so glad we're awake.

So, getting back to this, out of the evil treasure of the heart, they bring forth evil.

Here's the principle you will never have more or accomplish more than your thoughts allow.

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

And when you get plugged into God, he's going to blow your mind.

You're going to have to continually expand your thinking.

You're going to have to continually expand your expectations, because that's why he said you know, you know, expand your tent, let it break forth on the right hand and on the left.

Make room for more.

Mostly, that's, make room in your mind for greater things, more things that God wants to do through you and in you and for you.

He's a loving I mean that song.

I love him because he first loved us.

He loved us while we were yet sinners.

He loved us when we were unlovable.

That is absolutely undeniable.

So if that's true, and it is true, then why would he want to keep us under submission?

Why would he want us to put a lid on all the possibilities?

Do you want to put a lid on your children's possibilities?

You want them to have more than you do.

You want them to succeed where you didn't.

You want to see them go all the way to the top.

That's what God wants.

And the other thing that comes out of this is that the unsaved are essentially capable of any and all sorts of evil.

So let's quit being amazed.

It's just.

This is the time when those things are being manifested more and more.

I mean, in America's past, one nation under God kept a lid on the evil.

It kept a lid on society, and in the last 50 years or so, those social mores have been broken and broken and broken.

The politics have gotten more and more lined up with communism and socialism, and what we're seeing is the result.

That's what we're seeing.

But for us, even though we have the same kind of mind as they do, why don't we commit evil?

Well, because, because we're new creatures.

Now Look at Hebrews four, real quick, hebrews four.

When I got ahold of this years and years ago, it changed my life.

Spirit and soul and body is one of the most important things that you can learn.

In this church Everybody say I am a spirit, I live in a body and I have a mind.

I will and intellect my soul.

See that soul, soul is mind, will intellect spirit, soul and body.

Hebrews four, verse 12.

For the word of God is quick, or alive and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit.

You see, when you receive the word of God and God saved, the word of God came in and severed the connection between your soul and your spirit.

Have you got that?

Your spirit then was born again and you became a new creature.

Old things were passed away.

Behold, all things have become new, and I mean whatever you've done in your past is all washed away.

No memory made of it ever again.

And then when you do wrong, it's not you that's doing it, it's your flesh and your mind, because your spirit can't sin.

I said your spirit cannot sin.

That's what first John is talking about.

Your spirit can't sin.

Why?

Because it's new creature.

It never agrees with sin.

That's why backsliders are so miserable.

If they're truly saved and they backslide, and people do.

They're miserable.

Why?

Because their spirit never agrees with their lifestyle.

I've seen alcoholics, I've seen drug addicts, I've seen other types of gross behavior that people I know are born again and yet they have regressed and they're doing things why?

Well, they let their flesh dominate them, carnal, their mind is agreeing there's pleasures of sin for a season, but that doesn't mean they're going to hell when they die.

It just means that they might go quicker.

Why?

Because they're opening the door to Satan and be honest with your Satan.

Not really interested in killing them, he would rather let them live and discredit everybody that knows them and be a cause of reproach to their family and friends and everybody else that know them.

A lot of times, people like that keep on living in spite of the fact that they're living such terrible lives.

So the new birth separates the soul from the spirit.

That tells me that when people are lost, that has not occurred.

Are you with me?

So their spirit is what Under the domination of Satan.

So their mind cannot do right, their mind cannot think right, and that is why we should never vote for somebody like that, because they're capable of doing the most gross evil anybody ever saw.

We've got away from that a long time ago in this country.

We got away.

We got away from Christianity, we got away from holding that standard.

Oh, come on, praise God man.

This message I don't know I have to rename it, but in Romans 8, 5, and 6, we can be spiritually minded, we have life and peace.

We're spiritually minded.

We can train our brain to not think the way the world.

Don't be conformed to the thinking of this world.

Don't let that kind of thinking dominate you.

Don't be envious of the wicked.

Don't dare let yourself be envious of the wicked, for they shall soon be cut down as the grass and withers the green earth.

So the power of imagination, I like to say the power of imaging.

The power of imaging, you know.

You go to the hospital, your doctor, maybe you've got, you need an X-ray or you need a CT scan, or you need an MRI.

I don't really know the difference between an MRI and a CT scan, but anyway it's called imaging.

I know, when I was going through my heart, right before I had my heart surgery, a few months before I had undergone a stress test, and I'm sitting under this machine and it goes back and forth over your chest and just back and forth about 20 minutes and your arms are about to break, holding my shoulders at an odd angle, and you know it's kind of hard to go through, but it comes out with a three-dimensional image of my heart and all the blood vessels are going in it.

They say well, you know, mr Griner, it looks like you've got a little block.

Well, they found out it was a big blockage and I had to have open heart surgery a month later.

But an image, the power of imaging, that's what imagination is.

It's the power of imaging to receive an image.

We talked about how God talked to Moses excuse me, abraham how God talked to Moses about the tabernacle and the wilderness and so forth.

So, ephesians 118, number one, to have the power of imaging.

Brother Mark did so great in Trenton.

Ephesians 118, pray that the eyes of your understanding be enlightened.

See, god wants you to hear, but he wants you to see.

He wants you to have the image that you may know what is the hope of his calling and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.

He has an inheritance.

He has things that he's bought and paid for you, that are custom made for your calling and your purpose in life.

We overlap in this church.

We have a lot of overlap here, but yet the Bible says we're a unique individual members of the body of Christ.

We all have our, our callings, and when we're together then we turn into a symphony.

There's a symphonic movement when we're all in that place and that's where we're headed.

I said that's where we're headed.

It's going to take imagination, it's going to take meditating on the word to get that image.

So pray for the revelation of the image of God's inheritance in you.

He's expecting great things.

Everybody say he's expecting great things, all right.

Number two Romans 4 21 talks about Abraham.

So meditate on all of the verses in the Bible.

In fact, it's good if you haven't, if you're kind of just starting out, but even if you haven't ever done this, it'd be good to just.

Every time you come across a scripture that says in Christ, in whom, through whom?

With Him, just write those out and meditate on them, because that's who you are.

You're in Christ.

Everything it says.

We're new creatures in Christ.

See, some of us need that's the only things that are gonna get rid of that terrible internal dialogue that you've developed over all these years, and I've seen where people have been abused.

Maybe they've been abused as children, maybe they have an abusive marriage.

You hear about people that have a poor self image.

I know that they have not meditated in what God said.

They are Because that is the antidote for anyone else's idea of you, because nobody can seize you like God sees you.

They're just looking on the outward and God looks on the heart and you're in Christ.

So meditate on in Christ, in Him, through Him and all that.

Abraham, god.

And when he was 99, god changed his name.

All of his life he'd been Abram, abram, abram, abram, abram.

And he had a dialogue.

Probably I'm old and my wife's old, and I know God said this, but it hadn't come to pass yet.

Here I am, you know, letting the world.

It's just it ain't happening, god, it ain't happening.

And God gave him a new name and he said you're no longer Abram, but you're Abraham, the father of many nations.

For a father of many nations, have I made thee past tense?

Well, was he yet?

No, not in the natural, but in the supernatural.

As far as God, as far as God was concerned, it was already done.

The things that God has prepared for you have already been done.

It's already done, just waiting for you to agree.

It's waiting for you to speak so that your high priest can enable it and cause it to come to pass.

Oh, really, god.

So he began to meditate on who God said he was, and he became fully persuaded.

And Sarah did too.

Sarah, sarah, sarah, whatever her name was, now Sarah, which means what princess?

She became princess and she's 90.

Hi, so glad to meet you.

I'm the father of many nations.

This is my wife, princess Gladys' name.

How many of you want to know what gladys' name means?

It means pretty, pretty princess.

She is my pretty pretty princess.

Everybody say pretty, pretty princess, she's pretty princess, she is pretty princess, she's pretty princess.

So, meditate on what God said.

And when he began to meditate and put it into practice, within 90 days they conceived Isaac.

And the rest is history.

Are you with me now?

Romans 421.

The last one saw him.

Psalm 40, verse five.

I've already mentioned it, but God has a multitude of thoughts, images.

So don't just settle for one, don't just settle for two.

Just be as hungry as the Pelican, just keep diving until you receive all those thoughts.

My guess is you probably never will get all of them, because there's a multitude.

I like what brother Roberts taught us about tithing.

He was asking God about Now.

God, it says, you'd open up the windows of heaven, pour us out of blessing.

There's not room to receive, but I've always had room to receive more money.

That I'm not talking about money in that verse.

I don't have any money to pour out.

All the money you need is down there.

What I'm talking about in that verse is ideas, concepts and insights, images.

When you're a tither, god will open up the windows of heaven and pour you out so many images that there's not room in your brain to receive all of them.

And when you get to a certain number and you get satiated and you got I don't think I can We'll just go ahead and say, lord, put those on the shelf and let me have them when I'm ready here.

Don't lose any of them, lord, I want all of them.

Praise God, just keep on until the image turns into a movie.

The old time, that's how they made movies.

They'd have an artist and they'd sit there and they'd draw a scene.

And then the next scene they'd draw like somebody, like Popeye, is running away from Bluto.

Well, you know, they'd draw Popeye with another step, and then they drew Popeye with another step, and then there was Bluto and they had to just painstakingly draw all of those individual images and then they would.

You know, they would just.

You can see the old on YouTube.

I used to play them for my grandkids when they were little, and those cartoons in there, and you can tell they're just.

They just rapidly show you those images.

It makes it look like they're really moving.

See, that's what you want.

You want so many images that your life begins to move.

You begin to see a movie, you begin to see an image.

It turns into an imagination.

Now it's not just an image.

An image is a picture, but an imagination.

Now it's three-dimensional.

Come on, lift your hands right now.

The power of imaging and the power of imagination, that's what God wants you to have, hallelujah.

Come on, let's rejoice this morning.

Come on, let's rejoice, hallelujah.

Well, I hope you could follow.

I was all over the map this morning talking about the national scene, but there's so much happening I've been purposely just leaving a lot of it off lately.

But I know many of you are still tempted to be sad and frustrated, and I don't know that.

Let's just not be led by our emotions.

Let's look past our emotions.

Let's get back into what is the church going to do and we can Now.

God's not finished and the church is still here, so God's not finished yet.

Let's tap into what God wants to do.

Man, we already know what man wants to do.

They want to mess everything up, but God's got a better plan, so let's hang in there with God.

Amen.

Does that help you today?

Praise God.

Come on, let's praise Him a little bit longer.

Praise Him a little longer.