From Confusion to Clarity

Y'all ready for the word?

All right, well, claire's bringing it tonight.

I know she's ready.

Y'all give her a hand as she comes.

Hallelujah.

It's been a while since I ran a relay.

Hallelujah.

Well, y'all need to get up and stretch tonight.

Hallelujah.

Just stretch your faith, remember.

Stretch arms strong.

New Grinders gave us a little baby one.

We can go like this Everybody, pick up your Bible, wave it around, say Lord, I love you, I love your holy written word.

It is alive to me, it is powerful, it is sharp, it is cutting away the bad and making everything filled with light In my life.

I'm a doer and I'm going to see the fruit of it in Jesus' name.

All right, you may sit.

You may sit.

Well, tonight I have I'm going to mention to you on the subject of my message is entitled from confusion to clarity, and I was just.

I know the Holy Ghost moved on me on this subject.

It's going to be a simple message, though, and I'm going to.

First I'm going to do a little optical illusion that I've done with kids and teenagers and every other thing.

I call it the floating finger, and so I want you to hold up your two fingers right here.

How many of you have done this before.

Has anybody done this before?

Right in front of your eyeballs, right here.

And then I just need you to change your focus where you're looking beyond your fingers, and do you see the little floating finger in the middle In that weird?

Can y'all see that?

Okay, how many of y'all didn't see it?

You need a tutorial.

Pastor is too focused.

You got to put your fingers closer together, closer together, and then you have to look kind of through the gap and with both eyes open, and then you just kind of find it.

We'll see where it floats there in that weird.

All right, it was something.

So, pastor, this morning he talked about the Texans game Of course you got to preach on football on Sunday sometimes About how the Texans quarterback Watson, how he dodged and wove and spun around.

He dodged those two defenders trying to take him down, and then he spun around and passed the ball for a key play in the game that then led to our field goal for the win.

And of course he was talking about this man, his confidence, his incredible confidence, and how he just wouldn't let the devil take him down.

And so I know that confidence is related to this subject tonight.

We want it.

When we can see clearly, when we know what our purpose is, when we know our God and how secure we are in him, then we will have that boldness to go forward.

And so confusion is sort of the opposite of that.

We're seeing things that aren't there, we're focused on the wrong things, we're looking beyond something that's not real and we can be led astray.

And so where is your focus tonight?

Where is your focus?

If it's on the Lord, he's not going to create things that aren't there, he's going to show you the truth.

And there is a time of falling away and I'm just maybe I live in a bubble sometimes, but I've just.

I was shaken this weekend, but I'm so inspired of what God is really doing.

You know confusion.

You know when you have an ant hill and somebody, you step on that ant hill and the ants just flurry everywhere and they are going every direction and you can't see any order in it at all.

They have just their world has just been upended and they are completely in disarray.

And so we see people going in different directions, and sometimes we look at the kingdom of God and we say, man, what these people are working against each other.

They're going in different directions.

What is this about this Christianity Today article that came out last week against the president?

And then you know the other thing, and I'm how?

And we see people going in different directions.

And I just believe God wants to bring clarity to the body of Christ and he starts with us, he starts one person at a time, he starts with just your life, because if he can coordinate you and gets you completely accurate, then he can bring all.

Then he can coordinate me and he can coordinate Jack and he can coordinate all pastor and Elaine and everybody can start working together.

Then, all of a sudden we've got an army and, and you know those ants, they look discombobulated, they look completely confused, but in about a few hours they're going to have that thing built back again.

It's probably going to be bigger than it was when you squished it.

Go to the ant, you sluggards that's what a proverb said.

We're, we're supposed to look at those ants because they're not lazy, are they?

They are very purposeful.

The every, every ant in that kingdom knows his purpose.

He has that particular gift and he is only doing that one thing.

And the guy over the ant over here is doing his thing, and the queen.

We know what she's doing, but everybody's doing their purpose and then they're going to build that.

They're going to build that nest back, aren't they?

And so sometimes the body of Christ, sometimes your life looks like that ant pile, it looks like a mess, but I'm telling you, god's building us back stronger, amen.

Well, james just took my, my, my opening scripture, but we're going to go back there and read it again, isaiah 55.

And I'm going to start a little before he read he.

He read in in verse nine, but I'm going to start in verse six.

It says seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

I mean, we are going to be confused, we are going to be confounded, we are going to be if we're not thinking the thoughts of God.

We've got to forsake our own human, carnal, five senses, driven, driven thoughts, and we return to the Lord.

He will have mercy on him and to our God.

He will abundantly pardon.

He will abundantly pardon those that, the ignorance that we have.

He will pardon even the sin, the willful things that we've done against.

He will pardon us.

He has already pardoned us through Jesus.

Then he says for my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways, my ways, says 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.

So we know God is.

He's on a different plane than mankind, but he has called us and seated us together with him in heavenly places.

We have been called up to another level, we have been called up to another plane, we, and so our spirit is there, we, that's where we are.

But our brain has to be renewed every single day.

So in Romans 12 to many of y'all can quote it, you can turn there.

If you don't believe me, I'm just going to quote it.

It says be not conformed to this world.

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

God has a good and acceptable.

It's actually I would like to flip those around, because there's an acceptable will that he'll just kind of let you do your thing and it's kind of so, so and it's all right, but he's not going to fight you on it.

Then there's the good will of God, that's, it's a little better.

But then there's the perfect will of God.

Ooh, that is comfortable.

That is right, where you're in the sweet spot, right, focused, right where you're going to hit the mark for him.

Amen.

We don't want to be in the perfect will of God, but we have to conform, transform our mind by the word of God, so we're not conformed to this world.

So my kids are almost beyond this phase now, but they still like to play, most of them still.

Two of them still like to play with Play-Doh just every now, and then they'll squish around on some Play-Doh.

Play-doh can be squished into those molds and it can be completely.

It can become whatever shape you squish it into.

And the world has its mold and it is trying to squish on you every single day.

It is squishing and squishing and squishing and the mold.

Hold up your cell phone.

If you you're probably most of you are touching your cell phone right now, admit it.

It's in your lap.

You just hold it up.

This is a mold.

It says the mold that you're the world is trying to squish your brain into right now.

Isn't it All right?

But and so everybody thinks alike this is squished in this little mold.

But oh, a politically correct mold, this other certain mold that the world has.

This you know, and everybody's got a bow to the same.

The spirit of this, the God of this age, little God of this age, don't be conformed to this world.

Don't be conformed, don't let it press on you, but be transformed, be metamorphicized, be completely turned into a different creature, like the butterfly, like the bullfrog.

Y'all remember that song.

Bullfrogs and butterflies have both been born again.

Let me hear you now so, but the tadpole doesn't look anything like the frog.

That's going to be someday, we all know that.

But we've got to let our mind what your thoughts are now.

Do not look anything like the thoughts of what God is trying to press them into.

And how do you get?

How do you get transformed?

Don't press against the world, press yourself up against God.

Spend time with Him.

Do you have kids?

How did you?

How are they educated?

How do they learn anything?

It's by spending time with you.

They watch mom and dad.

Sometimes you expressly show them something and teach them something, but most of the things they learn, they learn by watching you, by just observing how things are, by the atmosphere you create in the home, and then there's a lot of, and so you just learn by hanging out with God, by choosing to spend time with Him, and so that can just renew your mind continually, transform it day by day, so that more and more your mind is not in the mold of this ugly world.

It's starting to look beautiful, like God.

It's starting to look like God's thoughts, it's starting to look more like His thoughts, so that the things that come out of your brain are now, when you run them by your spirit, who's the tester of all the thoughts?

You got thoughts that roll around in there and you got to run them through the spirit tester and you'll have a certain feeling.

You'll have a certain feeling about that thought.

Is that a good idea?

You know, a lot of things sound good and we can reason our way and ideas are important.

Some of them are really good and some are just one bad idea.

One bad idea.

You know, hitler had one bad idea.

It was a Jews that were the cause of all the problems.

That was his one bad idea and it led to a really bad idea the Holocaust and World War II and all those people dying.

We had to.

It's evil.

One idea.

People say, oh well, you just do you and I'll just do me.

But you know there's bad ideas out there that can ruin your life.

One bad idea.

So, just as an example, I remember as a church lady and single woman for many years felt like many years.

It was eight years.

I graduated from college, I moved home and anyway it was kind of a long gap there.

And then I met James and we got married when I was 30.

But there was a long gap there and I remember and so I just reached out to friends in the church.

I was just, you know, I was just, y'all were my family.

I came to every track meet and baby shower and choir concert and your kids were my kids and I just enjoyed the fellowship of the church.

But I remember reading this book and because people all have advice on dating, somebody gave me this book and they're sweet, wonderful Christian people.

It was called I Kissed Dating Goodbye.

It was by a man named Josh Harris and it was all about this concept of holy courtship that you would just never, that God would just show you magically who that person was that you were to marry.

I mean it was a best seller, but I mean millions of copies sold.

This was a wildly.

How many of y'all have actually heard of that book?

I remember it was a big thing and it was a holy courtship.

You should never, you know, you would never spend time alone with that person that you were going to marry before you married him.

You would always be in a group at all times.

You would not touch them in any way.

There would be no hand holding, certainly no kissing at all, and this was a holy courtship thing that there would be.

And then God would just show you and that was like the best way.

I don't know.

I read it and I'm a practical person.

My parents are practical people and pastor Osteen was practical.

He was always practical.

He.

Would that come from pastor Osteen?

What you always said?

No, that was just Graham.

Well, does he kiss?

Good, but y'all in honor, y'all Come on.

But this man, josh Harris, okay, he wrote this book.

It was really.

It was really widespread and I kissed dating goodbye and I read it and I thought you know, I don't have a witness about it it wasn't a carnal thing, it wasn't like, oh well, you know, I mean I just felt like it was so extreme and I thought how is anybody going to live?

This isn't practical.

And so I am for purity.

I am all I mean.

God's word is pure.

We ought to treat people with respect, absolutely.

And because those things can certainly interfere with trying to find the will of God for your life, if you unleash all these emotions and physical, all of that, I am for purity all the way.

I don't mean to make fun of that side of it, but there was such a militant way about it I just didn't witness with it.

Well, this guy just recently came out.

Now he's been a pastor all these years.

He's about my age and he came out and said you know what, maybe I'm really not a Christian anymore.

In fact I'm not.

You know, I wish all of you well, but I'm going to divorce my wife now and I'm going to move on.

We're going to continue to be friends and raise our wonderful children.

And he put this, and you know, for everything I ever wrote that affected people's lives.

I'm really sorry and I'm really sorry for all of the you know, for ever standing against gay marriage and for the LGBT community.

And he had about asotum.

You know, you got about asotum.

And as you're leaving, on the way out.

He said you know what I'm not, I'm not a believer anymore.

And then, right after that this was summer this year and then, right after that, another prominent Christian leader named Marty Samson was a Hillsong worship leader and writer of music, and I don't know what his particular songs are, but they are widely popular.

And he said you know what?

I'm not a Christian anymore.

Count me out.

And he just gave it back.

He just gave it back, and because these are two very prominent people that were in our you know, not in the word of faith community, but in Christendom at large, and man, I thought that's confusion, that's like ants running around, that's like man.

Now they're using their positions of influence.

It's not like they just quietly bowed out.

They publicly said this.

They are still using their influence to lead followers after them.

And you know, I believe this one thing.

I preached it with all my heart all these years, but now I'm going to preach something completely different.

Well, how could you trust that person?

And so it was man.

Confusion is not the will of God for our lives.

And so that's an extreme example, somebody who gives it back.

But it started with one idea.

It started with oh, I just want to please the people around me.

I want to conform a little bit over here.

I want to squeeze my play-doh over next to the devil and I I, we just got to be separate.

There's a time of separation, and pastor was preaching about it this morning.

Part of it does fall along those political lines.

You can pretty much tell the colors right there.

And here's the definition of confusion, disorder, upheaval, tumult, chaos, lack of clearness or distinctness, perplexity, bewilderment, embarrassment or abaslement.

I don't want any of that.

That's not God's will for me, that is God's will for my enemy.

Let me read to you at a Psalm 40, psalm 40, starting in verse 13.

Now David wrote this Psalm.

He knows a little bit about this.

He said be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me.

Before this he was talking about all his problems.

There were more than the hairs of his head.

He said be pleased, o Lord, to deliver me.

O Lord, make haste to help me.

Let them be ashamed and brought to mutual confusion.

Who seek to destroy my life.

Let them be driven backward and brought to dishonor.

Not me, those who wish me evil.

That's what's gonna happen to them.

Let them be confounded because of their shame.

Who say to me aha, aha.

Let all those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.

Let such as love, your salvation, say continually the Lord be magnified when we will magnify and focus on the Lord in very tight way.

He brings such clarity, he brings such deliverance, he brings such a real power to bear in our situation and he will deliver us.

And so the confusion is not on our side, the confusion is on the devil's side.

I shudder to think what's about to happen.

Okay, we'll take Iran, iran.

I recently did a message about Esther and about the heritage there in Persia.

I mean how that land did help the people of God.

It helped build the temple in Jerusalem.

It helped send the wise men to prepare for Jesus, to fund Jesus' early life.

It is, iran, has a that's Persia, and they have a heritage, and it used to be a prosperous country before it was a theocracy.

In the 70s it was a prosperous country.

It was not completely dominated by Muslims, but now that they have taken over the government there, of course we see what happened, and recently you'll remember that the Iranian people did try to rise up against the government and it was Obama that squelched it.

And because of the people of Iran.

Many of them are.

There are believers there and they are persecuted harshly.

Their lives are in danger and I believe that this entire mess in Iran, this whole conflict, could actually help them.

I see the hand of God coming in to free and deliver them.

Lord, let them rise up again because there will be help for them now, whereas before there was a hand of evil against them.

But I'm telling you, the devil's camp is the one that is confused.

The devil's camp is the one going down, not our camp.

So confusion is not the will of God for us.

No, it is not.

And when you look at the things of God, so you can apply this in mass to society as a whole.

I mean the things that are holy, that God is doing on the earth, that are surprising, that are wonderful, that they are confusing to the devil.

They are confusing to the people who are religious, who have a form of godliness but deny the power.

They are the religious people of the day, even in Jesus' day.

Look at them.

They were the extra super holy people, the people who know the law, the people who study the rabbis and the chief priests and the scribes and Pharisees.

They didn't recognize the Messiah.

They were the ones talking the most about the Messiah and how they were really looking for Him and they really cared about Him.

But when he actually showed up, they killed Him.

They cried out the loudest, crucify Him.

And we say, oh, they didn't recognize, they didn't know.

Well, you know what it turned out they did know.

In Matthew, jesus tells the parable about the wicked vine dressers.

Remember the wicked vine dressers who the father made a vineyard and he left it with the people to care for the vineyard, and then he went away.

And then when he sent the people to go get the fruit of the vineyard, they killed them, they shamefully treated them and then finally, he said, well, I'm gonna send my son.

And then the people in that parable remember, they said, oh, this is the son of the owner, we'll kill him and then we'll keep it for ourselves.

So Jesus himself was accusing them of.

They knowingly killed Messiah.

They knowingly, I'm telling you, there are people on this earth.

It's the same spirit today, that pharistetical religious spirit, and it wants to kill the legitimate move of God.

It wants to squelch it and it will not win.

It will not win.

And so, around the things of God, there's always a confusion.

There's always a dividing line.

Which line, which side will we stand on?

And the prophet Elijah back in First Kings, there was a wicked time.

Then they had a wicked king named Ahab and there were many, many people worshiping the false God of Baal and he called them all up onto Mount Carmel.

Y'all remember that.

And it was a mighty show because it ended up where 400 prophets of Baal died because the fire of God fell down on them.

And Elijah said, before all of this happened, he said why halt ye between two opinions?

See confusion?

The Israelites had confusion.

They had their God that had brought them through the Red Sea, that had done all of these miracles throughout their history, but then there was the God of this age, the God of the land, that they just wanted to be like everybody else, and so they were serving to.

Why halt ye between two opinions?

If the Lord is God, serve him.

If Baal is God, then serve him, but pick one.

And it is time if we say we are serving God I mean, I'm talking about Sunday night.

People, y'all are serving him, y'all are there, not just in lip service, but with everything we've got.

We're here to serve him.

Amen.

So there's no confusion, so when I look up.

So I've talked about confusion, but now let's talk about clarity, because we're God's bringing us into a place of clarity.

If we'll just press ourselves up against him, here's what he gives us.

These are synonyms of all.

I just looked it up in the thesaurus.

So the clarity, accuracy, brightness, certainty, directness, lucidity, precision, purity, simplicity and transparency.

I just picked out three of those that I thought would kind of, because some of them are kind of redundant.

But but accuracy, I really like accuracy.

We ought to believe God that we will be accurate in everything that we pray, in the way that we walk In Ephesians 5.

Verse 15 says see, then you walk circumspectly.

Everybody say circumspectly, do you have a lisp?

Because it's harder if you do, Not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil.

Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Why would the apostle Paul tell them to understand what the will of the Lord is if it was impossible, if it was unknowable, if they couldn't do it?

It's not an option, it's a command.

Understand what the will of the Lord is.

Press up against him till you know what he wants you to do.

Press up against him and walk circumspectly.

That word circumspectly actually does mean accurately, and it's actually it's related to the word pointed.

So we're hitting a target, amen.

We're accurate in what we know about God.

We see him accurately.

It's so important when we read the word you know, just keep one.

It's so easy, so easy.

Whenever you read the word and you have a question about something and it looks like God is mean, or it looks like God has contradicted himself, or it looks like you don't agree with what God did, you're wrong.

So easy, just make that decision.

Now that you are wrong, god is right.

And if it's because and if you see a place where he has done something mean or you didn't agree with it, or you think it's wrong or bad, it's because you haven't fully understood the scripture.

So that's a great.

Hey, you just hit a little signpost there and you have permission to dig into that a little bit more.

You have permission to study and pray about that thing, because God is good, he is faithful, he is wonderful.

The same God who sent Jesus to die on the cross, who orchestrated that whole thing.

He is in every passage of this book and it's always right.

It's never wrong.

So you can ask somebody in church, you can ask me.

You can ask Pastor, you can ask.

But you can ask your friend.

You can just ask God first and let him reveal it to you, then you'll know it's from you.

You can order a book from Brother Hagin about it, but you can study about it.

You can find out.

We have accuracy, amen.

We watched a few movies over the holiday.

It was so relaxing.

Carol, I saw that picture of you when you're in your hoodie, footy.

It was a duck.

It was a duck onesie.

Yes, it was so cute.

Zip up all the way.

Yes, I know, I know, but one of the movies we watched was the Patriot.

You can question my parenting skills and decisions, but it's kind of gory, but my kid's enjoyed it.

It has a really good theme.

Mel Gibson is in that movie.

It's about the Revolutionary War and Heath Ledger plays his son.

And so Mel Gibson is telling his son as he's about to face war with the British soldiers.

He says you know, son, remember what I taught you how to shoot.

You aim, hold on.

How does it?

I wrote down aim small, miss small, aim small, miss small, aim small, miss small.

So in other words, you're not just aiming your gun at the soldier, you know to hit him like in his chest.

Oh, I'm gonna hit him in the heart, I'm gonna hit him in his chest because you but you aim for the button in the middle.

And if you aim for the button in the middle of the guy, then you're gonna hit some piece of him, probably.

Right, you're gonna hit something.

So you don't aim at the big, big target, you pick one little thing and God will show you that one little thing.

There's one little thing at a time you can aim at.

You mean, you're gonna start taking down targets.

How many targets did Trump have?

52?

All right, I don't know.

But we gotta look at our enemies in our life and start taking them out, one at a time, accurate, accurate, accurate.

And one rock in the head of Goliath.

It was so well placed, I mean right in his forehead.

If it would have hit anywhere else, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all, and it would have hit him in the elbow, he wouldn't have died, he would have just been mad.

So we need to have accuracy, amen.

And so God is orchestrating all of this.

I mean, we'll just give it our best and God will make sure it lands.

Amen, all right.

So accuracy, certainty, james one.

There's a certainty about, I mean, when you have clarity, you have that boldness, you have that confidence Pastor was talking about this morning.

You have certainty, james one.

Five if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives liberally oh, I say that all the time.

He gives liberally.

He is waiting to give you all the wisdom you need.

He is not withholding it from you and letting it out in little droplets, he's trying to give it all in a load.

We can only handle so much, right and without reproach.

He doesn't look down on you for it and it will be given to him.

So wisdom is for you, it will be given to you.

Do you believe it?

So ask God.

Let him ask in faith, with no doubting.

For he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind, a lump of play dough pressed into the mold of this world.

For not let not that man suppose he will receive anything of the Lord.

He is a double minded man, unstable in all his ways.

So God doesn't want that, he doesn't want confusion, he doesn't want double mindedness.

Double when the double vision created some weird finger that wasn't really there right, because we were not.

We had double vision, we were focused on something else.

But God wants us to be accurate and certain and we can always ask God.

He will show us what he wants us to know.

And then, in Hebrews 10, pastor preached a little bit out of this very chapter this morning.

10, 19 says, therefore, brethren having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he consecrated for us through the veil that is his flesh, having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near to him with a true heart, in full assurance of faith.

Everybody say full assurance.

That sounds certain to me, doesn't it?

Let's have some confidence in what we believe.

Having our heart sprinkled from all evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

He who promised is faithful.

We don't have to waver, we don't have to wonder if God really meant it when he showed us that he is faithful.

He is not like any man.

He is always.

What he says will come to pass and he will do it.

And so if he's gonna be like that.

We ought to be like that to him.

We ought to be unwavering in our faith.

If we know God said it we can stand till Jesus comes.

Whether we see it or not, we can see it with our eye of faith.

We are gonna be faithful to that call because he's faithful to us, amen.

So certainty, accuracy, certainty.

And the third one, the last one tonight, is lucidity, or just light.

And Jesus said in Luke 11, 34, the lamp of the body is the eye.

Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light.

When your eye is bad, your whole body also is full of darkness.

So what are you looking at?

What are you focused on?

Therefore, take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness.

If, then, your whole body is full of light, having no part dark I mean no part.

There's no double-minded, there's no wavering, it's just one thing, it's Jesus.

What's gonna help Jesus?

What's gonna help the kingdom of God?

What's gonna fulfill my purpose?

God is good, he's not a little bit bad, he's not a little bit wrong.

He doesn't need me to correct him or second guess him.

God is good, all of these things, and no part dark.

The whole body will be full of light, your whole body, your whole life, your whole finances, your whole family.

That starts to go bigger circles out from the middle.

So then you got your whole church.

I'm telling you, god's turning the lights on.

Hallelujah, he's turning the lights on in our region.

No part dark, as when the bright light, the bright shining of a lamp, gives you light.

We are the light of the world.

Amen.

We are focused, we are lit up.

You know, years ago I had surgery I had when I was a teenager.

I had to start wearing glasses and contacts and of course y'all know how uncomfortable those are and anyway.

So when I I think I was about 26, I finally got a corrective surgery.

It was before Lasik was invented, it was like the Art Radio Carototomy thing or something Anyway, but they cut my eyes with lasers and anyway.

And then I didn't need glasses and I still don't.

As long as I just hold the paper out here, I'm all good, but I remember it was.

This was kind of a new thing back then not everybody had eye surgery.

It was kind of a.

You know it's my eyes and but it was recommended by a very fastidious doctor that we knew from church, and this man was very, very detail oriented and I knew that if he had this procedure done by this particular doctor, that that then it must be the best doctor in the world, you know.

And then it was okay.

And then, and then I found that this doctor had also done you think about professions who really depend on their eyesight.

And a professional baseball player, he gotta have good eyesight.

He is not gonna hit a home run if he cannot connect the ball to the bat.

He cannot catch the ball, he's not gonna do well.

So I, this guy, had done several Houston Astros, so I thought you know what it's gonna be, okay, he's gonna be able to do my eyes just fine.

And he did.

And now I can see how.

Look, I don't have to have glasses or contacts, but but surgeons, they have to have a lot of light, bright, surgical, sweet, so they can see exactly what the problem is and take it out.

I'm telling you God's shining a light and he's doing some surgery.

Amen, he's got good eyesight, he's given good eyesight to us.

And jet pilots, they gotta have good sight, right, they get rejected.

The Air Force won't take you If you don't have at least 20, 20.

And so God wants us to see exactly where we're going.

That's my timer going off.

That's cause I love y'all.

I will not keep y'all all night.

But so I will close with this one word.

Picture that was really so sweet to me.

I was reading in the book of Matthew, and my Passion Bible has so many great notes in it, things I learn and pick up.

Jesus was very focused.

He was very focused on his mission and he knew from the scriptures over and over.

He studied scriptures from the time he was a young child.

Mary lost him, remember.

He was in the house of God with the rabbis teaching them some things, but sitting at their feet.

And as he learned the scriptures, you knew that over the time he must have read those scriptures that pertain to Messiah over time and how the Messiah would suffer and die, and he must have grown up with God revealing little by little of things that he might go through later.

And so then he came all the way to the night before he was crucified in the Garden of Gethsemane, and many times I've shared this story and the prayer that he prays there in the Garden, the prayer of consecration, where he says Lord, if this cup can pass from me, let it pass, but nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done If it can pass.

If it can pass, if it can pass from me, lord, let it pass.

And it looked like Jesus wavered a little bit, didn't it?

Like you know, jesus, like God Father, are you sure I should be crucified?

I mean, come on, maybe you can take this cup away?

But it wasn't that.

The Passion Bible just kind of offered another alternative opinion on that, and the opinion was no, he didn't waver, he wasn't trying to get God to take away the cup.

What he was trying to do is stay alive through that night of suffering where he was sweating great drops of blood.

He was trying to stay alive one more day so he could go ahead and die on the cross for you and for me.

He was so focused no devil, you're not gonna take me one day early.

No devil, you're not gonna take me before I can complete everything.

And because he completed all of the scripture, all of the prophecy, he had to be pierced on a cross.

He had to be pierced on a cross.

There's the word said.

And he completed every.

He checked every box.

And he did that in our place.

And so he had such mission.

He did it for the joy that was set before him.

Hebrews 12 says for the joy that was set before him.

He always had that focus in mind.

He was focused not on the bad thing.

You know, when you're doing a really a menial task or let's forget, let's forget suffering for a minute, let's just talk about displeasure, let's just talk about a boring thing or data entry or I don't know, whatever boring folding laundry, whatever you gotta do, washing dishes, you're not.

Isn't it nicer if you can focus on something else, if you're singing, if you're praying, if you're remembering funny things that happen, if you've got music on, if you're dancing a little bit, and it makes it better, doesn't it?

And Jesus had that focus of looking beyond that pain and he was always focused on you, he was focused on me.

He's focused on the many bringing many sons to glory.

And so then, when they put him on that cross, it was on, it was at Calvary.

Remember all the songs we sing oh, calvary's Hill, and Calvary is the Latin word, but the Hebrew word was Golgotha was the name of that hill.

Pastor and Gladys have been to that hill in Jerusalem, it outside of Jerusalem.

I'm told that it looks like a skull and it was Hill of the Skull or Place of the Skull.

Golgotha means Place of the Skull, and it looks like a skull.

I'm told that it's also where Goliath Skull, the head of Goliath, was discarded, there on that hill.

And so I want you to just imagine for a minute what that skull looks like on the side of that hill, and sticking out of the middle of that skull is a cross that has pierced that skull and that is where Jesus bled and died and his blood trickled down and it got all over that hill.

And if your skull can be pierced by the cross, the blood of Jesus can come in, it can cleanse, it can wash, it can transform your mind, it can clean up all of the bad, the patterns, the memories, the stuff you wish you could forget.

I feel an anointing Hallelujah.

Thank you, lord, for the blood of Jesus that pierces down into that place, that dark place that was so lost.

And yet, lord, you're transforming our thoughts and bringing them up to your high and wonderful and holy thoughts, lord, so that we can complete your mission.

For us, lord, we can be focused on everything good you called us to do.

And, lord, right now, we just banish, oh rabah saran ne de shof sabah, lord, we just banish every sin and weight that has held us back and every way of thinking that is too small, oh, every pattern, every pattern of pain or addiction or just a self-defeat that plays in our mind.

Lord, we just apply the blood of Jesus, lord, we just pierce into that.

Right now, we just thank you that you're cleansing and wiping it away.

In Jesus' name.

In Jesus' name, amen, amen for the word, and I'm gonna ask y'all to welcome your pastor back.

As he closes us out, it spills his water.

Oh the water.

I spilled all the water all over my microphone Holy water.

Clare's clarity, that was great, wasn't that good?

Come on, give her a hand clap, would you Be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is, let's all stand together.

Praise God for what we've heard tonight.

Hallelujah, I'm still seeing that floating finger.

I've got to get rid of that floating finger.

It's in my way.

Get out of here.

I'm buying the floating finger.

I bind it and cast it forth.

No, that was really good.

We're focused, aren't we?

We're intentional.

Praise God that last part where she was ministering to.

I talk a lot about that negative internal dialogue.

I mean sometimes habit, patterns of way we think.

Remember the eight track tape?

Everybody remember the eight track tape.

And sometimes those patterns of thinking go way back and they're hard sometimes to break.

But thank God, the blood of Jesus can get in there and transform our thinking.

Father, we thank you that we get on the side of the Holy Ghost, the spirit of clarity, the spirit of truth, and we thank you that we're filled with the spirit of truth and that we're able to think in line with the will of God.

Think in line.

We're transformed, metamorphosized, really, and we're very focused in this time and we're committed to the idea of accomplishing all that you've set us in the earth to do.

In Jesus' name.

Everybody shout it out today Ben.