Feelings-Pastor Kipp Penrod

Thank you for listening to this message from Lifehouse Church.

All right, just by a show of hands, how many people remember that song?

I think yes, yes, half of the crowd.

How many of you are like, I have no idea just what happened just now.

No clue what's taking place right now.

Listen, that song is called Feelings.

It's very dramatic, right?

And if you're older like I am, you remember that song, you have fond memories, you're probably just swaying just a little bit inside, right?

It's got a little bit of movement going.

If you're younger than probably 45, you're like, what is happening?

What is this dramatic noise that I hear that's going on?

But feelings, all right, feelings, we all have them.

We all experience them.

And sometimes they're feelings of love.

Sometimes they're feelings of anger.

Sometimes there's feelings of pure joy and ecstasy in something.

Sometimes there's a feeling of peace.

Sometimes it's a feeling of turmoil.

Sometimes it's frustration.

Sometimes it's maybe just kind of melancholy.

There's all kind of feelings we experience.

There's all kind of emotions.

And whether we want to admit it or not, our feelings often influence decisions that we make.

Things that we're going to do, things that we're going to, how we're going to act, how we're going to respond, what we're going to say.

All these things take place.

And my feelings may change how I respond, maybe to my spouse, maybe to my child, maybe to the dog or cat, right?

A co-worker, right, or that neighbor that you never really liked in the first place.

And listen, if you're in a bad mood day, right, angry day, how am I going to know everybody around you is a jerk except you?

That's true, right?

It's true.

And if you're having a good day and you're feeling it and you're on top of your game and you're on top of the world, the neighbor that you didn't really like isn't so bad, right?

You can tolerate the kids.

You don't kick the cat or the dog going out the door and you actually kiss your spouse goodbye.

You know, in the morning.

But we can get into ugly trouble.

Say ugly trouble.

You can get into ugly trouble if we allow our feelings to have too much influence in our decisions.

We can travel down the wrong roads and we can go down roads we really don't even want to travel.

We can land in a place we really don't want to be if we let our feelings influence our decisions too much.

And the Bible scripture gives us some very cautionary tales of people who lose it all because they put way too much value on their feelings in making a decision.

And this morning we're going to go to a man.

That very man is named is Saul.

So if you got your Bibles, you can turn to Samuel chapter 13.

I'm going to start at verse one, but it's Samuel chapter 13 verse one.

And while you turn this morning, I'm going to pray.

Father, we thank you for this day.

I thank you for your word.

God that sets us free.

God that opens our lives.

God that shows us the truth.

God that speaks the truth.

And Lord, I pray that today, God, we would hear and know the truth of God's word and Lord God that we would apply it to our lives.

And we just give you praise and glory and honor in Jesus name.

So you're if you're in Samuel 13, say amen.

All right, you're there.

Listen now, the person, Saul, that I'm going to talk about before I go reading.

Saul is the son of Kish, who is from the Israelite nation.

And he's actually from the tribe.

There's there's 12 tribes in the Israelite nation.

And the tribe that he is from is Benjamin.

And he is anointed by a priest and a prophet named Samuel to be the very first king of Israel.

So I was going to be the first king of Israel.

Now, God wasn't really on board with all this.

If you read about the historical account of this and you can go back and do that.

The nation of Israel was calling for a king.

They up until this point in time in history, they had always been led by God himself, speaking to a prophet, speaking through a man of God.

Or it's been by judges that were take place and were appointed in in the in the society.

But all of a sudden, the nations around Israel have a king and Israel decided we need to have ourselves a king against God's actual advice on all this.

And God allows them to have a king.

He's not in favor of it, but sometimes he allows it.

How many of we do that with our kids sometimes, right?

We don't in favor of it.

We allow it.

And that's really what God does it because Israel's in this comparison thing.

And how many of you get in trouble when you start comparing yourself to somebody else?

Right. Israel heads down a path they probably shouldn't have headed down.

But God allows them to do it anyway.

And he speaks to the prophet Samuel and he denoits Saul as king.

And Saul is a human.

He's a man just like any other.

And God's hands upon him for this particular assignment of being king.

But at the same time, Saul has this tendency, this problem to follow his feelings a little too much in what he's doing.

It's kind of a weakness in his life.

So first Samuel 13, one says this.

Saul reigned one year.

And when he had reigned two years over Israel, Saul chose for himself three thousand men of Israel.

Two thousand were with Saul in Micmash and in the mountains of the Bethel of Bethel.

And a thousand were with Jonathan, that is Saul's son.

All right.

In Gibia of Benjamin, the rest of the people he sent away every man to his tent.

And Jonathan attacked the garrison of the Philistines that was in Giba.

And the Philistines heard of it.

The Philistines are a neighboring nation to Israel.

And at this time in history, they're considered enemies of Israel.

But they are living at this point in time peacefully with one another.

So much so that they would even trade goods.

There was things like that taking place.

They were enemies, but they were peaceful with one another.

And in the second year of Saul, King Saul's reign, Jonathan, his son, takes a thousand men and decides I'm going to attack the garrison.

Right. A military outpost of the Philistine nation.

And he stirs up the Philistines.

He basically, Jonathan goes with a thousand men and basically picks a fight.

All right.

He just pick.

How many of you push somebody when you want to pick a fight?

He just goes over to the Philistines.

He's like, I'm going to pick a fight.

And he pushes them.

And he kicks the proverbial hornet's nest.

All right.

How many know if you kick a hornet's nest, you better get ready to deal with the hornets.

Right. If you go up and kick a bee's nest, don't try this.

But if you did, right, if you kick a hornet's nest, YouTube, but somebody else did it somewhere, right, on YouTube.

But if you kick it, you're going to deal with the hornets.

Matter of fact, a few summers back, I did this very thing.

I kicked I did unknowingly kicked a hornet's nest up and it was it was a ground bees.

Now, I don't know if you've ever stirred up a bunch of ground bees, but they're aggressive little buggers.

And I stirred up basically kicked it and they came out and they defended their hole that they came out of.

And they stung me multiple times.

Now, I just got to say for the record, they drew first blood.

OK, and it was on.

All right.

They stung me four or five times and I was mad.

And I went and got every can of was spray I could find.

I had these big long cans of waspray.

I dumped every single I fired every one of those things into that hole and then bees just kept coming.

So I found some semi flammable materials, poured down that hole and I lit them up.

All right.

And then when I got done, I dug the hole up just to make sure they were all dead.

And you know, and it was on and I kicked the hornets.

And that's exactly this is exactly what Saul's son Jonathan goes and does.

He goes and he kicks the hornets that he goes and he picks a fight with the Philistines and it takes a thousand men to do it.

The scripture says this, then Saul blew the trumpet throughout the land saying, let the Hebrews hear.

Now, all Israel heard it said that Saul had attacked a garrison of the Philistines and that Israel had also become an abomination to the Philistines.

And the people were called together to Saul at Gilgal.

Then the Philistines gathered together to fight with Israel.

Now, look at the numbers.

Thirty thousand chariots, six thousand horsemen and people as the sand, which is on the seashore and multitude.

Man, it's on big time.

And they came up and encamped in McMash to the east of Beth-Avon.

And when the men of Israel saw that they were in danger for the people were distressed,

then the people hid in caves and thickets and rocks and holes and in pits.

And some of the Hebrews crossed over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead.

As for Saul, he was still in Gilgal and all the people followed trembling.

Then he waited seven days, according to the time set by Samuel.

But Samuel did not come to Gilgal and the people were scattered from him.

Now, just to be clear on the situation here, Paul had a saw as two thousand men.

Jonathan has a thousand men.

They attack a garrison, right?

Jonathan goes attacks a garrison of the Philistines and invokes an incident, a military incident.

And the Philistines, they return in kind, except they come back with thirty thousand chariots,

six thousand horsemen and an endless number of foot soldiers.

Now, I'm not sure what Saul and Jonathan were feeling before they did this.

I'm not sure if they were feeling proud.

I'm not sure they were feeling bold.

I don't know if they got all cocky about things.

I don't know if they were angry about something.

But I can tell you what they were feeling after they picked a fight.

They were feeling dread. They were feeling anxiety.

They were feeling in the words of Scooby Doo, yoinks, right?

They were like, oh, no, what's going on here?

And we see in this passage, this impulsive attack on the Philistines.

He didn't think it out, right?

He didn't go through. He didn't.

Here's some things you don't see in scripture.

And I tell you this all the time.

You want to see what's in scripture and then sometimes you want to see what's not in scripture.

And what you don't see in scriptures, you don't see Saul going and consulting with any other military experts within his country, right?

You don't see him going and doing some recon work, sending some spies, find out how much military might they have.

You don't see any of that, right?

And if you know a little bit about this time in history, a matter of fact, Israel is really super low in swords and weapons because the only ones that were making them at that time were the Philistines.

They didn't consult.

He didn't go to Samuel, the prophet, and say, Samuel, should we go right?

Should we go in and should we go to battle?

They don't consult God at all.

Whatever feeling or idea that drove them to attack. Now there is a national incident on their hands.

So what am I saying?

I'm saying this. We need to have more than a feeling before we move forward on something, right?

We need to have more than a feeling.

Israel had a long history of consulting God before they went into battle.

They would go they would get with God. They would get with the prophet and they would get God's okay to go into battle.

And the reason they did that is because if they got God's okay, they knew God would go with them in the battle.

They knew that God was going out ahead of them.

Sometimes God would just create mass chaos with the enemy and the enemy would literally kill themselves like in all the chaos.

And this happened with Israel even when they were outnumbered, even when they were outgunned, even when their military position was not stellar, was not good.

You know, they would do this. They would consult God.

If you're going to go right, especially if you're going to go pick a fight, you know, always go with God.

Always have God with you. Make sure it's a God thing that you're going to do.

And Jesus, how many of you are going to go pick a fight, take a big gun?

Jesus is the big gun. He's the one you wanted with you in this.

Don't make a decision just based strictly off your feelings.

At a minimum, Saul could have called on Samuel, the priest and the prophet, who of that day,

and he would have gone on Saul's behalf and spoke to God and prayed to God to find something out.

But instead, he went with his gut, right? His feelings.

Zero direction, zero God direction, zero instruction from God.

And if I can help us out, our gut should never be the only indicator in a decision.

My gut alone is not good. All right. Say that. My gut alone is not good.

My gut alone is not good. And you might say, well, Pastor, why are you hitting this so hard?

And I'm talking about this today because in this portion of scripture, because in our society, we champion the idea.

We praise the idea of being independent, doing it all on ourselves, being self-reliant.

Right. We celebrate that. I how I feel about anything.

In matter of fact, how I feel about anything is overvalued in our culture. Can I say that?

It's overvalued. Our feelings, right? So much that our feelings, what we express as feeling,

is literally referred to sometimes as my truth. You ever hear that? Oh, that's my truth. Right.

I feel this way. But so is my. Can I tell you something? Our feelings should never be equated with the truth.

It really shouldn't. It could be true, but it might not be what you're feeling might be true or it might not be.

How many of you have ever felt super passionate about something you thought you had the right idea?

You got into a discussion with somebody you thought you were right. You're pounding your fist on the table.

I am right about this. You're passionate. You're having all kind of feelings while you're having that discussion.

Only to find out 10 minutes later, you were completely wrong. Anybody ever do that other than me? Thank you.

Thank you for your honesty. Right. Your feelings are not an accurate indicator of the truth.

It really aren't right there. An active indicator of what your notion is at the time.

That's what your feelings are doing. Right. It's our and our our notions can be wildly accurate or they can be wildly inaccurate.

Depending on what we're doing. How many of you have ever got mad at somebody that startled you?

How many of you ever somebody you were doing something somebody came in the room and they said, hey, and you and you got so mad you just slapped him.

Come on. Right. And they didn't do it intentionally. They just came in and said hello. Right.

I mean, that's not an accurate indicator of that person's motives and what's taking place. Right.

It's just scared you so bad. How many of you are smackers if you get scared? Come on. Come on.

There's a there's a help for that. There's there's therapy for that. All right.

Our feelings are not defenders of the truth. Our feelings follow what we think might be right in that moment.

Saul and Jonathan concoct a very poor military plan to attack the Philistines because of what they felt like was a good idea.

And they ended up in a heap of trouble. A whole nation is trembling.

They are they're afraid of being annihilated and Saul lands himself.

Probably the biggest problem, at least to date in scriptures, right.

From his impulsive actions, a national incident is taking place.

People are freaking out. They're deserting. They're hiding in rocks and beyond rocks and in case some of them are crossing over the Jordan River just to get away to desert.

And finally, Saul's in the middle of all this and he decides, you know, I did all this, but it's probably a good idea to get Jesus involved right now.

Right. I should call on the Lord at this point. How many know sometimes we have an afterthought of God.

Right. When all else fails, I'm going to call on the Lord. I call him crisis Christianity. Right.

Crisis Christians or crisis Christianity. Well, I need you, Jesus.

I'm in big trouble. My back's against the wall. I got all kind of things going wrong here.

Jesus, I need you. I need you. I mean, we have feelings when we do that. Right.

Jesus, I need you. Right. Jesus, I need you. And God comes in and rescues us.

And three weeks later, who's Jesus? Right. I don't show up to church until the next crisis comes.

And then I call, you know, one eight hundred bail me out. Jesus. I'm back on the phone again to Jesus.

Saul sends for Samuel and is now because everybody's quaking in their boots and he's waiting on him to arrive and bail him out.

He has he's waited for seven days for seven days.

He's got a massive army on the other side strategizing how they're going to take him out for seven days.

His troops are shaking in their boots. People are deserting. They're heading over the Jordan.

Right. They're going to Gad and Gilead. They're going to those places. Saul's looking.

Saul's looking more and more and more incompetent. There's no unity. There's no fight in him.

Right. It's fight or flight. And they're all going for flight. And seven days. What do I do now?

You know, thinking how many know seven days a long time when you're pinned up against the wall.

Right. Which is a bad combination for an impulsive person who's just following their kind of feelings kind of guy.

Seven days of wondering why why Samuel hasn't showed up. Right.

He doesn't know Samuel might have already headed across the Jordan. He might never come.

He's waiting on the prophet. He's waiting to hear from God now. But he doesn't know.

So verse eight says this. Then he waited seven days according to the time set by Samuel.

But Samuel did not come to Gilgal and the people were scattered from him.

So Saul said, Bring a burnt offering and a peace offering here to me.

So he offered the burnt offering. And now it happened as soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering that Samuel came and Saul went out to meet him that he might greet him.

And Samuel said, What have you done?

Saul said, When I saw that the people were scattered from me and that you did not come within the days appointed and that the Philistines gathered together, you hear the panic in his voice.

You hear the emotion and what he's saying here, the feelings well up. Then I said the Philistines will now come down on me at Gilgal.

And I have not made supplication to the Lord. Now he's getting religious. Right.

Therefore, I felt compelled. There it is. I felt compelled and offered a burnt offering.

Saul said, I felt compelled to do your job, Samuel.

So you got to understand something in Israel. God, the only ones who could do the sacrifice were the priests.

God had appointed the priests to do the sacrifice.

Only those from the line and the lineage of Aaron were allowed to do the sacrifice.

And Saul is getting his he's got his back up against the corner.

He's feeling the pressure. And instead of waiting on God and waiting on Samuel to get there, who is the priest and is the prophet,

Saul decides, you know what? I don't know if he's going to come.

So I'll do it myself. And he disobeys God and he no more than gets it done.

And Samuel shows up and says, Saul, what did you just do?

Impulsive, impulsive feeling instead of faith in God will lead us into trouble every single time.

Feeling instead of faith in God, trusting my feelings over my faith in God and what he said is going to head you to trouble.

Trusting in feeling over my faith in God's written word, over my faith in God's revelated word.

I'm heading for a downfall. My feelings cannot direct my decisions.

It's got to be faith in God. It can't be feeling alone.

And you might be thinking, well, this is true. Why in the world did God give me feelings? Right.

Because all of us have them. We all have feelings.

You might have a feeling right now that you might be feeling like I need to get to lunch and you need to get done, pastor.

Right. You might be having we we are a feeling kind of people.

And sometimes our feelings seem to confuse the issue.

And sometimes it seems to blur the lines. And sometimes we don't.

It seems to knock us off balance because we have these emotions.

We have these feelings that are tied to everything. Why in the world did God give us all these feelings?

You know, what's that all about? Why do I have these?

If it's going to mess up, you know, following God cannot tell you that God has a purpose and a plan in everything that he did in the way that he designed you in the way he made us.

He has a purpose. And all you have to do is look at the second king in Israel, not Saul, who is the first king.

But if you go to the second king of Israel, who is David, and you begin to read, you'll see the reason God gave you those emotion.

I'm going to take you to Psalms 56. One. It says this and this is David in a very similar situation.

He's in a distressful time. He's got pressure on him from from his enemies as king.

And he says this. Be merciful to me, O God, for man would swallow me up, fighting all day.

He oppresses me. My enemies would hound me all day, for there are many who fight against me almost high.

Whenever I'm afraid. How many know I'm afraid? How many afraid is an emotion? It's a feeling, right?

I will trust you and God. I will praise his word in God. I put my trust.

I will not fear. He talks about his emotion. What can flesh do to me all the day?

They twist my words. All their thoughts are against me for evil.

They gather together. They hide. They mark my steps. They lie and wait for my life.

Shall they escape by iniquity and anger? Cast down the people's, O God.

You number my wonderings. Put my tears in your bottle. Come on. That's feeling. All right.

Are they not in your book? When I cry out to you, when my enemies will turn back, this I know because God is for me.

In God, I will praise his word in the Lord. I will praise his word in God. I have put my trust.

I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? Vows made to you are binding upon me.

Oh, God, I render praises to you for you have delivered my soul from death.

Have you not kept my feet from falling that I may walk before God in the light of the living?

What does King David do with his feelings? He doesn't. Here's what he doesn't do.

First of all, he doesn't stuff his feelings away, right? He doesn't pretend that they don't exist.

He doesn't beat his chest and say, I don't feel anything. He's the king.

He's a warrior. He's a mighty warrior. He doesn't do that. He doesn't stuff him.

He doesn't ignore that he is having some feelings about some things and frustrations and anger and fear on all these things.

He doesn't spew his feelings all over social media. I know they didn't have it back then, right?

But he doesn't post it all over social media. Got to get that in there, right?

He didn't throw them up. He didn't barf them all up over his family, right?

Just spew all his feelings all over his family. He doesn't go somewhere looking for somebody to commiserate with.

Right. So I can commiserate in my feelings. He certainly expresses it.

And he writes it. He sings it. He does all these things. He's not only a warrior, but he's a poet.

He's also a writer and a musician. So what's his feeling for? Feelings are for this.

God gives you feelings. So when you have a feeling, that is a flag. Wave a flag right now.

Just pretend. All right. Come on. Your feeling is a flag.

And what that feeling is meant to do is to drive you to the master.

It is when you've got a feeling, it's to get you to God. It's to point the way when something's off and something's messing with you.

And you're all stirred up in your spirit. It is not for you to act on.

It is to drive you to the God of heaven so you can get some advice, so you can find out what you need for the moment,

for the difficulty, for the stress, for the issue that's taking place. Jesus said this in Matthew 11, 28.

He said, Come to me, all you who labor and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Do you know what your soul is? At your emotional center, man.

You got a spirit, man, but you got a soul. That's where your mind, will, and emotions all come together.

He says you'll have rest for your soul. When you get mad, run to him. Run to him.

When you get happy, praise him. When you get anxious, look to him for direction.

When you're getting sad, rest in him. Come on. That's why he gave you emotion.

It's not to go make crazy hair, brain decisions on. Right. It really isn't.

Let me tell you, let me end with this. I'm going to get ready to close this out.

There is a deep, deep danger when I follow my feelings alone in something,

when I let it begin just to influence my decisions. I'm going to ask you to stand.

I'm going to read this last portion of scripture while the worship team comes,

and while they're getting ready at East Shore and online.

I want to read this last portion of scripture, and you got to hear what happens to Saul in all this,

because he's already, he's only in his second year of being a king, and God's anointed him to be king.

But listen what happens in Samuel, and this is all in the same portion of scripture,

and Samuel said to Saul, you have done foolishly.

You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which he commanded you.

For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever,

but now your kingdom shall not continue. It cost him everything as king.

The Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart, who is David, the second king,

and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.

Saul, using his feelings as a primary lead for decisions, brings his downfall.

He disobeys God so many times in this that God sends Samuel to him and says,

in this same whole scenario, this whole thing that played out, and God told him, I am going to take the kingdom from you.

He basically withdrew the anointing that was on Saul, and he said, I'm going to put it on someone who will follow me.

David felt, David felt deeply. He wrote about it, he sang about it, but one thing that David did,

almost without fail, except for one place in scripture, you can read about that, he would go to God with whatever was taking place in his life.

Every time he was feeling this, he was going to the house of God. He was calling on God.

He was lifting himself. He was encouraging himself in the Lord. It says that in scripture.

And we live in a world that feelings are championed. We live in a world that says,

well, whatever you're feeling is the truth, and it simply is not true. It's not true. Our feelings should drive us to God.

So I got to ask you this morning. What role do feelings play in your life?

I know it sounds like such a subtle thing, but it is enormously important.

What role do feelings play in your life? When you start having a feeling, all right, how many had feelings this week?

If you got a pulse, you had feelings. All right. That's true.

Did it drive you to Him? Or did it drive you to just make some decisions?

And I know some of you are thinking, I got a pretty good gut, man. I follow my gut. It works out some of the time.

It will only work out some of the time. I can tell you that. It will not work out all the time.

Is it driving you to God? Or are you making decisions based on a feeling?

Let me give you just a little scenario of what I'm talking about here.

Sometimes I get young people, right? And we do premarital counseling or they come to me.

And when I was a youth pastor, they come talk to me about dating and those kind of things.

And they're like, I'm so in love. They love this person. I just love everything about them.

I love how they chew food. I love how they walk.

Seriously, I had this couple that she literally counted the number of times he chewed steak and hamburger. It was weird.

Okay. Yeah, I know. It was a little creepy. But you know, the couples will come and they're so in love.

And that's the feeling, right? And that's all right. That's all God gave you that.

You should that attraction, that feeling of love, all those things are there.

But that should drive you to the master and say, Lord, is this the one?

Right? Because ultimately you're looking for the one. Is this the one?

Is this the person that I'm supposed to experience the feelings?

But at the same time, is this the person I'm supposed to land with? I need to know that.

Give me confirmation in that, God. Give me confirmation.

Help me in this. Help me in this. Amen.

It's true. I did this the wrong way when I first started dating.

Nobody explained this to me.

I did it until I got to Dixie. I started praying, man.

Like, God, is she the one? I knew. I knew that I knew that I knew.

I'd have married her on the spot when God confronted her right there. I'd have scared her to death.

I'd have been dating a little while. I knew.

Have the feeling, but let it drive you to God.

And it's in anything that you do. It's in anything you do. It's true. Amen.

So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to let you answer that question.

I'm not going to come back and interview because we don't got time.

But I need you to pray. I want you to have an honest moment.

I want you to close your eyes right now, bow your heads, because you've got to have a really honest moment in your heart.

And if you're listening online, be honest in this. If you're listening to East Shore, be honest in this.

Be honest.

What are my feelings? What role do my feelings play in my life?

Are they driving my decisions or are they driving me to the master?

When things start getting stirred up in me, do I just go off and go do this or I go do that?

Or I step this way or I step that way?

Or is it driving me to the master to find out what to do and how to do it and when to do it?

So many people go astray right here.

Christians, people who believe in Jesus, people who love God, and they get down this trail and they get in a mess.

And they get their backs to a corner.

And it's almost like a national incident in their life.

And if you step through and you continue to step through, you can walk away from God doing these kind of things.

Father, I come to you today. I thank you for each person in the house.

God, as there's self-examination take place here today. God, this is a check message.

I need to know message and I got to be honest with myself message.

Lord, I pray God that every ear that hears me today, Lord, whether in the house or online,

God, that you would speak to them and Lord, they need to know, Lord, that now is the moment.

Now is the time. Be honest with yourself.

If you're following your emotions, you're making decisions out of emotion. Change it right now.

Confess it. Repent of it. Say, God, from now on, when emotion stirs up in me, I'm going to look to you first.

Before I react, before I move, before I take on an action of some kind, I'm going to check with you first.

I'm going to find out what this is all about because you gave me this.

This is a gift in my life, but it is meant to lead to you.

And Lord, we just praise you. I give you glory. I pray each person here.

God is admitting, God, where they're at. God, praise God if they're consoling you first.

But if they're not, Lord, God, shift it right now in their spirit.

One change today, one small change can change, Lord, the direction of their life.

All right. Now I want you to look up at me.

If Saul would have consulted the Lord, the Word of God says his kingdom would have been established forever.

Now in Israel, they'll talk about King David, right?

The kingdom of David, it would have been the kingdom of the Saul.

He lost all of that because he did not consult with God about a feeling.

It can change the course of your life. Amen? It's true.

Come on, Zach, sing one song. I want you to contemplate it.

Then we're done singing. I'm going to dismiss you.

But I want you to think about this because God's got something in front of you. Amen?

Sing that verse.

Sing, I just want to speak the name of Jesus over every heart and over every mind.

Oh, cause I know there is peace within your presence. Oh, I speak Jesus.

Sing that chorus, your name. Oh, your name is power. Your name is healing. Your name is life.

Break every stronghold. Break every stronghold. Shine through the shadows. Burn like a fire.

Oh, sing that one more time. Your name. Your name is power. Oh, yes it is. Your name is healing. Hallelujah.

Your name is life. Oh, break every stronghold. Oh, break every stronghold. Shine through the shadows. Burn like a fire.

Praise name. Praise name.

As I think about this message, Dixie and I have been married 34 years and heading for 35. Yeah, that's awesome.

I know she's put up with me that long. It's awesome. Thank you for giving her a hand. She deserves it.

You know, but I thought about the times that we've had marital disagreement, let's call it.

Okay. Spirited disagreement. If I had just taken the time when I had a feeling and prayed and asked God what this was all about,

I probably would have saved myself a whole bunch of headache and a whole bunch of apologizing and a lot of money and flowers. Amen.

Come on, it's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. God is good.

He gives you his word so that you walk through his life in success so he can take you from glory to glory to glory. It's true.

It's true. Turn somebody give him high five. Tell him I got a feeling right now. Come on. I got a feeling, but I'm not going to act on it.

I got a feeling. Amen. God bless you.

Invite somebody back next week. If you need prayer for something individually, a healing, a difficulty, you need to talk with someone.

You need to make your way straight to the back right now. Don't let don't talk yourself out of it. Move right to the back.

They want to pray with you. The prayer teams back there and they will be glad to speak with you this morning. God bless you.

Thank you for tuning in to this message from Life House Church. We pray that you were impacted powerfully by this message.

If you've been personally affected by our ministry and you would like to partner with us as we love God, love people every day, visit our website at www.lifehousecog.com.