Guided & Provided | Pastor Loren Covarrubias

I want to share the Scripture in second Peter chapter one it says

and so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do

well to heat as a light that shines in a dark place until the

day dawns in the morning star rises in your heart.

Knowing this that no prophecy of scripture is of any private

interpretation for prophecy never came by the will of man,

but holy men of God spoke as they were removed by the Holy

Spirit. I have over this scripture

prophecy. I'm going to call it now the

inspired word because this is such an important thing for us

to understand. I love the Bible.

We should all love our Bible Bibles because the Bible says

that we should study the Bible and show ourself approved unto

God, a Workman that needeth not to be ashamed.

But we have to understand it's no ordinary book.

The purpose of the Bible is not to reach just our mind, although

that's a part of it for sure. But the Bible is a powerful and

in some ways mysterious book because it can come to us by

inspiration. What does that mean?

To inspire means to breathe life into something.

And God through his Holy Spirit, comes to each and every one of

us to breathe life into us. And concerning the Scriptures,

Jesus said my words are spirit and they are life.

So whenever we read the Bible or study the Bible, we should

always look for inspiration from God that the Holy Spirit would

come and breathe that upon us and make it alive to us.

And that's basically what the Bible says when it speaks about

prophecy. Prophecy is when someone has a

word from God and God breathes upon them and that word gives

life to other people. It's so important that we

understand what we call the prophetic word because God still

speaks today. But it was life changing for me

earlier in the year. I might even have been into last

year one day or when I was reading these scriptures and I

just never really thought of the Bible as being prophetic as well

as thinking about prophecy today.

But the Bible was prophecy that has been written down.

And because of that, we call it Scripture.

And through what's called in scripturization for a long term

there the Christian Church, and then going back into the Old

Testament, the Jewish people, there are certain prophetic

words that they said, no, this is God's word for us to become

Scripture. And so it's powerful for us to

read scripture, but it's also important for us to know God

still speaks today, not on the level of scripture because

that's something different, but he does take scripture and

inspire it to us. So it becomes living to us.

And today I'm going to share with you some of the thoughts

I've been hearing the Holy Spirit speak to me lately.

Because as long as I've been reading the Bible, hearing the

stories of the Bible, I can still say that I can read the

Bible and all of a sudden I can look at it and it'll come alive

to me and God will speak something to me.

I'm like, wow, that's amazing. Either I haven't seen it that

way before or just all of a sudden God says, no, that's for

you, take it. It's my word.

So the Holy Spirit comes to inspire us by the Word of God,

and I love that it says. And holy men of God spoke as

they were moved by the Holy Spirit, because from the very

beginning of time, God's desire has always been to use people.

And that's very important for us to understand that he uses

people. And so the Bible was written by

men of God. They're called holy simply not

because in necessarily they were separate from other people, but

they obviously had a close relationship with God where they

would let God speak to them and inspire them to give a message

to somebody else. Now most religions of the world

have been given to one person. They'll claim an Angel came to

them or claim some revelation came to them and they'll come up

with a religion. But as Christians, we have the

Bible that was pretty well written over a 2000 year period

of time, and it was written by many different people, but every

one of them was inspired by the Holy Spirit.

God uses people, and that's so important for us to understand

because oftentimes as Christians, we're looking for

God to move outside of the human condition.

But God moves through the human condition and we have to

understand that God still speaks today.

God wants to speak to every single one of us in this day and

recognize how He uses us. Now, it's important to realize

that because when God speaks, often times when he speaks to

somebody, he'll use their life experiences.

He'll use what kind of a person they are as a part of how he

speaks to and through them for other people.

Now, I wanted to share that with you because today we're going to

be reading and talking about Matthew chapter 2 for the last

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

few weeks and talking about the Christmas season.

We've been sharing from the Gospel of Luke.

Now these are two different stories read by two different

men. We receive them both as the word

of the Lord because they were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

But as you read it, you began to realize how that God used the

individual for the specific scripture that was given to

them. Luke was a physician.

He travelled with the apostle Paul, wrote the book of Acts and

also the book of Luke. He would not have been an

eyewitness of those events. He would have heard things from

other people, but the Holy Spirit would have inspired him

to write those things. Writing the book of Luke, we

notice he focuses on Mary, the mother of Jesus.

He tells the story about the virgin conception.

As a doctor, he would have certainly understood the details

of that, and he also told about the story of the mother as she

had to travel as a pregnant woman, have birth in a barn, and

all the different aspects that would be a part of that.

He would have had insight into that because guess what?

He was a physician and he gave to us really the mother's point

of view. Now, what we're going to read

today is from the Gospel of Matthew.

Now, Matthew was a disciple of Jesus Christ.

He was a tax collector. As a tax collector in those

days, he would not have worked for the Jewish government if you

would, he would have worked for the Romans.

They were the ones who taxed the people.

So he was very aware of the pitilitical condition of the

country and the high iron care of the land.

And so when you read the Gospel account in Matthew, we get

insight into the king, the establishment.

Why? Because God used him in a

different fashion. But what I also want to point

out today, that from Matthew's perspective, we see the Father

perspective because the Father perspective becomes the major

part of that story. On Wednesday for, or excuse me,

yeah, it was Wednesday for the Christmas Eve service.

I was sharing how that when I was a kid, I always wanted to

take care of animals. When my brother Matt was born, I

thought I'd take care of him. Well in time, whether it was

animals or people, I found out I wasn't much of a nurturer in the

long term. When Bonnie and I had our first

child, I thought was amazing. It was life changing.

I can't even express how awesome it was to have a child and to

see our children born. But in actual taking care of the

children, that was something that the nurturing part, I was

glad to hand that over to Bonnie.

Yesterday I saw my granddaughter and she's carrying around a baby

because the girls often times when they're little, they want

to take care of dolls and when they get older, they want to

take care of the baby. They have been given a nurturing

side. Now for the men, there's a

different aspect of how we work with the children and often

times we have to understand that's more in the section of

life where they need more protection or instruction.

In our children's department, we have the nursery and then we

have The Walking ones. I would say walking ones is when

they become real to me. You can actually do something

with them. You can see them play and when

they talk. I find that to be so incredible

to me. It's nothing like when your kids

first start talking and you're like amazed that came out of

that person. You know, it's just so strange

how it works. But that's why Matthew's story

is a little different, because this is the father's role.

It's important for us to see how these two things work together

for the purposes of God because in the earth God our Father

works, and then he also works through his church, which the

Bible says is the mother of us all in the family.

He gives mothers and he gives fathers.

And certainly in this story we have to say the two aspects of

how these things work together. Now having said that, I want to

end the story in the book of Luke it says and one they had

performed everything according to the law of the Lord.

They returned on to to their own town of Nazareth.

So notice after Luke is finished, they're going back to

Nazareth, which is where the story picks up in Matthew

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2 is then the child grew and became strong, filled with

wisdom and the favor of God was upon him.

So how long would have it they would have been in Bethlehem as

we talked about the fact they went there because there was a

census. Everybody had to be registered

in their own country. Since Joseph and Mary of the

lineage of David, they had to go back to Bethlehem.

Now, when the child was born, and I'm sure their mind, it

wasn't the best time to go to Bethlehem.

The child, as we know, was born in a stable.

Now, according to the Jewish law, as we've rehearsed in one

of the messages, it's always necessary for the child to be

circumcised on the 8th day. Now when the Law of Moses came,

there also were laws of purification that he put upon

the people. And for a woman, after she had a

child, there was a time of purification, if you would,

before she could even leave the house.

And so that's when the circumcision experience would

have happened. But after the baby was

circumcised, there was another 35 day period of purification

before they could have actually went to the temple.

And to have dedicated the child in the holy place of the temple,

because there were other purification rights that were

necessary in their mind to be ready to go to the very presence

of God at the temple. And so the dedication would have

taken place about 35 days after that.

So all told, they probably were in Bethlehem just a little bit

over a month, maybe two months. And then the story picks up in

the book of Matthew, chapter 2. Now, often times people don't

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

understand this because most of what we've learned about the

Bible story of the Nativity are the things that we've learned.

And plays that we had in Sunday school when I was a kid, they

actually had those kind of plays at the public schools.

And you'd go there and you'd have at Christmas, you always

had a Christmas concert, whether you were in church or in school

in those days. Easter, all these religious

holidays that now have been kind of taken out of the public

school used to be all a part of it.

And so all of us have these mindsets about the stories.

And how many know if you're putting together a story of the

nativity on a stage, it had to kind of compress the story a

little bit, and that's what has happened overtime.

So because of that, oftentimes we don't really quite understand

the sequences of events that took place, but we need to go to

the scriptures and then we can find out what those things are.

Now, one of the reasons I want to share this today is because I

believe it's so important that we would understand that often

times we pick up traditions and concepts of the word of God

based on tradition or life experiences.

And sometimes a part of that inspiration is we have to go to

the scriptures and see something there and say, wait a minute, I

didn't read it like that before. Why did I think that way?

Well, it's because of our traditions, because of something

somebody's told us. But when God does something new

like he did when Jesus Christ came, just like I really believe

God's doing something new in the earth today, how do you know?

We have to be willing to lay aside our traditions and we have

to let God inspire us so that we can hear the word of God.

And so now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the

days of Herod the King, behold, wise men came from the east to

Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the

Jews? For we saw his star when it

rose, and I've come to worship him.

Now again, in the Matthews story, I call it the after story

because we have to realize this is a different setting than the

time when they were in Bethlehem and they were there in the

stable and the things that were going on there.

As a matter of fact, they may not have saw the star that we

often like to put in our plays because it was at a different

story. It was a part of the after

story, if you would. And the wise men, as we call

them, we're not really known as wise men in that day, but if

they're the translation of the original word, it's Maggie.

It's where we get the word magic or magicians, because in the

Eastern world that they were a part of, they were a part of

perhaps a religious group of people.

They were the experts at the time in some ways because they

believed that you could understand what was going on in

the world through astrology. We call it not astronomy, which

is science, but astrology. You might have noticed this in

the newspapers when I was a kid. Most people don't read

newspapers anymore, but we would always go to the comics and

underneath the comics there was the horoscopes.

That's a part of astrology. And of course, as a Christian,

we were told don't look at the horoscopes.

You can look at the comics, but not the horoscope.

Anyway, that's what these guys would have been familiar with

because to them the stars said something.

Most of the earlier religions that were not Christian or

Jewish in nature, they would have these pyramids and all

kinds of different things for the worship of the sun, worship

of the moon, worship of the stars.

So they weren't just wise men. There were people who were wise

in the traditions of their country.

They would have been looked at as experts for sure.

All we know is they come to Jerusalem and because of their

background, they think they know that the king is going to be

born in Jerusalem and it will be the king of the Jews and have,

you know, they were right there. And that's important to

understand because God often times uses people that we least

expect as a part of his process. So when you're a person wanting

to look for the purposes of God, you have to sometimes look

beyond your prejudices, beyond your perspective to understand,

well, God might be doing something bigger than you can

even fully understand. Now put up there the three wise

men because I want to emphasize the fact that, well, the Bible

doesn't say that there were three of them.

If you look it up in research and say, well, why did they say

3 wise men? Well, it's because of the gifts,

gold, frankincense, and mirror. 3 gifts must have been three

people. So that's where they come up

with the three wise men. When I was in 7th grade, I was

singing a solo in one of those Christmas programs.

They had me sing the first verse of We 3 Kings.

Most of you know that we 3 kings of Orient are bearing gifts.

We travelled so far filled and fountain more mountain following

younger star. I used to have a good voice back

in the 7th grade. I was a mezzo soprano they

called it, which is a very high voice.

So for those of you who don't think my voice changed when I

got older, it actually did. It just didn't fall far enough.

Amen. But anyway, we sang about the

three wise men. That's a part of the song.

That's why we believe there were three, but the Bible doesn't say

there were three. Again, that's just a part of the

tradition. And we look at church traditions

going all the way back. They've actually given the three

wise men names. They've had songs, they have

stories. I mean, there's so much

embellishment to the story and none of it come from the Bible.

Amen. That's just what we do as

people. That's why from time to time we

got to say, well, what embellishments have we added to

our religion? What embellishments have we

added to our relationship with God?

Because from time to time God wants to correct those things,

Amen. We need to be corrected.

When Herod the king heard that there was another king, he was

troubled, and all Jerusalem with him, and assembling all the

chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired to them

where the Christ was to be born. They told him in Bethlehem of

Judea. For so it is written by the

prophet, And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Jewa, by are by no

means least among the rulers of Judah.

For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people,

Israel. Now, Herod was called Herod the

Great in history. And the reason for that was he

was a man who built some awesome things.

He literally built a whole city on the coast so that they could

take advantage of trade, so that everybody was benefiting from

that city. He built a fortress called

Masada for his own protection. But even stands today as a place

you can go to say, wow, look at that thing built way up there in

the air, in the mountain top if you would.

And it was an incredible thing. One of the things that he

rebuilt was the temple in Jerusalem.

He didn't do it because he was a religious man.

He did it because he wanted to impress other people.

So the temple that was rebuilt when the children of Israel came

back from Babylon really was kind of a simple structure.

They didn't have much money. Everything they did was by

faith. And So what he did is he rebuilt

the whole thing and build a awesome thing where people would

come to the city and say, wow, look at the temple.

There's even a story where Jesus and his disciples are going in

the temple, and they're all struck at what they see, and

what they see is happening in this awesome building.

If you go to Israel today, there's only one part of the

former temple there, the Western Wall.

Again, that wasn't part of the original temple.

That was one of the things that Herod the Great had built.

Now, he did these things because he wanted everybody to call him

Herod the Great. So I'm sure he was glad when

people start calling him Herod the Great.

But he was a very insecure person, doing everything he

could in order to impress people, but also doing some very

bad things, as we'll read here today, because he was so

insecure about his position back in the day.

Often times kings and families of royalty would intermarry with

each other. It's kind of like a contract to

kind of keep the royal stream going, if you would, in all the

different countries. Well, one time Herod had married

a woman for that very same reason.

But he got the idea that his mother-in-law was going to try

to make that family the really family.

So this is what a bad person he was.

He killed his mother-in-law, he killed his wife and he killed

his two sons. How we know that's an insecure,

evil person. Amen.

So if you were compared to modern history, he would be a

Hitler, he would be a Stalin, he would just not so great.

He was quite evil. So call him here, the evil would

be good. And in this situation, when he

hears that the wise men are coming with this news, the

King's going to be born. He's going into defense mode

right away. He's ready to kill.

He's ready to destroy. He's ready to do anything evil

that's necessary. But he does it in such a nice

way. There's a king going to be born.

Tell me about it. When did it happen?

Where is it going to be? I mean, you know, he had his own

plan of action. But I wanted you to point to

note how that it wasn't just Herod who was fearful of the

things that were come. It said all of Jerusalem because

Jerusalem was the capital city. So where all the establishment

elites lived in the last election.

They used to talk about draining the swamp.

Well, every capital has a swamp. And when they drain them, they

start new ones all over again. Because capital cities are

filled with people who have positions and they want to

predict them. And unfortunately for the Jews,

it was all we also the religious system as well.

And remember those two forces aligned that 30 years later, 33

years later would consent to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

And unfortunately, even religious people get concerned

when it feels like their positions are threatened.

I remember growing up in a small church and they're always

talking about evangelism. We got to grow.

We got to reach people and so they do these different

evangelistic campaigns. Sometime has special services.

The problem came is when a new person did come and they

actually sit accidentally sit in the wrong person's seat.

How many know most of us have our own seat claimed on Sunday

morning. How many know if you came in and

somebody sit in your seat, you're not sure if you'd want

them to go to heaven or not. They're in your seat.

If they seem good and you're the worship leader, It's like, am I

threatened there? I'm threatened here.

And so oftentimes when personal interests become involved,

everybody changes. Unfortunately, that's the way it

was in Jerusalem. Everybody was out to find out

who this new king was, but nobody for the right reason.

As the story continues, Herod summoned the wise men secretly,

and a certain from them what time the star had appeared.

He wanted to know everything, all the details, so he could

come up with his plan. And he sent them to Bethlehem,

saying, go and search diligently for the child.

And when you have found him, bring me word that I may come

and worship him. And I put over there the

intrigue of the thing. He wanted to know the timing

because he's kind of like, I got to know how old this kid is.

That's why if you notice later on in the reading, he killed up

to two year old because it wasn't an infant at this point.

It would have been a while. And so he need to know the

timing because when the time came, he had everybody killed

under 2 years of age because he wanted to make sure he had the

right timing. And again, I put up there, the

politics are involved because all he cared about is how he

could put this system in place that would secure his role.

Again, can you see how God would have chosen a person who had

political experience, who was involved in that, to be able to

tell this story? There's a lot of people today

who flow in what we call the prophetic movement who could

learn a little bit from this story because often times people

are prophesying about subjects they know nothing about and

they're not accurate simply because they don't have the

right information to discern even what God is speaking them

for some from time to time. That's why it's very important

for us to understand how there is a connection between the

natural and the spiritual. Now the star returns.

Excuse me, I missed the verse here.

When they heard the king, they departed and behold, the star,

which they had seen in East, went before them.

OK, now keep in mind they've heard the king.

He's told them to go to Bethlehem and what happens to

them? The star which they had seen in

the East went before them. So they're not being guarded by

guided by the information, they're being guided by the star

till it came and stood over where the young child was.

When they saw the star, where it stopped, they rejoiced with

exceedingly great joy. And when they had come into the

house, notice this not the stable.

When they came into the house, they saw the young child with

Mary, his mother, fell down and worshipped him.

And when they had open treasures, they presented gifts

to him, gold, frankincense and myrrh.

And so this is very important because it seems like the star

had disappeared, because then it comes back and I'm like, wow,

there's a star. And it gives them directions.

Again, very important because God's working in this situation

to make sure that Herod doesn't have enough information to get

involved in his purposes and his plan.

So when the star returns, it takes them to a house.

This house happens to be the house that Jesus Christ lived

in. And when they got there, they

had a pure motive. They really wanted to worship.

They had insight into this situation.

Lord only knows how, but God had called them to be a part of His

plan. And that's when they gave the

very precious gifts I put there the treasures.

Now, if you read the Bible story, gold, frankincense and

myrrh, everybody wants to have an opinion.

Well, why is it gold? Why is it frankincense?

Why is it incense? And, and the incense, of course,

they'll say is always a part of worship experiences.

Gold represents royalty. And so they try to give a, a

mystical meaning to each and every one of the gifts.

I'd like to point out that it was a treasure, it was something

very valuable because they're going to need some money for the

next phase of what God had for them.

That doesn't sound too spiritual, does it?

But always remember, God has a plan, and that plan will be

executed in His way. So they were divinely warned in

a dream they should not return to Herod.

So what did they do? Well, they went back to their

own country, because God spoke to them after that.

It says that when they had departed, an Angel of the Lord

appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, rise, take the child

and his mother, and what? Flee to Egypt?

Remain there until I tell you, For Herod is about to search for

the child, to destroy him. And he rose and took the child

and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained

there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill again,

something we've constantly seen, a word that was spoken by the

prophet out of Egypt. I have called my son.

So he had to go to Egypt so that when it came time, God could

call him out. But I wanted to point out how it

was an all expenses paid journey.

Joseph and Mary, there's no indication they were people of

money or wealth. And so they did a whole lot of

traveling in a very short period of time.

There wouldn't have been a planned account they had set

aside for traveling to Egypt. They would have had no idea they

were going to go to Egypt. And how, you know, if you go to

another country all together, a whole different civilization, in

reality, how many know you're not going to be able to get a

job right away, You're not going to be able to just fit in right

away. And so God had a provision for

them. I think this is so important to

understand because oftentimes we have surprises in life.

But I want you to know something.

God is never surprised, Damian. And we have to always know at

all times that God, who is our God and our Father, is always at

work on our behalf. And we have to understand this

because we're living perilous times in a lot of ways.

There's a lot of tumultuous change going on.

There is a reordering of the world order.

There is a reordering that we're going to see of the economic

world. There's going to be a lot of

things that are going to happen that are going to make people

wonder, what exactly am I going to do?

Well, trust in the Lord and lean not unto your own understanding.

Amen, Church. We need to be prepared as the

people of God that no matter what comes our way, we're not

caught up in the intrigue of the moment.

Joseph and Mary, they could have heard about conspiracy theories.

Guess what, there was one. How many know God was over the

conspiracy theory? God is always God church.

And so we need to be careful about any kind of information

that we listen to that's going to rob us of our peace, take

away our rest, because God has called us to a place of rest.

He's called us to a place of peace.

And you need to understand that Jesus Christ is the Prince of

Peace. And his story shows us how God

is able to do such awesome things.

But Joseph, and this is where it's important, he had the

father role because it would be him that would protect the

child. He was the one who would be

responsible for taking him to the land of Egypt, accepting the

responsibility, respect, very accepting all of the uncertainty

that that situation would be protect, projecting upon the

family and all these things. But he had this confidence as

the father. And I really again want to

emphasize that God is our father.

And the same thing is happening that we have the church need to

know that our God is with us every step of the way.

And we have a father who can nurture, but he has a father who

can protect. And most importantly, we have to

understand, no matter what our world looks like, God has a

purpose, and we have to focus our purpose on Him.

Amen, Church. Give him a praise on that.

I think that's good. Then Herod, when he saw that he

was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry, sent

forth and put to death all the male children who were in

Bethlehem and in all his districts from 2 years old and

under, according to the time which he had determined from the

wise men. Then was fulfilled what was

spoken by Jeremiah the prophet saying, a voice was heard in

Rhema, lamentation, weeping, great morning, Rachel, weeping

for her children, refusing to be comforted because they are no

more. Even this unusual situation was

prophesied ahead of time. And we have to understand that's

just how wicked Herod was and how we know there are a lot of

wicked people in the earth. And oftentimes they can extend

their hand in ways that many times people become victims of.

But as Christians, we have to understand, just like in this

particular story, our pain becomes travail because God says

to us, there's times when you go through pain, times you go

through what the Bible calls travail.

And the reason it uses the word travail because that means to

labor, because God says whatever we go through, it can produce

something good as long as we keep our focus on the divine

purpose. And that's so important for us

to understand because God has a purpose in all things, and when

we trust in Him and lean not into our own understanding, we

can find out. He will direct our steps, He

will work on our behalf, and He will do what's necessary to get

us through every situation. And that's so important for us

to know. When Herod was dead, behold, an

Angel of the Lord appeared in the dream to Joseph in Egypt

saying, arise, take the young child and his mother, go to the

land of Israel. For those who sought the young

child's life are dead. Then he arose, took the young

child and his mother and came into the land of Israel.

God sent the all clear sign because of course He was the

Father and he had a work that he was seeking to accomplish and

now really he could take him to his forever home.

I'm calling it because that would be the area he would be

raised until the time that he would be at age 30, anointed of

God for his eternal purpose in life.

But the thought I wanted to leave and summing up all of this

is from First Corinthians chapter 2.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

It says no temptation and that can mean trial, difficulty,

snare. Nothing has overtaken you.

That is not common to man, meaning that well when we go

through things, don't think well you're the only one suffering.

Suffering is pretty common out there in the world.

But always remember God is what? Read it with me.

God is what? God is what and he will not let

you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the trial

temptation, conflict will provide the way of escape that

you may be able to endure it. Notice beyond your ability.

And that's why I've emphasized how God uses people.

Everything about this story was how God used people and

sometimes not the people you expect and sometimes people had

evil means, but God used it to bring forth his eternal purpose.

But what God wants all of us to know is each and every one of us

has an ability because God formed us in him before the

foundation of the world. He knows what we're able to do.

And he says, if you'll tune yourself in, just like Joseph

had to tune himself in, if you'll tune yourself in, God

will communicate with you. God will give it the means by

which you can get through the situation.

There might be some endurance necessary, but God says he will

do that for you because he is the God who's able to do all

things. Can we all bow our heads for

just a moment, Church? I believe with everything

within, we're moving into a new season in God.

I believe with all my heart that it's a season when God's saying

to us that there's a different level of strength that we're

going to be able to walk in, a different level of wisdom we're

going to be able to walk in that He has prepared you for this

time. You have abilities you don't

know you have. You have a strength that only

God can give you, but God wants you to know.

He's called you for such a time as this.

This is your story. It's your life, and God is in it

and he has a plan of action. He has a purpose, and he wants

you to know today. So we think about the special

child, Jesus. Jesus says, well, you're my

special child. You belong to me, I have a plan

for your life. It will come to pass, but I'm

looking for you to give your ability, turn over your

controls, surrender yourself to Him, and see how God is able to

do something amazing in your life.

Father, I thank you today as I pray for every person here

today. I know Lord, you're preparedness

for a season of power, a season of great and good and awesome

things. So Father, by the power of the

name of Jesus, I just bless everyone here today.

And Father asked that we would walk in a fresh rest revelation

of all that you have for us. We ask it in Jesus mighty name.

This is Pastor Lorne Coverbius from Mount Zion Church.

We thank you for joining us today and invite you to connect

with our church family by visiting mountzion.org and

following us on social media. God bless you.