Go Get Your Blessing

Welcome to this week's message from the Church at Chelsea Westover.

Our core values are vibrant worship, intimate fellowship, fulfilling service, and clear biblical truth.

We pray that this message changes your life.

Let's tune in to today's message and see what God has in store for you.

Now, how many people want to go get their blessing today?

We're going to talk about today how the children of Israel went and got their blessing.

Now, all of them didn't get it, but we'll we'll talk about that.

Go get your blessing.

Now it's amazing when you think about this concept, go get your blessing.

I told you I was in the military, and I remember I joined on the one slogan, and the name of the slogan was Be All That You Can Be.

And the reason I brought that up, as a soldier in the army, I wanted to push myself to the limits.

I wanted everything I could be in the army.

Now I'm still in the army because Paul used quite a few metaphors about the military.

He said, We're good soldiers.

I want all I can get from God.

Now, keep in mind, I told you before, I grew up in a Pentecostal background once I became an adult.

And Church of God in Christ, I'll never forget one scripture.

I definitely it's just reverberating in my spirit.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these other things will be added.

So I gotta throw a disclaimer out there before I start this message.

Now I'm not telling you to just to seek stuff.

Keep God first.

But as a part of the package, God wants us to be blessed.

That's part of the covenant that He made with Abraham.

So this time, let's have prayer.

Heavenly Father, we just enter your gates with Thanksgiving, Lord.

We just praise and thank you for this day, Lord God.

God, you said this is a day that you have made.

We will rejoice and lift you up.

God, we just thank you, Lord, for everything you're doing, Lord.

We thank you for the songs they sung so far.

And God, I ask you to bless me, Lord, as I speak the articles of your word, God.

I ask that I may decrease, God, and you increase.

And Lord, we praise you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Go get, go get, go get your blessing.

Mary Mary kind of had a unique way of saying that.

Go and get your blessings.

Now, some people are content.

And I mean, everybody has their own choice where you are in life.

This message is not for everybody.

This message is for people that want more.

And God has given us many promises in the Bible.

Many promises.

And I just want to stand on the promise of God.

So let's start talking about what was going on in our numbers.

As I said, many of you are familiar with the greatest leader of the Old Testament.

His name was Moses.

He was the leader that led the children of Israel out of slavery.

They spent over 40 difficult years going to their blessing, to their promised land.

Now, actually, if you go back and research the scriptures, and I'll be coming from the main text today, I'll be coming from Numbers, the 13th chapter.

If you go back and research the scriptures, it took them 40 years to go to the promised land.

But it actually was on an 11-day journey.

Now, I did some studying and I looked at some theologians.

They even said if they didn't have the kids, because it was like two to three million, that's what they estimate how many people were there.

If they didn't have the kids, they probably could have made the journey in said three to four days.

But with the kids and all the cattle, it actually would have taken them 11 days.

And the Bible presents us with a detailed picture of the testing and trials on their journey.

While most Christians today would probably never get to go to the desert.

Now I did get a chance to go to the desert storm.

That was a vacation, but a little different vacation.

But we do struggle with different problems.

We struggle with chronic physical illness.

We have financial problems.

We involved in bad relationships, a bondage, some type of sin.

And there's been times I know I've lost sight of my desires, my dreams, my aspiration to go to the next level.

Has anyone in here ever lost sight of their desires?

Their dreams, their vision.

Has anyone?

If you do, just raise your hand.

Now, I like for you to talk back to me.

It's okay to say amen.

Raise your hand, clap your hand.

Just talk back to me.

I can preach better if you talk back to me.

Every now and then say amen.

I don't know.

Because I'm gonna I'm gonna teach you the truth today.

So it's it was my goal to get to the promised land.

And the children of Israel wanted to get to the promised land.

However, we have to realize now, just like the children of Israel, those of us that are believers, we've been set free from sin.

And we're free now.

The children of Israel were set free too.

But one thing they had, they still had that same old nature.

That old nature of doubt, unbelief.

But once you've been set free, you've been set free.

And God wants us to pursue the promises that He has declared for us in His book.

And what we all have to do is take the limits off of God.

It's imperative that we take the limits off of God.

Stop looking at circumstances, stop walking by sight.

Now, in order to get your promised lands, one thing we have to have, you have to have a different mindset.

Now, many of you know a lot of scriptures, and it's it's good to know scripture.

Quoting scriptures is great, it needs to be in our spirit, but more importantly it has to be in our heart so we can act on them.

Like one of the scriptures I like to say, Nay, in all these things, we're more than conquerors through them that love us.

Say, I'm more than a conqueror, regardless of what I see.

Also in 2 Corinthians, the second chapter in the 14th verse, it's it states, now thanks be unto God, which always causes us to triumph and make manifest the Savior by which in every place.

And what's that saying?

No matter what we face, no matter what we face, we can triumph.

Now, before I go into uh Numbers 13, I want to go to Psalms the 78th chapter and the 41st verse.

And it reads, Yea, they turned their back and tempted God and limited the Holy One of Israel.

Now you go back and read a couple verses above that, what you'll see is God is really upset with them because they have seen miracles.

When I said miracles, see, we have the luxury of reading about the miracles from the Bible from a historical standpoint.

They saw the miracles, they saw the parting of the Red Sea, they saw the ten plagues.

And so here they still didn't believe though.

They said they turned their back and tempted God.

So really they was testing God, they was putting God on a trial.

And God was like, I've done all this for them.

And they still tempted me.

Now, God, when I was reading this, God said, Don't be so hard on me, Sylvester.

Look at you.

I can't speak for you, I can testify about me.

I don't know you, but I know me.

Look at you.

There's been times that God has brought you out of different situations, brought you out of bondage, showed you miracles, performed miracles in your life.

But you still want to walk by sight, by a sensory mechanism, based off of feelings.

But in order to go get your breast, your blessing, you can't walk by sight.

So God said not to be so hard on them.

And what was so wonderful about you really look in this lesson, when you start talking about the promised land, now, like I said, they didn't have a Bible back in the day.

So they did a lot of story telling.

Excuse me, a lot of storytelling telling.

So just like grandparents or even parents, they tell their kids about different stories.

So they had heard about the promised land ever since they were small.

Because let me tell you when the promised land was actually promised, and who it was promised to.

It was promised to Abraham back in Genesis the 12th chapter, 6 through the 7th verse.

And it says, And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem and unto the plain of Moroth, and the Canaanites was then in the land.

And the Lord appeared unto Abram and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land.

And there built he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him.

So this land had been promised to them a long time.

Just like you and I have been promised blessings.

Every believer in him, we've been promised different blessings.

Just like the children here, and it actually, for this to come to pass, they had been in captivity over 400 years before they were delivered.

Now, one thing you got to be mindful of, now we serve a God that cannot lie.

And Titus 1 and 2 said, God cannot lie.

So he said he promised it.

They should have stood on the promise of God.

But again, I can't be too hard on them.

Because a lot of times I fell short on that.

Now I don't know.

Maybe some of you have fallen short also.

Based on the promises, you're trying to go get your blessings, but then you start looking at the facts and what you see and what you feel.

So basically, what happened to the children of Israel here, they became VOCs.

Now I know millennials looking in the, they're looking in the Bible.

I never heard of that, the millennials.

Now my baby boomers probably know what a VOC is.

A VOC is a victim of circumstance.

A VOC, a victim of circumstance.

So what God wanted them to do though, that was never God's intention.

That was based on that.

That's one thing about God.

It's just like salvation.

He's not going to force himself on of us.

He gives us the ability to make a choice.

You have a choice.

So he had promised the promised land, it was a matter of them believing and going and actually getting their promised land and obtain the promises of God.

So let's go to Numbers the 13th chapter.

Let's go to the main text.

Our main text is coming from Numbers the 13th chapter, the first through the second verse, and Numbers the 25th through the third verse.

Let me start with the first verse and I'll read it.

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Send our men that I may search the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel.

Of every tribe of their fathers, shall ye send a man, every one of the rulers of them.

I wouldn't doubt go to the third and forty and start talking about all those different tribes.

So now we'll move to the 25th chapter.

And they returned from searching of the land after 40 days.

And they went and came to Moses and to Aaron and to all the congregation of the children of Israel and to the children of Peron and Kadesh and brought back word unto them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

27 said, And they told him and said, We came unto the land with thou sendest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it.

Nevertheless, the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled and very great.

And moreover, we saw the children of Anna there, and the Amalites dwell in the land on the south, and the Hittites and the Jebesites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountain, and the Canaanites dwell in the sea by the coast of Jordan.

And the third said, And Caleb steal the people before Moses and said, Let us go at once and possess it, but we are well able to overcome it.

So Caleb stood up and said, We're well able to overcome it.

So Caleb said, Let's go get our blessing.

Now let's go back and let's dissect this word.

Let's start with the first verse.

You know, in the first verse, it talks about if you look at it, it's like, I mean, it's a simple definition.

If you want to do the exegesis on the scripture, it's basically point blank if you look at it.

They say, and Caleb and I mean, and excuse me, and the Lord spake to Moses saying, Send our men, they may search the land of Canaan.

Now, what I thought about this when I first heard it, like I say, I have a military background.

So it kind of threw me for, it kind of threw me off track.

And what I mean by that, I think I shared with you before, most of the military strategies they come from the army.

So those of you that have been in the military, especially the army and marines, you were taught a recon.

They taught us that technique, a recon.

So I was like, wow, so that's where they that's where that that the idea started from.

A recon.

So I said, okay, God was smart.

He sent the people, only sent 12 in, because you don't want to send all your people in, like it's millions of people into the land, because it was a fight, it was a battle.

So you just sent a few in.

But in Bible college, they tell us, look to the side.

They have something called reference scriptures.

And I did.

Because I thought this was God's idea.

So the reference scripture took me to Deuteronomy the first chapter, the 21st through the 22nd verse.

And this is what it says.

This is what's going on in Deuteronomy.

Moses is actually giving a briefing to the people that's getting ready to cross the Jordan.

So they're getting ready to go into the promised land.

The old generation has died out.

But Moses kind of giving a summary of what had happened in the past.

And so he's giving them an update on their history and how the children of Israel had grumbled and complained and murmured and all that while they was in the wilderness.

Then it picks up, it said, Behold, the Lord thy God has set the land before thee.

Go up and possess it as the Lord, as the Lord God of thy father has said unto thee, Fear not, and neither be discouraged.

It said, Fear not and neither be discouraged.

So this is Moses talking.

He said, Behold the Lord, and then this is what he came back with.

And ye came near unto me, every one of you, and said, We will send men before us that they may search us out in the land and bring us the word again by which we must go up and into the cities we shall come.

So after reading that, I was like, okay.

It kind of reminded me of being a parent.

Because remember, I told you God has his perfect will, then he has his permissive will.

And he allows the building to make choice.

So God heard them when they came up with the strategy.

So, yes, he says, okay, sis, that's what they want to do.

As parents, we do a lot of times with our kids.

We would tell them the best way to achieve the goal or to go get their blessing, but no, they want to do it that way.

Now, God wasn't he wasn't pleased with that because it showed a lack of faith.

But they said, No, we want to send the spies in.

Because you got to remember in the in the 21st verse, he said, Go, go possess the land.

But no, they had a different plan.

They had a different plan.

And see the the thing you gotta see here.

Now God had brought them out of Egypt.

But they still had that same old mindset, that wilderness mindset.

I mean, they had seen great miracles.

Think about it now.

If you were a slave, not only did they saw the ten plagues and witnessed the Passover, how everybody firstborn died, but there's then.

They saw them in the Red Sea.

I'm talking about God opened up the Red Sea and your enemy just to be let you walk through on dry land.

Then as soon as you walk through, Moses raises Cain and it destroyed your enemy.

They saw all that.

And as Pastor Dennis said all the time, they got to eat cinnamon roll.

We call it mamma from the Bible.

But they got to eat cinnamon roll every day.

I mean, that's miracles in the desert.

So they had saw God bless them.

But guess what?

They still had that same old mindset.

And oh, by the way, when they left Egypt, they didn't leave broke, busted, and disgusted.

They had favor.

Now, to me, that's a miracle there.

They had favor with the enemy.

They took gold, anything they asked for, instead they gave it to them.

In fact, that's how they built that golden calf when he was on top, uh, getting the Ten Commandments.

Because the gold that they had got for me.

So they still had the same mindset.

And what God wants me to tell you today, in order for you to go get your blessing, you got to have a different mindset.

Yes, you're born again.

But you got to have a different mindset in order to go and get your blessing.

See, even though they had seen all the miracles, like I said, they still was unbelievable.

They were unbelievers, they were distrustful.

And so that's why they weren't despised to go.

Even though the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Sebastian had told them that they could go into the promised land.

They said, we're gonna do it our way.

And I'm here to tell you today, you got to take the limbs off of God if you want your blessing.

If you want to go get your blessing, take the limb off of God.

It said, but Jesus beheld them and said unto them, with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

That's Matthew 19, 26.

With God, all things are impossible.

So I'm here to tell you, go and get your blessings.

I was reading a story on, it was in John Maxwell's book.

It was talking about failing forward.

And uh John Maxwell is an excellent leader, but uh he had a story now about Mary Kay.

I've seen the uh the nice cars that the women ride around with, and I understand you got to be like the top salesman, but I I didn't know how the story got started.

So let me tell you a little bit about Mary Kay.

Some of you might know it, but it really impressed me.

Mary Kay was a saleswoman, and she was extremely good, very talented, a top achiever.

However, it's just one problem, and it's still in the workplace in some places.

Women didn't get the same respect, nor did they get the same pay.

So Mary said, No, I'm tired of this.

I'm not gonna do this any longer.

So she stopped.

So God impressed upon her to start a business.

So she started a business with her savings.

I think it was$5,000, but we're talking about back in the 60s.

So this was a lot of money.

So she took her savings, and you always got the naysayers.

The naysay sales did what naysay was supposed to do.

Nah, if I was here, I don't know if I would do that.

So she got started.

It was a little rocky in the beginning, and soon she got started, she lost her husband, which was also a business partner.

So those of us that have spouses, we know that had to be tough.

That had to be tough, but she still stayed with the course.

And as you know now, Mary K, that's a billion-dollar industry.

So it's all in how you start off.

You got to build the right foundation.

I want to interject that to you.

Now let's talk about the men.

Last Monday night, what did they have?

The NCA uh basketball championship?

Who did we have?

Duke against Wisconsin?

Now, if I remember correctly, who was underdog, man?

Duke.

Who won the game?

I wonder that uh Coach K.

Now I used to live in Raleigh, North Carolina.

I had the opportunity of living in Raleigh for about 10 years.

I wonder when Coach K, because see, this is important, these first the first two scriptures, the way they start this journey off to go get their blessing.

I wonder Coach K come in the locker room and say, um, we let's get our strategy together.

Uh we we need to go spy them out some more.

Uh we might can win.

I'm I'm not sure.

Because now if you started Off at the beginning of the game.

You think Duke would have won that game?

I don't think so.

I think he came in very confident.

He came in, we're gonna take it to Wisconsin.

I know they look big, but we can take it to them.

And I'm here to tell you, you might have an obstacle in front of you, but you can go get your blessing.

You can go and get your blessing.

Let's go to the 27th verse and it says, And they told, and they told him and said, We came in the land which thy sentest us, and sure it flows with milk and honey.

Now, before I get to that part, this is what happened.

They had set the spies up.

They had spied for 40 days.

So that was, I mean, that's a good time period.

And now they had to come back before the congregation, but now we're talking hundreds of him, but we're talking it was two to three millions.

I mean, that's pretty.

I was surprised that they came back and reported to the whole congregation.

And so this is where the 27th verse came in at.

And they told them, and then they even brought fruit back.

They brought back grapes, pomegrams, and even figs.

And the Bible talking about the grapes were so big it took two men.

They had like a pole in between.

They had to carry the grapes like this on their back.

With two men, that's how big the grapes were.

Now, I always talk about the army and the fact I was in the army, but I was a recruiter.

So I had quite a bit of sales class.

And I want to point out something.

I never noticed this I was reading this time.

Now they reporting to the whole congregation.

We're gonna go over about the next five to six verse.

But now, if you just came back on a recon, and again, the way they frame this, I mean they was very strategic with the way they framed this.

Very strategic.

Now, this 27th verse is pretty positive.

They say it flows with milk and honey, just like God said, the promised land.

And they got the big fruit.

But watch how they switch gears after that.

Watch how they switch gears.

I mean, they are really gonna switch gears.

And it said, nevertheless, the people be strong that dwell in the land.

And the cities are well and very great.

And moreover, we saw the children of Anak there.

So they painted the picture, they break it down.

They're strong.

The city is walled, fortified.

Some theologians said that the walls was 20 feet thick, 25 feet tall, with guards stationed at the top.

Then they come back and said in the 29th verse, and the Amalites dwell in the land, south, or the Hittites and the Jebesites and the Amorites dwelling in the mountains, and the Canaanites by the sea.

Now, obviously, they had some people that were military on this team, and I'm gonna tell you why.

Because, see, they was based off of the guidance that God had given them, they were supposed to enter through the south.

So, what they did they were very strategic.

They told the people, the south is covered.

If you try to see, that's not a good route to go in either.

Even if you go to the mountains, that's not a good route.

So the only thing I'm seeing they're doing is casting doubt.

Unbelief.

Doubt and unbelief.

And we all know what Proverbs 18 and 21 says.

Death and life is in the power of the tongue.

So you got to be careful who you listen to.

So they basically stole the people hope.

It's all about once you lose hope, you can't go get your blessings.

You can't go get your blessings.

Hope made not ashamed because of the love of God, shed abroad in our heart.

That's Romans 5 and 5.

You can't go get your blessing.

Now I remember in 1991.

So I can kind of relate to this report in a sense.

I went to Desert Storm in 1991 and I was scared.

I'm not gonna lie to you.

That's one of the toughest times I ever had in my life.

I was extremely afraid.

And so we had a meeting.

I was in leadership and we had to go to the tent.

Now, the soldiers, our subordinates, they wasn't present.

But I had to go to the tent, and they kind of gave us a briefing.

And the briefing was kind of similar to this, it was a negative briefing.

Um, because I was 20, well, I was 25 at the time.

Most of my leaders, we had people that was 35, some of them were 40s.

And what amazed me, they was crying.

They gave the briefing, and they was crying.

I said, Oh, Jesus.

I am away from my mom and dad.

I got a chance to listen to the radio song, and I'm with the leaders, and they crying.

I was like, God, that the leaders are crying.

It was okay for the for the young soldiers to be crying, in my opinion.

But leadership is crying.

I said, Oh, we're in trouble.

We in trouble.

So again, I'm not gonna be so hard on the children of Israel, except one thing.

They had a word from God.

But I had a word from God too.

Because I went to Psalms 9 and 1, he said, uh, a thousand will fall on your left, ten thousand on your right, but it won't come near today.

That's how I made it through.

Because from looking at leadership, leadership had really frightened me.

I was really scared based off of leadership.

So that's why I said that just shall walk by faith, not by sight.

You gotta walk by faith.

In fact, what happened in the scripture here, unbelief is what kept the children of Israel from going to the promised land.

But I'm here to tell you, unbelief will keep you from getting your blessings.

See, we said we believe, but do we really believe?

Because when you really believe, it's gonna be some corresponding action.

I mean you're gonna do something.

That's why I say, go get your blessings.

Like uh Pastor Dan had text me this morning.

They was going to Honduras.

They had to go.

Movement.

It invoked movement.

So you can't stand in the same place and go to a destination without movement.

So you must move.

And we can't allow unbelief to stop us.

Now, see, everybody knows that fornication is a sin, adultery is a sin.

But unbelief is just as powerful.

Now, let me share this with you.

The children of Israel were still God's chosen people.

But because they unbelief, they didn't get a chance to go to the promised land.

They did not get a chance to go to the promised land.

Now that's to me, that's bad.

They were so close from it, so close to it, as we know that God wants to have an abundant life, but it was one person that had a different opinion.

And the thing was so unique about this, they sent out 12 spies.

They say the same 40 days, they went to the same church, had the same pastor, had the same God, but they saw different things.

Let's go to the third verse.

Numbers 13 and 30.

And it's and Caleb stealed the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once.

Possess it, for we are well able to overcome it.

Now, first of all, you gotta think it's anywhere from 2.5 to 3 million people that estimate this here.

These pronosticators, that's why I'm gonna call them pronosticators, because they just got up and preached doom.

They had one positive statement and everything else, they're big, they're giants.

I mean, they just went down the line.

And then Caleb, now you gotta think about now, the people, now fear is just overtaking the people.

They gotta be full of fear after listening to these people give their perspective on the new land.

And Caleb get up and make that statement.

Now, is that not bold?

That is bold.

So, in order to get your blessing, you gotta be bold.

You gotta be bold.

See, a lot of times, and I'm gift of it, we try to fit in with the majority.

Don't worry about the majority.

It's okay to be with the minority if you're on God's side.

It's okay to be my minority.

Now, see, the difference between Caleb, and I'm gonna bring in Joshua in a few minutes, and the rest of the people, they all had the word.

Every person in it heard the word.

Like I told you, ever since they were small, they had heard about the promised land, the promised land.

Many of us heard about the blessings, but we still haven't gone to get our blessings.

Ever since they were small, they'd heard it.

But Caleb and Joshua did one thing different from the rest of them.

They took the word and mixed it with faith.

So you gotta take the faith and the word.

Then you can go and get your blessing.

And that's what they did.

Now, in order to go get your promised land, it's common for us to have obstacles in front of us and giants.

You remember the story with David and Goliath?

Now, David was a little small boy and had to fight a giant.

Goliath, he was big.

There's no way a little small kid was supposed to beat a giant, but he did.

And you remember I was telling you how they painted that picture?

I mean, they painted a picture of gloom.

They say in the land, they got giants.

We can't deal with them.

And the giants they was talking about, I looked it up, they were seven feet to nine feet tall.

Now, I don't know how many basketball fans, that's the only analogy I can use.

But I'm sure you've seen Shaquille O'Neal on television or commercial.

I mean, he's tall.

I'm a big man, but Shaq makes me look small, and I'm a big man.

Uh, if you can imagine, I think it's it was a Japanese player they had named Yao, he was 7'4.

They said these giants was up to nine feet tall.

Nine feet.

And the Israelite was regular citizens.

Regular average height.

What's the average height like five, ten to six feet?

So that's a lot of height.

But still, Caleb stood up in the midst of them and said, Hey, we're well able, well able to go and take them.

So basically, what 10 was able to do was basically destroy a whole congregation vision.

Ten people.

Ten people basically destroyed millions of people's life in a sense of destroyed their blessing.

So you gotta discern who to listen to.

Now we all have counsel, but now millions, actually, they followed the 10 that was persuasive.

Let me tell you what happened in the 14th chapter.

I'm not gonna read it.

Now, this 14th chapter, I mean it gets traumatic.

They were so persuasive that night, it says the 14th chapter, it picks up like the 14th chapter in the first.

They cried all night.

They cried all night, and the Lord heard them.

After that evil report came back, they cried all night.

In fact, they wanted to do a coup d'etat, they wanted to overthrow Moses, they wanted to get another leader, and guess what?

They wanted to go back to they wanted to go back to Egypt.

Yeah, they wanted to go back to Egypt.

Yeah, they wanted to go back.

Now, I've seen in many cases, and I'm guilty of it, you get in a situation, instead of moving forward, we look backwards, but we can't.

We still got to depend on God's promises.

In fact, they upset God so much during this process, they made God wanted to wipe them out.

I mean all of them.

Now, this is what Moses came in at.

That's why they call him one of the greatest leaders.

Moses said, Well, you had created a covenant, a covenant between Abraham, so don't wipe them out.

And and then the people back in uh Israel, uh back in Egypt are gonna be talking about you.

So don't wipe them out, God.

So God did calm down some.

He said, Well, I'm gonna let them live.

But they're not going into the promised land.

They're not going into the promised land, and it didn't go into the promised land.

In that 14th chapter, uh Caleb did have somebody to stand up with him.

His name was Joshua.

They pleaded, but they pleaded to no avail.

Like I said, God punished them.

I'm telling you how God punished them.

Remember, I told you it was 40 days?

40 days, because see, that's what was the key with that.

They wanted to do it their way, so God said, I'm gonna let you do it your way.

But since you didn't believe me, you spy for 40 days.

Guess how many years you're gonna wander around in circling this wilderness?

40 years.

So for every day, see, disobedience will delay our blessings.

So for every day that they wandered, they had a year.

That's that's not good math.

One day and a year.

That's not good math at all.

So, in order to go get your blessing, when you get a word from God, move on it.

You don't have to wait.

When God tells you to do something, do it.

That's your blessed place.

It picks it up in Luke, the fifth chapter, and the fourth verse, Peter was out fishing.

Now, Peter was a professional fisher, he had been fishing all night.

They didn't catch anything, they hadn't caught anything.

And then Jesus came along and he told them what he dropped the net.

As soon as he lowered the net, where Jesus told him to lower the net at, he caught fish.

In fact, he caught so much fish, he had to go get the neighbor, he had to call for help.

So he went from like to overflow.

I'm here today to tell you, you and I can go from like to overflow because God has many blessings stored up for us.

Many blessings.

It's just a matter of going to get it.

Now I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you this last thing that happened to the children of Israel.

Like I told you, because they're disobedient, the millions, they died out.

They didn't go, they didn't get a chance to see the promised land.

But the brother by the name of Joshua, he was the commander, or the commander-in-chief, however you want to call him, he was commander at the time.

He got a chance to take them into their promised land.

Like God's gonna give you another chance to go into your promised land.

God's gonna give us a chance to go and get our blessing.

But again, God had an obstacle, an obstacle in between them and their promised land.

It was the Jordan, it was the Jordan River.

Now, one of the questions I asked God when I was studying this lesson, I said, Well, okay, God, you're all minding, you're omnipotent.

So why didn't you just give the children of Israel this land and they just could walk into it with no enemy or nothing?

And God says about trust and faith.

I want you to always have to depend on me.

And he's the same, he's the same way with us.

You won't see any illustration in the Bible where people didn't have to go through a testing time, a trial time.

Then they got their blessing.

Daniel had to go to Lions then.

Joseph, he went to what the prison, to the pit, then to the palace.

I told you about Goliath, uh David and Goliath.

He had been um prophesied that he's gonna be the king, but look what he had to do in order to get to that.

And it's the same thing here.

Let's go to Joshua the third chapter and the 13th verse.

And it says, And it came to pass as soon as the soles of your feet of the priest that bears the ark of the covenant, the Lord of all earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut from the waters that come down from above, and they shall stand upon your heap.

Basically, what happened here?

They get ready to walk into the water, they get ready to cross the Jordan.

But the first thing that God told them to do was get the priest to go ahead.

And the priest had to go in, he had to take the ark of the covenant, and the ark of the covenant is symbolic of God's presence.

Now, when you and I go and get our blessing, when we walk through our Jordan, we don't have the Ark of the Covenant no more.

But we don't need it.

You know why?

Because we had the Holy Spirit on the inside, so we got to lift him up just like they lift him up, and when they lift him up, and the first thing they had to do was get in the water.

When they got in the water, again, just like the Red Sea, it spread it.

And they walked through on dry land.

And God was very meticulous about this event too.

He chose for them to go in the springtime.

And the reason he chose for them to go in the springtime, he wanted the water to be there at its highest point.

So God wanted us to go through these trials in order to get our blessings so that we can depend on him.

Again, it's about taking the faith and the word.

Faith and the word and mix it together.

Then you can go get your blessing.

And that's what I tell you to do today.

Take faith and a word from God and go and get your blessing.

Now, last week across the globe, like I said, many Christians, we celebrate Easter.

And most Christians, when they look at God dying on the cross, they can envision the part about he died for our spiritual death.

They got that.

One of the reasons he died, one of the curses he broke, it was actually three curses that he broke.

But they can envision the part where when he died on the cross, he died that we may have life and have it, eternal life.

But the part they can't get over it is also one of the curses he broke was dealing with spiritual disease, uh wickedness and uh sickness.

And he also broke the curse of poverty.

So I'm here to tell you today, when he died on the cross, he broke all the curses.

Galatians 3 and 13 said, curse is the man that hanging on the tree.

So he broke all the curses.

So as believers, those are our blessings.

So if you have a sickness today, speak the word.

God said through your strikes, ye were healed.

That's a curse.

Poverty is a curse.

Like is a curse.

And he broke it on the cross.

So go and get your blessings.

Now, I would like to show y'all one analogy.

We put up the turtle.

And the giraffe, please.

Okay.

Let's talk about this.

I I saw um, I was actually doing an audio book and I was listening to TD Jakes, and he was talking about the giraffe and the turtle.

Everybody familiar with both of those animals, right?

So naturally you can see the giraffe, he's special.

Very special, tall, full of confidence.

In fact, I was pulling up some on the internet, they said Michael Jordan was a giraffe.

Walk with confidence.

One thing about the giraffe, he has a 25-pound heart.

That's a big heart, isn't it?

And he's so tall, it's no animal in the jungle that's bigger than the giraffe.

But he's so tall, if he holds his head down, he'll faint.

He'll pass out.

He cannot hold his head down.

He's a visionary.

Like I'm I'm standing on top on top of the stage.

So I can see further than the person sitting down in a lower position.

And that's where a giraffe is.

How a lot of people now they're thinking about 2015.

But a real giraffe in stature, he already out to 2020, 2025.

And then it talks about like a turtle.

And you see, he eats too for his vegetation.

The giraffe, now you you know I already told you, they can't hold the head down, so you know they can't go down low and eat.

Because they'll pass out.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have a turtle.

He's the same food, vegetation, he has to eat too.

Well, he they call him a low feeder.

He eats low at the low end of the spectrum.

Now, what you had to determine, where are you gonna be?

Our turtle or giraffe.

Now you go back to the story we talked about with the children of Israel.

The ten that went on that journey, that gave that negative report, they were turtles.

They was turtles.

And you had to watch it today now.

Because turtles, one thing about the turtles, they're loud.

They had to give a lot of advice.

Say they was giving advice, I mean, and they could bag it up.

So a turtle will give you advice when you're trying to move from a turtle and go to a giraffe, they'll try to stop you.

Like, say, for example, you come up, well, God has told me to start a business.

A turtle will sit there and tell you, you know, if I was you, I don't know, Jim.

I don't know about that, Jim.

That might not be a good idea.

Well, I'm thinking about getting married.

I don't know.

These days, everybody gets a divorce.

Turtles will tell you stuff like that.

Turtles will keep you, they will keep you in turtle avenue, I call it.

They want to ensure, just like the same thing that happened with the children of Israel, and they cry and they're good, they murmur.

And they kept and they kept doing it over and over.

But a giraffe, on the other hand, he's a visionary.

He wants the best.

He said, I can do all things through Christ Jesus that's strengthened me.

He said, I can do all things through Christ Jesus that's strengthened me.

So I'm challenging you today.

Eat from the top, be a visionary.

And it's okay to be a turtle now, but have aspiration to be a giraffe.

And don't let the turtles talk you out of it.

Thanks again for tuning into this week's message.

We pray that your life has been changed.

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