230 ~ IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL ~ Part 2

Hi and welcome to the Via Zion Sermon podcast.

We are a local church based here in Chennai, India.

We are so glad you are with us and hope that this will

encourage, inspire and instill fresh faith in you.

We have a fresh word for you today called It is Well with My

Soul. We look together at God's Word

and hope to discover the joy that comes from enjoying God's

presence more than attempting to serve him or ask Him for things

that He already. Knows we need.

As you listen in, will you check the condition of your soul and

ask God to help you live with a fresh understanding of who He

is? Hi Church, it's my joy to bring

to you the Word today. As we saw last week, we looked

at the sermon titled It is Well with My Soul, and that was part

one. We looked at how Jesus has to be

the source of our sustenance. Jesus has to be the source of

our existence. And we looked at how we were

created for more than just survival and for justice getting

by. We were created for thriving, to

live an abundant life. And that abundance is only found

in Jesus. And we looked at how we ended on

how Jesus sat by the well and met the Samaritan woman.

And I'm going to begin from that place.

If you look at a well in ancient culture and even today in in

small towns and villages, the village well is a place of

communities where the community comes together.

It's where they meet, where stories are exchanged, alliances

are made, and so much more so. Well, is very.

Pivotal in in community culture and I believe that the well.

That Jesus was seated at was no. And this Samaritan woman had

come there. She had this conversation, but

it didn't end there. The Samaritan woman got to drink

from the living water himself, but it didn't just stop there.

I want us to look at John chapter 4, verses 39 to 42.

John 4:39–42

It says many of the Samaritans from that village committed

themselves to Him because of the woman's witness.

He knew all about the things I did.

He knows me inside and out. They asked him to stay on.

So Jesus stayed two days. A lot more people entrusted

their lives to him and they heard what he had to say.

They said to the woman, we're no longer taking this on your say.

So we've heard it for ourselves and know it for sure.

He's the saviour of the world. It's amazing that it didn't just

end with a Samaritan woman, but it it spread out.

She was like a channel for the entire village to come to know

Jesus. And that's the beauty of

drinking from the living water. It never just ends with us.

It's never for ourselves. And I remember how Jesus on the

final day of the feast of Tabernacle says if anyone

thirst, come to me and out of you will flow living waters.

He didn't just say he was the living water.

He said those who drank of him or or leaned on him for

everything out of them would be, would, would flow rivers of

life. And what does that mean?

It just means that we are meant to bless others.

We are blessed to bless others when we hunger and thirst for

more of God. What we are filled up with will

eventually go and touch others, but there is a a reality that we

need to be very clear of. There are many times in our walk

that the struggles, the hardships, the attacks, the

setbacks, all of that can deplete us and leave us feeling

pretty dry and. That's what we're going to be.

Looking at today, we're going to be looking at the different

things that cause us to get depleted so that our well is

dry. The cistern of our life

sometimes runs dry. And it's so interesting because

the the idea of being filled with the Spirit is that we would

be like a gushing stream, just pouring out goodness and

freshness and blessing everyone and bringing life to everyone.

But unfortunately, many times we allow ourselves, maybe because

of certain seasons in our life, maybe because of certain

laziness on our part in and our pursuit of God.

I don't know, could be different reasons that we begin to start

moving down from a gushing spring to a trickle and

eventually we begin to run dry. And today we're going to see how

these dry cisterns are actually very dangerous situations.

And how many of us need rescuing from these dry cisterns?

We're going to be looking specifically at the story of

Joseph. Today's Joseph is the 11th son

of Jacob and you know the story of Joseph.

So I'm not going to get into it in detail, but I just want to

take this simple visual of Joseph for you.

Joseph was a favorite son of of Jacob.

He was born from the wife Rachel.

Joseph didn't have a sibling for many years or from his own

mother. Eventually Benjamin was born.

Now he had ten older brothers that were born out of his half

his step mom who was Leah. And so his was a full house.

It was a blended family. Eventually, because of his

foolishness, he shares certain dreams prematurely with his

family. His brothers, you know, set

themselves against him and they ship him off to the Ishmaelites.

They get rid of him, tell their father that he's dead and send

him off. He's literally trafficked as a

slave into Egypt. In Egypt he is hired by

Potiphar, the captain of the King's guard, and he's kept in

his house. And Potiphar likes him so much.

He finds so much favour that he's made head of Potiphar's

home. Eventually he faces a bit of

hardship when he's unjustly accused by Potiphar's wife of

rape and he's put in jail. In jail, he's languishing there,

yet he finds favour in the eyes of the warden, and he's given

charge of the entire prison and all the prisoners.

And by a stroke of pure divine intervention, 2 of Pharaoh's

officials are dropped into the prison as well.

Same prison. They have dreams.

Joseph steps in because he has the gift of not just dreaming,

but he can also interpret dreams.

And so he starts to interpret their dreams and what he says

comes true. He asked them to remember him,

but they forget. Like man generally does, right?

We are forgetful. They forget.

He's left to languish for some more time in jail, and

eventually Pharaoh himself has a dream.

And at that moment, the the cup bearer to the king, the guy

whose dream was interpreted correctly, says, master, I

remember there's a guy in the prison who you need to meet.

Pharaoh takes Joseph out overnight.

He's removed from his prison garb and he's dressed well.

He's clean shaven and he's brought before Pharaoh and he

interprets the dream for Pharaoh and doesn't stop.

There he gives him. You know what?

It should look like what the future looks like.

He gives him a forecast. He tells him how to proceed with

wisdom. Basically, Pharaoh is impressed.

Overnight, Joseph moves from a prison.

He moves into the palace. He is second in command.

Now I want to focus on the fact that at the beginning of

Joseph's detour, it was literally like a wilderness

season. Hardship everywhere he saw.

But it began in a dry cistern because when he went to meet his

brothers to check on them, they looked at him and said, let's

get rid of the dreamer. They hated the fact there was

something different about him. They hated the fact that he had

forecasted that eventually they would serve him or, you know,

worship at his feet. He didn't understand what he was

saying, but neither did they. And at this weird juncture, they

take him and throw him into an empty cistern without water.

It is from there that his life literally goes downhill.

But it's amazing when Jacob comes and meets him many years

later in Egypt, Jacob has this moment where he prophecies over

each of his sons and he tells them about the days to come and

he prophecies this over Joseph. And I want to read it for you.

Genesis 49 verses 22 to 24. It says Joseph is a fruitful

Genesis 49:22–24

bow, a fruitful bow by a well. His branches run over the wall.

The Archers have bitterly grieved him, shot at him, and

hated him, but his bow remained in strength, and the arms of his

hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of

Jacob. From there is the Shepherd, the

stone of Israel, and it goes on to say that he will have the

blessings of the breast and womb.

He his blessings of of his Father are greater than his

ancestors and. It goes on.

His blessing is so long compared to the rest of them.

But here's the thing I want you to look at this highlight that I

found. Joseph is a fruitful bow.

Bow is a tree. A fruitful bow by a well from

being in a dry cistern. God lifts him up so that he is a

fruitful bow beside a well, and it's interesting his branches

run over the. Wall.

He was not limited by his circumstances.

The Archers have bitterly grieved him.

He was targeted, tarnished at different times of his life.

His own family turned against him, shot at him, hated him, but

his bow remained in strength, meaning his hands were steady.

Bow is that of what a warrior has in his hand.

It's the weapon of his war, and the hands and the arms of his

hands were made strong. A warrior with a shaky bow or

shaky hand is useless. And yet he says he was

strengthened by the God of the Lord of heaven and earth because

there was a purpose he had to complete and fulfill.

And it's so beautiful when you look at the story, the book of

Genesis, this story of Joseph is placed right after the story of

Jacob, almost to say if this story was missing, if the Joseph

story is missing, the sustenance of Jacob and his family would

have just not happened. They would have been annihilated

by the the famine that hit them. Joseph had to be taken out, sent

separate to. Prepare a place so that Jacob

and his family would have a place to come and thrive it.

And so the important thing to understand is Joseph may have

started out in a dry cistern. He may have started out in a

cistern without water, but he was consistently filled within.

He may have found himself in the most barren of circumstances,

the driest seasons possible to for any human, and yet he was

never spiritually dry. He thrived wherever he was

placed in Potiphar's house, in the prison with the gods, with

the men, men from Pharaoh's palace who came in.

He was ready to serve people. He was ready to bless people.

He is the definition of being blessed to be a blessing.

You don't need a situation to be ideal.

You can serve right where you are.

You can pour out right where you are if you are being filled.

And that is the important thing because it says from there is

the shepherd, the stone of Israel.

Joseph's source was God Almighty.

Joseph's source was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Joseph's source was the God who had given him wisdom to see

things beyond his visible eyes. And so his life looked

different. And I believe that each of us

here have a season of dryness. We all have it, but it's so

important to remember. That it's on us, whether we stay

in that dry season, whether we stay in that dry pit, or we

allow God to pull us out, or whether we allow God to pull us

out in His time, but along the way to have our hands steady,

it's on us. For too long we have been

blaming our circumstances, our situations, our backgrounds, our

stories, our barriers, our baggage.

God is saying it's time that you look to me.

I am the one who will bring you out of that system and I want to

leave with you three symptoms or situations that actually create

a waterless system like situation in our lives.

Three symptoms that you could actually be in a waterless

system. The first symptom is a trauma

from the past. I'm sure that you've heard this

word a lot, being traumatized. Trauma triggers.

The first symptom of being in a waterless pit is when you are

traumatized by the past. Lot of times our past.

The trauma is real. The abuse was real, the neglect

was real. The abandonment was real.

The pain was real. The suffering was real.

None of that is imagined, but trauma has this way of rearing

its ugly head even in the present.

And what trauma does is it basically creates this image at

the moment of the the traumatic event happening, it imprints on

your brain. It creates that imprint on your

brain. And what happens is years down

the line, you can just go completely normal.

You can you just be you've found a way to cope.

You're moving through life at the most inopportune time.

When something in your present happens, it triggers the memory

from the past. And that's when trauma rears its

ugly head. And when you're on social media

today, you find a lot of these psychologists and and

counsellors explaining to you how you must walk through your

trauma, how you must face it. But there's another breed of

social media users who talk only about their trauma, what they

went through, what formed them, what shaped them.

But I want to ask you today, by us going on talking only about

the trauma, we kind of get stuck at this place.

We make an altar of our trauma, but what are we going to do with

what has happened? God was sovereign.

Even in the midst of our trauma, God has been sovereign.

And in the midst of the greatest of our suffering, He never

stopped being God. Did He allow it in our lives?

Yes, in His sovereignty He did. But it requires that I move past

my trauma into the next season of healing.

It's so important that we don't get stuck at the place of our

trauma. Joseph had every reason to be

traumatized, His own father and mother at a point said.

Are you saying from this dream that you're telling us that we

are going to bow before you? Never.

His siblings cut him off. He was trafficked into slavery

by his own brothers. They lied to his father about

his death. He's left to fend for himself.

The pampered son of 11 children is left to fend for himself.

He is actually accused of raping someone when he was so righteous

he didn't even touch her. He ran the opposite direction.

He had every reason to live. Traumatized by his past.

He lived in a prison for the better part of two years,

catering to the needs of other prisoners.

Worst situation. The prisons didn't look great.

They were dank sellers and yet when he comes out and he has

children of his own, this is what he names them.

Genesis 41 verses 51 and 52. Joseph name the first born

Genesis 41:51

Manasseh causing to forget. For he said, God has made me

forget all my trouble and hardship and all the sorrow of

the loss of my father's household.

He named the second son Ephraim. Fruitfulness.

For God has caused me to be fruitful and very successful in

the land of my suffering. It's so beautiful because he was

not ruled by his trauma. Joseph was in a position of

ruling over the whole of Egypt, but he was not ruled by trauma.

He had come to a place of letting go.

How does that happen? I believe that each of us need

to process our trauma and sometimes we process it to

death, to the death of everyone around us.

They hear about it so much. Our social media friends hear

about it. They see posts about it and they

know, OK, this one, she's walked through this, He's walked

through this. I get it.

They're always sharing posts about it.

While that is great, my question to you is how have you

personally allowed God to shape that trauma into something

beautiful? Because in all of it, He works

all things together for our good.

That's the word of God, and I believe it to be true.

God, our Redeemer doesn't leave anything wasted in our lives,

and I believe that trauma should not rule over your life.

Trauma can't be the place at which you build your altar.

You need to move to a place of forgiveness, forgiving the

people who caused the trauma. You need to ask God to help you

forget, Joseph said. Because he made me forget the

sorrow of the loss of my father's household and all my

trouble and hardship. Sometimes we Christians think

it's good to not forget. I need to remember every detail.

We say that by remembering every detail, we're trying to be

grateful for all of it. But some of the things that we

need to forget, we're refusing to forget because we need to

hold on to that like a security blanket and say, I need to

remember this. It keeps me sharp.

The pain keeps me on edge. I'm better at what I do, but I

believe God is saying I want you to release the trauma into my

hands. I took this picture this last

week. I was, we were out of town and I

saw this cute little vase with a money plant in it.

And as you see this picture, what really stuck out to me was

the roots inside the bottle. Generally, you cannot see the

roots of a plant because it's under soil.

But this money plant was thriving in a bottle of water.

And if you look at the roots, the roots are so tangled.

And interestingly, the the leaves that leaves in the little

branches that had come out of the water were not that many,

but the roots were too many to count.

And as I was looking at, I realized that so many of us, our

trauma from our past looks like those roots.

The outside, we look all put together.

There's small little kings in the armor, which those closest

to us know of. But by and large, we're put

together, but the trauma runs deep.

And those that those roots are so tangled up, they're so messy,

and we are afraid to touch it because we don't know if we

touch what is like a ticking time bomb.

I don't know which one to clip. I know what's going to go.

Off but here's the thing, I believe that God is calling in

us into a place of exposure and what does that look like?

I want us to read Job chapter 12 verse 22.

Job 12:22

It says he uncovers deep things out of darkness and brings the

shadow of death to light. I believe God is calling us to

uncover our trauma in the light. Of his presence.

I'm not asking you to do it in the light of social media.

I'm not asking you to do it in the light of your leaders.

Do it before God. God is saying bring it to me

because the light of Jesus, the presence of God is light.

Anything that is brought into the light receives exposure.

It receives healing. A lot of time trauma has this

way of triggering us because we keep it under the covers of

darkness. We don't want anyone to know

about it. We don't want to talk about it

ourselves, though. I don't want to talk about that

part of my life. I don't want to talk about that

relative. I don't want to think about that

season of my life. But God is saying I want you to

think about it in order to release it completely.

The more we hold on to it, the more we keep it under the

carpet, the more harm it does to us.

Think of those standard roots. God is asking us to bring it

into the light and the Holy Spirit.

He's the one who brings things into the light with the express

reason of healing it. He doesn't do it to expose you

to the world. He doesn't do it to demonize

you. No, He does it to heal you.

I remember when my kids were small, sometimes they would cry

from the room because they were scared of the dark.

And I remember the season we were living abroad and we just

had a older two and our oldest used to be scared sleeping in

his own room. And so he would call out to me

from the dark room and when would I would go inside, He

would say, oh, I think there's a monster behind my, you know,

dresser. And he would say all of these

things. So what I would do is I would

switch the light on. And the minute I switch the

light on, he would see that it was all familiar.

Things in the dark, it looked unfamiliar, but when the light

was switched on, he found there was really nothing to fear.

And I believe God's presence is no different.

When we come to the drink at that water, the living water,

the Spirit of God reveals what's actually going on deep inside.

Like I said last week, deep cries out to deep.

The Spirit of God is working deeply inside me.

And a good question, couple of questions to ask yourself as you

process your trauma. Do this.

If you have access to a Spirit LED counselor, do it.

But I found that the Spirit of God, he's called our counselor,

the Paraclete, the one who comes alongside us, the one who helps

us know the mind of God. He wants to heal us.

So some of the questions that I ask myself, you know, when I'm.

Very triggered and very exposed in terms of something from the

past coming up. What I do is I start question

asking questions of myself. Why am I acting like this?

Why am I saying these things? Why does this person evoke this

reaction and I go deep with myself.

I have stopped trying to analyse others.

My trauma is mine. It's for me to process in the in

the secret place of the Most High God.

I bring it to Him. God, why am I acting like this?

What is it about this person or this situation or this place or

that? That remembrance?

What? Why is it triggering me so much

God? And I found that when I bring it

into the light of God's presence, things happen in that

week. Situations unfold wherein He

gives me clarity. This is why you are reacting

like this. This is what is happening.

And so I wanted to encourage you to do this.

I wanted to encourage you. Instead of processing your

trauma to death to the detriment of everyone around you, would

you process your trauma into a grave, into a finality, a place

of finality where you're saying, God, I want this trauma to be

dead and gone, but I know that out of it.

The beautiful thing is when I give something to God and I say,

you know what? I processed this.

Now I'm laying it to rest. God redeems the very thing that

the enemy tried to use against you.

You will find that the place of your greatest brokenness is the

place of your greatest ministry. It's incredible.

I love that song, that Elevation Rd. which was he turns graves

into gardens. It cannot be truer in our lives.

The things that I allow the Lord to take.

When I say I am done, Lord, I'm putting this to rest.

It's amazing what he does with it.

And I love that scripture in Isaiah, and it comes in Hosea as

well, where he talks about God taking away the sting of death.

If you've ever been bitten by a bee, you know that the bee by

stings you flies off, it leaves it's sting in you.

And I can't help but thinking that trauma has this way of

leaving its sting in you. But when you process the trauma

to a grave, you say, you know what?

I have thought this to God. I want this to, I want to be

healed. I want to be set free.

So I'm laying it down. You can do with it as you will.

It's amazing because God takes the sting out.

How do you know you're healed from trauma?

I believe it's a lifelong process.

There will be times you're triggered even as you healed.

But the beautiful thing is, God brings you to a place where you

can actually laugh about the very things that brought tears

to your eyes. He brings you to a place where

you can minister to others who are walking through a very

season you walked through many seasons before.

That is the sign of healing. God is calling you to stop

processing it to your own death, but to process it to death, to

leave it in a grave for God to deal with, for God to do what

only He can. The way you process it is bring

it into the light. Shame, guilt, secrecy.

That's what trauma thrives in. But God is saying, bring it to

me, Let me help you process this.

Let me help you unpack this so that the burden is lifted

completely. That's the first thing I believe

that. One of the symptoms of a dry

cistern life is being traumatized by the past again

and again. The second thing is being

terrified of the present. This past month, just the kind

of crimes that have been happening around us has been

very nerve racking. And I know it's just not just

me. I have a bunch of friends.

We're from different parts of the nation and we just text each

other on Instagram and all of us, we're just sharing with each

other stuff that's happening in terms of violence against women.

All of us have daughters and I think all it was really heavy on

us. We're like, God, we need to

educate our daughters. We need to release our daughters

from our homes. How are we going to do that?

The situation seems so bleak all around us.

It seems so scary and you think about it.

Joseph's life was no different. And Joseph, not just Joseph, but

his brothers and his father, they all had moments in this

whole narrative where they must have been immensely scared,

immensely terrified of what? What's going to happen now we

have come to this place, but what next?

Genesis 46 verses one to four is a very lovely verse where Jacob

is moving to Egypt to see Joseph and to settle down there.

It's the middle of a huge famine.

It's it's terrible. It's touching all parts of the

world and this is what happens. So Israel set out with all that

was his. And when he reached Beersheba,

he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.

And God spoke to Israel in a vision at night and said, Jacob,

Jacob, here I am. He replied I am God, the God.

Of your father, he said, do not be afraid to go down to Egypt,

for I will make you into a great nation there.

I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you

back again, and Joseph's own. Hand will close your eyes.

Transition. Transition is never easy It's

moving from that previous season to the present.

It's like a doorway into which you walk, but you feel like you

just never experienced this kind of push back in your life.

And in this transition, it's so easy to get so petrified and

fearful of what is happening right now.

Jacob had lived for so many years in Canaan and here he was

stepping into unknown territory at 130 years old.

This is not a joke. This was must have been really

hard. And God and his kindness meets

him and says, don't be afraid. I am with you.

I'm going to keep my word to you.

Fast forward a little bit down Genesis 50.

We see Joseph's brothers having a momentary panic attack when

their father passes away. They're afraid that Joseph will

turn around and attack them now that their dad is gone.

Genesis 50 verses 19 to 21, it says Joseph said to them, do not

Genesis 50:19–21

be afraid, for am I in the place of God?

But As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for

good in order to bring about it this day to save many people

alive now. Therefore, do not be afraid.

I will provide for you and your little ones.

And he comforted them. And spoke kindly to them.

I love that God understands how hard the present is.

He is not nullifying how hard the present is.

He knows what we are viewing. He knows what we read in the

news. He sees the.

Situation for what it is. He knows we are human.

He knows that we are like dust, just a mist, here today, gone

tomorrow. He understands all that.

And yet I believe that when we find ourselves in this dry

cistern of doubt and fear. He requires us to become all the

more dependent on him, the living water.

It's so important that we don't get caught up in the terror that

is all around us and instead tap into the.

Power. Of the most high God and I love

what the psalmist says in Psalm 92 verse 10.

Psalms 92:10

He says, but my horn, which is an emblem of strength and power.

You have exalted like that of a wild dogs.

I am anointed with fresh oil for your service.

What is this fresh oil day in day out?

I need the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

I need His strength, I need His protection, I need His

empowering. I don't want an anointing for

the entire season. I want an anointing for the day.

God is calling us to enjoy the present.

He wants me to enjoy this moment He has entrusted to me.

It's so important that you and I, when we find ourselves terror

stricken, maybe you're walking through a season of ill health

in your family. Maybe you're walking through a

season of crazy financial crisis.

It's so tight, so dry, you cannot believe it.

But God is saying, I don't want you to look at it as an entire

season and ask me for something big for that.

Ask me for the day. His Word tells us that His

mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness.

If I can come to a place of dependence on Him for my

everyday, I can successfully move past this terror.

Too many of us are stuck in a cistern of fear.

We are so worried that if I take the wrong step, I'll mess it up.

You and I don't have that kind of power.

God is sovereign. God is supreme.

He can override even a mistake I make.

But what is keeping you so paralyzed?

Is it your fear of failure? Is it a fear of stepping out?

When I look at Joseph's life, I realize that he had so many

reasons to have been stuck right where he was at.

He could have, after he got accused by Potiphar's wife, gone

into the prison, just sat in a corner, sulked, or just prayed

to himself and thought, you know what?

I'll just sit here, not talk to anyone, not make an impact,

because making an impact obviously creates problems for

me and I'll just sit it out. Even there, he outshone the

other prisoners and is noticed. And it's amazing how God sees

the fearlessness in a Joseph and I believe God is calling us to

step, step out in courage. If you've been stuck in a pit,

completely fearful, completely in debilitating fear, God is

calling you to a place of requesting him for that daily

anointing. He's asking you come to me.

Come to me, I will give you the strength you need and the

beautiful thing about the anointing.

The anointing will kill the stench that the past has left on

us. Some of us are carrying the

past. It's almost like the the stench

of a dead carcass on us because the past is so heavy, which is

why it's so important that the trauma is set down.

But in the present, the anointing is what kills the the

the need for the flesh to rise up.

And the anointing helps us to live in step with the Spirit of

God. God gives us the strength to

move past our automatic reactions.

He helps us to move past our weaknesses.

He helps us to move past our default bad behavior, bad

attitude. It is only by His strength.

It is only by His grace. It is only by the anointing of

the Holy Spirit will I move past this crippling terror.

So if you've been stuck in a space of being so scared of

failure, so scared why it happened once, it could happen

again, God saying enough, ask me for that anointing.

Ask me for that strength, ask me for my power.

It's all yours already. To begin with.

The third symptom The third symptom of being in a waterless

pit is when you're trust deficient for the future.

Trust deficient for the future. I've I've been in a situation

like this where just because of the things that have happened in

the past happening in the present, I couldn't look ahead

clearly the the the future looked turbid.

It looks so blurry. I didn't have clarity of what

would actually come of this. It looks so blurry.

It looks so bleak. I didn't know what was going to

happen. I don't know if things were

going to evolve or change. And like I said, we can only

take one day at a time. We can ask God for His mercies.

We can deal with the trauma, We can lay down our baggage.

But it requires some a supernatural edge in order for

us to stride into the future with boldness.

And Joseph had that edge. You know what the edge was

because of his anointing. He had a very specific gift set.

His gifting it was that he had dreams, he had visions, and he

could interpret dreams for people.

It was a specific gifts which in the New Testament is mentioned

as a gift of the Holy Spirit given to followers of Jesus.

And so it's not just a Joseph who has that edge, it's you and

me. But for too long we have demoted

the Holy Spirit. We have put Madam as our

footstool. We have, we've given the

Trinity, you know that the members of the Trinity, this

hierarchy and the Holy Spirit gets something inferior when all

the three persons are God in entirety and the holy.

Spirit is so powerful and he's so true to his word.

If, if the prophet Joel said in the last times, my people are

going to dream dreams and see visions.

My men, my women, my slave girls, everybody, whoever on

whoever the Spirit of God rests will have these giftings.

We have diminished and said, well, I don't want that.

That's, you know, it's an Old Testament thing.

It's a new early church thing. It's no more for me.

For too long we have given up access that God had given us to

know a little bit more of what lies ahead.

And because of which Joseph knew what was coming.

God had shown him the interpretation for Pharaoh's

dream. He knew how to prepare for the

next seven years and then the years after that.

Even as a little child, as a 17 year old, God had shown him

there was a time when he will be in leadership over even his

family. He didn't understand it.

He didn't know the ramifications of it, but God had shown him and

I bet when he stood that day, his eleven brothers in front of

him, bowing before him, it all made sense.

When his father came into Egypt to meet him, when he stood there

at the at the right hand of Pharaoh, it must have made

sense. But this is what I want to

remind you of. We have been talking of how we

have access to the living water and Jesus said if anyone is

thirsty, come to me. Out of me will flow rivers of

out of him will flow rivers of living water.

I believe God has given each of us.

Access to his Spirit. He wants us to tap into him and

say, Spirit of God, give me the gift that I need.

Give me the gift of discernment. Give me the gift of wisdom.

Give me the gift of discerning between spirits.

These are in the New Testament. It's not something I'm not

preaching something out of the text.

It's within the word of God, and God is asking.

You have been bogged down by your worries, your struggles,

your anxiety, but I want your faith to supersede all of that.

And the only way we can do that is if we operate with the edge

that the Holy Spirit brings. Imagine, imagine if you operated

with the Spirit of God and his leading, how your business would

look different, how your education would look different.

The things that you pursue at work, in your career growth

would be different. The way your parent, your

children would be different. The way you you live your life

within the confines of your home would be different.

How you conduct yourself as as a spouse would be different if we

had the discernment and the wisdom that God gave us.

We cannot do this without the Holy Spirit.

As we get into 20/25/2024 is coming to an end, I believe that

God is calling us into a place of greater discernment, greater

wisdom. He wants to remove the veil.

A lot of us are living veiled lives.

We have no clue what's going to happen tomorrow, and we're very

happy about saying, you know what?

I don't know what's going to happen.

You know, Chalega, we'll just see.

But God is calling me into a place of greater discernment.

He wants me to know when a season shifts.

He wants me to pray accordingly. He wants me to cover my family

in prayer. He wants me to prepare

adequately. He wants me to save in certain

ways, which I haven't been doing so far.

But how will I do it unless I begin to pray?

In a way He leads me to Paul. Gives us the.

Hint in Ephesians 6 he says and pray in the Spirit at all times

and on all occasions. Sometimes my words are

insufficient, but when I pray in the.

Spirit The Spirit guides me as to what I should.

Pray. When I pray in the Spirit, He

directs my thoughts. He brings people into mind who

need prayer at that very moment. He's giving me language to a lot

of things that I don't have language to.

He highlights a scripture to me when I'm doing my quiet time and

saying this is the promise for this child.

This is what I want you to do in this season.

He's teaching me how to pursue certain things.

He's teaching me how to let. Go Joseph's edge can be our edge

today. If you feel you've been trust

deficit, you've been saying, you know what?

I don't know what's ahead. I'm afraid to trust God.

I feel like he let me down in the past.

I feel like my trauma is too big.

I feel like the terror of the present is too much.

I don't know if I can trust God. This is not linear.

This happens up. You know, you sometimes go

through a season where your trust is good for the future,

but your trauma acts up. So this is something that keeps

happening in tandem. But I want to ask you, will you

like Joseph, say this Genesis chapter 50 verses 24 to 25.

Genesis 50:24–25

Then Joseph said to his brothers, I am about to die, but

God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land

to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And Joseph made the Israelites swear an oath and said, God will

surely come to your aid. Then you must carry my bones up

from this place. It's amazing because hundreds of

years later, the very same Israelites who had who had

entered with Jacob and his family had now grown to such a

large extent that the Pharaoh of that time had suppressed them

into slavery. When he's talking, nobody was in

need of aid, but 300 years later they were in need of aid.

And that's when his words came to pass.

Joseph had the spirits leading the spirits sense to know what

was coming and in that he spoke in faith and said this is what's

going to happen. You will take my bodies out.

And I love when you read the Exodus, it says that Moses and

Joshua actually take Joseph's bones up out of Egypt and back

where they are headed. Isn't that amazing?

So I want to ask you, what if you started living in the

reality of what the prophet Joel spoke of?

What if you encourage your children when they sleep?

Go to sleep at night, Say Lord, speak to them in dreams and

visions. Lord, speak to me.

What if? You were to allow the Holy

Spirit to give to you the things that He's already said are

yours, and you start acting out of that strength and authority.

What if God wants to give you the gift of wisdom, of

discernment, of intelligence, of intuition?

What if he wants to give you the gift of entrepreneurship?

What if he wants to give you the gift of excellence, of moral

excellence, of of tremendous success?

What if it's a gift that he wants to bless you with, but you

have put a lid on it and said, I, I don't want too much of

this. I don't want to appear kooky.

I don't want to appear crazy. God is calling you into place.

Come to me, drink from me, so that out of you.

With Pro living rivers of living water, I want to encourage you

as I close. Only the Spirit of God can flood

your life so that the dry cistern of your life will start

to be filled with Him. More of God.

The Holy Spirit brings us more of God and only He can take the

sting of your trauma out. Only He can help you heal and

forget. A lot of us claim we have healed

from our trauma, but we're still talking about it.

We're still sharing every detail of it to others.

Healing demands that we forget. We forgive, we move forward.

If Joseph had got stuck at the place of his trauma, God

couldn't have done the great things he did with him.

The second thing is, only the Holy Spirit can give you fresh

strength and courage to do what you need to do right now.

Irrespective of your past failures, irrespective of the

closed doors and disappointments, He is the one

anoints you with fresh oil. Only the Holy Spirit can give

you the discernment and the insight for your future through

dreams, through vision, through prayer, through intercession.

Only God can do it. And it's important that you open

up the door of your life if thus far you could identify with one

of these 3 dry cisterns. It's time you opened yourself up

and said, Spirit of God, flood my life, flood my life.

Remember that you were blessed not for yourself, you were

blessed to be a blessing. Your healing has never been just

about you. Your healing is for others as

well. Yes, your healing benefits you,

but it's amazing how what God does in you will start to reach

others as well. Your restoration has never been

just for you. You are being restored, but you

are being restored so that you will be a channel of blessing

and restoration for someone else.

Just like a well is not meant for just one person to use, but

it's for people to come around and gather around.

Your life is not just about you, it's about more than that.

So even as I close, I want to just read this word from

Zechariah Chapter 9 verse 11. It says also you by the blood of

Zechariah 9:11

your covenant, I release your prisoners from the dungeon, the

cistern that has no water in it. I pray this over you.

If you have been saying trauma has eaten up most of my life,

God is saying I want to take you out of that cistern today

because the blood of the lamb is sufficient to take you out of

that cistern. If you have been living

paralysed by fear, God is saying I want to bring you out of it.

My blood has done the job. You are free if you are.

Saying I am so scared of my future, I don't know what lies

ahead of me. I'm confused, I have no clue

what's ahead. God is saying I will release you

from that pit, that cistern, by the blood of the Lamb.

You are released, you are freed in Jesus name.

Some of us are stuck in a victim mindset.

We think, you know what, all of this has only happened to me.

I'm misunderstood, I'm slandered.

But God is sending help your way.

You know, Jeremiah the prophet. Jeremiah found himself in a

cistern without water just as the land went into exile.

They threw him into a cistern and there was a man called Ebid

Malik who went looking for Jeremiah, found him there, put

ropes under him and drew him out.

Many times. God will use leaders, God will

use counsellors. God will use a godly friend to

pull you out of the cistern. It's on you whether you receive

the help. Will you take the help that God

brings and climb out of that cistern that you find yourself

in? Even as we close, I want to pray

this prayer that God would restore hope to us.

Everything that the enemy has stolen through trauma, through

fear, just the debilitation of the things that could happen,

that would happen. God is willing to restore twice

as much that we have lost. It requires that we return to

him. Return to your fortress or

prisoners of hope. Even now, I announce that I will

restore twice as much to you, Father.

I just bring every one of us, Lord, each of us.

Our trauma is great. The terror of our present is

sometimes so great. Lord, the, the sometimes our

trust for the future is so limited, it's so diminished.

And we just want to say we're sorry.

And Father, we know that you understand what we walk through.

And today, Lord, each of us here return to you, our fortress, our

stronghold, our living water. We come back to you, and we

believe that you will restore twice as much as we have lost.

If we have lost it through trauma, we believe that you will

return it to us. You will restore.

If we have lost health, we believe you will restore it

twice over. If we have lost wealth, we

believe you will restore it. Father, if we have lost joy, we

believe that you will restore it.

If we have lost relationships, we believe you will restore it.

We thank you that we are cleansed by the blood of the

Lamb and that today we stand free from the empty cisterns

that we have found ourselves in. I declare over anyone here who

has been holding on to baggage that they were never meant to

hold on to, that today they will leave it back at your feet.

I pray that the sting of trauma will be removed in Jesus name.

I pray they will be set free. I pray for those who've been

paralysed by fear. We break every chain of fear in

the name of Jesus. I pray for those who doubt has

got a grip of their mind, a doubt about the future, a lack

of trust for the future where faith has diminished.

We speak to them in Jesus name that Lord.

Their faith would be like a mustard seed, tried and true.

They would hold on to you with everything that they have.

Restore faith in Jesus name, restore strength and courage.

Anoint us for the work ahead. Lord in Jesus name I pray, Amen.

Amen. God bless you.

I pray that you will truly take care of your soul because I

believe God cares for our soul. That as you go through this week

you will be very mindful to invite the Holy Spirit in to do

what only he can. God bless you.

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