Is It In You?

Open your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 4 and meet me at verse 20.

Proverbs 4 · chapter mention

We'll go through to verse 23 in the New Living Translation.

Proverbs chapter 4, 20 through 23.

Proverbs 4 · chapter mention

And the writer of Proverbs, Solomon, here tells us, My child,

pay attention to what I say.

Listen carefully to my words. Don't lose sight of them.

Let them penetrate. Somebody say, penetrate.

Deep into your heart, for they bring life to those who find them and healing to their whole body.

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

And over the last several weeks, we've been talking about this heart-mouth connection.

A few weeks ago, we talked about a message called Talk That Talk.

And we shared that whatever you say, you are actually creating.

Your words are more about creation than they are about communication.

And so what you are saying out of your mouth is producing what you are seeing in your life.

And so you can find this message on truelifefc.org. It's called Talk That Talk.

And then last week we talked about why is it not working? Why is it not working?

And there we talked about it's not working because you don't believe it.

It's not in you. You don't have it deposited on the inside of you.

So if you say something out of your mouth, but you don't believe it with your

heart, it's not going to work.

And you're going to always get what you believe.

Let me say it again. You're going to always receive what you believe.

And so we have to have this heart and this mouth connection in order to appropriate

what we believe and create with our mouth what we want to see.

You're going to always get what you believe.

And so today I want to go a little further, and I titled this message today, Is It In You?

Is It In You? And if you tap your phone on the seat in front of you,

you'll get the notes for today's message.

And those of you worshiping with us online at the bottom of the screen,

you can scan a QR code and it'll show you how to get today's notes.

But is it in you?

And Solomon tells us here that we are to pay close attention to the Word of God.

We are to eliminate distractions. We are to eliminate any other thing but the

word of God and pay close attention to his word.

If we'll listen and pay close attention to his word and don't lose sight of his word,

and if we allow his word to penetrate our heart, and this is what I want to

talk a little bit about today, is his word needs to penetrate,

our hearts.

What happens is, is we hear the word with our heads, and we hear it in our mindsets

but we don't always allow the word to be penetrated on the inside of you.

And the word penetrate means to pierce.

The Word of God needs to pierce our heart because there are some experiences.

There are some, how can I say it? There are some things that we have believed

that we shouldn't believe.

There are some traditions. And there are some different things that has to be

penetrated with the Word of God that can resonate on the inside of you and I

so that we can begin to believe it.

And when we speak it, we'll see things being changed and rearranged.

But sometimes it's real difficult to have your heart penetrated with God's word

because of all of the mess that we hear, that has been taught to us, that we see.

And social media has made things worse, in my opinion. Having carrying a phone

around all the time has made things worse.

Having access to all of the news and an instant has made things worse.

And we don't allow the word to penetrate our heart. We allow other things to

get on the inside of our heart. And next week we'll talk a little bit more about that.

But today we've got to allow the word of God to get past our minds and into our heart.

Everything in your life flows from what's happening in your heart.

Everything in your life flows from what's happening, excuse me, in your heart.

And that's why Solomon tells us to guard our heart or to put a guard over what

we see, what we hear, and what we say.

Because those things allow any and everything to get in our heart.

And once it gets in our heart, it will begin to develop.

Let me let you know that your heart is your inner man, your inner person.

It's your decision maker. It's your passions and your desires. It's who you really are.

And your heart is designed to produce everything that's been deposited on the inside of it.

Whatever you place and plant in your heart, your heart is designed to produce it.

And so you can produce from your life any and everything that you want if you

plant the right seed on the inside of you.

You, your heart, your inner man is created in the image of God.

It's especially if you're born again. And how do we get born again?

We confess with our mouth and we believe in our heart. It produced salvation.

Your heart is designed to produce whatever you plant on the inside of it.

And so if we know that to be true, then we're going to have to guard our heart,

and we're going to have to monitor what comes in and what goes out.

We're going to have to place a guard over what we listen to.

We're going to have to place a guard over what we say. We're going to have to

place a guard over what we see because all of these are entrances into our heart.

All of these create a self-image. And if you allow negativity to get in your

heart, I'm broke, busted, and disgusted,

and you believe that and you believe that, you'll start penetrating,

it'll penetrate your heart, and you'll start producing broke,

busted, and disgusted life.

But if you will plant good seed in your heart, I'm the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

I am prosperous. I'm redeemed from the curse. I am well-able.

I am strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

And you believe it, you'll start producing that in your life.

And so your heart is very critical because everything in your life flows from

what's happening in your heart.

And if something's not working, it's because it's not in your heart.

You say, well, pastor, it's not working in my life. And my answer to you is

because it's not in your heart.

If it were in your heart, it would work.

And so, Psalms 119.11 tells us, your word I have hidden in my heart.

Notice that David said he hid the word of God in his heart.

He placed the word of God on the inside of him. I like what the message translation says.

It says it this way, I've banked your promises in the vault of my heart.

I've banked your promises in the vault of my heart. What is a vault?

It's a secure, safe place.

A vault is a chamber. It's designed for the safekeeping of valuables.

And so David said, I placed your word. It's so precious to me.

Your promises are so valuable to me. I had to place them somewhere.

I placed them on the inside of me, and they're hid on the inside of me so that

when I say something out of my mouth and I believe what's in my heart, I can have what I say.

This is what Jesus said in Mark chapter 11. For verily I say unto you,

Mark 11 · chapter mention

whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast in

the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believe those things he says shall come to pass.

He shall have whatever he says.

But what does he have to believe? He has to believe what he says.

It didn't say you've got to believe the word. It said you've got to believe what you say.

And so, yes, many of us say I believe the word, but many of us don't even believe what we say.

And we've got to believe what we say in order to get production and manifestation

and demonstration outside in this earthly realm. We've got to start believing what we say.

And the only reason you'll believe what you'll say is if you really planted

it on the inside of your heart.

You've got to get this word and put it in your heart.

And how do you do that? You do it with your eyes, you do it with your ears,

and you do it with your mouth.

And you plant it on the inside of your heart. Psalms 1, 1 through 3 says it this way.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,

nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.

But his delight, his joy, is in the law of the Lord.

And in his law, which is his word, he meditates, watch this, day and night.

He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth his

fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper.

I want you to notice that in his law he meditates day and night.

Now, in his law would mean in his word,

that we would take his word and we would meditate this word day and night,

that we would put this word on the inside of us and we would meditate it.

This is a word that we don't hear a lot about in church anymore is meditation.

And this is so critical to getting results in your life.

I declared a month or so ago that this would be our summer of miracles.

You've got to get that word and meditate it.

And think about this is a summer of miracles. This is my summer of miracles.

This week will be a week for miracles.

A miracle is going to happen to me today. You're going to have to meditate it.

You're going to have to think about it. You're going to have to consider it, and

it will get deposited on the inside of you, and then miracles will begin to

explode when you begin to say, this is my week of miracles, this is my summer

of miracles. It explodes.

But what happens is many people just want magic to take place.

Well, pastor said the week of miracles, and I ain't got no miracles happen because

you didn't put it in your heart.

My job is to give you something to put in your heart that you'll meditate and

it'll grow and it'll produce from the inside out.

Meditation produces roots.

Meditation produces roots on the inside of you. Your heart is like soil.

It's a ground that wants to produce roots.

And meditation will produce roots. And the result of those roots are you will

be like a tree planted by rivers, fruitful, stable, and prosperous.

So it's important what you're placing on the inside of your heart.

Now, I want to talk about biblical meditation. And like I said,

this is a word we don't hear a lot about, biblical meditation.

What does it mean to meditate? Okay.

According to the brain imaging research from Queen's University,

the average person has about 6,200 thoughts per day. Wow.

6,200 thoughts per day.

That's the average person. We are doing a lot of thinking.

Now, you cannot stop birds from flying over your head.

They're going to fly over your head, but you can stop them from putting a nest on your head, right?

We can't always stop thoughts from coming. Thoughts are going to come.

We can't stop them from coming, but we can stop them from getting on the inside of us.

Somebody say amen. The devil will try to throw thoughts at you.

I had a thought the other day I was driving and there was somebody riding around

going through the lane with a motorcycle without a helmet on.

And the thought was, cut him off.

I said, no, no, no. That thought's not for me.

Say amen. That's not for me. You got to realize, hey, hey, that's a thought

that came. I couldn't stop it from coming.

But I didn't have to act on it. Say amen to that.

These thoughts are coming. You can't stop them from coming, but you don't have

to act on them and you don't have to meditate them.

You don't have to consider them or continually think about them.

The biblical definition of meditation, we're going to go through this, is to fill your mind.

To fill your mind. F-I-L-L. To fill your mind.

Eastern meditation means to empty your mind.

And so we're not, when I say meditate, I'm not talking about some type of Eastern religion, okay?

That means to empty your mind. No, biblical meditation is you're going to feel

your mind, intentionally feel your mind.

Eastern meditation will tell you to empty your mind.

Biblical meditation focuses on God. Its focus is on God.

Eastern meditation's focus is on breathing.

The focus is on slowing your breathing down, all this and that.

But biblical meditation, my focus is on him.

I'm meditating on who he is to me.

Biblical meditation also centers on his word.

Biblical meditation is centered on this word of God.

Eastern meditation is centered on self-awareness, who you are.

And everything about you.

But biblical meditation is centered on his word. So we're going to feel our mind.

We're going to focus on God. And we're going to think and center everything on his word.

This is biblical meditation. It means to ponder, to consider,

to think deeply about, and to roll it over in your mind again and again.

To imagine, to focus. and focus always requires a target and to chew on. So this is meditation.

We're going to ponder, consider, think deeply about, roll over in your mind again and again.

We're going to imagine, we're going to focus like a target and we're going to

chew on. And how many of you know that chewing creates hunger?

Chewing creates hunger. This is why I can't chew gum because I get hungry.

Every time I chew gum, it tricks my body that we're eating, and I get really,

really hungry. Chewing creates hunger.

Well, meditation means to chew.

If you'll focus and ponder and think and consider and imagine his word,

you'll begin to get hungry for his word.

I hear people say, I'm just not really hungry for the things of God anymore.

I'm not hungry to come to church anymore. I'm not hungry to pray.

It's because you've been meditating on different things.

You get hungry by eating.

I just don't want to go to church anymore. I don't have a hunger to go to church.

Start going to church and you'll get hungry for it.

You'll want it more because this is how meditation of God's word will be deposited

on the inside of you. And you'll get hungry for it.

Meditation is to fill your mind with God's Word until it shapes your thinking,

speaking, believing, and living.

Let me say it again. Meditation means to fill your mind with God's Word until

it shapes your thinking, speaking, believing, and living.

We've got to be impacted by this Word from God. Meditation means to ponder by talking to yourself.

You need to talk to yourself. Let me say it again. You need to talk to yourself.

Now, you don't have to answer yourself, but you do need to talk to yourself.

You need to encourage yourself.

You got to begin to say some things out of your mouth because this is how you meditate God's Word.

You begin to say these things out of your mouth and you meditate

and you're meditating and it's getting in your heart and your heart's hearing

what you're saying and you're saying it and it's getting deposited on the inside

of you and then you're going to say it and then one day you're going to really

believe it and something's going to change and take place.

This is what meditation does. Meditation is the part of the creative ability which God has given you.

This is how you create is through meditating. Words produce thoughts which influence

your self-image words produce thoughts.

Let me give you an example,

Short black dog with a little tail, small ears.

What are y'all picturing right now? A short black dog, little tail,

small ears. Why didn't you picture S-H-O-R-T, short, B-L-A-C-K,

black, D-O-G? You didn't picture words.

You pictured an image.

And those words produce images. and those images is what gets on the inside

of you and then you're going to have to really believe it once it gets deposited,

you'll start to believe it,

and manifestation will take place in your life.

One purpose of meditation is moving God's Word from your head to your heart.

Meditation moves God's Word from your head to your heart.

There's a bridge over our last building. We had another building we were renting.

It feels so good to say that.

We had another building we were renting, and there's a bridge that goes over it.

And several years ago, the Lord spoke to me about ownership.

He said, I want you to believe me to own your own church building.

He said, I'll provide it for myself, but I want you to believe me for it.

And so every time we would pass our old building, because it was the direction

that we needed to go, every time we would drive across it and pass it,

I would say this out of my mouth.

Thank you, Lord, for our new church building. And I would point to the old building

and say, as we drove by, thank you, Lord, for our new church building.

I did that for years. I did it so often that my children would do it as we drive

by and they would turn and they would point, thank you, Lord,

for our new church building.

And then I heard Stacy doing it. Thank you, Lord, for our new church building.

We started to say it and to say it. What were we doing? We were getting it in our heart.

So when the Lord said, I want you to believe me for a new ownership is what

he said, and a new church facility to worship me in, that's a word from God,

but it has to be in my heart or it won't come to pass.

So I was getting it in my heart. I was driving by saying, thank you,

Lord, for a new church building.

Now, when I first started saying it, full disclosure, I didn't believe it.

I didn't believe it. We were comfortable in that building. I didn't see no way

how God was going to get us out of that building.

But I started to say it, and when I started to say it, it started to get deposited

on the inside of me because that's what the heart does.

The heart produces what we say.

It started to get on the inside of me, and then I started to believe it.

Thank you, Lord, for our new—oh, babe, did you see our new church building?

It's going to be beautiful.

I can't wait to see our—it's coming. I see it on the inside of me,

our new church building is coming.

I begin to say it, it began to produce an image, I started to see the building,

and that image got on the inside of me, and then it started to go to work and produce.

Are you listening to me today? Say amen to this.

Meditation is one of the primary ways truth sinks deeply into your heart.

Meditate the word it'll sink deeply into your heart think of it like marinating meat.

You don't dip it for five seconds right you let it soak,

meditation allows god's word to soak it into your spirit when you meditate that word is soaking,

and on the inside of you and it's creating images and it's getting deep down

on the inside of you, planting roots on the inside of you.

Meditation takes information and turns it into revelation.

It takes information. This is, to some, this is just a historical book full of information.

But if you meditate it, you begin to believe it, and you'll start seeing revelation.

You'll start seeing truth come out about you, and you'll begin to believe it.

Meditation takes information, turns it into revelation, but biblical meditation is audible.

That means you're going to have to say it. Now, you're not convincing anybody

else. You're just talking to yourself.

I'm strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. I have the wisdom of God.

I know what to do when I don't know what to do.

Money cometh to me now. That's another one I say all the time.

Because we, in this facility, the Lord has us spending a lot of money.

We're spending a lot of money. I don't say we're just spending a lot of money.

We're spending a lot of money.

I say money cometh. Say money cometh.

So we're so used to saying money is going. Oh, the money is going, this money is going.

No, I've got an image on the inside of me that money is coming to me now.

It's coming to do God's work and God's kingdom, to take care of God's house.

Money is coming. This is an image that I have. Money is coming so that we can

do what God has called us to do and we can do it all with cash. Say amen with that.

And so meditation is audible. My wife will tell you, I'll walk around the house, I'll say, money cometh.

And she's, oh, money cometh. She'll agree with me. Money cometh. Money cometh.

We got to take care of that. Well, Steve, he disagree. How much that costs?

It's going to cost X amount. Well, money cometh.

Amen. Money's coming to take care of that project. This is an image that I placed

on the inside of me. And guess what has happened so far?

Money is cometh. Amen. And everything has been taken care of with cash. Say amen to that.

Or what if I just would have said, well, we just, ain't no way we can do this.

Absolutely no way. You do, I just, you know, I'm just a nobody,

you know, just trying to tell everybody.

It's just about somebody who can save anybody, you know?

And I just, you know, I just, no. No, I don't think that way.

Amen. I'm believing for some big things.

I'm believing for a million-dollar check to come into our ministry. Amen.

I don't just say it. I have it already printed out.

I told ChatGPT make a million dollar check and let it say true life on it. Amen.

It created it and I look at it and I say I'm getting that image on the inside of me.

Say amen to this. If you have a sickness in your body, get the image of health on the inside of you.

Get pictures of you jumping up and down and spinning around and running around.

And get it on the inside of you and allow it to change your inner image.

And then you begin to say it and it'll come to pass in your life.

This is how God designed it. Now watch this. The opposite of meditation is to ignore.

I just heard the Lord say this. When I said I'm believing for a million dollars,

some of y'all said, amen, hallelujah. I'm believing you're going to give the million dollars.

Only about six people received that, but that's all right.

Who, me? Yes, you. couldn't be then who?

You, let me say it again, I believe you're going to give the million dollars hallelujah,

The opposite of meditation is to ignore.

So you're either going to meditate this word or you're just going to ignore it.

I like to challenge myself. I spend time in the morning, so should you,

in the word of God, reading some passages. We've got two chapters a day that

we're reading, different things that we're reading in the word.

I like to challenge myself. I do it in the morning. Around 2 o'clock,

I like to ask myself, what did you read this morning?

And if I forgot it, that meant I didn't meditate it.

And it didn't get on the inside of me, and it didn't make a change whatsoever.

Because I literally, watch me now, ignored it.

It wasn't important to me. And I already forgot. Some of y'all are going to

leave here today and forget everything that I preached today.

No, say that's not me. I'm going to meditate it.

I'm going to meditate it. I'm going to think about it, consider it, ponder it.

And I'm going to be changed and different. I remember this was years ago.

Steve and Tasha have been with me a long time, but I remember a long time ago,

Steve told me he didn't like pastors.

I was like, well, I'm a pastor. He said, I don't like pastors because,

you know, I just got a hard time.

I don't know about, you know, sometimes. And guess what? I don't like pastors

either, okay? So we agree. A lot of pastors are not, you know,

well, let me get off that. All right, so.

But he came to one of my Bible studies. At the time, I was only doing a Bible study.

He came to one of my Bible studies. And he said, you know what?

I can tell you what you've preached after you preached every single time you

preach. I know what you preach.

And most of my life, I couldn't even tell you what the minister preached when they got done.

And I said, Steve, because you're meditating the word that's being taught. Amen.

Praise God. there's an anointing on my life, but you've got to receive the anointing,

and you've got to meditate and receive it and allow things to be changed in your life.

Joshua 1.8 says, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth,

but you shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe to do according

to all that is written in it.

For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success.

I want you to notice the progression here.

Word in your mouth, meditation, obedience, prosperity, success.

What did it start with? He told them, don't let this word depart from your mouth.

You're going to have to say these things, but meditate in it day and night and obey.

Then you'll make your way prosperous.

Then you will have good success. So the biblical pattern here is to read it,

talking about this word, say it.

Think about it, say it again, imagine it, and then do it.

This is the biblical pattern of getting results in your life.

I'm going to have to say it.

I'm going to have to read it. I'm going to have to say it. I'm going to have

to think about it. I'm going to have to say it again. I'm going to have to imagine it.

And then I'm going to have to do it.

When you meditate on healing scriptures, you're not just reading words.

You begin to picture yourself healed and whole.

Don't just read these words. Picture yourself. Allow these words to create an

image in your life that you see yourself operating this way.

When I read Scripture, I put my name in it.

I'm all throughout here because he and they and him is me.

And so I put my name. By his stripes, Jesus, Devon was healed.

I put my name in it because I'm imagining me being healed by the stripes of Jesus.

And when you create an image, you'll begin to meditate that image.

And when you speak, you'll see results take place in your life.

That image really is a blueprint for the Lord to use to bring about manifestation in your life.

See yourself healed. See yourself prosperous. See yourself debt free.

See yourself owning your vehicles. See yourself married. See yourself in a prosperous marriage.

See yourself with the Word of God. Begin to see yourself and then begin to speak it.

And here's the thing. The paradox with this is in order to create the image,

you're going to have to say it.

But in order for it to really occur in your life, you're going to have to believe what you say.

So I'm going to have to say it, and I may not believe it initially,

but in order for it to manifest and produce in my life, I'm going to eventually

believe it, and when I say it, it'll happen.

So in this church building that we are in today, Stacey and I had this building.

We saw this building last July.

We had this building in our heart. We visited.

We said, this is it. This is it. We put an offer in on the building.

They declined our offer.

We were devastated. We were hurt. It took us, seriously, it took us like three days to really recover.

We really, it was in our heart.

This was our building. And I mean, we just, we couldn't really sleep.

We were upset. We didn't know what happened.

Lord, what's going on? What happened?

It's in our heart. They said, no, what's going on? And I knew that this was our building.

And so I drove over here. Now they had said no to us, drove over here.

I parked in the parking lot and I've just looked at the building.

And the Lord said this to me. He said, point at the building and commanded to

come into the ministry of True Life Fellowship Church.

Now, this building was under contract at the time with somebody else.

They had told us no and found another buyer. How ridiculous does that sound?

To go drive to the building, sit in the parking lot, point at the building,

and commanded to come into the ministry of True Life Fellowship Church.

So I sat in the parking lot. I heard the Lord say that.

In my heart, and I got out the car, and I pointed. I don't know what people

thought when they saw me out here. Maybe they didn't see me. I don't know.

But I pointed at the building, and I said, I commend you to come into the ministry

of True Life Fellowship Church.

I got back in the car, sat down. I felt like an idiot. I didn't feel nothing.

I thought, that is the silliest thing I think I've ever done.

Why would the Lord ask me to point at it? They declined us.

It's under contract why would he have us point at it and command it to come

into the ministry true life well six months later look what the Lord has done

we're sitting in this building right now praise God.

Glory to God. What happened? I saw the image. Stacey and I saw it. This was our building.

We had an image on the inside. We meditated it. We began to design it.

We had designs already going before we were under contract.

We just knew this is what we're going to do. This is what we're going to change.

It was so real to us that when I released my faith and I pointed at it and commanded

it, manifestation started taking place.

But it didn't happen until I believed it.

It didn't happen until there was a meditation and then manifestation took place.

When you meditate on verses about provision, you begin to see yourself free

from lack and abundantly supplied.

Start meditating for more than enough. When you're writing your bills out,

I don't know how you do it.

I still write a check once in a while and what's that, bank pay or what's that called?

Say it one more time. Yeah, bill pay. There you go. I do bill pay and all that.

And man, that bank account be telling me, you're going to run out?

You're going to run out? And I said, no, we are prosperous.

We have more than enough to pay every bill to meet every need in Jesus' name.

I begin to meditate provision. My God shall supply all that I need according to his riches and glory.

I begin to meditate it, and I begin to see that I am free from lack,

and I'm abundantly supplied. Somebody say amen.

Philippians 4.8 says, finally, brethren, whatever things are true,

whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure,

whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of a good report,

if there's any virtue and if there's anything praiseworthy, watch this,

meditate on these things.

And so we're to meditate on things that are true, noble, just,

pure, lovely, good report, virtue, anything that's worthy of praise.

We're to meditate on these things.

This is the commandment from God. We're to meditate.

Literally put our mind intentionally on these things.

Your mind has a tendency to just run free and think about whatever it wants to think about.

But we're going to have to grab a hold of our thoughts and put it on the Word

and begin to meditate the Word.

If you want to change the way you feel, you're going to have to change what you are thinking about.

You feel a certain way because you're thinking a certain way.

That's why you feel that way. I feel angry. If you ever feel angry,

ask yourself, what am I afraid of?

If you're ever angry, I'm just angry. What are you afraid of?

When we first got married, I'm big on, I save, I'm good at saving,

and I'm, you know, allocating how budgets and what we should spend and so on and so forth.

And I have several different savings accounts. We have accounts saving for our

escrow and for vacation.

And we have accounts that we set up and we save and we allocate that money.

And we have a giving account. And we have accounts saved and we first got married.

Now that's, I'm talking about now.

But when we first got married, I'm talking about the first time Stacey went

out shopping. And I said, we have X amount, X amount of money to go shopping.

And at this point, this was grocery shopping.

This is what we have. She came back and spent three times what I thought I said that we had.

And I said, oh, my gosh. Now, we had just got married.

I'm thinking we are going to run out of money together.

How in the world are we going to stay together? And she spins like this.

And I was angry. How could you spend so much on groceries? We don't need all those groceries.

She's like, Devon, you don't know how much groceries cost because I don't cook.

I was like, well, I know we don't cost that much.

It does. And I was angry. And I went to my office, and I said,

Lord, my goodness. And I heard the Lord say, what are you afraid of?

That's the first time I heard that. When you're angry, I said,

what are you afraid of? I said, I'm afraid she's going to spend all the money

that we ever make, and we're not going to ever have any money.

And he said, I will supply all your need.

And from here on out, yes, we have budgets, but I tell her, don't even tell

me how much she's spent on groceries nowadays. I don't even know how much it

costs, and I don't want to know.

Because God shall supply. If you change the way, if you want to change the way

you feel, you're going to have to change what you are thinking about.

What am I thinking about? If I'm feeling down and out, if I'm feeling depressed,

if I'm feeling like forgotten, and sometimes I feel those ways.

I have to say, no, no, no, God's not forgotten about me.

No, the joy of the Lord is my strength. This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice.

If you're feeling that way, there is a force trying to make you feel that way.

So you're going to have to counterbalance that force with the Word of God and

force yourself to feel what the Word of God says you should feel. Say amen to that.

Words create thoughts. Words create thoughts and images.

Those thoughts and images create your feelings.

You feel a certain way by some words spoken and thoughts and images,

and those feelings will specifically dictate your actions.

You're going to act a certain way because you feel a certain way.

And if you continue to act that way, it's going to create a habit.

And if you continue that habit, it will create a character.

We then begin to identify your character, who you are. And your character will

always lead you to a destination.

And so if we want to change our destination, we're going to have to change our character.

If we're going to change our character, we're going to change our habits.

If we're going to change our habits, we're going to change our actions.

If we're going to change our actions, we're going to change our feelings.

If we're going to change our feelings, we're going to have to change our thoughts.

And if we're going to change our thoughts, we're going to have to change the

words coming out of our mouth.

Your words are powerful and have the ability to create images and thoughts.

For example, right now, I want you to count the 10 in your head. Ready? Go.

Now say your name right now. Now, what happened to your thoughts?

They stopped. You may not even remember what number you were on.

Well, there's always one. There's always one.

In every group, you're going to find one.

Those words cause your thoughts to stop.

And so if you've been bombarded with negative thoughts, begin to speak words.

And those words, there are times that I've been afraid, and I'll just say my

father loves me, my father loves me, God loves me, he loves me,

he just loves me, he loves me, he loves me, he loves me, he loves me, he loves me, he loves me.

And I begin to say that those thoughts begin to stop.

And when they stop, all I hear now is his words, creating images of,

I'm just loved. I'm very loved. I'm so loved. I'm greatly loved.

And those images get on the inside of me and they change the way I feel.

What God has created and given us the ability to do is.

Is to change our sphere of influence. Whatever you want to see, you can change it.

By getting this word in your heart, saying it out of your mouth,

and you can change whatever it is that you want to see.

Whatever you want to experience can be changed. This building on six acres of

land, it took us some time to get it in our heart that God would really do this for us.

I had to get it in my heart, James. I had to get it down on the inside of me,

that God's going to do this.

He can do it. It doesn't happen overnight, especially when you're talking about big things.

They don't happen overnight. You got to get it in there. So I begin to say all

the time, today's the day we're going to see our new church building.

Our new church building is coming today.

Today is the day that our church building is going to manifest.

I had to get it on the inside of me.

And I got it on the inside of me. and I begin to say it.

After I said it, it created images. I begin to say it again.

I begin to think about it. Say it. Say it again. Think about it.

Think about it. Say it. Say it again.

And one day, it'll all click because you believe it, you see it,

you said it, and God said we can have what we say.

It'll all click in one day. And my response to the question,

why is this not working in my life?

There are many people that have come to me, pastor, it seems to be working in your life.

You'd be talking about this and it's working in your life. Why is it not working

in my life? The answer is because you don't believe it.

That's the pure answer. You don't believe it. It's not in your heart and it

will not work unless it gets in your heart.

It's like when people say in tithing, well, I can't afford to tithe. I hear that too.

Well, you know, the scriptures say we give a tenth of your income to the Lord.

Well, I can't afford to do that.

But if you start tithing, you'll be able to afford to tithe.

But you don't know you can afford to tithe because you haven't started tithing.

But if you start tithing, you'll see, I can afford to tithe.

Because God's going to give liberally unto you where you can begin to afford

to tithe and give offerings.

It's the same way. Well, it's not working. It's not working.

Continue to say it. Continue to create an image.

Continue to speak it out of your mouth, and it'll work in your life.

Come on, somebody say amen.

This is how you experience true life.