Praise for his goodness and mercy.
Hallelujah if you have your Bibles.
Be turning with me to the book of Romans the eighth chapter, Romans eight.
Thank you so much for being in the house of the Lord today.
I'm praying the Lord continues to meet us and greets us with his wonderful, wonderful
presence.
Thank you for visiting, thank you so much for choosing to be at the Hopewell Church
of God.
There are so, so many choices in Cleveland and Bradley County, but you selected the best
today.
Amen.
You're here with us.
You're not going to find any better folk than what you find sitting and standing around
you today.
Amen.
So thank you for being here with us.
A lot to pray about this morning.
A couple requests we're going to pray about before I read the text and just some names
to put in your mind.
Remember Sister Jessica Wingate's sister Mandy, who was in a horrific motorcycle accident
earlier this week, broken and broken up, cracked up, shattered up, but thank God, waking up.
Amen.
Sister Jessica sent me an update just a few moments ago.
She's had, it's either five surgeries in three days.
I think that's exactly what it was.
She had five surgeries in three days.
Yesterday was a long day, a ten hour surgery.
So remember her that the Lord continue to strengthen her heart and life.
Amen.
Got a call yesterday concerning a dear friend of mine who was tragically killed in a tractor
accident.
His grandson called me, so remember the Hill family.
They live up around the Colman area, or Coalfield, not Colman, up around Coalfield.
Remember them and your prayers.
And I know there are others.
My mind's a fog right now.
I feel the presence of the Lord in such a, such a special and unique way.
I can even remember what the announcements were earlier.
So you need, you need to check with your bulletin and make sure you got it.
I'm just excited about what the Lord has for us this morning.
Amen.
With that, look at Romans chapter eight, very familiar chapter that we like to read from.
It's a great resource in times of hardship and trouble.
Beginning at verse 31.
What shall we then say to these things if God before us, who can be against us?
He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all.
How shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
What shall or who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
It is God that justifies.
Who is he that condemn it is Christ that died.
Yay.
Rather that is risen again.
Who is even at the right hand of God who also make an intercession for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation distress persecution or famine nakedness or peril or sword as it is written
for thy sake.
We are killed all the day long.
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
They and all these things.
We are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
Where I'm persuaded that neither death nor life angels, principalities, powers, things
present or things to come height, dip, nor any other creature shall be able to separate
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord for the next little while.
However, long the Lord sees fit to touch me.
I want to preach on this thought focused and faithful, focused and faithful.
Father, we love you.
We thank you for your goodness and your mercy and your grace and the abundance of your love,
your help and your hope that you extend toward us every single day.
Now Lord, as your word is anointed, I asked that you would stir that unction that anointing
that you place upon our life.
Lord, that spirit that causes it to be easy to preach.
Let that be in this house today that we may preach what edifies builds up, lifts up, encourages,
sustains the body of Christ.
But that also which glorifies you that we lift our eyes to you in our time of need,
knowing that you are faithful.
Do you be praised forever in Christ's lovely name?
Touch our family members, touch the church, touch those who are in need this morning,
those requests and petitions we brought to you today and many others that were not uttered,
but yet are as serious.
We ask God you move upon every need in Christ's name.
The church says, amen.
As your neighbor, are you focused and are you faithful?
Something I think we must take a good hold of and not take for granted is that the will
of God for the life of every believer is to live a victorious life.
Not a trouble free life, not a problem free life.
Don't, don't ever get those mixed up, but a victorious life.
You can be victorious and still have trouble.
You can be victorious and chaos still rain around you and you can still be victorious.
It's the will of God for the mind of every believer to understand that victory is our
starting point and victory is your finishing point.
But for us here in the flesh while we're living it and walking it out, we have to figure out
how we're going to cope and how we're going to maintain when it seems as though victory
is being delayed.
But when it seems a long time in coming, we, we have to determine how we're going to respond.
How do we say and stay secure in our faith during those long waiting periods?
It's important that we take in fact the reality that for sure we began in victory.
Victory was one and secured at Calvary.
The price was paid at Calvary and the security came on the third day when the stone was rolled
away and Christ arose from the dead.
That's the assurity and the security of your victory.
The price, the debt was covered at Calvary, but the assurance and the security came on
the third day when Christ arose.
If Christ be not risen, then our faith is in vain.
But thanks be unto God, Christ is risen.
Hallelujah.
Christ is risen.
Therefore, being victorious over death, hell and the grave and every other obstacle that
presented itself, that same victory has been assured to you and I.
One man put it this way, there's a few things in life that are certain.
One is death and paying taxes.
But we all know tax evaders who still haven't paid.
But one debt they will not escape will be that of death.
For it is appointed unto man once to die and then to face the judgment.
So they better settle up on earth before they have to settle up in eternity.
You can be certain that trouble also and trial will find its way to you, to your dwelling,
to your home, to your family.
Job put it this way in 14 and one, man born of woman is a few days and full of trouble.
Jesus himself declared in 1633 at John's gospel, in the world you shall have tribulation.
But that doesn't mean that he stops there.
He said, but be of good cheer for I've overcome the world.
And hallelujah, by his overcoming, you and I have become overcomers as well.
Amen?
The scripture declares it rains on the just and unjust, but know this, the scripture instructs
that the just shall live by faith.
It's faith to faith, grace to grace and glory to glory.
It was explained to me this way one time, this faith to faith is like the waves of the
ocean that keep coming in.
It's faith on top of faith.
It's faith that overlaps faith.
It's grace that overlaps grace.
It's glory that overlaps glory and there's no ending of it.
Hallelujah.
There's no ending of his grace.
There's no ending of his glory.
It just keeps coming in with the waves.
And what I'm looking for is a tidal wave of faith.
I'm longing for a tidal wave of his grace.
I'm longing for a tidal wave of his glory because it's day by day and the just shall
live by faith.
Understand that success, succeeding or failing during a time of trial depends on our reactions
to the trials that we are going through.
I don't believe for a moment that our lives hinge on the circumstances that surround our
life and the circumstances that we face, but more so on how we respond to the circumstances
and the things that surround our life.
That determines the joy and the level of my life.
It determines the happiness that I encounter in spirits in my life.
It's how I look to God and look through the crisis and circumstances that are coming against
me that the victory that I have in him is not overwhelmed, but it is sustained by that
faith, by that same grace and enabled by that same glory that accompanies in my heart and
in my life daily.
It is a measurable experience for the child of God.
It is measurable for you.
It's how you determine the circumstances and how they affect your life, how you and I allow
what is coming on in the chaos of the world.
It's how we allow them to affect us.
It's not the effect they have on us.
It's how we allow them to affect us because you have to know that greater is he that's
in you than he that is in this world.
You have to know as we've read tonight, this very morning in the scripture, if God be for
you, then who can be against you?
Paul writing to this church at Rome, encouraging them in the dilemma of life, letting them
know that nothing can separate them from the love of God.
The persecution that may come upon them, those who may hate them and those who may harm their
physical body.
None of these things are able to separate them from the love of God and the love of
Christ.
And we've got to understand the circumstances that are arising in our life have no effect
on the bearing of our soul other than what we allow them to affect our soul.
It's either you stand in the assurance of the faith that you have in him and the confidence
of his grace that extends towards you and the hope that you have in his glory that enables
you to stand, resolve, resolute, unmoved, my God, and established in your faith because
the child of God knows that the lion goes about roaring.
And if the lion is permitted to devour your body, he cannot devour your soul because your
soul is entrusted in the goodness of God's grace and in the power of God's love towards
you and I.
My Lord, it's our response, your response.
So when we are waiting for God to move, when we are waiting for that grace to enter our
lives, when we are waiting on that glory to show up and to illuminate in the darkest moments
that we feel like we've ever encountered, how do we wait on God?
What do we do if God hasn't moved as of yet?
We just keep on waiting.
We wait just a little longer because we know our help is on the way, because we know that
God has declared that he would never leave us and he will never forsake us.
And so we wait.
We wait patiently.
We wait diligently.
We wait hopefully.
We wait righteously.
We wait diligently for the grace that is to be extended toward us and makes its way.
We find ourselves as Daniels when he prayed and 21 days later, still no answer, but in
the afternoon on the 21st day, the angel of the Lord shows up who had been delayed.
Somebody needs to hear this morning.
A delay in your answer is not a denial of the said answer that has already been dispatched
in your direction.
So how do we wait?
In the waiting, we have to let our light shine.
Hallelujah.
In the waiting, we must let our light shine.
Let our light shine before men so that they may know, that they may understand that there
is hope in hopeless situations.
So what I do is I illuminate the grace that has been extended to me.
I let my life shine with that grace.
I let those around me in the darkest point and the darkest moment of my life, I let them
see that it is the glory of God that illuminates my soul as a luminescence of a lightning bug
as he lights up the night.
It may be a beacon.
Hallelujah.
It's the light of the glorious God's grace that is moving in your heart and life that
others may see.
So we illuminate and we radiate the glory of God and the help of God and the peace of
God and the hope of God that is in our lives so that others see and know we let our light
shine.
The Psalmist said in 52 and 9, I will praise thee forever because thou hast done it.
Hallelujah.
He has done it and I will wait on thy name for it is good before thy saints.
The Psalmist said, Lord, you've already done it and all I'm simply doing is waiting for
the fulfillment of it in my life.
And so I wait patiently on the Lord.
Why?
Because the Lord has heard my cry.
Because the eyes of the Lord go to and fro and the ear of the Lord has ever turned earthward
that he hears the plea and the cry of his children.
So what do we do?
We remain faithful.
What do we do?
We remain focused, focused on letting the light shine in your heart and let it illuminate
so others around you and the dilemma and the crisis and the chaos of their situations and
circumstances that arise.
They know what we walk through.
They know what we go through.
But what they don't know is the hope that we have.
Many don't have the hope that you have and the help that you receive.
Many don't understand that grace is on its way, another wave of grace to enable you and
strengthen you in your weakest moment.
They don't understand God's glory showing up in your midnight hour.
They don't understand that it's faith to faith and he increases your faith.
Oh, my Lord.
So we illuminate.
We light up the darkness that is around us with the hope that we have.
Oh, my Lord, I will praise you forever because you have done it.
And I'll glorify your name.
I'll wait on your name.
Who are we waiting on?
Maybe it's Jehovah Jireh.
Maybe you're waiting for Jehovah Shalom to show up.
Maybe you're waiting on peace to enter into your dilemma.
Hallelujah.
Maybe you're waiting for that one who sees and provides.
I don't know, but his name is worth waiting for.
He is Jehovah Rapha.
He is Jehovah Rohe.
And on and on and on and on and on.
So while I'm waiting patiently for his name to be revealed because his name has revealed
his character, his names, those, I mean, I mean, you got to you got to know that peace
comes in when Gideon declares it.
When Gideon says, Oh, my Lord, Jehovah Shalom has showed up.
Why?
Because we got a man threshing wheat near the wine press.
We got a man who understood who he was and where he ranked in society.
We got a man who was of the least tribe and of least reputation, but also dispatched with
a divine appointment from the Lord.
The Lord told him, you are a mighty man of valor.
Oh, Gideon, you are a mighty man.
And I can see him looking around saying, who are you talking to?
I know who I am.
You know who you are.
But what you don't realize is your full potential.
When there's been a dispatch from glory that's come down to your life, what you don't know
is the full potential of his grace on your life and the full potential of his glory that's
about to set upon you.
Talking about nightlight.
So Gideon was a good one.
Had 20 some odd thousand in his army to start with.
That looks like a good number to you're going up a hundred thousand.
Then you end up with 300.
And the 300 you got didn't have enough sense to cup their hand and drink.
They just laid flat down and licked the water.
They lapped looking.
And then the night watch, you've been dispatched to the mountain surrounding in 100 bands,
three surrounding a hundred thousand.
But you've received instruction to light up the night.
We're receiving some instruction this morning to light up our night.
Focused and faithful.
And told the other two dispatches, when you hear my trumpet sound and when you see our
light come out into the darkness, you do likewise and you start blowing and you break those
pitchers and let's let our light shine.
And when they sounded the Trump, I'm here to tell you when they lifted up the Trump
and they let the light shine and the light illuminated the darkness, when the trumpet
sounded the enemy was disconfited because God got all in it.
I'm here to tell somebody, let your light shine in the darkest night.
Let your horn sound.
Let your voice raise an anthem.
Illuminate.
85,000 were defeated that night.
This isn't even part of my message.
This is a rabbit trail and I can't get off of it.
So I'm going to run it until it holds up.
That's the way rabbits do.
They run until they get tired of running and they'll hit a hole.
They've fought all night.
They've sounded trumpets all night.
They've watched the enemy defeat themselves all night.
But 15,000 escaped and Gideon wasn't satisfied.
For what he do, he set out on their trail.
They marched all night.
They crossed the Jordan River in the night.
They came out on the other side and judges eight and four said they were, they were still
pursuing, but it was their condition of pursuit.
They were faint yet in pursuit.
They were struggling to still be going.
They were, they were dragging along to keep going.
They were exhausted, but they were still in pursuit.
What are you saying?
Pastor?
I'm saying some of you are exhausted.
The battle's been long and you're waiting patiently on the Lord.
But I'm telling you, clap your thunderous voice and let the heavens hear your praise.
I'm telling you, let the light that's in you shine and illuminate the darknesses that are
around you so that you will let the enemy know that you are victorious in spite of the
midnight.
Hebrews 13, five and six, four.
He has said, I will never leave the north for safety so that we may boldly say the Lord
is my helper and I will not fear what man shall do to me.
Can you boldly declare that the Lord is your helper?
What the writer is saying here is that the immutable, unchangeable God has made a proclamation
and the affirmation of that proclamation is this.
It gives you an eye of the boldness that we need to illuminate the darkness that is around
us because God is faithful so we must remain focused on the faithfulness of God.
If we remain focused on the faithfulness of God, we'll hear these words.
What shall we then say to these things?
If God be for us, then who can be against us?
He that spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all, he shall not with him also
freely give us all things.
What shall separate us?
Then from the love of Christ, when you begin to understand that there's nothing that can
separate you from Christ's abundant love and his abundant grace towards you, I know what
it feels like.
I know what it feels like.
I know what it seems like, but you got to know in your knower and become like Paul for
I am persuaded.
It takes a persuasion to illuminate the night with the voice of your trumpet.
And the light that shines, you radiate and we radiate as we get closer to God.
God said, I'll never leave you and I'll never forsake you.
Empowers you and I to say, I'm not afraid.
And when we think about that, something else you need to know how to stay focused and faithful
is remember this, that God is never silent.
He's never silent.
Sometimes in our place we get frustrated when we pray for a week, two weeks, three weeks,
we get frustrated about something and when we don't see any results that we think we
need to see you and I, when we pray, we have a measurable scale.
We have a measurable scale in our prayer life as we pray of what we need to see by the time
we need to see it to know that God is heard and God is answering.
Well let me just tell you, you can throw your scale out the window.
He knows your scale and he's not going to function by mind your scale.
He's got his own scale.
He got his own good time.
Amen.
And that's how he's going to work and that's how he's going to operate.
And we have to understand that we need some of us, we have to see action and movement
at all times to maintain resolve and to keep on praying.
If we don't see anything move or anything, well I'm just going to quit.
God hasn't heard me, God doesn't care.
The devil sits right up on your shoulder.
He'll send a little imp to whisper these negatives into your mind and before you know it you
begin to believe what the devil has to say about your relationship with God.
How pitiful are we?
I feel a little boldness coming up now.
Paul said who?
Who shall separate us?
What can separate us?
Distress.
You've heard his testimony about distress.
He'd been left in the ocean, he'd been left in the sea, wave, toss, three days and nights
he was there.
He'd been stone left for dead.
He'd been beaten three occasions.
Whipped, been thrown in prison all for preaching the gospel, all for laying hands on and rebuking
demons out of damsels.
Hallelujah.
All because of doing good for the glory.
You and I have not had one indication or inclination toward that kind of persecution.
So I think it's time we suck it up and we get over it.
We pull our bottom lip up.
I shouldn't have said that but I did, it came out anyway.
But we got to do that.
We got to get our resolve.
We got to do what Joe was told, get up, stand up, gird up, get ready to run.
My God, it's time we understand that none of these things that are coming against us
are able to separate us from the love of God.
Even though you're not hearing nothing, you're seeing nothing, doesn't mean God is not up
to something.
God is always up to something.
He's busy while we sleep.
He's at work in the midnight hours.
Psalm 121, three through five, he will not suffer your foot to be moved.
He that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold, he that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord, the Lord is thy keeper.
The Lord is the shade upon your right hand.
This is the God we're talking about.
The God who moves outside of our vision and occupies himself with tasks beyond our comprehension.
We had a marvelous deep discussion Wednesday about the Trinity of God.
It's boundless, it's bottomless, and we're never going to figure it out.
We just have to keep on believing that the Father and the Son and the spirits at work
doing great things in our hearts and in our lives, orchestrating everything that is before
us, but can we even begin to comprehend what God is doing on any given day in any given
moment?
His eyes peer into what we can't see.
His hands skillfully shape what we can only fumble around with.
God's not like Pastor Waters with a Rubik's Cube with the universe.
Don't hand me a Rubik's Cube.
I've never gotten over one side.
And the frustration of it all is meaningless to me anyway.
It's not going to affect me or the world or eternity if I get two sides.
There are too many other things in life to frustrate me so I don't even fool with a Rubik's
Cube.
God bless those who have been given the talent to do it with their feet.
Hallelujah.
There are out there who in the world has time to sit around with a stupid Rubik's Cube and
try to do it with your feet.
I'm not afforded the luxury of that kind of time.
But I assure you this, God is not fumbling with the universe and the intricate details
of your life either.
He's not fumbling.
No, I'm doing all of this and about...
If it was round, let's hit it with a bat.
There are some things in life we occupy ourselves with for hours on end that have absolutely
no benefit.
Well, it's a mind game.
I've got other things working my mind.
It's working.
Trust me.
I'm trying to figure out the airflow, the space that I need on my next smoker.
Where do I need to put the baffle plate to make sure it draws correctly to get the right
amount of smoke and the right amount of heat to cook that brisket?
Who needs a Rubik's Cube to work your mind?
Priority.
God is not fumbling over the details of your life like he don't know what to do next.
He's not just twisting trying to hope he gets it right.
He's not just doing this and saying, whoop, now I still got a blue one on the yellow side.
Tell me how that works.
One discolored square.
Now, that's what my life would look like if I kept fooling with it.
But God, in your life, the steps are ordered.
They're not just thrown out with a hope and a wish.
God is in charge.
This is the God who reaches and thinks and plans and shapes and watches and controls
and feels and acts while we're unconscious under the sheets and our comforters, he is
orchestrating our lives daily.
Don't forget the idea that God is off attending to some black hole somewhere.
Never think that he's fussing over the hydrogen molecules in some distant galaxy.
He's already done that.
It's already done.
They are what they are by his design.
So he's not somewhere just gone on vacation.
While you and I feel alone, he's never silent.
His word eternally speaks into our existence.
Tribulation, nakedness, sword, peril, none of these things can separate us.
So never forget that God is at work.
When it comes to your and my life, he never stops observing.
He never stops seeing.
He never stops directing.
He never stops guarding.
He never stops planning.
God is at work.
How we stay focused is knowing that God is never silent.
There's two sides to reality and you and I can only perceive one.
God exists in the other.
And I know we'd like to see over there, but I really don't know if we would.
Because I don't know what he's already stayed off by his hand that the enemy wanted to do
in my life.
And I don't need to see any more than I already see on this side.
You and I don't know what he's doing in the realm of spiritual possibilities and reality.
All we see is the reality of the finite.
We can't understand the reality of the infinite and what God is doing.
His ways are higher.
His ways are past finding out and he's never silent.
He works in every circumstance.
He's already worked in every circumstance.
He provides you and I promises throughout his word.
Some have estimated over 30,000 promises in the word of God.
30,000.
If I can just wrap my little mind around one or two of them and hold onto them, that encourages
my faith.
30,000.
His word is rich.
Makes me stay focused because he is faithful and his promises remain true.
God's word is field.
They relate to our problems in life.
But if the enemy against our soul can cause us to forget those promises, he will claim
victory over us because we surrender it.
But the promise in 43 Isaiah 2 says, when you pass through the waters, I'll be with
you.
Through the rivers, they will not overflow you and when you walk through the fire, you'll
not be burned.
Neither will the flames kindle up against you.
I hope I don't stand still long enough for them to kindle up.
We have his promise.
Second Peter 2 14, whereby we are giving exceeding great and precious promises that by these
you might be partakers of the divine nature.
Understand this, that a promise is only as good as the one who makes it.
Right?
A promise is only as good as the one who makes it.
There's a promise for our dilemma.
There's a promise for your problem.
Financially the promise is this, Philippians 4.10, but my God shall supply all of your
need according to his riches by Christ Jesus.
I told you the other day, the young and the old, but never forsaken, never begging.
He's the one who provides for us.
Promise for those of us who are sick, Exodus 15 26 declares, I am the Lord that healeth
thee and by his stripes you were healed.
We were confused, Proverbs 3 and 6 says in all of our ways acknowledge him.
When fear grips our heart, know this, he that dwells in the secret place of the most high
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
The psalmist said, what time I am afraid.
There are times when the enemy seems large, doesn't he?
But the Lord is on your side.
Understand we have not been given the spirit of fear, but of power and of love.
Sound mind.
The promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus.
If depression overwhelms you with that darkness, remember Psalm 121, in one I will lift up
mine eyes into the hills.
For whence cometh my help, my help comes from the Lord.
When we feel lonely, Matthew 28 and 20, when he declared that he is with us always, even
to the end of the age.
When we sin, when we mess up and give in to temptation and we sin and the devil says we're
done, there's a promise for that.
If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness.
What a promise.
So in order to remain focused, I have to illuminate, I gotta let my light shine.
In order to remain faithful, I have to know that God is not silent.
He has already spoken into my dilemma.
I have to remain faithful in trusting him as I'm focused on his promises and what thus
saith the Lord.
And to know that when the enemy comes in to attack my humanity as it did Christ in the
wilderness, our response can be, get behind me for it is written.
It is written.
It's already recorded what God will do concerning your and my circumstance.
And don't get in a hurry when he's not doing it as fast as you want it done.
It may just cause the delay to be a little longer until we get the right frame of mind.
Know that God is faithful.
Instead, I'm gonna close on this and how we stay focused and faithful is we don't rely
on our own efforts and on our own merit.
We rely on God's power.
Isaiah 40, 29 declares that he gives power to the faint, to the struggling, to the failed,
to the exhausted.
He gives power to them that have no mind and he increases their strength.
Man's finite ability.
We cannot cope with the issues and dilemmas of our day and our own strength.
Listen to what Paul told Timothy in that first letter, fourth chapter, verse 17.
16, he said, at my first answer, no man stood with me, but all men forsook me.
And I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.
Notwithstanding that, the Lord stood with me.
Everybody had forsaken Paul, left him there by himself all alone.
He said, I hope God doesn't hold it against him.
Notwithstanding though, the Lord stood by my side, look, though the world forsake you,
as long as the Lord's on your side, you're gonna win.
Said he stood with me and he strengthened me that by me, the preaching might be fully
known and that all the Gentiles might hear.
And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work and will preserve me unto his heavenly
kingdom to whom be glory forever and ever.
Amen.
What a way to look at your circumstance.
What a way to see your dilemma.
Everybody else has left me.
I'm here by myself.
But the Lord stood with me.
You may feel like you're standing all alone, but you're not.
You may not see anyone else praying with you, praying for you, but know this, the Lord is
standing by your side.
rely on his great grace, first Peter five, 10, possible Peter put it this way, the God
of all grace who had called us under his eternal glory by Christ Jesus.
After you've suffered a while, make you perfect, established strength and settled you.
Some things here the Lord's gonna do that word perfect.
The Greek is catered.
Means to make an adjustment and to put in order.
I mean, there have been to a chiropractor.
Now as a kid, I used to watch my dad.
He had a bad back.
I'd ride with him.
I see my dad literally on a cane with two hands, walk between his legs into that office.
Not but the 20 minutes later come out twirling the cane.
It amazed me.
I was just a young kid.
I thought, and I know he was hurting cause he had them dad tears.
You know what I'm saying?
He's in pain, but when he'd come out twirling, he got an adjustment.
You may be like that right now spiritually, but you're about to enter into a place.
There's some cataritzo about to happen to you.
There's some perfecting.
There's an alignment about to happen to you.
He said, stablish.
He's going to stablish.
That's where we get our word, Steve, street.
So we get our word steroid from it.
I'm not looking at a medium in the house cause I know these gentlemen work hard to get what
they got, but you know what we need from time to time in our family.
Our faith, we need a boost.
There's good steroids and bad steroids.
Y'all know that for you need people.
They run that needle about yay long in there and give you a watch shot, steroid shot.
It strengthens you, doesn't it?
It helps you for a little while to make strong, to turn resolutely in a certain direction.
Stablish.
He said, strengthen to bind together, no wavering or falling apart.
Hold it together.
He's going to help you hold it together.
You ever felt like you're about to fly apart?
I'm alone.
I felt like I'm about to lose it sometimes and he has to strengthen me.
He has to empower me.
I have to get a little strength.
I have to get a little steroid of faith boost.
Then he's going to settle you.
He's going to grounds you.
Going to put you firmly on a foundation.
How do I stay focused and faithful?
I get a tune up most of the time from the neck up.
You know, it's my mind that fails me.
My body's falling apart, but it's my mind that fails me.
That's really, I'm trying to pack on as much as I can.
One of these days, I know it's going to deteriorate.
I want to last as long as I can.
I try to do that way with faith.
I try to pack on as much as I can because I know it's not if, but when.
It's not if, but it's when.
When am I going to need a booster?
When am I going to need an alignment?
When am I going to need strength?
And when am I going to need put on a firm foundation?
When am I going to feel like the psalmist?
When he said he picked me up out of the miry clay and he put me up on a rock, settled me.
You ever feel like life's just like quicksand?
I mean you're struggling, but you just keep getting deeper in.
And the more effort you put out, it seems as though the worse it gets.
Well, for those in the quagmire of life with me, he's going to make it better.
We just got to stay focused and remain faithful because I know this concerning you and I,
he is focused and he is abundantly faithful.
Father, I love you today.