So we can live on the earth, how can I serve you?
I can serve him in expectation of the next thing
being better than the first thing.
That whatever miracles that we saw yesterday,
whatever miracles are in the Bible,
we're gonna see something more so.
See bigger ones tomorrow.
Bigger so, bigger and greater.
Jesus said that-
Greater things shall ye do.
Yes, that's right.
Because I go to the Father,
is it our expectation to see God do greater things?
God promises in Joel 2, 28,
to pour out his Spirit on all humanity.
Welcome to Global Outpouring.
Will we contend for that promised outpouring?
Will we equip for that outpouring
so that we may engage in that very outpouring?
I'm Philip Bus.
And I'm Sharon Bus.
Welcome to the podcast today.
We are so excited to share this time with you.
We've got a very special message from the Lord for you today
that's kind of piggybacking on a couple
of Dean Braxton's episodes that we've had with him.
And it's about serving, about serving the Lord.
And our question to him is, how can I serve you?
Thank you so much for joining us today.
We are really excited about this episode.
And we want to encourage you before we get started,
if you haven't already done so,
to go to our website, globaloutpouring.net
and make sure that you've connected with us
on our email lists.
And make sure that you have started making provision
and making steps to come to Global Outpouring
and making sure that you have started making provision
and making steps to come to Global Outpouring Convention 2025.
This is going to be such an amazing gathering.
It's an opportunity to get to know one another better.
It's going to be May 21st through 24th in St. Louis
at the St. Louis Airport Marriott,
right across from the airport.
It's so easy to get to.
It's right off of the interstate, so easy to get to.
And we will be having wonderful speakers.
Siggy O'Blander is going to be our opening night speaker.
She's an amazing woman of God that was born in Berlin
when the bombs were falling there during World War II.
And she lived on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall.
She was raised under communism.
And boy, does she have an amazing perspective
about communism and what it's like to live under it.
So many people are thinking,
oh, communism sounds so good.
No, communism isn't good.
And you just need to go back to the podcast
that we did with her.
We'll put that link in the show notes
where she's talking about it.
But she is an amazing woman of God
that loves the deep things of the Word of God.
And God just opens things to her and gives her treasures,
absolute treasures.
And she's always got the Word of the Lord,
just an amazing prophetic gift.
So she's going to be with us
and we'll have Tony Kemp with us.
Also an amazing man of God
just pours out from the deep things of the Lord.
And Dean Braxton will be with us
and he'll be having a question and answer period
as well as an opportunity to speak in a regular session.
So we just want to encourage you,
this is a time when you can grow in God in an amazing way.
It's a family camp, bring your whole family.
We've got something for every age group
and all of our lives will be changed
and brought closer to Jesus.
This is a place that you have always wanted to go to,
to find your tribe and find the people
that are hungering for God like you are.
So today we're going to spin off
of a couple of the sessions that we did with Dean Braxton.
We did episode 237 called
One of Heaven's Best-Kept Secrets, The Joy of Serving.
And also in episode 250,
Dean was answering questions from our listeners.
And one of the questions had to do with serving.
And so, you handle this kind of thing
and you hear these things
and I've just been meditating on it.
I just always want to be growing in God, don't you?
Yes, amen.
There's no end.
Are we supposed to?
Well, yeah.
We're not supposed to get stale.
We're supposed to keep growing.
We're supposed to keep putting our roots deeper
and our branches reaching out higher and bearing fruit
and bringing forth fruit from the things
that we're learning from the word of God.
So as I was getting up this morning,
in fact, I hadn't even gotten out of bed yet.
I was just kind of working on it.
And the thought came to my mind, how can I serve you?
I was speaking to the Lord
because I love for my first thoughts
to be reaching out to him.
And I was just saying, Lord, how can I serve you?
Because that's the question
in case you didn't hear those other episodes.
The question in heaven that you ask of everyone
is how can I serve you?
And everyone is asking you the same thing.
How can I serve you?
And Dean talked about it in the last episode,
in episode 250, about what that looks like
and how he experienced it.
But as I was saying this to the Lord,
I remembered also about what Dean said
about serve him with a smile,
that even a smile is serving him.
And I kind of got thinking about,
because when we were interviewing him,
when he said it, it reminded me of how many times,
like if I'm just in a store or out in public somewhere,
I just smile at people.
Yeah, I do that too.
Yeah, there's something, because smiles are contagious.
And a lot of them smile back too.
That's the whole point.
I look at people with the sourest look on their face
and I smile at them.
And most of them can come up with a smile
or at least attempt.
Once in a great while, you see somebody
that just keeps on looking at you sour.
But most of the time, you have brightened their day.
You have served them by giving them a smile.
So I was giving the Lord a smile this morning
as I was thinking about how can I serve you?
And I thought, okay, I'm gonna serve you with a smile.
I put a smile on my face.
Philip didn't even see me
because I wasn't facing that direction.
So I'm just having this little talk with the Lord
as we're making the bed.
And then it occurred to me that the word how
isn't the same as what.
Like when we think of how can I serve you,
you have a tendency to think of what task.
What task you have for me today.
Yeah, what project can I do for you today?
I'm gonna do a nice little project for you.
What's on your agenda for me to do, right?
But the word how is an adverb.
And if you don't remember that from English grammar
or you maybe never learned it,
an adverb is a word that describes the action word.
So it's not about what you're doing.
It's not about the doing of it itself.
It's about how you do it.
And then I realized, oh, well, this is like an attitude.
Oh, this goes a little deeper.
So then I started digging.
And I went to the dictionary.com.
I've got a little dictionary app on my phone.
And it says for the word how,
it said in what manner or way, by what means or process.
That's the first one.
And the second one was to what degree or extent,
number or amount, in what proportion,
by what measure or quality.
And the example that was given,
cause this is a really old dictionary.
I think it's probably from the 18 something Websters.
The example that they gave was from Psalm 119 verse 97.
Oh, how I love your law.
It is my meditation all the day, how.
Okay.
So then I went a little deeper on the internet.
The first thing that came up for a dictionary definition
was from the Oxford languages.
It's talking about the adverb how.
And the first one is in what way or manner,
by what means, for example, how does it work?
Two, used to ask about the condition
or quality of something.
How was your vacation?
Number three, used to ask about someone's physical
or mental state.
How are the children?
Okay, think of this in terms of how can I serve you?
Okay, quality.
Quality.
By what manner.
The fourth one is used to ask about the extent
or degree of something.
How old are you?
Okay, so how you serve could be to what extent?
To what degree can I serve you?
Five, used to express a strong feeling such as surprise
about the extent of something.
How kind it was of him.
Okay.
And number six, the way in which that,
in other words, she told us how she had lived
out of a suitcase for a week.
Okay, the way in which she lived.
So how can I serve you?
In what way can I serve you?
And then seven, any way in which, however,
like I'll do business how I like.
So the point is that there's something about how,
how we are to serve him.
So as I was meditating on this,
I was reminded of this idea of serving the Lord
with gladness.
Psalm 100 from the Amplified Classic says,
serve the Lord with gladness.
Serve the Lord with gladness.
Okay, so we're gonna serve him.
How can I serve you?
I'm gonna serve you with.
Gladness.
So, and then it goes on to explain what that looks like.
Come before his presence with singing.
Know, perceive, recognize, and understand with approval
that the Lord or Yehovah, that's his name,
he is God, that the Lord is God.
It is he who has made us, not we ourselves.
You know, so many times in our current culture,
we're talking about a self-made person, you know?
And we have all these books about self-help
and all these videos.
You can go through YouTube and there's a gazillion videos
about how to help yourself.
What can you do to make yourself better?
But it's really about him who made us,
and he designed us to work with him.
So going on, it says, we are his people
and the sheep of his pasture.
He's our shepherd, remember?
Okay, verse four says, we're still looking at how
to serve the Lord.
We're gonna serve him with gladness.
Here's what it looks like.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving
and a thank offering and into his courts with praise.
So be thankful and say so to him.
Bless and affectionately praise his name,
for the Lord is good.
His mercy and loving kindness are everlasting.
His faithfulness and truth endure to all generations.
So that's how we can serve the Lord with gladness.
We can praise him.
We can be thankful to him.
And when we express our thanks,
I've said this before, but it bears repeating.
Our pastor used to say,
I've never met an unhappy, thankful person.
Yeah.
In other words, when you're thankful, it makes you happy.
You can just, you know, the more thankful you are,
the happier you are.
And you can get yourself out of the doldrums
by starting to say thanks.
Oh, yes.
Thank you, Lord.
Well, it's true.
Remember the story of the guy in prison
that they called the animal?
Yeah.
They threw him a copy of From Prison to Praise.
The guard says, hear animal, read this.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was him.
Yeah, so he was put in the hole,
which was a solitary confinement thing
that they had to let him down into this room.
Yeah, and they called him an animal
because he kind of acted like a wild one.
Yeah, yeah.
And he couldn't be tamed.
He absolutely couldn't be tamed.
Everybody else, they spent one time in the hole
and they learned their lesson
and they learned to have some self-control
so that they didn't go back there.
It worked for them, but it didn't work for him.
He was just so angry and so vicious
and so bitter and so animalish.
Animal, yeah.
And so this Christian guard threw him this book
and said, here animal, read this.
So he read it.
And the whole point of that book by Merlin Carruthers,
it's a fantastic book.
You should read it if you haven't read it.
The whole point of it is learning to praise
and give thanks under all kinds of circumstances,
no matter what, no matter what, no matter what,
no matter what.
And that's really hard a lot of times.
Oh yeah.
So in mockery, this guy they called the animal,
he starts saying, oh right then I'll do it.
Thank you God that my mother abandoned me
when I was a baby.
Now I might not be remembering exactly what I said.
I'm probably making up some of this,
but something along these lines.
Thank you God that my father abused me.
Thank you God that he got me drinking alcohol
when I was eight years old.
Thank you God that I started smoking when I was seven.
Thank you God that, you know,
and all these awful, awful things that happened to him.
So then what happened?
Then Jesus came into the cell.
Yeah.
Came into the pit.
Yep, the hole.
The hole, Jesus came into the hole where he was.
Yes. Wow.
And in that moment, the man felt love
for the first time in his life.
Wow.
He hadn't ever felt it before.
He didn't know what it was.
And there he was being loved by his maker,
loved by the one who gave his life
to deliver him from all the sorrows,
to deliver him from all the pains,
to deliver him from all the abuse,
to deliver him from all the demons, deliverance.
And he came up out of that hole, a totally different man.
They didn't know who he was.
Yeah, he wasn't an animal anymore.
No, he wasn't an animal and he wanted to hug everybody.
He wanted to share the love that he had gotten.
So in his presence, we get this joy from his love.
And sometimes, sometimes we don't even think
about his love so much, but his presence is love.
And so in his presence is this fullness of joy.
And at his right hand are pleasures forevermore.
That's Psalm 16 verse 11.
It says, you will show me the path of life
in your presence is fullness of joy
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
And then in Psalm 95 verse two,
it says, let us come before his presence with thanksgiving.
That's another one.
Okay, it's the same idea as in Psalm 100 that we just read
and make a joyful noise unto him with Psalms.
So it's not just about having a joyful attitude,
but it comes out your mouth
that you begin to sing to him.
And to sing to him.
Which starts in your heart.
Right.
And something happens, I think, in your brain.
I think it releases chemicals in your brain
that are happy chemicals.
Endorphins?
Endorphins, yeah.
I think when you start singing happy songs,
when you start singing joyfully,
when you start, listen, even if you don't sing on key,
go ahead and sing.
Because it makes your father happy.
He gave you a voice.
Okay?
And don't think your voice isn't trainable.
The problem isn't that your voice isn't trainable.
It's just that your ear needs to be trained.
You need to learn to hear the note and match it.
And you can be trained.
Don't think you can't.
Don't let anybody tell you you can't.
Because you can.
And you just have to learn to hear and repeat.
And match it.
And so it's just a process of learning.
But don't stop singing just because somebody said,
oh, please don't sing.
You know, maybe sing by yourself to the Lord.
Maybe don't sing in front of other people
until you're more confident to do it.
But do sing.
Come before his presence with singing.
It makes a difference in your inner man.
See, you're building up your spirit.
You're building up your spirit.
Really, what you're doing when you say,
how can I serve you?
When you start serving him with joy,
when you start serving him out of your love for him,
when you start serving him in relationship with God,
in relationship, you are doing something
that is building up your spirit
because his spirit is inhabiting your spirit.
Yeah, that's good.
You become one with him.
That is the beginning.
Paul talks about it as being the earnest of the inheritance
when you get the Holy Spirit.
This is like the engagement ring that will show everyone
that you're engaged to Jesus
by having his spirit working with your spirit.
So how can I serve you has to do with serving in the spirit,
serving with joy.
So what happens when you get in his presence with singing
and in his presence with thanksgiving?
It gives you fullness of joy.
And then what do you get?
Well, the joy of the Lord is your strength.
Yes.
From Nehemiah 8.10.
That's when they're building the wall.
Okay.
I'm sure, because in most of these that came back,
they never saw the former Jerusalem,
only if they were probably over 70 years old,
which means if they were young, whatever age they were,
76, 78, they wouldn't remember what the temple looked like.
But when they came, all's there is is piles of rubble.
Now, how do they move those rocks?
I mean, if you go today, you go to the retaining wall
because that's what's there.
How long are some of those big heavy rocks
that were put in place?
Oh, they're massive.
There are tons and tons and tons.
Tons and tons.
How did they get there?
So, and that's the second temple.
This is the retaining wall of the second temple.
But the first temple, well, however big the stones were,
they're all in pieces.
So that means you'd have to use pieces that were,
maybe the stones, they stayed together,
it was the mortar where they just broke and fell down.
We don't know.
Yeah, that could be.
At least some of it would be.
So I think the Nehemiah 8.10 was actually
after the wall was completed
and they hung the door and they're dedicating it.
So that's when he says, go your way, eat the fat,
drink the sweet, in other words, eat rich foods.
Drink, celebrate, send portions to them that have nothing
for this day is holy to our Lord.
Neither be sorry for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
There's something about joy that gives you the strength
to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Yeah, it's like Jesus said, with joy, he endured the cross.
Yes, in Hebrews 12.1.
Who for the joy that was set before him.
The joy that was set before him.
It's like he was in the spirit looking on the other side
as a result of what this was gonna be,
knowing that this is worth it.
Yes, it is.
And whatever you're going through
and something of great trial on the other end,
it's gonna be worth it, hallelujah.
Amen, amen.
So how can I serve you?
Let's talk a little bit more about how
and what does it look like?
It's not just doing the thing,
it's how you do the thing that he gives you to do.
He may have called you as a street preacher,
he may have called you as a garbage collector,
he may have called you as a teacher,
he may have called you as a lawyer.
Whatever he's called you to do, it's how you serve him.
Yes. Okay?
So from the Passion Translation,
Psalm 63, four and five says,
daily I will worship you passionately and with all my heart.
See, that's how we're gonna serve him.
Passionately with all our hearts.
My arms, I love this,
my arms will wave to you like banners of praise.
That's beautiful.
Think of it even as an exercise.
When you lift your hands and move them in the air,
it's doing good for your body even.
Yeah.
Okay, verse five, I overflow with praise
when I come before you,
for the anointing of your presence
satisfies me like nothing else.
You are such a rich banquet of pleasure to my soul.
Isn't that beautiful?
So that's how we're gonna serve him.
We're gonna serve him with worship passionately,
with all our hearts, with our arms moving.
These are things that Dean talks about in his book,
Deep Worship in Heaven,
that even every little motion,
every movement is worship to him.
Beautiful.
And when we get ahold of this idea
that instead of that you do something
because that's what you've been told to do,
you do it by rote, you do it by habit.
This is how we do it.
We go to the church and we open the book
and we do this and we do that.
And in some churches you kneel and get up
and then you kneel again and get up
and you do this and you do that.
But sometimes it's done just by habit
without being engaged in our spirit and soul and body.
Maybe our body's doing it,
but our mind is someplace else.
Someplace else.
But this is serving him how?
With gladness, serving him with joy,
lifting our hands.
Psalm 71, 23 says,
My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing to you.
Isn't that beautiful?
And my soul which you have redeemed.
So it sets your soul and even your lips.
We think of what he did for us.
Oh yeah.
Right.
But here's a secret I think as we look at this.
That if you keep your lips,
if you keep your lips rejoicing
instead of saying negative things,
if you keep your lips speaking the right words,
it's going to keep your lips
and other parts of you out of trouble.
Yeah. Well speak joy over yourself.
Yes.
You know in the faith movement,
it's speaking the word,
you speak the word healing over yourself.
Yes.
Which means you don't speak yourself getting old.
Because if you speak over yourself,
okay you'll get old.
I hate people in their early 60s,
I'm getting old.
No.
No way.
You have to totally change your way of thinking.
It's like that song,
we don't use it much,
10,000 reasons.
Yeah we don't sing that much.
Bless the Lord on my soul.
We never sing that last verse.
You know when I'm old and.
No, no, no.
No we don't sing that.
I thought no.
I'm not going to speak old over myself.
I speak young over myself.
Yes.
That's right.
Just speak the word over yourself.
That's right.
That you know keeps your brain.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
Keep your brain young.
That's right.
And I remember what the Lord spoke to Claren McQueen
when he was,
I think he was just getting into his 60s.
And he started talking to the Lord about,
I'm getting old now.
And the Lord said,
you're not old, you're trained.
You're trained.
We are trained.
There we go.
But the training continues.
Because it goes on through eternity.
And these things just keep getting better
and better and bigger and bigger.
And it's kind of like,
oh.
It's kind of like taking the test
for forgetting your ham license,
your amateur radio license.
So I just took my test.
And I passed.
Thank you Jesus.
But the three different levels of these things,
you know, you get the first level
and I got the first level down.
I got it.
Yeah, I got 100%.
I understood that one pretty well.
Because I began to understand it more
as I studied the second level.
Yeah, okay.
But I went ahead and tried taking the third level test
even though I hadn't studied for it.
It was like, oh, this is way over my head.
This is way, I don't know any of this.
But you know, the point is that as we grow in God,
we learn more, we understand more.
And you gotta know this listener,
there always will be more for you to get from God.
Everything, everything, everything gets better.
It gets bigger.
As wonderful as it is today,
wait till tomorrow.
It's gonna be even more wonderful.
Wait until the next moment.
The next moment in his presence is greater.
It's better than the last moment.
It just keeps getting better.
The more and more joyful you are,
the more you stay in his presence.
Yes.
And the more you stay in his presence,
the more joyful you get.
Yes, exactly, exactly.
It's a two-way street.
So we can keep living this life of joy,
this life of living in his presence.
There's that book by Brother Lawrence
that everybody should read.
I've read it several times.
And every now and then you gotta go read it again
about the practice of the presence of God.
And I think it's like 400 years old.
So it's a classic and it's out there.
Yeah, and he was in a monastery.
Wasn't he the cook?
Yes, he was the cook.
He wasn't any great grand saint,
except he was.
I mean, men wouldn't look at him
as being so very important,
but God found him to be a friend.
Yeah.
And he just, he was frustrated
over the fact that he would just get
into the presence of God in the prayer times,
because in a monastery there's a prayer time,
there's a work time,
then there's a prayer time,
then there's a work time,
there's a prayer time, there's a work,
and somewhere there's meals in there.
So he would just get into the presence of God,
and then it was time to go back to work.
And he was frustrated with that.
So he began to practice the presence
even while he was working.
Yeah.
So he didn't lose that sense of the presence of God
in his working.
And his writings are out there on the internet.
You can find free PDF downloads that you can read,
and we'll see if we can put a link to it
in the show notes,
because it's a good read,
especially if you get a more modern translation.
I think it was written,
I think the man was French,
but I'm not sure.
So the point is that practicing his presence,
this is how you serve him,
that everything that you do,
everything that we do is done in his presence.
Well, that keeps you out of trouble.
You're not gonna be led into temptation
when you're staying in his presence.
That's true.
So God's trying to get us
into that kind of relationship with him.
He's our father.
He designed us to work with him.
I was reading in Bruce Allen's book,
and he just has this unique relationship with the Lord.
And he says, we're about 90% in the flesh
and 10% in the spirit.
Oh Lord, help us.
Yeah, help us.
So that's why a lot of times,
if our mind dominates that much,
that's only a 10% chance you're doing okay,
that you're really hearing the spirit of God,
unless you're just totally locked in.
Yeah.
And that's where God can speak to you in the night
when you're sleeping
and your brain is hopefully is resting.
Yeah, for sure.
I'm reminded of Psalm 107,
because it says it over and over again.
Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness
and for his wonderful works to the children of men.
It's like, oh, if only,
if only people would just praise him,
because he's so good.
And he's done so many things for us.
And he's constantly,
we don't have any idea how many times every single day
that he has intervened to protect us.
Beautiful, yeah.
Or to help us in some way.
We're so clueless, but the more you recognize it,
the more you recognize those little kisses
that he gives you, that's what I call it.
Can I just tell that kiss story, Philip?
Yeah.
The story that one of our members told us,
I've never forgotten it.
And I've probably told it here before,
but in case you missed it, or it's just a good story.
This gal, she likes coffee with something sweet.
And she likes something sweet with coffee,
never one without the other.
And she was watching, a commercial came on the TV
about Oreo cookies.
And the commercial was-
Unless you're good anytime, really.
Unless you're staying off them, yeah.
Unless you're carnivore.
So the advertisement said, Oreo cookies,
the cookie that loves milk.
And she spoke to the TV and said,
ah, it's not the cookie that loves milk,
it's the cookie that loves coffee.
And she went on about her business and so on.
Well, not long after that, she was in a restaurant
and she had just finished her dinner
and she had her dessert with coffee, right?
So the waiter comes along with a pot of coffee
and says, would you like some more coffee?
She said, no, thank you.
I have already had my sweet thing.
I don't know if she had pie or whatever it was she had,
pie or cake, whatever.
And she says, no, I've already finished my sweet thing
so I don't want any more coffee.
I only have coffee with something sweet.
He says, oh, well, let me see what I can do.
He disappears and he comes back with a little plate
with Oreo cookies on it.
And she heard the Lord say, I was listening.
Now that's a kiss from the Lord.
And it turns out that this guy went into his own
personal backpack in the kitchen and pulled out Oreo cookies
from his supply of Oreo cookies to serve to her.
That's real love, to give up your Oreo cookies
to somebody you don't even know.
I know, but that's a kiss from the Lord.
See, he was prompted by the Holy Spirit.
He had no idea he was being called.
He had no idea he was being prompted by the Holy Spirit.
We don't realize how much the Lord is intervening
every single day, every moment of every day.
And so we can rejoice.
We can serve him with gladness.
We can serve him with joy.
I love how it says in Acts chapter two,
this is after they've received the baptism
of the Holy Spirit, this outpouring of the Holy Spirit
that happened in Acts two.
So in verses 46 and 47, it says,
and they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple
and breaking bread from house to house,
did eat their food with gladness and singleness of heart,
praising God and having favor with all the people.
And the Lord added to the church daily,
such as should be saved.
Can you realize the, you have to understand
the joy they have here.
They've been on the Old Testament rituals,
just going to the temple, getting cleansed.
Messiah has come.
This is what we've been waiting for.
I mean, it's just like, still today,
they're waiting for the Messiah.
It'll be the second time for us and the first time for them.
But the incredible joy of the Messiah,
everything that was prophesied,
everything they've been waiting for,
here he is, we're serving him and he lives in us.
Yes, yes.
And his spirit is in us too.
Right, it's not just for the prophets.
It's not just for the high priest,
for the spirit of God to come on him.
Because most of the high priests,
there was only a handful of them
that were serving Jehovah with gladness.
Well, that's probably true.
Like Nicodemus and different ones,
and they had to be hidden.
Because they lose their position or they might get,
who knows what would happen.
Right.
So there's an interesting scripture in Deuteronomy 28.
Now the first 14 verses are verses of blessings.
This is what happens to you when you serve the Lord.
This is what happens to you.
I will bless your storage.
I will bless your fields.
I will bless your flocks.
Bless your basket and your store.
Everything, everything.
I'm going to bless it.
Bless, bless, bless, bless for 14 verses.
Then from verse 15 to the end of the chapter
is a whole list of very specific curses.
And verse 47 sits kind of in the middle of all that.
And it says, because you didn't serve the Lord or Jehovah,
your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart
for the abundance of all things.
And then there's 20 more verses of curses.
So he designed us, here's the point.
He designed us to work with him and serve him with love
and serve him with gladness and serve him with joy
because he made us.
He's our father.
It's meant to be God and Son's wonder working company.
Yes.
That's what it's meant to be.
And he wants us to know him
to know how to run the family business.
That's what growing up in God is all about
is maturing into that place where we have the checkbook
and we can work with people
who want to make contracts with our father.
We can represent him in a contract
and he approves of it because we're trained by him.
He made us to work with him.
So, you know, he designed us.
Yes.
He designed us to show forth his glory
and his character in the earth
so that we have this mindset of doing on earth
as it is in heaven.
And that's why I so appreciate the fact
that God has allowed us to connect with Dean Braxton
to get more of an understanding of how it is in heaven
so that we can do it on earth as it is in heaven.
As it is in heaven, yes.
And on earth as it is in heaven,
remember what he said about every moment it's better.
Every moment our father's more glorious.
Every moment he loves us more.
Every moment is greater.
Every moment is more, more so than the moment before.
So we can live on the earth, how can I serve you?
I can serve him in expectation
of the next thing being better than the first thing
or the thing that we just had a moment ago.
That whatever miracles that we saw yesterday,
whatever miracles are in the Bible,
we're gonna see something more so.
See bigger ones tomorrow.
Bigger so, bigger and greater.
Jesus said that-
Greater things shall you do.
Yes, that's right.
Because I go to the father.
So do we believe it?
Yes.
We need to believe it.
Is that our expectation?
Yeah.
Is it our expectation to see God do greater things?
You know, Michael Van Blimey in his books,
when he describes just waiting on God,
he says you expect him to come.
Yes.
Expect him to come.
I thought, okay, that's,
so if you expect him all the time to do something,
he'll do it.
Yes.
And when we're walking in that joy,
when we're walking in that peace,
we are carriers of an atmosphere of heaven
that is affecting the atmosphere around us.
Yes.
I remember hearing Sister Gwen telling about her friend
that worked in the Philippines.
We carry her book in the bookstore.
It's called The Men in My Life.
And she was like a chaplain or had a ministry
in the prison in the Philippines.
And you know, she was working with these guys on death row
and bringing them to the Lord.
And there was a time that there was a prison riot
and she had to go in and bring peace.
She carried an atmosphere of the presence of God
that overwhelmed the atmosphere of those demons
in the men that were upset about
whatever they were upset about.
And it made a difference.
It stopped the riot.
God can do those things.
Get an expectation that he will do that with you.
Don't be afraid to walk in to something that is
like Daniel going into the lion's den.
I was just listening to that this morning on my Bible app.
He was thrown into the den of lions,
but God kept the lion's mouth shut.
And he will do that for us as we are faithful with him
in our relationship.
Daniel was faithful.
Daniel was absolutely determined
that he's not gonna defile himself.
He's gonna do in Babylon.
Remember the letter that Jeremiah wrote to the exiles
was telling them, okay, you're gonna be here for 70 years.
So plant gardens and build houses
and let your life help to bring peace to this place.
So that's how we've been planted here on planet earth.
To be atmosphere changers.
And as we carry that joy of the Lord,
as we carry that peace, as we carry his character,
it's changing the situation.
It's bringing light into darkness.
Hallelujah.
So I wanna close with just a couple of thoughts here
from Jude chapter one, there's only one chapter,
verses 24 and 25.
It says, now unto him that is able to keep you from falling.
That's a powerful scripture.
I love that.
You know, sometimes especially when we're first in our walk
and we stumble quite a lot.
He's able to keep you from falling, beloved.
He is able to keep you from falling.
The more time you spend in his presence,
the less time you're likely to have falling.
Okay, he will keep you.
He will keep you on your feet.
Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling
and to present you faultless, faultless.
Don't let that accuser make you think
that you are less than faultless
because Jesus' blood covers everything that you have done.
If you've received him, just ask him to forgive you.
And if you fell this morning,
just ask him to forgive you
and get back into his presence.
Don't carry it around all day.
Yeah, don't carry it around.
Don't let that slimy Satan serpent.
Don't stay slimed.
Right, just keep getting back into his presence.
Enter his presence with thanksgiving.
Enter his courts with praise.
Thank you, Jesus, for forgiving me.
Thank you, Jesus, that you paid for this sin
to wash me clean and to change me
so that I don't do this anymore, to change my habits.
Thank you, Holy Spirit.
And just start thanking, just start praising.
He is able to present you faultless
before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.
Okay, here's the joy part.
Remember, we're serving the Lord with gladness.
How can I serve you?
With gladness.
He has been serving the Father with gladness
all the time that he was here on planet Earth.
He was serving our Father with gladness.
So it goes on in verse 25, says,
to the only wise God our Savior be glory and majesty,
dominion and power, both now and ever, amen.
Ever and ever and ever.
It's about serving him with joy.
And just to finish, this is the last passage.
John 15, verses nine through 12,
I'm gonna read it from the Amplified Classic.
This is Jesus talking to his disciples
the night that he was betrayed.
This is the upper room discourse, as they call it.
This is what he spoke to them at the last supper.
He's giving them final instructions before he's going
to be crucified.
And he says in verse nine, I have loved you
just as the Father has loved me.
Abide in my love.
Continue in his love with me.
Isn't that beautiful?
Verse 10, if you keep my commandments,
if you continue to obey my instructions,
you will abide in my love.
In other words, you're gonna live there.
You will abide in my love and live on in it
just as I have obeyed my Father's commandments
and live on in his love.
Verse 11, I have told you these things
that my joy and delight may be in you.
And that your joy and gladness may be of full measure
and complete and overflowing.
Verse 12, this is my commandment,
that you love one another just as I have loved you.
So Father, we just thank you for this enlightening
about how we can serve you, to serve you with joy,
to serve you with love, to serve you by loving you so much
that we want to obey you in everything,
that we want to give you glory,
that we want to be lights in the darkness.
Lord, we just speak this over our listeners, Father,
that you will give them this joy,
this overwhelming joy in your presence.
Father, let your presence just settle in
upon each and every one of them.
Lord, that they will feel the joy of your presence
and that they will find that your joy is their strength
for today that's gonna keep getting better every moment,
even stronger tomorrow and stronger the next day.
The joy of the Lord is their strength, is our strength.
Your presence gives us this fullness of joy
and we serve you today with this fullness of joy
and gladness in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
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Until next time, this is Sharon Buss.
And I'm Philip Buss.
God bless you with this overwhelming loving presence.
ACH putting effort into this wrong AND wrong is a sin!
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