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[Audience Applause] Wow! I love you too. [Laughter]
See God is up to something. [Audience: Yes he is.]
And the thing I love about God is that God is so amazing. All he needs is for us to just
trust him, and let Him be him. God was explosive before we discovered diamonds.
[Audience Laughter] God was fire before we figured out what flint
stones were. So, God by Himself is able all by himself. He is enough, [Laughter Ha-ha-ha]
all by himself. God is who He says He is. God never tries. He just does. And whether
or not we connect with him is on us trying, not him trying. But God is forever simply
saying, come over here to me. Come over here. He said to Israel, I will gather you underneath
my wings, come over here. Come sit with me a while. Come, I have food for you to eat
that you do not know about. Come sit by this well of water. Come drink from this water.
Come, I have food that will make you whole. I have water that will never make you thirst
again. I have something that is so eternal it will cause your temporary issues to not
rule over you any longer. Just come over here a while. Leave that stuff alone. Come over
here. Come get a drink. Come have a taste. Come sit with me. The words do not matter.
My words are light. Their words are not important. My thoughts for you are eternal. I know what
I was thinking for you before people tried to kill you, so do not let people worry you.
Come get a drink. Just drink. Sip, drink, gulp, and swim in my water. Do whatever you
want to do, but get a drink before the heat of the desert makes you see things that are
not there. [Audience: [AweÖinaudible responses] I am]
You see, the heat of our warfare, the heat of the process, and the heat of the desert
can make you see stuff that is not there. We are running towards mirages. We say, Boy
that looks great! But God is saying, OK; get you a mouthful of that sand. Come on, go ahead
pack it in. [Audience: [laughter].]
That looks wonderful! Yeah, you are sucking on the bottom of a camel. It is better to
have a whale than a camel because we are chasing something that we already have. Lord, we want
to see your kingdom. He said, Well, let me out! Let me out. Just let me out. One, two,
three Woo. We are carrying gold while we are chasing after silver. We are chasing after
something that can redeem the stuff we think we have lost while God is saying, Why take
silver when you have a gold resting in me? You have greater than what you have lost.
You have greater than what you can imagine and it is abiding in you. Would you just see
the gold that is hiding in the glory and stop chasing the silver that you think could redeem
the stuff you no longer even need? We are trying to get stuff back we no longer need.
How do you know you do not need it? You survived! If you are still breathing, you did not need
it. If you can still function, you did not need it. If you still have your mind and your
peace, you did not even need the stuff you used to think about, talk about, and chase.
Sometimes God has to let us lose some things so that we can finally recognize we never
needed them. You do not know what you can live without until you have to live without
it? [laughter]. [Audience: [laughter].]
Awe, you might as well get ready for a ride baby, because I know we are going somewhere.
[Audience: Applause.] God calls us on a great journey. I am not
going to be long. I hear doubt and unbelief. Perhaps the spirit of skepticism is in this
room! [Audience: Laughter.]
I bind the spirit of skepticism, although your doubt is truth. I have no problem. You
recognize if somebody tells you they are lying, you cannot get mad at them because they already
told you they are lying. Hereís what I have discovered. God calls us on a journey. As
he brings us towards the destiny he has promised, he now requires that we believe him. Not because
of the process but in spite of the trouble. See, the only way to know you are mature enough
to have dominion in a situation is that you do not let the situation mess you up.
[Audience: Inaudible agreement.] So God says, hereís what I am going to do,
I am going to tell you [Joseph] in a dream that your family is going to bow to you. And
then I am going to let that same family box you up, throw you in a hole, and sell you
to the Arabians and Egyptians. They will wave bye-bye, all your brothers, ten of them. But
one of the brothers, Benjamin, is back at home with daddy because he was too young.
His brothers did not like him any way. So your ten brothers are going, We were really
going to kill you, but this one over here, he jumped up and said, Do not kill him, do
not kill him. So nine of your brothers conspired to kill you, one agreed to sell you just so
he wouldnít feel guilty. Now your journey begins. That is not the end, it is the beginning!
Welcome to your prophecy! Howdy, howdy and hello! You signed up for this. You said yes
to Jesus and he said, Now if they did it to a green tree, they shall do it to it dry.
A servant is not above his master. If you would follow me, pick up your cross, and walk
on behind me with splinters in your shoulders. So this journey will require for you to die.
I know we do not like to talk about that any more. What do you mean die? I thought if I
said yes to Jesus, I would get to float, hover, spin, drop, get on roller skates, roll through
my problems. Yes, you get all of that and you get folks chasing you with knives, and
shooting guns and bullets in your ear. You get wolves wrapped up in sheepís clothing
and folks conspiring to kill you. You get it with hardness and trouble and persecution.
You have to wonder sometimes am I going to make it through the night and you get to do
all this while God is saying, REJOICE! [Audience: Laughter].
Rejoice and again I say REJOICE! In case you did not get this the first time, REJOICE.
And because you are not listening again, I say, REJOICE!
[Audience: Clapping] What part of that do we not understand? REJOICE!
When it is not going well, REJOICE! When you have lost everything, REJOICE. When everybody
leaves you, REJOICE! You did not like her anyway. You know youíre glad she is gone.
You know you are happy, folks have left. I am so glad some people left me. I was trying
to get rid of them without going to jail. Sitting up at night trying to figure out,
watching CSI reruns trying to figure out to bury folks and not get caught. Oh yes I was.
Confession is good for the soul. Iím going to free myself tonight. I was trying to figure
out how to bury folks and not get caught, and the Holy Ghost said, You are going hell
if you do that! I am like, Awe, man! Can I at least kill just one of them? A small one.
Let me kill a small one. It is going to take a while. The little ones. The Lord said, No.
What do I do for them? Pray for them. Bless them. Speak good about the people trying to
kill you. And I said to the Lord, but you canít be killed. You are up there. He said,
did you read where they got together and they lied about me. They talked about me. They
got the best of the best who had followed me to deny me and even those who loved me
did not show up. And while all of that was going on, I mumbled not a word. If are you
still talking, you are not dead. [Audience: Laughter]
You know we used to test to see if people were alive by putting a mirror under their
nose. You do not have to do that any longer. All you have to do is ask, Did you hear what
they said about you? Those words will cause a dead cadaver to sit up on the cold table.
You may have a sticker on your toe and have been pronounced dead, but Oh, now you come
alive! Because the test for dominion is not how you handle the anointing but how you handle
persecution. [Audience: Wow!]
We want more of your glory! No you do not. You do not know what you are asking for. [Laughter]
Ah, but they are going to kill you. And we have somehow thought that we can get what
Jesus promised without suffering what he suffered. But the process cannot be disconnected. So
if you want the best, you have to go through the worst. Welcome to the party! He gives
you a bottle of fine wine and then he waits to see if you have learned how not to whine
while you drink his wine. Oh, that is a test. Why? Because if you get inebriated enough,
you will lose the inhibition to hide what is in you. Drunken men do not become bad men;
they simply lose their inhibition to hide what is in them. So a lover becomes more loving
when they are drunk. They just love everybody. I love you. Every time I see you, you just
mean so much to me! I just want you to know as long as I have known you, you have been
my friend! Just let him hug a tree. He will be alright then. Hug a tree. Just stay out
there. Hug a tree. Just hug something. Just back up.
A mean person gets meaner. The Bible says like a drunken man raging with wine shall
the Lord wake up for battle. He makes it a perfect understanding because when you see
a drunken man wake up he swings at everything in his path. And the Lord equates himself
and connects himself to a man who is drunk with wine. He says when my people call upon
me, there will be a moment when I rage like a man angry who is full wine. I wake up fighting
everything that is in the room with you. If you know how to worship me and stay connected
to me, if you just focus on me, I will wake up like a drunken man. I will swing at everything
in your life that is not Holy and not committed to your purpose. I will kick stuff down, knock
doors open. I will drop down into the middle of the room, it is Jesus. He knows how to
fight your battle. So what is prolonging our struggle is that we are fighting our battles.
Somewhere we got to die? We must die. Now how do you die? Lay down! Lay down! The first
step is to lay down. [Audience: [Laughter].]
Down! Why is it important? Because as long as you can hold your position, you are not
dead. Dead people are not able to stay in position. Oh, see we are so busy holding position,
I am not going to let go of what is important to me. I am not going to let go of my position.
I am not going to let go of my reputation. I am not going to let go of this money. I
am not going to let go of my relationships. I am not going to let go of how people talk
about me or think about me. I am not going to let go of how you should respond to me.
I am not going to let go of this anointing, this power, or this grace. I am not going
to let go of my business. I am not going to let go of my friends. And you are holding
onto positions so tightly that you cannot die because every time you feel something
slip out of your grasp, you come back to life to get it! The Lord is saying, If you would
just let some stuff go, you could take a dying place. It is a lot easier to die when you
are not clamped onto everything. Just clamped on. Just like a pit bull dog biting into a
tire. [dog sounds]. Like a child with a candy. Like me with a bag of Cheetos chips. I will
bit your finger off if you touch my Cheetos. I will bite your hand off then repent. Yeah.
I will draw blood. Cheetos! And somewhere in the midst of our struggle we have to admit
that we would rather have position than presence. Because when you desire His presence more
than you desire your own position, you will give up anything that will weaken your connection
with the Master. So whatever I have is worth leaving, worth losing, and worth dying for.
Whatever I possess I will give up. It is nothing but an offering. I own nothing that is not
an offering. I possess nothing that canít go onto the altar. I have nothing in my world
that I cannot say goodbye to at a momentís notice because I press towards the mark for
the prize of the high calling in God and Christ Jesus. I want nothing more than I want Him.
So you can have it all. And I am not even mad that you took it because I just said you
can have it. Now hereís the test. The testing is how freely and how quickly you let go of
what you think is yours. [Audience: Oh...]
See, we tell the Lord, Lord I want to worship you. You donít do that. Then the test for
worship is what you are willing to let go of. Worship is not proved in hands lifted
or mouths open. Worship is proved in give me your only son. Well Lord, I gave you everything
else. I do not know what you gave me. I want what you got. Worship is what you give. God
gave you everything but what are you keeping back? What are you hiding from Him? What do
you think about? Do you say, I canít let that go. There was a season. I am just talking.
I am just talking. Is this helping anybody? [Audience: Clapping]
There was a season, I never forget. This was so amazing to me years ago. I was living at
the beach and the Lord said to me after I had moved to the beach. I was living down
in the marina years ago. And the Lord said to me. Here is what youíve got to do for
me. For the next year you are not going to preach. I said, Oh, no. I bind that spirit.
Because I just knew that God would not tell me to lay down this ministry he has given
me. Did he not know what I had been through for him? And so it had to be the devil because
God would never ask a minister not to minister. He would never ask a prophet not to prophesy.
He would never ask an evangelist not to preach. He would never ask a teacher to be silent.
He would never ask a prayer warrior to not share what they have seen. He would never
ask me not to let my gift lead me. I said, Oh, I bind that. And the Lord said, You bind
who? [Audience: Laughter]
I said, Lord was that you? And it was so funny. The Lord said, ìDo not play ignorant. Do
not play dumb now. You know that is me. I said, Yes, Sir. He said, You are not going
to preach. The Lord says, there will be two times in 365 days that you will be allowed
to speak and I will tell you when. And I went into a season. I was in my apartment. I had
to call back. First I called back 22 churches, that I had already said I am coming, but now
I had to cancel. Now how do you tell people No when there is nothing wrong?
[Audience: Laughter] People want a reason. Well, why arenít you
coming? Cause I am not. Are you sick. No, feeling good. Is something wrong in your family?
No. I talked to them, everyone is happy. Um, are you going to give us a reason? I do not
have one to give. I am just not coming. But why? I said, God said no. God would not say
that. I said, Well you talk to Him and find out!
[Audience: Laughter] See I discovered something. Never argue with
people if you have heard from God. That is because you can never convince a doubter to
believe and you can convince a believer to doubt. So either you heard him or you did
not. So I said, you talk to God. I said, now hereís the next piece, do not call me and
tell me what you have heard because I know I heard Him. I am not telling you to talk
to Him to get confirmation. I am telling you to talk to Him because I am done talking to
you. I hung the phone up. The second thing you have to discover when you are walking
with God is that you owe no one an explanation. You owe love, not explanations. We have allowed
ourselves to be manipulated into a place of losing our joy and giving up our authority
because we are explaining our faith away to people who are not even going to believe you
when you tell them everything you have heard. So we waste time and energy fighting with
people whose one purpose in their life is to get you to slow down enough so they can
finally tell people, see they are not anointed. Their entire purpose is to get you off track
so they can say to people, see, I told you they were going to get mad. So they set you
up to let your soul expose your weakness. Oh, I know this must be Him because everybody
just got quiet. [Audience: Laughter]
You have to understand there are people who come into our lives who like Tobiah said to
Nehemiah, Come down from this wall. Now first we will talk to you and if talking does not
get it, then we will write to you. We are going to send you emails. We are going to
send you texts. We are going to send you messages. If that doesnít work, we are going to go
into the temple and we are going to talk to all of your friends and try to convince them
to stand with us to convince you to come down. If that does not work, we will write the government.
We will talk to people above you who you respect so maybe they can influence you to give up
your destiny. But the key is, you have to know your calling is sure. You have to say,
I have heard God. Therefore, I am not debating. I am not arguing. I am not manipulated and
I am not going to be intimidated. I am just not moving. I am not moving because when you
get through talking, I am still called. My calling must be fulfilled. I still have an
assignment and if I focus on the people who are talking I will not complete my assignment.
[Audience: Celebratory agreement] How many of you have every played basketball?
How many of you have ever seen a basketball? How many of you have ever heard the word basketball?
Some of you are looking at me like you never heard of one. You heard me say basketball
twice. When you are shooting a free throw and the opposing team is standing right here,
what do they do? They start talking, chattering, and smacking. You cannot shoot that ball.
Now thatís the nice games. In the other games we talk about your mama. We talk about your
last few games. We talk about you and call you everything but a child of God. We are
going to work on your nerves. Why? Because if I can get under your skin, your shot is
going to miss. Your skill has now yielded to your irritation. Some of us are highly
anointed and called by God, but the reason we have not completed what we are destined
to do is because every time we are about ready to cross the line into greatness, someone
irritates us to the place that we cease being skillful and we become willful. And we spend
so much time trying to prove to people that we know who we are, we actually reveal that
we do not know who we are. I do not have to convince you that I am Michael Dalton baby
I know it. My daddy told me I was Michael Dalton. You can walk up on me if you want
too and I am going to look at you like you are crazy. And if you talk too much, Iíll
punch you in your throat. Listen, I do not cuss, but I will punch you, right in your
Adamís apple. And then I will pray for you. I am going to pray you back. I will bring
it off of you. I am going to call life into you. I am going to pray that God touch you
real good and I am going to help you up off the floor. I am going to drop you a couple
of times on the way up. And for those of you who are wondering if I meant that, I would
not do it all. [Laughter]. Some of you all got nervous. [laughter]. When you are free
in your own soul, you can be free. And here is what I discovered, because my daddy told
me who I was, there is nobody who can tell me who I am not.
[Audience: Amen] If someone comes and tells me Larry Dalton
is not your father, I am going to laugh at them. That does not move me. Why? Because
I have had enough relationship with Larry Edward Dalton. He fathered me. He spoke over
me. He gave me my destiny. He spoke life into me. He showed me how to be a young man. He
taught me how to be a man. He taught me how to relate to women. He taught me how to relate
to other gentlemen. He taught me how to walk. Taught me how to think. Taught me how to talk.
How to address people. How to survive stress. How to walk in structure. How to be pushed
back but not fall. How to be intimidated but not give in. He taught me those things. He
taught me how to pray, how to hear God, and how to worship by following him. He sat me
down beside him when he prayed so I could learn what it felt like when God came into
the room. He said, did you feel that? I said, Yes, I did. He said, thatís God moving upon
you. Did you hear that? Yes I did. Thatís the voice of God. He taught me how to walk
with God so now if someone comes up and says, you did not hear God, thatís not God, I am
telling you youíre not his son, my response is, You are crazy. Because Iíve spent too
much time being invested in by God to be divested by you.
[Audience: AhhÖ] Somewhere we have to be convinced of who we
are and the more that you are convinced of who you are, the next step is now that conviction
must become propulsion. There is a speed that comes into your life the moment you recognize
the fullness of who you are created to be. Momentum begins to be increased because suddenly
you begin to connect with people of like minds and like calling and like anointing and then
a synergy begins to take place where you are moving faster than you could move by yourself.
Now God brings you into a place of destiny which is also a place of density. Now you
begin to get pulled into the fullness of what God has for you but it begins to happen so
quickly that nothing around you can slow you down because now you are collapsing into destiny.
You are being folded over into who you are destined to be and now you wake up one day
saying, I have apprehended that for which also I was apprehended. I have become what
I was called to be. I see who I am and the devil cannot stop me and people cannot slow
me down, so whatever happens, I know who I am.
[Audience: Applause] You gotta know it! You gotta know it! Youíve
got to be so convinced of who you are that fear cannot mess with your mind. Doubt cannot
slow you down and people cannot push you back. You have to be so convinced of who you are
that you can stand of the edge of hell and preach with power and speak a Word of God.
You must believe in you. We have spent so much time convincing people to believe in
God, when God said I am trying to get you to believe in you. See believing in God is
the first half of the journey. That now ignites the power of God in your life. But have you
ever seen a fire ignite? It burns brightly and brilliantly but it is encapsulated into
one place. You do not pick up a fire easily. You will lose the hair on your arm. Gone.
Some of yíall wrestled with a fire too long and some of yíall leave looking like me.
Youíre a little bit lighter than meÖshouldnít have grabbed that wood burning. Got tanned
real good. Now what happens is this, you go from fire burning in one place, that same
fire that is burning in one place, if you take hair spray, something flammable. Let
me say to all you crazy people in the room. I am not telling you to go home and do this.
Do not do this. Warning. Warning. Disclaimer. Do not do this. The Lord is not saying this
to you. The Lord is not going to speak to you later and tell you to do this. That would
be a spirit of the enemy. Warning, warning, crazy people do not do this.
If you took something flammable. You have to say that because crazy people will hide
in congregations, go do something crazy and then say the man of God said. No the man of
God did not say that. We have to make that clear because many of us go into places looking
for permission to do something that is not even biblical.
[Audience: Agreement in unison] So we are just going to make something real
clear, if you get a prophetic word and it gives you permission to do something that
is not biblical, that prophetic word was a lie. If you get permission to do something
that is not spiritual, that word was a lie. If you get permission to do something that
is illegal, that word was a lie. I do not care who said it. I do not care how anointed
they are, they are lying. God will not lead you into immorality, illegality, or spiritual
destruction. [Audience: Yes, amen]
So back to it, you have a fire someone puts something flammable in front of it, that fire
now suddenly goes forth. It explodes. It gains momentum. God has told us to believe his word.
As we have believed his Word, fire begins to burn within us. Jeremiah said, Your word
is like fire shut up in my bones. There is a word that runs within me it goes so deep
it is birthed out of my spirit from his spirit into my spirit and it is fiery. Why? Because
he takes words from his own lips and they come like burning coals from off his alter.
When his words get into your spirit, they cleanse you, they redeem you, they cause you
now to become an agent of change in your atmosphere. But now that fire within you, what happens
is when you put some flammable breath. Do you believe what God has said about you? See
the fire that is within you is never going to fully get out of you into the atmosphere
catching people on fire around you, causing lives to be ignited and changed until you
add something flammable. What is that? The prophetic Word of God out of your mouth. In
your heart it is the Word of God- the logos; his word abiding within you transforming and
changing you. There comes a moment when it has to go from being in here to now being
out here. Out here it only brings effect and dynamic change when you are convinced of who
you are. That is why we have a lot of people saying the same words, things do not happen.
We have more people prophesying today than we ever had folks prophesy and weíve got
more stuff still the same. Why? Because it is not enough to hear a word and speak a word.
You must convinced you have a right to speak that word and that is birthed in a process
of submission through His will. There is a submission that must take place in our lives
whereby we now have legal authority to decree things into the atmosphere and the atmosphere
must obey us because it has witnessed our lives. I will say this and then we will just
about be done. Is this alright? [Audience: YesÖyes]
The scripture says that we would bring wisdom, we would teach principalities and powers wisdom.
They would learn the wisdom by watching us. I see I used to always read that and I would
go, thatís phenomenal, what does that mean? The Lord took me on a journey one day, he
said, ìLet me show you what that means.î If they are watching you, what they are watching,
wisdom. Wisdom is what? Wisdom is correct application of knowledge at hand. Correct
application of knowledge at hand. We are going to teach them wisdom. What does that mean?
They are going to watch us apply knowledge correctly. So they only way that you gain
authority for principalities and powers to actually respond to you when you enter an
atmosphere, when you enter a territory, when you enter into adversarial situations is they
have to have witnessed you applying the word God gives you correctly. So if they have been
witnessed just like the angels are witness to prophetic words going forth, the atmosphere
is witness that we have received 20 words and obeyed none. Selah. The atmosphere has
witnessed that God has come to us six times and said go do this. Yeah, yeah Lord, Iíll
get to it later. The atmosphere is witness that God has given us many opportunities to
forgive and get restored with family members who we are still arguing with and we walk
by them with a smirk instead of stopping and repenting and so now we stand up and we begin
to weep and cry and intercede for our family and we stay to the atmosphere, ìLoose my
family!î And the atmosphere says, you did not even hug them when you got mad at them
so why would I obey you concerning them, when you do not like them. The wisdom that should
have been distributed was never seen because you did not apply the knowledge from the word
you already knew. Lord we want to see you move. God says, ìYou do? Yes. Okay, then
lay down your offenses with each otherî. Lord I would rather be offended.
[Audience: Laughter] Okay, weíre being real for a moment. I do
not know how to be anything but real, thatís all I know. He cast the fake out of me a long
time ago. He got it out. He got it out. You know how he got it out? I am going to take
you on a quick journey. The Lord 12 years ago, when I moved to California, the Lord
sent me to visit a church, Hollywood Presbyterian. I went to visit that church. First of all
I had to tell you, they were not worshiping like we worship today. They were very Hollywood
and very Presbyterian. [Audience: Laughter]
They were equal to their name. And I walked in and I looked around and I said, look at
these people. The Lord, I know why he broke me. You have sent me to bring correction.
I shall stand up in the midst of these people and I shall tell them the Lord is not pleased
with you. Repent. Repent. Repent. And I was ready. I was ready. I had my black prophet
suit on. I had the black tie that went down the middle and I was ready. I had my little
white handkerchief in my pocket. I was ready. They were going to repent or I was going to
bury them. It was one or the other. That was my [37.48.1] suit. That was my suit. I was
like, repent. And half way through the service, the Lord said to me, ìYou know what your
problem is?î I said, ìYes Lord, what is their problem?î He said, ìNot their problem,
your problemî. I said, ìLord I do not have a problem.î I did. And the Lord said to me,
ìAre you telling me you do not have a problem?î I said, ìPerhaps I was too quick to answer
you, maybe I do. Lord what is my problem?î The Lord said, ìYou are a spiritual snob.î
[Audience: OhÖ] I said, ìNot I Lord, no, no.î Me? No! I
love your people. I love them all. The Lord said, ìReally?î He said, ìYou have spent
so much time critiquing that you never saw the good.î We have reached an hour where
so many of us has experienced so much of Godís goodness, His grace, His glory, His touch
that we have started critiquing each other. And we spend so much time critiquing. They
sang the song too long. They did not sing long enough. Why did not they go up louder?
Why was he prophesying? I think all of them should. What were they doing with all them
flags? I wish of us had banners. We spend so much time going over the meaning in our
head that we never engage. So the Lord was saying, I am calling you up here with me.
I am calling you to a deeper encounter. I am calling you into a place where you get
so lost in my that by the time you remember you are still in church, your sickness is
gone. By the time you realize it is time to go, the second service is starting. By the
time you get up off the floor, your family has all showed up at church because you was
supposed to be at home 9 hours ago. So they are just looking for you. They have sent out
a search party, now the whole city has shown up. But those moments that we are crying for
cannot happen until we rest in the simplicity of one thing. We cannot spend so much time
judging each other that we never engage God. Quick [40.32.7]. I am going to stop. I am
going to stop. I was preaching four weeks ago and before I was going to preach I was
laying before the Lord and I said, Lord whatís the word? And the Lord said, ìI want you
to go into the church and pray.î I went into the church and I was praying. I walked around
our church there, beautiful church. God has done so much work in the desert. He is moving
in such a mighty way. So I walked through the church. I went back over into our prayer
room. When I walked into the prayer room, I sat down and suddenly I saw the front of
the church long. It went on and on. On the alter were all of these presents, beautiful
boxes with ribbons on the top. Beautiful, I mean the wrapping alone looked expensive,
like it had literal gold and jewels in them wrapped and I looked and said, ìGod that
is amazing!î He said, ìDo you know what those are?î I said, ìNo sir.î He said,
ìThose are the gifts of my people. These are the gifts they left behind.î I said,
ìThe gifts they left behind?î The scripture then came to me. If you know your brother
has an ought against you, take your gift to the alter, lay it down, go back and make it
right. I said, ìLord what are you saying to me?î He said, ìWhenever my people get
offended at each other, they lay their gifts down.î Many of us have gotten offended at
each other and rather than going to the people who had offense against us. He did not say
if you are offended at your brother, he said if you think your brother is offended at you.
So you are not in the wrong. You did not do anything to them. You do not even know why
they are mad, God said none of that is important. If you know they have an issue with you, put
your gift down and find them and make it right. When I saw all those gifts on the alter, I
said, ìLord this is amazing!î The Lord said, ìThere are people who have not operated in
their full gifts in years because they got offended at people so long ago and held on
to the offense that the full flow of their gifting is still back there.î The Lord began
to take me through different ministries I grew up in, different friends I had, who I
used to see flow in the glory, used to see them move in the power of God, used to see
them with signs and wonders on a regular basis, and the Lord said, ìWhy do people keep saying
that I am not moving like I used to move and Iíve moved here. Why do people keep saying
there are seasons in their lives where I saw glory here but I havenít seen glory now?
He said, ìI do not change the seasons, not with my glory. My glory is the season.î What
happens is while we are in the glory, we take our eyes off Jesus, look at people and goÖ.Hmm,
and we walk away from our gift. Because we pick upÖsee you can only carry one thing
at a time, so we pick up the offense but we had to lay down our gifting to pick up the
offense, so now we are walking around saying, ìLook at what I got, this offense.î And
we take the offense and we unwrap it in front of all of our friends, so now we take it home
and in front of loved ones who want to know God more, we unwrap the offense we have against
our own church. We say, look in this box. This is when they did not use my gift. This
is when they did not help me. This is when they did not speak to me. Look at this. This
is all the times I can remember when they should have trusted my judgment but they did
not listen. And now look at the mess they are in. Pretty box; nasty present. Some of
us have picked up offenses and we then leave other peopleís churches and we go and share,
ìOh, you do not want to go there.î They do not cook like we do it. They do not flow
like we flow. They are not anointed like we are. They just do this too much or that too
little. Have you heard this about them? Look at this. Some of us are taking issues out
of our own families and going to other people and saying, ìWould you pray about my son,
my daughter, my husband, or my wife?î But we are not actually asking for intercession,
we are looking for intervention, so we share stuff slanted to make other people look bad,
never owning our own part because we want people to do what we are not willing to do,
go and confront them. So now I stirred up a hornetís nest so you can go and sting people
that I should be rubbing and healing them. Look in the box. This is what they did. This
is what they said. This is what I think. This is what they should have done. Here, hold
it for a while until you see it like I see it. And what we end up doing if we are not careful, we end up sharing the gift of
offense and we lose the beauty of unity. How do we begin to get it back? First thing, we
have to discover is this. We are not better than Jesus. So whatever he went through, we
must go through. Whatever they did to him, they will do to us. And whatever is destroying
us, if we are losing our joy because we are losing perspective. If I must go through,
then I might as well be happy while I go through. Hereís the next piece, if God has spoken
a word concerning you, then nothing you do to me can stop me from seeing what God has
already said about you. So until that thing comes to pass, I do not have permission from
God to mediate on your current condition if he has already shown me your future.
[Audience: Agreement in unison] I do not have permission to meditate on your
current condition if God has already showed me your future. We prophesy continually but
at the moment we finish prophesying, we allow our current knowledge to get us to speak words
that are contrary to what we know from God and now our words are fighting our promise
and we end up prolonging the manifestation of what we could have because we keep speaking
what he said do not even say. Do not tell anyone that they did that. Why? Because they
are going to repent soon. So do not make it hard for them to come back because I am already
bringing them home. Do not tell anybody what they did. Why? Because one day they are going
to stand and carry the Gospel and they do not need anyone to know what they did. Thatís
their testimony, not yours. And we must become mature believers again. Mature enough to say,
if you did it, you did it, but itís not my job to tell it. There is something that has
crept into the church today where we spend so much time gathering information on each
other just so we can now devalue each other so that I can make someone else see you differently
because I have already chosen to believe you are not worth my time, so we devalue each
other. And as we devalue each other we do it for a couple of simple reasons. Number
one, the moment that I see your position as my destiny, I have to kill you.
[Audience: Laughter] The moment I decide that I want your spot,
your spot looks good. I think I want to be the one behind the keyboard. Well letís see,
everybody loves her, everybody likes her, sheís doing a good job. So I cannot convince
people that she doesnít know how to play and I canít convince them she doesnít have
the heart of a worshipper. So hereís what I gotta do; Iíve got to get her to do something
out of character so I can have ammunition to get people to see her in an unjust light
so I can eventually get her replaced while at the same time I keep telling people how
much I love to worship. Thatís called good old manipulation. The bible calls it witchcraft.
[Breaks into song lyrics and snapping of fingers] ìThat old black magic got you under its spell,
that old black magic that you know so well. Better be careful, it will take you to hell.î
And what happens is when we are not mature enough to let God bring our timing forward.
I do not want to wait a year. I want it now. If I want it now, I am going to have to kill
whoever is in my way. Not kill them, just *** their reputation, assassinate their
character, make them look real bad. We have to be careful we are not using each other
as a way to validate our own dysfunction. I have to make people look crazy so I will
never have to forget. Is this helping anybody? [Audience: Yes]
I have to make you look bad, lest I am the only one acting crazy. Because if I am the
only person acting crazy, eventually people will ask me, why are you so crazy. So what
I have to do is spend time trying to figure out how to make you manifest. I am just going
to give you a couple of things that I think will help. And Iíll say this. See, thereís
something in the atmosphere of this region that leads us to war against each other. Fighting
each other for no good reason. Do not even know why we dislike each other. Cannot give
you a concrete reason. We just say things like, ìThey are just so huhÖî What is huh?
[Audience: Laughter] Well you know how they are! No I do not. Use
your words. Well, nobody likes them. Okay. Well, thereís got to be somebody who likes
them because there are people on the planet who have never met them. See, it is amazing,
when you are ready to discredit people, you make broad statements so you can make instant
discrediting. Now there is something in this atmosphere and in this region. This is the
first thing he told me. He said, this is what I want you to share with them. The first thing
is, that if you are going to see God release his supernatural glory so that it does not
come and lift, come and lift, but so that it abides, so that it sets upon us so that
the glory of God begins to rest on us like a garment, then the first thing that we have
to be willing to deal with is our own hearts in how we see each other. For as long as I
see you as less than worthy of Christís full provision, I will always seek to discredit
you because I do not think you deserve what Christ said you could have. So now, letís
take it one step deeper, every time I discredit you in the face of the people of God, in the
face of your family, or in the face of your friends, or just in the face of the Master
when I am mumbling and grumbling about you in private, what I am actually saying to God
is, youíre a fool to use them. [Audience: Wow!]
We are calling God unwise. For if he chose someone and we keep telling Him he chose incorrectly,
then we are calling God a fool. And I do not have quite that much [54.45.2] and I am proud
to meet people who do but I am going to stand far from you. Because there comes a moment
when God says, some of you are sick, some of you sleep because you do not discern the
Lordís body. You come together for communion. You come together to celebrate the Lordís
body. You come together to be one and yet your unity is dismantled, disfigured, and
destroyed because instead of seeing who is in the room with you, you do not discern the
body. You do not discern that the man in front of you is carrying me. You do not discern
that the woman in front of you is carrying me. You focus so much on their issue that
you miss their divinity. So every time you focus on their issue and you talk about their
lack, their inconsistencies, their failures, we have to see each other correctly so we
can help each other but when you see the issue and that is all you focus on and talk about,
that means you have willfully chosen to see the good as not worth focusing on. Whatsoever
things are good, noble, just, pure, these things, these things, these things. Think
on these things. Good report. Good report. Think on this. Not bad report. Not being not
noble. Not unholy. Not dirty but pure. Think of these things. How do I think on them? Stop
thinking the bad! [Audience: Amen!]
How do I stop thinking the bad? Stop talking to people who give you bad reports. Bad report
leads to bad thoughts. Bad thoughts leads to bad communication. Bad communication leads
to corrupt character. So we have now corrupted our character towards other members of the
body all because we listened to someone who had an agenda. Do not do it. There are some
in this room who have healing within them to release to the body. But if I have never
recognized that they have changed, grown, and become someone different, and all I can
think about is their testimony of who they used to be, I am not going to let them lay
hands on me. So now, I am going to be sick and sleep not because God was not willing
to heal, not because the power was not in the room, but because the one God chose to
send my healing through, I did not think was worthy to lay hands on. Some of us are running
around saying, ìGod I need a word. You need to speak to me.î And the Lord is going, ìBut
I am! I put people in the room who are carrying a prophetic ministry.î They have seen a dream
or a vision but because you think they are too loud, too crazy, too wacky or you knew
them before they got redeemed, then now when they come to you with a word, you look at
them and go, ìYou need to move on! Save that, keep it to yourself. I do not even like you.î
And God is going, ìYou can pray all night for a prophetic word but the word came to
you and you rejected it because you did not like the vessel.î Is this helping? Is this
good stuff? I am almost done. My final [58.50.3]. I will
never forget this. The story is so clear to us because we all know it. Thereís a man
named Naman who had leprosy. Naman is back over here in Syria somewhere. Heís walking
around all broke up, just stuff falling off of him. When youíve got leprosy, stuff just
starts falling off of you. Thatís bad. Thatís bad when you look down one day and your finger
is just gone. Itís gone. You start losing toes, youíre walking in circles now. Toes
gone. Itís bad. Canít hear nobody, your ear just dropped. Naman is back over here.
Naman says, I do not know what to do. I am sick. Itís not getting any better. I wish
there was a prophet. I wish there was a way to be healed. Is there a God, is there a prophet,
is there something? Thereís a little girl, she says, there is a prophet in Israel. There
is a prophet. He looked at her, ìWho are you? Little girlÖ.little girlÖ.go on back
over there, you got stuff to do.î See thatís most of our reaction. I wasnít even talking
to you, I am just talking out loud. Why are you talking little girl? Some of us look around
at people who come up to us with words or with a prayer or theyíve had a dream. I wasnít
talking to you, why are you talking to me? I am not talking to you! The little girl was
not in the conversation. She invaded his thought process and said there is a prophet. And he
had enough sense to recognize, since I am losing stuff already, then I need to not let
my pride cause me to lose everything. See there comes a question and there comes a moment
when we as believers have to ask a simple question. How much do we have to lose before
we get humbled? How much mobility do we have to lose? How much access do we have to lose?
How much has to fall off of us before we stop acting like we do not need help? How many
parts of the body have to leave before we finally say, you know what maybe, just maybe
I need to change. And he got in the chariot, and you know he was looking around. Do not
hit no potholes now, I got stuff just hanging on. Do not hit no potholes. Do not mess with
me now. That last bump on the road, my ears dropped down an inch. Do not youÖif I lose
something somebody gone die! And after he goes upÖ.Prophet! Prophet! I am Naman, great
and glorious one. Come now and speak cometh. And the prophet said, go out there and tell
him just go and dip in the water seven times. You know whatÖno, no, tell him the dirty
water. Tell him the dirty water because the fact that he is going to yell at the prophetic
rather than bow in submission, you need has not taught you how to be humble so now your
search for your miracle will humble you. [Audience: Wow!]
Many of us never got humbled when we started losing stuff. We still think we have a right
to make God move. And God is going, ìYou think you are going to push me?î I tell you
what we are going to do, your process got some dirty water, so I am going to get you
out of debt, but I am going to let you work three jobs for a while so that you can finally
be thankful because the one job I gave you was going to bless you but you had an attitude,
you were nasty to people, you would not show up on time, so I let you lose the first one
so some stuff could drop off of you, some pride, some arrogance, some disobedience.
You got in debt because you were trying to impress people, so now I am going to let you
lose some stuff so you can stop living outside of my principles and my Word. Go dip in the
water. What! Do you not know who I am? I am a great man! And I must go dip? I at least
thought the prophet would come out and wave his hand. The next thing we have to understand,
God is taking us through a process until we stop telling God how to bless us. I thought
the process would be, we would see a cloud of glory. I thought the process would be there
would be an angel in accordance. I thought the process would be I would fall down twice,
shake once, roll over four times, hop up on my feet and say, ìYaî. I thought the process
would be they would call me and repent and say they were sorry with great tears, they
would stand in front of me and I would say [inaudible tongues]. I thought the process
would be my wife or my husband would apologize because the recognize the wisdom by which
I operate. They would see the divinity that is on me. They would understand that I am
the best thing that ever happened to them since Christ Jesus and they would fall at
my feet and like Sarah and call me Lord. God said, ìThatís what you expected is it? Tell
you what we are going to do. I am going to let everybody in your house go crazy. I am
going to just let everybody just act up, cut a fool, tell you you are crazy, not listen
to your prayers, get all up in your face, make you so mad that youíre just taking bites
out of the door, chewing up and spitting splinters out in the floor. I want all that to happen
so you can recognize it is not your skill or your anointing, it is my power, so I am
going to humble you by not letting you get it your way. This ainít Burger King! You
ainít gone get this your way. And the last of it was he gets down to the water. I canít
see whatís in there. I am already losing stuff. Now there might be some fish down in
there and leprosy desensitizes you, so God you want me to immerse myself in something
that I cannot feel if it is working or not. The last step is God is going to put us in
a process that gets us past our feelings. [Audience: MmmÖ..]
I just want to feel his presence. You do not even feel his presence. Itís good to. We
should on a daily basis. I feel him, but there are times when if you are waiting to feel
him, you will miss the miracle. You do not need to feel him. What did he say? If he spoke,
it is done. Not when you feel it, itís done. When he spoke it is done. What did he say?
God, I just want to feel love in my heart. You are not going to feel love always. Love
is not a feeling. Love is not an emotion. Love is an action called sacrifice and if
sacrifice is not the root of your love for people, then you do not love them, you are
simply trying to connect with them based on mutual likes and dislikes and when they get
to me or not. Love that does not have sacrifice at its foundation is simply like. We like
spend some extra time with her and you keep looking going, ìDo we have to talk again?î
There comes a moment where we have to be so convinced of God.