Focus | Dr. Matthew Stevenson | It Won't End The Way It Began

we are in a very important series that is not does not exclude anyone and we're taking the month of November to study the subject of focus and we are studying it in several realms at some point we're going to talk about money focus how many of you when I first moved out on my own I had a bad inherited habit of only wanting to spend paper money so people would love to come over my house and help clean because if you went through any of the drawers a huge fine quarters and dimes and I remember when the Lord first started dealing with me about stewardship and diligence that he told me that I would forever be ensnared until I stopped dishonouring the dime that it was dishonorable to him to ask him for dollars while disrespecting the dime and there is a principle there that means if you are faithful over little then he'll make you ruler over much and some of us are ensnared financially because of a focus issue and we can tell you that that's the case by what you invest in all the way down to why you need the cell phone package you got you have Apple care with no children you don't damage your phones you just you know we just do thing or inactive gym memberships down to I'm coming for you I promise you I will down to family size vehicles with two people in your house many of us surrender millionaire status for permanent car note and we do not know what it is to live without one we we live in the bondage of debt like a thinking and I don't want to get into this yet but one of the things the Lord is saying concerning 2019 and I know I'm going to get bashed because all the other prophets are prophesying otherwise but here is what I'm saying like Micaiah unto you for some of you it is not your expansion time it is you're downsizing time and the mark my words everybody else is gonna hollow the opposite you better hear what I'm telling you it is time to downsize for very many of you ownership is important but who said you got to go to a house now some of you need to buy a condo you need to be able to grow into the favour that's coming to your life that's free the rest is coming later but these are focused points and God gave me a very specific word that from November to January 1 he was aligning us and he was challenging these people to gain a new realm a focus that is the word of the Lord to you if you are here and last week I so enjoyed myself not being a part of the service because I was able to hear the Spirit of God expressed some things that is for the body of Christ but also for us specifically so I am honored to join the discussion this morning job chapter 42 the book of Job chapter 42 and I'm going to preach from a version of the Bible that I don't necessarily like I'm going to the message version and I'm going to preach this to you in hopes that we can start a healthy discussion on the subject of focus when you're there say I'm there now don't be depressed yet y'all like Joe my god I thought he'd been sick so long that the flesh fell from his bone Joe chapter 42 in the message version it reads like this give me my time because I'm subject to preach for three hours this morning that's gonna be vitally important I'm stirred up that's a warning okay Joe answered God I'm convinced you can do anything and everything nothing and nobody can upset your plans you asked who is muddy who is this muddying the water ignorantly confusing the issue and second-guessing my purposes I admit it is a job talking back to God I was the one I babbled on about things far beyond me I made small talk about the wonders that were way over my head you told me listen and let me do the talking let me ask the questions and you give the answers I admitted look at what job said Jenny I admit it I once lived by rumors of you I interacted with you based upon second-hand knowledge my obedience to you was not because of what you and I had going on it was because of the influences about our relationship now I had it all firsthand from my own eyes and ears I'm sorry forgive me I'll never do that again I promise I'll never again live on the crusts of hearsay or the crumbs of rumors after God had finished addressing Joe he turned to Elif as the temanite and said I've had it with you and your two friends I'm fed up you haven't been honest either with me or about me not the way my friend Joe has so here's what you must do take seven bulls and seven Rams and go to my friend Joe and sacrifice a burnt offering on your own behalf my friend job will pray for you and I will accept his prayer he will ask me not to treat you as you deserve for talking nonsense about me and for not being honest with me as he has they did it Elif as the temanite bildad the shuhite and zophar the name of night the name in theit did what God commanded but God accepted job's prayer after Joel had interceded for his friends God restored his fortune and then doubled it all his brothers and sisters and friends came to his house and celebrated they told him how sorry they were and consoled him for all the trouble God had brought him each of them brought generous housewarming gifts God blessed jobs later life even more than his earlier life he ended up with fourteen thousand sheep six thousand cam was one thousand teams of oxen and one thousand donkeys he also had seven sons and three daughters he named the first daughter dove the second daughter cinnamon and the third dark eyes there was not a woman in the country as beautiful as job's daughters their father treated them as equals with their brothers providing the same inheritance job lived another 140 years living to see his children and grandchildren for generations of them then he died an old man full of life hold somebody's hand and tell him neighbor I promise you it will not end the way it began [Applause] I'm on an assignment either you're gonna go with me or not come on look at somebody's self and say neighbor it will not end the way it began most theologians agree that the book of Job is probably the most historically rich book in all of the Bible it is fascinating the way it is written so much so that most people don't even know exactly who authored the book there is an elite group of theologians who all believe that Moses was responsible for job's writings which would subsequently put Jobe is one of the oldest books in the Old Testament it would have meant that job the story of Job was written or being written around the same time as the book of Genesis don't confuse its placement in the Canaan as the timing of its events Jobe is a very old book and Jobe is such a very old book that it is the first of the poetic books like the Book of Psalms for example but it is interesting that the Book of Psalms has 20 almost 30 different authors and Jobe is assumed to have one author and about one story it's structure is so fascinating it is the first of the poetic books and the way it is structured is through a prologue and what a prologue is is the beginning or the introductory of the opening of a story it is essentially if you were to write a book and there was an intro to the book and then chapter 1 so the prologue is not chapter 1 many of you under the sound of my voice have only seen the prologue you've not you don't even know what life is yet I'll get there in a minute and in the prologue of the book of Joel hey Jordan what happens is the story takes place in a scene somewhere in between heaven and earth we're seitan which means that this has to be around the endemic era where Adam was alive because Satan has free-range on the earth right and he's going throughout the earth seeking that's what he was doing and the Bible says that God saw Satan seeking and asked him hey what are you looking for and Satan did what he always does somebody to devour to consume to turn somebody I've got to occupy this permanent prison sentence with a person III am never going to feel fulfilled as a being a celestial being unless I've got a body to do my wickedness and God refers Joby says hey I've got the perfect candidate for you there's a guy that I've been working on I've been loving on he's been loving on me his name is Joe go find him Satan says absolutely but please realize that the only reason he feels the way he feels about you is because your hand is on him you blessed him he is the most wealthiest person on the planet right now for whatever reason his favor has been impenetrable but if you take your hand off of him he will be just like everybody else and see you the exact same way God is so confident in whatever he's got going on with Joe that he allows Satan to do what he wants to do now I want to shift all of your thinking about attack about warfare about about retaliation there is not a thing that the devil can do without the allowance of God I want to just bring you back in that that's a simple statement but you need to realize that if God allows it somehow it will sovereignly work and become a weapon for you the problem is most people don't live long enough to allow that worry or that pain to become something they can use for their advantage this is why it's dangerous that you quit in the middle of anything don't you ever allow the devil to convince you to abdicate what God is doing in you by stopping in the middle you must see the end as the book is written we find that it goes from the prologue which is a scene somewhere between heaven and earth and then it goes into a storyline of the resume of Jobe this is chapter 1 pastor Brandon and he starts talking about all of the cattle he had the tremendous business acumen the social responsibility how he was perceived and it talks about his Emily Lightman his wife and he was the perfect perfect perfect family and then all of a sudden the Lord does what he says he would do which is remove his hand off of job and allows the man to be seen he allows the man to be tested because when Satan is after anybody it's not the company he wants it's not the status he wants it's not even the clothes he wants he wants the core of a man he wants what you are he wants what you were born to be if he can somehow find his access to that all of the rest is going to follow now in this in this business change you find that he got diseased he had death around him there was a break of covenant around him sudden bankruptcy what fascinates me about the book of Job is that there is not anything on the range of the human experience that he did not experience the only other character akin to this is Jesus who the Bible says had to experience everything we could ever feel before he could be called the Son of Man Jobe is the only other biblical character that experienced every feeling anybody could ever feel in their life he felt at all and you find it because the way the book now starts to open up is there are monologues now it'll make sense in a minute and what a monologue is is if I'm Matthew Stevenson decide to go in a room and talk to myself about myself I hate my life I mean he just had it Joe was like cursed and ruined is the day I was born he was I don't bring me no birthday cakes bring me some death I just wish I could chew Jobe said some pretty strong stuff and then in the beginning of his life he started to notice a change in his wife's loyalty to the type of life they were called to live after misery came upon them Jimmy the wife being a good woman she had good intent toward him walked up to him as that tell you what if there's going to get any more worse than this go ahead and curse God profane him and die Joel said this to his wife shall we accept the good from God and not accept the bad as well now that's a way to shut it down what kind of woman knows what to say from name she walks away I'm May's at this man's fidelity and loyalty of God that even through what looked like the worst he still saw that the worst was going to be a weapon and somehow would not become a enemy or a bitter person to God and then it ships after a series of monologues it goes into a series of discussion between Jove and three friends the meat of the book is job's discussions Benton's testifying and his instability in conversation with three men elet bears Bildad and Zophar they are all talking and sometimes they have wisdom sometimes they talk sometime their agreement but you find somehow even through job's venting he would always pivot back to the sovereignty of God even though he would confess his truths even though he would own where he was and how he felt he would dump out his humanity he always somehow found his way in the sovereignty of God and basically what that meant was I don't know why this is happening I have no clue why this is happening I didn't foresee it and I can't see my way out of it but I know one thing watch me God is God I know that that may trouble you but you are going to reach a moment particularly right before the season changes in your life where you're going to have to have a bottom line and your bottom line is going to be not this as painful as crap I don't understand this I'm mad I'm furious about it but God is God and because God is God I'm not gonna pretend like I am if he's allowing he is lord over this he's gone he's gone he's calm watch watch watch and this this this means that something hey Jeremy about focus is directly related to who's God and who's not this is the Stevenson's definition of focus it is the pursuit of and the protection of wisdom focus in any area of life is the passionate pursuit and the protection of wisdom if it is a focus on a family issue you are pursuing what wisdom for that and protecting that wisdom if it is a body issue it is the pursuit of wisdom on that issue and the protection of that wisdom in other words the depth of the book of Joel is wisdom if God says to a people I want you to focus what he's saying is you are in need of a level of wisdom that you do not have watch me the greatest spiritual tribe in America right now is that people are shouting dancing running conversing and ain't nobody finishing nothing a bunch of objectives incomplete a bunch of dreams incomplete halfway getting out of levels and so most of us live in between where we're coming out of and where we're trying to go to because nobody is focused enough people don't finish because they want to people pennies because they focus to finishing is a matter of your focus which says to me that the devil is not afraid of nothing than you finishing when he heard the term finished from Jesus it meant something forever to his plan in his regime when was the last time you finished well I'm not talking about finishing bitter or finishing insecure or finishing mad most people in the church don't finish well they finished tired they finish confused they finished without clarity of where they're going next and call it God they just finished it I'm done but there was a difference in finishing focused between finishing distracted and then Satan loves distracted people he loves people that cannot concentrate on what God is trying to get them to see but I sense that this month there are things that God wants us to finish hear me beloved it's not just people in places it's levels there are levels that you need to be finished with seasons that you need to be finished with and if you focus you're going to get a head start into the next dimension but if you finish it without focusing there is nothing new God can give you nothing ends in victory without the right focus every victory in your life is a focus issue now here is what amazes me in the conclude of this we are at Jamis at job 42 there have been 41 chapters of conversation of turmoil of attack of confusion and we have the summation of job's life in 42 and it amazes me that at the bottom line of all the boils and the disease and the bankruptcy in the Lawson remember job season you're not cuz you still have no access to wisdom you still are distracted the whole point of God to Satan worse job is my friend not because he doesn't sin Jobe is my friend because he focuses and I've been looking on the earth for somebody who will give me their undivided attention I don't have very many people I don't have to share so much so when I took him because he was focused God's problem with Israel they wasn't focused up and down multiple gods multiple decisions are so we seeing that this is dangerous I love the conversation God God has waited 41 chapters I'm at the end of the story when he realizes that there is no more in job he comes to job and says let me ask you a question when you were going through all that cursing me and cursing the day you were born and saying it was better for you to never have come on the planet you even went so far as to talking about how Orion which is a constellation in the sky had more benefit and favor than you when you were doing all of that I want to know who muddied the waters I want to know where you got off follow me through here is gonna bless you that you left and abandon my premise with you and found killer confidence who instead of counseling you in character became the reason behind your fear and you got distracted listen by people with good intent now listen because most of us feel like we can only be distracted by enemies but they're people whose heart may be right towards you who are still a distraction to you I think I don't want to help me we cannot help but realize how intricate friendship is in focus 80% of job story was about what happened when he was around his friends hit the club [Music] how do you feel now you can't I can't move my paralyzed just like they're taking you did nothing you did not see now sink into the floor [Applause] [Music] Joe was in a sunken place and he got there by allowing somebody who looked well intending to make him rehearse hurt listen to what I'm talking about hurt should never be the basis of covenant that's how you know something demonic is behind it and they can be nice reliable friendly time but if you want to be hypnotized focus on hurt talk about who's hurting who's hurting you how many people hurt you how many people harmed you how many people harmed you together it's the easiest way to end up in the sunken place what I love about this is she wasn't going to console him without the tea in this next season everybody that comes to you with gossip I hope it burns you next time you drink some tea may your lips fall off God is pure fire the conversations of the focus [Applause] focus is to rehearse there is a way to heal from a hurt without rehearsing a hurt here is what the devil wanted out of Joe watch me the only way Satan will get victory in your life is if you become a victim and there are far too many victims in the body part you never see your contribution to wrong can never own the fact that you should have approached it differently everything is always on the up side and you the only ones staying woke it's the sunken place and you go stay down there by yourself coz on the other side of this season the realm of pocus we're going to is gonna bring me into double get everything that I lost come on slap somebody say poke ash the sunken place always negative always dark always a conspiracy always something wrong always something not seen that God is exposing God you know I realized about prophets who don't know the Bible they always retreat to God exposing something and it's because it's a comfortable place when you don't have scripture to give counsel from the Lord so when you don't know what to say you just say everybody's insane because it's true everybody is insane but what is the sentence of God about the sinner you got to read your Bible what else you're gonna die [Applause] [Music] his friends were not employees his friends had no ill motive but they had wrong counsel at the end of jobs life God dealt with job and a couple of sentences and then told him I'm not as mad at you as I am at who's around you I started teaching you this and they convinced you out of it I called you to this standard and they told you it was too high I told you to be focused and undistracted no matter what you lost I am your rear guard and in sympathy they controlled you and brought you into which path in your mind lift your hands in here I take a poverty over the spirit of mine control you are not only gonna have your right mind you're gonna have the mind of Christ and you will not be harassed by the wickedness by the harassing problems of the people but you are moving in a realm of clarity that you have never seen before God extol whose muddy the waters then when God went to his friends he said what I'm gonna do now that I got job where I told them to go what I'm gonna do to you is I'm gonna make you go repent to me because not only were you not honest with me okay you were not honest with Joel about me do you know what the word Sabbath or what the word rest means in Hebrew it means to return to the covenant in other words when God brings a rest in your life is to turn you back to the Covenant in other words while you're working the risk of distancing yourself from the promise is inevitable you start forgetting why you start to work to begin with how called you to work and what the fruit would be it's the nature of exhaustion but when you start to rest and God says okay I'm lifting this responsibility I'm changing this role I'm moving you into this way it's not an opportunity for you to get offended it's an opportunity for you to finish and return to the Covenant go get a bull sacrifice it and I'm gonna make you listen listen to the wisdom once you sacrifice imma send you back to job so he can pray for you because maybe this whole story was about how I could use one focused person to focus an entire circle I'm not going to lift this off of you myself I could I'm God I'm going to let job now that I got him where I wanted and now that I pivoted him in concentration he's gonna have the power to break the delusion you are living in so you no longer get people rumors about me that's what God told him God told him you've been spreading rumors about me calling stuff me that wasn't me Santa I was doing what I was not doing lyin Tom how you dreamed this and it was not me everybody dreams when they don't have a voice so when nobody listens to your character then you've got to tournament people acting like God showed you stuff that he did not show you it's mind control at the end of this we see a major term a massive term there was not anything that job lost that is contradictory to how we hear this story all the time he lost it all and he said no he slay me do you think do you think that God couldn't have killed Joe he had diseases do you think that God couldn't have sent an early spirit of death to take him out the objective was not to slay him this is why job says in Joe 42 i babbled beyond my mind at the end of this he said this whole book was a bunch of confusion because I didn't have clarity you got to stop not reading the scriptures right many of you have been taking verses out of the book of Job claiming your own defeat cuz it gives you a reason but we see the bottom line and the summary in the summary was like yeah about all 41 of them chapters I said stuff that was beyond me I was talking about God killing me and God take it from me because I was too confused to realize he was trying to promote me the promotion process of God it was that statement though he slay me that made God angry with you I didn't tell you I was coming to kill you I told Satan there was nobody like you on the earth we've got it twisted about why authorities allow me stuff around you maybe he's allowing chaos to grow your focus maybe he's allowing fear to grow your purpose God does not want to change what's going on around you he wants to change the whole egos to be distracted by your environment see God with a loud distraction and then watch you grow in the middle of it because he does not see those distractions the way you do his objective was to see him joke cut mature the plan of God was in full effect he knew he was gonna give Joel more here was the chest if you can find yourself in an honourable position to intercede for people who accidentally wronged you then I know I can trust you with riches everybody that wrongs you is not an enemy y'all should see the Sour Patch Kid faces what do you mean I mean that an enemy is somebody who is dedicated to your demise they research gossip they gravitate towards other people who don't like you they covenant with people against you you are the glue that holds them together that's one thing but then being a broken person and making a mistake or being relationally dysfunctional it's not the same thing and because we are so distracted we cannot identify whom enters home and who did us harm because one of the things confusion does is mix motives you are so confused and distracted you cannot actually discern a motive and that's the real basis of our relationship you're judging the action because you can't see the heart and you can't see the heart because of wrong confidence God looks at Jo after he brings them to focus who muddied the waters who confused you where'd you get all this stuff from how'd you start writing this stuff and testifying come on I was killing you and ruining you and I stole your wife and better is the day of your death who did all of that job repented you are so right now he repented before he was rich he came to sobriety before he was favored he still had no daughters at this point he still had no cattle at this point what that shows me is one of the fruit of focus is real repentance all goodness and the type of repentance that is deeper than an apology but it is an acknowledgment of a behavior that is not useful and a refusal to continue in that way I guarantee you you probably distract it you've done something wrong you did not obey some command you've not been consistent you know what the Lord said to me about this house I'm dealing with all nations about hesitant leadership about people who would ensure and cool but don't and they don't because they're distracted I'm sorry Lord forgive me job said I won't do it again and God said thank you now that we're done with that now that we got that reconciled now that we have handled the fact that you believe lies about me I can give you the whole point of this season I don't want to start a riot because I'm trying to save it for 10:30 you God does not think in years he thinks in seasons what the 18 is about to come to an end what would you do if God did for you what he did for job and maybe it's not going to end how it started and here was most beautiful we all had a great start to this year it was beautiful opening the heavens Jesus chanting beautiful start even if your start wasn't bad don't mean that at the end of it God ain't got nothing else planned I want you to focus until you find the faith for whatever God's got up his sleeve I want you to focus until you are in Cup in proper position for sudden releases of sudden promotions and sudden unexpected stuff it is always dangerous to be disappointed disappointment is a jail cell that refuses to God will look at you disappointed and be insulted how dare you doubt my faithfulness I've been being God all your life what do you mean you're disappointed because the house didn't work what do you mean that was your dream job what do you mean you should have been married by now am I not gone don't you trust me God will allow trials get you to trust him the level of your next victory until you trust him you're going to be in a trial whole point of the book of Job was what does it take to make a man focus job lost every position he served in every investment he had all of it and all he had was friends now here was the good news at the end of the season but three fans didn't know this new friend there was a new friend who didn't come they didn't go to high school with them or they wasn't in the same organization his name was Ellie who Ellie who came at the end of this season and started to interpret some things to Joe that perhaps the other friends got wrong he was like I don't know if that's the right of I'm not I don't have anything against them all I'm saying is my assignment is your character that's how you know when somebody is good for you you don't need just somebody to listen to you you need somebody to turn their behaviors what are you if you can't turn my weaknesses into my wisdom God sent a new friend he like this fool still don't get it let me send you somebody from another ethnicity from another profession from another city to add to this discussion cuz what I'm trying to do is protect his focus the devil only has you when you get distracted this is why his favorite weapon is destruction it's not death that is easy its destruction and they always show up in the circle that's where we go we're confused we go and sometimes an enemy is not there most of you are smart enough to not be friends with people who are enemies you're just friends with well intending people who give wrong advice and do you want to know why they do it because of their own lives you feel this way because of how you been and how you can and what you don't realize is God can never make you the exemption to the rule until you focus see there are some things that may be coming on the radar of the people around you that don't have to hit you if you're focused and you can be focused and hear things see things and know things but to be focused means to be unmoved by what you hear when you are on an assignment you have to protect that assignment against all costs because you are not rewarded by intent you are rewarded by how you finish it is possible to get to the end of an assignment and miss the reward because you finished it but you finished it without the right focus it's lethal you must concentrate if you don't learn at this level how to concentrate everything about your life is going to stay the same that's the secret to all promotion can you focus more can you focus more can you focus more if you focus more every ending in your life will always be sweet relationships positions companies it'll be sweet when you focus if you get to the end of an opportunity you like how could you I've served this stupid company for 43 years and here you go hire this young little whippersnapper who doesn't know all I know and I kept you're saying you annalise keating the whole staff and you get angry and vicious and bloodthirsty and you create a little cynical support network you got distracted hear my warning it's dangerous to be distracted at the end the end is when you need to be most focused because your heart has got to be open to hear what's next God promotes based on assignments he raises based on assignments the reason why this is difficult for you to conceptualize is you think every assignment of yours is your purpose you're going to have assignments that have nothing to do with your purpose if they do the whole intent of the assignment is to give you a skill for your purpose when purpose is a mystery you grieve at the ending of an assignment and the reason you grieve at is because you don't know what's next if you're pursuing a degree in architecture you're going to take several classes have to submit several homework assignments that has nothing direct for example when you take drafting and all that stuff you have to go through certain rounds of math have nothing to do with bricks cement carpet or maroon but they are skill sets the assignments in your life will build the skills that you need for purpose if you get mad cuz on this assignment it like you did it wrong take his homework back or go to tutoring cuz you will adore you something is not working out for you you need some help some I stand over to coach you in this what you do is you act like you being murdered cuz you've lost sight of purpose an assignment is not your purpose it is a task my children have chores have nothing to do with their uniqueness they're worth their personality it is their responsibilities based upon where they're going and who they are you do this you do that there is a difference Joe got in his purpose because he passed the test of the assignment that is a focus point for you what are assignments and what is my purpose there will be people in your life at our assignments I've had to learn sometimes an assignment will not know there an assignment and so they'll fight you would give you resistance because they don't realize that you're not menacing to them out of boredom there are people who act like you ain't got nothing else to do so you want to talk to them and deal what they dirt and hold this ignore people generally are pretty busy but when there is an assignment there if it is a relational assignment the objective of the end of it is the promotion of the person who will see God will use you to get somebody to stability but the reward is yours if you find a stagnant area in your life in your company in your business two things you must example examine your confidants and your assignments have not finished assignments well a sign that you're not finishing well as if you're frustrated you're frustrated you not finish it well which is why you've got to allow yourself the space to empty that stuff out so that you won't be frustrated frustration and faith are like oil and water you cannot be a person who is full of faith and full of frustration the two are counterproductive to be frustrated means that you don't believe nothing and you are angry with the results the consequence is the timing etc but to be faithful means that you have managed your meditations in such a way that you are anticipating whatever God is going to do even if you don't know what it is that makes sense to you a distracted area in your life will produce frustration even if it's your children we've got to do a much better job this dysfunctional stuff that we call hard love is abuse how dare you how dare you act like your children are not their children cuz they got the wrong lover or because they have a drug habit or because how dare you now understand if they steal it in and and abusing you but they need nobody gets restored if somebody does not take responsibility you're gonna let the devil be the basis of the deliverance of your children our culture is dysfunctional when you're raising children you don't focus on who they are right now you focus on what God promised you they were going to be and you parent the purpose it's a distraction issue and I learn any of you that parent note as possible to parent distract it they bring you home bad grades here you go using your tongue to shame them to demean them to suppress them and never once parent through the you know what the word I'm all in this Hebrew thing right now so be patient you know the word teach means to extend the rod a non teaching parent is a weaponless parent and if you beat to teach then you're not teaching the whole objective of reproof is wisdom if I correct you it's not to prove a point it's of lift of principle and this principle is supposed to be what prospers you you don't have the wisdom put the belt down that's what's wrong with you that's how you ended up with kids out of wedlock your momma beat you and didn't explain why you shouldn't be sleeping around meet him kill him a minute talk to it you gonna pop up and lip him back head I'm fine but after about 10 minutes you can't especially I don't know why I'm getting burden about this right now especially with young black men you can't punch them in the responsibility you can't scare them into acting right in school this generation of black men is desperate for wisdom and it's only gonna happen through relationship you can not heal you do not hog I'm talking about the hog that made Hale mad some of you are giving advice and trying to change people from a distance how do you transform what you don't touch there is a focus that we need for husbands and wives must update do we love each other is the sex good do I need to change something oh you don't like this am i spending too much money over here do I spend too much time over there if you assume the health of your marriage when your children are old you're gonna be disappointed y'all don't know each other cuz our partnering in parenting and not partnering and being lovers [Music] just cuz he coming home don't mean he happy [Music] focus you're married to a person who changes as they get older and go through things you must be willing to adapt if you're approached O'Mara's I know him I know him like the back of my hand oh there's a couple of things on the back of your hand that you ain't notice in a long time why don't you go back and revisit them covenants to make sure that you're not marrying who you married you are marrying who they are today adjust it's a focus issue it's a focus issue God has never planned for you to have a bad ending ever ever one of the things he wants for you I really believe this one of the things he wants for you is to live Olin died happy he wants you that that's one of the greatest prayers in my heart Lord let me get so old I want to be I'm talking about 116 goddamn most say whatever I want to say I don't care the greatest reward God could give Joel was that he did not die in misery he died without any regret because he got focused if you at the end of it we are at the end of this year the warning to you is focus focus understand you about to get Christmas and deviled eggs and our left then the middle of that cranberry sauce on the focus point that makes sense to you father in the name of Jesus pour your people out to something place pull their mine out their emotions out tell them to stop rehearsing stuff they can't change I pray that you would do something in their meditations Lord even beginning tonight and you would help them to think upon the meditate upon what you're saying and what you're doing the rhythm the pace help them to see Lord what you're getting ready to do through them Lord that that anything that is moving quickly in their lives is not a punishment or a reprimand but it's a matter of focus I'm asking for intense consecration and concentration Lord that they would not go into the next year in the next season exhausted or frustrated in the name of Jesus but help them to focus what I'm praying for your people that they would discern their bottom lines accurately that they would see and pivot on what is important in this season of their lives and in what you're calling them to do and be Lord that transformation begin to happen in the hearts of your people that they would not have their hearts in snared by distraction Lord circumcise their ears help them to hear distractions when it happened help them to develop a sensitivity to distraction even when it happens finally father I'm asking for the spirit of Prayer Lord there is no way to focus without a discipline in prayer Lord begin to make your pity cause your people to visit and to frequent the secret place to find the principal and to find the focal point and to find your logic in leading them in this way I bless them and I thank you Lord that you are getting ready to cause them to embolden to watch stronger to acts courageous for what you've got planned for us thank you that the end of a thing is going to be better than the beginning there of your word declares that at the end of jobs life you made it much than what he had before Lord release faith for the better for everything in their world in their finances and their marriages and their relationships and their career help them to pursue the better because it is in you if the strong name of Jesus we honor you and we give you the glory come on have you believe that put those hands together for Jesus those hands together for Jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: All Nations Chicago

Views: 65,924

Rating: 4.8998981 out of 5

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Id: 0jPtP-6L8p8

Length: 55min 31sec (3331 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 13 2018