Overcoming A Hardened Heart | Pastor Ken Claytor

have a chance to eat he said to them come with me by yourself to a quiet place and get some rest so they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place I love it that Jesus he would bring those who were his followers together and he would be so concerned with them that sometimes he would let them go alone and be at a solitary places that they could be refreshed but many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and they got there ahead of them and when Jesus landed and they saw a large crowd he had compassion on them and before you see miracles happen many times you see the C word compassion that Jesus was moved with compassion because they were like sheep with no Shepherd of course Jesus is our great Shepherd and we are his sheep but then he also gives us under shepherds he gives us pastures and I love the principle that God never wants us to be sheep with no leadership sheep wandering around with no place or no direction to go towards a common good so he began to teach them many things by this time it was late in the day so his disciples came to him this is a remote place they said it's already very late send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat but he answered you give them something to eat I think that's interesting that they don't think that they can make a difference but Jesus says I can take the little that you have and I can do a lot with it and they said to him it would take more than a half years of wages it's amazing sometimes we look at the little that we have or what we don't have and we don't think that God can use us and then we start talking about how big it is or how much it was gonna gonna cost but I believe that wherever God guides he also provides are we to go and spend that much money on bread and give it to them to eat and Jesus says how many loaves do you have yes go and see and when they found out they said five and two fish don't miss this so he has two fish and he has these five loaves of bread and Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down on the green grass I like when the Bible gets detailed that the grass was green like we didn't understand it would be that so they sat down in groups of hundreds and 50s taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven and he gave thanks and he broke the loaves then he gave it to his disciples to distribute to the people he also divided the two fish among them all and they all ate they all ate and were satisfied and the disciples picked up twelve baskets full of broken pieces of bread and fish the number of men who had eaten was 5000 and most scholars believe there was about twenty thousand people that were there if you include the women and the children huge miracle this is what I call scene one everybody say scene one scene one is the first miracle that happens Jesus takes two fish five loaves of bread he feeds about twenty thousand people but now we step in to sing - everybody say seemed to immediately Jesus made his disciples get in the boat and go ahead of him - beside him while he dismissed the crowd and after leaving them he went up to the mountainside to pray so there's some times that you'll bring your small group with you and sometimes you just need to be alone so that you can be replenished later that night the boat was in the middle of the lake and he was alone on the land and he saw the disciples straining at the oars because the wind was against them that means that Jesus always sees your struggle shortly before dawn he went out to them and he was walking on the lake and he was about to pass by them when they saw him walking on the lake and they thought it was a ghost and they cried out because they all saw him and they were scared and immediately he spoke to them and said take carrot in his eye don't be afraid and then he climbed into the boat with them in the wind died down check out this miracle and they were completely amazed astonished they couldn't believe this was happening and this is why verse 52 don't miss this for they had not understood about the loaves I thought to myself like what in the world do loaves have to do with this man walking on the water in the middle of the night and they thought that it was a ghost they shouldn't have been shocked that it was Jesus at least you know out of all the disciples somebody should have said listen we just saw the man feed five thousand men with a tooth piece fish dinner maybe it's Jesus but I don't know they said maybe it's Jason from Friday the 13th you know it's amazing how much authority we give the devil and we don't believe God can do whatever he wants to do whatever he wants to do it but there's a point to this and don't miss this point because somebody needs to hear this tonight that if you miss a miracle in one season it can hinder what you think God can do in the next don't miss this now go ahead and tell your neighbor don't miss this you came out in the cold for this tonight you came to a revival night for this don't miss this now that if you miss a miracle in one season meaning that they didn't even recognize that it was God that was multiplying the fish and the loaves you'll probably miss him in the next season Bible says that they didn't understand about the loaves they was a part of the miracle they saw the miracle they something was there they said has anybody got food he got two fish five loaves of bread they saw him lift it up to the Father they saw him say father bless this they saw him bring it back down they saw him take the bread break it and give it to them they saw him their other brothers go around to this mountainside of 20,000 people sitting in 50s and hundreds they saw this whole thing happened and then the Bible says that they did not understand what they thought happened is that somebody ran out and got catering they thought that somebody ran to the restaurant they could they didn't think that it was a miracle they didn't understand it so here they are they are participating in a miracle but don't know it's one they are seeing a miracle before them and they don't know it's one I need to preach to somebody tonight that is a living breathing miracle but you think that God's not moving in your life because you didn't recognize what he did to get you out of where you came from can i preach to anybody tonight just wanting God to do something getting says I'm gonna do something when you brace me for what I already did it's amazing how many miracles God has done in your life for you to get that job that you ain't qualify for and for you to finish school well ain't nobody else finish school and your family for him to take your resume from the bottom to the top for him for you not to be found that way you should have been found out a long time ago but his grace was amazingly sufficient for you and you think God's not moving it's amazing the things that we want God to do and God is like why don't you praise me for what I've done and what I'm doing because if you praise me for what I'm doing then I'm gonna do it again you say pastor I want to see more miracles praise God for the miracles that he's already done praise God for what he's about to do in this place tonight and you're gonna see what God is about to do do you hear what I'm saying you don't understand who you're sitting beside do you understand that you were sitting by a miracle the devil the devil tried to take some of y'all out years ago the fact that you're saved is a miracle the fact that you're in your right mind is a miracle the fact that you ain't lose all your marbles is a miracle come on somebody some of y'all know who you used to be the fact that you believe in a God you can't see that is a miracle come on somebody you got to start giving you want to see miracles praise God for your neighbor because your neighbor is a miracle on a Thursday night in church when you use them you know what you used to be doing I am a miracle somebody shout I am a member we need God to do something in this place tonight I just can't have churches normal any longer I fully realized that some people just aren't that turned up and they're just not that radical or they can just go through the motions that's just not me I need to be a part of the movement of God I need to see God heal somebody I need to see I need to experience God is anybody hungry in this place tonight I got I got the right group I believe that with all my heart and so here it is the million dollar question why did they not understand the loaves mark chapter 6 verse 52 tells us why for they not had not understood about the loaves because their heart was hardened tonight the message is simple it's called overcoming a heart and heart tell your neighbor I'm glad you're here tonight because I specifically want to speak to those of you all who at one time had a pure heart a pliable heart and a heart of faith and you could believe the hot to touch the nation's but now you can't believe God to get out of bed in the morning I need to speak to somebody who is here tonight that you used to be so fired up about worshiping so fired up about everything is a relates to the kingdom of God but then something happened and now your heart has become hardened the law of destination it starts with location you know you go into a mall and you want to make it over to Macy's if they're still in business or whatever anything the first thing you do is you go to the mall map and you look for the big red circle that says you are here because unless you find out where you are you can never get to where you're trying to go and some of us are having troubles in our Christianity it's because you haven't located where you are you haven't located where you are in your walk with God you you see the first thing you have to do to get over a heart and heart is to recognize that I might have one cuz unless you identify that you might be hard-hearted in some areas you can never get set free because the law of destination starts with the location I wish that when we came through growth track we put a bonus track on call to locate yourself because so many people think there's easy practical Christian but the truth is there are five on a scale of 1 to 10 and that you can't get to a 7 if you don't know you were 5 you know if you come here like I'm in a tree-like know you were 5 you can never get where you're supposed to go cuz it all starts with location and so what is the characteristic of a heart and heart okay this is the person that you read your Bible but you just don't get a lot out of it anymore you could have a heart and heart you hear messages and you see other people get excited about God you know but the word just doesn't move you like it used to you could have a heart and heart you find yourself uninterested with being with other Christians you don't mind being with people in the world but you don't really want to do the whole small group thing yeah I've heard that announcement but I just want to be by myself because something has happened in some relationships somewhere you just might have a heart and heart you feel like a fraud sometimes in worship and you're that person that you you come in late on purpose so you don't have to get so intimate with God you see other people that are crying and they're jumping and they're shouting and you say man why can't I experience that and so since that intimidates you now you just skip that whole worship portion out you just might have a hardened heart you blame everybody else for the dysfunction that is in your life because you won't own it and you blame the dead that wasn't here the mom who did you wrong your employer your boss your pastor your church you blame everybody but yourself you never own your dysfunction and you do the blame game cause it's all about them and it's never about me you might just have a hard heart you almost despise the people that you used to love you was they rotted I you loved everything about them now you can't even be be in the same room with them no more something has happened along the way and you might just have a heart and heart you come to church you might even serve but you don't go further than that you used to be the person at the church four five six nights in a row but if we called you you would show up and you would come bright-eyed and bushy-tailed so you could serve the God that saved you but now you might not even return that email any longer you might just have a heart need I go on you used to get excited about giving Super Sunday was coming up and you used to plan and say oh my god what can I give the God he's given so much to me and it used to be this special wonderful time where I was gonna stretch myself and I was going to dig deeper and I was going to do everything I could and now you gonna give something but it has no pain offering no thought to the offering you might not even know that it is super Sun that you might just have heart and heart and we say all these things at church like this is the year of believing big and on the inside you think well I don't know if God's gonna do anything big for me because he didn't do anything big in the year of break out and he didn't do anything big in the year of legacy and so now you entering into another year hearing things prophesied that you don't think applies to you you might I came to preach tonight go ahead and tell your neighbor I'm glad my pastor's here what heartens a person's heart I'm glad you asked because there's a bunch of stuff I'm gonna give you a few it could be hurt somebody there's something to you that you didn't like and now you're just resent you have resentment it could be betrayal as a pastor I know so much about this and it's amazing that when betrayal comes you were so tempted to not let anybody else in but I can't let you miss of my heart for out of it flows the issues of life maybe it's abandonment somebody was supposed to be there for you but they wasn't maybe it's rejection somebody pushed you out of their little clique they pushed you out and you felt rejected maybe it's fear that's expecting the worst thing to happen when faith expects the best thing to happen maybe it's offense this is a big one somebody stepped on your toe somebody said something to you in a tone that you did not like somebody did something to you but now you were stumbling because that's what the offense is and the Greek it is a stumbling block that keeps you dying in the wilderness when you've been created for the promised land maybe it's your past experiences you've seen a lot that goes against what you believe about the Bible and about spiritual matters so now your logical in your faith and well I've seen that before and I've tried to pray that before and I've given that before but that didn't work for me before maybe it's your past experiences but this is my biggest one maybe it's just failed expectations it's amazing how many of us we expect it to God God to do this at this time but God has never on our timetable it's amazing that God does what he wants to do when he wants to do it because he knows better than any of us no and God is never interested with our timetable because he does not exist in time he is a big fat right now he is I am that I am that I am but you thought that he would do what you wanted when you want it now you're upset at God now you think that this whole Bible thing doesn't work any longer but it's not true not allow certain things to happen for reasons that he knows and he's always faithful to watch over his word to perform it etc etc etc so here's the thing you got to get this fixed tonight this is a spiritual emergency for out of your heart flows the issues of life and this is what I'm believing God for tonight put up Ezekiel chapter 36 says read this with me you already already read I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit in you and I will move from your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep I'm praying that for you tonight that you will walk in the zekiel chapter 36 does anybody believe that tonight that this will be your knife well God will take away the stony heart and replace it with the heart of flesh or heart of faith that he will take away the doubt and the misconceptions and the hurt and the pain of the past and everything that you've been through and he will replace it with with refreshing and with favor he will give you the blessing he will give you the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness tonight as that night I believe that with all of my heart and so what is faith faith is confidence in the Word of God it is acting on what you believe what if you just act like this is you tonight I know Ezekiel was talking to the children of Israel but I believe that God is talking to his children tonight that the word of the Lord was for unsaved people that he would give him an new heart and a new spirit but there are some of us that we've been saved for a long time and we need God to replace a stony heart and heart and we need him to give us a heart where we can believe him and we can trust him again all right and so we got this thing called Super Sunday that's coming up on this Sunday anybody pumped for anybody so this is actually my 19th year consecutively giving in Super Sunday night can you imagine 19 years I'm 41 I've been doing this since I was 22 it's one of the things that really just changed my life because it put my focus and my attention completely on God once a year I was gonna bring to him something that was significant and special okay I was talking to my wife and I said sweetheart I said sweetheart what should we give for Super Sunday I said and this was not long ago this is a recent conversation and she says I don't know what do you think we should give and I felt like the Lord put a number in my heart that's a big number for where we currently are okay let's just put it like that it's a significant big number for where we currently are I'm believing God to do big things I believe if I sow bountifully ash you reap bountifully let's go so I say to her this is the number that I'm thinking and I see her kind of swallow and kind of like start twirling in her mind she's kind of thinking about the thing right and I said well sweetheart if you don't want to give that we don't have to give that I was like but this is just and I said so what's what's wrong and she wasn't saying anything she was just talking she was like just Jesus he didn't say that and she says to me she says it just feels like we're always giving and we don't have anything in savings it's just like we give and we give and we give I'm that guy that my problem is not keeping from God my problem is giving too much let me preface this very quickly for some of you I believe as a Christian we should give for a safe second and live off the rest now I want to help somebody who's young here please write that down and don't just look at me because this right here will save your financial whew I need to speak to a businessman and entrepreneur somebody that's watching this on YouTube the order of God for a Christian is that we give first save second live off the rest the problem is is that the great majority of Christ's followers spend a hundred percent of what comes in matter of fact they go over that that's why they got credit cards and stuff they go over and above in their spending and the only way to stop that is you gotta sacrifice you gotta quit getting your hair done Do It Yourself girl you gotta quit getting your nails done you got to quit going out to Starbucks Maxwell House come on somebody you got to do whatever you got to do to give first save second now for me my problem has been I get first and then I get a second and then I live on the rest but the order is that you get first get first before everything else save second I live on the rest so I understood what she meant for the last 20 years it's just like when we get we just give and it's almost like our savings doesn't match our our tinner how long we've been doing this but then I had to remind her that God has been good to us that God has given us houses and God has given us land and God has blessed us with an incredible church and employed in credible children and we get up with the joy of the Lord and we have a great relationship and God has given us more you know because sometimes you start to compare where you are to somebody else and so I had to start ministering and saying well don't compare our savings to somebody else savings we have this and we have that and I can move this and I can do that and she seemed a little bit better but I noticed that she still wasn't on it you know it's all I was like so I gave her three options I said we can give them out that I want to give or we can give this amount where we can give this amount because the truth is is we give monthly all year long so now we're just topping off our giving is probably around 20% we give back away in total so it Super Sunday is just over and above to me so I said we give these three things I said but what's wrong and she went way back she went like this is like 15 16 years ago she says there was one time me and her was watching this preacher on TV and he says if you give a certain amount of money then your house might be paid off you know and he was giving he made a sound so convincing y'all it was just like yeah he was giving all these testimonies of people that are sold into his men three and I know sometimes people get upset at TV preachers but the truth is is that God used that medium in a mighty way in the seventies the 80s and the 90s there was millions of people that came to Jesus that way so please don't let people say negative things about a TV preacher there was some TV preachers that might have been doing some questionable things but it wasn't everybody you hear what I'm saying anyway so we sitting in the kitchen and at that moment I'm in business so I said on the right a thousand dollar check so you know so see what happens so she in her subconscious mind now is twirling because 15 years later we still have a mortgage on their home and the thought is man we gave before but listen we still have a mortgage on our home and so what happens is you start backtracking and logically thinking like do I want to do that again because I did that at that point and it didn't get me what I thought it was gonna get me and then I had to remind her pastor Johnny I said but sweetheart I didn't think one thing I gave that man that money I said I ain't putting no faith pressure on it I haven't confessed the word over it at all I haven't had any expectation and then I didn't do anything in the natural I didn't put an extra $5 towards my mortgage payment actually $50 an extra $500 it's just like a spiritual people that think we can just pop out a check and then a house is just gonna be paid off but not if you don't pay it off you got to go pay it off this is the moving side of faith this is the acting side of faith you got to go do something cuz faith without works is so my faith or 15 years concerning my house has been dead faith so don't get upset with God and don't get upset with the TV preacher maybe it has to do with us and I got to own that all right so after I said that she kind of boost up a little bit she says well cool we'll give whatever you want to get that top amount then let's go ahead and do that but I give you this long story so that you know that when it comes to being hard-hearted we're all going to be tested with thoughts we're all going to start the sit back and it's not just the money thing it's also a relationship thing well I opened up my home before and look how somebody walked out on me I did this to them before and I don't know if I want to trust again like that you're gonna be tempted in your mind to be hard-hearted but just don't dwell on it so that it gets in your spirit it's okay for you to have thoughts matter of fact I think that we shouldn't give emotionally I think that we should be thinking about it all year long and purpose in our heart what we should give so it's not math it's not based upon who says what on Sunday I've already set myself to do what God has spoken to me alright and so it's okay to sit back and question is this what I should do in this season is this what God is telling me that's okay but just don't allow it to get in your heart to where now you have a heart and heart and it doesn't matter what's preached what's prophesied what's been said how many life change stories you hear what wails we built what we did in Peru you care less about that because now your heart has been hardened this is this epidemic y'all and the law of destination first starts with location I'm here to help somebody tonight and so anyway what I believe is that we should have childlike faith and I'm gonna pray that there be miracles that happen all over this church tonight where God can return you back to the place of childlike faith childlike faith is a faith that's humble it is a faith that's broken it's a faith that built really around this word that I think we forget called repentance you know it's amazing to me I see so many people that are sorry but they haven't repented you know people can be sorry because they got caught sorry cuz they caused pain sorry because so many things but it doesn't mean that you've repented and sometimes you got to step back off people and see if all of those tears and all of that some sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry really means you don't change because people can be sorry but repentance means I've changed my direction I'm gonna do that no more the definition of the word means that I was going this way and I find out that I can 100% wrong and I feel so bad about that and I can't believe I did that but the most important part is not my tears it's what I do after I repent I was going that way but now I'm going this way and we need a repented Church we need a repentant generation we need to live a lifestyle of repentance where we say God forgive me for this I don't want this in my life I don't want to be that person I don't want to carry that burden any longer God take it as far as the East is from the West because anything else is just lip service there hasn't been repentance childlike faith and I got children you know I got children I got three of them and I noticed one thing about my children I love it that Jesus talks about this childlike peace because he's not even talking about childlike faith if you really look at it basically he's saying that if you want to enter into the kingdom of heaven you got to become as these little children right and basically what he's doing is he's letting us know in order to experience heaven on earth we have to have some of the characteristics of a child and when my kids were younger now they don't listen to what I'm telling them to do but when they were younger I noticed that there were key commercial team there were three key ingredients that all my kids had dependency and God needs you to depend on him more than your degree more than the stock market more than your education more than your hunches on the investment he wants you to depend on see my kids they depended on me for life meaning that if I get up and I we don't fix breakfast lunches those kids will starve because they are completely a two and three year old they are completely dependent upon mommy and daddy we also had trust they would trust me you know kids just trust their day you know I could come two and three years old I can say we're going to Mars next year really daddy how we gonna get there there's just something so powerful about the believers that trust their daddy that way that God I know that if I fall you got me and you're gonna pick me back up but the last one is innocence children have this innocence to them there's so many of us have lost I believe tonight God wants to return us to the place of innocence again the innocence that that naive almost that just because you've experienced the divorce and the breakup and the bankruptcy and the foreclosure you have so much history of what you think God didn't do sometimes the devil used those things to take away your innocence and my prayer tonight is according to Ezekiel God will return to you the spirit of innocence again so that when you read the Bible it will be like when you first got saved or you first got spirit-filled and all of a sudden you're like oh my god that's what's my daddy's promised me is that what God will do for me that no weapon formed against me will prosper the number of my days I will fulfill that he will only daily with benefits that there is no good thing will he withhold from them that walk upright that I'm the head and not the tail above only and never beneath really that's me daddy then I'm the lender and not the barbs and I'm blessed in the city then I'm blessed in the field and I'm blessed in my coming that no good thing where you were told for me because I woke up right oh god is that for me that nothing by any means shall hurt me that these signs will follow them that believe that they will cast out devils in my name that's for me daddy you promised that to me God thank you Lord God I trust you I depend on you for everything I've done I pray that that message bless you today I know for me God's Word changed me it changed me it helped me overcome years of depression sexual abuse even poverty and I just know that God's Word is changing something for the better inside yes this message today has blessed you in any way you know the greatest compliment that you could ever give us will be to share this with someone else you know when I go out to a great restaurant I don't want to keep it to myself I want the world to know you've got to go here to get that fried chicken into a sweet potatoes man and so if this has been good groceries for you if it's been good food it's been life transformation for you do what's the favor share it with a friend comment below make sure that you subscribe to our Channel today and we hope we'll see you again real soon god bless you we'll see you soon

Channel: Alive Church

Views: 1,867

Rating: 4.8947368 out of 5

Keywords: Christian, religion, inspiration, powerful, pastor Ken Claytor, Ken Claytor, Alive Church

Id: Gw4IrmFXQcI

Length: 31min 4sec (1864 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 18 2019