Recognizing God's Answer - Bishop T.D. Jakes

y'all like like they're already tonight you act like you came to throw down for jesus tonight i believe it get your bibles and while you're standing and go to the book of exodus chapter number 16. we're going to read the first five verses and then we're going to drop down to 31 and 32. it's a very familiar passage of scripture but a very important one indeed exodus ecclesia the called out ones the book of exodus is about the calling of god's people out of slavery and away from captivity from servitude to sonship they went into the red sea as slaves with their master chasing them but when they came up out of the water they came up as sons from servitude to sonship and the reason that their servitude was canceled out is because their master drowned in the red sea god will drown what's chasing you baby he will drown what's chasing you if you just keep on following him don't worry about the enemy behind you greater is he that's in you than he that's after you oh that's good and so moses writes to us and he chronicles the story of his journey and the autobiography almost of the pilgrimage of the children of israel as they had stepped away from all that had identified them before into this new beginning and anytime something is new there's always a transition period there's always a discomfort even when the new is better there's still a discomfort and it reads at verse 1 the whole israelite community set out from elim and came to the desert of sin which is between elam and sinai on the 15th day of the second month after they had come out of egypt so they've been out two and a half months in the desert the whole community crumbled against moses and aaron uh this is a tough job ah the israelites said to them if only we had died by the lord's hand in egypt these are the same people who prayed for moses to come now they're praying to die there we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death you see how moses was falsely accused you know moses didn't bring them out there to starve to death and die he brought them out there to be an emancipator and to set them free i just point that out to the people who are misunderstood and you've had things about you where people have judged your intentions wrongly it's one thing for you to have an opinion about my actions but it's another thing for you to subscribe to the idea that you know what i'm thinking oh y'all don't hear it then the lord said to moses i will rain down bread from heaven for you the people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day and in in this way i will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions on the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days now verse 31 the people of israel called the bread manna it was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey that sounds pretty good i cook a little bit you know wafers and honey don't sound like you're suffering that bad moses said this is what the lord has commanded take an armor of manna and keep it for the generations to come see don't just be concerned about you but leave a legacy behind you so they can see the bread i gave you to eat in the wilderness when i brought you out of egypt god's gonna always use what you got left i'm not gonna bother them remnants i talked about that sunday i will leave them remnants alone but god will always save a remnant he said put a pot aside an armor and put it in the ark of the covenant so that the generations to come can understand what i gave you through the wilderness has god fed you through the wilderness won't he do it it's not that he always stops the wilderness but he feeds you in the wilderness i want to talk from the subject tonight recognizing god's answers recognizing god's answers spirit of the living god fall fresh on us tonight a fresh deposit if you will we are open to receive our hearts our minds our spirits our souls our bodies are prepared to ingest and appropriate the word as you see fit to unveil it and reveal it to us we are hungry to receive your word we are grateful for your presence open up even the hardest mind the most resistant spirit that the glory of the lord can penetrate until they are pricked in their hearts by the very presence of god now thank you i know you haven't done it yet but i'm gonna thank you in advance your credit is good with me i'll praise you now you can do it later have your way great god that you are i thank you for all kinds of stuff that ain't happened yet i'm just gonna go ahead and thank you like it's already done i know i'm gonna look foolish but i'm gonna praise you like it's already done hallelujah i'm gonna pronounce a benediction over it like it's already done for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever all the people shouted amen you may be seated in the presence of god so pharaoh traveled by chariot and the slaves traveled by foot so if they have been walking through the desert for two months and 15 days for two and a half months they have been walking that's a long walk two and a half months of waking up every day and carrying everything you own on your back they have been walking for months loaded down with their own possessions and no place to rest them they had continued on their journey a careful study of the word says that it wasn't just the fathers that carried the weight or just some others but even the children were loaded down with the weight not just of their possessions but the weight of the possessions of the egyptians for in the red sea there was a transfer of wealth the bible says that they borrowed the gold and the silver from the egyptians but then they had no way of paying it back because pharaoh and the army were drowned in the red sea so god has done supernatural debt cancellation y'all don't want to talk to me god has done supernatural debt cancellation and the wealth of the unjust has been laid up for the just the wealth of the wicked has been laid up for the righteous the wealth of the ungodly has been laid up for the godly and they have come into an inheritance that is not their own and yet in a way it was because to receive this kind of wealth was reparations reparations because they had worked for free for 400 years and everything that had been withheld from them for 400 years god paid it out suddenly i'm preaching already that means that they had endured hardness as good soldiers and been faithful even in the middle of injustice but eventually god supernaturally settled the accounts and set the record straight because god is an accountant and he keeps record of every issue and everything and in due season god is going to settle all accounts so they are weighted and it is heavy but it they are heavily weighted with the blessings of god nobody teaches you that blessings carry weight that glory carries weight they have carried their teenagers uh on the they're almost like teenagers on the threshold of adulthood they enjoy the freedom but like the stability that was afforded them while parented directly you know how that is when when kids can't wait to get out of the house and then they discover bills and while they have freedom they run into responsibilities and all of their judgment about how things ought to be done begins to change as they begin to recognize that it is not as easy as it looks freedom is expensive it costs you something to be free the slaves were free to go but where and to whom to a large degree they were homeless people nomadically moving living in tents pitching their tents wherever they could making the best of a bad situation and yet in the midst of this tempestuous uncertainty god had been faithful he had been a cloud above them by day so it wasn't as hot as it would have been i'm wondering if there are any people in here today that recognize that it wasn't as hot as it should have been that god shaded you in the midst of uncertainty sometimes you don't really know how bad things are until you get out and then you look back at it and say if it had not been for the lord i would have been swallowed up i would have died of heat stroke i i should have asphyxiated i should have collapsed but his shade became my norm and at night when the temperatures dropped below freezing he turned into a pillar of fire and in other words god conditioned the desert with air in the morning and heat at night because god cared about the comfort of those who walked with him look at god jehovah jireh investing not only into your needs but also into your country there are some things that god does for you just so that you can be comfortable glory to god and yet in the midst of all that god has done they they seem to not to notice that god had made them comfortable because they were functioning in an atmosphere of uncertainty yeah see that's how we are a lot of times we don't notice that god is being good to us because he won't give us the details of our destination and we are functioning in the trauma of uncertainty uncertainty is traumatic all by itself because we are intellectual beings and we are created with intellect we have cognitive skills whereby we want to know and the problem in the situation here is they don't know how far they are away from there they have heard of a land that flows with milk and honey but they don't know how many more days will we have to walk that uncertainty can can plague a person it can frustrate them in a marriage either one or the other of you wants to know details we're going to vegas of where we're going to stay how we're going to get there what time is it which hotel is it have you made reservations what are we going to do when we get there is there any layovers is it that people want to know details we want to know details the other person is the person who just kind of just go oh it'll be all right it'll be all right and you're trying to get one person to calm down and they're trying to get you to give them details god has not given them details because they must walk by and not buy so so god has designed the atmosphere to teach them faith because they are not sure how far they'll have to go to get there and they are not sure of moses because moses has been away with jethro for 40 years so while he is kin to them genetically he cannot relate to them experientially for while they were making bricks moses was raised in the palace and as the pharaohs died in the situations change moses was out there with jethro taking care of sheep god sent moses into the desert under duress because moses had murdered a man but it was also an opportunity to train him in desert tactics beware of leaders who lead you where they have not been one of my spiritual son said to me he knows i'm working on a business deal and he said i want you to teach it to me i said i can't teach it while i'm learning it you have to learn before you teach you have to respect the craft well enough not to allow the pressure of somebody's hunger to know to drive you to faking your ability to teach there are some things that only experience can teach you you can google it you can read it you can take it in school you can get a degree in it you can get a master's you can get a doctorate but when you start doing it you'll find out that experience ends up being the ultimate teacher because a lot of the principles that worked out on paper that got you an a don't work out on people it's a difference between working it out on paper and working it out on people and now moses not only has to sustain himself which he has had 40 years of experience at being nomadic in the desert but now he's got people with him and when you are responsible for people it creates stress and trauma because the moment they become disruptive they attack you jump in the pool when somebody's drowning and watch them punch you and here you jumped in to save them and now you have to fight the one you're trying to save if you think about it hard enough in your own life you've had experiences where you had to fight the one you're trying to say i'm trying to warn you i'm trying to tell you that this is gonna blow up in your face i told you not to put the aluminum foil in the microwave i'm trying to tell you i'm trying to warn you and now the whole kitchen is in smoke and the fire alarms are going off and you're saying oops but if you would have listened to what i told you i could have saved you this experience now the fire department is on its way to the house and i have to explain what we could have avoided this is the tension of the text it is not just the heat of the sun or the cold of the night or the extinguishing of pharaoh it is the uncertainty of people and how they reacted to that uncertainty these are the people who danced at the red sea and they have gone from dancing at the red sea to dragging their way through the desert of sin isn't it amazing how people will go from dancing to dragging don't be overly impressed at who runs the most or shouts the most or leaps the highest or makes the most noise that is not a foolproof test of the authenticity of faith because sometimes the person who says the least up under attack exemplifies the most faith but we have a tendency to be overly impressed with outward uh demonstrations as if it were a declaration of true faith but before you get to walking your faith will be tested beyond your dance y'all don't hear what i'm saying they danced at the red sea because pharaoh was drowned but now they are dragging for moses and aaron and fighting the lifeguard who is trying to deliver them because they have misplaced rage misplace rage can i talk about misplaced rage for me misplace rage is a rage that is actually fear manifest as rage executed on the innocent because the guilty are not available you have to have been a victim of misplaced raise to understand the magnitude of what i'm saying i'm i'm arguing with my wife but i'm really angry at my mother and all of a sudden she hits a trigger that ignites a rage that's been suppressed in me and i acted out on her and she wants to know where is this coming from well it don't really have anything to do with you it's all the things i couldn't say to mama now i release him on you because i was hurt and when people get hurt they hurt people so they have entered into a rage against moses and aaron and two and a half months into the journey moses recognizes that it is easier to travel the wilderness by yourself than it is to lead people yet we live in a society where everybody can't wait to leave they can't wait to have a title they can't wait to have a position all you do all you get is that glass of water the only difference between the pulpit and the pews is that we get a glass of water a glass that i hardly ever get to drink in exchange for that glass of water i get every criticism every fight every disruption uh every evil thing every every accusation every attack every stress listen the water ain't worth it get you some gatorade when you get back home and save yourself some trouble it's not worth it because they are raging against moses and aaron who have done absolutely nothing but been good to them but people have memory relapse when they are in an uncertain atmosphere i didn't create this atmosphere i didn't plan this this is what god has allowed to happen so if you're going to take it out on somebody take it out on god but no misplace rage makes you a victim of something that you had nothing to do with oh my now now tonight i'm talking about recognizing god's answers because to a large degree god's answers don't often look like our prayers okay recognition could be defined as the brain's ability to identify stimuli or lack situations places people objects etc are all recognition that you have seen before and so recognition in the word recognition is cognitive your brain's ability to relate what you see to something you have seen recognition is a cognitive ability that makes it possible to recover stored information and compare it to the information being presented in front of you like you look at somebody and you say oh that's freddy i didn't recognize you how you doing wrecked cognitive re-call cognitive because i saw you before but i didn't recognize you so i can't say i uh cognize you i have to say i recognize you because i have a previous experience as a reference to have recognition i have a terrible problem with names and when i have to remember somebody's name it is easier when i tie it to something that i remember so if i if if somebody says hi my name is david i think psalm is david so if i can remember the psalmist david i say hi david how you doing because i i i need to tie what's in front of me to something that's behind me recognition so when we when we come to recognizing god's answers often the only image we have in mind is what was in our head so when god answers and he delivers something that is different than what we saw in our head sometimes we don't know how to handle it because the answer doesn't look like the prayer can we go deeper with this let's go to isaiah 55 6-9 for a minute and let's take a look at that isaiah 55 6-9 seek the lord while he may be found call on him while he is near let the wicked forsake their ways watch this and the unrighteous their thoughts wait a minute i understand the wicked forsake their ways but when he gets to the unrighteous he says forsake your thoughts that means that the unrighteous have to be careful because your thoughts may betray you i thought i would be here by now i thought i would be married by 30. i thought i would be out of debt by 50. i thought and the bible says forsake for you to forsake your thoughts oh y'all get quiet forsake what you thought marriage is forsake what you thought church was supposed to be forsake what you thought you deserve in a companion forsake what you thought you should be paid on a job because god did not promise to pay you according to your thoughts but according to his and how are you going to let this mind be in you which was also in christ jesus while you hold on to your own so there has to be a moment in your life that you go blank and say not my will but then be done you know what's best let them turn to the lord and he will have mercy on them and to our god for he will freely pardon them for thoughts yes for he will pardon he will forgive you my mother was here this way for thinking like a fool wasn't she good for telling you that you're thinking like a fool yeah she didn't call us a fool but she said you're thinking like a fail that don't make no sense you're thinking like a fool because she understood parenting is about teaching how to think you can't teach a child how to think when your answer is because i said so so i have a tendency when i'm frustrated with any individual to say what were you yeah yeah yeah because i can't understand how you did what you did you i have a problem with your ways but the root of your ways is in your thoughts anytime you see somebody acting a certain way the action is the fruit of their thinking what were you thinking then god goes on and says for my thoughts are not your thoughts that's why i want you to forsake your thoughts because my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways now we keep seeing this ribbon tied between thoughts and ways thoughts and ways his thoughts justified by his ways your thoughts justified by your ways god declares unto you i'm not thinking what you're thinking and my ways of getting you there are not your way i swore i was gonna bless you but i didn't tell you how i swear i would bring you out but i didn't tell you through whom i thought it was going to come through the bishop i thought it was going to come through the music i thought your thoughts get them out of the way get them out of the way if you can surrender your thoughts to god what you think about it rather than building a shrine around your opinion and worshiping at the altar of that that is fragile and open yourself up that's what i surrender really means i surrender all means i surrender what i had in mind i surrendered what i had planned i surrender how i thought it would turn out i surrender my definition of success at this stage in my life for instance somebody says oh you're such a successful pastor and i always think to myself are you talking about quantity or quality who says that the most successful pastor is the one with the most members perhaps god goes by quality and not by quantity uh y'all ain't gonna talk to me tonight so so all of a sudden you are judging on the outer appearance and god is looking at the heart and it could be that the guy in the storefront with 12 members is a more successful pastor because he is qualitative and not quantitative we like it big we do it big in texas i want to see big i want to see big god wants to see quality so i'm a big man but are you a good man i found out that you can be strong in your body and weaken your will you you can be physically strong and emotionally weak and some little old girl that way 90 pounds soaking wet can be tougher than nails and can't lift up a barbell so when you start talking about strength are you talking about outer strength or inner strength outer strength is deceptive because you can be strong outwardly and be fragile inwardly or you can be fragile outwardly and be tough inwardly are you hearing what i'm saying it's some tough people in here tonight they might not look tough they might not dress tough they may not have triceps or biceps or anything like that but mess with them the bad thing about messing with people you don't know how tough they are until you hit them and all of a sudden that little woman that you thought wasn't tough starts pulling down the mantelpiece and grabbing up the candlesticks and coming at you and saying you touch my child i kill you toughness can't always be qualified by what you thought so as the heavens are higher than earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts come on god is trying to teach them to forsake what they had in mind so that they can recognize his answers seldom in my life has his answers look like my prayer seldom in my life has his answers look like my prayer his answer came in such a way that it confused them i'm gonna i'm gonna show you what i mean let's look god's answers can't be cognitive they cannot be cognitive so god says over and over again i will show you okay because where i'm getting ready to take you you don't have a predetermined picture in your mind for what i'm getting ready to do in your life you have no point of reference for what i'm about to do in your life i don't know who i'm talking to but i'm talking to somebody in this room right now or on the stream right now you have no point of reference god is going to do a new thing in your life the former things have passed away so i'm going to forget those things which are behind and i'm going to reach to those things which are before because god is going to do something in you that you never saw in your mother that you never saw in your father that you didn't see in your grandparents that you didn't see reflected in your neighbors that you didn't see coming in your life and it cannot be cognitive and still be divine god is going to do something like you have never seen him ever do before and so he says i will show you type it on the line i will show you put it in yours i will show you i can show you better than i can tell you i will show you i will show you that i will provide for you i will show you that i can heal you i will show you that i can bring you out i will show you that i can supply all your needs i will show you that there's a method to what looks like madness in your life i will show you why your family rejected you i will show you why your father forsook you i will show you why your mother didn't raise you stop murmuring and complaining just because you're hungry for something that you didn't get i will show you i already considered what they weren't gonna be in your life i will show you not your mother not your father not your sister not your brother i will show you keep on walking with me and i will show you because you will not recognize what i'm getting ready to do in your life because you have never passed this way before you have never passed this way before and if you can put up with the trauma of uncertainty eventually i will show you i got a plan to work this out that you haven't seen it's not on your blueprints it's not on your drawings it's not on your schedule it's never been done before i am going to do something new in you it's not going to be like your first pastor it's not going to be like your childhood i will show you look at somebody and tell them god's going to show you don't worry about it god's going to show you you don't understand it right now that's okay god was going to show you you don't recognize god's hand and where you're at right now but god's gonna show you it doesn't look like god is with you but god is gonna show you you feel like god has forsaken you but god is going to show you you don't recognize anything around you not a street side not a road marker you don't know where you are you had a stage in your life of uncertainty you have never been this age before you have never been at this stage before it's foreign to you you don't know what to do in this season of your life you try to do what you used to do you can't do what you used to do you try to do what you're gonna do and you can't do what you're gonna do but stand still and see the salvation of the lord i will show you type it on the line i will show you put it on the pad i will show you tell your neighbors i will show you when it's time for you to know you're gonna know when it's time for you to see you're gonna see it when it's time for you to understand it you're gonna understand it until then walk by faith and not by sight when it's time for your eyes to open they're gonna open when it's time for you to see you're gonna see it but i told you to go to the pool and i knew you were blind and i want you to grope after it and feel after it and when you get to the water i will everybody who got that give him a praise right now i got this building i didn't know how he was going to pay for it i had no clue there was nothing in my background that prepared me to need i can't remember now something around 86 million dollars just to build a sanctuary i had no point of reference i could not recognize a strategy because there was nothing in my past of that magnitude i told my mother about it she said baby i can't think that high i thought lord mama i can't either but god said i will show you they told me not to build this kind of church in this kind of neighborhood they told me how to move up to north dallas and build the church where the money was but god told me to stay right here i will show you now they didn't give me bad advice they gave me good advice that makes really good sense but this is not cognitive this is supernatural this is not natural wisdom this is not the wisdom of men this is the foolishness of god god has a way of doing things that boggles the mind of the wise god says i will show you some of you god told you to move here and you said lord i don't even know what to do here he said that's all right just go ahead and move here i will show you glory to god and so you packed up your stuff and you moved by faith and you told your family you were moving and they thought you were crazy but you left your kindred and you went to a place that god said when you get there i will show you now you're learning about faith now you're learning about trust now you're learning about prayer now you're learning about power and every night in your mind says what are you doing here but don't let your mind talk you back to where you've already been this is not cognitive this is supernatural god said i will show you if i'm preaching the right thing in the right place to the right people make some noise in here right now he's gonna show you he's gonna show you that's why he's got you online tonight because he wants to reaffirm in you he's got a plan he hasn't revealed it to you let but he says i will show you when the time is right god is going to reveal everything to you as a believer but until then he has to test you to see if you will walk in obedience without understanding what's this genesis 12 and one let's go deeper oh i'm talking to somebody anybody on a faith journey right now and you're in the wilderness and you don't understand it and there's a feeling of uncertainty and you got great faith but sometimes your murmuring complain because god got you out your element and got you out of your comfort zone and you got a bunch of critics criticizing you but god keeps saying i will show you that's why you had to be in this bible class tonight because god has given somebody confirmation i don't know who it is but i feel a spirit of confirmation coming in this place right now god will show you why you had to be here why you had to do it then why you had to move now why you don't have no friends yet while you're still uncertain god shook you away from that which was familiar because it wasn't fruitful and he brought you into a place where you could be fruitful and he says i will show you give him 30 seconds of crazy praise yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but lord i'm making less money don't worry about the money i will show you but lord they don't even recognize who i am don't worry about being recognized i will show you but lord i had a big title where i was don't worry about titles i will show you this is not about titles this is not about recognition this is not about fame this is not about fortune i'm fixing something down in you and until i get it fixed oh come on until i get it fixed you're not gonna understand it but you gotta trust me i will show you glory i feel the anointing all over me i feel the spirit of a prophetic utterance all over me i feel a word from god flowing in this place i feel the power of god speaking in this place god is going to show you if that's your word for tonight give him a praise and thank him yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah clap your hands and praise it go home and tell your children god's gonna show us tell your spouse god's gonna show us tell all them critics who are talking about you like a dog god's gonna show you he's gonna prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies he's gonna anoint my head with all my cups gonna run over and god's gonna show you where i came from they call me jim jones and call me a cult because 50 folks went with me and that sounds like a cult to me i don't care what it sounds like to you god told me to do it he told them to come and now 25 years later they stand in there with the teeth hanging out the mouth because god will show you in due season let us not be weary in well doing for you shall reap in due season if you faint not it's coming it's coming it's coming it's coming it's coming it's coming it's coming it's coming it's coming it's coming type it on the line it's coming it's coming say it to your neighbor it's coming it's coming it's coming it's coming you don't see it right now but i will come on let's go deeper come on sit down let's go deeper let's go deeper oh something's going to happen in here tonight i feel the spirit of the holy spirit speaking in this place their word of knowledge flowing in this place right now there's word of wisdom flowing in this place right now god discomforted somebody's anxiety he said i will show you i will show you i will show you just rest in me and trust me i will show you i will give streams in the middle of your desert i will bring water out of a rock i will supply all of your needs according to his riches and glory i will watch this go to genesis 12 1 and the lord has said to abram go from your country your people and your father's household through yours your country your people your father's household to the land i will oh my god so if you go from your you come to mind your country your kindred your father's household you gave up three yours to get one eye everything you thought was yours god dislodged you from it everything that was familiar to you god dislodged you from it and brought you from three yours to one eye i will show you said i will show you say it again i will say it again say it again one more time now praise him for his word just his word just his word just his word just his word just his word just his word because in him dislodging me from the your i am discovering the eye i can't hold on to the your and possess the eye so i have to be willing to let go of your thoughts so i can have his thoughts your way so i can have his way i got to get rid of mine and that's the hard part that's the hard part because that's my kindred that's my country that's my father's house i know it i understand it i'm acclimated to it i evolved from it i'm familiar to it i'm kin to it i'm skinned to it i'm related to it and you want me to leave everything that i am related to or everything i relate to to bring me out into this desert of uncertainty and all i have is your word on it and god said that's right i'm gonna strip you from every post you've been leaning on until you don't have nobody else to trust but me and i will show you not i have shown you i will show you so while i'm waiting on the wheel i gotta walk i gotta walk while i'm waiting on the wheel because the wheel is futuristic and the walk is now so i'm walking in uncertainty toward his will oh y'all don't hear what i'm saying to you she said again i will show you oh this is good go to genesis 22. i got one more i stare and got to my texture so i got i got to hurry up ah yes sir i'm going to do that sometime later god tested abraham he said to abraham here i am abraham replied he said to him excuse me abraham here am i he replied then god said take your son wait amen now lord it's all right for me to be out here take your son your only son whom you love isaac and go to the region of moriah the underlying region of moriah i think you got bibles highlight it do whatever you do with whatever device you got region of moriah god will put you in the region he'll put you in the region without telling you exactly where let's test this by the word god brought ruth the moabitess into the region of boaz's field she was in the region of what she would later on but god just put you in the region that's why your soul keeps getting happy because even though you haven't hit it yet you know you're close find somebody hold on close i'm in the region you should have killed me before i got to the region you should have took me out before i got to the region i'm in the region of my promised land i'm in the region of my destiny i'm in the region of my purpose i'm in the region no i count not myself to have apprehended but i'm in the region i'm not there yet but i'm in the region i'm closer than i've ever been in my life how do you know my spirit knows it i can't see it but i sense it i can't touch it but i sense it it's not in my bank yet but i sense it i haven't gotten married yet but i sensed it it hadn't materialized but i sense it look at your neighbor say yeah because you're in the region you're in the region that's why the devil is fighting you because you're in the region you will know you're in the region by the level of attack that comes against you you remember when jesus cast the devils out of legion and the devil said suffer us not to leave the region we don't want to leave this territory because anytime somebody comes into this territory it's our job to drive them away from the region i've always known that god was going to bless me by how the devil attacked me the greater the attack the greater the blessing you'd never send legions of demons if i weren't in the oh somebody watching online that was your word you're in the region all hell is breaking loose before you finish one thing here comes something else before you straighten out that you get attacked by this it's a crazy attack it's a ridiculous attack it don't make no sense does it no because it's demonic you're in spiritual warfare and the reason you're in spiritual warfare is because you're in the oh my god oh my god oh my god i messed up and stepped in the region i crossed the line and i got into territory i stepped into a place of my destiny and the money's not flowing yet and the title's not there and the job's not there but i can tell i'm in the region make some noise if i'm preaching to you make some noise if i'm talking to you make some noise if you hear god speaking to you i'm in the region i'm in the region i'm in the region i'm in the territory and the enemy's trying to get you off the territory when the bible says neither give place to the devil it means don't give territory to the devil once you take over a territory don't let the devil have that territory because you're closer now than you've ever been in your life you are in a lord i feel like i'm talking right to somebody like i'm talking right to an individual i don't even know what name to call but i'm talking specifically to somebody i have totally described your situation you're in the real shout if you're in the region the devil didn't attack you till you got in the region as soon as you got in the region here comes legions of demons coming out to attack you because you're in the region so god says to god says abraham go to the region of moriah sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain i will show you you're in the region and i'm still not going to tell you i'm not going to tell you which mountain but you're in the right mountain range this is not cognitive you have never been here before you can't recognize this because you have never done this before you have to sense you're in the region now this this this sensing thing is a spiritual thing this is why worship is important because worship opens up your spiritual senses some of you don't understand worship and so you endure the worship waiting on the word because you understand the word but you really don't get the worship and you say well i'm not emotional i'm not into worship we're not worshiping god because we're emotional we're worshiping god in spite of our emotions we're not worshiping god because we feel like worshiping god we're trying to wake up our supernatural senses worship opens up your spiritual senses i never could understand it because i grew up in a traditional mainline church where the only time people shouted was when somebody started singing something and then i got around charismatic pentecostal people and they start shouting and what nothing going on in the service and i was looking around trying to see what they were shouting about but see there was something in their senses the book of hebrews says that you have your senses exercised by reason of use so your spiritual eye gate ear gate mouth gate touch gate gets stimulated or exercised by using it one of the ways you use it is in worship because you're worshiping a god you can't see around people you can see and you're not talking to the people that you can see but talking to the god that you can't see and the more you talk to the gods you can't see your senses are being exercised by reason of use the word translated exercise there is gymnasia where we get gymnasium so when god gets ready to give you a good workout he shuts out all of your natural senses so that you can sense in your spirit what the lord is saying to the church otherwise this scripture don't make any sense he that have an ear let him hear what the spirit is saying to church wait a minute lord everybody got to hear he said i'm not talking about your natural ear i'm talking about your spiritual ear he that had an ear let him hear what the spirit is saying to the church means that i'm not going to talk to you in an audible way i'm going to speak to you in a spiritual way and you're going to sense it in your belly though you heard nothing in your ear am i making sense to you and i put you in the worship service so your senses could be exercised by reason of use can i go deeper cognitive required cognitive recall requires past experiences so do you remember your second cousin willie james from chicago see well let me think a minute i'm being cognitive let me think about i had a past experience with him yeah yeah yeah girl i remember him i remember him because he's my point of reference i had to search through my cognitive reasoning in order to catch a glimpse of vision one of the things that is associated with memory is eyesight there is a correlation between eyesight and memory and so what i see with my eyes i record with my mind but what about when god gives me something that my eyes haven't seen and my ears haven't heard and neither has entered into my heart i can't be cognitive because i can't see it that's how i remember you because i saw you and i said that's saree she changed her hair but that's you took me a minute to recognize you you did your hair different but i remembered your face that means i had to encounter you before to wreck my to recognitive you what god is getting ready to do in your life is not cognitive we remember through associative cognition foreign names can be challenging to remember because we don't have cognitive association so when somebody says my name is alibaba shahanda boshi you say i'ma call you a it wouldn't be a problem to remember it if you grew up around names like that because you would have the association to help you to be cognitive but what about when god does something for which you have no association and your eyes haven't seen it i remember because i saw it's hard to remember if i'm blind because my eye gate helps my mind to record data we get back in the car my wife will say i'll say which one are you talking about she said a girl in the red dress she recorded it because she saw the dress that's her cognitive ability through association she remembers the woman because she remembers the dress i don't know who she talked about because i didn't pay no attention to the woman or the dress but i tell her go on with the story going with the story going to you know release yourself let yourself go tell me about it gone and the next time we're in church i say which one was it am i telling the truth i do it all the time which one show me which one you talking about because i need to see her pay attention and record it in my head because my eyes are helping my mind to remember if we don't have cognitive association we can't remember go to john 6 13 15 i'm almost here so they gathered them and filled 12 baskets and the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten after the people saw the sign jesus performed they began to say watch this surely this is the prophet who has come into the world come on jesus knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force withdrew again to a mountain by himself wait a minute jesus didn't just go to the mountain to pray he went to the mountain to hide because they had recognized him to be the messiah now i understand why the disciples didn't recognize him when he walked on the water because he had hidden what they recognized and showed himself in another form that made the disciples think he was a ghost because what drove him in the mountain to pray in the first place is that he didn't want to be coronated before being crucified give me that other text put that other text up here again because i want them i want them to recognize some former texts the one you had up there before yeah so they gathered them and filled 12 baskets and the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten come on after the people saw the sign jesus performed when he took the two fish and five loaves of bread and fed the five thousand they began to say surely this is the prophet who has come into the world jesus knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force not by cross by force withdrew again to a mountain by himself you can't let people crown you before your time don't let their compliments and their flattery push you into a position that you are not ready for right now let patience have its perfect work god will show you when it's time for you to move until then it's better to hide even from your friends who are trying to force you child if that was me i would take over that church if that was me i would get that man if that was me i would take that job if that was me shut up it's not you you're not gonna force me into being king because my next scheduled appointment isn't with a crown but a cross and the steps of a good man are ordered by the lord and he delighteth in his way let me go on okay so let's go to matthew 14 25 29 so you can see how when jesus came in the fourth watch of the night jesus went unto them walking on the sea come on and when the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were troubled saying it's a spirit and they cried out for fear why didn't they recognize jesus they had just seen him before but the problem the disciples kept having with jesus is that they could not recognize jesus whenever he showed up in another form but straightway jesus spake unto them saying be of good cheer it is i be not afraid they didn't recognize his form but they recognized his voice for the bible said my sheep know my voice and a stranger they will not follow now the form and the voice didn't line up with each other but when they heard the voice they said that sounds like him and peter answered him and said lord if it be thou bid me to come unto thee on the water i still don't trust the form because the form don't look like the guy i left going up on the mountain and the guy i left walking on the sand is not the form i see walking on the water that's why god told moses you can't define me i am that i am see i can turn into whatever i need to be whenever i need to be to do whatever i got to do because i'm god i can be water flowing out of rock i can be honey in the lion i can be the bread of heaven i can be whatever i want to be and now he's in another form but he had the same voice and he said come and when peter was come down out of the ship he walked on the water to go to jesus i said all of that to get to the text in in in our texts we learned that god's answers often defy our recognition he said i'm going to send you bread remember i'm back in exodus i'm in exodus 16 1-5 31-32 he said i'm gonna send bread but the people called it manna they were looking for bread wait a minute what is their cognition of bread egypt the only bread they recognized was egyptian bread so when god sent bread down from heaven they didn't recognize it they called it man now which means what is it now god called it bread they called it manna what is the difference between bread and manna it's what your cognitive thoughts tell you it should have looked like and now it's in front of you and the answer doesn't look like what you thought oh i'm working on something the reason i'm in this text tonight well there's a lot of reasons i'm in this text tonight but one of the reasons that i'm in this text tonight is because sometimes god's answer looks so different from what you thought that you will reject his answer because you don't recognize it this is the substratum of the gospel he came unto his own and his own received him not because they did not they did not recognize it if the princes of this world would have known what they were doing they would have never crucified the lord but they did not recognize it who do men say that i am some say that they already lies and some say that jeremiah who do you say that i am only one of the twelve recognize him it's the same guy who recognized him on the water thou art the christ oh y'all don't hear y'all ain't shouting good as i'm preaching thou art the christ the son of the true and living god and jesus says flesh and blood have not revealed this unto you you didn't get this through your natural eyes but my father which is in heaven and upon this rock i will build my church and the gates of hell should not prevail against it i will build my church on the backs of men and women who can sense what they don't see who can recognize me in another form who has supernatural revelation of who i am i'm gonna build my church every so often i'm gonna raise up a man or a woman who can see what other people cannot see and if you can see what they cannot see you can get what they cannot get oh y'all don't hear what i'm saying to you look at your name and say you better recognize you better recognize that is your wife you better recognize that is your husband oh no that can't be my husband he's too short i ain't gonna go on down that road i could go i could really play with that but i ain't gonna buy you got all these things in your mind of what it ought to look like but relationships that last aren't built on what you look like they're built on something you sense about that person and that sensitivity transcends outer appearance because outer appearance may change but what you sense remains i've told it a dozen times but i'll tell it again if you took me to my mother-in-law's house and put me in the living room with the red and black furniture in it and i could put an x on the spot where i knew she was my wife i could i declare i promise you i could put an x right on the spot where i knew she was my wife i didn't tell her i knew it i didn't tell her at all i got back in the car with my friend jerry and i told him come on fellas you know we don't tell them you tell your boy i told my boy i said i'm gonna marry that woman he said yeah man i said yeah i'm gonna marry that woman i just know i'm gonna marry that woman i'm supposed to marry that woman she's the one how do you know it i sensed it i didn't see it i sensed it so i didn't exactly ask her to marry me yeah i did finally she said i didn't ever ask her i did you know finally when you know eventually but what i said to her was we were driving down the road going to kanawha city and we were on the boulevard and i said we were talking about something and i said i guess if i was to marry you you would say yes would you that's a bad line don't try to use that line that was the best i could come up with and and she said well yeah i said that's close enough we're gonna go off of that we're gonna go off of that we're gonna go off of that that that was the proposal i did better later when i gave her a second wedding ring i got on my knees and did all the fancy stuff but the first time i was driving i said if i was to marry you i just assumed you would say yes what am i after tonight i am after this to recognize god's answer you have to let go of your image because god didn't promise you something that you listed god said when you get to the right region i will show you okay now we're gonna go to this text right quick and i'm gonna wrap this up exodus 16 1-5 i'm gonna read it again 31-32 now we're reading it fully understanding what's happening so the whole israel community set out from elim and came to the desert of sin which is between elip and elam and sinai on the 15th day of the second month after they have come out of egypt they've been walking for two and a half months in the desert the whole community grumbled they got a bad attitude it's hot they've been walking for two and a half months they mad at moses and aaron come on the israelites said to them if only we had now they bitter we had died they want to die by the lord's hand what difference does it make where you die if you're going to die in the wilderness of dying to egypt you're still dead when people say stupid stuff don't argue don't argue with them because they're traumatized what difference does it make whether you die in egypt or die in the wilderness you dead either way now you sitting out here mad at me cause you're gonna die in the wrong spot there we said now and by the way you got amnesia there we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted but you're gonna die there what difference does it make what you eat this is the last meal but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death so you want to go back to egypt so you can die and by the way you remember the food of egypt and forgot the slavery you forgot how you had to make bricks without straw you forgot how mean pharaoh was to you and how he abused you and you want to go back to abuse for dinner have you ever traded better for lesser because it tastes good oh they got quiet again jesus you went back to an abuser for what why would you go back to somebody who was abusing you because they can cook so now the lord is ticked he said i'm a rain down bread from heaven for you the people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day and in in this way i will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions on the sixth day they are to prepare wait a minute wait wait wait wait wait wait wait hold it don't move nowhere prepare all my life i thought it was slows of breath all my life i thought god sent hot dog buns and english muffins all my life i pictured sandwiches falling from heaven i didn't know that i had to cook wait a minute there is a message here what god let rain down from heaven wasn't done it had to be prepared what god let's reign down from heaven is potential no wonder they didn't recognize it because they hadn't prepared it could you have a blessing in raw form that you don't recognize because you haven't given it enough attention to prepare it to reach its fullest potential and so you are longing after lusting after something that's more prepared because you don't want to put the work in to take it from manna to bread oh y'all don't hear what i'm saying write down collaboration this is the moses experience i don't have time to work with i'm out of time but this is moses experience all throughout moses life god is teaching moses collaboration that it will not be all god but it will be god and man so so when the ten commandments first ten commandments came down lord let me stop let me quit when when they got the first ten commandments number one the first time they gathered orally and then they said this we will do the second time they got it god hewed out the stone and wrote the commandments but when moses came down off the mountaintop with that that was all god they had built the idol he dropped it and it broke the next time god said you hew out the stone and i will write on it that's collaboration over and over again god keeps teaching us collaboration i am not going to rain down potential that you won't prepare so you asked god for a job john god gave you an interview you ask god for a wife god gave you a date you ask god for a second chance god just gives you opportunity opportunity to be saved opportunity to save yourself opportunity to change your life opportunity to fix your situation it is within your reach it is within your reach god didn't let the manna fall in the tent they had to go out and reach for it stretch off your hand you are coming into a reaching season that god is going to put the opportunity within your reach and the more you stretch yourself to recognize that this is my opportunity the more god is going to bring it in it's not going to be by his hand alone it's going to be when you snatch the opportunity now snatch it back to you that's what the rest of this year is going to be like for you you've got to snatch that thing back to you i don't know who i'm preaching to but i feel chill bumps all over me the glory of god is in this place the spirit of god is in this place you have got to prepare it god is not going to get an oven and bake the manna and turn it into bread for you he's just going to give you the potential and you've got to turn around and bake the potential until it looks like bread am i helping anybody i'm not helping anybody if you're watching me online right now there's some things falling in your life that are in your reach that are not finished and if you're not careful you're going to step over it and call it manna and not recognize that it is bread god's answers don't look like your prayer it's going to look like manna now i don't know who this is for but god sent you something and it ain't finished and it doesn't look like what you had in mind and you about to walk away from it and you said manna what is it this story in ezekiel 16 is the shadow of jesus christ because he said your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and they perished but i am the true bread that cometh down out of heaven but when the true bread came down they did the same thing with the true bread they did with the manna when he came to his own they said manna they did not recognize him as the messiah because he wasn't finished yet watch this let me show you one more thing i'ma stop the children of israel have been in egypt 400 years when they came out they had been out of egypt actually 430 years but slaves 400 years they had been enslaved for 400 years they are now sons they've been out two and a half months and then the manna comes down from heaven okay if that's the shadow how does that compare to the reality from malachi to matthew it's 400 years and in the gospel of saint matthew an angel comes along to mary and says in a matter of months you shall bring forth a son and his name shall be called jesus and he shall save his people from their sins but the people said manna i want to get manna out of your mouth until you actually believe that what god sent is what god said and you stop sucking guessing what the lord has done stand through your feet i'm not sorry are you getting anything out of this there's somebody watching me right now i don't know whether you're in the room or whether you're online god is sending you potential it's potential it's within your reach but it don't look like what you thought it would look like because god doesn't give you the finished product he gives you the potential and you have to reach out and pull it in and the bible said they boiled it or baked it you haven't processed the potential it's not that god has an answer you got to reach out there in the morning and pull it to you and then you got to put it together and form it and bake it and then eat it hey you're closer than you've ever been before and the reason i'm teaching this tonight is that i don't want you to make the mistake that israel made that that you prayed and god answered but you walked over the manner looking for bread as if you had no responsibility to take potential and turn it into bread tonight my brothers and sisters everything you ask god for is within your reach stretch out your hands again it's in the stretch it won't be comfortable your arms will be tired it won't be easy cause it's not finished but whatever that is you've been praying about get it in your mind get it in your spirit get it in your senses and this time when you pull it in claim it for yours now you

Channel: T.D. Jakes

Views: 5,282,758

Keywords: td jakes, faith, wtal, woman thou are loosed, megafest, potters house, bishop jakes, pastors and leadership, pastors, leaders, instinctbishops, village, bible study, Exodus 16 NIV, prophetic word, bible class, GodsBlessings, Heavenly Guidance, Recognizing God's Answers, bible verse, Listening to God, can I trust gods work, how to rely on God, will god answer me, god will answer you

Id: Y3GQuY0WvCM

Length: 91min 12sec (5472 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 11 2022