Well, I want to talk about a particular miracle today that I think is to me a miracle that symbolizes what is happening in the world today and all that is going on in the world today. And I think around the world and especially in America, I think pastors are some pastors are probably addressing the things that have happened in our society, things that are things, the shootings and the killings that happen even this past weekend and seemed to happen so, so often. Too often one is too often, one is too many. But the terrorism in the world, the the the crazy shootings, the senseless murder that happens in the world, what how did we get there? How did we how do we get to this place? And and so the miracle that I'm going to share with you, I think is very relevant for what's happening in the world today and relevant for what's happening in your life today and any day. And I and I call it simply this the miracle of a right mind, the miracle of a right mind. You know, having a right mind or right mindedness and thinking right. Is really miraculous because we grow up so screwed up. We grow up. We all grow up with fears, with insecurities, with a sense of inferiority, with a sense of expectation, of sickness, disease, and with a sense of unhappiness. We all grow up to some degree, Kirst, with those three things. Those were the first three things that happened in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve sinned. The first three things that came into the world were depression, sadness. Unhappiness was the first thing because God said in sorrow, you shall now in sorrow, you shall have children. In sorrow, you shall live by the sweat of your brow. So sorrow, sadness and unhappiness, depression. That was the first thing that came into the world when Adam and Eve sinned and inferiority. They saw each other as they saw themselves inferior. And so they tried to rule and dominate each other. That people who are controlling people, they try to control others because of a sense of inferiority. People that act superior are usually people that feel inferior. And so their sense of superiority is really a cover up or a mask for their deep seated inferiority. And then we have a lack of peace in this world and sickness and disease and brokenness. And and so if you if you take those things inferiority, depression and unhappiness and sickness and brokenness, Jesus has a remedy for all three of those things. And it's called being born again and having a Bible. All right, help me now, I know that might sound too good to be true, but it's called being born again, having a Bible and getting in a good church that teaches about being born again and teaches the Bible. And and he said really? He said the kingdom of God in Romans, chapter 14, verse 17. He said, the kingdom of God is three things its righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. So the remedy for inferiority is the gift of righteousness. The remedy for sickness and brokenness is the spirit of peace. And the remedy for sadness and depression and unhappiness and sorrow is joy. So he says, he brings righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And when you're born again, the Kingdom of God is not a place. The Kingdom of God is inside of you in heaven. The Heaven is a place. But the kingdom of God is a force. And what is it? A force of it is a force of righteousness, which is a gift through the blood of Jesus, righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit and the whole battle in our lives, all spiritual warfare. From that, from the point you get born again, is all about renewing your mind to the fact of who you are now in Christ and what is inside of you that when you realize you are you are TNT on the inside, you are dynamite on the inside, you have power on the inside of you. God is not giving you a spirit of fear, but power, love and a what sound mind. And that word sound mind means a healthy restored mind. And if God has given us a healthy and restored mind, why are why is our mind sick? Why is our mind, why does our mind think contrary to God's word? Because to to to to live in our sound mind. We have to we have to study the mind of Christ. We have to understand how God thinks. And that's why he's given us the Bible is the discovery. The Bible is a discovery of what's inside of you already. It's a discovery of who you are. It's not a it's not a book of things that you have to try to obtain. It's a book of revealing to you what Jesus has hidden inside of you. When you got Born Again, Jesus hid some treasure inside of you. The Kingdom of God is like a man who found a treasure and he buried it in his in the field. Well, your heart is the field. And when you got born again, Jesus is the one that found the Kingdom of God, not us. Jesus takes the Kingdom of God, the treasures of of God's kingdom and hides them in your field. And all of life is all about opening up those treasures and discovering what God has put inside of you. That's what Christianity is, it's getting born again and then it's a journey of discovery, discovery what's what's inside of you, the kingdom of God, righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, Jesus said in Luke, chapter 17, verse 21. Don't don't look for the Kingdom of God. When people say the kingdom, God is over here. The Kingdom of God is over there. For the Kingdom of God is within you. It's within you when you're born again, it's inside of you, remember how we've been talking about how the lady that was in debt, the prophet, gave her the answer to a question? Her question was, what am I going to do? I owe all this money. And the prophets answer was, what do you have in your house? What do you have in your house? Well, your body is the house of God. Your body is the house of God's gifts. When you got Born Again, Jesus came to live inside. He brought all his furniture, brought all his gifts, brought his spirit, brought his love, brought his power, brought his faith. And you are just a treasure chest of God's gifts and God's goodness and God's power on the inside of you. And my job is not to tell you what to do. My job is to help you discover the treasure that's already inside of you. The moment you get born again and preachers that are all about no, you got to tell people to stop doing this and stop doing that. Really, because your parents did that. How well did that work? I mean, come on, that's that's religion. Just telling people what to do and stop this and stop that. That's not Christianity. Jesus talked about your heart. He talked about what he put what he wanted to put inside of you in the whole New Testament is a revelation of the grace of God and the love of God and what God has placed inside you. All right. So here we go. So this miracle of a right mind is found in Luke, chapter eight, verse twenty seven. Let's go there, Luke. Eight twenty seven. Everybody say the miracle of a right mind. So when Jesus steps out onto the land, so he was in a boat and I wanted to tell you all the things that happened in the boat, but I want I think I want to come back next time and tell you what happened in the boat, because some some amazing things happened in the boat. But he gets out of the boat and there met him, a certain man from the city who had demons for a long time. And he wore no clothes, nor did he live in a house, but he lived in the tombs or he lived among the dead. Now, this is the condition of the culture that we're living in today and even the culture of Christians, that there are many Christians that even though even though we may not be demon possessed like this man had between somewhere between two thousand and 6000 demons living inside of him, he had a legion of demons, which was at least 2000, because we know we know that Jesus cast these demons into two thousand swine and then they went over the cliff. So it was at least two thousand. But because swine or big swine or not little, you know, it's not we're not talking about Porky Pig. You know, we're not talking about little Porky Pig. We're talking about swine. These things were big. And so so it was most likely 6000 demons. Some some people most historians believe that a legion is six thousand. So in a legion of angels or legion of an army is six thousand. And and so this legion of demons was living inside of this man, at least 6000 demons, most likely. So three for every pig. Because I'm telling you, those swings were huge now. But the point here is and I I want to try to cover a lot of material in as quick as a period of time as possible. But I want you to hear this, because the number one perpetrator, the number one reason for the sick condition of this world is damaged minds and damaged hearts, because there are a lot of things that have been done that have been evil by people that call themselves Christians. And you might say, well, can they really be a Christian and commit could a person be a Christian and really commit that kind of crime or this kind of harm or this kind of bad action or behavior? And the answer is, yes, you can be a Christian and still commit bad things because being a good person is not what makes you a Christian. Being born again is what makes you a Christian. The problem is, is that people are Christian in their heart. They're just not Christian in their thinking. And what I mean by that is when Jesus his first miracle in the Bible was that he turned water into wine. Remember that? And and when he turned the water into wine, he took empty vessels, empty vessels that were six foot tall jugs. And he told them when they ran out of wine, he said pour water into the vessels and the water. The water in the vessel is when it first gets poured in. You're born again. The first drop of water, living water that Jesus offers from the well. Right drink of this water and you'll never thirst again. The first drop of water makes you born again. But the miracle didn't happen until the water was stilled all the way to the brim. Now, if you treat if you look at a vessel of this, these jugs of water, six foot tall, it represents a man, it represents a human being. And we are human vessels. We're right. And so when you hear the word of God, you get saved. When you hear the gospel for the first time or you accept it for the first time, you get born again. That's the first drop of water. But but the miracle, the transformation doesn't happen until the water is filled all the way to the brim. It didn't turn into wine until it filled the brim. Will the brim is your head. And the point that I'm trying to make is, is that is that the way the water did not turn into wine or the miracle did not happen until the water was all the way in the brain? And what I'm trying to say is the greatest miracle that God wants to do in your life, once you get born again, is he wants to get into your head and he wants to get the water in your in your head. He wants to get the water of his word. And you're thinking because when you start thinking, you see most people, the water stops at their heart. You've got a you've got a heart that's born again. You're a new creature in Christ. So the water is filled up to your heart. But there's no miracle when the water is just filled up to your heart. The miracle happens when it's filled up to your head. He said when it got in here, when it gets in your thinking, when it gets in, you're thinking that's when it was turned into, when it gets in your thinking, that's when the boring life becomes a joyful life. That's when the I want to say this the right way. But but because. Because wine can be perceived as bad and alcohol is not good in excess. But the point in the illustration of Jesus turning the water into wine was to symbolize what wine represented to him when used in the right way. It represented abundance. It represented healing. It represented joy. It represented celebration. It represented a party that was a healthy one, a good one. And what I'm trying to say is, if you know you can you can you can be born again in your heart, but you're but not have any joy, peace, happiness, not be influenced and intoxicated by the love of God until until the word of God gets in your head, not just in your heart. This makes sense to anybody, so so back in Luke, eight twenty seven, so this man, he his condition is is he's he's he's overcome by demons. And now that you're born again, the devil the devil can't live inside of you. But he doesn't need to live inside of you. As long as he can get his thought patterns and mindsets in your head, you will you will live as if you were demon possessed, even though the demon does not live inside of you. The thinking that is demonic and the strongholds and the mind sets that are contrary to God's word are still controlling your life, controlling your decisions, and then the outcome of your life is demonic. Even though there's no demon inside of you, it's because you're making decisions based on strongholds that have a strong hold on you, that are contrary to God's word, God's grace, God's love and God's promises. This make any sense so far to anybody? All right. So this is why the world is in the condition that it's in. And folks, this is why school systems are in the condition that they're in. You know what somebody said, God, why don't why aren't you doing something about what happened, what's happening in the public schools? And God's answer is like, you know, they kicked me out. They kicked me out a long time ago. Hey, this is not political, this is not political, I hate politics, I hate politicians, I love mean Jesus, but I, I hate them in my mind. And most of us are kind of exaggerating a little. But my point is, is I don't trust them. My trust is in God, not in government. I'm telling you right now, it's you take the Bible out of the schools in 1950, you take prayer out of schools in 1960, and you wonder why there's so much violence and so much so much gang, you know, gang activity and why there's so much peer pressure and comparison and depression and addiction at an all time high in high school and the cutting of themselves and the and the hurting self sabotage self it self-inflicted injury to self is at an all time high. I got statistics about this stuff that I can read you, but this is the condition of this man and he's a picture of today's culture. And you know what? You're not going to get all the nonsense out of the schools until you get the Jesus back in the school. You're not going to get the nonsense. You're not going to get the violence and the the senseless, the senseless hate, the senseless pain, the senseless crimes. You're not going to get them out of society until we get Jesus back in society. And it starts with your mind. It starts in your thought life. It starts with you getting born again and then your mind being filled. And then you become you become a magnet for people. People are drawn to you. So he steps up. So here's this demon possessed dude. And and look at what it says about him. He wore no clothes, nor did he live in a house, but in the tombs. And listen, you know, just the idea that he wore no clothes. And we're going to come back to this in a minute. But just the idea that this man has been naked for this whole time for a long time, you know, any any man naked, anybody naked outside of their their bedroom or their bathroom is just it's just never a good idea. Just it's never a good idea if you're going to be naked, you know, the bed, the bath, but not beyond. All right. This is. And it says in verse twenty eight. It says, and when when he saw Jesus, he cried out and he fell down before him with a loud voice, you know. This just grabbed me, these words, when it says he when he saw Jesus, he cried out, you know, have you ever noticed how in your life, you know, some of the negative people that are at work or or in your neighborhood or whatever they seem to like it seem to be OK around others, but they seem to like manifest their devils around you. Have you ever wondered why that is? Here's why it is, is because in their heart, though, they are bound by demonic thinking and maybe even bound by demons like in this case of this man, they're crying out when they see somebody that's got Jesus in them and they start crying out. They're expecting you to have the answer. They're crying out because they they just they they caught a glimpse of the Jesus in you. And they have this glimmer of hope that maybe you're the person that can help them get set free, that maybe you're the person that can deliver them, that maybe you're the person who knows his authority because you've learned about the gift of righteousness and knows your power because you went to life changes and heard about Luke 10, 19, that you have authority over all the power of the enemy and nothing says about him he's hurt you or you went to a church like this where you heard about Isaiah 54 17, where says no weapon formed against you shall prosper or you go to a church like this and you know that Psalm 91, verse 10 and 11 says no evil self befall you nor Solenni plague come near your tent. Or maybe you're one of those believers who believes the Bible like I do, that the Bible actually says that we will lay hands on the sick and they'll recover. We'll cast out demons. We'll speak with new tongues, we'll pick up serpents and we'll drink any deadly poison and it will not harm us. That doesn't mean we're going around drinking turpentine to prove God's power. But I'm just saying, in case you ever had some bad some bad cooking in your house, you can eat it, drink it and live. Don't ever worry about when you're visiting one of your relatives. And you know, they're a terrible cook. They're the worst cook. They just they they just they just they just somebody you don't ever want to eat there. Go ahead and eat it. It's all right. You can eat the poison and not die. Go ahead. It's all just be a polite. Just be polite. Just be polite and eat that nasty food. All right? Let me tell you something, they're crying out, keep that verse up, please. The people are crying out. They're crying out. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him, he said with a loud voice. What what I what do I have to do with you? Jesus, son of the most time. I beg you, do not torment me. And you know what happens next? Is he he then if you go to verse 30, this is a real key. Jesus says to him, What is your name? What is your name? Now, let me explain something to you, because the miracle of a right mind, you're not going to get in your right mind until you name what the wrong thing is that's in your life, until you name what the wrong thing is. Jesus said, what is your name? Legian. We are many. He said, Legian. We are many. And he named Jesus required. Don't you think Jesus knew what the Demons name was? Don't you think Jesus knew what was in this man? He he knows everything. But what he wanted to do was he wanted to show us the secret to the miracle, the secret to getting delivered from something. The secret to getting set free from something is you've got to be willing to name it. You can't protect it and hide it and act self-righteous like, oh, no, I don't have that problem. Yes, you do have that at everybody. And your mama knows you have that problem. You're the only one that's not willing to admit it, but nobody else is. Knowledge of your condition can set you free until you acknowledge your condition. And Jesus wants you to acknowledge it, because once you acknowledge it, there's a freedom in honesty and there's a freedom in truth and there's a freedom in self awareness. You know how people are sometimes they're self-absorbed, not self-aware. And that's why they never get free, they're just everybody else around them knows that they've got this thing going on and and people might know more about what they see wrong in my life than sometimes I'm willing to admit. And and that's OK. But nobody else is observation of me is ever going to set me free until I am willing to admit it. Hey, I'm dealing with this fear or I'm dealing with this pride or I'm dealing with this struggle or I'm dealing with this addiction or I'm dealing with this this, this, this mindset or this stronghold in my life. He names it. I really want to encourage you to to draw the from the truth of this scripture. What is your name? And he said Legian because they were many. And you know what Jesus said? They asked him will send us into the mind. And so Jesus does. He sends them into the swine. They they they go off the cliff. And verse 30, if you go to verse thirty three, it says the demons went out, went out of the man and entered the swine. And I mean let me just say something here because we, we see something very powerful about Jesus. In this miracle is one thing, we see his compassion on oppressed people that he doesn't go. Oh, that guy. That guy's got so many demons I would never want to be around that guy. Like, Jesus has compassion on people that are oppressed. Jesus doesn't look at people the way we sometimes look at people. Jesus has compassion on the oppressed. And then he shows his power over the devil and he shows that and he shows the word of God is what has the power and what carries the power. Because if you look at Matthew, chapter eight, verse 16, real quick in Matthew, chapter eight, verse 16, I think I'll read this to you from the English standard version. Matthew, chapter six. Excuse me, Matthew. Chapter eight, verse 16 in the English standard version, it says in it says that the in the evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons. And if you guys can put the English standard version up there, that many were oppressed by demons and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick, how many did he heal? All who were sick? What kind of Jesus do we get to worship? The same yesterday, today and forever. We don't have an inferior Jesus to this Jesus. This is the Jesus. It lives inside of us. This is the Jesus. That is your savior and Lord. This is the Jesus that came knocking on your door of your heart and asking to come in and came in and to dine with you. This is we did not get a second version of Jesus. You got the same version of Jesus that walked up to oppressed demonic people and cast out the spirits with one word and healed all who are sick. That's the same Jesus that we're worshiping. You may you may have been taught about a different Jesus, but it's time to get rid of that that version of Jesus, because this is the Jesus, the Jesus that walks in the room and has compassion on the hurting, the Jesus that picks up the adulteress and says, I don't condemn you, that Jesus and now go and sin no more than Jesus that heals the man that was lame for thirty eight years, that Jesus that sees those friends carrying their their friend on a on a on a pallet and says your faith has made you well and he sees their faith and he says son, your sins are forgiven. That Jesus that that saw the the funeral procession and the mother weeping because her child was in the coffin and Jesus comes and touches the coffin that's and raises that kid from the dead. That's the Jesus that we get to worship the same Jesus. We worship this Jesus, this Jesus has authority and he lives inside of us. And he said, as you he said, just as he is. So are we in this world, anybody that preaches to you, inferior Jesus to this? Jesus is preaching a false gospel, and you don't need to ever listen to them and you don't need to pay attention to them. There's only one real Jesus. And we are determined introduce you to him. Everyone he comes in contact with, he heals, everyone he comes in contact with, he delivers everyone he comes in contact with, he leaves them fed, he leaves them happy, he leaves them blessed. He leaves them forgiven. He leaves them changed. He leaves them loved. He leaves them. He leaves them delivered and set free. That's the Jesus. That's the Jesus we call Lord. That's the Jesus we call savior. That's the Jesus we call our best friend. That's the Jesus. The cast out demons with a word and healed all who were sick, he said, well, how come it hasn't happened yet? Because we've got to get a miracle of our right mind, because as a man thinks so is he? Our thoughts are powerful. They're so powerful. I got to tell you something. Our thoughts are so powerful that that is the number one perpetrator of the sick condition of this world is damaged minds and damaged hearts. Unhappiness drives people to do crazy things. The reason why that person at work is so cray cray and you just can't stand being around them is they have a damaged mind. They have a damaged soul. They have a damaged heart. And I'm not saying that that's an excuse for for behavior that harms another human being. It is not an excuse. But but if we don't face the reality of that, this is why we're in the condition that we're in in our society. We will never get a society better. And God didn't put us on this earth just to just to twiddle our thumbs until Jesus returns. He said Occupy until I come. He said, take dominion. He said, bring my love, bring my grace, bring my goodness, bring my power, bring my healing to everyone you come in contact with. Jesus didn't leave us on this earth just just to wait for his return. He left us on this earth to take dominion. And you can't take dominion of a nation if you can't take dominion over your thoughts. You can't take dominion in a culture, in a society until you take dominion over your thinking. That's where Dominion starts, that's where our authority must begin, is we must take our authority over our mindsets that are corrupted and not in agreement with God's word. Studies show that 75 to 95 percent of the illnesses that plague us today, whether they be mental illnesses or physical illnesses, are the direct result of our thought life. What we think about affects us physically and emotionally. It's an epidemic of toxic emotions. The average person listen, this is research. This is scientific. The average person has over thirty thousand thoughts per day. And through an uncontrolled thought life, we create the conditions for an uncontrolled environment and the conditions for illness and the conditions for physical and mental sickness. We have made ourselves sick because of a thought life that is unshielded to God's word and UN surrendered to God's word. And if you have thirty thousand thoughts a day, you don't even know how many of those thoughts are negative. We don't realize how many of those are negative that are so subconscious or run through our minds so quickly. We don't know how. We don't know the effect that they're having on our bodies and on our emotions. But we can't stop them by taking our thoughts captive to what Jesus did on the cross obedience to Christ, which is which is really surrendering our thoughts to his obedience, surrendering our thoughts to what he did. His obedience is what makes us righteous, not our obedience. So our surrender, our we're surrendering our thought. We're surrendering our thoughts to a grace minded identity and a love filled identity. That's what we're surrendering our thoughts to, because anything that doesn't line up with God's grace and doesn't line up with God's love is not from God. So research shows that fear. All on its own triggers more than fourteen hundred known physical and chemical responses in the brain and activates more than 30 different hormones in your body. That's why we are in the condition that we are in, because fear, what a man fears, comes upon him. How? Because it activates chemicals. Fear activates chemicals in our brain, just as love activates chemicals in our brain. And that's why perfect love is the greatest chemical of all, because it releases chemicals that drive out the chemicals that fear and the chemicals that inferiority brought and the chemicals that that that brokenness brought and the chemicals that abuse and the chemicals that the drugs and the chemicals that the alcohol and the chemicals that other people's trauma towards you and other people's treatment towards you created trauma and release chemicals in your brain. But perfect love, perfect love releases chemicals that cast out all fear. And and there is and perfect love is not our love for God. It's God's love for us. OK, so. There are intellectual medical reasons to get our thinking straight regarding ourselves. That's why every miracle, every breakthrough, every bit of happiness starts with this one thing. Knowing what you already have, God is not giving you the spirit of fear, but power, love and a sound mind. We need to get our mind right. We need to get our mind right. How did that happen? Look, first of all, this guy was naked. He had no clothes. He was lonely. He was isolated. He was self-destructive. Look at Mark, Chapter five verses real quick. Mark, Chapter five. Verse five is a is Mark's version of this man who was demon possessed and always night and day. He was in the mountains, in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones. What would make a person cut themselves? Well, this is what's happening in our culture today, folks. It's it's this story, this this demonic experience that Jesus had where he casts these demons out. He gave us he gave this to us because he wanted to show his compassion for this man, but he gave it to us as a picture of the culture in the society that we're living in and why we have the the the problems that we have in our society. And it starts with our thinking. Mark five, verse five. It says he was cutting himself. He was cutting himself with stones. Prince Self injury or self-harm. A recent study conducted at Princeton and Cornell found that almost 20 percent of college students self injure. They cut, they calves, they burn or they otherwise hurt themselves. One out of every five more recent study indicates that up to almost 25 percent of adolescents have self injured. They literally hurt themselves or try to do something to hurt themselves. A 2012 study just five or six years ago revealed almost 10 percent of third graders. Injure themselves. Parents. We need to we need to get our minds right so we can help get our children's minds right. I don't want to see a three I don't want to see I don't want to see a I don't want to see an eight year old, a nine year old that should be playing. And throwing stones in rivers and lakes, cutting themselves with those stones ever again. This is demonic, it's plagued our culture, the drugs, the addictions, the mental illness, you know, the problem one of the problems we have in our society, in our culture, is we've closed down so many mental hospitals and mental institutions. There are only a few remaining. Most of them are intelligent. But the point is, is that. When I talk like mental institutions, mental illnesses, mental patients turn here and I keep being drawn there because I'm still in need of some healing and. Do you know that a statistic I just heard is that we have the capacity? The what we had the capacity 100 percent, the one hundred percent of mental hospitals and mental treatment centers that we had in the 1950s, we now have five percent of what we had 60 years ago. Sixty years ago, folks, the number one problems in schools were was chewing gum in class and walking the halls without a pass. That was the worst problem 60 years ago in schools. Is there any doubt why we so we need to hit it from every angle, we need to hit it from the word of God, we need to hit it from prayer. And we also need to hit it by treating mental illness as no longer some stigma like, oh, that person has cancer and that's understandable. But that person has a mental illness. You don't say, oh, they can't admit that. Oh, you know, then they should lose their job. Really? Should the cancer patient lose their job, why should a mental ill person lose their job if he can be treated? And it can be treated and God's word is the great Heny, and he healed them with a word. And in and in and in Luke, chapter eight, verse thirty five, it says they find this man, Jesus ministers to this man, and they went to see what had happened and came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed. And it is right mind. And that miracle is astounding, but the bad the worst part of it is what it says next. And they were afraid, these people just watching this man, he was demon possessed. Now he's sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed. And in his right mind, they're like, we're afraid he's got clothes on now. We're afraid he's in his right mind now. We're afraid he's sitting at the feet of Jesus. Now we're afraid. That's how twisted our culture is. That's how twisted our society is. Is that when a person man, when I was on drugs and when I my eyes were so dilated, I had to wear dark glasses when I was selling drugs and doing drugs, none of my family members were. And I'm nothing against my family members. I love them. God bless them. They're watching and. But they were they might have been concerned, but I didn't hear about their concern until I announced I got born again and Jesus was my lord and I went to the relatives houses and I preach the gospel to every one of my relatives. And then they saw then they thought I was crazy. Then they were afraid. They weren't afraid of me when I was carrying knives. They weren't afraid of me when I was on drugs. They were afraid of me when I was doing evil things like, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to paint them. But I. But they weren't afraid. They didn't freak out until I got say that like, oh well what happened to you? What's the matter with you? Let me tell you what the matter is with me. I finally found my seat at the feet of Jesus and I am finally clothed and in my right mind. Let me tell you something about being closed, give me a couple give me a couple of minutes extra, would you? Today was right. Thank you so much. Take your time. That's the word of the Lord. Take your time. God, just I just heard the Lord speak. I didn't know he was a woman. But you know what, Shackman? By the way, he is all. Male and female, he is all of that. Because, you know, ladies, you didn't come from somebody else other than God, it's not like you came like something else. Came from the same God that men came from. You're made in the image of God in the same exact way that man is made in the image of God. You're just the better version. OK. The lady should have me at the ladies conference and we really encourage you, but thanks for that like. Applause. Really encouraged by and obviously, OK, he finishes. Let me tell you something about being closed whenever we see closed in the Bible, it symbolizes the love of God. So when Adam and Eve first sin, the first thing that God did because God is love, the first thing God did was he clothed them with animal skin. When the father sees his son return, the prodigal son returns in, the first thing the father does is he clothes his son with the robe and says, bring the best robe and put it on my son. When Joseph. In Genesis, thirty seven, verse three. You got a part of me, I don't know, some some you know, something in my eye. In Genesis 37, verse three, it says, Now, Jacob love Joseph more than all of his children. And you know what? That's how God feels towards you. And you say, how can God feel that towards me? Because he's God and he has enough love to make you feel that way. And for me to feel that way and for somebody else to feel that way, because that's exactly how he feels. He loves you more than anything. And what did he do, what did the father do because of how much he loved his son, he made him a coat. And clothed him with a coat of many colors. And then it says in verse five in the King James Bible put the King James version of Genesis 37, verse five, and this is so beautiful. And it says, And Joseph dreamed a dream. And Joseph dreamed a dream. You know, the children of our culture today are not dreaming a dream. They're living in nightmares, nightmares of addiction and nightmares of parents that don't know how to love them, and nightmares of parents that don't know how to raise them in nightmares of school systems that are breeding fear and peer pressure and and negativity. And and I'm not blaming people. This is because of the way this is because of the mindsets and the strongholds that are in control of our of our culture that we must no longer allow to control us. And that's why fasting from wrong thinking is so important and renewing our mind to God's word, Joseph dreamed a dream. Why do you think Joseph dreamed a dream? Why? How could Joseph dream a dream while his other while his brothers were just laboring in the field and Joseph is dreaming dreams? It's because when you are convinced of the love of your heavenly father, you will begin to dream bigger dreams. You will begin to think bigger. You will begin to dream bigger. You will begin to envision bigger things. You were not living by the sweat your brow anymore, trying to be loved and trying to be accepted and trying to be trying to feel better about yourself and trying to find self-worth and self identity through all the wrong ways and all the wrong vessels and vehicles. Instead, you know, your father loves you in verse three and therefore you can dream a dream in verse five instead of living in a nightmare because you're not sure of his love. When you know that you're sure of his great love for you, you will begin to dream dreams that have never existed before. You will live at the highest level that you have ever been created for because you have been close with the love of God. He was closed. He was closed. He was clothed in his right mind. What was he clothed with love. What was he clothed with? The gift of righteousness. What was he clothed with acceptance. What was he clothed with a Jesus that was like, you have a need in your life. I'm going to meet that need. You've been naked all these years. Let me put some clothes on your back. I'm not just a Jesus that deals with your spirit. I deal with your body, too. I'll help you with your finances, too. I help you with your family, too. I help you with your health, too. I'll help you with your emotions to help you with what you're struggling with, what you temptation. I'll help you with your addiction. I'll help you with your fear. I help you with your anger. I help you with your jealousy. I'll help you with your low self value and your opinion of yourself that is less. And that's why you're not dreaming big dreams, because you're just trying to just get your head above water. And my friends, this is not God's will for you to just get your head above water. You're supposed to be surfing. You're supposed to be walking on the water. You're supposed to be dreaming bigger dreams. And those dreams come from the love of the father. And it says in Luke's eight thirty five, it says he was sitting at the feet of Jesus, this is where he says this is where it all happens. And he was clothed in his right mind. Why was he in his right mind? Because he was sitting in the right place. You know, you'll never be in your right mind until you take your seat. And let me tell you where your seat is. Ephesians two six says we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. It says it on purpose that it doesn't say we're standing with Christ in heavenly places. It says we're seated with Christ in heavenly places because Jesus did all the all the fighting. And we're now all we have to do is sit with him resting in the finished work of the cross. We are seated with him in heavenly places. Listen, let me tell you something. It says he was sitting at the feet of Jesus. And what do you do? What does this symbolize? It symbolizes that he knew where his seat was. That's why it's so vital to know who you are in Christ, to know that you're seated with Christ in heavenly places and to be in a church that is teaching you about who you are, just being in church is not the secret, but being in a church that teaches you who you are in Christ, where you're seated, who you are, that you're a son or daughter of God, that you have authority, that you have the victory, that you're more than a corker, that you're the head and not the tail that you're above and beneath. That's that's where you belong in a place that is nurturing and feeding the real you and dismantling all of the mindsets that have been that have created imaginations of the false you. And and it says he was sitting at the feet of Jesus. And if you look at if you look at Luke, ten thirty eight, it says Mary and Martha were sisters. They had Jesus over and what was what. And in Luke, ten, thirty eight, Martha was worried and bothered. And what was Mary doing? It says in verse thirty nine and Mary Martha was distracted with all the preparations, but Mary sat at Jesus feet hearing his word. Sitting at the feet of Jesus is listening to his word, sitting, knowing where you're seated in Christ and then listening to his word and you know what else happens at the feet of Jesus. The Bible says that that everyone that saw the goodness of God fell at Jesus feet. Peter sees the goodness of God falls at Jesus feet. The Samaritan, one of the 10 that were cleansed of leprosy. He sees that he was healed and he goes back and he falls at Jesus feet. And we see Abraham, when God says to him, walk before me and I'm going to make a covenant with you. In the Bible says Abraham falls at God's feet and you worship is not us just singing a song. It's us reflecting and us awakening to the goodness of God to where it brings us to our knees. We don't come to our knees because it's the religious thing to do. And that's what the program reads. Now, Neil, now sit now stand. No offense to my Catholic brothers and sisters. I love you dearly, but worship is not a behavior, a learned behavior that is part of a program. Worship is being awakened to God's loving goodness that it drives you to your knees. And let me tell you what else worship is, worship is not singing a song, worship is to not it's not just lifting your hands to God, it's lifting your thoughts to God's way of thinking. You are truly you see, we all have learned to raise our hands, but we need to raise our thinking to be in alignment with God's thinking. That's true worship that you could sing like an angel and you can lift your hands, you can dance, you can boogie, and you could do all that and worship. But until you elevate your thinking. To get into agreement with God's way of thinking, you haven't yet worshiped him. Do you know what I mean? There's nothing wrong with singing and celebrating and lifting your hands and dancing and do all that and twirl around until you, you know, knock yourself out. Just don't, you know, throw a lawsuit at the church. We didn't cause that you did that. I was dancing, I hit my head on the chair and the church didn't put a chair there. Well, you were sitting in it. It's true, worship is to surrender our thought life to God. It's not hard to do. It's just you got to do do it consistently. And you'll see the effect is that you'll have the peace that passes all understanding. You'll be closed and in your right mind, in her right mind is a mind that chooses to sit at the feet of Jesus. You have to make a choice to come out in the snow and listen to God's word. You got to make a choice to come out when you're tired. You've got to make a choice to open the email. This is not these are not hard choices, folks. Open the dang email faster. Wrong thinking. Just open it. Start there, read it. Watch the little two minute video. It says in verse 42 of Luke, ten forty two, and I'll close with this, thank you so much for letting me share a little extra. But in Luke ten forty two it says. But Jesus is telling Martha one thing is needed. Martha and Mary has chosen that good part. She's chosen that one thing and it will not be taken away from her. In other words, when you choose. To do the things that will bring you into the right mind, choose to worship the real Jesus, choose to agree with God, choose to sit at his feet and listen to his word, choose to fast or wrong thinking, choose to get connected to a church that is feeding you and dismantling wrong thinking and elevating right thinking, shoot, choose those. Those choices that you make will not be taken away from you when you just stumble into it. It can be taken away from you when you just try this stuff. It can be taken away from you. But when you make that choice, when you make that quality decision, I am surrendering my thought life to God, to his word. And I am the Bible says that that your ways are not my ways and your thoughts are not my thoughts. So he says repent meaning change your thoughts. And if you change your thoughts, it will elevate your living. Your ways will rise to the level of your thinking. And so Jesus God is saying. And Isaiah fifty five there, he's saying he's saying your thoughts are not my thoughts. That's why your ways are not my ways. Your ways will never become God's ways until your thoughts become his thoughts and you adopt your thinking to his thinking and that that elevates your way of living. Your way of thinking is what takes you on the elevator and takes you up all the way. To the way of living that you were created for the stand together.
