Romans 12:1 he said, "I beseech
you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which
is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this
world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that
you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect,
will of God." Let me read it to you from
another translation. The New Living says in verse
two, "Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but
let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you
think." Did you hear that phrase? Let God transform you into a new
person. How is He going to do it? We're involved in the process by
us changing the way we think. Is it true that if you change
the way you think, you change you? God changes you, He's the One
that gave you the right thoughts, the right words and
the right thoughts to think. And then you and I made the
choice to think them and change our way of thinking. And it will cause you to become
a different person. "Then you will learn to know
God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect." How many in this place and
outside the place watching by the Internet and other means,
you are interested in knowing the will of God? Knowing what is exactly that
good, and well pleasing, and perfect will of God for your
life. Well He's telling us how to know
it. Isn't He? Us knowing and being established
in the perfect will of God for our life is connected to mind
renewal. And I think it would be safe to
say that we're not going to find and know the will of God, the
perfect will of God, without our minds being renewed because He
said this is how it happens. So should we be interested in
our minds getting renewed? People sometimes talk about
churches like us and go, "Man watch out, don't go over there. They'll brainwash you." Well in fact, your brain needs a
real good scrubbing. And we know just exactly how to
do it. It is the washing of the water
of the Word. And depending on what you do,
and how much in the world, and how much of the world you're
seeing and hearing, it is defiling, it is contaminating. And that's one of the reasons
why we need to come together and have the Word wash over us. That's why you need to open up
your Bible at home and read your chapter and other things and let
the washing of the water of the Word cleanse your spirit and
your mind. We need it. And in that washing process is
renewing; you're washed, you're renewed, you're refreshed,
invigorated, excited about tomorrow. And you hang around the wrong
stuff and listen to the wrong thing, you'll feel weighted
down, heavy, sad, hopeless, powerless, victim. Which means you better get out
of there and get somewhere where you can hear something else. That's why you need faith
buddies. And faith friends that will not
talk the junk, and failure, and defeat, and impossibility, and
hopelessness of the world, but they'll talk faith to you. They'll talk Bible expectation. They'll talk excitement about
the future. You know, you take looking
forward to the future another step. In just a few more breaths,
we're out of here to heaven. That's real. That's not a fairy tale, that's
not imaginary; that's real. And this is all we've ever done
so we think fifty years, one hundred years is a long time. It's not. The Bible said it's like a rose
that blooms and then it's gone. That's what our life is like. It may seem long to us but
that's what it's really like. Anybody deal with flowers? How long does a bloom last? That's our life. He said it's like a vapor, it's
like a mist, it's like a morning fog. There is, then it evaporates and
is gone. The sun comes out and it's gone. That's your life. That's my life. But it's not the end. This was just faith school. Preparation and training for the
future. Because we are going to rule and
reign with Him forever. We're going to be with Him
forever. We're going to be with each
other forever. You know, you're going to meet
your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great,
great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great
grandpa and grandma that you never even knew existed. And you're going to like them. You have family there. Family of God, all of them are
your family. It's going to be amazing. So, we can endure these little
trials and tests here. The afflictions -- they're not
even worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be
revealed. Can you make it a few more days
and do some work for the Lord? Have some victories and then get
out of here? Yes, you can. Well, we're talking about
finding and doing the will of God and in order to do that this
passage says mind renewal is connected to it. Today's English version says it
like this, "Do not conform yourselves to the standards of
this world..." Have you ever heard of peer
pressure? It's talked about a lot
concerning school, junior high and high school, college. People talk about how terrible
the peer pressure is. Peer pressure doesn't go away
when you graduate. Peer pressure, so-called, is
just simply a manifestation of the pressure that's in the world
to make you like its self. Why is there so much pressure to
conform? Everybody else was trying it,
you're the oddball if you don't try it. Everybody else was wearing, back
in my day, bellbottoms, big collars and platform shoes. Afros, if you could. There is this pressure to
conform, and the shades and designs and all that change,
they're continuously changing, but the pressure remains --
don't be an oddball. Don't be the last one on your
block to have one. Don't be the last one to
participate. Don't be the last one to
experiment. Why the pressure? We need mind renewal. We are different. We are supposed to be different. And they're supposed to rise up
and you and I, when the world pushes us to conform to sin, to
unrighteousness, to ungodliness, something ought to rise up in
us. Don't rebel against God, don't
rebel against your leaders, don't rebel against your
parents, rebel against that. Right up against that and go,
"No!" When everybody else is wearing
short skirts, everybody else is doing this drug, everybody else
is doing that, everybody else is doing this. No, they're not. There's a lot of folks like us. There's millions of people like
us. Now there's billions of people
on the planet, I know that, but there's not just two or three of
us. But even if it was, we're not
supposed to conform. We are to be nonconformists. We are transformers; not
conformers. Pressure is the right word. Now, I'm referring to Scripture. Look at it again. What did it say in verse two? What did it say? Don't conform. Did He say don't conform? Then what should we do? Don't conform. Anytime you feel anything
pressuring you, and that's what it is. The word "conform" literally
means "to fashion alike." It means to conform to the same
pattern. The devil, the spirit of the
world, and ungodly people, pressure is coming from that to
make you a cookie cutter copy of them. And we don't have to do that, do
we? We're not like them. We're born again. We're the people of God; we're
different. We're supposed to be different. And we don't have to make
apologies for it. We're not the ones that are
wrong. People that don't know God need
to know God. We don't need to go their way,
they need to come our way. And if they don't see it and
they don't believe it, that's sad. We're not going to help them by
allowing them to pressure us into conformity and hide our
faith, hide our believing in prosperity, hide our believing
in faith, hide our speaking in tongues. No! They need to talk in tongues. Everybody on the planet should
be a tongue-talker. Everybody should be a faith in
Jesus, walking by faith, authority in the name of Jesus,
binding and loosing, talking in tongue Christian. "Surely preacher you're not so
narrow-minded as to say that everybody should be like y'all." Cultures vary, we're not
supposed to go try to westernize the world. That's not the same as
evangelism. And a lot of what people think
is Christianity is their traditions that they have
developed and we need to separate tradition from the
Word. But we must not let the pressure
to conform bend us, and mold us, and shape us into a carbon copy
of the unsaved, ungodly world. We're different. We're not like them. We're not supposed to be like
them. Part of our job is to not be
like them. They need to see something
different. They need to see a different way
to live, a different way to operate, and different ought to
be in front of their face every time we come through. I'm not talking about trying to
be weird. Trying to draw attention to
yourself, I'm not talking about that. Just being who you are, just
being a child of God and not apologizing for it, not being
ashamed of it. Letting your light shine. What did the Bible say? Don't be conformed. Don't conform yourselves. But it went on to say, "...but
let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your
mind." The emphasis in the original
language, the best I can tell, in this word "transformation,"
it means "metamorphose." It's what happens with a
caterpillar to a butterfly; it is the exact picture of it. And it is to change into
something else. To change into another form. Now the world is trying to
conform you to be like everybody else, but God would transform
you into a different person. And I believe this really is a
missing link with a whole lot of Christians. They come and they get
born-again and they get saved, and they hear about the power of
the new birth, but then they are surprised and disappointed when
immediately thereafter they're still dealing with some of the
same issues the next week, and the next month, and six months
later, as they were before they got saved, and they kind of
assumed that getting born-again was going to take care of all
this. But no. When you got born-again your
mind didn't get born-again. Your spirit, the spirit part of
your being became a new creation in Christ Jesus, but you have
the same mind, same body. Didn't we? So immediately after being born
again the Word tells us we have to do something with our minds. We must take responsibility for
getting them renewed. Especially if you live for any
length of time on the Earth before you got born-again, your
whole mindset has been conformed to an ungodly, worldly way of
thinking. And you don't even notice it
because everybody around you thinks the same way. And people call that normal
thinking. But it's conformist. It's conformist thinking. And when you start thinking like
the Lord told you to think, it's going to raise a couple of
eyebrows. And you go far enough people
will look at you and go, "Well, who do you think you are?" Because it is so different from
the way they think. Don't be conformed, but let God
transform you. Transform means to become
different. To undergo a change in form. To change into another form. That's why these other
translations bring out let God transform you inwardly. You become something different. Even after you're born-again,
you're a new creation in Christ Jesus, but people that knew you
the day before are going to see a very similar looking person. And you will retain a lot of
your ways. If you'll pay attention to your
heart, wrong ways will bother you now. Things will bother you now that
didn't used to bother you. And so we need to get on a
continuous diet of the Word of God, feeding God's thoughts into
us. And every time one of His
thoughts shows up a wrong way of thinking, we're to reject that
old way of thinking and embrace His way of thinking. And if we'll do that, the Bible
says we will be changed into another person. Do you believe this? Do you want to be changed? And the other person that you're
changed into is the Christ like person, because you're thinking
like Him. And this is the amazing thing. We haven't emphasize this
enough. This is transformative power to
change you. What about the billions of
dollars and the countless hours and effort in training and
education that human beings are going through trying to change
themselves, and trying to change each other, and trying to get
things changed, and people that are in terrible habits and
terrible practices, we have to get them changed, we have to get
them changed. And even some Christians have
made mistakes by thinking that prayer would take care of
everything. "I prayed for them and prayed
for them and prayed for them they still haven't changed." Prayer is wonderful, but you
can't ignore the Word of God that says you have to get your
mind renewed. Unless we and they do something
to change our minds and to change our way of thinking, we
will not change. We will not be permanently
changed. We got to do something with our
minds. The Lord did something with our
spirit when we were born again, so now we have the power we can
do something with our minds. But He's not going to control
our mind for us. It's our mind. We have to do something with it. Are you willing to? "Be ye transformed by the
renewing of your mind." Renewing. Restoring. You know, the word "transformed"
is used in another couple of places, Mark nine, you don't
have to turn there but put up on the screen for us. Mark 9:2. This same were transformed is
used here concerning Jesus when He took Peter, James and John
and He took them up on the mountain and, "He was
transfigured before them." That's the same word,
transfigured is translated transformed in Romans. Verse three, "His raiment became
shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth
can white them." He changed right in front of
them. They saw what was inside come
out. And they saw something different
than what they had been looking at. Is it true that there is a
glorious possibility of this kind of transfiguration
beginning to happen in us? It's the same word. Can you say glory to God? Go to 2 Corinthians the third
chapter. Transformed by the renewing of
your mind. You're not going to be
spiritual, we're not going to be spiritual, unless we do
something with our minds. There's been wrong thinking in
this area. I've heard more than one person
say, "I wish I could just turn this thing off and the Holy
Ghost just take me over." I've heard people pray and cry,
"Oh God, just take me over and push my mind out of the way." You're talking about a
possession. That's what demons do. "I just want the Holy Ghost to
just possess me and take me over and make me think right." It's never going to happen. He's not a devil. He doesn't want to make you do
something you don't want to do. You have to yield yourself to
Him willingly. Voluntarily. And He's not going to control
your mind, that's one of the unique things about us, God has
made us. Nobody can force us to think
what we don't want to think. We have total autonomy, we have
freedom to choose what we want to think, and choose what we
want to say. That makes us speaking spirits
in the God class. I know folks don't like to hear
things like that, but we need to understand. Are you not made in the likeness
and image of God? This is a big part of what makes
us that way. We can think anything we choose
to think. And we can say it, and we can
believe it, and that's God like. That's how God operates Himself. And we must take seriously what
thoughts are. You know we've been talking
about words on Sunday mornings and thoughts and words go
together. Because what is a word? A word is a thought capsule. A word means nothing unless it
conveys thoughts. And so these are closely
connected. And one of the biggest problems
is folks not taking seriously thoughts. Not even thinking about that
there are significant. But every thought came from
somewhere. Every thought. When we immerse our self in a
book, or a movie, or a show, or a conversation, the inspiration
for the script or for the storyline -- where did it come
from? I know I got a revelation as a
boy having to read certain literary works in school; they
had us read Edgar Allan Poe's work. They even had us memorize some
of it. Thus crows the Raven. What did the Raven say? "Nevermore. Nevermore." And even as a young teenage
Christian I decided Poe had devils at his house. Poe needed to get saved and get
delivered. But see, all these folks think
it's a great literary work because it's written with
elaborate prose. We should have enough sense to
not be razzle-dazzled by the prose and see where the spirit
of it is coming from. See, the devil is taking the
world to hell with window dressing. It's flashy, it's bright, it's
this, it's that, it's art. And so people ooh and ahh. All of this is world conformity. So-called experts ooh and ahh
and you looked at it and saw some crazy scribbles but you
don't want to be an outcast so you read books, and you look at
it long and hard, and you decide yeah, I see some depth in there. You're a phony. And a conformist. If you don't see anything but
squiggles, that's what you say. Squiggles. "You just have no eye for art." And who made you an expert? Who wrote the book that gave you
the edge? What devil inspired them? Just because somebody writes an
800 volume page with a hardcover and has nine letters at the end
of their name, doesn't mean they know a thing. What spirit inspired them? Where did it come from? Isn't life or death? Is that light or darkness? Is it joy or sorrow? If it's from God, it's good,
it's perfect, it's life, it's freedom, it's joy, it's peace. That's art. There is no greater Artist than
the Creator, God. He made you, He made me
one-of-a-kind originals. Let Him tell you what's art. Do you know what He'll tell you? Stay away from that death. Stay away from that confusion. Stay away from that perversion. I don't care if the whole world
calls it art and wonderful, have enough sense to know it's death,
where it came from, what it is. Don't be a conformist. I don't care if the whole world
is raving over it and they're handing out medals and
accolades, if you need to say it, you say it, "That's
depressing. I don't have depressing stuff at
my house." "Oh, he has no eye for art." Don't be conformed. Tell your neighbor, help him out
right now and tell them to don't be conformed. Don't be conformed. The waves of what's cool, what's
great, is changing all the time. Look back over a little bit of
history. What was all the rage the world
over, one hundred, two hundred years from now you can't find
it. What do you think about what's
going on now? What is it going to be in a
little while? But the things of God never
change. And they're always good, they
exist forever. Can you say amen? Glory to God. What was I talking about before
I got off into all that? Second Corinthians three, that's
right. You guys are sharp. Second Corinthians three. This thing has grown on me
considerably and I was believing for that. Are you believing with me for
utterance? You know, go to Romans the
eighth chapter. Let's not go here right now. I don't think were quite ready. Romans chapter eight. Romans eight. I want us to get to that passage
in Corinthians. That third and fourth chapter
has a wealth of light and truth on this subject. But for right now Romans 8:4. Let's talk some more about this. What is a thought? I would encourage you, I would
exhort you not just tonight but tomorrow and the next day, next
week, next month, think about that one simple question. What is a thought? We've had them ever since we can
remember that we were cognitive and aware. Self-aware. But what is it? Just because you're familiar
with something doesn't mean you understand the significance of
it. Take oxygen for instance. We take it for granted, right? But how did it get here? What is it? Where did it come from? And some people got all these
theories well, the cosmos, the explosion. Okay, if it happened that way,
where did it come from to get to there? What is a thought? I'm encouraging you, meditate on
that one simple question tonight, tomorrow, the next day,
as we go through this series. Just in the middle of a Tuesday
just say what is a thought? What is a thought? Thoughts are much more
significant than we have thought. What is a thought? A thought is spiritual. It's not natural. Can you touch a thought? No. You can't feel a thought. Now, a thought can affect
feelings and resulting feelings, but the thought itself you
didn't feel it. What is a thought? Where did it come from? What exactly is a thought? There are some thoughts, come on
now, think with me -- there are some thoughts you could just be
going along not happy, not sad, not anything, and think a of
that thought and just make you happy. Maybe it's your grandbaby. Whatever it is, something they
did, something that happened, or something that you're about to
get to see them, you're about to get to this, that thought comes
to you and I mean immediately, instantaneously it makes you
feel different than you did a millisecond before. Doesn't it? It's transformative. It's powerful. There are other thoughts that
make people break out in a cold sweat and start to shake and
tremble. Nothing happened to them
physically, it was a thought of what they're about to go through
or what could happen to them. Thoughts can make you happy and
full of joy, thoughts can terrify you. They are powerful, powerful
things. What are they? Where did it come from? How do they exist? How did they get to your mind? And as we answer that question
will begin to realize we must take responsibility for what
thoughts we let ourselves think. We must stop just letting
anything rattle around our mind that happens to come through. In Romans 8:5, "They that are
after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they
that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is
death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." The mind is the connector. Hold your place here and go to
Hebrews the fourth chapter. I know I'm going slowly but we
need to. We need to because this is not
something necessarily a lot of people have spent a lot of time
in, and so there's no need -- how many know there's no need
talking about multiplication when you haven't gotten
addition? Get first things first. Hebrews 4:12, "For the Word of
God is quick," now the word "quick" means "life-living, and
life-giving." Quick is alive. Quickening is life- giving. Life imparting. The Word of God is quick. How many know it is both of
those? The Word of God is living and
the Word of God is life- giving. It is quick and it is,
"Powerful," how many believe it's powerful? What is a Word of God? Well, the Word of God has been
written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Italian, French,
Portuguese, on and on and on and on. And a lot of those words, if you
heard them, wouldn't mean a thing to you. So what is a word? Including the Word of God? The Word of God, though it is
wrapped in Portuguese words, and French words, or English words
for us, it's the same thoughts. If the word is the correct word,
it's a capsule that contains the thought He uttered when He
uttered it in the first language. But I don't believe God is
limited to Hebrews. What did He speak ten billion
years ago? He speaks everything. How many ways could He say it? We don't have that long to
discuss it. But, it's not the letters that
form the English word or whatever the word, it's the
thought. So we're really talking about
His thoughts. Aren't we? The Psalmist said, "Oh God, Your
thoughts are so precious to me." Would you say the same thing? What could a thought of God do
for you? What is a thought of God? God tells you, "I had a thought
about you and I want to tell you about it." What would that thought -- would
it just be information, or is it alive, and life-giving and
powerful? God had a thought and so He said
it. "Light be." Before He said it was in Him. Wasn't it? There is nothing more creative,
more transformative, more powerful than God's thoughts. And we have a Book full of them. A Book full of His thoughts. And His desire for us is that we
immerse ourselves and think His thoughts night and day until we
begin to think like Him. Oh, come on now. And as we begin to think like
Him, we are transformed into being like Him. Glory to God. And this is our eternal future. For the rest of our existence,
God is going to share more and more of His thoughts with us. And we're going to see things,
and we're going to know things, we're going to understand and
comprehend the vastness of God. We're going to know and
understand and comprehend and experience the height, and the
breath, and the depth, the length, the whole love of God
Who is love. This gets too big to talk about,
doesn't it? And yet, this is not in vain. Do you know what all of us are
doing that are awake and paying attention? Our minds are on the same place. You and I and all of us are
sharing these thoughts, same thoughts at the same time. Do you remember the Book of Acts
talked about when they all got in one place, one mind, one
accord, the most amazing things happened. Glory to God. Somebody say glory to God. Glory to God. Everybody lift up a hand and say
it out loud, "Lord I love Your thoughts. I love Your Words that contain
Your thoughts. With all my heart they are
precious to me. They are more valuable to me
than silver and gold, than any amount of money. They are life itself. I yearn, I seek to know your
thoughts." Hallelujah. Glory to God. "The Word of God is," alive, and
life giving, "and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and
spirit..." We have been woefully ignorant
of what we are. I guess most Christians on the
planet think they are mind and body, of if they acknowledge
they're a spirit, they're not aware of it. It's just the - I let the word
escape me, it's a position, a belief. But you're not just a body. You are a spirit. You have a mind. That's eternal. If your body fell dead right now
it wouldn't change you, you would still be you. You would still have your mind. You just would no longer be
restricted and limited. And even though we take your
body and they embalm it or cremate it or bury it or
whatever, that's not the end of that body. I don't care if you died out in
the desert, and your bones bleached to dust, and the
buzzards got you, and the coyotes and everything else, and
then what remained turned to dust and blew to the four
corners of the earth over the next 500 years, when the trumpet
sounds, God knows where every atom, every molecule is. And it's going to come... back together. And the glory of God is going to
flow through it. It's going to become immortal
and incorruptible. Somebody said, "Do you really
believe that?" Absolutely. Yes. That's what's going to happen. And then you're going to slip
back in your body like a brand-new pair of shoes. And you and I are going to have
it all. We're going to have a body that
can keep up with our spirit. We will be able to go at the
speed of light, and do 9000 things at the same time, and
never get tired, and never get weary, never have a wrinkle or a
gray hair or a sore spot. What's that going to be like? It's just a few breaths away
from us. We are so close to it. Makes you happy to think about
it. That's a thought. See, we wouldn't even know --
thinking about that, did that make you happy just now? Okay. That thought did something to
you and for you. We wouldn't have even known that
thought except it's in here. And the Lord said I'm going to
prepare a place for you, if it wasn't so I would've told you. And I'm going to come back and
get you, and revelation gives us in detail about it. And the epistles tell us about
were going to have a body like His glorious body. We're just putting all that
together and sharing these thoughts. We wouldn't know to think that,
wouldn't know to conceive that unless He had given us that
thought; He gave it to us. There are thoughts that are
true. There are thoughts that are
lies. These thoughts are true. He said this Word, "Sharper than
any two- edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of
soul and spirit," your soul and spirit is not the same. Some theologians teach that it
is. It's not. And the Scripture shows you
plainly a way to understand it. I'm believing for more
understanding of spirit and soul. I've heard some things that
popular teaching that doesn't satisfy me. If you've done much study on it,
the word "pneuma" and the word "psyche" you can come away after
nine hours scratching your head. Because it's used so many
different ways. And this has to do with the
translators. But anyway, we are spirit and we
have a soul and we have a mind. And the Bible tells us that the
Word pierces the dividing, the Word can pierce and divide soul
and spirit. If it can be divided it must not
be exactly the same. "And of the joints and marrow,"
and to me this is a picture of soul and spirit. Why would He use this right
together with it? Joint and marrow is a picture of
soul and spirit. You could see why it could be
challenging if the Lord hasn't given you must revelation about
it to understand it, because joint and marrow is close, isn't
it? Joint and marrow. That's the way soul and spirit
is. And so, with that in mind, go
back to Romans eight and notice this. The joint and the marrow are
touching each other. Aren't they? Are they connected, are they
touching? And yet they're not the same. Romans eight tells us to be
spiritually minded is life and peace. To be carnally minded is death. "They that are after the flesh
do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the
Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is
death," does it matter what you let yourself think on? Is it true that there are
thoughts that will absolutely minister death to you? Another way of saying it, kill
you. Are there thoughts that will
kill you? Sometimes people might say,
"Well no, just because you think something doesn't mean you're
going to die." Let's talk a lot about stupid
stuff that people did and they're no longer with us. Why did they do it? They had a thought. This crazy thought came into
their mind, they didn't think it through, they just acted on that
thought. And they're not here anymore. So, did that thought have
anything to do with killing them? "To be carnally minded is death;
but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." Read that out loud with me
please. To be carnally minded is death;
but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Minded means what you keep on
your mind, what you think. There are carnal, natural,
fleshly things, and things inspired by the unsaved world
and the devil that just minister death to you. And there are the Words that God
has given us that contain His thoughts, and just thinking them
changes you. Do you believe that you can
think the Word of God and it change you? While you're thinking it, it's
changing you. What did our text say? "Be ye transformed by the
renewing of your mind." Will it change you to think and
what God said to you? Our mind is being renewed right
now. That while we're thinking on
what He told us, we're changing right then. We're changing internally and if
we'll keep doing it, it will show up on the outside. How many know the caterpillar
was changing on the inside before you saw the butterfly? And that's me and you. Go to Matthew please the
eighteenth chapter. I had the privilege of working
in Brother Kenneth Hagin's healing school for number of
years, and ministering to people who, a lot of them, were
pronounced terminal, hopeless, and they came there as a last
resort looking for miracle. And we saw some amazing things. And we also saw some people they
didn't receive. And I know one thing that
frustrated me in the early days, and there was more than one
case, I saw this over and over again, we had classes in the
morning and in the afternoon. So people that came in just gave
them self to it, they would get like three or four hours of Word
every day and praise and worship and prayer. And sometimes there were
additional things to that. A lot of times I gave them
assignments to when they went home. Read, and confessions, and
things to do. And there were people that came
in that they were breathing so loud and laboring so hard to
breathe or even sit up straight you can hear them all over the
room, and were so pale, and were struggling so much, some of them
were on machines, some of them brought things in with them to
sustain them, and you wondered if they're going to make it
through the service. They look like they could just
stop breathing and just quit any moment. And later on find out the doctor
said maybe they should've been -- they expected them to be dead
two or three weeks ago or whatever. And I saw some of the same
people like a flower in the sunshine. Sit there and the Word of God
just came into them and they would just soak it in. Sometimes not everything would
change the first day or two or three but some of them would
come and stay with us two weeks, three weeks, a month, and I'd
see some folks sometimes just in five days of three or four hours
a Word a day just looked totally different. They're breathing God, they're
standing up talking to you, their color is good. Now their symptoms are not all
gone, but it's obvious something amazing has happened. And then we would break for the
weekend and they go home or whatever they're doing and come
back and Monday morning they look nearly as bad as they did
the previous Monday morning. Well, that's annoying. I don't like starting over every
Monday. And I know this can't be God. And I saw this too many times. And so at one point I got to
seeking the Lord extra about it, and praying, and fasting some. Lord, what is going on here? I know You don't fail, I know
You know is not failing, what's going on? I know real faith doesn't fail. What is happening here? And I didn't see it the first
day or two or week or two, but eventually the Lord began to
open my eyes and help me to see it. And I don't mean I heard a voice
but He caused me to understand. He said, "Son, while there with
you those three or four hours a day every day, Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday," and a lot of them came from their homes or towns,
and even then they're not with you they're reading the Word,
they're praying in the spirit, and they're worshiping God, and
they get up in the morning and come back and get fed the Word. And they go back. "But when they left and went
back home, a lot of their family asked them eight or nine times a
day, 'How do you feel? Don't tell me all that faith
stuff, how you really feel. How are you really doing?'" He
said, "While they're with you and they're thinking on what I
said, they were connected to life. But then they unhooked, they
disconnected and hooked up to death." To be carnally minded is what? When you're thinking on the
wrong things, you're connecting yourself to death so that death
can flow in you. When your mind is on the right
thing, it's life and it's peace. And this doesn't take some rare
revelation. If you've had a bunch of death
and torment and vexation, you haven't had your mind stayed on
Him. Because if you'll keep your mind
stayed on Him, what did Isaiah say? He will keep you, keep you, keep
you in perfect peace. And I saw -- Rob, come up here
and help me out here just a minute. I saw this in my spirit with
these individuals. Gary, you come up here too. This Gary. Thank You Gary, he's ready too. Stand on this side. I saw this individual -- it's
like they would turn and think about, let's let Robert present
the Lord. I'm sorry, Gary. And they came in all down but if
they would turn their mind on Him and what He is saying, they
would touch Him. And life would start flowing
into them and man, they would just begin to come up. It might not happen all in a day
or two or even a week, but life would just keep flowing into
them. Just keep coming up. But then, if they quit thinking
about what He said, by His stripes we're healed, with long
life He'll satisfy them, and they start thinking about the
bad report, and they start thinking about how they feel,
and what happened to Aunt Mildred and Uncle Joe, and how
Aunt Suzy didn't make it. And what they don't understand,
it's just like this. It's just like life begin to
come out of them and death would come in. They would begin to get drained
and pulled down. And then they would come back to
healing school and they would disconnect and they would hook
backup to that and they would begin to blossom again and begin
to come up. Can you see this? Thanks, guys. To be spiritually minded
connects you to life. And life flows into your spirit,
and into your mind, and into your body, and into your life. But to be carnally minded is
death, and death will flow into you in your spirit and your
mind, your soul, your body. Matthew eighteen. What we're emphasizing, thoughts
are spiritual. They're not natural. You can't touch a thought, you
can't smell a thought, you can't feel a thought; it's spiritual. Where did it come from? Well, it came from a spiritual
source. Didn't it? It came from an evil source or
it came from a good source. Should we think on thoughts that
came from evil? Should we identify a thought and
its source before we meditate on it, and dwell on it, and talk
about it all day and night? Yes. And this has been the issue. Folks think, "As long as I don't
act on it, I'm just thinking about it, I'm not going to do
it." You're already doing something
spiritual and real when you're thinking about something. And what's happening is we are
connecting with spirits. We are touching something and
letting it touch us. Just as real as a hand touching
somebody or letting it touch you. In Matthew 18:18 he said,
"Verily I say to you, Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be
bound in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall
be loosed in heaven." Should we bind up and cast down
some thoughts? And should we allow the good
ones to come in? And verse nineteen, "Again I say
to you, That if two of you shall agree on earth," notice these
next two words. As what? Now, he's not talking about
physically touching something. Agree on earth as what? "As touching anything that they
shall ask," when you and I get in faith and our mind is on the
same thing, and we ask the same thing, and our faith is on the
same thing, this says we touch it. We touch it. As touching anything they shall
ask, "It shall be done," we touch something. Something happened. It set things in motion, things
changed. Something was done. Right? We touched something. Spiritual things are real. When you set your mind on
something, you open your spirit up to it. And you reach out to touch it,
and you allow it in to touch you. If it's good, that's good. If it's bad, it's defiling and
death dealing. And there is no such thing as it
not having any effect to meditate and dwell on. Even if you hide it from other
people, if you go around thinking about it all the time,
you're touching it and it's touching you, and it's changing
you. You can only hide it for so
long. And if we're touching and
thinking on something bad, it's bad. But if we have our mind on Him,
and were thinking what He told us, hallelujah, then it's
transforming us on the inside, and even though everybody might
not see it, you can't hide forever. You're going to begin to act
like the Master, talk like the Master, going to begin to come
out and people are going to look at you and go wow, where did
that come from? And it's good. And it came from you being
changed inside, and where it began was either last week, or
last month, or five years ago, a thought from God came into you
and you didn't just let it pass through, you grabbed it. You said this is precious, I'm
going to think on this all day. This makes me smile when I think
about this. I am the righteousness of God in
Christ. I could do all things through
Christ who strengthens me. If we thought about that enough
-- if we thought about that, excuse me, if we thought about
that enough, then if anything from the outside tried to
conform us and tell us we couldn't do it, we'd look at
them like they cussed or were nuts. We'd think, huh? I can do all things. It has made you into somebody
that can. Come on, do you see that? And you will just stay after it
until you do. If it takes a year or ten, if we
have to move mountains and build bridges and cross oceans. You'll do it. But, if you're quick to go well,
they haven't been able to do it. I guess not, who am I? That means your mind has not
been renewed. So you think like the unsaved
people that don't even know God. You think just like them. Even though you're born-again
and if you died you'd go straight to be with Jesus, in
your mind you think just like the unsaved world. And so you have no power to do
things beyond what they do. He went on to say, "That if two
of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they
shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in
heaven." Do you know this same word, if
I'm pronouncing that right, it's the word we get our word
"symphony" from, to agree together, to harmonize. This is exactly what Ananias and
Sapphira did. The word is used in the Greek. They agreed together to lie. They touched the wrong thing. And the Spirit of God through
Peter looked at them and said Satan has filled your heart to
lie to the Holy Ghost. He said you didn't lie to men,
you lied in God's face. You got up in God's face and
lied Him in His church, in front of everybody. And they fell dead right there
on the spot, one after another. Did something touched them? Did they let something get into
them? I don't know if they were
sitting around the house talking about it, looking at the money
and how much they got for the sale of the land, and they got
on the same page, and they agreed together that this is how
they're going to go, and they opened up their spirit to the
devil. What else could they have done? That thought came up. If they were both right like
they should've been, even if the devil brought the thought to
each one of them individually, they would have shut that thing
down in a millisecond and they would've never discussed it. It would have never even came
up. But if one of them had been weak
and brought it up to the other they would've said are you
kidding me? No. We're not going to go to tell a
lie in the church. And they would have shut it
down. And they wouldn't have perished
like that. To be carnally minded is death. To be spiritually minded is life
and peace. If we're not experiencing an
ever-increasing flow of life and peace, it's obvious what the
problem is. We have been letting our mind go
to some wrong places. We have been dwelling on the
wrong things. We've been listening and
thinking and talking about wrong thoughts. And it's ministering death to
us. Keep reading. "That if two of you shall agree
on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be
done for them of My Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are
gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of
them." Do you see verse twenty starts
with the word for? That means it's connected to
what He just got through saying about touching and agreeing. For. Why would it be done for us of
our Father which is in heaven? Because when you and I grab
hands, or we don't, we just agree, but our mind is on the
same page and were sharing the same thoughts and our thoughts
are believing God and reaching out and we say in the name of
Jesus, He's there. We're touching Him. He's touching us. Come on, are you listening? We're touching Him. Oh, the devil doesn't want us to
know this. He doesn't want us to understand
this. He wants to try to confuse us
and complicate it and keep us from it. But friend, you get a hold of
this and you begin to practice controlling your mind and
focusing your thoughts and being protective of your mind, not
letting yourself think wrong things, you will develop in this
and you'll learn how to no matter what's going on, I mean,
it could be a hurricane around you and you'll learn how to set
your mind on God and immediately open your spirit up to Him and
touch Him. Just like that. He's there. You're there. And you're aware of Him. You're touching Him and He's
touching you. And life flows out of Him. Life goes out of Him, wisdom
flows out of Him. Direction flows out of Him. But if the devil, you listen to
him, he will even use the name of the Lord in vain. "Oh my God, what are we going to
do?" That thought didn't come from
God. "Where is this going to come
from... How in the world are we going to
get past this... What in the world..." Those thoughts send you into a
spin and you're trembling, and you're shaking, and in fear. You're touching something else. It's no wonder people shake and
tremble like they do in fear. I'm convinced if our eyes could
be open and we could see what we are touching, we take
thirty-five showers. Come on, are you listening to
me? And we would never do it again. Some folks that have felt sorry
for themselves, gone crawled up in the bed and laid there and
pined. If they could see what's laying
up in the bed with them, what they are intimate with, what
they are letting inside their mind -- I mean touching your
skin, were not talking about that. We're talking about touching
you, inside you. And we don't have to do it. I said, we don't have to do it. We do not have to do it. When these ungodly, unbelieving,
death filled, fear filled thoughts come to us, the first
moment we're aware of them, we got the power, we got the
ability to grab them and to cast them -- that's a strong word,
cast them down. And say I refuse to think that. That's a lie, that's not true. You cannot touch me. And then you start speaking the
Word of God. And that puts His thoughts right
back in your mind, come on, are you listening? And if you'll keep your mind
stayed on Him, He will keep you in perfect peace. Why would you be having perfect,
total, complete peace all the time? Because you're touching the
Prince of Peace. You are in contact with Him. You're touching Him. And He's touching you. And that's why that peace is
flowing in you and around you and filling up your house. Glory to God. Stand on your feet everybody. Oh, thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord. Let me lead you in this prayer;
release your faith. "Father God, I ask You, alert me
to wrong thoughts, defling, death ministering thoughts. Thoughts that didn't come from
you, ungodly, fearful, unbelieving thoughts. Alert me when they come. Help meto recognize them
immediately and by Your grace I'll cast them down. I'll refuse to think about them,
talk about them. I choose Your thoughts, I choose
Your Words. I choose to meditate in what you said night and day. Thank You for keeping me in
perfect peace and fillng me with the life of God." Oh, hallelujah. Just praise Him some more. Don't think about your needs,
your problems, your mistakes, your failures. Think about Him, think about His
love. Think about His mercy. Think about His grace. Think about His goodness. Keeping my mind stayed on the
Lord Keeping my mind stayed upon the
Lord Keeping my mind stayed on the
Lord He's my meditation night and day
