David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.
How did he do this?
John 8:32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Assembly instructions
Read all instructions first.
Don’t throw the user manual away.
Easy steps to follow.
Sometimes not so easy
- I.B.L.E.
- No private interpretations , The chair, for example, will not function as a chair.
- Belong to a Church.
1 Samuel 30:6–8 (NKJV) 6Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.
7Then David said to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech’s son, “Please bring the ephod here to me.” And Abiathar brought the ephod to David.
8So David inquired of the LORD, saying, “Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?” And He answered him, “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.”
- Step 1 – David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.
- Step 2 -David inquired of the LORD
- Step 3 – Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all
Jeremiah 29:11–13 (NKJV)11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
- Step 1 – thoughts of peace – faith
- Step 2 – Then you will call upon God
- Step 3 – you will seek Me and find
Step 3 requires faith. Remember that the Word renews the mind, but faith in the Word changes the heart.
- We cannot convince our mind of something our heart refuses to believe or accept.
- Truth in our inward being, not blind faith.
- Faith is not blind.
- Faith is not just about your mindset, but about a heart reset.
- Seem imaginary or even foolish, but not blind, or pre-historic based on previous experience.
- Seek God and live, and when God speaks, for He is a living loving Father, that gives birth to faith,
- faith that requires action.
James 2:26 NKJV For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
- Author of our faith
Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV) 1Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hope before faith before seeking God
- Hope is the anticipation of something good.
- Don’t let it be stolen.
- Abundance of false knowledge, among other things, can steal hope that leads to faith, little children.
Hebrews 11:6 (NKJV) 6But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Step 1
- Sacrifices praise
Hebrews 13:15 NKJV [15] Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.
Step 2
Cast your cares.
Philippians 4:4–7 4 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
- Exchange
Step 3
- Trust requires obedience
Luke 5:4 When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”
- Cast your cares upon God.
- You are not designed to carry them
1 Peter 5:6–9 6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, 7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. 8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 9 Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
Demas – loved the world!
- Was the word powerless to him in the midst of miracles?
- Obvious that he did not believe God when God said that at His right hand are pleasures forever more.
- Was what Demas saw deceptively “good”?
- Thus, Eve was deceived, yet deceived before there was sin in her life.
- Satan appears as an angel of light.
- Yesterday’s Bible Study, to know more about the devil & how he pretends to be a lion.
Automatic Transcription
(…) Hallelujah.
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I’ve told you over and over again that the Bible that we read is not spooky.(…) And if you are a fan of Star Trek,(…) Spock would say it’s just logical.
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When you have the Bible in your hand, it is a basic instruction. The Lord tells you what to do with the authority He has given you and me.(…) Hallelujah. That is the basic instruction.
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So when you follow that,(…) sometimes you get puzzled. You don’t know why to say so. It doesn’t make sense at all.
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That is why you belong to a church where the Lord will answer you and speak to you so that it makes sense to you. For example,(…) David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.(…) How did he do this? How do I make it real? We read about King David and his relationship with God. That is nice. It’s something admirable.(…) Something we strive for. But how can I have it? What I’m telling you is that it is as real as you are to me. How David strengthened himself in the Lord. And in John 8 32 says, “What you shall know, the truth and the truth shall make you free.” Hallelujah.
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Truth. The final reality.(…) These are explorations in faith by the lampstand church. Our mission is to remove darkness and to reveal Christ.
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When you buy a chair, you have assembly instructions.
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Read all instructions first. Instead of throwing away the usual manual so you know how many screws are there, you know what goes where.
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Those are manuals usually try to make these steps easy to follow.(…) Sometimes they’re not very easy. You need technical knowledge. Just like that, basic instructions that the Bible gives you are not easy sometimes.
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But what we do is we have private interpretations and the Bible forbids that.
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There are no private interpretations. And if you go by private interpretations, the chair for example will not function as a chair.
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You will put the one leg on top and the other leg well. I don’t know what you will do. And it says, “Thus says the Lord.”
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And what is that to you and me? An abomination.
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Believe you me, that is an abomination to the Lord also.
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Because there are no private interpretation and you must belong to a church. I’m not saying that the pastor knows everything. No. But the Lord speaks to his body.
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And so today we’re going to learn about how David strengthened himself in the Lord. What he did afterwards.(…) Because we do everything opposite.
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And we need to understand how the Lord instructs us on how it should be done.(…) So that we walk around with power in our life.
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Like I said, Bible is not spooky. Let’s go to 1 Samuel 30 verse 6-8. “Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him. Because the soul of all the people was grieved. Every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.” So just to give you a background in case you haven’t read it. Why were they thinking of stoning him?
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They were not potheads thinking of getting stoned. Yes. They thought of killing David. Why?
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Because while they were at war doing what they thought the work of the Lord was. They and me plundered the camp, took away their children, their wives, their assets, their everything. And so they thought, okay, let’s get him. So what did David do?
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But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. Verse 7.
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“Then David said to Abiathar, the priest, “I’m a like son. Priests bring the effort here to me. And Abiathar brought the effort to David.
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So David inquired of the Lord,(…) saying, “Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?”(…) And he answered them, “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them. Without fail, recover all.” If you follow the instruction manual, there are three steps.
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First step is that David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
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Then step 2. David inquired of the Lord. And then the Lord answered, “Pursue, go after them. For you shall surely overtake them. And without fail, recover all.”
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Why? The Lord is with David.
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That’s a good fight.(…) Hallelujah! What did he do? He strengthened himself in the Lord first.
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And then he inquired of the Lord after strengthening. I’ll tell you why. This is important.
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And then he waited for an answer. He just didn’t send an email to the Lord. He waited for an answer.(…) And the Lord said, when he inquired, “Go get them.”
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And the Bible says he had enough money after that for the kingdom.(…) So there are three steps. You find that in Jeremiah 29, 11-13 also. It says, “For I know the thoughts that I think towards you.” Who’s saying that? The Lord is saying that, yes? “Saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”(…) So God is telling you, these are his thoughts. These are his plans, yes? The question is, do you believe them?(…) Then after you believe that, then you will call upon me and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
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And you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.
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First of all, you search with all your heart. God is not a convenience store. There are some people who say they can’t find God. Here’s the answer. But when you go back to the instruction manual, there are three steps here also.(…) First step is thoughts of peace, that God has his plans for you. That requires what? Faith in God. And once you have that, remember David strengthened himself. He built up faith. Once you have that, then you will call upon the Lord. Then David inquired upon what the Lord says, yes?
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“And you will seek me and find me.”
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When you find God, that’s enough.(…) Hallelujah! The rest will follow. Seek first what? The kingdom of God, yes?
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But step three requires faith.
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Remember, the word of God renews your mind, yes? The mind. But faith in the word changes the heart. We need a change in our heart. In other words, we cannot convince our mind of something our heart refuses to believe or accept.
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It’s called blind faith if you do that. Faith is not blind.
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Faith is based on what God says.(…) It’s not blind. It is never blind. Not once does it say faith is blind. Faith is what God says. Who is the author of our faith? Jesus, yes? That’s why the Lord is saying he wants truth in our inward being. In other words, in your inward being, everything is saying, “I don’t believe this. I don’t believe this.” You are forced to say something you don’t believe. Is that truth in the inward being?
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No.
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Then we wonder why nothing is happening. That’s why we cannot convince our mind of something our heart refuses to believe or accept.(…) That is why we renew our mind in the word of God.
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Faith is not just about your mindset.
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I repeat that again.
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Faith is not just about your mindset.(…) It is about a reset that happens in your heart.
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Because we are peculiar people. The things God tells us seem imaginary or even foolish, but they are not blind. You are not to follow some prehistoric plan of God or previous experience. I am not talking about the Bible. Just because God said this, that 20 years ago, doesn’t mean that is valid now.(…) That is what I mean. He is not a priest or a guardian or previous experience. I already taught you that. Seek God and live, yes? When God speaks, it is faith. For He is the Father of our faith, yes? He is a living, loving Father that gives birth to faith. And that faith, I am talking about step 3, that faith requires action. Go to James 2, 26. “Or as the body without the Spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” So it is just not enough to renew your mind. You do something about it. There was a person asking for an open door. The Lord told me the door is open already. They have to walk through that open door by faith. They are not walking, they are simply sitting. If you simply sit, you can sit for generations on end. But faith requires you to walk through faith, not blindly. Do you understand? Faith without action is dead.(…) And who is the author of our faith?(…) Jesus, do you understand? I am explaining to you the process of how David strengthened himself and the Lord. We know that the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy, yes? Now go to Hebrews 11, 1. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” So that means you have to have hope before faith. And you must have faith before seeking God. And if the devil steals hope from you, how can you have faith? So don’t let it be stolen. Here is what I have learned. Our puntons of fake and false knowledge, among other things, can steal hope that leads to faith. It can lead to a callous heart.
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I’ve heard it all, for I know better.
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Jesus said, “Come to him like little children.” Hebrews 11, 6. But without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. If you want to please God, you must have faith. And to have faith, you must have hope. And therefore, you must trust in him. Otherwise, all these steps mean nothing to you. So step one, David inquired of the Lord and strengthened himself, yes? How does that translate to you and me? We offer a sacrifice of grace. In the Old Testament, you offered a sacrifice.
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But in the New Testament, you still offer a sacrifice, but it is a spiritual sacrifice.(…) But you offer a sacrifice of grace. Go to Hebrews 13, 15. Therefore, by him, let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of our lips, given thanks to his name. Thus far he has helped us. Ebenezer, have you written it down? How much God has helped you? How far God has helped you? I have all the wonderful deeds of the Lord. And when I go through trouble, I look at them. When I go through times of despair, I go through all the prophecies and all the promises of God. For they are yes and amen. That is how David strengthened himself in the Lord, his God. He praised.
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So what do you do? Offer him a sacrifice of grace and thank theming. Thank him for all the things.
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And make it loud. Don’t scare your neighbors, but vocalize it.(…) Walk around till you get your breakthrough.
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Shadrach, Bashiach and Nepetnego did not sit down on that fire, defeated. They walked around and there was a fourth man walking around with them. Hallelujah.
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Do you understand?
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And they didn’t even smell of smoke.
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So what do you need to do when you’re going through trouble? I told you last week’s teaching and the week before,
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all the Lord gives is a sample of what is there, not the real thing. But when you go and be courageous about it, you authorize the Lord to move through. And when you do that, he does that for you.
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You hold your peace. Do you understand? So what do you do? How do you get there? You just start by praising you.
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You don’t feel like praising her, but you just praise her.
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That is a sacrifice of praise.(…) Hallelujah.(…) Yes.
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That is step one. What is step two? Cast your cares upon him.
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Go to Philippians 4, 4 to 7. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. This is not a joke. The Lord is telling you, I got this. So then why are you worried? If you don’t rejoice, that means what you were worried. If you can’t feel the presence of the Lord in that problem, there is something wrong with you, not with the Lord. It’s not that he doesn’t want to move. It’s that you don’t get to where he is. He doesn’t change, does he? Do you trust him? Do you believe him? Let your gentleness be known to all men for the Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing. You’re a strange people.
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You trust in the Lord. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. Yes.(…) And there is an exchange. The peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Does it talk about anything about your circumstances? No. The only thing it talks about is the peace of God that will guard your heart and mind. Guess who changes the circumstances?
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You do.(…) How? I think Hallelujah. We have something called the tongue through which we create. And if we give up this authority, when we give up this hope, hasn’t the devil stolen that from you? Instead of that, you go to pillar to post, calling pastor to priest, prophet to evangelist, all on speed dial. Let it guard your heart’s sin. Then when your heart is guarded by the Lord, unless the Lord guards its critique, the watchmen stand guard in vain. Psalm 127.1. Yes.(…) Do you understand? When the Lord guards your heart, the devil can’t touch this. The peace of God which surpasses all understanding. Nothing would have changed. But then you will have Jesus who is the Prince of Peace guard your heart. There’s an exchange as you cast your trouble to him. They’ll give you what? His peace. Do you understand? With that peace and faith, you make things happen. Instead that you are depending on God to do everything. No. First, you strengthen yourself in the Lord. You have a responsibility to if you’re in the new covenant, if you are calling yourself the temple of God. Hallelujah. There’s an exchange that takes place and he’ll give you something that is not broken. If you have a broken spirit, you give that to him. In Psalm 18, he talks about the broken spirit. Give that to him. And then in return, you get the peace from the spirit that is not broken. That is the Holy Spirit.
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Hallelujah. Is it not very clear? Yes, but it is not very easy. It is not easy to offer a sacrifice of praise because I see the difficulty that I face to even get you all to praise him in the church in the beginning of worship. I have to be a cheerleader of some sort to get you all to praise him. If that’s the case, how will you survive in the world when you’re bombarded by all kind of nonsense? And all kind of lies?
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Did you trust in Jesus because trust requires obedience? Go to Luke 5.4. Remember, I told you faith is not blind. Jesus, when he had finished using the boat, he told the disciples the fisherman said what? When he had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. Hallelujah. Simon tried to tell him, look, you are a carpenter’s son. Don’t tell us when to go fishing. Said it’s a daytime. Nobody goes fishing. But we are a peculiar people. And that faith is not blind. What did Jesus tell him? Launch out into the deep. When God tells you it’s not blind, obey.
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Cast your cares upon God because you are not designed to carry them. God, who made you, did not design you to carry pervans. So why are you carrying them? So cast them on to the Lord and He gives you His flesh at His right hand forevermore. Go to 1 Peter 5, 6-9. Go humble yourself under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him for He cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roading lion,(…) seeking whom he will devour.
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Resist him. Steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same suffering are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. I taught about the lion during the Bible study the day before yesterday. So if you want to know more about who the lions are, because it is the devil is like a lion.
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We have the lion of Judah, which is Jesus. Do you understand? So the recording is up online. You can go through all that to understand why the devil disguises himself like a lion.(…) Having good, something that is attractive. Bible says the apostle Paul had a worker that was faithful to the Lord called Demas. But then what happened to Demas? Paul himself says Demas has forsaken me. Why? Because he loved the world more than he loved God. We don’t want to be Demas.
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We don’t think we love the world more than we love God. But are we following the plan that he has for us? Or are we following the plan the world has for us? There’s not a thing. What’s the word of God powerless to him in the midst of miracles? He could see all the miracles around him that Paul was doing, yes? But when he came to his own life, what’s the word? Powerless?
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Why was it powerless? You have to think about that. Obviously, he found the world more attractive than the pleasures that God has in his right hand. What is that? In the midst of all the miracles around him that Paul would have done, here’s Demas forsaking him. What’s the word? Powerless to Demas. It is obvious that he did not believe God when God said, “At his right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Because he chose the world, yes? Because what Demas saw deceptively could in the world. Oh, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s good to please people. And I don’t know about that.
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See, this thing that you think is good often deceives you because Eve was deceived.
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Or there was sin in her life because she thought it was good.
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But she had only one thing to go by, God saying, “Don’t eat off that.”
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But she thought it was good.
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And she was deceived.(…) And she consumed what she thought was good. And that is how Satan appears as an angel of light saying deceptively, “It is good.” If you want to know more, go through last week’s Bible study. How the devil pretends to be a lion, how he pretends to be good. But here, you need to understand the three steps.
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One is praise him. Offer him a sacrifice of praise. It doesn’t matter how you feel. What is the second thing? Inquire of him. What do I do about this? Because after you praise him, you’ll get faith. And without faith, it’s impossible to please God. So with that thing that pleases God, you go to God, yes? And God will tell you, “Go get them.” That’s just chapter three. And then what you have to do? Obey. Just if he tells you, “Go get them. Go get them.”
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It doesn’t matter if you’re alone and there are a thousand million gillion people.
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If God tells you, “Go get them. Go get them.” But let the Lord tell you that. Not your imagination or what happened 20 years ago.
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We serve a living, loving God.(…) Hallelujah. Now you understand why a relationship with that living, loving Father in heaven is important. It is vital. It is for that relationship that Jesus died on the cross to reconcile us to our Father in heaven. Hallelujah. You call him Father, yet you don’t have a relationship with him. He’s not dead.(…) He’s alive.
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He longed to talk to us and speak to us, and his presence was here.
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How do you maintain that to what’s here, to his here, and will be here?(…) By praising him constantly and seeking him constantly and obeying him constantly. Is that clear? And his plans are for you good and for my good. Amen?(…) Amen? Is this clear? That’s all that writes up.