Prayers That Destroy Yokes | Anointed Together | Abundant Life Church | Pastor Sean Thomas
Prayers That Destroy Yokes | Anointed Together | Abundant Life Church | Pastor Sean Thomas
Transcript
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Hey, everyone. Pastor Sean here, and I wanna thank you for subscribing to our podcast. I'm excited to get into today's message. And remember this, God is a good God. He loves you, and he wants to bless you.
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I wanna just jump right into
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some teaching today. I wanna lay I wanna relay, in a sense, foundation.
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Things that I know that we've taught on over the last several weeks. We're coming into this week and next week, the last two weeks of of our teaching on prayer.
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And this week and next week is really it's two parts, and and I wanted to break it down over two Sundays.
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I wanted to have the time to do this this this week and next week.
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And, so I wanna relay a little bit of a foundation. You gotta you gotta work with me because you know how I do. I have to go line upon line. I gotta build brick by brick to get us where we need to go.
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And as we've been in this this series on prayer, prayed up, I'll ask the question. How many of came in and prayed up this morning?
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Come on. How many of came in prayed up this morning? How many actually believe that your prayers are meant to be answered?
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Come on. How many of believe that your prayers are meant to be answered?
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Do we truly understand that if the instruction was for us to pray, it was with the intention that God wanted to respond to your prayers?
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That God is picking up the phone on the other line when He says, call unto Me, and I will answer unto you and show you great and mighty things that you know not of. When you pray, it's so that God would pick up the phone, and He would respond to you. In fact, the Bible says this, that the prayers of the righteous His ears are attentive to.
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The prayers of that And that's why the Bible is very clear when it says in James chapter five that it's the effectual fervent prayers of the righteous that avails much. What does that mean? It means this is that the prayers that are in motion, powerful prayers in motion, when the righteous are praying powerful prayers, they are designed to produce results.
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I don't know what you're believing for. I don't know what you're contending for. I don't know what you've set your faith for, but I know this. Jesus says, have faith in God. And when you believe, receive that you have what you have asked for. So, I don't know what you've been asking God for. I don't know what you've been coming to him in prayer for, but the Bible says believe that you have received it.
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So, in prayer, I'm coming to God in faith. Somebody say faith. Faith. Now, is important to understand that it is our full trust, full confidence in God.
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Full trust, full confidence in Christ Jesus.
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That even in the natural, I haven't seen what I've been praying for yet, but I've got such assurance and confidence that I know it already exists.
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Abraham had such assurance, such confidence that when God gave him the promise of being able to have children at an old age, he believed it to be true.
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And the Bible says in Romans that he did not waver, he did not drift out of the line of his confidence, but he was steadfast in what he was believing for. So, when I go to God, I'm going to God in prayer with faith. Somebody say faith. Faith.
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Now, earlier on in the series, we talked about the fact that it's hope and faith.
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And some of us maybe have gone through seasons where we've lost hope.
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But I believe that the Lord is saying it's time to dream again.
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It's time to believe again.
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No matter what you've been going through, no matter what has been stacked against you, no matter what your season has looked like, God has not changed. That's a word for somebody right now. God has not changed.
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He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
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Our God has not changed.
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And I declare today that it's time for some of you to rise up and have hope again that what God has spoken over your life and over your family, over your children, over your future shall surely come to pass.
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And so, when I've got hope, it means I've got expectation, but now I gotta move from hope to actually stepping in faith. And faith is me saying it's now.
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For the Bible tells us that in Hebrews eleven one that now faith is. Now, I know I already had you say faith, but I want you to say now faith is. Now is present. Now is not yesterday. Now is not tomorrow. Now is in this moment.
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Right here. Right now. Now faith says, what I've been hoping for shall come to pass. So, when I come to God and I believe I receive, it's a now faith.
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It's a now faith.
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So, now when I come to God and I believe and I receive based upon faith, I'm in position for God to respond to my prayers.
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I said this a few weeks back. And again, I'm I'm right now I'm just kind of I'm I'm re greasing the wheels a little bit to get to where I wanna go.
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Because I think that this is important.
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The bible says in in Hebrews 11 verse six, without faith it's impossible to please God.
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But if you come to Him, you must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him.
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Now, I hadn't taught on this, but I'll just drop this in there.
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There is something about being persistent in your prayer.
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And it's not that God has forgotten, but sometimes it's about are you actually serious about the thing that you're praying for? And there's a parable in the Bible that Jesus talks about a persistent widow who was dealt with very unjustly, and so she sought out a judge to have a ruling.
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And this judge neither revered God or man. He just was about his own business, but this widow went to him constantly and pestered him to the point where this judge says, man, this girl is crazy. She's got me so weary right now from her request. I'm just gonna go ahead and grant that.
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And Jesus says, knowing that that judge was evil and ungodly, how much more will your heavenly father respond to your prayers? How much better is God who is a good God, who is a just judge, who will respond to your prayers?
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And so there's something about being persistent in your there there is power in the persistence of your prayer.
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And so when we come to God in faith, He is pleased. You don't come to Him in faith. He's not very pleased. Faith is what gives God something to work with when it comes to your prayer life.
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Now, I'm saying that all important with with this intent.
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Because when we're coming to God in faith, or when we're coming to God because of faith, it puts God in position to respond.
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Sometimes though, when I come to God Has anyone ever been in this situation before?
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You're trying to deal with a particular circumstance that I'll put it like this. Has anyone ever had a door that got stuck on them and you tried to open up the door? The handle didn't work, and you tried to put a shoulder into it and it still didn't work.
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And so, what what did you do? You either look for someone or something to give you a little extra assistance, maybe to to kind of knock down that door and get through.
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Sometimes, it's not that you have weak faith, but sometimes there's a level of prayer that requires a little bit more faith to be in the mix for you to be able to see that breakthrough.
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The Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes that one person can easily be overtaken by another.
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But one person cannot overtake two people. In fact, three full court is not easily broken.
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So, the more faith that I can join together, the more people that are contending and and and and really seeking after God together, the stronger we are.
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And, what we begin to discover a few weeks back was we talked about that there is a prayer in the Bible called the prayer of agreement.
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And so, the Bible says this in Matthew eighteen eighteen.
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Jesus makes the statement, and He says this. He says, again, I tell you, if two of you agree on anything on this earth based upon what you ask, My Father in Heaven will respond to you. In fact, if there are two or three gathered together in my name, I'm in the midst of them.
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The prayer of agreement is that when we get our faith locked and loaded together, and we begin to bombard heaven with our petitions, that God will begin to respond to that faith. And I don't care what devil in hell tries to stand in the way, but when you get so many faith filled, fired up Christians that are seeking after God, there is not one mountain that can stand in the way between purpose and destiny.
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You're moving from where your purpose is to the destination that God's called you to.
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You hear me? This is important because when we begin to recognize that the prayer of agreement moves and shakes heaven and earth in such a way Now, don't get me wrong. You need to pray fervently, have your prayer closet, seek the Lord, spend time.
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But there is something about when we come together in this setting, God puts priority on the corporate.
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Hear me. God puts a priority on the corporate.
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In secular, in businesses, we would call that synergy.
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When people are synergized, they're working together, but but but in the church, it would be the corporate anointing.
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It's a priority on the corporate.
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When you get so many men and women, how many faith filled men and women of God are in the in the in the church this morning?
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When you get this many strong players in the game banded together, anything is possible. The prayer of agreement puts us as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ in such a position that anything, somebody say anything. Anything. Is possible. And, that's why Jesus said, as long as there's at least two who agree on anything. Somebody say anything.
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Anything. Would joy be in anything?
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Would peace be in anything? Would provision be in anything? Would breakthrough be in anything? Would your sons and daughters who are not serving the Lord who may now encounter God be in anything? If anything that you agree upon and you ask for it, God will respond.
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That cord's tight. It's strong. You can't break it. It's banded together.
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The prayer of agreement allows the church to enter into such a state of unity that anything is possible.
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I wanna say that one more time. Anything is possible.
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Anything is possible.
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Anything is possible. Anything is possible. There's a story in the bible where the disciples, they were charged with the petition of praying over a young boy that had epilepsy. He was demon possessed.
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And the bible says that the father came to the disciples with their request, but the disciples couldn't do anything.
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And Jesus arrived on the scene and he said, what are you guys discussing?
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And the father broke through the crowd and began to ask Jesus to heal his boy.
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And Jesus' response was, you perverse generation.
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He wasn't talking about sexually perverse, but what he was talking about was that you're not using your faith in the intended purpose that it should. And what happened was Jesus rebuked the disciples then he healed the boy. The boy fell to the ground. The demon came out. But He mentioned to the father, do you have faith? He says, I believe but help me with my unbelief. It's a really powerful story. But here's the purpose. Here's the intent of that story.
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It's not so much the miracle or the healing of the boy. It was the fact that the disciples who had already been given all authority could not cast out the demon.
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Why could they not cast out the demon?
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Because if you continue to read into the passage, Jesus says, what were you guys discussing?
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And they were arguing about who was the greatest.
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They were arguing about when Jesus, you're not here, which disciple carries the most clout to get the job done? Who's the one that's most equipped? And then so they were fighting over position, creating disunity.
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And because there was disunity, the faith was not intact, and so the boy was continuing to be in a state of suffering.
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There is something about when the body of Christ understands that there is the unity of the faith, and in the unity of the faith, all things are possible.
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Okay.
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Can I get to my passage now?
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That was just to warm me up. I wanted to make sure I was nice and sweaty today.
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Did we accidentally match today?
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It's the pocket.
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It's the pocket tee. I feel the anointing.
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Turn to Ephesians chapter four verse 13.
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Ephesians four verse 13.
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Paul's writing to the church and he talks about the fact that there have been gifts that's been given to the church, some apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.
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The purpose of the five fold ministry is to equip the saints.
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The saints, by the way, are the ones that are to do the work of the ministry.
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The saints
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didn't say the staff.
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Oh, man. Am I going am I going there? Can someone give me a permission slip? Can I can I go there?
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I think that it is sad that we have put all the work on the ministry based upon a paycheck. I think that it's sad that the work of the ministry has just been on a certain few people. The work of the ministry is just the person on platform. The work of the ministry is for the saints. The work of the ministry is so that the pastor or the prophet or the evangelist and the teacher equips you so that you can run into the field and skill score the winning touchdown.
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You're called to win the game.
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And so, the Bible says that we've been equipped so that we can do the work of the ministry, but what it says in verse 13 is that we would come to the unity of the faith.
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The unity of the faith.
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The unity of the faith which is in the fullness of Christ.
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The unity of the faith which is in the fullness of Christ. The fullness of Christ, the word Christ Christos means anointing.
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So, the unity of faith is reflected when there's a full anointing.
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When the anointing is full.
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The unity of faith is what is the target of the prayer of agreement. So, I've been sharing with you that there are several levels when it comes to being unified.
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And the first level of unity is when two parties come together in truth. It's the spirit of truth. If you take the spirit of truth out, you're no longer unified. You're just tied together.
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Because we are made up of spirit, of soul, and of body.
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So, if I take the spirit out, all that is left is soul and body, so you are just soul tied.
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And not all soul ties are bad, but the intended purpose is that we are unified by the spirit of truth. We're unified by spoken, what God's word has said.
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And as believers who dwell together in unity, we have to seek after what is called the bond of peace.
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And the bond of peace to make peace means to ensure that the truth stays where it to be.
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So, when I keep peace, I'm holding back truth. When I'm making peace, I'm establishing truth.
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And so, we gotta be careful that in order to preserve the unity, in order to keep unity, that truth is always intact.
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So, level one in the prayer of agreement is that we are unified for a thing. We came together for a thing. What's that thing? God's truth. What God's word has said. It's level one.
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But now level two is, it's not just coming together for a thing. I want to advance in that thing.
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I don't want to just come on Sunday for the thing of a service and then leave from here and that's it. We should be advancing throughout our week to another level. That this week you should be able to share Christ with with the lost and see your communities change. You should be laying hands on the sick and the sick are recovering. You should be able to seek after fulfilling everything that God has spoken because there's such an anointing upon your life that you're advancing in that truth. So,
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level one of unity is we came together for a thing.
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Level two of unity is we're advancing in that thing.
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And this is where Paul continues on in Ephesians four, and he says, we're like a body that comes together, joint supply joint, that we're joined together. The word joining, it actually means the word synergy.
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It means that we are working together as one.
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We're working together as one so that we can step into the unity of faith.
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Now, again, the unity of faith is the target. It's the goal. It's the apex. It's the pinnacle. It's the climax of where we're trying to get as believers that are dwelling together because it's in faith that anything is possible.
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It's in faith.
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And when we're unified in faith here, anything is possible.
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And the way that we get to faith is we're going to start off in truth.
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What does the Bible tell us in Romans?
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That faith comes by what? Hearing and hearing the what? Word of God. So, is word? Word is truth.
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Jesus says that the measure that you receive is the measure that you'll have. So, the more I receive truth, the more I'm gonna walk in truth. The more I walk in truth, the better I am in being able to come to God in faith. There's nothing worse than coming to God on a Monday with your petition because you're faith filled, then all of a sudden somebody cuts you off in traffic, You got a bad letter in the mail of something, of a bill you had to pay, and now your faith is all over the place. And now you're like, what am I gonna do? And you move from faith back to anxiety.
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You wavered out of truth.
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Truth is that it is intact at every moment.
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Okay. Y'all with me so far? I know I'm teaching, but I gotta I gotta I gotta get this. Gotta get us here.
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So Paul says that we are to go after it's the unity of faith.
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The unity of faith.
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The unity of faith is the fullness of Christ. It's that full anointing.
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It's that God is moving and anything is possible.
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So that's what we're that's what we're moving towards. Turn to Psalm one thirty three for me this morning.
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Three levels of unity.
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All three are in Psalm one thirty three.
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The Bible says in Psalm one thirty three starting in verse one, how good and pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity. That's level one.
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It means we came together all agreeing in this truth.
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We all came together believing Jesus is our Lord and Savior. We all came together believing He is Healer. We all came together believing He is Provider. We have a truth that has allowed us to come together for a thing.
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Now, when we come together in that truth, because the Bible says how good and pleasant it is, when brothers dwell or brethren dwell, believers dwell together in unity, the Bible says now, it is like the oil that begins to flow from the head to the beard, the beard of Aaron to the skirts of his garment.
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And the Bible goes on and it says this.
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It says that it is like the dew that flows from Mount Hermon all the way to Zion.
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And then, the Bible goes on in the last portion of this passage and says, and it is there that the blessing, life, is commanded forevermore.
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Now, that sounds good. Yay pastor, we've heard that. Way to preach it. But here's the thing, the blessing in the life is not commanded until the oil flows from the head all the way down.
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Until the anointing has touched the entire body, blessing and life is not commanded.
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Wouldn't it be a shame that on the day that Jesus ministered the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 that when He broke the loaves and He distributed the fish, that only a third of those that were in attendance got to eat.
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That wouldn't have been much of a blessing when you had nearly, you know, seven, eight thousand people. The Bible records five plus women and children. It wouldn't be much of a blessing if only a thousand of the people ate, if only 1,500 of the people. That's not much of a blessing. Only the first group of people got blessed.
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But the blessing was not commanded until everyone was full, till they wanted no more. The anointing, the unity is that I'm not just coming together because we all love Jesus and we want to worship God together. Yes, we do.
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But the anointing is, is that what God is ministering is not staying right here on the platform, but it's reaching you all the way into the back. That when you left from here, you're leaving with loaves and fish. You're leaving full. You're not leaving empty. You're leaving with your prayers answered.
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And the problem that we have is in in in modern day church, all of the oil and all of the anointing is on the platform, and it's not out where the seats are. And so we come for the oil of the worship. We come for the oil of the word, and we leave not satisfied with what God is ministering because the intended blessing is when everybody gets saturated in the oil.
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Now why is that important?
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Because the Bible tells us this in Isaiah 10 verse 27, that in the last days, He will come and lift the burden off your shoulder.
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That the yoke will come off your neck, and it is the anointing that destroys the yoke of bondage.
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And so, we are operating in the unity of faith, the yoke of bondage is destroyed off of your life. That whatever you came in with today, you're not leaving out of here the same. If you came in sick, you're gonna leave healed. You're not gonna come in and say, well, guess it just wasn't my day to get my healing. Pastor didn't get a chance to lay hands on me. No. By virtue of you walking into the room of faith filled believers, there is an anointing that is transacted that your life is not the same. Your children is not the same. Your marriage is not the same. Your life is not the same.
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For the young people in the room, I wanna talk to you about this for a second. It's for everybody, but this is important.
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The one of the one of the most important things that I've learned growing up is the anointing.
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We don't talk enough about the anointing. What we want is we want more worship services. And I love worship, guys. Man, I love crying with the best of them.
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I love worship service. But worship prepares your heart so that the word which is truth can be implanted into your spirit so that now you can operate in a measure of the word that you didn't have before you came.
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And so, a lot of people just want to come together and just have emotional moments and play my jams and sing my song, and that was good. And all of that is emotion.
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I'm not saying that you don't have a heart for God. I'm not saying that you're not bearing your soul before the Lord, but what I'm saying is that worship prepares you for the word.
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And when earlier on, I talked to you about in prayer, when you come to God, what are you doing? You're coming to God in worship and praise. By definition, listen to me, by definition, worship is to go and to sit at a master's foot like a hound dog. I said this in the first week.
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I'm not calling anybody a dog in the room.
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But the definition is that I am sitting, and I am waiting in surrender for the master to speak a word that would give me direction.
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Worship puts you in position to receive the word so that you can operate direction, in anointing, in a dimension of your life that you didn't have before you came in today. And so, when we're talking about anointing, the anointing is what it says in Isaiah, that destroys the yoke.
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And I don't know what yokes you might have on you. I don't know what you don't know if it's the yoke of fear, the yoke of addiction, the yoke of anxiety, the yoke of disbelief.
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I don't know what yoke the enemy has tried to yoke you up with, but I'm telling you there is something about the corporate anointing when there is so much faith in the room that it destroys that weight and that bondage that's been on your back, and on your life, and on your family.
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So the Bible says that it is the anointing. Somebody say anointing. Anointing.
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The anointing is what destroys.
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Doesn't break, it destroys.
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Now, are three measures of anointing.
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Three measures of anointing.
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When we're talking about the anointing, what we're talking about, it's the spirit of God that is so begin to to to dwell within you. It's when you're spending so much time with the Holy Spirit. So much time in the word. So much time building your faith.
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It's your most holy faith that you begin to build up. So, there's a lot of the the the great evangelists and tent meeting revivalists and and different individuals, what were they doing? They were they would spend time. They would lock themselves in for days and weeks consecrating their life to the Lord, being of same mind and same sound, being so filled with the Word and the Spirit of God that when they went into that revival tent meeting, all they saw was signs and wonders and miracles.
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Paul says this.
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Paul says, I don't want to come with excellence of speech and eloquence. I would rather come with a demonstration of power.
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Let's not forget the statement that Gideon made. Gideon said this to the angel of the Lord which was the Lord Himself.
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The Lord calls him and says, hey, mighty hero. And He says, oh yeah, where's all the miracles that our fathers used to talk? Where are all these miracles?
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Somewhere along the way, they lost sight of the anointing. They lost sight of walking in obedience to the word. They lost sight of it, and the miracles they dried up. But I'm here to tell you right now that as a worshiping generation, as a praying generation, when we bombard heaven, there is no shortage of miracles. There is no shortage of signs and wonders, for the Bible says in the last days I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh.
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Man's sons and daughters are gonna prophesy.
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There's gonna be dreams to be had and visions to be had. I'm telling you the best days for the church are the ones that are ahead of us, not the ones that are behind us, because God's not done with His church yet.
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But it's when we dare to come together in the unity of faith and believe for the impossible. The
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yoke.
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The Bible says the anointing destroys the yoke.
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Now I don't know if you've ever seen this or heard this, but in in in farming, what they would do is they would take an older, bigger ox and they would yoke it to a younger, weaker
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cow. Or, I don't know what the technical term is for a cow. Any farmers in the room?
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Calf. Thank you, ma'am.
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Bless her, Lord. Double portion anointing.
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It's the unity of the faith.
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When they would take the stronger, older ox, they would yoke it next to a small calf. If you've ever seen a yoke, a yoke is a large wooden apparatus that they would rest on the shoulders of the oxen.
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And then, what they would have them is they would have two that would be bound together.
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And the purpose of the ox is that they would go in circles and they would tread out grain.
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Because it wasn't like today is agriculture where we've got machinery and things that can do the job. So they would use the animals to plow the ground, tread the grain, and be able to to to, you know, have the harvest and the things that were planted, be able to get pulled up out of the ground so that they could have it for food and and and whatnot.
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And so, when you would look at the older ox next to a young calf, you'd almost feel bad for the young calf.
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Because you see this small animal next to this real beast of an ox.
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And when they would tread, they would go in a circle.
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And you would see this big ox move, and it was like the little calf was just along for the ride.
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If you would walk up to one of those yokes, and you would try to put your fingers or your hand through the side with the with the with the big ox, you couldn't even get your fingers underneath the yoke that was around his neck. It was so tight.
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The younger ox, you could slip your arm all the way through.
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But you give it some months and some years and as that little ox begins to grow, it begins to fill out that yolk that's around his neck.
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What's the point?
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For some of us, the yokes haven't started in this season.
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The enemy figured out how to get you yoked at a young early age that you didn't know any better. See that young calf could probably have slipped his head out if he really wanted to. But what the enemy does is he starts to begin to put things around your life when you're not looking, when you're not prayed up, when you're not in a place that you understand God's truth, and you find yourself in a place of life and you're like why is this thing so burdened around me?
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It didn't start off with alcohol addiction. It started off with a casual drink at the bar with the buddies.
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How did it begin there? How did it turn into this?
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How did it end up becoming depression?
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How did it end up becoming, constant just, just problems in the marriage? It is because earlier on there was something that the enemy figured out how to get around your life that you grew into.
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And so, Bible says this. The Bible says that in first Timothy five, the Bible says that don't muzzle the ox that treads the grain.
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Now, the intent of that scripture is that Paul is saying that those who are working in the ministry, make sure that you pay them their wage. Make sure that you honor them. But the purpose of it is this, is that when they would yoke ox, they would muzzle their mouth so that they couldn't eat the grain.
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Why?
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Because when they would eat the grain, neck would start to get bigger and bigger and bigger to the point where that yoke would be destroyed or snapped off their neck.
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So, would they would muzzle oxen.
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So, when the Bible says in Isaiah that it's the anointing, the word anointing, ready for this? It means fat.
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It means fat.
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Specifically, it means the fat or strength.
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Fat or strength.
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So, a yoke around an ox, as he gets fatter, he gets stronger and he destroys the yoke that's on his neck.
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How does the anointing in a believer's life destroy the yoke that's on your neck? The more I feed myself with truth, the more I build my faith, the more I begin to allow myself to be planted in the things of God, it starts to break and be destroyed off my neck. So, there's three measures of the anointing.
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The first measure is that the anointing will begin to lift pressure off of your back. And this is why many people, they'll come in for a service on a Sunday.
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The anointing's in the room. You're really going through something that the enemy has you entangled in, but you got just enough God to have relief, but when you leave from here, you go back to the same situation.
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That'd be a 30 fold. Just enough to get you a little pressure release.
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And there's many of us, and myself included over the years, where where where I would come to God and just say, you know God, I just need relief in this situation.
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And I'm gonna tell you this, God doesn't want to give you relief. God wants to give you total freedom that that thing that has tried to pester you, and that has been your pain point is completely destroyed and removed from your life.
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Jesus didn't die on the cross for me to have relief.
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He died on the cross so that I'd be healed and saved and delivered and walk in freedom.
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So the anointing will begin to relieve pressure, but here's what happens. The more that I begin to feed myself with truth, some of those desires and some of those things for those old relationships or those old habits or those old mindsets or those those old things that I start to lose interest in them, and it and it's as if the yoke begins to crack.
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But the more I give myself to God, the more I give myself to the word, the more I give myself to the fellowship of of of other like minded believers dwelling in unity, that anointing begins to flow to the point where that anointing completely destroys and annihilates everything that's been around my neck in my life.
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There is something about the anointing that we gotta get ahold of.
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Hear me on this.
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The anointing is what destroys.
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And your yoke, by the way, might not necessarily be a bad habit or a bad person. Your yoke can be culture. Your yoke can be religion. Your yoke could just be your offense that you need to deal with.
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And that will hold you from being able to go to a greater measure of what God has for you.
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You with me so far? I'm trying to get you all somewhere.
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I've been praying about this and and and the Lord's just been resting on my heart that that there are some things that need to be broken off for us to get to that next level where the Lord's taken us. And God's moving in this church in a powerful way.
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Now, the Bible tells us, talking about the anointing in first John two twenty seven.
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John says this, is he says that the anointing it abides within you.
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The anointing it abides within you. The spirit of God it dwells within you. The anointing is within you.
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So, if I've got a yoke on my neck and I'm feeling really weak in my faith, how do I get that sucker destroyed or broken off my back?
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How do I get it off my back? I went to God with this.
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I don't know what's going on.
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How do I get through this situation?
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I'm so glad you asked.
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When two agree on anything that they ask on the earth.
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Your Father in heaven will respond. So, if the anointing is in Andrew and the yoke is on me.
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I'm gonna go to somebody who's got a measure of the anointing that can pray for me to destroy and break that thing off my neck.
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But the problem is is that we don't go to people.
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We hold out for the perfect moment in service, maybe the pastor, whatever versus just simply calling up to someone who's operating in a measure of the anointing.
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Now, look at this and we'll give you a picture. If the oil flows from the head all the way down to the foot and my foot is hurting.
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Okay. Let's say I'm the foot of this situation and it and it's hurting.
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I need to go upstream for another body part to help my foot.
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If I stub my foot and man, that has happened to anybody. Got littles with toys on the floor. Holy smokes. Ain't nothing worse than a Lego in the middle of the night.
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That is worse than a shard of glass. My God.
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I'm I'm reliving this right now. I'm feeling it right now. God does that hurt.
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There is nothing beyond my foot to go to to get help.
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My foot's got to now go up to my hand for my hand to check it out and see is there anything there.
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What what are you saying? What am I saying? What am I saying?
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What am I saying?
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That when I'm in a time of need, I need to find somebody that's operating in a point of strength. Don't go in your time of need to somebody who is broken and buried and overwhelmed that's not operating in faith. I need to go to the place of anointing so that I can draw and pull from.
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And this is why we saw so many miracles over decades and other and other points in time in history is cause people understood if I could just get to this place where the anointing is flowing.
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We gotta get to the place where the anointing is flowing.
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And when I need prayer, I'm coming into an agreement so that I've got unity of faith, and so I'm gonna go to somebody who is strong in that That's why the Bible says, let the elders, if you are sick, call for the elders to lay hands on you. Elders are not old people in the church.
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Elders are not people that's been in the church for forty years.
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The word elder means those who are mature in faith.
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Those who are go to somebody who's mature in faith that's not gonna sit there and empathize with you and say, oh, you know, I know you've been going through this. You know, maybe we'll just pray about it and let's see if Jesus shows up. I hope Jesus shows up. I don't know if he will. But you know what, girlfriend? I know life's been hard. It's been it's just it's just it's just can we just put on some worship music really quick and just can we just
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I'm going go to this conference, and I'm going to go to this thing.
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Find yourself a person who is strong and mighty in faith.
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Man, and hook your wagon to them.
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And let them pull you out of your crap into purpose and destiny because it's the prayer of the faithful.
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Guys, like if you're going to if we're going to be a strong church, if we're going to operate in a dimension of anointing, man, we got to get our faith on point, which means we got to get the truth implanted in our hearts. We got to be locked and loaded in the Word of God so that when I'm going through something, that I can call up a brother or a sister in my time of need. And I know that they're not just hanging out behind me, but they're standing beside me locking arms knowing that we are going to march into this thing.
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The anointing destroys the yoke. The anointing is within you.
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And in your time of need, you need to hook yourself up to the anointing.
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And the anointing is intended is to flow all the way down.
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I'd be grieved if only a portion of people saw God respond to their prayers and there was a portion that did not. That means the oil did not hit you.
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And I'm not saying that to make anyone feel a certain way, any less.
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What I'm saying is when we come together in the corporate, God puts priority on the corporate. The anointing is flowing.
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The anointing is flowing.
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I shouldn't be worried about what's the next thing on my agenda if God is moving in a service and there are signs and wonders and miracles and healing is flowing. Why would I oh, oh, oh, man. Well, we have reservations at 01:30.
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You know?
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My Instacart order, you know, I set it for 01:45.
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God, know that you are moving, and I know that I need to get healed right now. But someone's gotta be there to sign. Someone's gotta give them the code.
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And so we disconnect ourselves from the unity of faith where the anointing is.
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Guys, there's something about waiting on the Lord and He renews your strength. He didn't say when you wait on the Lord for one hour and fifty five minutes.
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You will it's a constant waiting. It's God that oil is flowing.
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That oil is flowing.
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You know, my daughter asked me yesterday, she said, dad, what was like one of your favorite desserts growing up? Or we got on some conversation. Was like, man, I used to love those ices that you would get at the ballpark.
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I played ball over here at Mullins Park when I was younger, and man, they'd have the concession stand, and it had these Icy's. They had this one, was called the Blue Marlin. I'll never forget it. That's how good it was.
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And it was it was literally like ice in a cup.
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One of those like water cooler cups.
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How they charge $3 for that, I don't know. Man, someone was making bank.
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And so they would put just a scoop of ice on this thing, and then they would just run this blue syrup over the top. And you knew that if you just went for it, you were going miss out because you take that first bite, all the syrup was in that first bite. You gotta let it run all the way down. You gotta let that red cherry syrup get all the way down so that that entire piece of ice is covered in every bit of that yummy goodness. So, when you walk away, you got red stained lips.
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Oh,
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don't have time for that story.
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That is good.
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You know what I'm saying? That's the anointing of God. It's so good.
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Because you wanna let the anointing get down to every crevice, every hidden place, every part of your life.
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Man, I wanna see God move and groove in every area.
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I don't want there to be one place that ain't oily, because it's the oil that allows joint to be supplied to joint, that we're stronger together, we're better together.
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I'm telling you, there is something about the anointing when it is released.
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I don't know about you. Who wants the anointing, man? Who wants another measure of the anointing? I'm telling you, God is doing something in His church right now.
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God is doing something in His church right now. You are His church, which means God's doing something in you right now, in your families right now. Come on, in your life right now. I don't know what you came in today in need of, but I'm telling you the anointing is in the room to destroy every single yoke that the devil thought he was gonna get away with. Not anymore. Not today. Not this hour. Not this year. Not this month. Not next month. It ain't happening, because when the people of God are prayed up and in the unity of faith, we can ask and believe, and we shall receive.
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The Bible shows this story. I'm gonna close with this, and I wanna I wanna I wanna pray for you. The Bible shows us this story in Daniel three.
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And we know it because it's been a children's story, and it's been preached in so many different ways. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
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I've never seen such a clear picture of the unity of faith.
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There was a yoke that was placed on a nation that simply said, if you don't bow down and worship this idol, you are going to be killed.
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And three, three men came together in the unity of faith and was relentless in their pursuit and refused to bow down and give themself to the yoke that was placed upon a nation.
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To the point where the king was so angry that he took those three and he threw them in what we know as a fiery furnace.
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And as he threw them in a fiery furnace, he began to look and he tells his servants, did we not throw three in there? Why is there four?
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And why does the fourth one resemble the Son of God?
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What's the point? The point is when two or three are gathered together in His name, He is in the midst.
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Now listen.
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Here's the miracle. The miracle was not that they were just not harmed by fire, that you couldn't even smell smoke upon them. Here's what it was. When two or three came together, they destroyed a yoke off of a nation because from that moment, the king changed his decree, and he said from here on out, you can worship the Lord God of the Israelites.
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These three men came together in the unity of faith and it changed the nation.
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It changed everything that the enemy was trying to put on a here's when two or three are gathered together, the church can change a nation. The church can change communities.
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The church can change school systems. The church can change households.
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The church can change government in all different types of areas of leadership through the nation when two or three Jesus says, I'm showing up. It's the unity of the faith. It's the corporate anointing.
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The anointing is about who I'm getting joined to.
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It's that you're in such a full measure of faith.
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Brother, I gotta draw from your faith.
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I gotta draw from your faith. I gotta lock on to you.
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It's not just the one who's singing on the platform. It's not just the one holding the microphone. It's that you know there's a faith and an anointing that's inside of you. I gotta join. I gotta join. I gotta join. I gotta join my faith.
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We gotta join our faith. We gotta this is why I start the services off. Grab hold of the hand of the person next to you because you don't know what that person came in with. But in that moment right there, what you don't realize is God is using you.
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God is using you to minister life in the anointing. It flows through you.
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Thank you, Lord.
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Hallelujah, Lord.
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Several years ago, we were in a service similar like this, But it was at the end of twenty one days of fasting.
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And in that service,
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God was moving very very powerfully.
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For healing. And so, in that moment,
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I asked if anybody had an issue with their eyes to come forward.
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I don't know. We had probably about 200 people because it lined all the way across.
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And God was moving powerfully. We were praying. Were praying. Were praying. I got to be right about over here. Where you roughly where you're at, Malaney. I was standing right around here.
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There was a gentleman that was standing up here.
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And I came down, and he was slightly taller. And I could tell that he truly he was blind. He had almost like a like a the only way that I can describe it, it was like a like a film, like a layer on his eye. Almost looked kinda green.
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And he was standing here, and I was getting ready to pray for his eye, and the Holy Spirit said, no.
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Pray for his back.
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So I said, sir, I said, I know you're up here for your eye, but I'm gonna pray for your back. I was like, can I ask?
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You know, the Lord's leading me to pray for your back. What? Did were you was there an accident or do you have a complication about what said? Actually, he was like, not too long ago, I was in a car accident and the whiplash on my back, it pulled all the way back to where my eye sockets were to the point where glaucoma began to form over my eye. I said, sir. I said, the Lord's gonna heal you right now.
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We joined our faith together.
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He said, I just wanna see again.
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I just wanna see again.
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I wanna see again. I said, sir, I'm telling him, I'm gonna pray for your back and your eye, you're gonna see again. And so we begin to pray for his back and we joined our faith and the anointing came upon this man.
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And all of a sudden, he started to get real straight in his back. And he started to Man, it's getting loose.
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And all of a sudden, he starts weeping.
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And he says, oh my God.
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I can see. He was looking up here and everything that was over his eye, it's like it's like it's like when Paul says scales fell from my eye, it was like it just melted right off of his eye. And he said, I can see. I can see.
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What the congregation, which y'all didn't know at that time, was that I was going through a situation where I was dealing with really bad sciatica and my back was hurting.
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And when I prayed for that man, his faith was so strong in believing for his miracle that his anointing that was on him and his faith that was in him kicked back and healed my back. The
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anointing that strengthens the body where the blessing in life is commanded forevermore.
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So, I don't wanna just come in unity for a thing.
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I wanna go to another level, and I wanna advance in that thing. And the way that I advance in that thing is when I recognize that there's an anointing that's in me. There's an anointing that's in you, and it's gotta flow. It's gotta flow. It's gotta flow. And we begin to advance in the unity of faith.
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Thanks again for listening to today's podcast. We trust that it has touched your heart and blessed your life. Listen to support the ministry. You can go to our website, abundantlife.tv.
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And remember, we are better together.