The Lord told me, you’re a voice and not an echo. You have a modern-day apostle, not just a common man, but a great man and a great woman of God. This House is called to greatness. And not only are you a voice, this House is a voice.
It’s a beautiful thing when you have a psalmist within the House. And you have worship that is birthed for this House, but I’m telling you, it’s getting ready to spread out of this House. God is not only sending the voice of this House to the nations, God is getting ready to send the sound of this House to the nations. This is your finest hour, and it’s not that you’re coming into greatness. God said, “They will minister out of greatness.”
Around the world, this last season has been challenging. There was nothing off limits, Satan has been attacking so many people. And not just attacking you, but those who you love. Parents, he’ll come for your children, he’ll come for your spouse. He’ll do anything to try to get our focus off of the objective that has been laid before us.
The attack is to distract, to get us away from that thing God is calling us to. And this House, God is calling you to the nations. God is calling you into a place of great purpose, to where the world has been praying for what this ministry has. It’s been crying out for the Lord to send someone and Pastor John, you are the one they’ve been crying out for.
The Bible says people of old, prophets, caught glimpses of where we are standing, and they desired to be right here. Some Christians that are just wanting the clock to run out. “Lord, just blow that trumpet. Get me out of here.” No! I’m saying, “Lord, give me more time. Lord, I want to bring You tremendous glory and I want to give the devil tremendous fits.” And the way that we do that, is we live a disciplined life, a life that is void and extinct of the things of the enemy, a life where there is nothing for Satan to work with.
Let me tell you something, if your testimony is that the devil is always attacking you, I want to ask you, why does he feel so comfortable being in your house? There comes a time when you have to become fed up, to where you are done with tolerating someone that does not belong in your life. But you have to rise to a place where Satan has no common ground where he can fellowship with you and attack you.
There’s a difference between believing in God and living for God. God showed me, you must deny the enemy any place, and the old things need to leave. We’re new creatures, but we have old minds. It’s so important that you are in a ‘Word’ church, a church that teaches the word of faith. Because faith is what pleases God and faith is what you and I are called to live by.
The Lord says, “The just shall live by faith,” four times – we need to pay attention. That means this is how I’m supposed to raise my children. This is how I’m supposed to conduct my life, my ministry, my business. I am supposed to operate according to faith. The Bible says, without faith, it’s impossible to please God, because faith is the material that God uses to build your life. That’s why you better thank God you are in a Word church because this is a rare commodity nowadays.
What does it mean to live by faith? According to Romans 10:17, ¹⁷…faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. (Romans 10:17, NKJV) The Word of God is the source of faith. If you say you’re living by faith, that means you’re living by the Word of God. We can accurately say, the just shall live by the Word of God.
God spoke this to me – some of you, because of the call and the purpose of your life and because of your spiritual appetite, God had to remove you and place you here. It was the hand of the Lord. It was not a bad thing. You know when it’s not a bad thing because your exit should be as good as your entrance. How you leave says a lot about how you will enter into what is next, because some people, it stunts them. God will not advance you past your last disobedience. You can try moving forward, but God will place you right back at the place where you started getting off. You can change churches, you can run and hide, but God knows where you are. He’ll find you.
The only way you can correct a life is if you have someone that’s willing to love you enough to be willing to sacrifice the relationship. I would rather say, “I love you,” and give you correction, or instruction, or need be even rebuke. I would rather love you enough to sacrifice this relationship than to say that I love you and I watch you destroy yourself. That’s not love. Your pastors care about loving you. They want to see you succeed. As your partner, they want to see you succeed more than they want to see themselves succeed.
When you are in the right place- this is the right place. When you’re doing the right things- this ministry is doing, absolutely, the right things. Right place, right things, right people. Those are all ingredients for success. There’s no limit to what God can do in your life when you are in a place and in a position for God to give you the Word that is needed for your faith to go to another place. And the thing is that God has called this House to its greatness.
I do not want to be good for God. I want to be great for God. When you’re in a church like this, sometimes you can feel like the bar is too high. No, it’s not. Pastor John is placing the bar where it should have always been in your life, but you don’t always have shepherds that are willing to do that. And what happens is people are used to jumping over something that’s shallow, so when life happens, their faith fails because their faith hasn’t been brought to the place where it accomplishes what it’s there to do.
The Bible says that the fat soul loathes the honeycomb. It’s like, when you’re so used to a good word, you can just tune out things. You won’t go back to read your notes after service. You won’t be meditating upon what the prophet said. You’ll just be living from message to message. You’ll be flipping through the TV, watching every preacher under the sun, and you forget what was taught in your church. When you are asked, “How was church today?” “Oh, it was amazing. It was so beautiful today, Pastor Sharon.” “And what did you learn?” “I don’t know, but it was good.” That will not change your circumstances. You have to meditate upon the Word day and night. It’s not the Word that you know that will change your life, it’s the Word that you live.
The battle belongs to the Lord, but how many know you still have to show up to the battlefield? I remember asking God, “Why do I have to show up? If You’ve already done it, why do I need to go through this?” Because if you do not stand on the battlefield, the Lord will not receive the testimony of what He did for you. So, don’t be surprised when you find yourself in adversity, especially when you’re a part of something good like this. The enemy’s looking to see who’s not being serious here. He’s saying, “Who’s taking this lightly? Who’s not living this?” He’s looking for any entrance so that he can come and devour what’s been sown. The sower sows the Word.
The voices in your life affect the choices in your life. This is why the devil hates you going to this church. Who you listen to is who you will listen like. This is why we can’t be rubbernecking every person that says I’m a preacher. This is why you shouldn’t be listening to every Tom, Dick, and Stanley that’s on TV. It’s so vital that we understand that who you are with will affect your life as a believer. And the loudest voice in your life needs to be the one that God’s anointed. You can only be in one church on Sunday, it needs to be the House where God has anointed them, anointed for you to come because your prosperity is in the mouths of your prophets.
Character is the only thing that can keep you where the anointing takes you.
Don’t allow your ears to be trash cans. Don’t listen to people that come to you under the banner of, “I want us to pray about something.” You need to protect your pastors from themselves, protect them from others, and protect them from yourself. Make sure you never weaponise yourself, especially your mouth against them.
Sometimes we think that we get to heaven and we all have the same rank. We are positionally equal. We’re all Christians, we’re children of God. He loves us all the same. We’re positioned equal, but we are functionally different. But in heaven, the Bible says, there are some that are considered least in the Kingdom of Heaven, and those that are great in the Kingdom of Heaven, there is rank.
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