Faith, Prayer, and Divine Guidance in Relationships

1) "If you know something's not healthy for you, somebody's pulling you down, using you, then you need to cut it off. How many of you ever heard me tell the story of the monkey tail? Uh-oh, I got to tell it. There was a guy who had a friend who had a monkey. And the monkey was always hanging by his tail and tearing stuff up. And so he said, one of these days I'm going to cut that monkey's tail off. And so one day this guy was over to his friend's house, and he kept hearing this blood-curdling scream every few seconds. And he's like, what's going on? So he knocked on the guy's door, and the guy came to the door. He said, man, what's going on in your house? I keep hearing this screaming coming. He says, well, remember I told you I was going to cut that monkey's tail off? He said, yeah. Well, I'm cutting it off now. He says, well, why does he keep screaming over and over again? Well, so that it doesn't hurt so much, I'm cutting it off an inch at a time. And that's the way some of y'all try to get out of relationships. The wrong relationship is an inch at a time. Cut the thing off. Change your number. Put a block on. Amen." [02:57] (65 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "One of the things you have to realize is that the blood of Jesus is aimed at your conscience. Amen. If God was going to punish you, you wouldn't even be here. If that was his mindset was to punish you, you wouldn't be breathing right now. Are you here? The fact that you're breathing means he wants you. Okay. And so what you have to do in Jeremiah 15, I believe it is, he talks about separating the precious from the vile. Okay. And if you read that in the Amplified Bible, he says, if you get rid of this unwarranted suspicion about my will towards you, amen, that's not the voice of the Spirit. That's not the voice of God. So when a voice comes accusing God of punishing you or being your problem, how many of you know if God's your problem, you don't have an answer? Amen. And so we want to make sure that we're walking in the truth, okay?" [04:35] (60 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "How do I know it's God's voice? Okay. How do I know if God is speaking and my, my, my favorite two words, when somebody asked that is time spent, somebody say time spent. When God speaks to you, you're going to hear something, you're going to see something, know something, or you're going to feel something. All of those are the way the voice of God operates. Okay. You can hear, you can see something, you can just know something, or you can even feel something. Now you have to be in the word because everything you feel is not God. Is this making sense? So you have to be in the word in order to know this. Okay. And so time spent with him in his Bible, in the Bible with him. Him in the spirit helps you to be acquainted to his voice. I still miss his voice. So I don't know if you'll ever be perfect. Okay. But you can be better. Somebody say better." [10:06] (56 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "Let me just say that. Okay. And so somebody asked the question, how do you know when to yield or when to fight? Okay. Now the truth is, is that you can't fight until you've yielded. So surrender is in both of them. When you fight or when you receive as a child, surrender is the key to both of them. What does the Bible say in James four, seven, therefore what submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. So I, so even in warfare, I have to yield to what God has said, because usually the fight is a fight of faith. The fight is a fight of focus. The fight is a fight of what the enemy is saying, as opposed to what God is saying. So before I can, I can resist the devil. I have to say. Submit therefore to God. That's one of the reasons why obedience is so important because obedience will help me in my warfare. It's hard to war without clean hands. Are y'all here?" [12:32] (57 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "Look at somebody. Tell him all I need is a word from God. A word will shift everything. Is that making sense? Um, at the wedding, they ran out of wine. I don't know why they ran out of wine after Jesus and the disciples came. But for some reason, they ran out of wine. And so Jesus' mother came to him and said, we're out of wine. He said, what do I have to do with you? My time is not yet. And the mother said to the servants, whatever he says to you, do it. So obedience is the key to manifested promises to the power of God. Amen. We live obedient lives because we want to be powerful." [15:48] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "The more you know him, the less warfare you have to go through about him. Amen. Are y'all here? The devil can't fight me about Olive Garden. Because I know. We're going. Unless they close up. Unless there's a tornado or something. Are y'all here? Did you get anything out of that? Thanks. Thanks, Mike. Glory be to God. That's what trusting is. Thank you, Lord. Somebody say the logos. So we start out with the logos, the general will of God. Okay. We want to know who he is by the photograph the Bible gives us about God. Okay. You read. First of all, you read. I gave you a pattern a few weeks ago. You read. You hear. You see. You speak. I added one. You rest. Then it comes to pass. So let's dig into those just a little bit. Is that all right? I just want you to get it, man. I'm your pastor. I just want you to get it." [20:38] (61 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "So in the beginning was the word the word was with god and the word was god the same was in the beginning with god all things that were made were made by him and without him nothing was made that was made everything that we see came from the unseen world that's represented by the word of god amen now the bible is important because it shows you who to go to does that make sense okay um john 5 39 says it this way says you search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life but it is they that testify of me and you will not come to me that you might have eternal life life so if your relationship as a Christian is simply with the Bible you don't get it the Bible is telling you about a person and you're supposed to go based on the Bible you're supposed to go to that person and have a relationship with that person and live based on what that person is saying to you that's agrees with the Bible and not just trying to formulate principles of your own from the Bible does that make sense okay I want you to see that so you read then you hear somebody say you hear okay you hear the anointed word say that with me the anointed word the anointed word is where the spirit and the word meet the spirit and the word are one okay and so you're not dealing with the word until you're dealing with the anointed word the spirit and the word do you listen to me okay the anointed word it speaks to us the logos becomes a rhema a living spoken specific word from God a person you can trust somebody say faith comes okay in Romans 10 17 it says it this way so then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God now sometimes how can I say I will pray something just because it's in the Bible but I don't always have faith just because I've read the Bible and there's times when I've been stronger than others and what I was praying about and the differences screws it's not αυτό hear from God specific word about this." [23:47] (60 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "And some of us are disappointed because we set things up that God never co-signed. I'm going to be this by this time. I'm going to do this by this time. And it doesn't happen, and you're disappointed with God. Well, God wasn't committed to it in a specific way in the first place. Sometimes when you know the Bible, you will go into a place of entitlement. Well, you feel like things should just happen just because who you are. Are you listening to me? No, you need, you need, you have a living relationship with God. You need a living relationship with him where he speaks to you, and then that translates into faith, and then you operate from faith. Okay? So, so you hear, somebody say you hear. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the rhema of God. So in my time alone, with God, he's talking to me and producing faith in me. It's hard to make this stuff work without an intimate relationship with God. Now, how do I know I've heard? I know I've heard because I see." [25:11] (75 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9) "You ever cried until you didn't have no more crying in you? That's some serious crying. And then after they got done crying, they got mad at David and got ready to stone him. The Bible says he encouraged himself in the Lord. He went into praise and worship and strengthened himself. Guided himself back into the presence of God and said, God, what should we do about this? Shall I pursue them? God said, yes, pursue them. You shall overtake them and recover all. I know the end of the game now. I don't have to sweat the fact that I don't see anything anymore. I don't have to because I know how it's going to come out. I just got a prophetic word that cut me off, that divorced me from everything the devil is trying to do in my life. Come on, somebody." [35:12] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10) "He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God and being fully convinced that what he had promised, he was also able to perform. What's he performing? He hastens over his word. Come on, somebody. To perform it. He became convinced. The picture became clear. He was persuaded. He stayed in the presence of God long enough. He heard from God long enough for the picture to be clear. Well, Pastor, how long is that? I don't know. All I know is when it's clear. How long does it take a woman to get pregnant? I don't know. For some of y'all, it's taken three, four years. It happens when it happens. You stay with it until it happens. Is this making sense? Somebody say being fully convinced that he had promised that what he had promised, he was able. He was able to perform." [36:49] (66 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)