Ambers 4th service

The main ideas from this information are: - We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. - We need to put on the whole armor of God to stand against the enemy. - We should seek after His righteousness and work with Him. - God begins, carries out, and completes the good work in us. - We should not lose sight of the end result, which is eternity with God. - Change is good, and we should not be afraid of it. - We can approach God with confidence, knowing that He hears and answers our prayers. - When we have God on our side, we can be confident and overcome our enemies. - It is our job to fight off the lies and deceit of the enemy and minister love and truth to others. do all things through Christ who strengthens me. He is the one that strengthens us. He's the one that gives us all that we need. He's the one that supplies all of our needs. He's the one that lives inside of us. When He's living in us, greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world. Ephesians 6, 10-13 reads, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God so that you might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness and in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand. We are able to stand boldly, confidently in this day. We are able to have His strength. We are not going to make it through any of this without Him. Without His strength, every single day, we can do nothing. Sister Marie Brown, when we were out in Connecticut, she preached on and spoke on a whole lot of different things, but one of the things that she said that I had never really thought about, because we all, you know, we're praying on the armor of God and everything, but she said, you got to make sure you put on His strength first. Kind of hard to hold up all the armor without His strength and power to do so. And that very first verse says right there, be strong in the Lord and in His power, His might, in the power of His might. Sorry. So it's Him. Even though we're the one putting on the armor, even though we're the one that He uses to stand in the gap and to speak the words and to pray the prayer, He's the one doing it. He's the one accomplishing everything. He's the one that makes it happen. He's the reason we can be confident. We don't have to be confident in ourselves, in our own strength, in our own might. If all we do is look on ourselves and what we can or cannot do, we're going to hate ourselves every single day, because we're never going to live up to our own expectations. He's the one that does it. Because of Him, we can be confident. Because of Him and seeking after His righteousness, we can have confidence. Isaiah 32, 17. And it reads, the work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever. In another version that I read, it said the fruit of righteousness is confidence. We don't get to be righteous on our own. We aren't righteous on our own. He makes us righteous as we seek Him. When we are working with Him, that is where our confidence comes from. The work of righteousness will be peace. The work as we work with Him and allow Him to work in us, we get our peace. The effect of righteousness, so what happens when we gain righteousness as we're seeking after it, quietness and assurance forever. We get to be confident when we're walking with Him. We get to be confident when we're working with Him. When we're trying to work on our own that we lose it. He is so, so good to us. So, so good to us. I was talking with somebody recently and talking about different things and one of the things that was said to me was that, you know, when you are working and following Jesus so hard, when you have a dream or a goal to work towards, it's one that He gave you. Because when you're seeking after His kingdom first, all of these things shall be added onto you. We don't get to seek after what we want first. But we seek after Him. We seek after His righteousness. We work with Him. We let Him being in us flow out. When we're in the Spirit and we're doing things, we don't have to worry about what's going to happen because He's the one doing it through us. When we're walking in this life, we don't have to worry about the end result because He is the one that brings the end result. Our God is so good and our God is so faithful. Philippians 1.6. Philippians 1.6. Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. He begins the work. He carries out the work. He completes the work. We seek after Him. He does the work. When we let Him, we have to let Him do the work. The Lord helps all of us. Exactly. Because we don't like work, especially the way that this generation is going now. We don't like work. We don't like things to take a long time. We don't like things to go through a process. We want our answers immediately. We want our answers to be right now. We want the change now. But He began the good work, so He's going to complete it. Sometimes we lose faith in wondering if He's going to complete it at all. But Lord, I've been praying for this. But Lord, why isn't this changing? Why isn't this happening? Why have I not seen the answer yet? Why is the answer not what I wanted? Because it's His answer. He's got the answer for us. He's got the work. He's the one that sees the end from the beginning. We just see the beginning and where we're at right now. We don't see the end result. The end result eventually is going to eternity. That is what we are working towards. That is why we are wanting souls to come into the kingdom. That is why we are working to change ourselves, to seek after His righteousness, to work towards righteousness ourselves. Because the end result is heaven. The end result is the final confidence where we are in front of Him saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. That is the end result. Sometimes it's very easy for us to lose sight of the fact that that is the end. That is why we dig deeper. That is why we challenge ourselves. That is why we stop being afraid of change in our lives. Change is good. Stagnation is if you look out at a pond and you look at a stagnant pond, what do you see? The top of that stagnant pond is disgusting. Right? You get all that yucky, just nasty, gross algae and things that aren't pretty. It's not full. It's not teeming with life when it's stagnant. Mosquitoes are nesting there. There's still life there. Yeah. There's still things that happen in a stagnant pond. But when you look at that stagnant pond or that stagnant puddle, and then you go look at a river, or you go look at a marsh that has water that runs through it on a regular basis. What do you see? You see such a huge difference. That river and that pond or that marsh that's got water that runs through it is teeming with life. There's life that is just growing and moving all around. You've got birds flying through grabbing fish out of the water. You've got the Purple Martins that are zipping through grabbing the bugs. You've got eagles flying overhead. You've got trout that are swimming through the stream. You name it, it's there. You've got beavers building dams and creating new life. You've got deer panting toward the water's edge. We are the river. We have the river flowing in us. He chose us for now to live with Him inside of us. We don't get to think that He made a mistake in putting Himself inside of us. We don't get to think that He was wrong for loving us. Because that was His decision. He made the choice. We just choose to seek after Him now, because He's not going to tell us that we have no choice to. That's the deer's job. That's the tree's job. That's the wolf howling at the moon's job. They have no choice but to worship God. We get a choice. We get the choice to seek after Him. We get the choice to be able to know, to know Him. The Bible says that we should walk boldly and confidently to Him into the throne room. We shall seek Him and find Him. He's not hiding from us. 1 John 5.14 says, this is the confidence we have in approaching God. That if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. We can have confidence in the fact that He hears us. He hears us when we're asking for things. When we are seeking after His righteousness, and we're asking things according to His righteousness, according to His will, He hears us. He answers us. We can be confident in that. We don't have to be afraid when we're approaching God. Nehemiah 6.16, when all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God. We get to be confident because God is on our side. When we're fighting a battle, we don't fight it alone. When we put on His strength and put on His armor, He's the one doing the fighting. When we're the one allowing ourselves to be used as a vessel, He's the one that conquered the battle. He's the one that made the change. And it's our enemy that gets to lose self-confidence because they don't have God on their side. They wish they did once we're through with them, but they don't have God on their side. They're the ones that get to be without self-confidence. And they're also going to try to bully you because they're going to look at you and they're going to say, well, why does she get to be like that? Why does he get to have that in his life? I deserve that. I should have that. And they don't love themselves. Somebody that is lacking in self-confidence doesn't love themselves either. And hurt people hurt people. And when somebody's got a little devil whispering in their ear that they're not worth anything, that they don't matter to anybody, that there's no way they could ever be loved, they lash out on that. That's why the Bible says that we fight not against flesh and blood because their lack of self-confidence, sometimes it's partially their fault, but they've got somebody whispering in their ear and it's our job to fight off that whisper. It's our job to allow the angels of God to be able to minister love and life and truth and conviction. It is our job to cut off condemnation. It is our job to cut off the lies and the deceit of the enemy. It is our job to pray the prayer that God removes from them a heart of stone and gives to them a heart of flesh. Because our God wants to love them too. He wants to be their God too. But we have to put on the armor. We have to fight the battle. We don't get to just sit on the sideline. Isaiah 41 10, So do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. He holds us in the palm of his hand. The Bible also says that we are the apple of his eye. He loves us. He chose us. He adopted us. He died for us. He chose to allow us to be covered in his blood so that our sins are washed away and we are white as snow. After we've repented because we've been baptized in Jesus' name and filled with the Holy Ghost, we repent. He doesn't see any of those things we hold against ourselves. He doesn't see the fact that two months ago we did this and we said that and we went to that place. God doesn't see that when you repent. Forgive yourself. We are human. We mess up. We make mistakes and we hold ourselves accountable for far too long. Yes, we need to hold ourselves accountable. Yes, we need to not go to those places. Yes, we need to not read that book. Yes, we need to make the choice to watch this instead of that. We need to make the right choices, but we have help to make those choices. We have the Holy Ghost. We have the Holy Ghost in us. We are the temple of the Holy Ghost. He loves us so much he put himself inside of us. How could we not be confident because he is with us on our own? As soon as you stop praying, as soon as you stop seeking after righteousness, as soon as you start making the decision that you're going to go left instead of right, as soon as you start making the decision that you're going to try to curve the path instead of go straight because the straight line is hard, yeah, you'll lose your confidence. When you're making the choice to not do the will of God, he can't help you be confident in the wrong choice. But when you are following his straight and narrow path, when you are leaning not on your own understanding, but acknowledging him in all your ways, he will direct your path. He will make your path straight. But you've got to walk with him. You've got to let him be the leader of your life. He has to be the leader of your home. He has to be the driver of your car. He has to be the pilot and not the co-pilot. He has to be the one in control. Every time we try to take back control, we lose it. Every time we stop praying, every time we stop reading our Bible, every time we stop worshiping, every time we stop praising the Lord, we lose our confidence. Every time we take off the garment of praise, the spirit of heaviness covers us because we are to put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. You take that garment off, there goes your protection. Oh, I love Jesus. I love you so much. You are so, so awesome. I'm so grateful today that he gives us the confidence that we don't have to be confident in ourselves because man, I make mistakes. We do. I make mistakes and sometimes I make some pretty big ones. But thankfully, I can run to him and not one time have I ever made a mistake where he's turned around and said, nope, you can't come see me now. Not one time has he ever told me that I can't come to him. Instead, he allows me to come to him. He allows me to humble myself and pray and seek his face. Isaiah 40, 31. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint. It doesn't say that you can just walk out this door and not think about God at all and you get to walk and not grow faint. It doesn't say that you get to just decide that you're not going to read your Bible today and you're going to run and not be weary. It says those who hope in the Lord, in the Lord, we get to get in the spirit. We get to get into that secret place. We get to walk with him in a realm that many others just get to be affected by. We don't get to just be affected by the spirit. We get to walk in it. We have him in us. How amazing is it that he chose us for this time? He chose us for a time when his promises are going to come true. He chose us to not just be the ones working toward the promise, but to be walking in the promise. He called us out of that darkness. He called us into his marvelous light. Hebrews 13, 6. So we say with confidence, the Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? We want those mere mortals to say good things about us. We want those mere mortals to like us. We don't want somebody to not like us. We don't want somebody to not want to talk to us. We want those mere mortals to give us compliments. And we rely on those mortal compliments. We rely on the mortal accolades. The Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. The Lord is my confidence. I'm working daily to try to remember that. I'm working daily to remember that he is the one that gets to say yes or no. He is the one that tells me that he loves me. He is the one that says, oh yeah, okay, keep going. And even if I don't hear that, he's the one that is going to call me to sit next to him. He's the one I get to live eternity with. That person down the street, that person on the job, they're not the ones I'm trying to live eternity for. They're not the ones I'm trying to live all of eternity with. I'm trying to live for Jesus. And when you're trying to live for Jesus, man oh man, the things that he will move out of your way, man oh man, the strength that you will have that you don't even know where it came from, because guess what? When those days happen, when those moments happen, that wasn't your strength. That wasn't your words that got you out of that situation. That wasn't anything you did that made that happen. It was the Lord. Yes, you may have prayed and the Lord may have used you to accomplish something. It's amazing when the Lord uses you for his work, but he can only use you when you allow him to flow through you freely. Because remember, we get to have the river of living water in us, but we have to not let that water go stagnant. What do you want your life to look like? Do you want your life to be the stagnant pond? Or do you want to be that river, teeming full of life, bringing new life into the world? It's springtime. The leaves are opening up on the trees. Flowers are blossoming. Birds are chirping. It's beautiful. So, so beautiful. This is one of Todd's favorite times of the year because of the fact that it was always new life. And we get to have new life every day. We get to wake up with his mercies new every morning. We get a fresh cup of grace every day. It's because of that grace and that mercy that we don't have to keep telling ourselves how stupid we are for the decision we made three years ago. We don't have to keep yelling at ourselves for the fact that we lost our temper last week. We don't have to keep getting down on ourselves because we missed that opportunity yesterday. We do have to repent. But when we repent, the Lord forgives us. So we have to forgive ourselves. That whole thing of you must forgive in order to be forgiven. Well, that means you've got to forgive yourself too, because when you are holding a grudge against yourself, when you don't forgive yourself, how on earth can you feel the love of God? You can't. You can't believe that God can love you when you don't care about yourself. When you don't love yourself for who you are and who God is creating you to be, you can't believe that God loves you because we want to be that person next to us. We see Sister Bobbie Jo sitting over there and she's doing just perfect. Her prayer life has got to be amazing. Look at all the Lord is doing for her. And we're like, well, why aren't we like that? Comparison will kill your spirit every time. We are not made to compare ourselves. We're not all going to be an Apostle Paul. Only about the Apostle Paul could be the Apostle Paul. We could really like the things that he did in his life and want to have those same kinds of things happen too. But we aren't going to be the Apostle Paul. We aren't going to be Jesus. There's only one Jesus. We're not Him. But we can be the best Brother Ron we can be. We can be the best Judy we can be. We can be the best Sister Hathbert we can be. We can only be the best us. I can only be me. I cannot be anybody else. And He likes me the way that I am. He loves me the way that I am. So that means He loves you the way that you are. I was watching a video one day and one of the things that this person said really kind of hit home. And it made me kind of look at things a little bit differently. Because, you know, people always say to you, well, if you're giving good advice or whatever, the way that you talk to somebody else and the way that you believe for somebody else, right? You believe that that thing can happen for them. You are going to build somebody else up and encourage them on a daily basis if that's what they need, right? What if you were to talk to yourself the way that you talk to your best friend? Because our best friend loves us. We have a friend that sticks closer than a brother. And He loves us. And He loves us as a collective group, but He loves us individually. He created us individually in our mother's womb. Every single little DNA helix, every single nucleus in a cell, He made those. He made everything about you. There truly is nothing that is going to catch Him by surprise. Nothing catches Him by surprise. He's the author and the finisher of our faith. He's the Alpha and the Omega. He's the King of Kings. He is the Lord of Lords. He is the Prince of Peace. He is the Great I Am. He is the one that makes the sun to rise and the moon to set. He is the one that tells the waves when to go out and when to roll in. He is the one that has the great blue whale swimming through the ocean. He is the one that holds the stars in the sky and He knows every single one of them by name. He is the one that set this earth into motion. He is the one that spoke this very universe into existence. He is the one that is all-encompassing, all-present, knows every single one of our needs, has the power to supply them in an instant. He is the one that brings healing to the nations. He is the one that brings sight to the blind. He is the one that opens up deaf ears. He is the one that makes the mute to speak. He is the one that brings senses to the senseless. He is the one that gives us confidence because He is the one that lives in us. He lives in you. We are apostolic. We are not like everybody else walking out there on the street. We need to act like we're apostolic. We need to walk like we're apostolic. We need to remember who it is that made us, who it is that loves us, and who it is that is inside of us. We didn't choose to live in this time frame, but He chose us to live here. Every single one of us is here for a reason. Every single one of us has a purpose in His kingdom. Every single one of us is made for ministry. Every single one of us is here for a purpose and it's His. We don't live life for our purpose. We live life for His purpose. We seek after His face and all the other things come with it. We seek after His righteousness. We seek after His kingdom. But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. Jeremiah 17, 7. 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