Advancing in Life Pastor Christine Miller

The Lord put it in my heart to share tonight on the topic of advancing in life. Amen. Advancing in life. And I believe this is gonna help all of us. It's gonna help me, it's gonna help you. Amen. And some of it, Pastor Nancy addressed in the conference and the Holy Ghost meetings, and some of it just is gonna be things that, nuggets that I got through meditation. And so I'm excited about Jerry Savelle's word. One thing I like about it is it doesn't matter what year it is or what's happening politically, naturally or anything, it's still the word. This word would be good every day until Jesus comes back. Don't fear the future because it's still bright. I'll see you through each and every fight. Stay in faith and watch what you say. Speak only my word and I'll have my way. Now this is the part, it's never my will for you to fail. I've been thinking about that every day. It's never God's will for you to fail. So if there's an area of your life that you feel as though maybe you're failing in, it's not the will of God. It's not the plan of God. I think we know that in our hearts, but we need to be reminded of some things tonight. So we're gonna talk about advancing in life, and I'm just gonna read a few things that I wrote down here. No person can be promoted beyond their thinking. You cannot prosper or advance beyond your thinking. Now here's something that's really, you should write this down what I'm about to say. Your faith cannot take you where your thinking will not go. Your faith cannot take you where your thinking will not go. You know, we all have areas in our thinking that just, it's stubborn. Flat stubborn. We're gonna talk about some of that. Your faith cannot take you where your thinking will not go. You know, your mind is the gateway to the spirit. There are things that God wants to get into your spirit, but your mind is like a roadblock. Wrong thinking, stinking thinking, keeps the faith of God from getting into your spirit. You know, something my son had been talking to us about for the last year or so, and I felt like Pastor Nancy did a good job of addressing this in the Holy Ghost meetings. He said, it's troubling him that there are so many wonderful people that love God that are tithers and generous givers and faithful in their local churches, but they're not prospering the way the Bible says we should be prospering. Now that's financial, but there's a lot of other areas in life that need to prosper besides your money. Amen. One of the things that I said on Sunday that I heard Pastor Jay Eberly say is you can run out of money, but you'll never run out of words. So that would hold true for your health, for relationships, jobs, whatever. You can run out of things in the natural, but you always have spiritual words, words that can be filled with faith that can change any situation. But you won't have them if you're thinking wrong. You know, God, you could be sitting in a church service like this, and somebody says, God has a great plan for your life. God wants to put you over in life, and you could be sitting there thinking, yeah, well, it never happens to me. Well, how many know there's a thinking roadblock that just blocked that word from getting into your spirit, and so that situation can't be changed. Because your mind stopped it. You know, you may be having a negative day, and you ever get a day where you just feel negative thoughts flooding your mind? Come on, we know the word. We speak the word every day. And just for some unusual reason, it could be a demon that comes along to try to disrupt your beautiful day. We'll come and sit on your shoulder, and almost machine gun raids start firing these thoughts, you know. It's hopeless. It's not working, or whatever. You're nothing. You should have accomplished more by now. You're a loser. You're this, you're that. I mean, if you haven't had those thoughts, you're not alive. Now, the difference between someone who suffers from depression and someone who doesn't is what you do with the thoughts that may come at you. It's true. Some people are very proficient at just sitting there and absorbing it all, and saying, yes, it's all right. And just cave in and have the pity party. What I've found is, I know what it feels like, because even in the ministry, I know for a fact there are certain spirits that get assigned against you to try to trouble your mind. And it feels real, just as real as for you, if not more. But I've learned how to not just sit there and sink. I mean, you have to be feisty. You got to have a fighting attitude. Bless God, I don't care what you say to me. I don't care what I feel. It's a lie. And you got to talk to it, command it to go in the name of Jesus. You know, God's not going to come down. Jesus is not going to come down and make that thought stop. That's why so many believers are not advancing in life, because they are not stopping while they're in trouble. So if we don't think right, our faith will actually try to reach for some things, but our mind will step back and say, I don't agree. Because why, there's no faith in your mind and there never will be. How many times have we talked about this where you have three parts and you have to have two against one? Your spirit and your mind have to team up against your body. Your body's hardly ever going to agree. Right. The body wants to sit in front of a television, wants to eat everything it sees, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So your spirit always wants to do the right thing, but your mind, which is really, we should say the soul, because in the soul is the will. Right. When we're talking about advancing in life in a born-again, spirit-filled, word-of-faith church, we're really talking about the will. Because we've all heard truth. We all have a degree of faith because we've heard the truth. But your will has to cooperate. You have to want it bad enough. Want, will, you have to will it strong enough that you're gonna do what it takes to receive it or obtain it. Now, the renewed mind will always agree with God and the unrenewed mind will always argue with God. The Lord can say, well, I want you to give $200 in the offering today. And the mind says, but God, don't you know I have this bill coming up? But God, how can I do that when I have this other obligation? But God, I just set that money aside for something else. That's the unrenewed mind arguing with God. But a renewed mind would say, huh, if the Lord told me to do that, that means there's something big attached to it. And I want what's on the other end of that more than I want my idea, so you joyfully do it. Right. But an unrenewed mind will argue against it. And you can say, well, but I know what the truth is. But see, knowing it in your head, just like you could know two plus two equals four, we can know things. It's not the same as knowing it. So we can conclude this based on all that I've just said. Renewing our minds is one of the most important things we're ever gonna do in life. Yeah. And if you don't take time every day to renew your mind, what did Brother Hagin say? The mind doesn't stay renewed any more than your hair stays combed. Yeah. So it's a lifelong process. It doesn't ever go away. You don't reach the arrival point. And even when you get to heaven, I have news for you. There are still classrooms in heaven. So if you don't like school, change your confession. I love school. The more I say it, the more I like it. We all need someone to teach us and train us the rest of our lives. Even people that aren't saved, if they stop learning, they stop growing, they stop advancing. We have to always be learning. And the best, the number one place to learn is from your pastor. Because there's a supernatural gift in operation. And there are things that are spoken from this pulpit that target your specific situation, unbeknownst to the pastor most of the time. So it's called Holy Ghost teaching. We have an unction from the Holy One. That's scripture in 1 John that talks about, you have no need that anyone teach you. That's misinterpreted all the time. Because actually, you can't teach yourself. Because what you know is not enough for you to advance. You can't teach yourself. You have to have an anointed pastor or five-fold ministry gift that teaches by the unction of the Spirit. And it's that unction or anointing that teaches you all things. And then there's the unction on the inside of you that bears witness with what's being said. And that's how you know all things. By the unction, by the witness, amen? Amen. So wrong thinking will not allow us to go any further in a particular area of our lives. We have to work on our thinking. Sometimes in life, it's not just that we don't have enough of the Word, it's that we're still thinking wrong about something. Now let's turn to Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55 and verse six. God wants us to advance this year. He doesn't want us to be in the same place at the end of the year than where we started at the beginning. And we can't advance by being in neutral or being an autopilot. Isaiah 55. And that's something, you know, every year, you get a fire put under you in January. But if you don't do frequent checkups, the fire will start to wane as the year goes on and then you're back in autopilot again. Why do you think, you know, Pastor Jeff refers to this every year because he's always the one that starts to die in January. And he's always preaching it real strong in January, isn't he? And, you know, there are more sales in January for diet plans, gym memberships, exercise equipment, exercise videos, exercise clothing, because that's when everybody gets out of autopilot and says, we're gonna do it this year. And then by July, they slip back into auto. God, you cannot advance in life in the natural or the spiritual that way. And God wants us to advance both in the natural and the spiritual. Of course, the spiritual takes precedence because if you'll advance spiritually, it shows up. But Isaiah 55 verse six says, seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man, his thoughts. Now let me just make a comment about that because we know that we are now the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. So we're not considered unrighteous, but righteous people can still have unrighteous thinking. And so you could say it this way, get rid of unrighteous thoughts, forsake unrighteous thoughts. Unrighteous doesn't just refer to, sleeping around, having sex with somebody that's not your spouse, provocative type of things. Unrighteous thinking would be thinking wrong about money, would be thinking wrong about your health. Anything that's contrary to the word or God's way of thinking is unrighteous thinking. That's true. Amen? Amen. Let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. Verse eight, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways says the Lord. You know, pretty often when in my devotional time, I'll say, Lord, I repent for any thoughts or ways that are not your thoughts or ways. It's okay to repent because it says here, you will abundantly pardon. And then I ask the Lord, before I read, every morning I say, Holy Spirit, I ask that you would open up my eyes that I might see wondrous things of your word. Because he is the teacher, he is the revealer. And if we really want God's thoughts and God's ways, we can't just quickly speed through a chapter. It's gonna take the Holy Spirit pointing those things out and drawing things out of the word for us that we need to see. And we all need to see something in some areas where we haven't advanced. You know, even in the area of health, for instance, I am very diligent about reading healing scriptures and meditating on scriptures, but I personally felt like I haven't advanced as much as I should have in that area. And it's never on God's side. So I'm asking him to show me what I need to see. Show me what I need to know. And he wants to do that for us. So he says, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Well, they sure are. And God offers us his thoughts, but they're not something that we just can pick up off the surface. It's kind of like digging for gold or precious gems. They don't just lay around on the ground. It would be nice if they did. They wouldn't last long, would they? Because somebody would scoop them up right away. So who are the ones that mine for gold or precious gems? The ones that are seriously interested. Because most people don't go out of their way to dig up precious metals and stones. But when it comes to spiritual things, we have to dig. Remember, Jesus didn't just say, ask and it will be given to you. He said, seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened unto you. So there's some diligence involved. Seeking, knocking, glory to God. Now notice this passage, it talks about thoughts and ways. Thoughts and ways, and it does not mention faith. Taking higher thoughts will bring us into higher ways. Taking higher thoughts will build us into a higher realm of faith. Because the thought life is the gateway to the spirit. So we have to take God's thoughts. I mean, every time we meditate in a scripture, it's God's thought. And of course, as you meditate, faith comes by hearing the rhema, the word of God. Not just by the logos, but you gotta get it in you. It has to become a revelation to you for faith to be in your heart. So if you don't think right, you can keep throwing faith at something, but it won't change. And let me just give you an example. You know, we said one of the words this year is abundant overflow. And you can confess every day, thank you, Lord, that I have an abundant overflow in my life. I mean, you can say it all day long. Thank you, Lord, for the abundant overflow. Thank you, I have abundant overflow. And you can say it and say it and say it, but if you don't think right about money, you won't have it. Now, what do I mean by not thinking right about money? I just wrote down here five, well, four different things. First of all, if you keep spending on credit cards and you don't pay it off every month, you will not have an abundant overflow. So you can confess you have overflow, but your thinking is wrong about how you handle your money. Okay, number two, if you owe somebody money and you use your money for other things, you will not prosper. You know, one of the things that I appreciate about my husband, because I didn't exactly have this revelation when we first got married, he was determined that we're gonna pay what we owe, even if we have to spend $10 on food that week. And the only reason I didn't have that thinking is because I was accustomed to calling mama whenever I needed something, not after I was married, but you know, when I was... Mama is not supposed to be your source, the Lord is supposed to be your source. And our family has a history of helping each other out. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with helping family out, but the problem is as a Christian, if you always go to somebody else besides the Lord, you'll never develop your faith. It's true, it's true. And I cannot tell you how many people we have seen over the years where they just absolutely owe money in so many areas, but yet they find a way to take a vacation, or they go out and buy a new car, or they go out to eat every night. And you're thinking, you don't even pay the people you owe. And you know, when you take money that you owe to other people, and you use it and spend it on yourself for frivolous things, that is called irresponsible. That is something that keeps people in poverty. It's called wrong thinking. God can't bless that kind of thinking, you understand what I'm saying? You can't take money that belongs to someone else. Poverty spends what it owes another man. That's what a spirit of poverty does. That's right. And it's just flat wrong to do it. You know, if you're determined to pay what you owe, God will help you to do it. Yes, he will. That's right. Pay your bills before you spend on yourself. You know, we've always had a budget. It's not, it's a little bit of a loose budget later in life, but it's a budget. And if I knew that I had these bills to pay, there's no way I'm gonna take the money that's allocated for that and do something stupid with it. If you do that, you can't have abundant overflow in your life, you could confess it every day. But that thinking, that mindset, are you all understanding what I'm saying? It will hinder the word from coming to pass. It will hinder advancement in your life. Another thing, you can confess it and confess it, but you can get involved with a get-rich-quick scheme and it'll keep you low. Let me tell you something about get-rich-quick schemes. Only the top half percent or less get rich and everybody else suffers. Don't be duped into that kind of stuff. God's bigger than that, amen? Another thing, I've heard Pastor Nancy say this, if you can be rich toward God, toward the church, toward the things of God, but if you're not rich toward yourself or your family, if you're not generous toward yourself and your family, that's wrong thinking too. I'm working on that. You know, it's easy for me to give very generously to other people, but it's been a struggle to be generous to myself. That's also a form of poverty thinking, wrong thinking. So when it comes to those kind, now that's financial things, here's another thing, when it comes to healing, you can know what the word says, but ignore the instructions of the spirit and stay sick because your thinking is wrong. You know, you've heard this illustration maybe before, but you could accidentally hammer your thumb and you could believe God for healing, but then if you keep hitting that thumb with that hammer, you could believe all you want and that thumb's not getting better. So there's things in life that you're doing, maybe eating something you shouldn't be or doing something physically, not getting enough rest or whatever. You could be believing God and quoting healing scriptures day and night, but if you don't rest like you should, well, you're not thinking right. If you don't allow yourself to rest, if you don't allow yourself to, you know, do the things the spirit of God is leading you to do, then you're not thinking right because anything the spirit speaks to you is right thinking for your life. All right, let's go to Romans chapter 12. Anything. Well, you know, if you ask everybody at the beginning of the year how many would like for God to make them rich this year, everybody should raise their hand. But it won't happen for everybody. We all know that already because first of all, there's a process. Nobody gets rich quick God's way because God has to build the person to be able to handle the riches. If you're, you know, when my husband told me just before we got married, you were gonna have a thousand people in 12 months and I was 22 years old. So thank God we didn't because those poor people would not have needed me to be the pastor's wife. And, you know, you can't think, oh yeah, I'm ready for this because every 22 year old thinks they're ready for everything. And now looking back at what I know today, it would have destroyed us. It would have destroyed the people. I mean, you think you have so much to offer, but you know, there's so many things that you're just not ready for. God has to build you. He's actually more interested in building you as an individual and getting you in a position for the things he has for you than having these, you know, quick things happening in our lives. The slow process of building you into the person you should be is what makes you the rich person that you will be. And not just rich financially. That's why, I don't, I just, God is merciful, but I just don't think people that are too young really should even be pastors because, you know, you haven't lived enough life. But he's merciful. I mean, it's a miracle anybody came to our church when we were in our 20s. That's the truth. We could preach the word, but you couldn't do it a whole lot. I mean, there were some things that we had practical sound thinking in, but until you go through some things in life and suffer a little bit, you're on your high horse. You're not really compassionate because how can you? You've never gone through anything yet. You're too young to have gone through much. Someone like Brother Hagin, on the other hand, you know, I think one of the reasons why he became so great is because he went through so much at such a young age. And he didn't have anybody help him through it. He did it because he was very interested and he wanted answers and he pursued the things of God and he meditated in the things of God and without any human help, a 17-year-old boy who was sentenced to die with no hope found his way out of that sick bed. That is miraculous when you think about it. Now, that built and developed something in him at a young age where he was in a position where he could actually help people at a young age. But not too many people have that kind of experience. It takes some bumps along the road to really learn a few things and realize, oh, I can't be so haughty about things in life. I mean, everybody has issues they're facing. And our job is not to condemn or beat down or talk down to somebody because they're going through something, because we all go through things. Our job is to help navigate you through it, get you some answers that help you get through it, amen? Are you in Romans 12 yet? All right, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. It's very reasonable. Glory to God. There are people in the world that would think, why would you want to serve Jesus when you got to give up this and give up that and give up this and give up that? But guess what? I gave up hell for eternity. Whoo-hoo! Amen. That's pretty good. It's only reasonable that I can live holy while I'm here. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Now, there are so many ways you can be conformed to this world, but I mean, it all comes through your thought life. And I mean, I don't even need to get into the nitty gritty of don't be conformed to the tattoos and the crazy trends and now the gender stuff. And all of this is the world system and everybody just loves to jump on the bandwagon and conform to it. Be like everybody else. You know how I feel about that. If everybody wants you to do it just because they're doing it, that's exactly why I'm not gonna do it. And that's how I was as a teenager and that's how I've been my whole life. Don't even try to tell me everyone should do that because that's exactly why I won't. But that's when it comes to trends. If it's the word, that's another story. But no, we're not to conform to this world system in the way we think, and that would include about our health. Just in this last year, I've done a few things to be reasonably compliant with my position. Not because I really wanted to. Like I've only had two mammograms in my whole life and that's my personal conviction. And they kept pressuring me year after year after year after year. So I said, fine, I'll go get it. And I went to get it and everything's perfectly normal as I knew it would be. But here's my point. The medical world, the hoops you have to jump through, it takes so much of your time, so much of your thought life, so much of your money. Like I don't wanna live like the rest of the world lives. I don't wanna be at the doctor's office every month for something. I don't wanna be going to the hospital for this test and that test. I don't even wanna conform to the world in this area. Now I'm thankful that we have this as an option. I'm thankful that we have help, so don't get me wrong, I'm not against medical science. But the point is this is just one area that I don't wanna be conformed to the world. And you know and I know there are people that are in the doctor's office all the time and they thrive off of it. Right, yeah. No, I'm not conforming to that way of thinking. I'm not thinking I have to do XYZ every year to live in health because I already know what I have to do to live in health. I need to meditate God's word day and night and his words are medicine to all my flesh. We're not to conform to the world and are thinking about money. The world, now here's the funny thing about the world. There are systems set in place that if you follow certain systems you can come out ahead financially in life. And it's okay to employ some of those things. But one of the things they don't really talk about is being generous toward God. Right, it's true. So you can't be conformed to the world in your thinking in that area. Right. But I will say this, even Jesus said the children in this world are wiser. In some areas they are. They have some kind of ability whether it was something they learned growing up in their family because their parents had that thinking or like if you have a red rich dad poor dad, you can be raised in a home where your poor dad doesn't think right. And he made it his goal to learn how to think right. I don't know if he's a Christian or not, but I know this that we're talking about thinking and dancing in life. He changed his way of thinking that he was brought up with to think like the rich dad, meaning his friend's dad who understood how money works. And that's a book I would recommend just naturally speaking for anybody, especially when you're younger because it'll challenge the status quo thinking. But God is so much bigger and he doesn't want us to be conformed to the little way of thinking like the world, but he wants us to think his higher thoughts and his higher ways. And that only comes through the renewing of the mind. Verse three, let's just go on to read this real quick. For I say through the grace given to me to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. This is regarding thoughts, but to think soberly. Let's just say honestly, as God has dealt to each one the measure of faith. In other words, we have to be sober or honest about what our measure of faith is. Because if we're not, we'll try to reach out for more than our faith can handle and then we will fail. But however, having said that, we're still not supposed to stay with the same measure of faith. We're to continually have a faith project to develop our faith. So one thing you ought to ask yourself today, it's still January, when's the last time you had a faith project? I mean, we have projects here at church that we all want everyone to put their faith on, but when's the last time you had a personal faith project? And if you haven't had any, you're falling behind. You're falling behind what God has for you. Well, the money is not the point. The whole point is to be the faith to bring in the resources. So our minds have to continually be renewed by the word of God in order to advance, but our thoughts have to continually be advancing in order for us to advance. And there's, listen guys, there's so much more. And you know what happens? We let everyday life and circumstances conform us or pressure us back into the so much less because this is the practical zone. The practical zone, the safe zone. And we end up, this is why the church is not prospering because we get pressured right back into the practical zone and we're guilty of it too. And God is challenging us this year. Let's go to Ephesians chapter three. Because I gotta share a few more things to really hit the nuggets that I want to hit. In Ephesians chapter three, when you pray this prayer every day, as I believe you are, because you're wonderful children of God that want the will of God. When you get to verse 20 of Ephesians three, let's put this up in the Amplify please on the screen. It says, now to him who by and consequence of the action of his power that is at work within us is able to carry out his purpose. We all know he's able to, isn't he? And do super abundantly, say that word with me, super abundantly, that's all. And they put that all together. That could mean two words. They put that all together and when's the last time you used that word in a conversation? He's able to do super abundantly. You think you're watching like a superhero movie. But nobody's as much of a superhero as God. And let me take it a step further. Superman has nothing on you. Because you're in Christ and you have this super on the inside of you too. Superman, super abundantly far over and above all, not just some, but all that we dare ask. Have you ever dared to ask for a million dollars? Dare ask or think infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams? Wow. Here's the three words I highlighted from there. Desires, thoughts, dreams. If you don't have a desire for something, you won't exert any effort toward it. Let alone super abundantly far over and above what you could desire. One main reason that we don't desire some things is because we've already made up our minds that it could never happen before we start. Well, it'd be nice to live in that million dollar house. I mean, I'm just using this as an example, okay? But yeah, right, like that's never gonna happen. Oh. You just dismissed yourself from super abundantly far over and above. Because look what it said earlier on in that verse. It's according to the power that's at work within you. This has to do with you. You know, one of the only people that I could say that I personally know about that's really tapping into this to any degree would be Jesse Plants. And you know, there's been times where I've made excuses for why it works for him and not everybody else, just like you have. Yeah. Yeah, that works for him, yeah. Because he's this and he's that and he has this and he has that. Well, we can start out without that. He didn't get all his money from the ministry. I'll tell you that right now. Nobody that has that kind of money got it from Ty's in office. And the thing that really, when I thought about this, because you gotta go back to this verse we just read from the Amplified. He's one of the few people that has dared to ask and think that big. Most people, they cringe and they draw away from it. They can't even begin to fathom. And I'm not suggesting you start there because none of us is ready to start there. But I mean, maybe you are, if you are, praise God, you're hiding out on us, but. You know, and we're, I'm talking about nature, but all of this stems back to the spirit. It's how are you going to advance in life? Now, I'm giving you the big picture because we just read the big scripture. Right. But you still have to go back and be sober about where you're at and what's the next step for you. And don't use your age or stage of life as an excuse because faith has no limits. Only you limit yourself. Whether, you could be 85 years old and you still have words and you still have a spirit. Okay, so my spirit can still believe and desire and my words can still confess it and I can still ask for it and I can still trust God for it and he can still get it to me regardless of my age. I mean, this is taking the limits off, right? So the biggest reason we don't desire some things is because we made up our mind it could never happen. Or we think maybe someday in the future it could happen. So we put it in the future. And listen, I've been guilty of this too. My whole life, because we started young and we had nothing. I mean, we were poverty level when we started ministry. But we were full-time in ministry, obeying the plan of God. But I had a lot of wrong thinking about money. A lot of wrong thinking. I'm not trying to be critical, we just did. I'm told from us, we just did. We paid our bills and we made it. And that was better than a lot of preachers that were in our group were doing. A lot of those preachers had to work outside jobs or they couldn't make a go of it. So God was building something into us and training us in those early days. But I didn't think right about money because I just kept thinking, well, someday, well, this part is true. I believe with all my heart that God will always take care of us. And he would always make it up. And that's a good thing to believe. But it's not specific enough. And it's pushing everything always into the future. And so we're not even as far as long as we should have been by now because of wrong thinking. Because of wrong thinking, we didn't reach for some things. We didn't stay on top of some things with our faith that could have come years sooner. I'm just trying to help some of you. Some of you are younger and you have a chance to get it right earlier and the rest of us are still working at it and we're gonna get it right. Amen, amen. So as I said earlier, advancing requires getting off of autopilot. You have to be intentional. Now I was thinking about the life of Abraham as a perfect example of this because he received a word from God and then he went into autopilot. You say, how could that be? Well, he did. And I'm just gonna quickly highlight some things. In Genesis chapter 12, he received instructions to leave his home country. And it was in that chapter that God told him he would have descendants. So that was the first mention of descendants, meaning you're gonna have children. So God sowed that seed to him, gave him that thought, gave him that information before he left his home country that you will have children. And he was 75 years old at that time. So that's why I say you're never too old. Then in Genesis 15, years later, God repeats his plan for him about having a child. You know, it doesn't change. The plan doesn't change, guys. Thank God he's merciful and he repeated the plan. But this time he gave Abraham a vision of the stars. And now he was 86 years old at this time, so that's 11 years later. So he gets a word from God, he gets revelation from God before he leaves his home country that he's going to have descendants. 11 years later, he still doesn't have any. And people say, oh, he was faithful, he was faithful, he was faithful, well, he was faithful in many areas, but he did not, he was an autopilot regarding this faith project. That's why 11 years later there's no child. And so now God helps him out and gives him some vision. He says, look in the sky, look at all the stars in the sky, that's how many descendants you're going to have. If you could count them, if it was possible, that's how many you're going to have. Does that sound like super abundantly? Like God, I don't even have one, and you're telling me I'm not gonna be able to count them all? Now you can say, well, how could any human believe such a thing? God wanted him to believe super abundantly above. So here he is, 86 years old, and God gives him a vision. Now, he helps his vision out. He also used the sand of the seashore as a visual illustration. Then we get to Genesis 17, he's now 99 years old, so we're talking 13 years later, he has an Ishmael in the middle, which is not the one God talked about. God, again, repeats the plan. Aren't you thankful that God's merciful and patient with us? This time, though, God gives him something to say. He changes his name. He said, okay, I gave him the instructions when he was 75, then 11 years later, I gave him some vision, still didn't happen, so now I'm gonna give him something to say. So what I took out of this is three points for us tonight. Number one, you must get the desire or plan, you must get the desire or the plan, that's the first step. Now, let me say this about that. It could be God's plan, or it could be a desire you have. God will actually let us initiate some things that we desire, but we have to be sure that it bears witness with our spirit. In other words, like, for instance, I've been getting this desire to do some things in my house. God could probably care less if I do or I don't, what color I pick, what color I don't pick. He'll let you initiate some things that you have a desire for, but if at any point in your desire process, you're starting to feel like a check about it, or eh, eh, eh, don't do that, then you know you need to stop. But you have to get the desire or the plan, that's the first step. Number two, you must get a strong vision for it and see it with the eyes of faith. Gotta get a strong vision for it. You can have a desire for something, but if you don't keep the vision before you, it'll end up in all the pile together. Amen? And then number three, you must agree with it and say it. Say it. Can you see, this is something that requires some effort. This is why we have our saying list for the church, because we want you to say it every day in your devotional time and stay on top of it, but you need a saying list for your personal life. And, well, that's how everything, every area we ever advanced in came through these three steps you have to first get the desire or the plan. Whether it's personal with our homes, our vehicles, furniture that we believe for, the buildings that we purchase, everything started with a desire or a plan. And if you don't have a desire for something, you won't pursue it. You know, it could be God's plan, and if you don't desire it enough, you won't pursue it like you should. That's why it's important to stay in fellowship with God so that the desire, you know, the flame is kept under it. Right, yeah. So for tonight, here's something that would be good for you to do. This is a homework assignment, Pastor Doug normally does. You have to reflect on where you were in 2019 and 2020 in different areas of your life, health, finances, goals, meds, whatever. Evaluate and measure where you were at and locate the areas that did not advance or increase at all. Or maybe it just was so minimal. Or you just really haven't seen any advancement. And don't get discouraged about it. Just locate it. And once you've located it, now you know that's an area that you need to get your thinking changed in, that you need to renew your mind in, that you need to spend extra time, you know, meditating on scriptures in that area. And then deal with it. Deal with it. That's something my mom would say, just deal with it. Deal with it how? By these things that we just, these three steps that I just shared with you. It's okay, hi mom, if you're watching. If you, if you locate an area, this is an example that you didn't advance in. And you say, well, I didn't advance in this area. You have to ask yourself, is it because you really didn't care? You didn't really have any interest in advancing. You didn't really have any desire to do what it takes to advance. You see, God will let you have what you're okay with. But if you want to advance in that area, you have to become deliberate. You have to stir yourself up about it. Here's something I would suggest, just an idea. Begin a vision board. I noticed, I don't know how many months ago it was, but Kenneth Copeland put out something where they had a picture of a vision board that he had. I thought, well, that's a really great idea. On that vision board, he had a picture of an older man that was in good shape, because he exercised and ate right. And he had some other things on there. I don't know if it was an airplane he was believing for and different things. But you get something where you have vision. For years, my husband and I did this. If we knew we needed something new, like a new appliance or a new piece of furniture or a new car, we would find what we wanted and we'd put that picture on our refrigerator. And every time we'd walk by, we would see it. It's helping you to keep the vision alive. And that's what a vision board would do. You put these things that are a picture or words in a place where you have to walk by it many times a day and look at it. And that's gonna help to keep it alive, help to keep the desire stirred up. But we found for us that as soon as we get a desire, I mean, God could have put it there or it could have been something we initiated. As soon as the desire is strong enough, we start believing and get things moving and it comes to pass every time. But as long as we don't desire it and we're just living with it and we're okay with it, it never changes. You ever like that? Maybe you've got a room in your house that's filled with all the junk because that's where you throw it. Maybe you need to get a vision to clean that room out. But you know what, if you're okay with it and you don't feel like dealing with it and you don't have a desire to change it, you walk by it day after day, week after week, year after year and it won't change, it won't advance. You know, I had that problem in my basement. When we first moved into our house 11 plus years ago, all the boxes that got thrown in the basement and every time I'd walk down there to start thinking about going through a box, I'd stand there and look at everything. And about five minutes later, I'd turn around and walk back upstairs. I could not muster up the energy to deal with that. It just overwhelmed me. And it took me quite a few years before I could start going through it and had the energy to deal with it. You know, there's just some things in life that you won't advance in until you make the decision, I'm going to advance in this area. It could be your health, it could be an exercise plan, it could be a weight loss plan, whatever it is, find something this year to advance in. Amen, that's good. Because then by the end of the year, you'll be encouraged by your progress and you'll see faith will go where your attention goes. Here's another example. We had a driveway that was crumbling from the day we moved into our house. It was poor quality. Whoever poured the driveway didn't do it right. It was crumbling, crumbling, crumbling. Well, you know, it wasn't really on the priority list for several reasons. For one, I don't know if it would improve the value of the house when we sold it. Two, it's very expensive to replace a cement driveway. Three, I'd rather spend that money for fun stuff like curtains, furniture, foams, anything else. Yeah. My husband's always been a little more practical than I am. He can believe God for money for the practical things. So last year, the desire just came, we're gonna get this done. It all started out, but here's how things start, so be careful. It all started out getting a price on putting a new sidewalk in. And then we thought, well, let's see how much it would cost if we got the sidewalk and the driveway at the same time because maybe we'll get a better deal. You know, sometimes just as you take steps and investigate, the desire begins to grow. Right. Lack of investigating means lack of getting something done. That's true. So that's what happens with us. We just start taking steps and look into things. Well, once we find out how much it's gonna be, then we kind of, we listen on the inside and we talk to the Lord about it. And if it seems good to us and to the Lord, then we proceed even if we didn't have all the money yet, which we didn't have it all at the beginning of this situation, but as it was last year, because of COVID, everybody and their brother was having work done on their house and it took us months and months and months to get it done. So we had months and months and months to leave the money in. But see, the point is it starts with looking into something, investigating something. See how much it costs. What would it be to do this? What would it be to do that? Don't, see, sometimes what we do is we think, I don't have any money right now and I don't even wanna think about it because if I do, then I gotta think about when the money's gonna come from and your mind shuts it down. And you don't even give God the opportunity to bring something extra into your life to make it happen. What happened to the super abundantly? Is God big enough? I did not, by the time we got done with our outdoor work, we spent almost $30,000. If you would have asked me January 1st of 2020, if I would have $30,000 or even want to spend 30, right, even want to spend $30,000 for a driveway and retaining walls everywhere, I would have said no. I do not wanna spend $30,000. I've never spent that much money in my life for anything besides a car or a house. It was not at the top of my list. It was not something I wanted to do, but see, as we kept proceeding forward, we allowed the Lord to expand the vision, expand what we were believing for. We put our faith on it. We had unexpected miracles happen last year financially and it all came to pass. It's a testimony, but it's an example. I'm not telling you to go out and have a $30,000 project. I'm just saying you have to know where your measure of faith is, but you start out by having some interest, by letting God expand your thinking in that area. And like I said, it was all your thing. It didn't just happen in a day or a month, but it was building, building in us. The vision built, the faith began to grow. Each and every month, it grew more and more and more until you could see it. Yes, I see it. I can see this happening. And then we started saying it. I got it written down in my prayer journal and every day I say, thank you, Lord, for my new driveway paid for. Thank you, Lord, for my retaining walls paid for. And so that's how it comes to pass. And that's just a simple natural thing, that's not even soul winning and people coming into the kingdom of God or something physical in your body that you want changed this year. These steps are so important, guys. We can't let the ball drop this year. Another thing is I've been listening to the video that Tim created for the church anniversary. You know, we're having phenomenal growth, not because it looks like it or it feels like it, but because we're believing it, we're getting the vision for it, we're saying it. Why? Because there are too many people on their way to hell. There are so many things that we just need to stir up our desire and get this super abundantly put on it. Amen. Hallelujah, let's stand up. That was good. Yeah. Good work. No more autopilot. No more complacency. Because God wants us to use this principle, not just for personal things, but for the kingdom of God. That's right. That we practice on our personal lives. Amen. Thank you, Jesus. Well, Father, we thank you tonight that your word has fallen on good ground and we will not be forgetful hearers, but we will be doers of the word. And this year we will advance. We will not fail. We will prevail in Jesus' name. Amen. Don't forget those prophecy cards.