7 Things to Do to Keep Winning Through Any Storm

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Success by the Book Podcast, the place where Christians who want to experience the extravagant goodness of God in all areas of their lives come from mentorship. I am your host, Dr. Inna, and I'll be unpacking the secrets I have learned from the Word of God over the last two decades. Let's dive in. You, my friend, were designed by God to be a sign and a wonder, to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, to be someone that your life is a literal vision board for people. People are like, How can somebody be like this? You're designed to win always, right? Blessed be our Lord Jesus Christ, who causes us to triumph of always. You're designed to be the head and not the tail. You're designed to be above and not beneath. In fact, when there's darkness over the earth and gross darkness over the people, like in Isaiah chapter 61, you are designed to manifest the light of God and the glory of the Lord when there's darkness everywhere. Okay? So we're designed to be great. We are designed to represent God. We're designed to have lives that are literal miracles. And challenges are going to show up every step of the way. But God designed it to be that no matter what challenges show up, no matter what storms show up, they don't stop you from rising, they don't stop you from winning. They're there to make your story even nicer. Okay, so are we going to face challenges? Yes. Does God expect that when challenges, problems, trying times, delays, difficulty, disappointments, those things show up that it should affect our story? No. Your father expects you to win always. He didn't promise us no challenges. He expects us to win. Okay? Now he knows challenges will show up. That's why in Isaiah chapter 41, verse 10, he says, Don't be discouraged. Why does he tell you that? Because things that are discouraging are going to show up. But he expects you to go through them, not be discouraged, be encouraged, and ultimately come out with the victory. So what are we going to do today? Today is not about rah-rah, you know, like all of that. No, we're not here for that. We are here to learn seven ways, okay? Seven things to do when a storm shows up, so you can keep winning, even though there is a storm. Okay, as always, we are going to get everything we talk about from the word of God. And I want to challenge you. Like, I want you to walk out of this, out of like go away from this call, going with this determination that you win always, determination that you're victorious always, determination that when storms come, you're just like, yeah, that's just to make my story nicer. But I'm here to win. We don't back down. When obstacles show up, we will mold them down. That's what we're here to do. Okay. So what do I do so I can stay encouraged? What do I do so I can stay winning? What do I do so the storms don't take me out? Okay. All right. So let's take a look at this. We're going to look at seven things, all from the word of God. All from the word of God. They're simple. Many of them we're going to practice them in real time. Okay. Now, I am not saying I am not saying this from a place of, you know, this is some theory. No, I have had, like you have had, many, many challenges in this one life. Okay. I just told you guys a story of when I had my daughter when I was 21 weeks pregnant with her. They called me and they said, Your daughter has a diaphragmatic carnia, and half of her liver is in her chest, and she has fluid around her heart. And so her heart is not going to properly function. Her lungs have no space to grow. You should just abort this child. I've had that. I've had delays. I've had disappointments. I've had all of these things. But to the glory of God, we're here and we're victorious and we keep moving forward and we're going to keep moving forward. Okay. So I want to challenge you. You might say, oh, Dr. You know, you don't understand specifically what's going on with me. I don't think you need me to understand that. I think what you need is to understand the tools God gave you that irrespective of those challenges, you can win, irrespective of what life has thrown at you, you can win. Okay. Okay. All right. So let's start with this. The first thing, what is the first theme? Some of these are going to be counter, like going to be the opposite of what you thought. Okay? And that's okay. The first one is radical gratitude. Radical gratitude. What happens the second a challenge shows up? A challenge, a problem, a delay, a disappointment, you know, and all of that stuff. What's the first thing? Is to focus on what is not working and lose sight of everything that is working. I have met people who have said things to me like, you know, I've been a Christian and it hasn't done anything for me. I'm like, first of all, you must not understand what it means to be a Christian. To mean to be a Christian means that you accepted the sacrifice that Jesus made. And Jesus has translated you from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, which is very significant because the king of the kingdom of darkness has one assignment to still, kill, and destroy. The Bible says he comes only to still kill and destroy. And then the king of the kingdom of light comes that you may have life and have it more abundantly. So I'm like, I don't understand. You used to be hellbound, you're not hellbound anymore. You used to be dead on the inside. Now you're the temple of the Holy Spirit. Like when you say he has done nothing for you, I don't understand. It's like totally confusing to me. However, when when challenging things come up, we need to remember that at every point in time, the goodness of God outweigh any challenge that we may have. There was a day I was in my private practice. So this is when I was still actively seeing patients. I was in my pediatric practice. And um, it was a day that was a little slower than I would like. So let's say I wanted to see 25 patients that day, and I saw 20 patients, saw 20 patients that day. Okay. And I was like, you know, like I wanted to see 20, I didn't hit 25, I didn't hit the number I wanted to hit, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was starting to get, like I was starting to get into complaining mode. And then God was like, well, what is happening with your colleagues in the Northeast? And it turns out it was a snow day for them, right? It was a snow day, meaning for them that they couldn't see patients at all. And that was their third day of not being able to see patients. Plus, they had power outages. And, you know, pediatricians can have up to $200,000 worth of vaccines in their fridge. And so they have power outages. They're trying to figure out what to do. They have their vaccines at all of a sudden. He's like, somebody has a day like that, and they figure out how to praise me, how to worship me, how to be thankful, how to be grateful, because maybe they have the resources, right, to take care of their vaccines. Or they had a backup generator that they can use, or they had a friend who said, Hey, I can store all your vaccine, whatever. He's like, they can figure out how to be grateful. You got no snow, no power outage. You got to see patients, you saw five less than you wanted to see, and now you feel you have a reason to complain. Guys, there's always something to be grateful for, right? On that day, I could have been grateful. Well, I saw 20, not five, right? On that day, I could have been grateful for the team that helped me see them. I could have been grateful. Like, there's so many, there's always something to be grateful for. I'm grateful I'm alive to be there to take care of the patients. Grateful for the family I get to go home to. Grateful for the office building that actually belongs to us. Grateful, like, there's so many things to be grateful. So we have to practice radical gratitude where when it seems like there's a storm, when there's no storm, when there's a challenge, when there's no challenge, we're just people who are so grateful to God. So grateful for all that he's done, all that he continues to do, all that he said he'll do. Radical gratitude. Why is this important? Because I used to think gratitude was just this soft thing, you know, that really humble Christian fanatical people do. Why is gratitude so important? Because of the power, the law of focus. Now, what you focus on is what gives you direction. End of story. If you focus on all the things that are not working, guess what happens? In your mind, oh, nothing's working in my life, everything is bad, all of those kinds of things. If you focus on what is working, you're like, oh my goodness, this is working, and more things are going to work. Like your focus gives you direction, gives you um, you know, like it determines the way you the lens through which you see everything. So the Bible says in Proverbs 4.23, it says, guard your heart with all diligence, for it determines the course of your life. And so if your heart is focused on the things you're grateful for, it puts you in this place of expectation. The God who did this can do more stuff. The God who was faithful to me the last time I had a challenge will be faithful to me this time. The God who loved me enough to send his son to die, this is a small thing in his hand. Like it puts you in that space. The second you get into murmuring and complaining, I mean, there are many issues with that, but one of the things dangerous things it does is it takes over your focus and you start focusing on all the things that are not working and expecting more things to not work. Radical gratitude. So I want you to think about something. Maybe you'd ignored, maybe you've forgotten. I want you to think about a place in your life where you have a challenge and I want you, or a problem, and I want you to look or a problem, air quotes. I want you to look at in that thing, what are you grateful for? Because inside the challenge, there's also things to be grateful for. I told you guys about my daughter and the diagnosis she had when I was 21 weeks pregnant with her. Well, it happened, there's so many things to be grateful for there because I was I'm in a country where people are like, okay, yeah, we think you should get an abortion, but if you want to have her, we you know, like we can we can take care of her. I, you know, like I could be grateful that I had an amazing insurance that could cover the kind of services that she needed. I could be grateful that I needed to have all these doctors' visits, and I had a colleague in residency who covered shifts for me. So I could go do all the appointments that I needed to do. I could be grateful that I had a husband who had great faith, and together we could stand and trust God for our baby. Like in the midst of that challenge, there's so many things to be grateful for. If you do not practice radical gratitude, you are the the other options to be miserable. Miserable, that's it. That's it. That's it. Okay, so radical gratitude. So in the in your life, right where you experience a challenge, in the midst of that challenge, what is something you can be grateful for? Okay, so that's number one. You're gonna get seven things. Number one, radical gratitude. Who can practice that? We can all practice that. If we practice that, we put ourselves in a place where we're playing offense, we're not playing games with the enemy, we're not playing games with the enemy at all. Okay, number two. Now, number two is a little like number one. Okay, it's it's praise and worship. Praise and worship is not something that happens while they warm up the church for the pastor to come and preach. Uh-uh. That's not praise and worship is. When you praise God, mountains melt like wax because the Bible says that God inhabits the praises of his people. And it says that it like mountains melt like wax before the presence of the Lord. It is a weapon, it is it's a it's an offensive weapon, not just defense, it's offensive. Okay, so let me read this, let me read a story for you. Now, the background of this story, well, you know, let me just read the story. So, Acts chapter 16. I pray you never forget this. And from today, we are people who we praise God, we worship him, we worship him in the in the in in the in the in the in the quote unquote good times. We worship him when a storm shows up. We are just worshippers. Okay, Acts chapter 16. I'm gonna read from verse 22. Now, Paul and Silas, I can't get into the story, but they went somewhere, they went to preach, a whole mob, the city, a whole mob came up because they they they spoke over. Um uh okay, I'm not gonna go into the story. They spoke over a girl, she had a spirit of divination, so she used to um see the future, if you will, for people and they'd pay her, okay? But she was owned by masters, so literally, you know, they paid them, and so Paul cast the devil out, the spirit of divination out. So they realized their source of livelihood was gone. So they agitated the whole city. There was a whole mob that came against them and all of these things, okay? And then ultimately they took them and they let me continue from there. Okay, so verse 20. Okay, it says, and they brought them to the magistrates and said, These men being Jews exceedingly trouble our city. Now, I want you to think about what they did. They went to preach, they went to a new place to go and preach, they were doing the will of God. And here comes this problem. Okay, um, they said, and they brought them to the magistrates and said, These men being Jews exceedingly trouble our city, and they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe. Then the multitude rose up together against them. So I want you to imagine a multitude, which means a lot of people, rose up against them, and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. So, what was the reward for preaching the gospel? Their clothes were torn off, they were beaten, not with sticks, with rods, with rods. Okay, so is this a challenge? Yes. Is this a problem? Yes. Okay, and when they had laid many stripes on them, so they had beaten them a lot. When they laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison. So their clothes were torn, they got beaten a lot, and then they got thrown in prison. Okay. Commanding the jailer to keep them securely, having received such a charge, he put them in the inner prison. So it wasn't just like regular prison like not the front of the prison. They put them in maximum security, okay? Maximum security prison. Put them there and fastened their feet in stocks, okay? So they their their feet were chained. Let's we're looking at the situation because you may think, oh, you know, the reason why I can't like I'm I can't praise because you don't know what I'm going through. I don't know. Were your clothes torn off? Were you beaten? Right? Were you beaten um with many stripes with a rod? Right, and after that, you were put in the inner prison and then you were shackled. I don't know. Okay, but let's look at look, let's look at this response, verse 25. But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. I don't know if you were in their shoes, if your response would be to sing hymns to God. They were saying they were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, so they weren't quiet about it, right? But they were doing this thing. So if you find yourself in the middle of a challenge, what is a biblical response to it? Singing to God, singing praise to God, singing worship to God, it is a strategy of warfare. Okay, so what happened? Verse 26. Suddenly, how do we trigger suddenly one of the ways? Prayer and singing hymns and singing songs to God and worshiping him and praising him. Because who are we praising? The mighty God. You may be in a prison, but God cannot be contained in a prison. You may be out of options, God is never out of options. This may be too much for you, nothing is ever too much for him. So why won't we praise him? Right? Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were open and everyone's chains were loose. We need to become people who praise when we understand and praise when we don't understand, praise when things are amazing, praise when it's when a storm is knocking at our door, praise when we hit the milestone, praise when it looks like the milestone is elusive, praise when it seems we're at the top, praise when we're like, I don't understand. I'm supposed to be the head and not the tail. What is going on? When is a good time not to praise? Never, never, ever, ever. So in the middle of a storm, is God still God? Yes. Is he still the great I am that I am? Yes. Is he still the one who divided the Red Sea? Yes. Is he still the mighty man of war? Yes. Is he still the one whose words are yea and amen? Yes. So when can you praise him? When is your praise true? Always is always true. It's always true. Yes, yes. So praise him, worship him, adore him, celebrate him. The storm is already overwhelming. You might as well come to the rock that is higher than you are. Okay, okay. So number two, praise and worship. Praise and worship. We praise him, we worship him, we exalt his name. We do not let a challenge steal the praise out of our mouth. No, sir. That's gonna be a hard no. The other thing is if you're a parent or your spouse or whatever, I want you to think about, or you're an employee, employer, or whatever. When you think about when somebody praises you, thanks you, it's like, oh my goodness, all that. What does it do to you, a human being? It's it's your you're like, oh my goodness, what can what can I do for this person? What can I what can I do for this person? How can I bless this person? That's your human being. What do you think it does to God? God loves your praise. And let me tell you something: most people will complain and murmur and whine. So, guess who is in the minority? Is it people who praise or people who complain? It's people who praise, right? And there's always a reward for being that person who's in the minor minority doing the kingdom things that most people won't do. God said, I sought for a man to stand in the gap. God is always looking for intercessors. You want to distinguish yourself? Become an intercessor. God is always looking for people who praise and worship instead of complaining. Distinguish yourself. God loves praise. Praise from the heart. God loves praise. Okay, all right. So we when do we stop praising? Never, never, ever, ever, ever. We praise him. We praise him. Number number three. Okay. Number three, let me let me do um, let me do prayer, right? Because prayer came up in the scripture that we read in um Acts chapter 16, verse 25. Because it says at midnight, Paul and Silas, they prayed and they sang hymns to God. Okay, they did both. Okay, but let me give you another scripture, and I want to read, I'm gonna read a number of verses, but this is success by the book after all. You can handle this. Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. I'm gonna read verse 10 and 11 first. It says, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord. So, can you be weak in the Lord? Yes, but we won't be, we'll be strong in the Lord. Okay, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Then it says, put on the whole armor of God. Now, you have to remember the Bible doesn't talk about us as civilians, the Bible talks about us as soldiers. The Bible talks about us as soldiers. So, as a good soldier, the Bible is then telling you, put on your whole armor. Put on your armor. Okay, don't show up in a battle without your armor. Okay, put on the armor, whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand, you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. So there's a devil, he has tricks and all of that stuff. What is your defense against against it? Your armor. And then it goes on to list a number of things, right? The helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, all of these things. And but verse 18. I used to say, okay, he was done with his thought, and now verse 18. But I've come to believe that what we're about to read in verse 18 is part of the armor. So I'm gonna let me read from verse 17 and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. So, do you see a believer who does not have the word of God is setting themselves up to be um defeated because it's part of the armor, the word of God, and it's the offensive part, right? With your sword, okay. Anyway, verse 18, it then says, pray always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit. So pray always with all kinds of prayer and supplication in the spirit. Your prayer is part of your offense, your prayer, your prayer is part of the armor, your prayer is part of what you do. You pray with all kinds of prayer when the storm shows up. You are in the middle of a storm, you don't know what to do. That's why you are given the ability to pray in other tongues so you can pray intelligently when you don't know what to pray. When you're like, Okay, Lord, I don't understand. I have done everything I need, I know to do for this, but there's still a delay, I don't get what is happening. Then you can kick in and you can pray in the spirit. Lord, open my mind, give me understanding, and lighten my darkness, connect me with the person who has the information I need. You're praying, you're like, Lord, open my eyes to see. I don't know. I've come to the end of my rope. And you pray in the spirit. Sometimes it's is sometimes you're you're you're praying that way. Sometimes you're trying to find out what is the answer. Sometimes you're so discouraged, you don't, you can't even, you, you can't even come up with what to ask. Lord, you're just I don't even know. You pray in the spirit if you don't know what to do. Sometimes the praying the spirit is addressing the enemy in the place of prayer, is binding the hand of Satan. You pray, but part of what you do in the midst of a storm, so you can keep winning in spite of the storm is prayer. It's prayer, guys. A prayerless Christian is a powerless Christian. You have to understand there are only two kingdoms running in the earth. There's the kingdom of God, there's the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of Satan. The only two kingdoms. These kingdoms are ruled by spirits. God is a spirit, Satan is a spirit. The spirit realm controls the physical realm. You have to understand this. The spirit realm controls the physical realm. So imagine Satan is coming at you with spiritual onslaughts and all of that. And then you're coming with your IQ, your hard work, your work ethic, and all of that. The strongest physical strength is weaker than the weakest spiritual strength. So what do you do to put yourself in a place of victory? You don't give up your physical strength, right? Because we partner with God, but you tap into God's strength. You tap into his spiritual strength. You tap into all that. How do you do that with prayer? You are not powerful enough to pull off the life God called you to pull off without him. It is impossible. Now you can have some kind of life, and you can have a life that's better than some people's lives or whatever that is. But the plan God has for you to be the head and not the tail, to be above only and not beneath, to have victory when others are having issues, that life, it is impossible without God. It is impossible. Impossible. So when we don't pray, we hurt ourselves so badly. So in a storm, we don't slow down on prayer, we speed up with prayer. We don't pray less, we pray more. You guys get it? So, what do I do in a storm? Radical gratitude. What do I do in a storm? Praise and worship. What do I do in a storm? I pray. And Satan will fight tooth and nail. He'll tell you, well, if all your prayers were working, you won't be where you are now. So why are you praying? Why are you doing all this? It doesn't matter. No how. Let me tell you something. The Bible calls Satan many things, do not call him a fool. In fact, the Bible says, be as wise as the serpent and harmless as the dove. That's what the Bible says. The Bible does not call Satan a fool. Okay? There is no thief. He's a thief. The Bible says he comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. He's a thief. No thief goes to an empty warehouse. If Satan is trying to convince you not to pray, it's because your prayer is hurting him. If he's talking to you about not praying, you have to understand that your prayer is bothering him. If you feel unusual resistance to your prayer life, you have to understand that. The people are like, wait a whole minute. We need to stop this woman from praying because if she keeps going like this, she's activating angels, she's activating God, she's doing like she's she's developing her faith, she's having open heavens and getting downloads on what to do. Like, we need to stop this prayer. Whenever you feel the most resistance to your prayer, it means it is time to pray. Okay? And I'm gonna show you what to do in number four when you when you run into that, okay? But we don't back down, we don't stop praying. Now, let me tell you something about this. When is the time? When is the time to build the stamina to pray? The time to build the stamina to pray is when you don't need the stamina. The time to build your prayer muscle is not when you're in the battle. It's not in the battle, you're like, oh, I'm in Afghanistan or wherever, somewhere where there's a war. And you're like, oh, AK 47, how do you use that? That's not the time to figure that out. Okay. So please hear me. Okay. If you we have, we pray every morning. We have prayed every morning for over six years. At 6 a.m. a.m. Easter, Eastern, hundreds of believers come together and we pray. We pray in the spirit, we declare over our lives, we receive prophetic words, we learn how to pray scripture, Bible compliance, prayers. We build our capacity, we do all of those things so that the day Satan knocks on your door, there's something inside to answer him. There's something inside. You've been trained, you understand what to do. So if you're not a part of Horizon Shine, the Arise and Shine prayer movement, I invite you to come join us, dcgeorgia.org for slash prayer. If you've been a part and used to come every morning, and now you come one morning a week. I want to invite you, come back. Why are we doing this? So that we become these believers who are made of steel. Where Satan throws stuff at us and we're like, well, you can try. I mean, think about it. They killed Jesus and buried him, and it didn't stop him. That's the tribe we come from, that's the way we roll in our family, right? Okay, so if if that if that's you, every morning, what are you doing? You're praying, you're building your capacity to pray. Sometimes God will even tell you about storms that are coming and how to prepare for them. God will order your footsteps, God will put the right people in your life. You pray. You cannot be a victorious, prayerless Christian. Impossible. Every storm will be a real storm. Okay? Okay. Number one, radical gratitude. Number two, praise and worship. Number three, prayer. Who can do all these things? Every believer can. Every believer can. Number four. Number four. When challenges show up, when a storm shows up, run to your own company. Okay, I'm gonna read a story. I'm gonna read the story. We're gonna get this. This is gonna this is gonna rock your world. Before I read the story, let me read a scripture for you. This is the holy word of God that cannot be broken. Because we live in a time where people are like, I don't do people, I I don't I don't talk to people, and you know, uh listen, that is a demonically inspired way of thinking. Yes, I said it that way to get your attention. It's demonically inspired. Let me show you what the word of God that cannot be broken says. Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 9. This is the word of God. We are not smarter than God, so let's pay attention to what God said. Two are better than one. I just want to do it by myself. Two are better than one. I don't do people, two are better than one. I don't want nobody up in my business. Two are better than one. I'm shy, two are better than one. Okay, two are better than one. Number four is run to your own company. Number four is run to your own company. Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. Pay attention. Verse 10. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. What is a godly strategy that will help you when a storm comes to take you out? There will be others who can lift you up. There are others who can lift you up. You are not designed to be in a place where all by yourself, just by yourself, you're strong every single time. Hello. When Jesus had a storm coming called the cross, Jesus went and gathered other people and said, Come and pray with me. If Jesus needed people, it is an infinite amount of pride for us to think we don't need people. You must have your own company. You are not designed to be strong alone by yourself 24/7 forever. No, Jesus called people. Jesus, the sinless son of God, called people. If he needed people, you need people. Okay. So Ecclesiastes chapter 4, verse 9: two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. Now listen to what the Bible says. But woe to him who is alone when he falls. Sorry, not Ephesians 4, Ecclesiastes. My bad. Ecclesiastes 4. If I said Ephesians 4, my bad. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up. The Bible didn't say if he's alone when he falls, he should pray a lot. Now, do we pray? Yes. Do we praise and worship? Yes. But what the Bible said is, Woe to him who is alone when he falls. So what is my responsibility when I read that scripture? I need to make sure I'm not alone when I fall. I need to make sure I have a community around me when I fall. Okay. Now, but when you hear woe, you're like, whoa, it sounds bad, but we don't we don't really use that word a lot in our day and age. So let me read this for you. Woe is a noun. So W-O-E. Woe is a noun that means great sorrow, misery or distress. Let me read it again. Woe means great sorrow, not sorrow, great sorrow. It means misery, it means distress. So, what does the scripture say? It says, Woe to him who is alone when he falls. When you see a person who is alone when they fall, the outcome is great sorrow, misery, distress. It is not smart, not wise, incredibly foolish to be alone. And I don't mean a person physically with you, but you have to have your own people that you do life with, that you're building faith with. So the day your faith is like challenged, there's somebody who can stand with you. Woe to him who is alone. Okay, all right. That was just I was just trying to set the stage. Let's go to the story we want to read. Acts chapter 4. Let's let's read, let's read what happened here. Okay, so these guys again, they went to preach the gospel, they went to do a good Jesus thing, they went to preach the gospel, and they collected them and they threw put them in prison, they threatened them, they did all of that. Fair to say, a storm was there. Okay, so let's see what they did. Acts chapter 4. And they warned them don't ever preach again after they brought them out of prison, don't preach again, all this stuff, and then send them away. Now, verse 23, Acts chapter 4 from verse 23, and being let go, they let them go, they went to their own companions. The translation says their own company, their own community, their own people, right? Okay, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders have said to them. So when they heard that, they raised their voices to God. Now, was it just them? No, with their companions, with their company, they all raised their voices to God, their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, you are you are God who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that's in them, who by your mouth said so. They started praying, right? Okay, let me get to the end of the prayer. Um, verse 29. Now, Lord, look on their threats. Look at this storm, look on their threats and grant your servants that with all boldness they may be able to speak your word. Because what was the purpose of the threat, being in prison, all of that, to get them to stop preaching? That was the goal of the of the challenge. For some of you, the challenge you're experiencing at work is to get you to get your eyes off the promotion you're working on. For some of you, the challenge you're facing your business is like now you want to take your business to a million because Satan has done the math. If she makes a million, she's gonna pay a tithe of a hundred thousand. We can't have that. So experiencing all this, and you're like, you know what? I mean, 200,000 is good. Why am I like how many businesses even get to 200,000? The reason it's coming at your health is because it's like, oh, so you can give up on this idea of long life, right? And being there for your family and all that. The reason for the storming in your marriage is so that you can believe, oh, 50% of marriages end in divorce anyway. Let mine end in divorce. That's what the challenge is for. So their challenge was to stop them. And they said, Lord, look on their threats and grant your servants that with all boldness they may speak your word, grant them the boldness to keep moving forward, grant them the boldness to not let this stop them. That's what your own company will do for you. Okay. He said, Grant them with all boldness, they'll be they may be able to speak your word by stretching out your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus. Now listen to this. And when they had prayed, so they went to their own company, when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness. So instead of ending up with fear, timidity, should we do this? Was this really what God meant? And all that stuff, they ended up with boldness. They ended up with boldness. So imagine Satan throws this stuff at you in your marriage so that, oh, now your marriage is cracking and all this guy. They give up on it after all, irreconcilable differences, blah blah blah. But you ended up with this marriage with more love, more unity, more peace, a power couple. Why? Because you have your own companions, because you have your own company, because you have your own community. There are challenges people deal with for five months that if they will go to their own company, it will last 10 minutes. But for five months, five months, they're like, I'm dealing with all this stuff. You're dealing with that stuff alone, child. Stop. Stop. Stop. Okay. All right, that's number four. Number five. Okay, number five is so fun. Like, if you've ever wanted to say Satan in your face, number five is Satan in your face. Okay. All right. Number five is encourage yourself in the Lord. If you are here, I'm sure you've gone to a service, a church service, and they preach something and you were encouraged. I'm sure you've listened to Success by the Book or you've come on Horizon Shine and you left encouraged. Sometimes you got to do the encouraging yourself. You need to hold a whole pep rally, and you're the leader of the rally. Okay. All right. Proverbs chapter, Proverbs chapter 18, verse 21. Proverbs chapter 18, verse 21. You guys know this is one of my all-time favorite scriptures. This is what it says. It says, death and life and the power of the tongue. And those who love it will eat its fruit. You must love to talk, and you must love to talk life words. Death and life. So let me. This is what happens when a challenge shows up. There's this extreme pressure to complain. There's an extreme pressure to complain and to whine and to give up with your words. I'm just so tired of this. I'm tired of dealing with this. I'm so frustrated. I don't know why this keeps happening to me. After all, I pray, I gave my tithe, I did this, I'm so sick of this. This is it's not working. It's not working, it's not working. Why, why, why the pressure to say that? Because death and life are in the power of the tongue. You speak death words over your marriage, it dies. You speak death words over your job, it dies. You speak death words over your finances, it dies. So Satan needs you. He can't destroy his your finances, but he can employ you to destroy your own finances by yourself. He can do that. So I want to invite you to not be an employee of Satan. Like he offers you a job, say, No, I don't want to work for you. Right? But now you can take that same mouth and the same energy, and you can say, My God is at work in my life. I am the head and not the tail. I am above only and not beneath. Blessed be my Lord Jesus Christ, who causes me to triumph always. I am looking around, and there is darkness over the earth and gross darkness over the people. But the glory of the Lord is risen upon me. I will arise and shine and manifest the goodness of God. All things are working together for my good in the name of Jesus. Are they not all ministry spirits sent to minister salvation for those who will be heirs of salvation? There are angels of God working on my behalf in the name of Jesus. It's the same mouth, it's the same mouth. So you need to speak life. You need to speak over yourself. You need to speak yourself into encouragement. I will not be discouraged. God said, Do not be discouraged, for I am with you. God is with me. I have no reason to be discouraged in the name of Jesus. I have the blood of Jesus, a hedge of protection, working for me. I have the name of Jesus, the name above every other name, working for me. I am the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, I'm in partnership with him, working for me. All things are working together for my good. The good, the bad, the ugly. It's all working. Same month. You might say, but it's not actually true. What is true is that I'm broke. Hello. Back in the day when you were a mere mortal, that's the way you used to talk. But now you are a son and daughter of the Most High God. In the kingdom we come from and the family you come from, we don't talk like that. We are not a family of reporters, we are a family of creators. So, like in Genesis chapter 1, when we look and we see things that don't look the way we want them to look, we don't say, Oh, well, looky here. Look, the earth is without form and void, and there is darkness over the surface of the deep. God did not say that. So you don't get to say that either. When God opened up his mouth to say, he said, light be, he did not say what he saw, he said what he wanted to see. That's the way we rule in our kingdom. So there may be a fact that ooh, there's no money in the bank account. But there is the truth that God supplies all my needs according to his riches and glory. The Lord is my shepherd, I will not lack. He leads me to what I need to do. And so when I need to speak, that is what I speak. I don't speak what I see, I speak what I want to see. And what I want to see is based on truth. The truth is not what you see, the truth is what the word of God says, the fact is whatever you see, the truth is above the fact. So we use the truth to change facts, we don't use the facts to make the truth look like it's not true. So in the midst of a storm, what do I do to keep winning? I say what the word of God said. And if you're in a place where you're like, man, I can't do that just yet, you have two options. You can pray in the spirit and pray and pray till you hit a gusher. You guys who've been praying in the spirit, you know exactly what I'm talking about, and your faith is activated, and then you can stand and do what needs to be done. If you can't bring yourself to do even that, I highly recommend you go to Walmart or whatever departmental store is around you with whatever store is around you, and you buy you some duct tape and you duct tape it. Okay, because you see it a car is a good thing if it's driven by someone who knows how to drive it. But if you give a 10-year-old a car, and not in the south, because the south, I know you 10 year olds are driving, but if you give a 10 year old a car, they can kill themselves. And sometimes we can use our mouth to kill ourselves, okay? So if you haven't learned how to use this tool, get you some duct, eh, cover it up. Okay? You cover it up till you learn how to use it. Okay? So you don't injure yourself. You don't hurt yourself with a mouth given to you to turn your world right side up. Okay? So when you feel that pressure, say it. Say it. Just say it. After all, that's the way you feel. Just say it. That's hello. The Bible didn't say we should speak what we feel. Hello? You can speak whatever you feel as long as you've renewed your mind by the word of God. But that undisciplined, unrenewed mind, uh-uh, we're going, we're going to duct tape it. We don't want to hear it. We don't want to hear your undisciplined, unrenewed mind. Yes? Yeah, that's what we do. And if you're like, I don't know, I don't know what to say. Awesome. You open up the scriptures. What does the scripture say about my finances? What did it say about my marriage? What does it say about this? And you start taking the word to declare the word. This tongue, one of the best things you can do with your mouth is you can decide when it opens up, it will speak in line with God's word. It will speak in line with God. If I'm not going to use my tongue to align with the kingdom of darkness, when you meet somebody and you cuss them out, you have taken up employment by the kingdom of darkness. When you meet with somebody and you speak words that leave them so discouraged, shatters their self-esteem and all of that, you've taken up employment with the kingdom of God. When you with the kingdom of darkness, when you open up your mouth and you're saying things about your life that are completely opposite of what God said, you are taking up employment in the kingdom of darkness. So how about we consecrate our tongues and we say, you see, this tongue, this tongue, this mouth will speak what the word of God says, will speak in alignment with what is in alignment with the word of God. So when you go about saying, I am broke, it is what it is, I will say my truth. We don't behave like that in this kingdom because you will have what you say. So you will go, you will pray, you worship, and all of that, but you use your mouth to create what you don't want to see because you will have what you say. There's no amount of worship you worship God that changes the fact that He said, Death and life are in the power of the tongue. God is literally saying to us, I said what I said. So worship and use your tongue right, sow seed and use your tongue right. Go to church and use your tongue right. There's no amount of going to church that makes up for, I don't know, I mean, we married and all, but you know, all men cheat. And the funny thing is, even if the man doesn't cheat, because you said that, you will believe he does, and you will live in a custom hell of your marriage you created by yourself. Consecrate this mouth. Anything that is not in line with the word of God is too big to come out of your mouth. Okay, that's number five. Number number six, number six. Oh, number six, and this is something that the second storm show up, we want to stop doing. Serve others. You know the way you're like, I want God to come rescue me, go rescue somebody else. I want God to intervene, go intervene in somebody else's life. If you have a responsibility, like it's like I have a storm show up and I have a rise and shine, and I'm like, Lord, you know, all the things going on in my life, you're not showing up, all that stuff. So I won't show up. No, if you have a duty post, show up there, serve others, serve others, serve others. Let me show you something. Okay, Job chapter 42. I want to read this for you. Don't ever not show up at your post or serve others or be a blessing to others because of a storm in your life. No, no, no. That's the strategy for coming out, ma'am, sir. Okay, look at look at this. Job chapter 42. Okay, verse 10. And the Lord restored Job's losses. He restored his losses. Remember, he lost everything: his family, his kids, his businesses, he lost everything. God restored it when he prayed for his friends. Indeed, the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. So here's a man in the middle of a massive storm. I have a question for you. If you put Job on one side and his friends on one side, who actually needed to pray for who? Like who needed the prayer? But Job prayed for his friends, and God restored his losses. So your service in the middle of a storm is part of the strategy for redemption, for deliverance, for intervention. So go be a blessing. You're like, man, finances are a little weird. No matter how weird it is for you, it's weirder for somebody else. Find them, be a blessing. Do it as a strategy, do it as a savvy kingdom person. You know exactly what you're doing. You know exactly what you're doing. Do you guys see that? Go be a blessing. You're somebody who intercedes, intercede. You're somebody who does hospitality, do it, serve people, don't hold if you only know what I'm going through. That's why I'm not coming out of my room. That's why I'm not talking to anybody. All the things I used to do, I don't do them anymore. Hello, Job. God restored his losses when he prayed for his friends. Okay. Okay. You guys got that? So you serve. You serve. Go look for go look for go be a blessing. Find someone who is going through stuff. Go be a blessing. Because it's a seed. You sow intervention into somebody's life. You reap a harvest of intervention. Find somebody who is in the middle of trying times. Go be a blessing. You'll be surprised what God will do. Okay. All right. Now, number seven. Number seven is my favorite one. Because you're gonna do one through six. Um where where is the scripture? Okay, team, yeah, okay, here it is. Ephesians chapter six, verse 13. This is what it says. So this is back to the armor of God. So remember, we're soldiers, the armor of God. It says, Therefore, Ephesians 6:13, therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. So the Bible didn't promise us no evil day. What it did promise us is in that evil day, you have your armor, you will stand. Okay, okay. Therefore, take up the whole armor that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all to stand, stand therefore. Let me tell you something. There is an attitude of victors, and it's like um, no matter what, I stand. Oh, there may be tears coming down my face, but I stand. I may not understand what is going on, but I stand. I'm serving the people, I'm doing all that stuff, but it doesn't look like it has shifted yet. But I stand for I know in whom I have believed. He's not a God that has ever lost a battle. He will not start losing, start, start losing battles with me. Having done all to stand, you praised, you worshiped, you prayed, you served, you spoke the word, you're doing your part, you're taking corresponding action, you're doing all that. Having done all of that, stand. Don't quit, don't move, don't shift, stand. Having done all to stand, stand so we don't quit, we don't play dead, we don't back down, having done all to stand. We stand. We I don't understand it yet. We stand. Oh, my faith, I think, is even a little shaky right now. We stand, having done all to stand, stand. I started off by telling about when I was pregnant with my daughter. And at 21 weeks, they said she had a diaphragmatic hernia, she had a fluid around her heart, her lungs were not developing, her heart was not developing, all this kind of stuff. I remember going for an ultrasound, and the ultrasound texts are not supposed to tell you anything about the ultrasound. That's what the doctors do. This one didn't even know when it came out of her mouth. She's like, they think they could use these lungs? This is 9%. And she's like, Oh, I'm so sorry. She like, that's how shocking it was to her. This is how bad it was. And we had prayed. I mean, this was at 21 weeks, 22 weeks, 23 weeks, 24 weeks. We were praising, we were worshiping, we uh were with our own companions, we were doing all the things. 25 weeks, 26 weeks, looked exactly the same. 27 weeks, 30 weeks, 32 weeks, 35 weeks, 37, 37 weeks. The morning I was supposed to have her, they didn't ultrasound the same thing. Nothing had changed. And the night before I was supposed to have her, they didn't ultrasound, nothing had changed. It was the same. Well, what did we live with? Having done altar stand, stand now. Can will God lose a battle? He won't. So what happened is the next morning they did the C-section as planned, out comes the baby, they do surgery on one day on day one of life, then the miracle starts. They're thinking, oh, she'll need to be on this oscillator forever after 24 hours. They never used, needed to use it. Oh, breast milk? Oh, just pump it and put it in the freezer. She won't leave it for a long time. By day three, she was feeding. By day five, we were ready for discharge. They were just like, we must be missing something. So they kept us for four four more days. Day nine, we were gone. They're like, oh, usually they need all this complicated follow-up and all. We went for our first follow-up appointment. They're like, we legit have nothing to do with this child. Like, we're done. What if we quit at 30, 23 weeks? What if we quit at 25 weeks? What if we quit at 27 weeks? What if we quit at 32 weeks? What if we quit the day before she was born? Having done all to stand in the middle of this storm, stand. Yeah? Okay. 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