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Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message. We're remembering something that Brother Copeland said in his final remarks on Sunday night. And he made this statement. He said, I was born to know Him. I was born to be like Him. It doesn't get any sweeter than that to hear that. And so in that, God offers us His Word for the reason of knowing him and for the reason of being like Him. That's what the Word is about. That's what the blood covenant is about. It's all to point to the knowing of Him. It's all to point to the being like Him. Amen. And if I could say this, because this phrase comes up to me, it's not just beneficial, but it's imperative that we live this life with a deep consciousness of God himself, that as we're fulfilling the plan, we have to realize this. We can't make the plan the focus. He's the focus. The plan is the. Is the way we serve, the one we're focused on. Amen. And so, too many times I think we have got. We get so. We get so wrapped up in the doing of the plan that we lose the awareness, the author of the plan. You know, we're endeavoring, we're raising our families, conducting our businesses, serving in our churches, hungry for the will of God. And in the midst of all of that, sometimes we can get our focus not as fully as it should be on where it should be that we can get so absorbed with all the things that must get done that day and leave him out of all of it. So it's not just recommended or beneficial. It is imperative that we live and fulfill and run our race with a deep consciousness of God. Amen. And remind ourselves if you. The reason we're doing this is we want to please Him. We want to please Him. We want to please Him. But how could he be pleased if we forget him in the doing of it? And it's so easy to get distracted with things that rob us of the sweetness of the one we're doing this with. Amen. Praise the Lord. And so God is giving us, if I could say this, a tune up, that we just fine tune that. Thank God for the faith life. But it's also we come to know Him. Amen. It's also that we come to know what he has and move with Him. And you know how many times you see people get married and after they get married, they get so busy with the doing of marriage, that they forget one another. And if we're not careful, and that we can become not trying to or not purposefully, but in revelations, we move away from really what matters first. And it's Him. It's him. Amen. That we so love him, that when people get around us, they want him. Amen. And so reminding ourselves. And you say, pastor Nancy, that's just fundamental and basic. Yeah, that's why we're visiting it again. Because it is fundamental and it's the basis everything we do that I want him pleased. My husband used to say this. The blessing is in the pleasing, that when he's pleased, the blessings of God just meet us everywhere we go. Amen. And we know this. Well, I said this, I believe, this morning. I don't know if I don't think I completed the statement when I said it in a previous service, but whenever God told me to do something and I did it. Then the devil afterwards tried to trouble my mind about what I had done, but I knew it was God. But yet he still tried to enter in the after obedience. He tried to, if I could say this, rob, the joy of obedience by harassing you. You shouldn't have done that. It's going to cost you this. Or you don't have enough money now, or you can't do that because you did what God. And he's trying to rob us of the joy of obeying our Father. Because obeying our Father is pure joy and not hardship and not struggle. And it's not a torment. And I refuse to be tormented in my obedience to my Father. Amen. Remember when Jesus, of course, was baptized at the river Jordan? And this is. And God spoke from heaven and said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And immediately after that, the Holy Ghost leads him to go to the wilderness and the devil for 40 days and 40 nights, harassing, trying to trouble the mind. Why rob from him? His father just said he's pleased. And that is one of the things he's trying. If I could say this, rob from him the joy of pleasing his father and now trying to turn it into a season of oppression. And of course, he went in there and was victorious. He wasn't oppressed. But we see that when the Father was pleased, the devil hates them and he wants to trouble you when you obey God and please you and harass you in your mind and make you think that now because you obey God, you're going to suffer in some way, whether it's financially or you've got to Lay down your dream to follow God. You can trust God with your dream because he'll give it back to you better. And the devil, when you go to obey God, the devil tries to make it a fearful thing, trying to rob the joy out of the obedience of him. And Jesus said, the will of my Father is never grievous. I remember reading, and I believe it was the book My Time in Heaven by Richard Sigmund. And I don't remember if he was going. It was when he was going to take him down and show him aspects of hell or whether it was when he was coming back to the earth, which. No, I'm teasing. Yeah, no, I'm teasing. But he saw, was delighted and thrilled to be in heaven that he just kind of let down when Jesus said that. And I don't want to, basically. And Jesus rebuked him and said, the will of my Father is never grievous. So our faces shouldn't fall. When God directs us in some direction, when he tells us to do something, he leads us to do something. The devil wants to make us to the commandment and the instruction of the Father into an enemy of our life. And it is the blessing of our life. It is the joy of our life. It is a joy to obey him. It is a thrill to obey him. And the devil would love to rob that from us and give us wrong thinking, treating it like it's a hardship. But God, with God, he's not a hard taskmaster. And anything he asks of us, it might be hard on the flesh, the flesh, but that gets in the way of really enjoying the fullness of the blessing of obedience. And so let's not be robbed from. And so when I obeyed God in that instruction God gave me, he told me something to do. And for a day and a half, the devil was dogging me. Now that you did that, you're not going to have enough for yourself. You're going to have difficulty, you're going to have all kinds of struggles that you're going to face. He wasn't just. He could not get me to undo that. I'd already done it. So what he tried to do was trouble me and get me in the wrong, thinking about what I had done right and almost trying to make you regret and trying to make you an enemy of God's instruction. Because God loves a cheerful, joyous prompt to do it, Giver. And it's not just about money. It's about the giving of obedience, a cheerful obedience, a joyful obedience, a prompt to do it. Obedience, obedience, Whether it's giving, whether it's serving, whether it's praying, whether it's. Whatever it is, that's the kind of approach that we should take in obedience to God. And the devil would love to steal the cheerfulness and the joyfulness and the promptness out of our obedience, because then even if we obey, it's not in full pleasing to the. The Father because it's not done with the right mindset and the right approach and the right heart. And so once you obey God, the devil will try to trouble you about your obedience because he wants to rob you of the blessing and the joy of obeying. And so every time for the next day and a half, when the devil would just make that thought suggest something, I would answer it. And then, you know, a little bit later it would come again and I'd answer it. I recognized it was the devil and I wasn't going to let him steal it from me. But then the word of the Lord came to me and said, if you would get in my presence and stay there, he said, you wouldn't even have to listen to that. Meaning that living with a deep consciousness of God puts us in a place to where harassment is not a lifestyle for us. Amen. Hallelujah. And so God said to me, he said, if you would get in my presence and stay in my presence, he said, you wouldn't even have to listen to that. And then he said this because that was about that situation. Then he told me about future. And he said, because in the future, I'm going to tell you and instruct you to do certain things, and the devil will try to take what I instruct you to do and trouble you with it. So how to. How to stay out of trouble. The troubling. The flow of troubling, because the devil wants to trouble everyone is to live with a deep consciousness of God. Amen. Yes, we put the word in our mouth, but I'm talking about our thoughts carry a consciousness of him that we turn throughout the day our thoughts toward him and worship him. And, you know, when Paul and Silas were thrown in prison and Morgan and I were talking about the other day when Paul and Silas were thrown into prison and they prayed and sang praises and the doors came open, most Christians would have said, baby, there's my exit. And they didn't even get up to go because they had already left. I'm talking about in their consciousness and in their worship of God. They had already exited. The door was nothing but a detail. Yeah, formality. Because they didn't just hurry up and rush out. They had already exited. I don't care what you're facing, you can exit that before any circumstance changes. And this is what a deep consciousness of God will do for you. You decide the exit. You don't let circumstances pave your exit. You can exit at a moment just by turning toward him. I'm not talking about being weird and foggy eyed, but I am talking about coming into a place, place in the spirit to where you recognize I'm in charge. Amen. And I was talking to Morgan about this. And this is what we want to understand. God is not offering us relief. He's offering us victory. Too many are just settling for relief and never going on to gain victory. What would be relief? Paul and Silas getting up and running out as soon as the doors open. That's relief. But victory is, get the jailkeeper saved, get his house, go and establish a church. Now we're talking about. See, victory is the whole picture. Relief is simply that one circumstance. God does not direct us based on just one thing. He has the whole picture in view when he directs us to do something. So let's. If we're not careful, we'll just want such relief from pressure that we'll just settle instead of hold out for the whole thing. Paul and Silas didn't settle and just get up and run out. They held out for the whole thing. Why? Because they were there with the consciousness of God and not a consciousness of the prison. And this is how we must live in this last day revival. Because if we're not careful, we will settle for things instead of holding out for all of it. I like what one minister said. He said everything that he said, what comes to you is either a temptation or a manifestation. And what he meant by that is when you're in a test, either there will be the manifestation of your answer and you take it, or there will be a temptation that looks like your answer, but it's a cheat. It's a decoy so that you won't wait and hold out for the manifestation. And so when you're faced with a difficulty, what shows up is either going to be a temptation or a manifestation. And those doors flying open were a temptation, no doubt, but they held out for the manifestation, the manifestation. And think about Paul understood this because remember one time he was on one particular occasion being beaten. And then after they threw him in prison, and then after they beat him, they found out, oh my gosh, he's a citizen of Rome. Oh my gosh, it's Unlawful what we did. And they sent word to dismiss him or release him. And he says, uh, you come down here, see, he's not just taking relief. It's victory. You come and walk me out. Don't you just send your. You beat me openly, you beat me in public. You come down here openly. You're not gonna sneak me out at the night hour. This was a man who wasn't looking for relief. If you look for relief, you'll marry wrong. If you look for relief, you'll take the wrong job. But if you look for victory, you don't settle. You don't settle. Praise the Lord. How do you know the difference? Well, the word, yes, but living with a deep consciousness of God, you learn his heart. I mean, you pick up from him. You pick up his. His affection, his compassion, his mercy just around him, around him. Dad Hagin talked about the compassion that is needed in ministering to people. He talked about when John G. Lake heard the woman screaming in pain with cancer halfway down the road. And he ran in because out of compassion, his heart wept and broke for her suffering. And he just went in. After all the praying he had done and laying hands on her and all this, he just went and scooped her up out of compassion. And she was instantly healed. And talking about. And dad Hagin would say this to us, that kind of flesh flow only comes from the presence of God, being with God. Confession won't give you that. Not to diminish confession, but they all have their different places and roles. It's when we're in that intimacy, that intimate place with the Father, we start picking up his characteristics in a way that they start coming to the surface in our lives. The mercy and the compassion. Compassion and the love and the genuine interest in people. Ministry is people. And if you don't love people too many times, people love ministry, but not people. You'll never reach the end of what God has for you. You'll never reach the fullness. I was years ago in a service, they had a certain young man, he was, oh, maybe in his early 30s. And he was ministering in the service. And he was a good teacher. And there was a man that was maybe 70 something years old, had been in the ministry for years, and somebody said, what'd you think about, you know, the teaching today? And he said, he's a good teacher now. He just needs to learn to be a good minister. What's that mean? Just because you can teach it doesn't mean that the flow is ministering to people. Amen. And too many Times if we're not careful. We love the work of the ministry, but people, people are the ministry, and we get that interest and care and that concern and genuineness for people in the Father's presence. You can't just listen to a tape and get it. It's by being with the One who so loved the world that he gave. And that's what I'm talking about, a deep consciousness of God. Brother Copeland, when he was here several years ago, he talked about that God was going to send, that he was going to fill up this place with people and there would be, you know, many, many, many that would come and get saved. And he said, just be aware they're not going to be dressed the way you're used to. They're not going to smell the way you're used to. Why? Because there's going to be such an influx and such a flood of the harvest, and they're going to be unchurched and they're not going to understand. And he said, you're going to have to understand the difference that you're going to find in people that come in to get right with God because they might be naturally repelling, but if you're in the Father's presence, you understand. And I'm not talking. And I'm not talking about people who take a thought like that and say, well, that's why I can have a carnal church. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about people when they come, when they come to Christ, that they're not. They're going to need love, not somebody with a critical eye. Amen. And you get that compassion and that interest and that concern for people in the presence of the Father. Amen. And Ed said, this last day revival is going to be a revival of God's mercy. He said, God is going to heal people you never would have healed. He's going to deliver people you never would have helped. How are we going to recognize that flow of mercy? By being in the presence of the Father, living with a deep consciousness of God, developing the habit of turning toward him all throughout the day, and not just on Sunday morning or midweek service, but our awareness of him becomes our lifestyle. Amen. Praise the Lord. So it means something when Brother Copeland made this statement through I was born to know Him. I was born to be like him. Amen. Hebrews chapter 11, if you would. Hebrews chapter 11. And verse 39. We're following up this list of faith heroes and the Bible just briefly mentions and touches on Just a few of them. And in listing some of them in verse 39, it says in all of these, these faith heroes, though they won divine approval by means of their faith, they did not receive the fulfillment of what was promised. So the promise that's referred to as the coming Messiah. And the Old Testament saints relied upon the promise of the Messiah, but didn't see him come in the flesh. They didn't see the fulfillment of his work of redemption. They weren't there when the new covenant came into place and when he established the church. They didn't see all that, but they relied on that, that that was going to come. And in verse 40, let me say they did not receive the fulfillment of what was promised. Verse 40 Because God had us in mind and had something better and greater in view for us. So that they, these heroes and heroines of faith, should not come to perfection apart from us before we could join them. Now, verse 1. Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses who have borne testimony to the truth, and we could say this, who ran their race and finished their race and laid hold of what they were laid hold of. For now that they have run their race, now they're watching us. Let us, now that we have them as an example, let us, let us strip off and throw aside every encompass encumbrance, unnecessary weight, and that sin which so readily, deftly and cleverly clings to and entangles us. And let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us. Verse 2. Looking away. This is how we run. Looking away from all that will distract to Jesus, who is the leader and the source of our faith, giving the first incentive for our belief and is also its finisher, bringing it to maturity and perfection. He for the joy of obtaining the prize that was set before him. What was that prize? That prize was the redemption of creation through carrying out the Father's will. That's what the prize was. He endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Verse 3. Consider Him. The Amplified says, just think of Him. There's other things offered to think of. But he said, just think of him. When you're running, think of Him. When you're running, think of Him. It didn't say think of Moses. It didn't say think of Caleb or Joshua. It didn't say, think of Elijah. Why? Because Jesus ran to perfection. We trust you've enjoyed this message. Visit us@DefrainMinistries.org to learn of our upcoming meetings, share your testimony, please become a partner or visit our online store. This program has been made possible by the friends and partners of dufresne Ministries.