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Dufresne Ministries Podcast
The Anointing That Teaches Us | Joel Siegel | World Harvest Church | Murrieta, CA
00:50:54
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Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message.
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You know, I had a. I had a. What we would call a visitation from the Lord or a real special time of ministering. You know, I was ministering to him some, and then he said some things to me. And this was on October 17th. I remember it real clearly. It was October 17th, 2013. And God, you know, I just got in the kind of, in the spirit of prayer, and God spoke something to me. He said, take up the miracle flow. I'd never heard that phrase said that way, the miracle flow. But he said, take up the miracle flow. And I said, okay, what's that? But anyhow, we've been endeavoring to walk in that, you know what I mean, and lift that part of our assignment up. And so thank God for the times we're in. The era of the miraculous is now. It's today. It's for us, it's all the way. Amen. No, wind ain't turning back. We ain't going halfway. Amen. We're in it all the way, aren't we? Praise the Lord. And, you know, for miracles to flow, it takes. It's not something, of course, that God does just on his own. There must be a flow in his people. Amen. We are vessels unto glory. We are vessels for him to flow through. And I say it all the time when I minister places. It is, you know, people think that the highest thing that you could do as a Christian is, is live for God. Well, it's good to live for God, but really God wants better than that. He wants to live through you. He wants to flow through you and work for you and look through those, those eyes that you got and talk through that mouth. God wants to talk through you. Amen. And so you and I want to be involved in that. And, and there's, and, you know, when we talk about the miracle flow, of course, we think about sometimes big things happening and we're believing the big things happen. Amen. That God's putting on a good show. But, you know, some of the ways that you best move into the miraculous is in some of the slightest ways that God works and some of the most easily missed areas, and one of those areas is just this area of you hearing from him accurately on a day to day basis. You know what I mean? You just, you just being able to follow him and not missing it 50% of the time, 60% of the time. Right. And just learning how to be Skillful in following. And you might say, well, that, you know, that's not. That's not the miraculous. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. It is. And if you don't go through these smaller areas, Praise the Lord, you don't get to some of what you'd like to see and what you think of as the deeper stuff and the bigger stuff. Amen. Thank you. You know, praise God. The folk that are used of God, like Peter and John at the gate. Beautiful. How many remember that when he pulled the crippled man up. Faith doesn't start with that, huh? And. And God will let you develop on yourself rather than other people. He's so merciful. He'll let you develop on your stuff. And so really, what I want to share to you doesn't. Tonight doesn't exactly pertain to those songs. Like I said, that was just blessing me. Maybe it was a blessing to you. I don't know. But the words blessed me anyhow, and. But it does pertain in the sense that I do want to minister to you a little bit about this idea of following God, hearing from God, being accurate in some of these things. Is that all right? Go with me to the second chapter of First Corinthians. Hallelujah, guys. You understand we're going to have us a good service tonight, huh? You don't think we're not going to have a good service, do you? We gonna feed you. They feed me good around here. We're gonna feed you good tonight. You're gonna get some good goodies. Yeah, you're gonna get trick and treat tonight, baby. In 1st Corinthians 2. Oh, praise him. Praise him. Praise him. I want to read a verse that. You know, when I was a college student, I got saved in college. Well, actually, between high school and college, and, man, I was so thankful. I tell you, you don't want to go through college lost. I went to. I went to. Really. They called it the number one party school in the nation, but I was a music major. I didn't have time for that. But thank God I got saved. You know what I mean? And that just kept me from whatever they said was going on. But I found. This is one of the verses I found. I loved it. Everybody I knew, we shared it with our friends. We loved it. And it's this ninth verse, and it says, but as it is written, you heard, this eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him. Come on. If you can't say A better amen than that. We got to get you born again, for crying out loud. Come on now. Can you say amen? That's amazing. That's amazing. And eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither has entered into the heart of man. The things that God has prepared for those that love him. Do you love them? Then stop looking so depressed. Come on, baby, it ain't as bad as you looking. And so we thought that verse was the greatest verse. The only problem is we stopped with that. We never read any further. We just picked that verse. And so the good part was that God had prepared some things for us. The bummer was eye couldn't see it, ear couldn't hear it, heart couldn't know it. And so we just said, well, we don't know what those things are, but we know they're good. And then one day, blessed be the Lord. I read the next verse, I read the next verse. And it says, but God has revealed them to us by, say with me, by his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep thing, the depths of God. The depths of God. Glory to God. And so those depths of God, those deep things of God, are part of the things which God has prepared for those who love him. The things that natural eye isn't going to just get it natural. Ear isn't just going to get it natural, heart. You know what I mean? Just, you're in the natural, you'll never get it, but you can get it by the spirit, by the spirit, by the spirit. And that is supernatural. When you know something by the spirit, that's part of the miracle flow, praise him. And then it goes on to say in verse 12, now, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God. Why have we received the Spirit, huh? Just to carry around some extra baggage. What's he. But Brother Hagin used to say, what's he doing in you? Eating bananas? Remember when Brother Hagin used to say, no, he's not just in you eating bananas. Why do we have the great mighty Holy Spirit that we might know. That we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Glory to God. God's got some things for us. I hasn't. You're not going to get it in your natural mind. But he's got things that he'll reveal to you by his spirit. Now we understand there's a whole lot of things that God has for us that we just get out of the word. But even those things you can't get Revelation in just your natural mind. You can't get revelation with just your natural eyes or just your natural understanding. You need the Spirit to reveal truth to you. And so we know that there's things in the Word, but, you know, there's also things that God has for you. And as an individual, there's direction that God has for you. There's things that he wants you to know. There's places he wants you to go. There's things he has for you to do. How are you supposed to know all that? By the Spirit. By the Spirit. And I want to endeavor to help you a little bit. Really, I'll just help myself and let you listen in, if that's okay. Kind of instruct myself in this. I want to help us because not every believer, and I know I've had to experience this, not everybody accurately hears. Not everybody always seems to get it. And sometimes they hear something and they think, well, that's God, and it wasn't God. And not everybody, even not every preacher who stands up and says stuff and says, thus saith the Lord. And it's not always God. I mean, it should be. It should be. We understand if you're saying that this is God, it should be God, but it's not always God. And you might say, well, how do you know? I'm going to teach you how you should. How. I'm going to teach you how I know. I'm going to teach you how you know. Can you go to First John, the second chapter? I'll praise him. I'm just happy tonight. I hope. I hope you don't mind if I spit a little bit. They'll clean it up. Glory to God. Some shoe polish, some wipes. Glory to God. Praise Him First John. And you all know where that is, right? First John. Glory to God. Now we're in days, in the days in which we live, in the days of the miraculous, in the time of miracles. It's also a time of increased opposition. And God's flow is not the only flow. God's things are not the only things going on. And it is the great desire of the evil one, the enemy, to endeavor to obscure, confuse and mix God's things with his things. And so it says in the 18th verse, John's writing, he said, little children, it is the last time. Or we'd say the last days or the end times. And I want you to notice what he says. And as you have heard, that Antichrist shall come. Even now, there are many what? Antichrists, whereby we know the presence of These antichrists is how one of the ways we know that it is the last time you might say, what does this have to do with anything that you were talking about? A lot. A lot. And I'll tell you why. And this is something that I learned years ago, probably, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago, I heard Brother Kenneth Copeland on television. And, you know, I'd catch his sometimes at lunchtime. We'd come home at lunch from what we were doing, and we would catch his broadcast, you know, on lunchtime. And I heard him talking about that word Christ. And he said, christ is not Jesus last name like Jesus Smith. You know what I mean? No, Christ means the anointed one. But he said in the Greek language, it's a reference not just to Christ's person, but to the anointing itself. Well, it's the word Christos in the Greek. And it does. And it does mean the anointing, the anointing. And so one of the things. And that has helped me because Brother Copeland said this. He said, when you see the word Christ, take a look at the context and check your heart to see whether the emphasis is on the person of Jesus or his anointing. And I've endeavored to follow that. That was so helpful to me. And so reading it this way, we're in the last times. And as you have heard, that anti anointing shall come even now. There are many anti anointing. Now, what does anti mean? It means against. But also think of this in opposition to, contrary to. Now, if something is contrary to the anointing, if something's contrary to the anointing, the opposite of the anointing is often no anointing either. No anointing or a false anointing. There, as we said, there are spirits. There are different flows. You know, Ephesians chapter two talks about the course of this world, that you can follow the course of this world system. There's a flow that just this world will stick you on. You know what I mean? And I mean, there's all kinds of. Just in the world system. There's anointings, meanings. There's some. It's like something tangible pulls you in. Some of you that lived in the world, meaning that you were in, like, the dark party scene. You know what I'm talking about? There's something that. Like, there's something that pulls you. It's a flow. Not God's flow, but it's a flow. But there's. I mean, and there's. There's even harmless Flows. But there flows. There's. We were talking about spirit the other day. Team spirit. There's team spirit. And I'm telling you, you can get so into your team, whether it's a sports thing or whatever, that you can. That it's like there's an energy, there's a tangibility. And we were out preaching last week and we saw this lady. We were preaching in a different state than we live in. We live in Colorado, Denver, Colorado area. And there's this lady there wearing a Broncos jacket. Denver Broncos. They're a fairly poor right now football team. But anyhow, I said to my wife, look, Denver Broncos. She's wearing a Broncos jacket. And I promise you, man, we were like 20ft away. And she heard that, she perked up and she went, the Broncos. And she came. I mean, I'm telling you, she came over. And she didn't just have the jacket on, she had everything. She goes, let me show you my phone case. Let me show you my phone, my purse. And she's just pulling stuff out. I'm like, sis, keep the rest of the clothes off. Because I don't want to know if you got, you know, if you got the socks and the undies. I just keep it to yourself, you know? And folk identify with things and they get in that flow. Well, there are flows that are contrary to the anointing, and then there's the anointing. And in the end times, there are a lot. And there is the strong presence of these flows that are against, contrary to, or imitation versions of the anointing. And then a lot of times there is no anointing. Why y' all looking at me like that? Did I say something wrong? Probably seven or eight things, but we'll get past it. So. And these, these spirits, these flows, they flow through individuals. They flow through individuals. And so verse 19, it says, they went out from us. From us. The carriers of these anti anointing flows, they went out. And we understand there will be an individual who is the Antichrist. I'm not discounting that, you understand, but not identifying him either, because I don't know. Praise the Lord. But the individuals carry these anti anointing spirits. And where did they go out from? The apostles, the early church. They were there. They were there in the realm. You're helping me today, right? You're believing with me. They went out from us, but they were not of us. How do we know? If they had been of us, they would have continued. I won't say anything about that. I'll leave that can of worms open. Let the pastor say something about that. Hello. Come on, now. That they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. Who was not all of us? These Antichrist messengers. Anti. Anointing and anti. What do we mean contrary to Not God's anointing, some other flow, some other force. Verse 20. But you. But you have an unction. And you know what the Greek word is? Anointing. You have an anointing from the Holy One. Not one of these anti. Anointings, not one of these imitation spirits. You have an anointing from the Holy One. Ought to make you smile just a little bit. You have an anointing from the Holy One. And because you do, you know all things. You know, what do we say? One of the biggest things you need to do is hear from God. Know what he wants you to do. How are you going to do that? By the Spirit. By the anointing. Come on, now. By the Spirit. He has revealed things to us by the Spirit. And here he calls it the anointing. You have an anointing. And, you know, we could say this. All that you need to know. All that he would want you to know. You know, careful about saying, I don't know. We had somebody who really had been a helper to our ministry for a couple decades, and every time she would help us with different projects, and she'd always say, I don't know. I don't know. We said, stop saying that. Stop saying it. Say, I'll know. If you don't know, say, I'll know. Thank you, Lord. I'll know. Or just by faith, I know you have the real thing. So did they when they started, huh? So did some of them when they started, but they got off. They got off. Now can we go to the fourth chapter of First John? It's necessary, friends, that you and I know this person called the Holy Spirit. It's necessary that you and I become so intimately acquainted with him that when he says left, you go left, even though your head says right. And you learn to be directed by Him. And you learn him so well that you know when it's him and when. I can see why people think that's him, but that's not Him. Praise the Lord. Isn't it so important why we are in the last times where there's lots of things going on, there's lots of flows. Glory to God. And in. Actually, in the last verse, verse in First John 3, it says, he that keeps his commandments dwells in him, and he in Him. And hereby. We know that he abides in us. How do you know? How do you know? By the Spirit. Which he has given us. By the Spirit. Say it with me. By the Spirit. We know that he abides in us. Right? That's what it says. We know that he abides in us. Why? How? By the Spirit. By the Spirit. I had a guy text me the other day. He was displeased. I was trying to help him, and I got a love letter. And it said one thing after another. But he said, you don't have the Holy Ghost. Now, are you two. Are you married? No. You're not. No. You're not. You're not married. They're not married. They're not married. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, you're an idiot. Brother Joel. Of course they're married. You can't tell people that are married that they're not married. They know they're married. Why? Because they abide. They together. They abide together. He's in the house. He's. Because of the. Because of the husband that dwelleth within the house. You know that you're married because, like it or don't like it, you're married. But how silly is it for me to say, no, you're not married. And trust me, it did not bother me, like, for a second when he said, you don't have the Holy Spirit. Pretty sure I do. Pretty sure? Yes. I'm pretty sure I do. How come? Just been fellowshipping with them before you texted me. But then he said. Then he said, your wife preaches. Oh, Jesus. And he said, so Therefore, she is blasphemous and insubordinate. Now, I said on that insubordinate thing. He might be right on that one. Hallelujah. But I filed it away in that special place called the trash on my computer. And we love them and believe for God's best. For him anyhow. Anyhow. We know by the Spirit he's given. That he's given us. We know by the Spirit. And then chapter four. I told you to go there, right? In verse one, it says, beloved believe not every spirit. So we know there's more than one. But try the spirits. Now, friends, that doesn't mean like. Like they have a little buffet board in the back there. I know what it's called. It's called charcuterie. Because I'm cultured. I'm cultured. And so they had a board in the back. And if I wanted to, I could go and try each thing on it, huh? Try each piece of food. Hey, try to keep it down over here, if you would. Try. Try each piece of food on the buffet board. It's not talking about, like, go out and try the stuff. You know what I mean? Let's just try them and see. No, no. It means test, test, test, test the spirits whether they are of God. Why? Because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Do you know that if people didn't give voice to these spirits, they would have no voice in the world? What's a spirit? It's just an influencing force. It's an influencing spiritual force. Many false prophets have gone out into the world. Now, here's a couple verses that I don't know about you. I scratched my head on this for a long time. I mean, I scratched so hard it's getting thin, you know? But I believe that I have the fullness of the blessing from the top of my head to the soles of my. To the fullness of the blessing. Guys, come on now. But I did scratch my head a little bit, and it says this. Hereby know ye the spirit of God. Well, that's important. I want to know. I want to know. And then it says, every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. Are you thinking what I was thinking? Like, how is that supposed to help me? How is that supposed to help me? And I got seeking God about this, and I believe he ministered to me something that at least helped me, maybe to help you. I don't know. Otherwise, maybe you have the answers, you know? But he pointed out to me that word confesseth. And sometimes when I'm reading along and don't know something, I'll just look to him and maybe meditate on it, pray a little bit. And he'll say, your answer's right there. And he said, your answer's right there. That word confesseth. Confess. Well, I know that word. I did look it up to make sure it was as I thought. But I'd studied that word before, and I know that that's one of the few words I do know. In the Greek, it's the word homologeo. Homologeo. Compound word logeo is where we get the word logos, meaning to speak. To speak. To speak words, right? Homo. It means the same. For example, we're all familiar with the word homosexual. Somebody that would be attracted to the same gender. Right? The same. Homologeo means to Speak the same, to speak the same. Every spirit that's of God will give utterance that's the same. The same way that Jesus when he was in the flesh, the same words. Now how did Jesus speak when he was in the flesh? By the Spirit, he said, I only say what I hear my Father say. Every spirit that speaks the same as Christ when he was in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that speaks contrary speaks different. Speaks not the same as Jesus when he was in the flesh, not of God. Everything Jesus spoke that's recorded was by the Spirit. And so attached to his words. Was that anointing that we read about? Did that help you a little bit or clear things up? Maybe there's more there that I don't see. I'm sure there is, but that's the part I did see. There's to be an anointing attached when it's of God. If there's a prophetic word, friends, that's given, if you've been saved a day or two days or 20 years, you ought to be able to discern whether it's of God by simply looking down to the greater one on the inside of you and seeing is the anointing attached to what's been said. And friends, I'll tell you, a lot of the times when prophetic words are given, it's not. The anointing is not attached. You might say, how do you know? By the Spirit he's given me, by the anointing that indwells me. And I endeavor to get to know him well enough that I can tell if he's in it and on it. And I hear it sometimes, I'm like, there's only one. That sounds good. There's only one thing missing. The anointing. Now what do we mean? The anointing, that tangible presence and peace of the Spirit of God. You know it because when you got saved, Romans 8:16 is 8:16, I think says the Spirit bears witness with our spirit, that we're children of God. The very first thing, the very first interaction that you and I have with the Holy Spirit is he lets you know that you're in the family. And I tell you what, on January 31, 1985, then went into January 1, 1986, sitting on the beach at Hollywood, Florida, up all night was New Year's Eve. Up all night partying. And then getting over the partying and realizing how empty my life was, I called on God with the most immature prayer, with the most non, you know, didn't know any scripture to put in there. I would have put some in there. Like, didn't even know a verse, but just called on the Lord and said, if you can do something with my life, please hear, because I'm not doing very well with it myself. And I gave it to him. And instantly, instantly the spirit bore witness. And all of a sudden, I mean, I went home and I slept like a little baby. And then I woke up, and the sky was a different dimension of blue than I'd seen before. And the grass was a different. It's like. It's like we were. I don't know, it was like somebody painted everything while I was asleep. And I had life where I didn't have life. And the Spirit bore witness that I was God's child. And so when you tell me you don't have the Holy Ghost, it's like telling somebody who's in the pool doing the backstroke, there's no water in there. There's no water. You're sorry, I'm in it. But not only will he bear witness that you're his child, he'll bear witness to you of the truth. So every spirit that confesses not, that doesn't speak the same as Jesus in the flesh, is not of God. And this is that spirit of what anti anointing whereof you have heard that it should come. And even now it's in the world. But you are are of God. Little children. Are you with me? You are of God, little children, and have overcome. This is two chapters after he said, but you have an anointing, and you know you are of God. Little children. You've overcome them. Because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Praise the Lord. Verse 6 says, we are of God. He that knows God hears us. He that is not of God hears not us. Hereby we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. I don't know, maybe it's just me. I'm like, where have these verses been all my life? I know I've read it a lot. But, like, when I started reading this this past week, I'm like, oh, gee, man, look. Hello. This is it, man. This is great. Thank God for God on the inside of you. And so, you know, in order to develop your relationship with the Holy Spirit, I can just tell you that the more voices you pull back from and you just hone into those voices that God has set before you, that is your best shot at being able to discern the spirit of truth from the spirit of error. You understand? Even in Good faith churches. Not everything is necessarily God. That doesn't mean it's devilish. It might have been God during one service, but this time it might not be God. How do you know? It's missing something. What's it missing? The anointing. That tangible. You hear me? Tangible, perceptible presence and peace. You need to know that. You need to know that. And so there are ways that you can get to know that. And one of them, like I said, is pulling back from things that God didn't specifically set in your life. Now, my wife will tell you we listen to very few ministers and there are many who are doing good things. I remember turning on one minister years ago and I just don't know when he was on, but I turned him on television and I was curious because I had heard that this minister was one of the ones that. Or one of the big ones that the people were taking what he said about grace and going all kinds of different ways. And so. Well, I want to hear it. And I'm listening to it and I didn't hear anything wrong, really, that I could tell. And then I go listen to it again and the spirit of God just speaks up on the inside of me and said, that's not for you. That's not for you. Didn't say, that's a bad minister. Didn't say he's a false anything. He just said, that's not for you. Do you know what the difference between me and some other Christians are? I listened when he said that. I'm not. Listen, I'm not saying I'm a better Christian than others. I'm just saying I listened when God said that. And so what did I do? I turned it off. Wish him well, hope he does well, but that's just not for me. But other folk will say, no, I'm curious. No, I have to know. I have to know. I have to know when you have to know. You're hindering your ability to know what you need to know. Well, I'm curious. Yeah, you want mind candy. That's what curiosity is. I need some mind candy. I need some mental heroin to help because I get bored otherwise. So I need to. I need to search. You're hindering your ability to know what you need to know. There's lots of voices. There's lots of good things. But what did God put in your life? Now, this is big. This is big. We've been around doing this a good, you know, good long time. We try to help people and sometimes the problem is they're listening to everything in the world except for what God put in their life. And what that means for a lot of people is they're listening to every other preacher except their pastor. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. They're feeding on everything except what their pastor's preaching. Well, so and so's on tv. Horror movies are on tv. Feed on that. No, I'm just telling. Don't. I mean, there's, of course, a lot of people on tv. What's that mean? What's that mean? I don't. You will rarely find me at any other meetings, truthfully. Except these meetings here. And it's not because there's not good people. Once in a while, there's one I go to because I visit my mom in a certain city and I go for like two days, but otherwise, you gonna catch me here. You wanna find me, come here. When they're having special meetings, like Pastor Morgan said. Except I know we missed the last one. I know. Yeah, the women's conference. You changed the name. But I was already kind of occupied, praise the Lord. So I missed it. But I watched it. I watched it. I listen and watch everything that I know about. Like if I'm not. Even when Pastor Nancy, if she's out on the road ministry, if they stream it and I know about it. Sometimes I don't know till, you know, whatever. But if I. If they stream it and I know about it, if I can't catch it live, which most of the time I can't, but I'll find it and go back and I'll catch it. Why, it just feeds me. It feeds me because it's where God has set me, place me. And I don't argue with him about why, why, why here, why, why her? Why this? You know what I mean? It's irrelevant. I rejoice in it. And it feeds me and blesses me because it's assigned to me. And you know what else? When I hear it, there's something attached. I can sense the anointing. I can sense the flow of God. It's that way with Brother Hagin. God had joined me against my will. God had joined me to his ministry. And we still feed on certain things of his today as God directs. And that's about it. That's about it for us. We don't go too much further out from that, you know, don't listen to too many others of what I'm saying. Why? Because I keep things streamlined. Because I don't have time to get in confusion where things are muddy and there's different flows. I just know where God has put me. So that would help. Oh, that would help. That would help. Pulling back from other voices, not even just other preaching. What about, you know, you hear the Word for an hour or two a week in church, and then how many hours do you feed on the news? I'm so. I'm gonna look over here. I know there's friendly faces over here. How many hours a week or day? A day. How many hours a day Are you listening to this one and this one? Well, I like it. I like it. They agree with me, you know, that shouldn't be your goal. I don't want. I get concerned if what I'm listening to agrees too much with my opinion, because it probably means it's my flesh that's being agreed, and my flesh doesn't need to be agree. Agreed with. Huh. Glory to God. I don't know if we're helping you at all. We need to know the Spirit. We need to accurately be led to know the things that he freely gives us. We need to know him intimately, of course, spending time in the things of God. But you know that. But many Christians don't take that kind of time. They don't pull back from the things of the world enough to hone in. And so. And then the other thing that we do, every decision, we check our hearts. I mean, you know, I mean, just. We endeavor to live connected enough to God in continual fellowship with him that when a decision comes up, we don't have. We don't have to break away for eight hours and pray. And sometimes, sometimes bigger ones, you do, and that's appropriate and right. But you know, every decision in life, you don't have, there's not enough hours in the day for that. But you understand that God will lead you into all truth. You have an unction and you know all things that you need to know. So for everything, for every situation, I'm looking down on the inside of me to say, lord, what do you say about it? And it can sometimes take a little bit, but it can sometimes take 10 seconds now. Sometimes it can take a little bit. When I first started doing this, every decision took a long time of prayer. Why? Because I was so used to my mind being on the throne, Right? I was mental. Amen. And so I had to pray enough to get that quiet. And I finally realized I'm having more and more decisions in life. It would just be more efficient to live close to God all the time, live in fellowship with him all the time. And so Just be able to really hear from him quicker. And so we practice on little small decisions. I don't mean whether you want ketchup or mustard on your burger, you know, I mean, go for it, whatever, but I'm just, I'm talking about, you know, things that matter, but still, for instance, the other day I bought an item, went to buy an item, and this item had three or four different models that you could buy. It was a couple hundred dollar item, you understand? And I had thought, just did a little, you know, you do a little research. And I had just thought, meaning if God didn't say any different, I thought that I'm going to buy this particular one because it was about $80 cheaper than the top of the line one. And to me it looked like it met my needs. But when I got there in the store and looked at the boxes, they had the different boxes next to there, I just checked my heart real quick and I went to grab the one I thought I was going to get. And something on the inside didn't agree, didn't bear witness. What's a witness? Somebody that testifies to the truth. And so I'm just, you know, I didn't pray in tongues there in the store, nothing like that. I'm just checking my heart and something didn't agree. I could tell that I could buy it if I wanted to, but God was over in another department looking at something else, you know what I mean? You can just tell God's not in on what's on this. On this one wasn't bad. I mean, it wasn't like a big thing like. No, no, no, it was just a little. And so I then turned my attention to the, well, the top of the line one, the most expensive one. I didn't want to pay more, I didn't think I needed it. But I checked my heart there and, mmm, there's agreement. Do you know that the word in the Bible translated spirit is also translated breath or wind. And it's like somebody puffs on the inside of you. It's like a little wind. Just. Have you ever experienced the witness of the spirit? It's like there's that little stepping on the gas on the inside of you, that breath, that wind. And there it is. So what'd you do? I spent the $80 I didn't want to spend. And you might ask, how come, how come he did that? I don't know. I haven't even opened it yet. I have no idea. I just know that I obeyed. And I know also, you know, you remember how we looked in first John 2:20? You have an unction from the whole. From the whole. Do you know. Do you know about the 27th verse? Maybe look, just two pages away. Maybe look at the 27th verse. I thought I was done, you know, but I'm almost done. You okay tonight? I told you it was going to be good. Told you it was going to be good. You know, things in Bible days are a lot like they are today. There is all kinds of voices going. The biggest problem that they had in Bible times, that the apostles had, were false ones going out and trying to undermine what they were doing. That was the biggest thing they dealt with. Same thing today. Same thing today. And so verse 26 says, these things I've written to you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing. Say it with me. But the. Oh, you got to say it better than that. Preach like you know how to preach. But the anointing which you have received of him abides in you. And you need. Not that any man teach you, but as the same one. The same anointing, the same anointing. Same as what? The same. The same spirit that Jesus walked in the same anointing teaches you of all things, huh? You have an unction and you know he teaches you all things. And it's truth and is no lie. Oh, I love that. I love that he's truth. He no lie. He no lie even as he has taught you, even as he has led you, even as he has prompted you, even as he's puffed his witness on the inside of you. Abide in that. Stay with that, remain with that. And so one thing I can tell you. I don't even know how that piece of equipment works or doesn't work yet. But here's what I know. I didn't miss it because I know I followed the Witness, and I know that that Witness is truth and no lie. And I didn't want to pony up the extra 80 bucks, but I happily did it. Amen. I happily did it because I know there's a reason. And I don't care if I ever know what the reason is. I just know he's right and it's no lie. Glory to God. Well, see, you might say, well, that's. That's just a small piece of equipment. $300, maybe. $300. Not the biggest. Not the end of the world. Right? But. Right. On the other hand, if you don't look to God at the $300 things, then you get to the point where it's 300,000 or 3 million. And you're going to start trying to hear from him. Then start on the stuff to where if you miss was $30, we'll recover. Start there. Start there. I just recommend it. You know what I mean? You do you. But I recommend it. I recommend that every. Everything. And so we just live. Because how many decisions do we make every day? A lot of them. I go to a restaurant and I will just check my heart. You might say, that's silly. You don't have to do this. But I do. I do. Because if I will check my heart in what to eat, because somebody other than if I just check with my flesh, it's always going to go the same place. It's always going to go to fried this or fried that and dessert, always. You might say, you need to listen to the Holy Ghost more, Brother Joel. I know, I know. But I check my heart because he knows what I need best and what will keep me healthy. And so I eat seven or eight times a day. No, couple times a day. So I'm checking. Those are opportunities. Check my heart, you might say, well, that's just a little thing. I know it. I know it. I know little things determine whether you get to succeed in big things or not. Have you been helped tonight? We could say a lot more along these lines. We're just going to leave it there. And where the tree falls, there it is. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Father, thank you for the privilege of being led. Thank you for the privilege of knowing you. Knowing between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. And Father, we just ask you tonight, help us all grow in our discernment and recognition of your presence. Your anointing, your spirit so that we get it right time and time again. In Jesus name, Amen. Look at that. I cleared the room while I was praying. Praise the Lord. Pastor, thank you.
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