Distortion

Distortion is what happens when something no longer reflects what it was created to be, and we can spend years adapting to that warped reflection if we never learn the original. We go back to Genesis, look at Jesus as the perfect image of God, and name how anxiety, addiction, shame, and fear try to become identities we were never meant to carry. 
• distortion explained through the carnival mirror image and the danger of never seeing the original 
• Genesis 1:26–27 as the starting point for identity before rules or performance 
• sin reframed as the twisting of something originally good rather than a new identity 
• pride as distorted confidence and lust as distorted love and greed as distorted stewardship 
• the enemy as a distorter of truth rather than a creator of anything new 
• “If I don’t know the original, I’ll spend my whole life adapting to the distortion” applied to addiction and anxiety and depression 
• religion as a warped mirror that teaches unworthiness instead of restored sonship 
• Jesus as the blueprint for fully alive humanity and the image of the invisible God 
• transformation as waking up from glory to glory into the same image 
• speaking to identity and starving the lie so distorted patterns lose power 
Get out of your feelings and get back to church. 

Transcript

Distortion And The Carnival Mirror

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right. Well, we're going to get started this morning. Um, last Sunday. I know I'm not going to ask y'all if y'all remember when I said this, but uh I actually did say this. I said something kind of hit me in the middle of my sermon, and it actually wasn't part of my sermon last week, but it just kind of came out, and when it did, it just kind of hit me and it stuck with me uh all week. And I told you last Sunday, I said, you know, soon you'll you'll be hearing a sermon on this. Well, surprise. That's the sermon today because it's it's been on my heart all week uh thinking about this. Uh so last week uh I talked about the definition of distortion. And that's what I want to talk about a little bit more today and and share with you a couple of reasons why it's important. But last week I said something about distortion and gave a definition that said it's really a twisted or a warped version of something that was originally good and true. Now think about that a minute. Because what I also realized was there's another part of this definition that I think is really important. A distortion is also, and this is kind of the way I think about it and the way that I look at it uh from this sense here, it's when something no longer reflects what it was created to be. I'm gonna pause right here a minute, think about it. When something no longer reflects what it was created to be. If you've ever looked, and I know probably all of us have, if you remember the carnivals, the fairs that used to, you know, come to town, if you've ever looked in one of those mirrors, remember they used to be a house of mirrors that you would go into. And if you ever looked in one of those mirrors at the carnival, it what it does is it stretches you, it shrinks you, it bends you and it contorts you in all kinds of different ways. And we laugh about that because we know that that's not really who we are. The mirror is doing that. Uh, it's distorting our image. This is gonna sound a little crazy, but just follow me right here a minute. What if you've never seen yourself before? And then you walked in and you looked in one of those mirrors. Uh you wouldn't think you were distorted. You'd think you that's who you were. If that's all you've ever seen before was that distorted mirror. And every time you look, that's all you've seen. And I'm saying this because I wonder sometimes if that's not where many people in the church are spiritually. And what I mean by that is they're not living necessarily in rebellion to God because they don't believe in God. It's nothing about belief. They're living in a place of distortion because they've never seen the original. And if you've never seen the original, as I said last week, what is your what is your reference point? What do you have to compare it to and compare what your life looks like, what you're what you are thinking in your life, if you have nothing to compare it to? If there's not a reference point. And I put a couple of things here, but they just come to me and they they sound a little silly, but they make a lot of sense to me. Maybe it'll make sense to you. But this is what I said. How do you know you're asleep if you've never been awake? How do you know you're living beneath who you were created to be if you've never heard who God says you are? I don't think you can know that. You have to know what God says about you. That's why we talk so much about identity. And I believe it's really important. You can't, you know, really, you can't recognize something that's counterfeit if you've never had your hands on the real thing. There's a difference, and you won't know that difference if you haven't been, you know, a part of both of them. How do you recognize a lie if you don't actually know the truth? These are just little things that just kind of popped in my head and come to me, and they, again, they sound a little silly, but when you really think about them, there's truth in them. In the same way, you can't truly see a distortion until you know the original. We have to understand the original. So

The Original Identity In Genesis

SPEAKER_00 5:05

here's the question: What is the original? When we say that, when we say you have to understand the original, to truly understand a distortion, what is the original? Before I can know whether my life is distorted, I have to know what God intended when he created humanity. The best place to start is the very beginning. So I want you to look at Genesis 1, verse 26 and 27. I think this is the best verse, the best place in the Bible to start at. He says, Then God said, Let us make man, how? In our image, according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his image. These are verses that we're so familiar with sometimes that I think they lose the importance of what they're saying because we just kind of skim right over them. But it says that he created man, and he's talking about mankind right here. Everybody, male, female, he created mankind in his image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Genesis doesn't begin with a list of rules. Genesis begins with identity. The very beginning, the first chapter, begins with identity. So how can we forget and walk away from identity if that is what the very beginning started with? When we're talking about original, you gotta go back to where it all started. You gotta go back to the very beginning. And it started with identity. It didn't start with rules, it didn't start with a list that we had to follow. It started with who we are and what God created. Let us make man in our image after our likeness. See, that tells me something pretty incredible right there. Before we ever did anything, now think about this. Before we ever succeeded at anything, before we ever failed at anything, God declared something about us. He said we were created to reflect Him, His image, His likeness, that's the original. So when I asked that question, what is the original? We can go back to the very beginning and say, I don't care what man says about it. I don't care what this pastor says or that pastor says, and I hope you don't even care what I say. I want you to go back to the original in the Bible and what did God say? And that's what we just went to.

Sin As Twisted Good Gifts

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Because that's what really matters. Now here's what I think, where I think we misunderstand a lot of things at, but the main thing we misunderstand right here is sin. Okay? Remember, when we talk about sin, you might be saying, Well, how can you be talking about one thing? You're talking about distortion, but now all of a sudden you're talking about sin. Because what is sin? It's a distorted thinking, a distorted image that I see of myself. When I'm in sin, I see myself differently than the original. That what God created is different than the image He created for me. So this is where I think we misunderstand sin at. We've often treated sin as if it created a brand new identity. But scripture really paints a different picture here. Sin doesn't create something original. Sin, what sin does is it twists and perverts what God created in the very beginning? Think about this. Pride. We talk so much about not having pride. It's one of the deadly sins and all this, and I'm gonna go through a couple of those. But pride, what is it? I don't want a definition, I just want you to think about it. What do we consider pride, and why do we consider pride so bad and we consider it a sin? Pride is really just distorted confidence. Think about somebody that's really prideful, and we look at them and we say they're arrogant and they're this and they're that. But really, what is it? It's a distorted confidence. We don't look at confidence and say it's a bad thing. We look at confidence and say it's a good thing to be confident in ourselves, in the Word, in God. But pride is simply distorted confidence. Lust. You can go all through the Bible and people do it all the time and tell us how lust is bad and lust is wrong. And we always look at the story of David, you know, and we talk about how lust is such a bad thing. Lust is really distorted love. This is really simple, but I'm looking at the difference between where did these things originate from? The enemy took something that was good, confidence is good, love is good, he took something that was good and turned it and twisted it into something that we consider sin now. He didn't create anything new. He took what was already there and turned it. Greed, another sin, is distorted stewardship. Greed, when I'm greedy and I just take in and take in and take in, I don't never give back. All I want to do is receive. We look at people like that and we say, man, they are greedy people. But then we look at stewardship. We teach about stewardship from the Bible. Stewardship is basically saying that I know how to manage what I have. We're not just talking about money. We're talking about a host of things when we talk about good stewardship. But we look at stewardship and we say, man, that's a godly thing. So what is greed? It's just stewardship that's turned around and twisted, and it becomes greed. Fear is distorted trust. Shame is distorted humility. Control is distorted dominion. I could stop really right here and just take what I just said, and we could preach for the next five weeks on that. And really breaking it down and looking at how the enemy took something good, took something godly, and turned it and made it into something that now we call, and the Bible call it sin. He took the original, he did not create anything. Every sin is taking something God created for good and bending it and twisting it away from its intended purpose. We are intended to love. God, the Bible says, God is love. If we're created in the image and the likeness of God, then we are by nature love. But I know a lot of people don't show a lot of love. But the enemy has taken taken that word love, taken what it means and the purpose of it, and the intended purpose, and turned it into a word called lust. Even my watch is listening to me. The enemy has never been very creative. We give him too much credit. And you know why? Because he he doesn't create anything, he only distorts. God creates. He is the creator. The enemy simply corrupts. He comes and he takes what God created, what God established, and he tries to weave in there somehow and bring something in that's gonna corrupt it, that's gonna turn it, that's gonna pervert it. That's all he does. God speaks truth. The enemy will take truth and twist it. He did it in Eden in the garden. In the very beginning, he did this. He didn't deny what God said. Think back to when he was speaking to Eve in the garden. He didn't deny what God said, he distorted what God said and tried to make Eve believe something that God never said. He took the words, twisted them, turned them around,

When Distortion Becomes Your Identity

SPEAKER_00 15:36

and made her believe something different. And here's what hit me last week. If I don't know the original, I'll spend my whole life adapting to the distortion. Listen to that. If I don't know the original, I will spend my whole life adapting and conforming to the distortion. That's why so many people, I said it last week, so many people who's like battling addiction, instead of it being something that is not creative of God and it's not of God, what addiction now becomes their identity. Alcoholism becomes somebody's identity. Sickness and disease become somebody's identity. Listen, God did not create those things to be an identity for us. We have authority over them. We can come out of it, but we have to know the original purpose and the original identity that God gave us. I think. Well, think about it like this. Let me let me say it like this. Again, if I don't know the original, you gotta get that part. If I don't know the original, I will adapt to the distortion. And what happens when I adapt to the distortion, I'll think anxiety is just my personality. I see it all the time. Anxiety is not something that I can deal with or something that I can get over. It has become something that I have adapted to, and now instead of anxiety just being something that comes along, excuse me, and I can get over, anxiety is now what I consider my personality. I have adapted to it, I've made it a part of my identity, and the reason I can't escape it is because now that's who I am. I've become, I've let that thing become part of me. Shame and it's humility. What do I mean by that? Some people adapts a spirit of fear or a mindset of fear, and they don't look at it as a bad thing anymore. Some people will say fear is wisdom. Because when that fear comes, it tells me get away or it tells me do this or do that. So I take something which is fear that was never of God. The Bible says he didn't give us a spirit of fear. But I have been in a place of fear for so long that I begin to take it on as an identity, and because it's been there for so long, now I begin to use it and say it's a good thing. It's not a good thing, but I've adapted to it. Rejection becomes my identity. Brokenness becomes normal. And I have to ask myself why? Why do these things become normal? Why have I adapted to this stuff? And I believe it's because I've never seen myself any other way. I've never seen the truth in what God really created. I've never gone back and looked at that verse in Genesis. I might have looked at it, but I never really dove down and dissected that verse and really got down in it and said, what does this verse really show me? I've never received that verse. I've never really taken on the identity of Christ and understand that He created me in His image after His likeness. So if I don't see that, if I don't understand that, if I don't know that, then it's so easy to take all this other stuff

Jesus Reveals God And Us

SPEAKER_00 20:20

and let it become what forms me and shapes me. Imagine someone born into a house where every mirror in the house is warped or broken, shattered in some way. Every mirror tells them they're broken, they're ugly, they're unworthy, they're unwanted. Eventually they stop questioning the mirror. And they start believing it. Religion sometimes becomes another warped mirror. It tells people. You might say, How are you comparing that with religion? Very simply. What does religion tell us so often? You're just a sinner. You're filthy. You're unworthy. But listen, Jesus didn't come merely to forgive people. And this is what we got, we've got to let people know. He did not come merely and only to forgive people. He came to reveal the Father. And to reveal humanity. What do we mean when we say reveal humanity? To reveal our identity of who He created us to be. That's why Paul says, and I want you to look at this verse with me in Colossians 1 and 15. He is He, who's he talking about here? Jesus. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. He is the image. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. If you've ever wondered what the image of God looks like in human life, look at Jesus. He doesn't simply show us what God is like and what his character is. He shows us what humanity looks like when it's fully surrendered to the Father. He's the perfect image of God. Paul calls him the image of the invisible God for a reason. And I love it because then Paul goes on and says, we're being transformed into that same image. So he don't just stop. Some people would argue with me and they would say, Yeah, but that's Jesus. You're not Jesus. No, I'm not Jesus. But I'm his little brother. Because he says that he is the invisible image of God, and then it goes on to say that I'm going to be formed into that, made into that same image. I can't overlook that. But see, I think, and I shouldn't say this, this is not on my notes. I'm going to get in trouble, but I'm telling you, I think the church has taught us for so long to put Jesus over here. God is up there sitting on a throne somewhere. An old white man with a long white beard sitting on a throne. Jesus is over here. We're going to put him up over here. And we are way over here, just messed up, dirty, filthy, unworthy people trying to get to him. That's what church has taught us. And then every Sunday they teach us what we need to do to get to him. Come on, I'm kicking all that out the door. I'm telling you, you are created in the image of the likeness of him. He is the image of the invisible God, and you are created in the same image. You're not trying to get to him, you are with him. The church has got us on a journey. And God, I believe, is looking down, saying, You mind, your mind is distorted. You are already with me. Wake up. Stop seeing it the way I did not create it. I called you before the foundation of the world. I created you. I've made you. When I created you, I made you in the image in the likeness of myself. And now church and religion has put you way over here and has separated you from me. And is telling you every Sunday that you got to do certain steps to get back to me. And that is a lie. That is a distortion. Maybe that sounds better than saying it's a lie. I'm just going to say both. We are not separated from him, we are one with him. So why do we teach everybody every Sunday of how to get to him when we're already joined together with him? If you go back to the definition of distortion, we are teaching a lot of distortion in the church. And I know there's some people that would get mad about me saying that. I don't care. I'm just going to be real with it. If we're teaching people anything that goes against the original thing that God said, by definition, we're teaching a distorted gospel. I'm throwing gospel in there to make it sound good. What we're teaching really ain't the gospel. We're teaching a distorted teaching that is opposite of what God has already said. Why do you know that? Because I just showed you the verses. I'm not saying it, it's not my opinion. It's not just a conclusion that I come up with. The word of God says it. So it really brings me to a point of saying, do I believe the word or do I believe man? Did the word tell the truth or did the word tell a lie? I mean, that sounds oversimplificated, you know, simple, but that's really what it comes down to. Do I believe it or do I not? And if I believe it, then I've got to recognize that there's some distorted beliefs that I've been having, and I've got to get rid of those things. Maybe that's why Jesus spent so much time asking questions. I love asking questions. Maybe that's where I got it from because Jesus does that so much. And, you know, I think it's important to ask people questions. I think it's important to provoke thinking. And Jesus would always ask questions. If you don't believe me, go back. Listen, we've got a computer today. You don't have to go back and search every Bible book. You can go to Google, Chat GPT, or whatever, and say, show me every single thing that Jesus said in the Bible. And it will bring it straight out. You ain't got to search. All you got to do is give it about three seconds, and it'll bring it right out. Or go in there and say, show me every question that Jesus ever asked in the Bible. He loved to ask questions. I just put a couple of, who do you say that I am? Because this is what he was saying basically. He was asking it in a question form, but this is what he meant by. Until you know who I am, you'll never know who you are. This is not some teaching philosophy or anything. This is this is really simple. If we created in the image and the likeness of him, he is the invisible image of the Father. How can I know who I am if I have no idea who he is? I have to know him first. Your identity flows from his identity. The Bible says, as he is, so are we in this world. I think that's why so many people seem spiritually asleep. I'm not going to use the word unsaved or this one's saved, this one's not saved, this one's on their way to hell. I'm not using that language. I'm going to use the word asleep. And it's not because they're unintelligent, it's not because they don't love God. They simply don't know the original. They're comparing themselves a lot of times to other distorted people. I can't do that. I have to compare it to the original. We were never meant to measure ourselves against one another. We were meant to look to Jesus. He is the image. He is the blueprint. He's the pattern. When you're making something, you look, you have a pattern there and you do it. When you build a house, you have a blueprint that you go by. Everything that you do, you have something that models it. Jesus is the model. He's the pattern. He's the blueprint. He is what humanity looks like when it's fully alive. And the beautiful part is that God isn't asking us to imitate Jesus from a distance. He's not asking us to stand back and try to be like him. He's transforming us into his likeness. He made us just like him. And you might say, well, if we're made just like him, then why are we so different from him? Because we're asleep. We're asleep to the things that's already true. That's why the goal is to wake people up to the truth that's already there. What you mean, what truth? The truth I just read in Genesis. That's a truth. The truth that he is the image of the invisible God, and we are in that same image where we're created in his image after his likeness. That is a truth. That is not something I hope for one day. It's not something I'm getting when I walk through the pearly gates. It is a truth. And so many people are asleep and don't know it. So our job is to wake them up to the truth so that they can see their true identity in Christ.

Waking Up Through Transformation

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Another verse here, 2 Corinthians 3 and 18. Paul writes something pretty amazing. He says, but we all with unveiled face, this verse look familiar? We've read it about a hundred times in the last few months. But I have to come back to it. We all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord or being transformed into what? The same image. See, last time we brought this verse out, we didn't focus on the same image. We focused on beholding. There's so much in this verse. I'm serious, you could go word from word and preach a sermon on each word. We're transformed into the same image from glory to glory. We can break that down right there. It don't happen like that. I am awake to some things in Christ, and guess what? I am asleep to other things. There's other things that have not become revelation to me yet. It will, as I awaken to the truth, from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. There's so much in this verse. Notice he doesn't say we're becoming someone God never intended us to be. He says we're being transformed into the same image. So maybe the deeper question we need to ask ourselves is this What lie have I believed about who I am? Because we've all believed a lie. We've all looked at ourselves sometime in the past or even doing it right now. And we're believing something that God never spoke, God never intended. See, because every distortion begins with believing something about ourselves that God never said. We've all done that. The journey of transformation isn't becoming someone else, it's waking up to who you've always been in Christ. It's not creating a new identity, but recovering the one God declared what from the very beginning when He said, I've chosen you before the foundation of the world. That's the invitation of the gospel. Can I use one more verse here? Just one second. This is the last verse. I'm at the end. Romans 8 29. This has always been God's plan. For whom he foreknew. Boom, we can stop right there. Who did he foreknew? Who did he or who did he foreknow? If he created you before the foundation of the world, were you here before the foundation of the world? No. But he created so he foreknew us. He also predestined. So the ones that he foreknew, he predestines. If you were foreknew, then you were also predestined to do what? Be conformed to the image of his son. This is a bunch of lies, or it's the truth. That he might be the firstborn among many brethren. That's a powerful verse right here. God's goal was never simply to make us more religious. His desire has always been to restore his image in his sons and daughters. To restore the image of who we are. We're not trying to become a better version of some distortion. We're not trying to clean it up and make it look better. And that's what we do so often. And let me say this: this is not beating people up that battle with anxiety. This is not beating people up that have battled with addiction or battled with depression. Because so many people sometimes can think you're kind of pointing your finger at them and saying, why are you depressed? Why are you anxious? No. This is life. Things happen. But what I'm saying is that anxiety, that depression is not who you are. It might be something that's trying to get up in your life and it's affecting your life in some way. But I'm going to tell you now, you can rise right out of it because it's not your identity in Christ. So it's not saying that those things are not going to try to creep in at times. They do. I've been there. I've let anger creep in many times. And that anger problem comes back up. And then I had to realize that's not me. It used to be, that used to be my identity. And guess what? I was proud of it. Because I was a fighter back in the day, so I loved to fight. I loved it, and I loved to get angry. All you had to do was just look at me the wrong way. And I justified that by the anger that I had. And when it rose up, boom, it was time to go. And I took pride in that. I used it to my advantage. So I thought. And then one day I realized, you know, that's not who I am. It was a part of my life for a season. Depression may be a part of your life for a season. Anxiety may be a part of your life for a season, but it does not define you. But I'm telling you, we can speak it from a distortion into a reality of identity. We can do that. Why? Because power is in your tongue. Life and death lies in the power of your tongue. You can speak something into your life and let it become a reality. Or you can realize it's not me. That is not me, and I will not let it dictate my life. I will not let it control me. It has been here, but that is not my identity and rise up out of it. It's possible. So God's goal has never been to make us more religious, it's always been to restore the image of his sons and daughters. We're not trying to be a better version of some distorted nature. We're allowing Christ to restore the image God intended from the very beginning. That's the invitation of the gospel. The true invitation of the gospel. Not self-improvement, but restoration. We don't have to beat ourselves up. I want to say this real quick. If you've been in those places, anxiety, depression, alcoholism, addiction, anger, whatever. This is a word for somebody. Stop beating yourself up. Stop giving in to a distorted way of thinking that is not you. Does it always work like no? It don't. Sometimes it is a battle. But because it's a battle don't mean that you lose authority. I just have to keep speaking. I keep speaking to identity instead of speaking to the distortion. I preached a sermon years ago and said, what you feed will grow. And what you starve will die. What are you feeding? Are you feeding the distortion? Are you feeding the lie? Are you feeding the truth? Because what you feed will grow. And what you starve will eventually die. We have authority in our words. And there's not a person in this room, including myself, that does not battle with distortion. And again, understand what it is. Anything, thought, belief that is opposite of what God intended. We all deal with this because there's things that come up that we have let control who we are. We have let it develop an identity in us that does not line up with God. I said it just then, but I didn't I didn't say it exactly word for word. When something no longer reflects what it was created to be. When something no longer reflects what it was created to be, it's a distortion.

One With God And Wake Others

SPEAKER_00 43:58

We have a choice. And I think that's the biggest thing that we're talking about with the finished work of Christ is trying to show people that we're not way over here somewhere trying our best every day to get to him. We're one with him. I struggle to understand why people want to say that you're crazy for teaching that we're one with God. I mean, I truly struggle with that. Why would you not want to know what the word says and believe what the word says that we are united with him, we're one with him. He lives on the inside of me. He loves me, he'll never leave me, he'll never forsake me. I am the image of him. Why would we not want to believe that? But yet believe we're separated and that we're trying to work and strive every day to get to him. That boggles my mind. Now saying that don't mean we're perfect. We still struggle. We still go through things. But what it does mean is I have the ability now just to wake up to some stuff. I'm not trying to get something or gain his love or earn his righteousness. I am his righteousness. So I'm waking up to things each and every day. From glory to glory. I'm not there yet. I'm not perfected. I don't know it all. I still make mistakes. I still do dumb stuff. I still think some dumb things. I still sometimes go back to things I used to do or things I used to say. And then I pick myself up and say, that is not you. Get back. Get back to where you belong. Because that's not you. I don't stay there for months at a time and wallow in the mud and beat myself up because I slipped. A lot of people do. That's why they need people like us to say, get your tail up out of that mud and get back to where you belong. You've been there long enough. There's people I get so angry. There's people I want to call on the phone today that's a part of this church, and say, get out of your feelings and get back to church. Get out of that junk that you're in. Quit thinking that way. Being by yourself and worshiping alone. Apparently has not done it. So come back. That's what we're called to do. To uncover some things. Open up the eyes of people. Wake them up as we wake up. That's not saying we're better than them. As we wake up and get into a place of revelation, of deeper understanding, we wake other people up. We help them see their truth, the truth of their identity. We don't leave them in that place. We help them. We shake them. We wake them. That's the gospel. That's what we're called to do. That's what I want to do. I'm not ready to go tomorrow. I tell you, there's people who say, Lord, they're praying every day, Lord, take me. Take me home. No, I am home. This is what we were called to do. And I believe that's what God says when somebody prays that. I don't know whether they listen, but God, I believe God says you are home. I don't want to take you. I want to give you long life. I want you to live. Because I am in you. I want you to go and spread me with people. This is my wording. This is the way I think sometimes. The people up there don't need me. But the people here do. The people here need you. They need your the word that you got in you. They need the that wisdom that you've got, that revelation that you've got. They need it. What good is going up there and just moving around a throne saying, worthy, worthy? Why not help some people? That's not biblical, that's my thinking, okay? That's the way I think. What good is it going to do me to get? Somebody's going to hear this and say, that boy don't even want to go to heaven. No, I don't. I want to stay here. And I want to do as much here as I can do. I want to be as effective as I can be. And that way, I don't have any question that it's not going to be at the end of time. But even now, there's times that you will hear the voice of God. You will hear the Spirit of God saying, Well done, my good and faithful servant. Well done. Good job. See, we're waiting on that one day, hoping that that's going to get us through the gate. But I believe he speaks to us now. And says, Well done. Good job. Why? Because we were obedient. That's today. Today.

Closing Prayer For Peace

SPEAKER_00 50:45

Let's pray. Father God, we thank you. We thank you for this word. We thank you for what you're speaking to us. What you're showing us in this word, Father. That you're bringing to light even the distortions in our own life so that we can come to the understanding of truth and know who we really are because we understand who Christ is. He is the invisible image of you. We are made in the image of him. And Father, we are seeing that more and more every day. I pray that every person here that the scales fall off their eyes and they see who they are every day. That they open up and they wake up to the reality of the truth that's already done. Father, we thank you. We thank you that you're not distanced from us, that we're not trying to get to you every day, that you're not pushing us away because we made a mistake. That you love us and you'll never leave us, you'll never forsake us. Father, I pray for the ones in this room and the ones that maybe not here, but they're committed to this church that's dealing with things in their life, Father, that's dealing with a distortion that has taken root in their life. I come against addiction right now, Father. I come against anxiety. I come against depression right now. I speak to it and say it can't stay here. Father, we know the truth, and I command those things to leave right now in the name of Jesus. They have no authority. They have no authority with your sons and daughters. So, Father, I speak against depression right now. And anxiety right now. It's gotta go. It can't stay. So, Father, I thank you for peace that flows through every heart in this room. I thank you that peace flows through the minds of every person in this room as we understand our identity, as we see more and more every day the truth of who we are. That every distorted thought has to flee. Every way that I see myself that is not of you, it's gotta go. It can't stay anymore. But Father, we know that that only comes as our eyes are open to truth. When truth comes, it reveals lies, and lies can't stay. So we thank you, Father, and we'll be careful to always give you the praise, the honor, and the glory in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.