Defining Your Christianity

Discover your purpose in the Body of Christ by studying biblical examples and walking in your God-given role. This teaching explores the difference between asking, seeking, and knocking, the importance of fruitfulness, making an impact on others, and developing a heart aligned with God’s will. Learn why spiritual growth requires study, perseverance, application, and patience with God’s process.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So I wanna continue on uh the t the topics in which we've been covering. Um we've been covering it but we've been doing more marriage editions, amen. So this is like um these are things that are very applicable in the body, but you find that it's more marriage uh uh related. So we kind of relate it more to relationships and marriage and stuff. Um and I explained to you that we're doing that because of the season that we're in. Amen. We're doing that because of the season that we're in. So we'll continue in such a line. So I wanted to talk to you about defining your your role. Defining your role. I wanted to talk to you about defining your role in the body of Christ. What kind of person do you want to become? There should be a definite picture of the kind of person that you want to become in the house of God. Amen. And the best way to do that is to find someone in the scripture to model your life after. Amen. And Jesus should be the nucleus of that. Of course, Jesus is um the one we all aim to be like, but you can find others in which you may feel in certain areas you relate with them a little bit more consistently with amen. And before you make decisions, you can ask yourself, go back to that person's life story where they made mistakes and where they didn't. Would that person behave in such a way? That's a question you should ask yourself. Amen. So as a Christian, you want to define your position in the body. What position do you want to hold in the body? What significance do you want to hold in the body? When you come to church, you must know why you are coming to church. Why am I here? And what am I expecting church to do for me? And it's important for you to ask yourself these questions because if your reasons are wrong, so if you come to church for the wrong reasons, and church happens to not meet those reasons, you may find yourself leaving again. So, for example, some people come to church because they're looking for a community, but that's not what was promised in the scripture. So, some some are looking for a good community of people, all right, and they come to church and find a bad community of people. Say, I don't want to be here, because it's a bad community of people, and what is good and what is bad is also defined by them, not by the Bible. Amen. When you're dealing with spiritual matters, you have to walk very carefully. You're not to come to church, that's not a good enough reason to find a church and to be a church, is to find a good community. Brother, sister, that may be the reason that you stayed. Okay, you you came and you stayed because you found a good community, all right. But ongoing, it shouldn't be the reason why you're staying. You should come to the knowledge that I am staying here for bigger than just a community. There's more to it than just a community, amen. So you must define your purpose in the body, define your purpose in the body. What is it? What is your purpose in the body of Christ? Define what kind of person you want to be in the body of Christ and walk in that manner from the beginning. If you want to be someone of great impact, study those in the scripture who had great impact, amen. And then begin to find ways in impacting, and impact starts on the inside before it comes outside before you impact anyone or anything, you must be impacted first? Amen. What kind of person do you want people to see you when they look at you or come around you? What happens to people when they come close to you? Are they all offended? Every time someone comes close to you, they get offended. Are you breaking people's hearts? Or do people come close to you and they find that they are growing? They are inspired. Inspired to be more like Christ after someone finishes a conversation with you, or they live around you, or they're around you, they feel hungry to be more spiritual because they're spending time with you, they are around you. What kind of person do you want to be? Define your purpose with the way you behave, define your purpose with the way you think. Some choose to just hold the money, okay, in the body of Christ. What do I mean by that? Amongst the twelve apostles, you had Judas who was holding the money. That's what he was good for. His entire journey was economical. For him, holding the money, counting the money, that was where he wanted to be seated. And the temptations of that purpose presented themselves to him, and he started stealing. Amen. Peter decided, I'm not interested in money. Yeah, because when you look later down the line, when even Jesus ascends, he sees a poor man on the floor, and he says, Silver and gold I do not have. So Peter was broke. That's what he decided. Amen. But one thing I know is that people would come around Peter and be healed. Listen to what Peter preached. Go and read first Peter. Amen. And you find out the way he spoke, the things he taught, and the people that came around him, how inspired they were. Who is this man? Some thought that he was still alive. So who is this man called Jesus? Amen. You can define the type of believer that you are in the body. What shape are you taking in the body? Are you a passive Christian? Or are you the opposite? Define your journey. Amen. If a Bible is written from the time you were born all the way up to now, how many chapters would you have? You know, some people in the scripture didn't even get a chapter, they got three, four lines, all right, of terrible things. All we know of them is they were they were evil. And that's it. Others got, you know, a little bit more than that. And of evil as well. To be impactful, you know, to define your journey, it starts with uh thinking less of yourself during the week and thinking more of others. You know, as I'm growing in the faith, and as I've been growing in the faith, I've discovered that you know praying for myself is the way of the children. I find myself praying for others so much more. I pray for others so much more, and God starts to deal with my stuff. Whatever it is I have going on, he starts to deal with it because I give my attention to others, I pray for others so much more. Amen. Now you may be in a position now where you're uh asking yourself, how do I I've tried this, I've tried this, how do I define my journey? How do I do this thing? I read, I was reading two days ago, I was reading Matthew chapter seven, yeah. And I found it to be very interesting what Jesus was saying there. Matthew chapter seven. Can we go there for a second? Matthew chapter seven. Jesus said some very interesting things there. He kind of teaches us something.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Thank you, sir. Matthew chapter seven from verse one says from verse uh sorry, from verse seven.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

What's up seven?

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Thank you, sir. Matthew chapter seven from verse seven says, Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Verse eight, for everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Amen. Now I was reading that and I thought to myself, that's that's interesting. Okay, and uh you're probably asking yourself, why is this interesting? It's interesting because Jesus gives us multiple different ways of getting what we want. Okay, so he says, Ask and you receive. Knock and the door will be open unto you. Is that what's in your Bible? Okay, so sometimes I found that when we are to ask, we are knocking. Do you understand that? And when we are to knock for a door to be opened, we are asking. And when we are to seek for it ourselves, we are knocking. So that was very interesting for me because God was is what Jesus was trying to show them that there are multiple different ways of attaining what you're looking for. But if you do it the right way, you will get what you're after. You will get what you're after, but there's a way to go about that thing. So finding your feet or finding your purpose in the body of Christ, there's a sure way of doing it. And you can't be tired. You may just you may have just started a year ago and you've been knocking for one year. You don't get tired because you've been knocking for one year and the door hasn't opened. Maybe this is a seeking situation, not a knocking situation. You have to put yourself in that place where the Holy Spirit can inspire you to go and search. Seek, go and search the scriptures. I told you there are some things you don't pray about. I used to pray for money. I don't pray for money anymore. You know how I came to that discovery by seeking. I didn't knock. You're too quiet. To find that this to discover that, I went and I searched. I seeked. I looked. I didn't ask. What I what do I mean by I didn't ask? I asked first, nothing came. I asked for a long time, nothing came. Now, in that moment, it's so easy to get offended. But you said I should ask, you should ask, I should be asking anything I ask in your name, you will give it to me. So I'm asking, money is not coming, but you forgot to read the rest of the scripture. He gave you multiple roads, and different things are at the end of those roads. So if you're looking to be a good husband, do you go and knock on the door? Ah, you're too quiet. If I want to go and open a successful business, am I asking? Most of the things you're looking for are in the seeking department. It's just that we have a lot of lazy Christians who want God to do everything for them. Most of the things you're looking for are in the seek, and you will find. Oh, Pastor, I just want to be a better person. I've been praying about it. I've been praying, I've been praying about it. Praying about being a better person. Go and read. Hmm. You're way too quiet. Go and read. Praying to be a better person is like praying for knowledge about your university to come to your brain so you can pass the course. So when I say go and seek, I mean go and study. In case you didn't know, studying is spiritual. Oh, yes. Going to university and sitting down and listening to your lecturer is a spiritual thing. Father, I would love to get married. What department is that? So if you want to get married, you ask God. Do you ask God? Some are saying it's all of them. You must knock, you must seek, you must you have to do everything. You have to beg, you have to. Tell your neighbor there's a sure way. There is a sure way. That means that if you take this route, it is sure that you will get what you're looking for. Amen. So to be a good husband or a good wife, stop asking. Go and search. Because the personality you're looking for is in the scripture. Pastor, I want God to take me to a very high position in politics. So I'm praying about it. Another thing I learned from Matthew 7 is this interesting truth as well. Is that in order to get what you're looking for, you need to be tenacious. You need to be tenacious. You must be tenacious. Don't give up too quickly. You won't understand that until I explain. Ostrich behaved. You know what that is? You see something, all right, that challenges you, and you put your head in the sand. Stick your head in the sand, and you're locked. That's where you stay. I don't want to see anything else. God wants to work with those who something goes wrong. You say we go again. Yeah, things are going bad. If you want to cry, you cry. You just sit down and cry for five minutes. Say, Satan, you're only gonna get five minutes. Yeah, because you're in the beginning, alright? You may not be where I am, but you will get there. You understand? So you sit down if you want to cry. Okay, five Satan, you have five minutes. Enjoy it. You cry, wipe those tears after five minutes. Say no more. Why are you so quiet? If you love pity, you want us to sympathize with you. You want us to feel sorry for you. The whole world is against you. Even so, even if the whole world was against you, he spoke to you in John chapter 15. He said, I've picked you from the world. I've made you my own. The world was against me, so there will be against you. That's something to shout about. Remember, define your journey. Define your neighbor, define your journey. You are the one that chooses what people say about you. When we talk of Enoch, what we know is he was so good with God that God took him. What a story. When we talk of Abraham, we say this is the father of faith. What are we to say about? You what are we to say about you? Are you falling into the Doubting Thomas area? Are you unbearable to be around? Amen. I heard, yeah, I heard a uh a young man. He was talking about um one of his mentors from the past. And this is I'm digressing a little bit just to to drive a point, all right? But he was talking about one of his mentors, and he said, Um, uh, he's very difficult to be around. Amen. He's very, very difficult to be around. Um, but then in the same breath, he was he he would speak of how much the person has helped him. I said, This this person is very difficult to be around. So I was saying, this is an interesting contrast in my spirit. I was that's what I was saying. This is interesting that you can say this person is difficult to be around, but yet the person has helped you so much. Could it be that you are difficult to be around? Since you're the one being helped. Amen. Because difficult is subjective. Do you understand? So, how can you talk of how can you say this person has helped me, has blessed me, but they're very difficult to be around. Maybe you are the one that's very difficult to be around. So he was saying stuff like if this person wants Coca-Cola now, you can be in the middle of a desert, you have to you have to go and find it. He will not take anything else. He says, That's difficult. It's a difficult to be around that that guy. I found that to be interesting. Amen. Now, the reason I've brought that point up, okay, is because perception, which I've preached about, perception is so important. If you read the scripture and he says, knock and the door will be opened unto you, but he didn't give you a time, he just said knock and it will be opened. But he didn't say if you knock for five days, if you knock for three days, if you knock for two days, he didn't say seek for a year and you will find. He said just seek. Difficulty is in your mind. Amen. Yeah, I'm not saying some things are not more challenging than others because my my uh my combat sports coach always says to me, stop. Oh, it's not just me, to us, all right? The ones that he trains, he always says, stop complaining about the pain, it's meant to hurt, and I find that to be so fascinating. He said, Stop complaining, it's meant to hurt. You're fasting, you say, Ah, my belly! Why? Praise God. Why was fasting meant to be nice? Should I preach about prosperity instead? Because that's what you like. You want me to tell you that you're a millionaire? Tell your neighbor, define your journey. Remove the obstacles in your mind of difficulty, remove them, be a successful Christian that walks with God. Tell your neighbor, be a successful Christian that walks with God. For you to walk with God, I'll show you. Look at this, yeah. Look at this. Let's go to John 15. Look at this. I made up my mind when I read about Paul. I read about Paul, I read, you know, about all these esoteric men in the Bible. I said I'll be a combination of all of them. I loved aspects of Philip's life. Yes, yeah. Philip was an inspiration. There were aspects of his life that one must take on. Amen.

unknown 27:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Even Thomas, although he is a doubter, there are aspects that you can learn from him. I've taken on different personalities, and I said, I will take all of them and I will not let this thing go. This thing that Christ deposited in us, I will make something of it. Read John 15.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Thank you, sir. John chapter 15 from verse 1. Thank you, sir. John chapter 15 from verse 1 says, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. Verse 2. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Verse three.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Amen. We'll continue reading. We'll continue. I want you to write this down. Write um the trees, the branches, sorry, that are cut down are diseased branches. Now, if you read that passage here carefully, Jesus doesn't actually say that. Jesus says that the branch that does not produce is the one that gets cut. Amen. I've said that the diseased one gets cut. And I'll tell you why. Because you there's multiple scriptures that have to make up the doctrine. Amen. Jesus spoke wholly. Okay, he said simply the ones that do not produce. But if you look at trees and branches, you find that there are some branches that are too young to produce. If you didn't know that, I'm telling you. Yeah, they're too young. They start producing typically between one to three years old. Branches. Okay. Now, there are also branches that are retarded. Yeah. There are branches that are retarded. So that means that something in the in the nourishment process went wrong. It stopped the branch from producing fruit. Amen. But then you also have now diseased branches. Okay? You have pests there. Alright. You have insects that are feasting on that branch. Those are the kinds that get uprooted and thrown in the fire. Because those ones can spread to good ones. One. Two, they require more energy from the tree. So they drain the resources of the tree, yet they produce nothing. So if you look in the house of God, if you look in your friendship circle, there's there will or there sometimes is a person who is so toxic but requires the most attention. You're too quiet. That is the kind of individual you cut off immediately. You may have friends or people in the body of Christ that are not producing yet because they're still going through nourishment. They're going through that process. Sometimes there's not much sunlight, so you must position them correctly. Do you understand that? You must position them correctly, give them the proper nourishment, and then you find that the person is producing. Those individuals are ready to be molded. They are in the wrong position, but then when you tell them you're standing in the wrong place, they're able to move and the nourishment now comes. Same with being a husband or a wife. If you are not moldable, let me let me tell you something. Did you know when Jesus met Peter, he was married? Did you know that? But did you know that he also took a wife from the church after? So it's either he had two wives or he divorced the other one. Now, Peter was a leader. If you go to the book of Timothy, it says that pastors, preachers should have one wife. So we know he had one wife. So that means he left the other one. What caused Peter, the head of the church at that time, to leave the other one? Jesus actually healed Peter's mother-in-law. If you read the Bible, he did. So he was married, but he left that woman. She was diseased. Diseased people would tell you, if you're strong enough, why don't you stay around me? Maybe you're the problem. They don't understand that a bad apple always affects the good. Praise God forevermore. So in the body of Christ, you may be one that needs more nourishing. Alright? And God is saying, I'm not gonna cut that one off. You're not producing, but I want you to produce. I won't cut that one off. Produce some fruit. Let me see some changes. Let me see some changes in your behavior. Now I said earlier on in the message, I said uh find someone to model yourself after. Of course, you can model yourself after your pastor, that's that's not a problem, but go in the scripture and find a person in whom you can study how they approach things. I studied multiple people. I studied Timothy, I studied Titus, which is one of my favorite people in the Bible, Titus. Because of his level of sonship. Titus impacted his father in the Lord so much that his his father said, his father got to a crusade and said, I I can't I can't minister until Titus gets here. Yeah. Read what Paul said. I got he got to a place where he wanted to pray for people. He said, I have to wait for Titus. He said, I felt empty because my son Titus wasn't with me. I read that, I was so inspired. I said, I have to be like that. Amen. Then I read about the faith of Timothy. Timothy had faith, he was a man of faith. So I found multiple people to model my journey after. So I have a sure way of making impact. Are you making impact? Or has your Christian life been all about you? Listen, brother, take your eyes off yourself. Nobody has ever walked successfully looking at themselves. You didn't understand that, did you? Maybe I should practicalize it for you. How about you stand up and walk in a straight line and look at your belly? Or even look at your feet. The successful ones look outside of themselves. Successful people look outside of themselves. Not one person has ever been successful in the kingdom by looking at themselves and focusing on themselves. Amen. Tell your neighbor, define your journey. See what I'm teaching you now is is very spiritually challenging. Because as I'm teaching you, what may come to your mind is but I have many problems, I have many things I have to deal with. I have many even faults of myself, I have many things about me. Amen. Nonetheless, he says, focus on others, I will take care of you. Amen. Blessing. Read uh John 15. I think we stopped at verse 2 or 3. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Thank you, sir. John chapter 15 from verse 2 says, Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Verse three, you are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Verse four, abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. Verse five. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. Verse six. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Amen. You know, I also studied Jesus and I'm still studying him. I studied him for a long time and I'm still studying him. I found Jesus to be a person, a God, who wants what he deserves. Do you understand that? He wants what he deserves. Jesus was very efficient in his ways. Okay, very efficient. He didn't waste time, he didn't waste money, he didn't waste resources, he didn't waste ideas. I found that Jesus only spoke when he was spoken to. Very efficient. Amen. Very, very efficient person. So in this scripture, he says here, if you I'm the vine and you are the branches, and you're not bearing fruit. Okay, now here's the shocker. If he is the vine, and you are the branch, and you bear fruit, are you bearing fruit for him? You're not catching on. You're not catching on. If he is the vine, yeah, and you are the branch, when you bear fruit, are you bearing fruit for him? Who are you bearing fruit for? For others to pluck and eat. Did you see what I said about other people?

unknown 39:46

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

He wants you to be so hyper focused on others. You're too concerned about your own life. You can't walk this journey like that. That's why you're struggling to win souls, brother. Because every day you're thinking about you. This morning, I woke up and this happened to me. Tomorrow, this will happen to me. You're worried about your bills. You're worried about your schooling, you're ready to kill everybody about yourself. And don't be you can't fool God. Working in the church doesn't mean that you're about others. Do you remember that king I showed you about? The Bible says very clearly he did the right thing with the wrong heart. He wasn't loyal. Oh, he wasn't loyal at all. So he was doing what God asked him to do, but his heart was not in it. He had an unloyal heart, he wasn't in it. Praise God. I said, So God is saying, like Jesus is saying, because at the end of that, he said the branch will be plucked off and thrown into the fire. Very interesting. We're gonna read that again, but we're gonna read that specific part. Yeah. Where did you stop? Okay, verse 6. If a man abide not in me, he is cast cast forth as a branch and is withered. Yeah? You hear that? And men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned. So what do you think he's saying? If you don't become an investor of people, you are not fruitful. And if you're not fruitful and others cannot use you, your path is surely hell. That was a metaphor he was giving for how the roadmap to hell. So a lot of people will not end up in hell because they did bad things, they will end up in hell because they were unfruitful. And based on that revelation, you'll be shocked if you get to heaven with the people you see there. You say, ah, you you you you you were gossiping. You gossiped, but in that person's gossiping, they filled up the kingdom of God. They were filling up the kingdom because God dealt with the problem of sin, but he didn't deal with the problem of disobedience. When he died on the cross, he didn't die for those who have been disobedient, he died for those who were in sin and chose to come out, but that's where it stops. He didn't die for those who were disobedient, he didn't deal with that problem. So I'll explain because some of you may challenge me on this point, so I'll explain. So if I come to you and I say, receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and you say, No, I will not receive him as your Lord and Savior, are you going to heaven? Speak now. So I thought his death dealt with that. He didn't deal with that. The power of the cross stops somewhere, and it stops at the place of disobedience. That's what I'm trying to explain to you. He dealt with those who know they are wrong and have accepted him. But he did not deal with those who are wrong and strong. Amen. Now when you come into the kingdom, you can still be wrong and strong. As you are a branch, he's ordered you to be fruitful. It is not enough to sweep in the church here. It's not enough. It is not enough for you to play drums. It's not enough. It's not enough to say I'm a singer. It's not enough. He wants souls. Do you understand that? People, human beings, because that's who he died for. So he put uh tools like evangelism. Evangelism is bringing the message all around the world. Soul winning is where it becomes now the process of bringing someone from darkness into the marvelous light and keeping them there. So a lot of you have invited a bunch of people this year, but you failed the second part to keep them. You started so well, you you done so well, you brought them, and then you know what happened? Your focus became on you. Because that's what happens. The beginning of the year, everything's fine, you're on fire, and then over time, your focus turns on yourself. Now, in case you didn't notice, when your focus is now on you, your back turns on others. If I were to behave like you, I will hardly pick your calls. So, one of the things that I do daily is I challenge myself to make my day about other people. Make it about others. Because that's what he's asked me to do. Amen. So as the Spirit of God is ministering to you now, you should be thinking about all the ones you invited this year, and this week you should go absolutely focused on calling them, reaching out to them, ministering to them because a lot of them need you, and you left them, you became focused about yourself. And the beauty of what I'm teaching you now is but marriage will have to be that way. You will not focus on yourself in marriage. People say I don't want to lose myself in marriage. You will, you will, so I can't keep my identity in marriage. Nope. Nope. And if you're challenging me and you're unmarried, that's not really wise. Because that's why I'm here and you're not. You're not married, are you? Amen. Yeah, you gotta focus. You're gonna have to focus on the other person. If you want your marriage to be successful, focus on how the other person is feeling. Amen. Focus on that other person, and it has to go both ways. If it's one-sided, the thing will tumble. It's like a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi schemes are top heavy. Amen. Am I hurting your feelings of what I'm saying? You look upset. Blessing read from verse um six to eleven.

SPEAKER_01 47:57

Thank you, sir. John chapter 15 from verse 6 says, If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. Verse 7, if you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. Verse 8. By this my father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples. Verse 9. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 48:35

Did you hear there's something you missed there? It says, If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Didn't I tell you that when you focus on others, God will start focusing on you? He says the prerequisite for asking me for something is you bearing fruit. But you know what some people do? Some people ask to bear fruit. He didn't ask you to do that. Some people go and ask to bear fruit. He said, No, bear fruit first, then come and ask me about yourself because bearing fruit is a thing of seeking, not asking. Amen. I didn't, you see, there's many ministers of ministers of the gospel that pray, God, give me a bigger church. He will never, never, never, he will never. It's something you have to go and seek out. What is seeking out? You have to search. The deeper things of God. And find out what what are the constitutions of your impact and influence growing. You got to figure that out by yourself. Even those I'm gonna send out into ministry, I won't tell them how to do it. That part of the journey they have to figure out by themselves. So some of them may have 10 members for 10 years. It's based on how aggressive they've gone and searched the scriptures.

SPEAKER_02 50:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

Amen. Yeah. Yeah. Ministry is not a business. You don't grow the church like a business. You put flyers, you can put hundreds of flyers. If you're not doing the principles, the church won't grow. You would be burning money. Doesn't work like that. Most of the massive, massive, massive churches you're seeing, alright, is two things. One, on one side, they've been in the game of longevity 20, 25 years plus. Yeah, they've been around for years since 1996, 1992. Praise God. These churches have been around for years. And the set man in charge has sat with God and he figured it out. Praise God. He figured it out. And those types of men, you won't sit with them and they're just telling you, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You have to go through it yourself. You have to go through it yourself. And it happens. Every time I tell her the church is gonna expand a little bit now, she sees them. God in heaven is my witness. I'll tell her, okay, in the next two, three months, you'll see an expansion. And then it happens. You know why? Because I'm discovering the secret step by step. There's the just discovering the secret in the scripture, and then there's the application of this of what you discovered. And God is not, He's not like Satan where he rushes you, he doesn't care about speed. He doesn't, he's not interested in speed. God can keep you in the same class for 15 years, you're you're 15 years old, there's little toddlers around you, you're all in the same class. He'll keep you there. Because in the school of the Holy Spirit, you're not skipping classes, you learn the lessons and you move forward. Is this too difficult for you to understand? Yeah. So in the context of marriage, yeah, you may be hitting the same wall over and over again. And you're praying and crying to God. God says, It's not my problem. This is you have set the secrets in the Bible. Go and search the scriptures, go and find out why it is that you keep offending your husband, or go and find out why it is that you keep breaking your wife's heart. What is it that you're doing wrong? You have to go and discover that. And God will leave you there and watch you for 15 years. You're hitting the same wall like this. This doctrine of God coming to bail you out. I'm uprooting that out of your brain. He will not come and save you because he saved you. Do you understand that? Yeah, he won't. He will not set you free because it tells us in 1 John that he set us free already. Amen. Yeah, he will not come and give you more strength because he gave you all the strength you needed on the cross. And if I'm Christ, I'll ask you, what else do you want from me? I actually died like on a low key, even high key. I died on the highest key, I died on the cross. What else do you want from me? And I'm and the Bible says he made you a joint hair with Christ. So you so he not only died for you, but he gave you the same position as himself, and you're still asking him for strength. What kind of what kind of thing? What are you doing? God, I need help with my exams. Why? Why do you need help with your exams? Why you have all the help you need? Instead of crying out and asking for help, for exam, say I have the help I need. I have all the help I need for my exams, for my schooling, for my future. I have all the help I need. Yeah. Praise God forevermore. Seek and you will find. He said, It is a short seek and you will find.

SPEAKER_02 54:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:53

Seek and you will find. Amen. So the question is, in what instances, or maybe I should cover this next week. In what instances? I'm thinking, should I cover this next week? In what instances does one knock? And in what instances does one ask? When how do I know when to ask, when to knock, and when to seek? Maybe I should cover that next week. David said, Sir. You better flow. But this is this is what should make you come back to church. Some of you I have to put you in this position so you come back and learn next week. We will not see you again until the end of summer. In what instances do I knock and the door is opened unto me? In what instances do I ask? When do I know to ask? I would like to hear from you. Just for one minute. When do you ask him? Since he's giving me everything, what am I asking him for? I'll start you off with this. He's giving you everything you need. So you are a rich person discovering his wealth. Okay? You are a healthy person discovering his or her health. You are a wise person discovering his wisdom. So you have everything you need. Amen. Good. So when do I ask? I'll give you this. You ask for his will. You ask for his will and you will receive his will. Now I'm gonna say something that will throw some of you off if you haven't been with me for a long time. Okay. When I'm saying his will, I'm saying his way of doing things, not what he wants for you. Why am I saying his way of doing things and not what he wants for you? Because he said, Ask anything in my name. So if it was about what he wants for you, he wouldn't say ask anything. He said, Ask anything. So that removes what he wants for you. It's about what you want for yourself. Do you understand? But he says, Ask me what you want in the way I want you to ask, in the manner in which I want you to ask. So this is where I'm gonna end now because this is gonna get technical, and I can go over that next week, it's too technical. So this could be a classic case of okay, father, I want a good career, I want to be a uh a star, okay, an actor. I want to be an actor, okay. I want to act, and I want to be known all over the world. Okay, now what I just did there is me putting my request to him. Yeah, I want to be known all over the world, I want to be famous, which is not a bad request, okay, but he will respond with, ask me in the way I've asked you to ask me. What does that mean? It means before you can make such a request, there are things you should have done beforehand. There are some things you have to do before you can ask such a request. Joshua didn't just wake up and say, Father, stop the sun. Joshua didn't say it will be daytime for two days. There are things that he went through. First, he was anointed by Moses, took the position. Do you think Joshua could have done that as Moses' second? This thing is so Moses, Moses was the chief man in charge, the set man in charge, and he had his second, which was Joshua, and Joshua had to wait for Moses to die to ask for certain things. Because his position, the position he was in, did not qualify him to ask for something of that magnitude. Do you understand that? So going back to the scripture I gave you earlier on in John 15, he said, Yeah, bear fruit first, then ask me later. So you asking him to be a star for him to make you an actor, yeah, he will redirect you back to John 15. Have you bore fruit? Now, the the key question is why? And I'll end here. Why has he put a process in place before you ask him for anything? Because that process will purge you of self-desire. So by the time you get to the place where you're asking for something for yourself, even in that request, it's for others. You're saying, Let me be an actor so I can impact others. You're not thinking about yourself. So whilst one person can come to God and say, God, make me an actor, God says, and he looks that way. And the other says, God, make me an actor. Bang. That person becomes an actor and becomes a star all over the world. You know why? One person went through the school, the process, and the other didn't. One is asking for self-gratification, and the other is asking to impact the body to bring more influence into the body. What God is after is a heart after his own. This is where I will adjourn. Amen. I will adjourn here. Try and listen to the podcast over and over again. I gave you a lot of meat here. Listen to it over and over again. That might be what is stopping your business from exploding. You want to be rich so everyone knows you have a resource. That's that's your dream. And then when you see people like that that think about themselves, when they arrive there, they become abusers. That's what happened to your friend. Uh what's this guy's name? Diddy. Did he do it? He did do it. Yeah, that's what happened to him. He got there to the pinnacle and started abusing everybody. Yet there was no pruning. He wasn't purged. That's what happens when you give a man who is not purged so much authority. He starts using others like a rag. You think he had influence? You should have met Christ. In his time, he could speak, and the economy will crash. And I'm not talking about spiritually, I said economical, political influence. This man would go into the desert, people will follow him. He had what I call kinetic influence. Where people will move with him. If he decided I'm relocating to Egypt, everyone in Israel will also go to Egypt. They will follow him there. So many times they tried to make him king, and he said no. You know why? He was pruned. He went through the process. You think amongst those women, there were not people that tried to sleep with him? You didn't you didn't think about that, did you? The Bible says he went through all manner, all manner of temptations. So women tried to cook for him, they tried to sleep with him, they tried to influence him, they tried to whisper into his ear. Even witchcraft was put before him. Satan appeared and said, Come and serve me. Is that no witchcraft? Jesus went through all the most powerful man in the world, yet he was washing people's feet. That's what you call pruned process. Don't rush. Amen. You will get there. You will get there. You want to be an actor? Go for it. But understand, a Christian actor goes through process. So you cannot compare your journey with a worldly actor. So that you may be going for an audition and you miss that audition and you don't get the job because God doesn't think you're ready. Amen. You may be a banker, a Christian banker. Alright? And God is not allowing you into the next stage of your career because He doesn't think you're ready. Praise God. There are great women and men of God here. Great. Great. The problem, the problem is you don't understand that you're in school.

unknown 1:04:53

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:54

You're in year one. Exactly. You're learning. You're in year one. You're in year one right now. Don't expect to give your life to Christ and immediate. Anybody that tells you, I gave my life to Christ, within six months I became wealthy. He didn't give his life to Christ. I know the God I'm talking about. Amen. I know this God. He will let you fight with your hands until your heart is for him. God bless you. Let's pray. Let's pray. Thank you for listening to Pastor Max's teachings. Make sure to subscribe and for more information, find us at Faith and Victory Wallace.