Repentance - (part one)

The first message of Jesus' ministry was a message of repentance.  If our desire and our intent is to live for Jesus, we must repent.  we must become godly sorry for all of our sins before God and before heaven.

Repent and turn from the sin s we have committed.  Repent, that we may be forgiven, and cleansed of our sins.

Transcript

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 0:03

We want to talk about something also that uh this morning that that the Holy Ghost has been trying to teach us uh through the Word of God. And now here's the thing about it. I know that a lot of us think here how can I say this? When we don't have, I'm going back to this knowledge thing, when we don't have a knowledge, a true knowledge of how to do a thing, we as human beings will try to do a thing or figure out a thing based on how we see it, or based on how we understand it, with our level level and our limit limited understanding. But I'm finding y'all when it comes to a lot of things in the word of God, we have to seek out this true knowledge of just how things are supposed to be. When I say supposed to be, I mean in line with what God says, in line with the word of God, and what we and how we are supposed to actually do that thing. And and the area that I want to deal with this morning is it's the area of repentance. And we've been, we done heard this word all our lives and and and in the church world, but do we actually have a true understanding of what repentance is? And if we don't have an understanding of what repentance is, we'll find ourselves doing it our way, and our way could be wrong if it's not in line with the word of God. We must get it in our spiritual understanding, we must get it in our spiritual seeking of the truth. To do things based on what the word teaches, not add nothing, not take nothing away from it, but exactly like the word of God teaches. We've been taught that repentance is just a form of for asking for forgiveness. Don't get me wrong. Yes, there's an element in repentance where you are asking for forgiveness, but it's so much more in repentance that we need to understand that goes along with the spirit of repentance. You're actually, you have to be actually sorry, truly sorry for what you've done. To the point that that sorrow or that that godly sorrow or that contrite spirit that's bothering your conscience for what you did and or what you said, that it also brings with it a spirit of wanting to turn from that thing with the intent of not ever doing that thing again. I ain't say you're not gonna do it again, but in your heart you don't want to do that thing no more. You don't want to do it again. Because the sorrow in your heart, the repentance, or the as the as we're gonna say that the penitence that's in you bothered you so bad, and you felt so given that you, your conscience, where is your conscience that bothered you so I don't want to do that no more, Lord. Help me, help me not to do that thing again. That's the spirit of true repentance. When you not only say, I'm sorry, forgive me, but in your heart, you have the intent of not ever doing that, whatever it is you did before God and before heaven, you have the heart and the spirit not to ever do that thing again. Let me just read a few things here to you before we get into the word. It's a feeling of sorrow, of self-reproach. Anybody ever just hated, did something, and you hated your hated, almost hated yourself for having done it. You just you yourself felt such a reproach against your own self. What in the world was I thinking? How in the world did I let myself do that? What was wrong with me? Listen, I know it, I know what you did or what we did may have been bad, but let me let me let me get a little hope in there. It's a good thing. I know it's gonna be hard for somebody to believe. But trust me on this, just trust me on this. It's a good thing when you do feel bad about what you done did. Because I come across people all the time, don't bit more feel nothing about what they do, about what they say, or who they do it or say it to. They don't have no conscience, they don't care about hurting people, about doing things that went against somebody. Now, if you feel and feel have a conscience enough where you still feel bad about what you did, yeah, what you did is wrong. But thank God that you still got a conscience to feel bad. Because as long as that there is present with you, you're gonna have it in you what it takes to turn from whatever it is you did. You're gonna have it in you to repent for what you have done. Sometimes it can almost stricken your conscience. I don't know, is any of y'all been here before? But just keep living. Let me just like the old folks say, just keep living. Sometimes there are things in your life that can bother you all day and all night. It'll be on your mind. It won't let you rest. It won't let you get comfortable, it won't let you be at ease. Because that thing that you did is bothering you so, so bad, you just got to do something to get it straight. You feel such a regret, dissatisfied with yourself, over some action or something you did or said. You feel such a contrite, you have such a contrite spirit over the sins that you did, that as a result of you doing it, it is pushing you to change or to make a decision to change your ways. I'm talking about repentance this morning. We're gonna talk about repentance because we need that. Because I'm gonna show you the word of God and I'm gonna let Jesus say, I'm gonna show you something Jesus said, that except we repent, do y'all know a whole lot cannot happen in our lives or come about even as a result of us saying we serve the Lord and we doing his will? Do you not know that a lack of the hesitancy of having repented, until you do that, it can block your prayers, it can block your relationship with God, because until sin is repented of, sin stays present. You hear what I say? Until we repent of the sins we've done, in order for God to blot them out and remove them from our lives, until we do that, those sins and the stains of those sins stays present. Which means our lives still remain stained in the eyesight of the Lord. And we all know that the word of God teaches as long as sin is present in our lives, it keeps us separated from God. It puts a distance between us and God. Because God cannot, he cannot bring himself close to the presence of sin in your life, he cannot operate in your life alongside you operate in sin in your life. Something got to go. Now, since we cannot undo our past, undo the sin we just committed or have committed, what God has provided in his plan for our lives is forgiveness and repentance through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, because Jesus has paid the price in the shedding of his blood for the things that we done. Jesus died, or let me say like this: Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, because the whole world had not repented of their sin, because repentance was even wasn't even available until Christ. You couldn't repent and nothing happened. But now, because of Jesus, and he has shed his blood as payment for the sins we've done, the unrepentant sins that we've done, now God can accept our repentance and forgive us our sins. But there's still a step that keeps that from happening. God's forgiveness or the acceptance of your repentance cannot happen if you don't never go to him and repent. If you don't never go to him and say, Lord, forgive me. From a true heart, from a true spirit, y'all, not just your mouth. That's why the Bible is letting us know you got to be sorry in your heart. God, that's why the Bible said, God uses the term godly sorrow. Because everybody, there's a difference in you being sorry toward me, but then there's a difference also a whole different thing when it comes to godly sorry. You are sorry before God that you did it. And everybody has not gotten to that level that they can really truly say that they are godly sorry for the things that they've done. Repenting is being penitent in your heart. You gotta see, you got a lot of people that's gotta repent in heart. I was a young lady years ago, years ago, uh she's grown now, married, and got cheered. Uh, but I re I would always notice her in the congregation. She would do her dirt, she would mess up, she would do wrong, she still would come to church. But the one thing I notice about her, and I know a lot of people look down upon her, because you know a lot of us, we we we when we should be trying to find the pathway to repentance ourselves, we really find that pathway to judge people. And that's what we so wrong in. I'm not sorry, right? I got some word for you. But they would, but I would notice something else. The Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost would always show me something else that was present about this young lady, and to this day I haven't forgotten. I don't I never even told her that I saw this in her, saw this spirit in her. Never, so never to this day have I told her. But I in my heart have kept it. No matter how much dirt she did, come back to the church and have to get on the altar and have to all this repentance. The one thing the spirit, the Holy Ghost told me about her was no matter how much she did, until she got it right, she saved today. I think she's a spy missionary with a family hub and church, all that now. But back then she was a child, teenager. The Holy Ghost showed me one thing about her that stuck with me. It said to me that no matter how much she done, you see how she's always quick to ask God for forgiveness. She was always quick to repent, had a spirit of repentance to go before God. And a lot of people as I still don't may not see the point. I'm making even in this, but the point I'm trying to make and I'm trying to show you is when you have a spirit to get things back right with God quickly, and not let them have time to fester, not give sin time to develop even deeper in your life, but you have a spirit to go to God, Lord, please forgive. Repent. Be quick to repent. Be quick to not let yourself stay away from God, the present of God too long, by seeing blocking your relationship with God. She was quick to get it right with God, to turn back to God. And you say what you want to say. That you shouldn't have to do all that. But look how many times the children of ears had to keep repenting and turning back to God. They'll get away from God, they go back to God. Get away from God, go back to God. Say what you want to say. If when you stop wanting to turn back to God, is when you're gonna be in trouble. I don't care how I tell anybody, okay, I'm just missing if you did. Get it right with God. Because listen, I'm a firm believer of my own life, my own relationship with God. Eventually, the Lord God Himself will get you to a point, to a place in Him where you don't have to keep doing it over again because you're gonna He's gonna get you to you just stay with God. God will get you where you need to be in Him. But don't let the enemy and don't let nobody else try to stop you or make you feel bad about, oh girl, you for you, you you ask for forgiveness every day. You repent every day. So what? At least they're repenting. I've heard people try to put people in buttons, telling them you don't have to ask God for forgiveness every day. How do you know? You don't know what's going on in their life? You got some people, what are they doing? Some are not that just in case I might overlook something. Just in case I didn't realize I had done this, I need to make sure I keep an open channel with me and God. And I'm gonna say, Lord, give up every morning with my daily prayer, my midday prayer, my evening prayer, Lord forgive me. Because He sees things you and I can't see or don't see, or things you and I fail to see about our own lives. It could be in the area of our ugly thinking, could be in our thoughts. No, keep, if you have a repentant spirit, keep that. Because it's gonna help you in the long run. Because a person with who has a spirit of repentance and quick to repent, they not only know they need to repent to God, but they realize, they fully realize just how much they have messed up and what they did or what they said. Oh, I shouldn't have said that. Oh Lord, I and that bothers them. That bothers their conscience. I got to get it right. Not just get it right with God, but I get it right with the people that I messed up with. I'm fully in the realization of my sins. Not just, like I said, it's not just to go to God and ask for forgiveness, but I go to God with the also the want his forgiveness, but I also go to him with a mind, Lord, I don't want to stay like this forever. I want to change, I want to turn from, I want to stop doing. I want this to cease in my life. I want you to get me to a place where this is no longer present in my life, with me tripping over this every so often. One of the main things I like about the understanding of repentance is this. That in biblical sense, in the biblical sense of repentance, it refers to or it can refer to something so deep in you, something so deeply seated in you. That here's the thing about it. Something so deep, you can have something so deep planted into your spirit by the Holy Ghost when it comes to repentance, that you are you are so strongly moved by the spirit of repentance that you want to completely change your I mean your life. You don't want to be who you are or who you came in this world as. You want to completely, I mean, all of you, your mind, your soul, your body, everything about you, you want everything about you to change. Or, in a sense, you want everything about you to turn from what you know yourself to be. And come and completely and totally turn yourself over to God. Completely turn from self. In every sense of the word self, completely turn from self and totally turn to God. And everything he will have of you, and everything he will he will desire of you, in accordance with what his word says for you, totally turn from yourself and totally turn to God. That's the that's the heart of repentance, to turn from that that is not God and turn totally to that that is God with an intent to be turned toward God for the rest of your life. God sent his son. We're all aware of that. But before he sent his son, or before his son on this earth began his ministry, there was another man sent. If you ever read your Bible, it's gonna say God sent him. There was a man, I'm gonna tell you what the scripture said. There was a man, the Bible says, sent by God, whose name was John. Talking about John the Baptist. And John the Baptist's ministry, his entire ministry was consistent and predicated on this one element of our spiritual lives. Repentance. To repent. Because he knew Jesus was coming. I mean, Jesus was already on earth when John was here, but he had just not had started his ministry yet. Because it wasn't gonna be till after John baptized him. And he was led up into the wilderness by the Holy Ghost to be tempted of the devil. That's a whole nother story. But I'm just saying, what happened? Well, John's ministry was repent. For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Let me read a little something to you. You have your Bibles, the book of Matthew. Book of Matthew, chapter, chapter three. A few verses I want to read to you in the book of Matthew about the man whose ministry was based and built upon nothing but repentance. In other words, repentance, getting the people to prepare their hearts for what Jesus is going to bring. See, John just came baptizing and in repentance and baptized was one because that was a prelude to what Jesus was going to bring. Because when Jesus comes bringing Holy Ghost and fire, you got to be ready to receive that. And you cannot receive what Jesus has to offer you if you have not repented of your sin or become godly sorry of the sins that you've done in your life. Let's read Matthew chapter 3. Matthew chapter 3. I'm going to read verses 1 and 2, then I'm going to skip to verses 5, 6, 7, and 8. Verse 1 and 2 says, Matthew chapter 3, verse 1 and 2. In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea. This is what he's saying. This is what his ministry. And saying, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Get yourself together. Jesus is on his way. He's coming representing the kingdom of heaven. Can I say this? Let me sidebar him in. The spirit of John the Baptist, it yet rings. It should be yet ringing clear in the hearts and minds of the people of the world. Because Jesus is on his way back again, and we're going to also need to be have repented. He's still calling for repentance before Jesus gets back here even the second time. The spirit is still ringing. That's why people of God, men and women of God, should be declaring repentance unto the people, unto the world. But you don't hear people talking about repenting no more. But you're going to hear it from me. God wants us to repent because it's so. Why do you think so much is going on in the world today? Lord, does anybody really know, understand what's going on? Because this God has gotten so tired of the sin of mankind. And the stuff that's going on in this world is a result of a sinful world. Because we have gotten so far from God, we have turned so far from God until our own ways that the result has produced such a chaos in this world. Stuff is happening all the time. And we've, while we are, while the world is failing to see, or we just want to still see things how they want to see it, they are failing to see the hand of God. And that's sad to me. Because the world needs to be crying out, repent. It's time for us to repent. It's time for us to stop doing what we're doing. It's time for us to see that God is tired of the stuff that this world is doing. And he's sending warning after warning after warning after warning to get our attention. I'm going to show you that in the word in a few minutes. And how Jesus is on the right hand of God, still trying to intercept. Lord, give him more time. Lord, give them another day. Let me work with them. See if I can get them to repent by letting certain things happen in their lives. A lot of us don't even realize why God allows certain things in our life. I know I'm going away from my text. Why God is allowing certain things in a life. It's not to destroy you, per se, but in the hope that it will get your attention that you will repent. So you won't be lost. Hallelujah. Now let me go, let me try to get back to Matthew. He said, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Let me skip to verse five. Then went out to him, Jerusalem, went out to John, and all Judea and all the region around about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. See that element there? They didn't just come to be baptized, they confessed their sins. Lord, I've been wrong. And baptizer was symbolic to the to the person's lives that they had confessed and repented of their sin. Now the baptism of the washing of the water, baptizing them as a sign that they had confessed and repented of their sins. No, you don't have to do that per se today for your sins to be cleansed, are your lives to be baptized in water. But this is before Jesus' ministry started. So you got to understand the context of it. Now that Jesus has come on the scene and we have my lives, we can just repent to him. Now, yeah, if you still want to be baptized in water, ain't nothing wrong with that. That's perfectly fine. But I'm saying you don't have to, that is not required or will keep you out of heaven if you have not been. But if you just have repented and been baptized in the Holy Ghost, it's what is required to make it into heaven. Having not been baptized in water ain't gonna keep you out of heaven. But having not been baptized in the Holy Ghost will. Verse 7, and when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees, these are these religious sects, these religious groups that was present in his day. We got a religious section now. And religious leaders and all this stuff, but I ain't gonna get into that. Pharisees and Sadducees came, come to him, his baptism. They wanted to come to his meeting, come to his baptism revival. Just to look around. They didn't want to see what he was up to. He said of them, O generation of vibers. He knew they wasn't ever snakes, that's what a viper is. Oh generation of vipers. Who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Hold, hold, let's put a pen in that right quick. Let me go and read verse 8 and then come back to that. This is what he said. Bring forth therefore fruit, meat, M-E-E-T, for repentance. Let me let me just deal with this for a give me here's a few minutes. Bring forth therefore fruit, meat for repentance. When you read this word, that word M-E-E-T, it doesn't, it's spelled the same way we spell it. But when this was written in this text, that word M-E-E-T is a Greek word with a Greek definition. Does not mean what we say, meeting somebody, as we would do with Webster's dictionary definition. That ain't what that means. But I'm gonna help you. Let me hit. This word M-E-E-T means suitable or what is required. So when John the Baptist told them to bring forth fruit, therefore fruit, meat for repentance, he said, bring when you come and want to repent, you bring what's suitable for repentance before God. Now, what is suitable, what is suitable repentance before God, that means you come really being sorrowful what you done did. You mean you come being real when you're asking God to forgive you. Fruits that are suitable for repentance, a sorrowful heart, godly sorrow in your heart, really mean that you don't want to do that thing no more. Fruit that is not suitable for repentance is fruit that you ain't you don't mean what you say. You ain't sorry. Just like he was telling these Pharisees and Saturday, he knew they was coming to the baptism revival, the meeting at the river join, but he knew they wasn't coming to be to repent. They were just coming to be spectators and see what was going on. These other folks, they come because they really want to be baptized, they really want to change their lives. They bringing forth fruit meat are suitable to repent before God, but not y'all, Pharisees, not y'all Sadducees. Y'all ain't meaning nothing. And it's high time we stop letting ourselves be led by what these leaders, some of these leaders in these churches are telling us, and they ain't living nothing they self. They ain't even repented. But trying to, anyway, I let me just make that point there. John the Baptist ministry, he said, was bring forth, therefore, fruit, meat for repentance. If you come to God and you coming with a repentant spirit, make sure you come in, bringing forth the fruit of what is necessary for true repentance. And that means to be truly sorry. That means you really truly want to turn from that thing. That means you are truly uh coming with a godly sorrow and a contrite spirit, to really turn from your ways to turn totally to God. Now let me back up to verse 7. Because that last part, when he said, Oh generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? That part right there, wrath to come. Thanks of God. I got to tell you this. Why repentance should be a very important and vital uh part of your spirit to maintain what the world is not gonna tell you, and what a lot of the religious leaders are not gonna tell you is, but I'm gonna tell you because this is what the Bible is telling us, and what the Bible is teaching, that there is a wrath of God that's gonna come up on this world. Hear me? I want you to hear me, and I need you to hear me good. Hear me good and hear me clear. There is a wrath, and if you understand what wrath is, because it goes beyond anger, it goes one way beyond that. There is a wrath of God. I said of God, not man. And then it ain't like uh somebody, another person getting mad at you, or another person got an art against you. This is the wrath of the Almighty God. And if it comes against you, nobody can win. I need you to hear me. We need hallelujah. We need to do all that we must do to avoid the wrath of God coming against us. Because the Bible teaches there's something we can do that the wrath of God will not even affect you. You will avoid the the consequences and the punishment that is gonna come against those who fail to avoid the wrath of God that is to come, and nothing can stop it. We in the warning stages now. Warning comes before destruction. This world is in a warning state. God is in his warning because when his wrath gets here, nobody is gonna be able to say that God was unfair before the wrath came and didn't give us no warning. He didn't try to give us a chance. He did, yes, he did, he's giving us chances each and every day. So when his wrath comes and the bottom falls out, you better pray that you have repented and that you are in the place in him that you need to be to avoid the wrath of God that is to come. I I needed to say that because some people need to hear something that's gonna stir them up and shake them up in order for them to even change or even repent from the stuff that they're doing. If you understood, read your Bibles in your study time, start studying the parts in your Bible that talks about the wrath of God. You're gonna see it's gonna be a very devastating thing. But you're also gonna see those that did what they supposed to do to avoid the wrath of God gonna be protected and they're gonna avoid the destruction that is to come. I wanna just leave that with you. When you have a true heart or a genuine heart of repentance, there's something that's gonna follow that that heart that you have, or that's gonna be something that that is going to accompany that heart that you have to repent, and that's gonna be a heart to do what's right. Because see, when when doing wrong bothers you so bad, and you repent before God, the only thing that can replace that is you want to do what's right, so that you won't have that guilty conscience, so that you won't have that that that spirit of guilt and of shameness as a result of you doing sin. A spirit of righteousness trying to come into your life because you already can tell doing wrong, I just can't get comfortable doing wrong. I just ain't satisfied. You got something, you like I said, you got some people can do wrong and don't don't miss an ounce of sleep. Don't bit Mo B upset about nothing. They'll even ask you, what I do. I ain't done nothing. Because then to them, they ain't done nothing wrong. You remember when when the Lord, when Samuel was during his time as a prophet, and he the Lord spoke to him and told him what to tell King Saul when it came to the Amalekites. Men, women, children. He said, kill the goats, kill the cows, kill the donkeys, kill the cows, kill the sheep, everything. Don't leave none to lie. He said, This is what the Lord told me to tell you. And Samuel told King Saul that. So they went down there and fought with the Malachi, they beat him up and everything, killed him and slew him. But Saul decided, he decided, ooh, we they got some knives. I'm paraphrasing. They don't need to kill enough all these good, healthy sheep and cows and goats. He didn't even kill the cane. So when Samuel got there, he said, didn't uh I tell you the Lord told you to ultimately kill everything and not leave nothing, don't spare nothing. You know, if you ever read that story, it's in Kings. The one thing that came, that thing, next word came out of King Saul's mouth when Samuel told him that repeated to him what God told him to do. King Saul, he said, I did. He said, Samson, how you gonna say you did? I'm paraphrasing again. And I hear the lowering of the oxen, the bleeding of the sheep. I hear stuff that I shouldn't be hearing. If you done killed everything, I should be hearing no cow saying moo, or no sheep saying bad. I shouldn't be looking at king of the Malachites who you have not killed. You know, then Samuel, make us long for the move back on, get back on track. But Samuel got a sword. He went up to that king, a Malachi king, and sliced and diced him up right before everybody. Cut him completely up. Because that's what God told him to do. Long story short, because it was something the Malachites did when the children of Israel was crossing the Red Sea. You gotta see, you gotta read your Bible and all this stuff. And God vowed that one day he was gonna get them back for that. And he waited until, see, because at that time Israel had no king, so he waited until they got their first king and was going to destroy them through the armies and through the king of Israel, which was the first one was Saul, but he failed to do that. That's why God took the kingdom back from him. Anyway, long story short, let's get back to the text. You're gonna have an urgency to do what's right. When you repent and your sins bother you, your wrong for doing bothers you, you're gonna want to do all right. You're gonna need to thank God for that because that ain't in everybody. That's not in everybody to do right. If you got a spirit in you pulling you towards righteousness, thank God. I mean thank him hard. That you got a spirit. In you that want to do right while living in a such a corrupt, evil, wrong for doing world. And very few people got a spirit to still want to do right, to be honest before God and before heaven and toward each other in this world we live in. It just ain't a whole lot of people, y'all. And y'all know that. We know I'm saying that. Paul, even when his ministry got started, he even told another king, King Agrippa, that how the Spirit of God had come on him to bring forth fruit meat for repentance. Let me just read a little of it. In Acts. Acts 26. That's when Paul had to go before King Agrippa. Yeah, I know y'all don't probably know who that is, but you have to read your Bible to know this stuff. Acts 26. Just two verses, 19 and 20. But the whole chapter, you go back, you see how Paul was brought before King Agrippa to make a decision on his life, on why he was doing what he was doing. He said, verse 19, wherefore, old King Agrippa, I was not disobedient until the heavenly vision. Well, Paul, you go back and read the rest of this chapter 26. Paul is telling, going back, telling King Agrippa the story of how his life was changed on the Damascus road, and how he saw a vision. How Jesus showed him a vision of him kicking against the pricks and how he was led into Damascus and and God saved him. Verse 20 said, Paul is saying, but show first unto them of the mask. I showed first unto them of the mascot and at Jerusalem and throughout all the coast of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent. Paul, when he got saved on that Damascus road, when he got Damascus and Adonai, you know, laid hands on him and he filled the Holy Ghost, he started preaching repentance then to what he is Damascus, Jerusalem, Judea. I even talked to the preacher to the Gentiles. And my biggest, he said, my what my biggest part of my ministry was is that they should repent and turn, listen to that, turn to God. Not turn away from God, but turn to God. And do works. Listen at this. The same thing John the Baptist said. And do works meet for repentance. Do what's right and suitable for repentance. In other words, if you have repented, live your life like you've repented. Live your life like you have been, your sins have been forgiven and you have accepted what Jesus has done for you. You don't keep doing wrong when you done repented. You don't keep, you don't have the intent to keep doing wrong. We say it like that. You don't have the intent to not do what's right. You try to every day. That's why I tell people stop, stop, stop, stop. Trying to live your life. 365 days. Hear me what I'm telling you? That's a whole year. Stop trying to live for 365 days. When you only, God ain't changed, when you only get one day at a time. We fail to realize that. He said, sufficient until today is the evil thereof. What I'm trying to tell y'all is you just pray that God keep you today, July 25th, 2021. Don't worry about December 31st, 2021. It ain't got here yet. Stop trying to live your life 365 days all at one time. It ain't possible. You cannot do it. One day. It's enough in this day that you're going to have to deal with fighting the flesh, fighting the devil, living a saved life, making sure that you don't do nothing to offend God and for send heaven. Just deal with the day. And Lord help give me the strength. Let me let me go back. Let me go back. When Jesus was teaching the people to pray, when he was teaching the people to pray, because a lot of people miss it. Because we just run through it. Our Father who wants to heaven. Hallelujah, name, and he comes. Ooh, I wish we would just take the time to understand. Jesus doesn't say nothing, he don't do nothing without a purpose. He ain't just going through the motions. He ain't just doing it to make it sound good to you. If you ever go back and take the time to dissect when Jesus was teaching the people to pray. I know a lot of people call it the Lord's Prayer, but hey, teach his own. You'll find that the Bible says he was teaching them how to pray. But there's a spot in there, there's a verse in that in that particular teaching where he says, Give us this day. Listen to what I'm saying. Take your time now. He said, Give us this. T-H-I-S. Give us this day. This day right here. He ain't saying that about no 365 days. He said, give us this day our daily bread. In other words, Lord, give me the bread that I need for the day. Now come on now. Before you get too far off, Jesus was not talking naturally. He was talking spiritually. Because he's teaching us how to pray. And anytime you pray, you're praying to God who is a spirit, you've got to pray spiritually. Even though you may be using words that sound naturally, but your heart and your mind and your intent is spiritual. Okay, now let me go back and say this. He said, give us this day our daily bread, daily for the day. Other words, Lord, give me the strength. Because see, food implies strength. Food implies nourishment, bread. Give me what I need to strengthen me, to sustain me for this day. The daily bread, the spiritual daily bread that I need to deal with the things I got to deal with, the things I'm gonna deal with, the things that I don't even know I'm gonna deal with. Give me, but in your bread, the spiritual bread that you supply, it will give me the strength I need today, this day, to stand, to overcome, to stay with you. Give us this day our daily bread. And that is what we should be praying every day. You ain't got to necessarily use them for the word, but just tell God, Lord, you give me the strength I need today. That's the same thing as saying, Lord, give me the bread. I need my spirit to feed upon, to keep me strong, to keep me spiritually strong, to fight this fight, or to deal with what I got to deal with, because I don't know when I get the word who what I'm how to deal with them co-workers I got to deal with. I don't know when I get up the morning, Lord, how my wife is gonna be acting, or how my husband's gonna be acting, or how these children are gonna go crazy. But you give me the strength I need today. Hey, what about December yet? This July. Just give me what I need today. Why? Why I say it like that? Because if you understand the symbolism of the word of God, God tried to show them this in the wilderness when he was giving them angel food to eat. Manner from heaven was angel food. He told them, just give them enough that you and your family can eat for today. Why, Lord? Why I can't get a whole bunch of, because see, Negroes like the, we like the hard stuff. But God said, He was saying, with me is not necessary because tomorrow, me being God, I'm gonna feed you what you need to eat for tomorrow. Don't worry about tomorrow. I'm gonna, if I feed you today, I'll give you the strength you need to stand, to overcome today, know that I am God. And tomorrow I'm gonna let Mo Spiritual manner take care of you for Monday, take care of you for Tuesday. Don't worry about none of that. Just worry about the manner of the spiritual bread that I already rained down and giving you to you today. Because see, you're eating right now. You give the Lord is strengthening us right now with his word. Don't you think that God should serve is gonna take care of tomorrow, too? He's gonna take care of what's next month, August, He's gonna take care of September, He's gonna take care of August all the way to the end of the year. Because that see God, he do it every year, don't ain't do it every year? Yeah. And here's a good thing about it when it comes to his people. Let me just show you something when it comes to God's people. In spite of, I can show you this in the Word of God, but I ain't got time to show you all the places that those who serve God, it didn't much of matter what was going on in the world at the time. Right now, it don't matter that we're going through no pandemic. Don't you know God's still gonna provide for his people? It don't matter if the government don't lost their mind, God still gonna take care of his people. Don't y'all know that God is his power is not predicated on what's going on in the world. His power is predicated, what's the Bible say, on his namesake. One thing I found about God when it comes to his word, he does things for his name's sake. But if we, see, that's why we got to stay where we supposed to stay. We got to stay in the area of a repentant spirit. Don't let nothing, trust me on this, don't let nothing block you from staying over. I don't care if you had to repent this morning when you got said your prayers this morning. I don't care if tomorrow you when you you got to give the Lord, forgive me, repent again. You keep what you keep it straight between you and God, no matter what you got to do. And if you worry about what people gonna think of you, how people gonna see you, or what they're gonna say about you. Let me help you. I can fix that right now. I can fix that for you right now. Stop telling them everything between you and God. Because everybody ain't gonna understand the life, what you got to do to make sure you stay connected to God. Everybody ain't gonna stand. Stop telling them. Girl, I had to do this, and man, I had to, uh Lord, help us, help us, help us. What God got to do in your life or help you to get to where he's trying to get you to be in your life might not be the same what he got to do in somebody else's life to get them where they need to be with him. What I'm trying to tell you, since both of those paths might be different in how they get you to get to God, that means another explaining another person to another person your path that God is taking you, means they ain't gonna understand it. Because that ain't their path, that's your path. Stop telling them. Because some of us, we still sensitive to what people think. Because we done shared a whole bunch of things to them because we like to run our mind. Y'all ain't got the well, some people you ain't got the word I done got yet. It don't bother me. That's the what people think I'm crazy, and and because I stay in the word so much because I understand that God has given me a gift to understand his word, it don't bother me. But I know some of my brothers and sisters ain't there yet. So in the meantime, till God did you there, shut your mouth. And if his spirit is leading you and you got a spirit to go to him, God forgive me. Forgive me. Lord, I repent. Lord help me another day. Ain't nothing wrong with that. And don't let nobody make you feel guilty about that. Because if God is doing what he got to do to keep you, leading you to him, he's trying to help you to avoid the wrath of God that is to come. Repent. Paul told King Agrippa how his ministry from Damascus consisted of telling the people, even the Gentiles, to repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance. Don't just sit up and and think you doing what you're supposed to do. Well, I'm alright. I I done did what I feel I supposed to do to repent. See, they that's what we go wrong is we're doing things that we feel. We need to go according to the word of God and do things that the word of God says for us to do for repentance, for forgiveness. If we're not sorry for the things we've done, y'all, we're not gonna repent. If our conscience is not bothering us about the things we've done, we're not gonna repent. If our conscience has been seared, as the Bible said, as with a hot iron, we're not gonna repent. Because some of us have gotten away and done things for so long, we no longer feel the need to repent because we feel that we are right. God understand, God under know my heart. But what we fail to understand and realize is God's word said we got to repent. The Bible says, in the last days. This is what the Bible says now. We're gonna be, we're gonna be deceived, and we're gonna be deceiving others. So Paul told the church in his gospel, in in in in in his letters, be not deceived. And he says, Some of us gonna deceive our own selves. That's what the Bible said. That means we're gonna lie, we're gonna be doing things lying to ourselves, deceiving our own self, because we're gonna get it locked. Some you be right, you've been around people that can get stuff locked into their head so deep that they believe it's true. And then got to the point where they're deceiving and lying to their own self. And if we're allowing ourselves to sit up and let ourselves to deceive ourselves in the area of repentance and getting our lives right with God, we're allowing ourselves to go to a place we don't need to be. Because if you're telling yourself, or you have you convince yourself that you don't even need to repent for the stuff you've done, confess your sins and things you've done, that is a bad state to be because that state of mind is gonna forever keep you from God. And it's gonna and your conscience is not gonna lead you to get it right with God. When John the Baptist came on the scene, and this was later on, you'll find that when this is where he then throws John in the prison. They done put him in the pen. They finally caught him. But Mark wrote something that Jesus said and and then marked the first chapter. He says this is after John, if you go back and read that first chapter, that's why I said this is when John of the because yeah, I know that's what the that first chapter talks about. But here comes Jesus, he said, and and and Mark 1 and just verse 15, he said and say this Jesus said this, he said, The time is fulfilled. And the kingdom of God is he said, I'm ready, I'm here now. And the time has fulfilled itself for me to come. I'm coming. Well, he's saying, Coming representing the kingdom of God. This is what Jesus said. He says, Repent ye. And believe the gospel. I'm gonna show you something. And I'm gonna have to cut off. The one thing, there's one thing that that helps us in leading us to repentance. You cannot know what this word says in depth. I mean, really have a knowledge of what this word says, and it not move you to repentance. Excuse me. You cannot know all this meat and all this truth that the Bible speaks of, and it not prick your heart and lead you to repentance. If you read the word of God daily, weekly, or however you do, when you read the word of God and you seek in God the more of God as a result of your reading, what is gonna cause or what is gonna create in you is a belief in the gospel. Hallelujah. Let me go a little deeper. It's gonna create in you a faith, an increased faith in the word of God. Okay, and if it is creating an increased faith in you when it comes to the word of God, it's gonna create in you an increased faith in God. Which is why Jesus in his ministry also said, have faith in God. Hallelujah. If you got faith in God and you believe the gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ will lead you to a place of true repentance and a true turning to God. And your life and my life will be better in a godly sense and a spiritual sense as a result of us repenting and confessing our sins and turning from ourselves and turning to God, we will experience a life that we have never experienced if we but do that and live accordingly.