SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi, my name is Michelle Steele. Pastor Phillip and I want to thank you for listening to this message from Life of Faith First. We have more resources available to help you build your faith and bring your world by the Word of God. From our website, lifeofffaith.net, you can connect to our YouTube channel. Watch the live stream feed from our church services. Access books and downloads in our web store. And discover more about Life of Faith Church, producing by city, state, nation, and world. Visit lifeofith.net today.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Hallelujah. Let's go to Matthew chapter 4. And I want to continue with what we have been looking at, the core values of the believer. And um there are seven of them that we have uh discussed in previous services, and we've been we've centered up on two of them uh thus far, and we're we're not done with any of them by any means, but we looked at for a few weeks determining to walk in love, and we have been centered up recently on putting the word first place. Tell your neighbors say, put the word first place. Amen. And so we want to put the word of God first place. And we've talked about living in the word. The last two messages, uh Wednesday and today, will be the ability of the word. The ability of the word. And uh in Matthew 4 and verse 4, of course, that is an account of the temptation of Jesus when the enemy came to him and told him to turn the stones into bread. And you'll remember that Jesus said, It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Luke chapter 4 and verse 4 is the same account. Almost the exact same words. The enemy comes and said, If you're the Son of God, command that these stones be made into bread. And Jesus said again, it is written. The Greek is it has been written and it is still written. Deeper Greek meaning is it has been written and is presently on record. That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And so what we see, the temptation here, is to live by something other than the word of God. And that's always the temptation that people face, believers and non-believers. But that's always the temptation that believers face, is this temptation to live by something other than the word of God? We we prayed for those that were believing for healing in their bodies today. Well, here's the issue: the enemy, your mind, if nothing else, will say, Well, if you're healed, why do you still have pain? Or why do you still see X? Or why is this? What is that? A temptation to get you to live by something other than the Word of God. Right? Do you see that? See, that's not just word of faith theology, that's Bible. Right? We we always live our lives by faith, not by something seen. Is that right? Now, unless you've been translated there, I don't know, maybe you have. I've never seen heaven. I believe in heaven by faith, because I've never been there. I know other people say they have. If they have, that's wonderful. But whether they have or not, I believe it. And I believe it by faith. I believe there are streets of gold and gates of pearl. I believe that Jesus is there. I believe that there's a rainbow that surrounds the throne of the Father, and that one day we'll join that innumerable amount of people around that throne in worship to him. I believe that. Now, but I've never seen it. I've never seen it. Now I know that sounds simplistic, but see, that's the temptation. I'll have people, they'll say, You really believe in heaven? Well, yes, I do. Well, you've never been there. You've never well no, but that same person, if you ask them, you believe in Sao Paulo, Brazil? Oh yeah, you've never been there. Right? Or you ask that same person, do you have a brain? Well, yeah, of course. Well, you've never seen it. Some people, it's really by faith. Anyway, I digress. The point is, is the temptation to get us to live by something other than the word of God. Which what what would that look like? Living by how I feel. And then making my statements based on how I feel. My declaration, my confession, if you will, my statement of what I believe. Right? Looking at the finances and seeing a shortage and living by that instead of living by the word of God. A temptation to live by something other than the word. Amen. But Jesus said, this is how you live, by the word. One translation says, you live within the sphere of this revelation I've brought you. I've got to live within that. Now, why is that so important? Because the word is what brings life into everything in your life. You know, sickness is just an absence of life in that area. Poverty is just an absence of financial life. And the Bible says Jesus said, the words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. And so, whatever is not producing life, you get the word in it, and life begins to show up. Oh, hallelujah! Do you see that? And so that's what that's the healing process in your body is simply the healing power of the word of God, the healing life that's in the word healing your body. And so I've got to live that way. I've got to live by the word of God. Amen. So that temptation was to live by something other than the word. Jesus said we've got to live by the word. And so in every situation, every circumstance under consideration, you ask this question. What does the word say? What does the word say? Because that's what we're going after. Right? That's, and and in everything that you do by faith, whether it's calling things that be not as though they were, calling the end from the beginning, it's it's it's it's the word. You're it's going to involve the word of God because you can't do it any other way. Right? So when you say and you call yourself healed, when the symptoms appear to be pointing opposite to that, what are you doing? You're taking the word, putting it in your mouth, getting it out of your mouth into the situation. But you're doing it with the word of God. That is living by the word. Amen. Let's go over to James chapter one. Because we want to look at, we're talking about the ability of the word. Now this can again at the at the outset seemed very I don't want to use the word elementary, but simple. But the word renews my mind. Brother Hagin said, he wrote, now I always have to ask this question. Y'all know who Kenneth Hagin is, right? Or was, right? You have to ask. And and you know, I don't I don't want to just seem like an old dude, you know, but but the but the but but the point is, you know, uh Brother Hagin said it had a tremendous impact on our life. He wrote a book uh in the the or late mid to late 90s, uh, The Triumphant Church. And I try to read The Triumphant Church every year. And he makes the statement throughout that book the number one need in the body of Christ is the renewing of the mind. The number one need in the body of Christ is the renewing of the mind. Right? Because if I don't renew my mind, if I don't have a renewed mind about certain things, that's when the enemy can get in there and mess things up. And I'll say this a few times today in this teaching. What a lot of people are calling the devil is just their unrenewed mind. It's not the devil. What a lot of people are calling the flesh winning is just their unrenewed mind. Because when we'll look at it from the Word of God today. When you get born again, you're given complete and total authority over your flesh. The flesh is not supposed to run anything. And it's the renewing of the mind. And so James chapter 1 and verse 21, he says, James says, wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness. Now that is abundance of wickedness. Now, if you would read the book of James, James chapter 1, verse 2 says, My brethren. So he's writing to believers. So the question is, should you have to tell believers to lay aside an abundance of wickedness? Evidently. Because he did. Right? Amen. This is important. You know, Paul writes to certain churches and says, don't lie. Do you have to tell believers not to lie? Evidently. But the point is, he says, notice, he says, you lay it aside. You lay it down. Right? And he says, notice, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your soul. Which is able to save your souls. When he talks about the engrafted word, the implanted word. And it's interesting to me when you look at that, it's uh that word means implanted by nature or implanted by hearing others' instruction. Well, we know faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. And so he says, here's how you receive this word, by hearing it. He says, receive the engrafted word, which has the power to save your souls. To save your souls. Hallelujah. So the implanted word has the power to renew the mind. The implanted word has the power to renew your mind. Coming to church doesn't renew your mind. Praise and worship doesn't renew your mind. Prayer doesn't renew your mind. Fasting doesn't renew your mind. All of those things are right and proper, but they will not renew your mind. They will not renew your mind. Why? Because they're all right in their proper place. We all need to pray. But if you pray without a renewed mind, you won't pray right. Hallelujah. We all need praise and worship, but we need a renewed mind to know what to do with it. Amen. Listen, all that you got to do is turn on the Christian radio, and you will find a lot of songs that somebody with an unrenewed mind wrote. Right? Because there's all kinds of songs about I feel so far away from you, and and can you can you reach me? Can he reach me? Yes, he can reach me. Right? So it's right in the proper place. You can read the Bible without a renewed mind. Amen. Because there are people preaching today from pulpits, and they're just preaching some denominational dogma. They're just preaching what the cold, luke, dead, warm, cold, lukewarm, dead seminary they went to taught them. They never gotten the word for themselves. They just preached what grandma taught and they bought. And so if you you got to take the time to renew your mind for the word to exercise its ability in your life. What many believers call the devil is simply an unrenewed mind. An unrenewed mind. I remember one time I had a friend of mine from uh Nigeria, and uh he had come over uh to America and based his ministry out of the Kansas City area, and and I was on the radio at the same time that he was on the radio, and so you know you meet a lot of preachers in radio stations if you're on the radio. And uh so there was a guy in our church that was in a wheelchair, he was paralyzed from the chest down, and we would go out and pray with him. He wanted to have prayer meetings at his house, and so we would go out and pray with him. This guy was a ex-country music singer, had done fairly well in the country music business, and and uh uh had injured himself. And anyway, we would go out and pray at his house, and and Lawrence Bandle was my friend, and we were talking about some of these things one day. We were driving in my car, and uh this was during the time that deliverance, the deliverance teaching, and and I mean extreme deliverance, unbiblical stuff, you know, throwing up demons in bags, buckets. Yeah, they had buckets around the front of the church, you know, because somebody get delivered and throw up a demon. I had a friend, he asked me, he said, Well, Philip, when they throw up that demon in that bag, then what do you do? Pinch it? Or or what do you do? Yeah, I mean, now if if you believe that, I'm not making fun of you or making light. I'm just saying, really, I I wouldn't buy into that because you're gonna tell me that you can throw up a spirit being. You can't. A demon is a spirit. You can't throw up a spirit. Let me come over here where they believe me. You can't you can't throw up a spirit. A spirit doesn't have any weight. Right? I I asked a preacher one time, I said, go through the Bible and show me one time that Jesus had somebody throw up a demon. Or Paul or Peter or any of them. They we see them all casting out devils, and none of them got thrown up. They left. Now, you understand? That's extremism. That's extremism. So that's what was going on. And he looked at me, and Lawrence Bandy, he this is how he talked. He goes, Well, Phil. He called me Phil. I don't like Phil. Please don't call me Phil. But he did. Well, Phil, what many believers are calling demons are just a unrenewed mind. I couldn't agree more. Right? But just, well, I have this problem, I have that problem. Pastor, I need you to pray for me. I got this lust devil. No, you got an unrenewed mind. Or I've got this lying spirit. No, you got an unrenewed mind. And what do I have to do? I have to ingest the word of God so that my mind can become renewed. Hallelujah. Do you see this? Look at 1 Thessalonians 5. This is so important. 1 Thessalonians 5, 23, a familiar verse. But Paul is writing to the church at Thessalonica, and he's giving them instructions, and he gets to verse 23, and he says, The very God of peace sanctify you wholly or completely. And I pray God, your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Your whole spirit, soul, and body. And so Paul makes a distinction between the three: spirit, soul, and body. When you look at the Greek where the soul is concerned, especially from James chapter 1, it makes a distinction between the spirit and the soul. Alright? So the spirit, my spirit, born again at salvation. Alright? Created in the image of God, spotless, 100% God, wall-to-wall, Holy Ghost. The real me. My spirit. Right? It's a closed system. The devil has no access to your spirit. Closed system. All of his games, all of his weapons are used against your mind, which is part of your soulish nature. And then the spirit part of me has to be yielded to my mind. For the enemy's games to work against my spirit, I have to yield my spirit to my mind. I have to give my mind lordship over my spirit. Hallelujah. Then the soul, the mind, the will, the Greek says the seat of the emotions, the thought processing center. It's eternal. You'll always have your soul. Your soul is connected to your spirit. You'll always have your soul. When you get to heaven, in however many years we go, you'll still have your soul. You'll still be able to think. You'll still be, obviously, you'll process thought on a much higher level. But here's the point it's the seat of the emotions. It's where you make your decisions, right? Your mind, your will, and your emotions. And then, thirdly, is the body spirit, soul, and body. This is kind of an elementary definition, but my body carries my spirit. It's the dwelling place of my spirit. But here's the thing my body will do whatever my spirit says, or whatever my mind says. Whichever one's in control. If, right? And so if the mind's not renewed, the spirit is never going to live to the level that it should, and the flesh will live far stronger than it should. And certain elements of the church have not done the believers any favors because they constantly talk about the battle of the flesh and how strong the flesh is and how tough the flesh is and how big and ugly the flesh is. It's as big and ugly as we let it be. When I renew my mind to that, that remember what Paul said? He said, I treat my body roughly. One translation says, I beat my body black and blue, I make it my abject servant. I, well, if he's talking I, then the I cannot be his body. I has to be his spirit. I am taking authority over something. Right? And James says, how do I do that? By the word. Receive with meekness the engrafted word. See, it comes back to what we talked about over the offering, these easy stages. If you're taught to expect to fight about everything you do spiritually, that's what you're going to prepare yourself for. If you're taught that it's always going to be hard, that the flesh is always going to be this, and the flesh is always going to be that, that's not true. That's not the Bible. The flesh can be subdued to the point and kept subdued to the point. The point that it doesn't have a say about what I'm doing. Hallelujah. Do you see this? So, what many call the battle with the flesh is an unrenewed mind. The flesh just has too much say. And as you consistently renew your mind, right? What a lot of people call the devil, well, the devil, the devil did this, and the devil attacked the ministry. That's why I fell into sin because the devil attacked, and I was doing so much for the kingdom. I wish preachers would quit blaming the kingdom for their unrenewed mind and their letting their flesh get out of control. Quiet in Zion. Right? And you'll hear ministers fall into an indiscretion if that's what we'll be nice and call it that. Well, and then eventually they'll put out a statement. Well, I found that I was doing so much for the Lord, and I was working so hard, and I allowed myself to get weak. No, you were just living in the flesh. You weren't keeping your mind renewed. You were not keeping your relationship with God. You were not consistently ingesting the word of God that has the power to save your soul. Let's just put it where it's at. Because the devil gets a lot of credit for things he didn't do. He cannot do. Flip Wilson was wrong. The devil can't make you do it. He cannot. Amen. Now, why is this important? Because everything that we talk about, especially in these core values of the believer, it all has to do with renewing your mind. You're not going to walk in love if you don't renew your mind. You're not going to refuse to be critical if you don't renew your mind. You're not going to put the word first place if you don't renew your mind. Oh, hallelujah. And what people very often think of when we talk about renewing our mind is just sin. Well, if I renew my mind, I won't sin. If you renew your mind, it'll be easier to believe God. Because what about the person that's dealing with the sickness and they think God has something to do with it? What needs to happen? Their mind needs to be renewed. To what? That God is the healer, not the sick bringer. Is that right? What has to happen? Their mind has to be renewed. Amen. Listen, I grew up in a denomination that they thought you were supposed to be poor. Poor and proud. Well, what had to happen? The mind had to be renewed. See, it's not enough to just want more money. You got to renew your mind and understand that God wants you to be blessed. How do I do that? By receiving with what kind of what? With meekness, humility, the engrafted word that can do what? Save my soul. And so when you're in the word, you're at church, and you hear something from the word, and you're like, wow, that hit me hard. Receive it with meekness, and what will it do? Renew your mind. Renew your mind. Amen. Say it out loud. Say, Lord, teach me. Show me where I need to renew my mind. Hallelujah. See, this is so important. Because if I recognize that, if I recognize that, you know, people will say, well, you know, man's a tripartite being. That's true to an extent, but in reality, especially believers, we're a spirit. We possess a soul and we live in a body. It's not so much three parts as it is, I have three different areas there to deal with. Hallelujah. But James said the word is able to save my soul. That word, when it says to save, is to restore or to keep sound my mind. Restore. Keep sound the mind. The seat of the emotions. Hallelujah. Of the feelings, desires, and affections. You know, it's hard to deal with people and teach them not to live by their feelings if they won't renew their mind. Right? Because feelings are what everybody live by. Until they know better. Right? I try not to let that word in my vocabulary. I try not to say things like, well, this is how I feel. I try not to do that. I may not be 100%. I try not to, because I'm not living by feelings. Right? Hallelujah. The feelings. The desires, the affections. The way I sanctify that is by receiving the word. Amen. And then my feelings don't matter. Amen. That's not the issue. It's what does the word say? I've counseled marriages before, and they've I'm done. I'm done. I can't take this feeling anymore. Whoa, now that no, we're living by feeling. You know, a believer with a renewed mind never looks at things and says, I'm done. They figure out a way, what does the word say about it? How do we do this? Right? I talked to a couple one time. I said, You're going to tell me that two born-again believers with the Holy Spirit living on the inside of them can have an irreconcilable difference. Don't get mad at me if you've been divorced or whatever. I've been divorced. Not proud of it, but I've been there. Didn't know what I was doing. But here's the point. If I'm a believer, she's a believer, we have the Holy Spirit, the counselor, the guide on the inside of us, we have the word of God at our disposal. There's nothing that's irreconcilable. We can work it out. If we have a renewed mind. Right? But what does the unrenewed mind want to do? I want my way, she wants her way, and we're going to fight for our way. And the problem with our way is neither one of our ways are right. One man said it this way. He said there's three sides to every argument: her side, his side, and the right side. Amen. This is important. When I renew my mind, that's when I begin. Pastor Michelle and I went to a church in Grandview, Missouri, when we first moved to the Kansas City area decades ago. And God took us to that church for our marriage. Wonderful man of God, Elder E.C. Morton, wonderful man of God. And we sat on the front row every Sunday, and he would teach on marriage and teach about husbands loving their wife like Christ loves the church and teaching about women, you know, being godly women and godly mothers and godly wives. What was happening? My mind was being renewed. I was learning how to be the husband that I'm supposed to be. And I wasn't learning from somebody's book, I was learning from the word of God. Every opinion that you get from somebody needs to be an opinion that's founded on the word of God, not just their opinion. Amen. And there were times, listen, there were times he would say things and it would hit me so hard and make me mad. And I wouldn't talk all the way home. But she knew it had hit me. And she'd ask me, What do you think about what he said? Wait, wait, think about. I did, you know, as Charles Capp said, I did a slow burn. Go away from me, holy one. But then, you know, next Sunday he'd hit her. And you know, I didn't say anything. You don't believe that, right? You better not believe it. Because we'd be going home, I say, Well, baby, what do you think about what he said this morning? Well, what's happening? Our mind is being renewed. Is this all right? Am I helping you with this? Because, because, right? See, I grew up in a family. My my dad was was my dad was the only one out of his brothers that served the Lord. My dad came from a family of nine kids, and uh uh uh uh obviously had him, him and and two brothers, so there were six girls and three boys, and and uh only one of the girls served the Lord, and my dad was the only boy that served the Lord. And if you've never been at a steel family gathering, you're blessed because because it was loud. Just the louder you were, the righter you were, and they would just yell you into submission. Nobody had any control over their emotions. It was like, dear God. Right? And so that's you know, that's kind of now. My dad was born again, filled with the Holy Spirit and a minister, but but you know, he he never lost that. I'm right, and I'm gonna tell you how right I am. Well, that's that's what I was raised with. Right? Now I didn't see sin, I I didn't see overt sin in their my family because it wasn't there. But I was never taught to control my emotions. And so if you made me mad, I let you know. Right? I had you told in a minute. And I had the holes in the wall to prove it. Oh, hallelujah! And what and one day Pastor Michelle and I had had a rather vociferous discussion. And man, it just I I I would tell you, but I would be embarrassed. We were arguing, and she went into the bathroom to get away from me. I got down on my knees and was yelling under the door. Yes, me. Oh, I'm ashamed, Lord. That was a long time ago. Thank you, Tracy. And it was like an epiphany. Look at this fool on the ground yelling under the door. His wife is in the bathroom and don't have to use the bathroom in the bathroom to hide from him. Here, here, here's a fool. So I got up and thought, dear Lord. And then it didn't help. Now one day we had a rather large discussion again, and my wife just looked at me with tears streaming down her face, and she said, Philip Steele, I will find a way to be a blessing to you. Just shoot me, just right? But I went and gotten the word. What what? Now here we are. What will renew your mind? The word. I went and gotten the word. And I read the book of Proverbs. It says, A man that has no control over his own spirit is like a city without walls. And I read that and I said, Lord, that's me. I can't control my temper. I can't control these outbursts. You know, and I know it's easy. Somebody, well, you can if you want to. You cannot without a renewed mind. Now, I'm born again. I'm filled with the Holy Spirit. I'm preaching at this point. Right? I'm not a back alley cat living guy. I'm I'm I'm a minister. And I said, I'm gonna stop this. But I had to have the word. I had to have the word. And I made the decision. I'm gonna walk in love. I'm gonna forgive. And yes, my wife, she'll tell you the story. We we would start, and if if if voices would even start to rise, I'd stop and say, nope, forgive me. Forgive me, forgive me. I should, I shouldn't be, I shouldn't be saying that. And and sometimes she'd get mad at me. I'm the one that's wrong. You didn't do anything. I should be asking. And we're fighting over who's gonna forgive. Better to fight over forgiving than other stuff. But here's the point renew the mind. What needed to happen? I needed to renew my mind. What was what was my what was my thought before then? Well, if I told you you deserved it. You made your bed and I lay in it. I don't know if you've ever been around folks like that. I'm not that way no more, thank the Lord. But here's the point it wasn't it wasn't somebody's anger management class. It wasn't, it was the word. Brother Copeland said, if you're a man given to fleshly appetites, put a knife to your throat. Take the sword of the word of God and put it to your throat. Amen. Now that might not be your issue or somebody else's issue watching, but here's the point the word had to renew my mind. When you renew your mind, how you view other people will change. Because you'll start seeing them through the lens of the Word of God. You'll start seeing them through the lens of what does the word say? I'll start seeing my wife as one that Christ loved and gave his life for. I'll start seeing my wife more as a believer in Christ than just a woman I'm married to. If I'm looking at my wife as a fellow believer, if I'm looking at her as a sister in the Lord, she's looking at me as a brother in the Lord, it enhances my marriage. Because here's the issue the brother and sister in the Lord relationship is far deeper than the husband and wife relationship on the earth. Because that is eternal. Not ever what you believe about that. I believe that we'll know who we are in heaven, and I believe we'll be married in heaven. If you or somebody else disagrees with that, show me the Bible. That's all I say. But here's the point: it's so important. And so James said, notice, the word is able to receive and renew our soul. Let's look at James 1 again. And we'll go a little deeper. Am I helping you this morning? We just James 1 and 22. He says, notice the word, now verse 21 says, the word is able to save our souls. And then verse 22 says, but be doers of the word. And not hearers only. Why? Deceiving your own self. So this person, the devil, doesn't have to deceive them, they deceive themselves.

unknown 38:14

Why?

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Because they heard the word and didn't do it. Right? You can hear the word, what it says about something, and then not do it. And he he likens this to something. He says, number one, they deceived their own selves. And verse 23 says, if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a glass or in a mirror. He looks at himself and goes his way and straightway forgets what manner of man he is. Forgets what manner of man he is. Hallelujah. Now notice, if he doesn't continue in the word, verse 25, whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein. He being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. Hallelujah. So hearing the word and doing the word is what renews the mind. Hearing it and doing it. So I gotta hear it, and then I gotta go put into practice what I heard. If I heard the verse or read the verse, a soft answer turns away wrath, then I go and I per I and and I go with the intention of doing that. Of having a soft answer. And it doesn't matter what was going on. I'm I'm hearing with the intention of doing that. Why? Because if not, I'm deceiving myself. The devil doesn't have to do it. I'm doing it. And he said the key is continuing in the word. Continuing. He said, Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, he'll be blessed in his deed. By continuing in the word, this is important. I won't forget what I look like according to the word. By continuing in the word. See, he says that there's a person that this is how they are, where the word's concerned, that they look in the mirror and they see how they look, and then they walk off and forget what they look like. He says, if you don't continue in the word, you'll forget what you look like according to the word. Amen. How did you finally begin to perceive yourself as the righteousness of God in Christ? You looked at it over and over and over and over again. How did you finally start perceiving yourself as holy, sanctified, set apart, justified, right in the eyes of God? By looking at it. Why do we confess the word? Why do we declare I'm the healed of the Lord? Why do we declare my blood pressure is 120 over 80? My heart beats with the rhythm of life. My heartbeat is normal, not too fast and not too slow. Why do we say these things? Because it's keeping the image of what we are, who we are, in front of us. We're not forgetting. And when symptoms show up, our mind is renewed according to the word of God. And we don't see ourselves as sick, we see ourselves as healed. Why? Because I've been looking, watch, I've been looking into the mirror of the word of God. And when I look in the mirror of the word of God, if what I see in the word is not what I'm seeing in the natural, I what do I do? I continue in the Word until I'm seeing in the natural what I'm seeing in the Word. That's the renewing of the mind. Hallelujah. Yeah, I'm not going to ask for a show of hands, but I'm sure there's people in here. You know you got saved. And there are things you might have been doing when you got saved, you thought, I'll never be able to not do that. Whatever it was. I don't know. Maybe that wasn't you. Maybe it's just me. But the point is, one day you just weren't doing it anymore. Why? Because you were continually beholding yourself in the Word of God. I heard a minister ministering the other day, and I'm not critical of ministers, but he made a statement. He was reading a statement about a verse about alcohol. And he said, you know, there's not one verse in the entire Bible that prohibits believers from drinking alcohol. Now you can believe whatever you want to about that. I believe there are. But here's the point. You know, what if I'm ministering something like that and I'm ministering to people with an unrenewed mind? What are they going to think? I can do whatever I want. I can drink ever how much I want. I had a person come to me one time and ask me, you know, uh uh, how much do I have to drink, you know, before it's a sin? And I said, Well, that's why you're asking. You're just asking because you want to drink. Man, three and an eighth, and and you'll avoid sin. But if you drink old Milwaukee, it's always sin. It's just But the the the point is is this it when you renew your mind and you're seeing in the Word of God, when you come to a church like this and you're taught that when you see it in the Word, you're responsible for what you're seeing. You're responsible for what you're believing. When you come to a church like this, we're not teaching you to be dependent on a person or be dependent on a pastor or dependent on a minister or somebody else. We're teaching you to be dependent on the word of God and to be dependent on what God said. Now I'm responsible for it, and the renewing of the mind begins to be quicker. Because if my mind's going to be renewed, I've got to do it. Amen. And so when when you're declaring the word of God over you, you know, when you're declaring the word of God over uh unsaved loved ones, of course it's getting the word over them, but it's renewing your mind as to how you see them. If you see them as backslidden, away from God, not living for God, if that's how you see them, that's how you'll approach them. But if you're declaring verses like, all of my children are taught of the Lord, and great is the peace of my children, then you're going to approach those children like they're taught of the Lord. Right? If you're declaring over them, God, you will contend with those that contend with me and you'll save my children. Then you'll approach them like children that are being saved, that God's working with, and not those that are lost and away. See, renewing your mind covers every area of your life. I've had parents in my church that I wanted to just go and tell them, quit talking to your child about the Lord because you're keeping them away from Jesus. And you've got to renew your mind to that. Right? What do we do? We surround them with faith and love. We keep the word of God surrounding them. I've got to come to the understanding that maybe that family member's not going to come to me to get saved. Maybe I don't have that kind of influence on them. But I can pray the Lord of the harvest that he will send laborers into their lives and they'll hear the gospel. See, that's renewing my mind. I say, that's renewing my mind. And so when you're declaring the Word of God, you're renewing your mind to what the Word says. What does the mirror of the Word of God say? It says that God will supply all of your need according to his riches in glory. And so as you continue in that, you cannot help but begin to see yourself as fully supplied, completely filled, rich, rich, rich. Right? Why? Because you're beholding that in the Word of God. Your mind is being renewed. You can take a person with an unrenewed mind and put them through every financial course that you want to, and nothing will change because their mind's not renewed. If they retain a poverty mindset, no matter how you teach them, no matter what budgeting tips you give them, no matter what you say to them, that mind will stay that way. If they don't start seeing themselves as blessed, highly favored, blessed going in, blessed coming out, right? That changes everything. Hallelujah. Charles Capp said in his book, God's Created Power for Finances. He said, as you declare the word of God, he said, you're going to feel like, especially where your finances is concerned, in the beginning that you're lying. And he said, but as you persist in it, one day you'll wake up and you'll just know you're rich. And you may not see anything change, but you'll just know you are. Amen. You know, I found that to be true. We're talking about the renewing of the mind and the word's ability to renew your mind. Let me ask a question. Easy answer. It's not a gotcha. What do most people consider evidence that they're poor? Anybody? Lack? Not enough? Right? Would what they have in their closet point to lack? How about their cupboards? Right? I know what it's like not to have enough. I know what it's like to have to save your pennies to go to Aldi. Oh yeah. That's where God brought us from. This is the truth. And we we'd go ate some bad stuff. Bad stuff. That's just where I was at. Maybe that wasn't your story, but that's where I was. I didn't have anything. We didn't have anything. But I found it in the word. I remember listening to a finance convention at World Changers Church. Creflow dollar. And uh and I know there are people say, well, Creflo's this and that and the other. Listen, what he preached in that conference changed my life. So you think whatever you want. But here's the point is I was listening to that, and I and Leroy Thompson was preaching at that conference. And I hate to say the height because it it the revelation never went away. But this is where Leroy, everywhere he went, he was preaching, money coming. Right? And and this was like, I don't know how many, this was a whole week. And it was each of them preached like four messages. Like two in the morning, two at night. And uh John Avanzini was preaching there in Creflow and Leroy. And uh we would just listen to that over and over again. We were in the middle of a 40-day period of time that we said, we're just gonna fast everything else except the word on finances. Because he said you've got to continue in it. And so I'm listening to that, and we'd put our kids to bed and listen. Listen to those tapes. That's how long ago that was, tapes. And man, we'd listen and we'd flip it over and listen again. And my wife would say, Boy, there's some more in that. Flip that over and let's play it again. You know, eventually start dragging. That tape stretching out. Anyway, one night, I can still tell you where I was. We lived in a little rental house. I told you about the rental house on Wednesday at 7548 Corona Street in Kansas City, Kansas. It was the best house we'd ever had till that point, and the only house we had ever had, we'd always lived in an apartment. And uh uh we were there, and uh you when you came in the front door, the kitchen and slash dining room was to the left, and straight ahead was uh the living room, down the hall was the bedrooms, and and we were listening to this tape, and I was I was sitting on the carpet on the floor, leaning up against the wall, and Leroy was ministering, and and he was talking about the prophetical impact of money cometh. Prophetical, not prophetic, prophetical impact. Amen. And uh we'd been listening to that, and and something's changing. We're continuing in the word. What has the power to save your soul? The word. The word. So where is poverty? Poverty is first of all in the soul, it's in your thinking. I say it's in your thinking. I've known people that seemingly on the outside had everything they needed, and they were so poor in their mind, there was no way to hold on to what they had. Because poverty will rob you. You can you can be a multimillionaire, and if you have a poverty mindset, it will rob you of what you have. So I'm sitting there and we're listening to this over and over again. I'm sitting there, my wife was in the recliner, I'm sitting there, we got our Bibles out, we're listening, notes, taking notes. And all of a sudden, I'm telling you, all of a sudden, Leroy, now if you got sensitive ears, plug them because I'm about to get loud. Leroy made this statement. He said, he was preaching, and he said, uh, quit talking about how you born on the wrong side of the track. Move the dog on track. And then he made this statement. He said, You ought to jump up and shout out loud, I'll never be broke another day in my life. Man, that hit me, and I jumped up and I said, I'll never be broke another day in my life. Pastor Michelle jumped up. We started running around, running through the dining room, and we say dining room, little place over there, running around, right? All of our kids upstairs, all of a sudden the doors open, the sleepy head kids come out, what's going on? And they, you know, they're just Pentecostal kids, so they saw Pentecostals running, so they they just they just started running because you know it's Pentecostal tradition, right? And cares man, you know, if we'd have been going like that, they'd just they'd have just started, right? But the point is, something changed. It wasn't emotion, it wasn't him hyping us up. We had been continuing in the word. Continuing in the word. Right? That's why it didn't matter that I only had one suit then. It didn't matter that when I prayed with people around the altar after I preached that I had to squat and not kneel because I had holes in my shoes. Didn't matter. I'll never be broke another day in my life. And whatever has to happen for that to be a reality will happen. My job is to continue in the word. Do you see that? And so when you come to church, when you're in the word in your private time. Amen. It's listen, when Pastor Caldwell, when he first started the church in Little Rock, you know, it was agape country church. Not just agape, agape country church. And he had drawn up the plans. He wanted it to be a barn. He wanted the outside the church to be a barn. And he told me, he said, Philip, this is what I wanted to do. He said, You remember hee-haw? I said, Oh yeah. Hee-haw! He said, that's what I wanted. He said, I wanted our television uh uh program to come on with the camera swooping in on all of us sitting there, and we were all gonna go, HA. Now he told that story. Right? But he said something. He said, as I would pray about it, God was renewing my mind. And he said, the Lord said to him, He said, I don't want a barn. I was born in a barn, build me a palace. Right? Build me a palace. And so when you when you would go into Agappa and you've been there, you understand you saw the flowing staircase and the chandelier. Well, where did that come from? Operand Hotel. That's where he went to get his ideas. God said, I want a palace, not a barn. By his own admission, the greatest thing that God had to do was renew his mind where these things were concerned. The Lord told my pastor, he said, your problem is, he said, you got a poverty mindset. He said, you go out to eat and you don't order food, you order price. He said, you order off the left side of the menu where the price is, and you order the cheapest thing every time. And the Lord said, I want you to go buy the most expensive suit you can find in Little Rock, Arkansas. He said the most expensive suit at that time was Hart Sheffner and Marks. This was now this would have been in the 70s, 72, 73, something like that. And so a $500 suit back then was an expensive suit. And he said, Well, Lord, why do I got to do that? I can go down to the bargain barn and get three polyesters for $150. What was God doing? Renewing his mind. Renewing his mind. Because you remember, we see people hear that and they think, a suit. What did God say when he finished that? He said, because if you can't buy a suit full price, you can't build a building. If you can't build a building, you can't take a city. And if you can't take a city, why do I need you? Where do you have to start? With his preaching ability? In my estimation, he's well, my wife's my favorite. But he's the next heavy hitter for me. Right? So it wasn't his teaching ability. Anointing? No, that wasn't what it was. What was it? Mindset. Got to renew the mind. According to what? The word of God. You know, I was with, I'm with him all the time, but we were on a trip not too long ago. And you know what he said to me? He said, Philip, you've always got to push against that unrenewed mind where finances are concerned. He said, I've been doing this for over 50 years, and I still have to push against the unrenewed mind where money's concerned. Still got to push against it. Why? Because the mind will say, Why do you need that? Why do you need to go that far? Why do you need to do this? Why do you need to do that? Amen. Have you ever walked into a church and it's stunk? Just me? Right? You looked around and everything looked out of whack, everything, right? And nothing looked good. There was no quality and excellence. Why? Unrenewed mind. Unrenewed mind. It doesn't matter where you're at, what size it is, where it's at, you can present God with your best. Amen. I told a group of men one time, I said, if jeans and a t-shirt's all you got, starch the shirt, press the jeans. Amen. Shine your shoes with something other than a Hershey bar and come on to church. Right? Renew your mind. This is so important. Because the Lord knew something. He knew if I didn't renew my mind, he knew there were going to be bigger things that he was going to ask us to do. And if you don't renew your mind to the point that you can believe me to pay your bills on time and to keep you supplied, how are you going to believe for these other things? You know, it was a minimal hundreds of dollars then. Just in our personal life. You follow me? Now it's tens of thousands every month. It's going to be hundreds of thousands every month. So the mind has to consistently be renewed. How does it happen? By continuing in the word of God. Amen. Tell your neighbor, say, continue in the word. Now I'm almost done, but this is so important. He said, if I continue in the word, I'll be blessed in my doing. Amen. Many by not continuing in the word forget what they look like. What's the temptation of the devil to make you see yourself as something other than what the word says? Who told you you were a failure? Who said that? See that you can't find that in the word. You cannot continue in the word and see yourself as a failure. Because he said, I've forgiven your failures. I've washed them away. I took them away. They don't exist anymore. Hallelujah. How can you see yourself as whatever you're seeing yourself as when you're continuing in the word? You can't. And as you continue in the word, you'll start to see the word producing those results because the word has the ability to bring itself to pass. Amen. And as you're staying in the word of God, the word just continually works. While you're sleeping tonight, the word's working. While you're working tomorrow, the word's working. The word's continually working. Why? Because he said, when you say the word, when you speak the word, he said, here's how the word's going to be. Like the rain that comes down from heaven and the snow, it waters the earth, makes it bring forth in bud, it doesn't return back to me. That's how my word is. It will not return to me empty and without accomplishing what I sent for it to do. And so you may not see everything that you're believing for or that you're standing for, but you can continue in the word. That's the key. And so the story that I was telling you, so eventually, the holy shoes, the cheap suit, the whatever, that was not how I made my decision about am I blessed or not? What does the word say? What does the word say? And to this day, my wife and I, that's still our response, even to each other. We'll say, Well, we got this that we got to deal with, and we got these things going on. And one of us will say, Well, what does the word say? And that's what we go back to. This is what the word said. Amen. This is what the word of God said. Brother Hagin said this: He said, Things cost what they've always cost, they cost faith. That's all they cost. So continuing in the Word of God. Oh, Hallelujah. Try it one more time. Look at him and say, hey, the word looks good on you. Amen. This is so important. Do you see that? And then and then you continue in the word. You continue in the word. I remember uh Michelle and I had uh we we met, my parents were pastoring a church in Goodlessville, Tennessee, the Word Church, 414 Brick Church Pike in Goodlessville, Tennessee. And uh I uh had I had this was this would have been my goodness, we've been married, we'll be married 33 years this year. And uh so this would have been well I would have been 23, so that's however long that was. So that was 36 years ago. And uh so I I moved from Kansas City to Goodlitzville to help my parents in their church, and um so I got there and and uh I did different things. I played the bass and the drums and different things and and and met Michelle. Well, you know, I I'll be real honest with you, I wasn't I wasn't looking into getting into a relationship. I was I was done with relationships. You know, I was on my own and free and praise the Lord. That's how I felt at the time, right? Until I walked in the church, and dear Lord, there, oh and the heavens parted. I was tempted to go up to her and say, Did it hurt? What do you mean, when you fell from heaven? Amen. That's a little humor, very little. But anyway, here's here's my point. I I had to renew my mind. Right? And uh and uh she came to me one night, and I didn't know she was doing this, but she was she was she was praying, and she had prayed and and told, asked the Lord, she said, no Lord, I need a I need a godly man. I need I need somebody that is gonna love my children like his own because you know her first husband died of drug overdose, and and and our two oldest children were they were living with her at the time, and and uh so you know she said, and he's got to uh to love the word and And she here was a condition, and he's got to shout more than me. Yeah, exactly. My Lord, as it because she was sh shouting. And um, and and I I came to to the church and and you know, I was just so glad that God had forgiven me and that that I was he still wanted me, you know, because I told you the story of lifting my uh arms up to him that little house, that little apartment in Lanexa, Kansas, saying, Look, I don't know if you can use my life anymore. I don't know if you even want to, but if you can, here I am, right? And he did, thank the Lord. But you know, I saw I was just so excited. I I was I was mini-pearl, man. I'm just glad to be here, right? And and so uh I would go to church and just just shout and just dance and and love the Lord. And uh so one day she came up to me after church and she said, Um, you know you're my miracle. You know, I'm kind of a facetious guy at times, and everything in me wanted to go, yeah. Yep. No, but I didn't. I didn't. I was working on humility, my mind was being renewed. But here's the point is the Lord said to me one time, he said, your wife is the greatest expression of my mercy to you. See, this renews your mind. When I look at my wife, I don't see her as anything other than the mercy of God in my life. Renewing my mind. Right? Renewing my mind. And when we got married, we were uh talking with another couple, Christian couple, family members, about what you know we felt like the Lord wanted us to do with our lives and these different things. And I'm not done. I only I only got a quarterway through my outline, so Wednesday night, there you go. But anyway, uh the point is the Lord had worked on me especially, and uh we were telling them what the Lord, we felt like the Lord wanted us to do, and a family member of mine just said, Well, you know, who do you think you are? You know, and I'm I'm I'm just kind of like, well, nobody, I mean, but they said, uh, you know, you've always been the bottom of the barrel in this family. Thank you. Like the pickle barrel or apple barrel or what? And uh, but you know, but I had so been continuing in what the Lord had said to us, and what we believed he wanted us to do, that I just I never forget, I said they were in a little apartment, and I just stood up and I took my wife by the hand and I said, let's just let's just go do what God called us to do. Right? That's what we're gonna do. And so we we did it, and you know we've been doing it ever since. When your mind gets renewed, nothing can slow you down. Nothing can stop you. And I just sense this in my spirit. You do whatever you want to. I'm not gonna call anybody the front. There are people on the sound of my voice, there are things you've let go of. And if we could say it this way, you've stopped reaching. You've got to renew your mind as to why you were reaching for that in the first place. Because it's still important to God, and it's still important to the plan of God for your life, and it's still important for what he has for you. And you can't let go of it, and here's why. If he told you to let go, don't grab it again. But if he didn't tell you to let go and you just let go for whatever reason, you got to renew your mind and get back on it. Because it's not just about this temporal fulfillment of life, it's the fact that that's what God has asked you to do. Amen. Just just just uh put one hand on your heart, raise one hand to heaven, and just say this with them and say, Father, in the name of Jesus, those things that you want me to reach for and to go after, I commit to go after those things. I will renew my mind, and I will see it your way, and I'll do it your way in the name of Jesus. Amen. Hallelujah. Amen. You know, I'll close with this. You know, we talk about so many of these men that have impacted our lives so much. And uh, you know, I mentioned John Osteen, Pastor John Osteen today. You know, I know just like many of you, I used to watch John Osteen on TV, and it it always blessed me. He'd just be preaching, and then he'd just walk over to the right side of the stage and preach to the camera. Right? Just bless me because it was like every time you turned on John Osteen, it was like a tent meeting. Right? Well, you know, he really was an evangelist. I mean, he saw a multitude saved on the foreign field, but but here's here's the point. It was just that drive, it was that renewed mind that we're gonna have what God told us to have. You know, we talked about the part of the city that his church was in. Why do you think they called Lakewood an oasis of love? Because it was an oasis. God has called our church to reach a city. And that's why you can never pull up to the church and see what you're seeing. You got to see what God's saying. Why do we tell you that God has called us to reach a city, to raise up a spiritual production center, producing life, city, state, nation, and world? Why do we say all the time, God has given the city into our hands for the preaching of the gospel? Because you got to see that. You got to see that. That will never change. That I say, that will never change. God's been speaking to me recently about expanding our television outreach and expanding our presence on VTN and expanding our television channel and these different things that he's asking us to do. Amen. He he told me just the other day as I was uh waiting on him in prayer not to change anything that I'm doing where my traveling is concerned. Uh there for a while I was going to Kansas a couple times a month, sometimes three times a month, but in the last two years I've scaled that back to one time a month. And he said, I don't want you to change that because there's so much happening here that I need you here, and I need you to cover Arkansas. Amen. And I need you to do what I've asked you to do. Just recently I took a whole day and went and drove all through Stuttgart and all through England, where the Lord's talking to me about doing some things and and what we need to do. And, you know, I'm just renewing my mind to that. I was driving through Stuttgart and I said, Lord, why why do you need one more ministry here? I mean, there's a lot of good ministries here. And and uh I didn't really get an answer other than I need you to go look. So I'm looking. Amen. And something else the Lord has been talking to me about, and we've got to get a date. The you know, some time ago uh we stopped having uh Sunday evening services, and and I knew when we did that that it was just for a season. I knew it was for a season. There were some things that the Lord was uh dealing with me to get in line where the Hispanic congregation uh was concerned. And at that time we were doing uh Sunday morning service, uh, if you'll give me a moment, two uh p.m. service, and then we were turning around doing Sunday night service. And so by Sunday night when we got home, we were done. And we were doing that, we did that for three or four years straight. And uh anyway, we we got that lined out. So I'm gonna be getting you to date. We're resuming Sunday night services, and uh it's it's reserved for the moving of the Holy Spirit. That's what the Lord told me uh when we started the church, and so that's the direction that we're gonna go. And uh, but the reason is we got to reach a city. Your church is reaching your city. God has placed us here to do that. Amen. City, state, nation, and world. Hallelujah. Say it out loud. Say, Lord, I'll do my part. Let's stand up today, shall we?