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You develop your skills, God will open up the doors.

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You become good at what you're doing, God will open up more doors.

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🎵 Music 🎵

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In 1 Samuel 16, looking at the life of David and the kind of person that God mightily uses,

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we're picking up at verse 14.

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But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him.

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And Saul's servant said to him,

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Surely a distressing spirit from God is troubling you.

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Let your master now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man

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who is a skillful player on the harp, and it shall be that he will play with his hand,

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and when the distressing spirit from God is upon you, you shall be well.

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So Saul said to his servants, Provide me now a man who can play well and bring him to me.

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Then one of the servants answered and said,

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Look, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite,

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who is skillful in playing a mighty man of valor, a man of war, pruning in speech,

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and a handsome person, and the Lord is with him.

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Sometimes when we're talking about the kind of person God can mightily use,

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we talk about the type of people that God fills with His Holy Spirit.

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We can think totally spiritual.

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But even right here, we see the resume of David as one who was skilled and prudent in speech.

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So I've made this a quality.

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I think the fourth quality of the kind of person God can mightily use

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is that they are skillful at something and they're prudent in speech.

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So I would say developing your skills and your speech are hugely important

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in becoming the kind of leader, becoming the kind of servant leader that God wants you to be.

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David had become so skilled with a harp at 13, 14 years old that the king of Israel heard about him.

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That's how skilled he was.

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And I want to challenge you.

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You know, find a skill.

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Find something that you have a passion for and develop that.

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God really uses people who develop their skills.

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I mean, it could be anything.

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I have a son who's a lawyer, and he loves law.

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He has put in years and years of law school, and now he's in Washington, D.C.

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And so he's developing the skills of a lawyer, and God's going to mightily use him in law.

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I have another son who's really skilled in social media stuff,

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and he has developed that skill to such a degree that his ministry

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and the things that he's involved in are just flourishing.

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This avenue opened up for them.

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That's the way it always is.

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You develop your skills, God will open up the doors.

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You become good at what you're doing, God will open up more doors.

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And that's what he's doing with David, because David has put in what Malcolm Gladwell,

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in his book, his powerful book, Outlier, he calls the 10,000-hour rule.

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And what he means by that is taking 10,000 hours.

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They found that it takes about 10,000 hours to develop a skill at a master level.

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Gladwell explains in his book, and I quote, that reaching the 10,000-hour rule,

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which he considers the key to success in any field,

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is a matter of practicing a specific task or skill

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that can be accomplished with 20 hours of work a week for 10 years.

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So he actually uses in the book different people like the Beatles.

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And the Beatles, the rock band out of England, who in the 1960s were just a garage band,

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who were asked to go to Germany.

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And when they went to Germany, this nightclub really liked them

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and booked them for over a year every night.

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And it was at that time that they started writing,

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because you can't keep copying everybody else's music as a garage band

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if you're going to be at the same place every night for a year.

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Because if the people quit coming because you're bored, you're going to get fired.

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So the Beatles began to wake up in the morning and work on new stuff.

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It forced them to write new lyrics, to write new music, and they became a huge hit.

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But they put in the 10,000 hours.

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And almost any skilled musician, any skilled athlete, any skill,

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you're going to find someone that's put in the 10,000 hours.

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Proverbs 22, 29.

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It says, do you see someone skilled in their work?

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They will serve before kings.

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They will not serve before officials of low rank.

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So this is what's happening to David.

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David's being raised up because of his skill on the heart.

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But it also says that David was prudent in speech.

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And I can't overestimate this to say

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that you become skilled and prudent and eloquent

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and articulate in speech.

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Man, the sky's the limit of how God can use you.

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David evidently had developed articulation in his speech.

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You know, I've got 10 fingers here.

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And I don't have any maladies or arthritis here.

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But I can move these fingers in all kinds of ways.

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And that's kind of the way articulation is.

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Articulation is skill in maneuvering something.

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Well, you've got this tongue.

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And it's one of the most powerful motor skills

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and actually one of the most complex motor

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skills on your body.

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Learning to use your tongue is an art form.

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It's a skill that we can learn.

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And so it's through that skill that David

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was noticed by God that he was articulate.

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And so I want to challenge you men and women.

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Become articulate.

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Develop your vocabulary.

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Read books.

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Enlarge your vocabulary.

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Take opportunities to speak or to talk to people.

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Because the person who's articulate

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is the person who wins the world.

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I mean, it's always going to be that the president

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of the company or the leading CEO of a business

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is someone who is articulate.

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Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson

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has said the most dangerous person is one who is articulate.

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So grow in articulation.

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Grow in skill.

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Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said,

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send me your son David, who is with the sheep.

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And Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine,

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a young goat, and sent them by his son David to Saul.

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So David came to Saul and stood before him.

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And he loved him greatly and became his armor bearer.

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Then Saul sent to Jesse, saying, please let

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David stand before me, for he has found favor in my sight.

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Verse 23, and so it was, whenever the spirit from God

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was upon Saul, and that means a demonic spirit in this case,

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that David would take a harp, play it with his hand.

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Then Saul would suddenly become refreshed and well,

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and the distressing spirit would depart from him.

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The fifth quality of the kind of person

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that God mightily uses is one who's

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developed the ability to fight in spiritual warfare.

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David knew how to fight in spiritual warfare

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through worship.

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He knew how to use his heart in such

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an articulate and powerful and skillful way

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that he drove off demons.

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Can you imagine a 13-year-old boy

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who's so skilled in a musical instrument

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that when he plays, the presence of God

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falls on those that are in the room,

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and their demons get cast out?

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Well, in the same way, I think God

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wants us to be able to use our skills that drive off demons.

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I mean, I really believe this, that whether you

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are in full-time Christian work or whether you're

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in a secular job, most of you are in just regular jobs.

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God wants to use you in that job

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to be so anointed by the Spirit, so skillful,

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finding your core identity through intimacy with Christ,

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developing a secret history with God,

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that when you walk into the room,

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demons shudder because of the presence of God being upon you.

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So learning to fight in spiritual warfare

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is the key to success in your life.

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And what I mean by that is the ability

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to discern what demons are doing all around you,

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the ability to go into your family,

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go into your work, in relationships that you're in,

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and discern that's of God, that's not of God.

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And how do you fight that?

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How do you battle that?

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Well, I think the first thing is you put on the armor.

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Every day, put on the armor of God.

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And here's what I do.

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I'll just show you what I do from Ephesians 6.

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I say, Lord, I'm putting on the helmet of salvation.

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With the helmet of salvation, renew my mind today.

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I'm gonna renew my mind with things that are positive,

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pure, noble, and good.

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I'm gonna think on those.

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You have control of my mind today.

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Lord, I put on the breastplate of righteousness.

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Well, Lord, your breastplate covers my heart.

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I want the motives of my heart.

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the way I treat people to be righteous in all that I do.

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Lord, I take the shield of faith, which extinguishes the fiery dark to the enemy,

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and Lord, I'm going to walk by faith. So increase my faith,

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develop my faith, not my feelings, because I mean even today I don't feel

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like that great. I mean I feel normal, but I mean I don't feel that great,

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but I don't depend on my feelings. Sometimes I feel a little bit down, I'm

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not going to depend on my feelings. Sometimes I feel super high up. I don't

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depend on my feelings. I walk by faith, not by my feelings.

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Feelings are fickle, man, and people are fickle,

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and if you're depending on those things to find your security,

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man, you're going to be so insecure. And so take the shield of faith. I'm going to

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walk by faith today, and then I'm going to take the sword of

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the spirit, which is the word of God. That sword is the word. I'm going to spend

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time in God's word today. I'm going to put on

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the belt of truth. Well, truth comes from the word. Truth

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sets us free. You abide in Christ. You abide in his word,

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and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

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So freedom comes through truth. And then I shod my feet with the gospel of peace.

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All of this is found in Ephesians 6, 10 through 18.

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That means that wherever I go, I pray I'd be a peacemaker.

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My forerunner is at the Toyota place today,

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and Adam is my service director there at the Toyota dealership,

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and I pray that I'm a peacemaker. I bring God's peace and God's presence into

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Adam's life by me being there to pick up my car.

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So that's the first thing, is to put on armor. Second thing,

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you got to be able to discern what's going on around you.

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You got to discern what the enemy is up to.

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And sometimes you can be in environments where people are angry,

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they're frustrated, they're depressed, whatever it might be.

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And if you'll ask God, he'll show you what's going on.

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And sometimes it's demonic. I mean, demons are there

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at work. And so that's why thirdly, learning to bind and loose.

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So we learn how to bind the enemy through prayer and

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to leave that place in the name and the blood of Jesus.

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So that's how we fight in spiritual warfare.

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So I hope that this series has been helpful to you.

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Remember, core identity is intimacy with Christ.

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Develop a secret history with God. Thirdly, be able to understand

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what's going on around you by asking God, what are my skills? What are my

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talents? And then develop your skills. Put in the 10,000 hours.

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Develop a skill. Become prudent in speech.

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Learn and grow in articulation in your speech.

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Fourthly, develop your skills and your speech.

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But then fifthly, develop the ability to fight

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in spiritual warfare. This is key. This is key to becoming the kind of person

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that God can mightily use. And I hope this has been helpful to you.

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David is quite the man of God. And if you're interested in more,

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read 1 Samuel 16 onward all the way through

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1 and 2 Samuel. Get my book, Worshipper Warrior. It's on Amazon and Barnes and

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Noble. And I take you chronologically in a

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devotional way through the dangerous life of David.