Welcome back.
I just want to pick up right where we left off, we were talking about identity.
I want to talk about your most important identity.
You know, I always refer to that 18 inch journey from head to heart.
And when I met Jesus, when I was 22 years old, I had a very counterfeit identity.
I had been through a lot of stuff.
I had a lot of bad information in my heart.
And so you probably have had a lot of bad information in your heart as well.
And whatever experiences that we've had, you know, spiritual experiences, that doesn't
really get rid of that.
We do people a disservice by saying, Hey, you know, you've met Jesus, everything's different
now.
It's not because your heart still believes the old stuff and we can't erase, we have
to replace.
And so if we want to believe in our eating and sleeping and standing up and sitting down
in everyday life, that God loves us, that he is on our side, that he is for us, then
we're going to have to begin to deposit some good stuff.
Remember, God is the identity giver.
We call him father because of that reason.
He's not a man, he's a spirit, a spirit that's actually both masculine and feminine.
That might mess with your theology a little bit, but it's true.
And so what that means is that your relationship with your earthly mom and dad really affects
how you see God.
And my dad left.
My dad left when I was six months old and he did some really unworthy things because
he didn't know any better.
My mom also had a lot of deficits and I believe that she did the best she could as well.
And it was a real game changer for me to forgive them because I came out of agreement that
that's what father looks like.
I came out of the agreement with the idea that I was abused and that nothing good was
ever going to happen to me and all of the layers of identity that came from my origin
family.
I believe they did the best they could.
And you might think, well, how is that possible?
What they did was terrible.
Well, they didn't know any better and your people didn't know any better either.
They were only doing what they experienced.
That's what we call inherited trauma.
And the cycle is just going to lather, rinse, repeat on and on and on until someone breaks
it.
And I believe that you're the person that's going to break it in your family.
Your children and your children's children, they're not going to experience the type of
pain and suffering that you've experienced.
Maybe not even at the hands of your family, but at the hands of something.
When we forgive those people that have hurt us, who no matter who they are, we cut that
off from getting perpetuated into our future generation.
Now God's going to continue to highlight who you need to forgive and who you need to release.
And you're going to do that.
You are not because you feel like it, but because you know that it's the right thing
to do.
And you want a different relationship with God and with humans.
A lot of times, unforgiveness is what's holding us back from having vibrant relationships.
It's blocking us from being able to receive the love of God.
And if we can't receive his love, then it can't come through us to others.
Whoever he is to us, he will be through us.
You know that scripture that talks about how our roots need to go deep, deep, deep down
into the love of God.
How far do you think your roots can go down before they hit some kind of rock or weed
or thistle or thorn or something if we don't do our heart work?
And so we have to forgive people.
We want to release them.
If they're still alive on this earth, the people that have hurt you and they're your
family, they're your parents, we even want to be good to them.
Yeah, they don't deserve it, but we don't deserve the love of God either.
We don't deserve any of the good things that we've been given.
And so we want to honor them because scripture tells us to do that so that our life will
be long.
And so send them that Mother's Day card, that Father's Day card.
I know you're like, oh, but the card says stuff that I don't believe and that they didn't
do for me.
We'll find one that just says, hey, I hope you're having a good day.
Bless you.
You know, I love you.
You can say that.
You can love people.
You can love people with the love of God and put that card in the mail, put it in the mail.
Now we might have people in our lives that we can't be around because they're not safe
and they're still dangerous, but putting a card in the mail is not dangerous.
And that card may say, you know, uh, I hope that, that, uh, you have a great birthday
or you have a great Mother's Day.
It doesn't have to say, I'm proud to be your daughter or your son.
It can just say something really beautiful and amazing.
So go ahead and call them up into that identity.
If you want to, you can even pick a card that says something that's not true to you,
to the thing that you've been through with them, because you want to call them up into
that higher identity.
You know, when we forgive people, um, it calls them up into a higher identity.
And so when we bless people and we honor people, um, it also shows them who they could be.
And that's really important.
And so, uh, my eyes have been opened in such amazing ways because of the levels of forgiveness
that God has allowed me to operate in by his grace.
He's graced me to operate in those levels.
You can't do this on your own, but if you lean into him and you desire to do the right
thing, your intention is to forgive and to love regardless of whether or not that person
deserves it or is worthy of it.
God will love them through you and you will begin to see breakthrough in ways that you've
for. I remember a time in my life when I just needed to see the goodness of God. I believed
what his word said, but my life was not reflecting that goodness. I didn't see it anywhere. I had tons
of problems, issues, very little abundance in my life. And I just said to God, I need to see your
goodness. I didn't give him an ultimatum. I didn't tell him how I needed to see his goodness.
I just told him that I needed to see it. Please show me your goodness.
Show me that you care for me. Show me that you're a good daddy. Remember,
I didn't have that father figure in my life. Show me that you're taking care of me.
Show me that you love me. I was in debt. I had a car that wasn't working correctly.
I was just waiting every day for that car to just give up the ghost and just break down.
And one day I was on a trip and that's exactly what happened. That car just broke down and
I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. I was kind of relieved. You know how you
have this problem and it's pressing and pressing and pressing. And then all of a sudden, it's not
a problem anymore because the worst case scenario happens. I was driving my car and it broke down
and now I'm broke down on the side of the road. And thankfully my husband was with me. That's good.
That's another blessing of the Lord because normally he would not have been, but he happened
to be there. And I was only a mile away from the venue that I was headed to. I was headed to a work
to a job, to a work event. And I just felt like relieved. I felt like, uh, you know, it's went
ahead and happened. And oh, well, my engine blew up. You can tell by the sound that the car made
when it, when it stopped working, that it probably was never going to work again.
So my husband and I got out of the car and we started walking the mile to the venue and neither
one of us were speaking. I hadn't told him that I asked God to show me his goodness.
You know, things had gone from bad to worse, but like I said, once the car blew up, I felt like a
weight was lifted off of me. Sometimes the things that you've been worrying about and worrying about
and worry about, it's just finally good when it just blows up because now you don't have to worry
about it anymore, no more. And so I didn't have to worry about that anymore. And I just went ahead
and walked to that venue. It was a nice spring day. I was just enjoying the birds chirping and
the sun shining. And I just didn't have a care in the world because my car broke down and that was
my care and that was gone. And so when I got to the venue, God showed me his goodness. People
came all out of the woodwork all day long. Hey, I heard your car broke down. I wasn't making a
spectacle of it. I wasn't asking anyone for help. I wasn't spreading news. I wasn't trying to get
people to feel sorry for me or trying to make people help me. I don't even know who told people
that this happened because I only told two people and I told them because I needed to, because I
need to figure out how I was going to get three hours back to where I lived when the event was
over. So I told my boss and I told another person and somehow it got all over the place that my car
broke down. And some person stepped out of nowhere and said, Hey, my cousin owns a towing company.
I'm going to have it towed for you. Another person was like, you know, my, um, my manager
is, uh, friends with the manager of the GMC dealership. And we'll have the car towed there
and they can look at it on Monday. I was like, wow. I was like, all right. And then another
person was like, Hey, let me take you to lunch. Let me take you and your husband to lunch and
pay for it. Let me treat you. And so just wonderful things were happening. And then another woman came
forward that I actually knew. And she said, Hey, I'm headed your way after the event. Let me give
you a ride home. I'll take you back home after the event's over. And I just felt God's goodness.
I felt his intention towards me. I felt his love for me, but it gets better because at the end of
the day, at the end of the event, when it was over, a man approached me, a stranger, and he
said, Hey, I heard your car broke down. And I said, oh, well, everybody heard. And he said, I'd like
to loan you a car. And I said, what? I said, you don't have to do that. And he said, I'd like to,
because God told me to, he told me that you needed to see what it looks like to be fathered. And now
this man was old enough to be my father. And he gave me the keys to one of his cars and told me I
could drive it as long as I needed to. I kept protesting. I kept telling him, no, I live hours
from here. He said, I know where you live. I'm not worried about you stealing my car. You can
keep it as long as you need to. I know you'll take care of it. And I'll go work with that dealership
in town where your car has been towed and I'll find out what it needs and how to fix it. And he
said, please just take this blessing from me because God wants you to know what it feels like
to be taken care of. And I want to release that over you right now. Not only did that man, let
me drive that car for four months, but that car was a brand new Mercedes Benz C300. It only had
8,000 miles on it. Leather seats, tinted windows, nice rims, tricked out. I had never ridden in a
car that nice in my whole life, let alone drove it. That man also went to that dealership and
paid $2,500 to them to have a new engine put in my car. And four months later, he brought it to
me and got his car back. He showed me what it's like to be fathered. And God wants to do that
same thing for you. He says, taste and see that I'm good. He cares about you.
Remember how we learned about those Jesus Cares Board?
You need to really use those.
God wants to intervene in your life in ways
that you cannot even imagine if you will simply let him.
There's blessings for you on the horizon
that you don't even understand the goodness of God
that he wants to bring into your life.
He wants you to see what it's like to be loved
like you have never been loved before.
And those rocks and those weeds and those thistles
and all those roots in there, in your heart
that are in the way of that love going deep, deep down
every time you see that confirmation of God's goodness
and his love for you,
those things get moved out of the way.
Every time you understand
that God's emotionally involved with you
and that he's caring for you
and that somehow things are gonna turn out to my good,
that stuff gets plowed out of the way.
And this is how we can't erase, but we have to replace.
We replace by inviting God to show us,
to show us that all the experiences that we've had
and all the lies that we believe because of it,
they're not true.
They may be facts that that stuff happened to you,
but the greater truth is that God is going to work it
to your good.
And so now I know him as my father.
I know him as my friend.
I know what it's like to live in his goodness
every day of my life.
And I wanna speak that over you
that your greatest gift and joy will be to hear his voice,
to know his love, to feel like you're a child
and not a servant, not an employee.
You're not punching a time clock.
For those of you that are into ministry
or think that God only loves you when you're performing,
God doesn't only love you when you're performing.
When you're suffering, he's suffering with you.
He cares about you like that.
Compassion means to enter into the suffering of another.
He cares about you when you're broke
or when you have an issue or something is not working out
the way that it needs to.
He's right there with you in all of those situations.
So we have to come back into reconciliation with this truth
that we are sons and daughters,
that we're not just some experiment
that God has on the earth,
that he's not disconnected from us,
but that he's emotionally involved with us
and that he loves us so very much.
In fact, that's what his word says.
It says that God so loved the world,
remember John 3, 16, that he what?
That he gave, that he gives to us
because he loves us so much,
that he gives us precious and amazing inheritance.
And you've gotta get ahold of that.
You've gotta get ahold of who you really are
and whose you really are,
because if you do, it'll change your life forever
because it's supernatural.
You can't do this life on your own.
And Father God doesn't want you to.
He wants each and every one of you to become Abba's child.
From this moment forward, you're gonna crawl into his lap.
You're gonna lean your head on his chest.
You're gonna feel his love that he has for you.
You're gonna believe that he has the answers
and he has the solutions to all the problems
that you've been running away from.
Every single thing, every broken toy
you're gonna bring to daddy,
everything that doesn't go right,
everything that makes you confused or makes you afraid,
with every fear, you're gonna run to him
and you're gonna know
that he's gonna take care of everything.
He's gonna provide for you from where?
From his riches in glory.
And I just speak that over you.
I release that over you.
I believe something supernatural is happening
right now in your heart.
And you're gonna be able to receive that identity
of son or daughter like never, ever before.
And I cannot wait to see the fruit of it.
I'll see you soon.