Welcome to Supernatural Saturday.
If you are new here, we just want to welcome you.
We want to embrace you with open arms.
We want to let you know that you have found your tribe, you have found your family.
And this family gathers together on Saturday mornings to look to heaven and find out what
is God doing?
What is God saying?
What does he want us to know?
How can we partner with heaven?
And so Supernatural Saturday is all about what is the current prophetic reality of our
lives?
God is always doing something new.
Did you guys know that?
The Bible says, behold, I do an old thing.
Look around.
You've all seen it all before.
Is that what it says?
No, it says, behold, I do a new thing.
And then it goes on to say, can you not perceive it?
Do you not know it?
And so it's an invitation for us to lean in.
To lean into perceiving what is God doing, right?
And so that's what we do on Saturday mornings.
We lean in to find out, hey, God, what are you up to?
What is written into the story right now, today?
What's written into the story on Saturday, November 30th, 2024?
What does that look like in my life?
What does it look like in the lives of my friends?
And so that's what we do on Saturdays.
So make sure you come live if you can.
If not, always listen to the replay.
And then on Sunday nights, we activate what we learn here because we can't just be hearers
of the word.
We have to be doers of the word.
And so how can we take what God is saying to us and put it into practical action in
our own lives?
And that is what we do on Sundays, except the last Sunday of every month, we have a
fun prophetic time.
All of our prayer team comes and we just release prophetic words and it's a good time.
We now actually have a artist, I don't know if any of you have been to churches where
they paint during worship.
Well, the last Sunday of the month, while we are prophesying, we have a fellow artist
here in our community who will be drawing out those prophetic words and that is going
to be super fun.
So for those of you that are visual learners and you'd love to see those prophetic words
in picture form, guess what?
That's going to happen.
All right.
So we're excited about having that ministry also available with that.
So Father God, we look to you today.
We know that you're always doing a new thing.
We know that you're always inviting us into that new thing.
And so Lord, we're asking that you would give us revelation and wisdom and insight.
Holy Spirit, take charge of this conversation.
Speak to me, speak through me.
We ask that we would be let in on whatever it is that heaven is up to today.
Align our hearts with yours so that we can be abundant in the earth and that everyone
would know that Jesus was the son of God.
In Jesus name, amen.
So I have a couple of different thoughts this morning.
You know, I'm not at my house.
I'm actually staying downtown Austin watching a dog.
I'm puppy sitting this weekend and I thought it would be fun.
I live out in the country kind of, and it'd be fun to get into the city and be closer
in proximity to my kids that all live downtown.
And even though it's only a 45 minute drive, sometimes it feels like they live a world
away.
I hardly see them because like, ah, we don't want to come to the suburbs, mom.
We don't want to come out to the country, mom.
We're down here in the city where the action is.
And so this opportunity popped up.
People were traveling for the holidays.
And so I came down and staying in their little apartment down here with their big dog, big,
big dog.
His name is Tucker.
And, but it's walkable.
It's in proximity to the things that I want to be in proximity to.
It's close to where my kids are, three miles away from my daughter.
It's a half a mile away from a really cool street where there's lots of shops and lots
of restaurants and coffee and matcha and all kinds of things.
And so the very first thing that I want to release over you today is what is it that
you want?
I want you to think about that for a second.
What is it that you want?
And then I want you to ask yourself this question.
How can I get in proximity to it?
How can I move my physical body closer to what it is that I want?
You guys, where there's a will and specifically where there's God's will, there's a will.
way. And I know that we have a lot of religious thinking about what God's will is, but I will
tell you what God's will is. Go ahead and write it down. And anytime you get confused
about is this the will of God for my life? I want you to look back at this. God's will
is for you to prosper even as your soul prospers. His will for you is to be in health. His will
for you is to live in abundance and have an overflow of abundance in your life that you
can share with others. His will for you is for you to be the lender and not the borrower.
His will for you is for you to glisten with hope and be able to give others an explanation
of your hope everywhere you go. I remember a long time ago, I was having a conversation
with the Lord. It was at least a decade or more ago. I was having a conversation with
the Lord and he said, I was reading John 10, 10, that beautiful scripture that talks about
how the thief has come to steal and to kill and to destroy. But Jesus speaking, he says,
but I have come. I'm not coming. I have come. I'm here. I have come that you might have
life, but not just any life, abundant life. And that word abundant in different translations
of the Bible, but in the original Greek means overflowing, fully alive. That you might have
this overflowing, fully alive, fully alive life. What does that look like? It looks like
maybe we're not fully alive before Jesus. Maybe we're dead men walking before Jesus.
Dead in sin, disconnected from our royal heritage, not understanding our identity because our
identity is in Christ. And so without him, you can't understand who you are. You'll always
be who someone else says you are. You'll always be what trauma says you are. Well, you always
be what society and culture says you should be. That's what you'll be striving for. But
when you're in Christ, you're fully alive. You know that you're accepted in the beloved
just as you are. Nothing's missing, nothing's lacking, nothing's broken. And I was having
this conversation with the Lord and I was reading that scripture and I wanted that. I wanted to live
abundantly because I wasn't. Just like you and even today for me, there are areas of my life
that do not show John 10 10 in my life. I'm not living in abundance. I'm not living fully alive.
I'm not living overflow in those areas. And so I was reading the scripture and back then,
oh, I had a lot of areas that weren't living abundantly. I wasn't living abundantly. And I
was reading the scripture and I believe the word of God. And so I was asking God about it. And he
said, do you want to live abundantly? Do you want to live the John 10 10 life? And I said,
well, of course I do. And he said, well, then there's one thing that you have to do. What?
Just one thing. Wow. All right. Give it to me. Lay it on me, God. I want to know what's this
one thing that I have to do to live in abundance. He says you have to be able to receive what you
do not deserve. Please write that down. Please get that tattooed on your arm. I'm kidding. But
if you want to, you have to be able to receive what you do not deserve. This was a particularly
interesting message for me. Hard to receive. It was hard for me to even receive the message,
let alone the meaning of the message, because I had had to work and earn everything in my life.
I came from a very desolate place, very broken place, very abandoned place. If I wasn't going
to do it, there wasn't going to be anyone else to do it. As far as I knew, I had never been helped
by anyone. I had often thought about my childhood and how I was surrounded by all kinds of adults
at camps, at different church activities that I had been sent to by someone. I was the odd
person out. I didn't go to these people's churches. I wasn't part of these kid groups of these camps
where everyone knew each other and all the families knew each other. But none of these
adults, these counselors, these ministers, these people, not even one of them ever reached out to
me. I was a broken and hurting child. I was being emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually,
sexually abused. You think none of them, none of them had discernment to say like,
oh, this child's hurting. We should reach out to this kid. Not nobody, ever.
And so I grew up with the idea that, hey, you know what, I'm all I've got.
I'm all that I've got.
And if I don't take care of myself, who's going to?
Now, thankfully it didn't give me this, this personality where I was taking from
others and I mean, not, not really, like I've always had a heart of compassion for
other people that are hurting as well.
Okay.
Which is good.
You know, and I've always had a strong sense of, you know, not, you know, it,
it never, it never was okay for me to betray or hurt somebody else
that really ate me up inside.
So God was always with me.
The spirit was always with me.
And I can see how, when I was a really small child at my grandmother's house,
when I was about eight or nine years old, I gave my, I gave my life to Jesus.
I didn't really know what I was doing, but I did it.
And guess what?
His scripture that says that what you have given to me, I will in no, for no
reason, he says, I will in no wise, but for no reason in just modern English,
I will no reason turn it away.
I will never turn away anything that's brought and given to me.
And so that happened.
That happened for me throughout my life.
God was with me, even though I didn't know him.
And then at 22 years old, I had a real amazing introduction to Jesus.
And I have been following him and being a disciple of his ever since.
So when I got this message, probably about 15 years ago of, Hey, you have to
be able to receive what you do not deserve.
It was a hard message for me because I didn't know how to do that.
Because even though I knew Jesus now, I was still striving in my own
strength to make things happen.
I was still, now I was serving God.
You know, a lot of us will even use the, the, the, uh, the language with God.
Um, use me, Lord, use me, use me.
Let me ask you a question.
Have you ever been used by anybody?
Raise your hand if you've ever been used by anybody.
Used by a romantic relationship, used by a so-called friend,
used by your company, your boss.
It doesn't feel good to be used.
And I don't know where we got this language from, what scripture we
translated into modern language to think about God using anybody.
But the scriptures that I see say, God, here I am, send me.
The scriptures that I see are, be it done unto me, Lord, according
to your word and your will.
It doesn't say use me.
That came out of some song somewhere, some preacher sermon somewhere,
because we don't, God doesn't use us.
The devil uses people.
People are used as pawns in his game all the time.
People are used as puppets on his string all the time.
Amen.
Go ahead.
You can put your hands down.
Probably have some little bit more interaction today.
Some activations.
God doesn't use us.
He doesn't want to use you.
He wants to protect you and love you.
He wants to care for you.
He wants you to serve others because he served you.
He wants you to love others because he loved you.
That's where it has to come from.
It has to come from a do unto others as you would want it to be done to you.
Right.
And we're going to talk about that because that's really what
today is about when we get there.
So God said, you have to be able to receive what you don't deserve, Jackie.
And I, you know, I really wrestled with that and I continue to wrestle with that.
I continue to, you know, sometimes default into orphan tendencies.
Sometimes I attended default into my own strength.
And then I catch myself and say, Hey, that's what the Jesus
cares board is all about y'all.
That's what it was born out of.
It was born out of me not being able to fix things for things that were out of my
control, out of my jurisdiction, out of my authority, I could not fix those things.
And I was destroying myself trying.
And God very kindly came to me and said, Hey, you've done a really great job, kid.
Taking care of yourself all these years, but I'm going to take it from here.
Somebody needs to hear that today.
I posted something on my Facebook page this morning about, you're turning a corner.
That has been in the Word.
That has been the Word in the Spirit on this day for the last 11 years.
God has reiterated that message.
For the last 11 years, the first time that God gave me that Word that I posted on my
Facebook page today was 11 years ago.
And He continues to give it.
He continues to reiterate it.
Turning a corner.
The hardest part of the process of whatever you've been in is over.
The hardest part of that process is over.
I want you to receive that.
So God told me, hey, I'm going to take it from here.
I need you to surrender to me.
I need you to let me care for you.
One of my favorite scriptures in the Bible is Psalm 126, and it just says this, God provides
for His lovers even while they're sleeping.
The other part of the verse talks about how it's vanity to try to think you can fix all
your problems, to stay up late trying to worry and figure it out.
And that used to be me.
I was a stay up later, worrier, figure it out-er.
And sometimes I could.
And some of you can relate to that.
You're like, I'm a get-or-done kind of person.
I can figure it out a lot.
But then there are things that come that you can't fix.
You can't figure them out.
You can't change them.
They're way beyond your control.
And I didn't know what to do with those things, but after that conversation with the Lord,
I started to cast my cares upon Him because He cares for me.
Guess what?
I started seeing His power in my surrender.
Write that down.
I started seeing His power in my surrender.
When I released those things and took my hands off of them, He could put His hands on them.
Oftentimes we pray for God to intervene in situations that we still have tightly in our
grip.
And as soon as the situation looks like it's going away that we don't want it to go, we
start to try to control it.
But I want you to know something.
Sometimes things have to fall apart so that better things can fall together.
And I know if you were fixing the problem, you wouldn't fix it that way.
But you know what?
You can't fix the problem.
And the one that can is not going to do it the way that you think it should be done.
I can't tell you how often in my life things looked like they were going the opposite way
of what I thought was right, what I thought was good.
When I took my hands off of them.
Right now some of you have people in your life that you're trying to fix.
You're trying to hold them together.
They're constantly in crisis and they're people that you love and people that you can't turn
your back on.
They're people that you're responsible for.
For some of you, it's your children and they're not even adults yet.
But you have to give them to the Lord.
You have to release these people to the Lord.
You cannot fix what's wrong.
Now that doesn't mean that you don't parent and you don't set boundaries.
That doesn't mean you're just like, oh, well, I gave it to the Lord, just go do whatever
you want.
It doesn't mean that, but it does mean that you're nagging and you're criticism and you're
trying to fix them with your words is not working.
Hey, it's not working because there's a deeper problem.
And only God can fix that deeper problem.
And so praying over them, let's not let our praying knees get lazy, friends.
Prayer is powerful.
So praying over them, asking God to intervene in the situation, not telling him how he has
to do it and how you think it should be done, but just allowing him to do it.
And when things start happening that are not on your list.
understanding and believing that God is in it.
That somehow God is in it
and that we're just gonna trust him.
We're just gonna trust him.
All of this is just building experience with God.
It's building trust with God
so that you can say, well, you know,
I don't know how it works out,
but I know that it works out
because when I release things to God,
he takes care of them.
There was an old preacher
when I was a young disciple of Christ
that just said, how will we know
that God could solve our problems
if we didn't have any?
That always stuck with me.
Yes, friends, in this world, we will have adversity.
We will have struggle.
We will have trouble.
We will have process,
but the Bible tells us that we will overcome
because Christ has overcome, we will overcome.
So I don't know who needed that first part of the message.
That's not today's Supernatural Saturday,
but it was important to share it
because that's where someone is.
That's where a lot of someones are
and God wants you to know that he sees where you are.
He knows where you are and he just wants you to release.
He wants you to release it.
He wants you to L-I-G it.
He wants you to let it go.
He wants you to put it on your Jesus Cares board
and leave it there.
He wants you to take your hands off of it.
If it's someone that you're trying to fix
that's driving you nuts,
he wants you to take your mouth off of it.
Speak life, not death.
Speak life.
Speak life, you guys.
People are hurting, so we have to be gentle.
We have to save the advice
on how to fix their lives for later, okay?
Because this is not the most wonderful time of year
for a lot of people, right?
Keep this in mind.
If people are bleeding out, they don't need tough love.
They need a tourniquet.
They need someone to bind up their wounds.
Isn't that what Jesus did?
He bound up the wounds.
The wounds, ha, the wounds.
The wounds, he bound up the wounds.
All right, I just wanna read real quickly
before we stop this part of Supernatural Saturday
and we go on to the other thoughts
that the Holy Spirit gave me this morning.
I'm just gonna read what I put on Facebook.
A lot of you probably don't follow this Facebook page
that I posted this on,
and so I'm gonna go ahead and say it out loud.
You're turning the corner.
The most difficult part of the process you've been in
is ending, and things are going to begin turning around.
Okay, the word turn, you guys.
We have a word in the Spirit right now
that we all should be praying over,
that God has given all of us, and that is what?
The word that I've been releasing over all of us
is everything's coming full circle.
So things that have gone wrong in the past,
opportunities that you missed out on.
There's a couple Supernatural Saturdays ago
I released that word, and so this word's kind of similar.
Right, we're turning a corner.
Process is being completed.
Things are beginning to turn around.
Okay, I'm gonna read the rest of this.
Rest, rest in knowing that.
Rest in knowing that.
Expect progress.
Expect breakthrough.
Expect harvest.
They that go forth weeping, bearing precious seed,
will for sure come again celebrating,
bringing their harvest with them.
And so here are the questions that I wrote down
on this post, and these are the questions
that God has been asking for 11 years.
What have you been weeping over?
Through the years, what have you been crying out
to God concerning?
Your family, your marriage, your singleness,
your purpose, your finances, your health?
Take courage, dear friend, it's time to reap.
Every tear has been a seed that went down
into the fertile soil of God's mercy and grace.
It's time to turn the corner into your harvest.
It's time to see the fruit of the labor of your soul.
Heart work, you guys.
It's time to see the fruit of the labor of your heart.
When I had the heart work translated into Spanish,
the title went from the heart work to la labor del corazon,
the labor of the heart, the labor of the soul.
It's time to see the fruit of your labor.
It's time to see why God signed you up
and you came in the first place.
Because remember, heart work was never just about singleness.
It was about all the other things as well.
All the other areas of abundance that Jesus died to give us.
And so saying that, I want to go ahead and transition into why would we need to be abundant?
Why?
Why would we just need to have enough for ourselves?
I mean, right?
Why would we need to overflow?
Why?
And for some of us, that's kind of the question of maybe why we're not overflowing.
Because we still have that me, mine kind of mentality, right?
We have to begin to expand our thinking that we are blessed to be a blessing.
If we're the lender and not the borrower, then who are we lending to?
Who are we helping?
And so at this time of year, years and years ago, you guys have always been up to some
kind of shenanigans.
And years ago, I had this wild hair to do a project at this time of year with my kids.
I used to always love to get my kids involved in any kind of charity stuff, not just at
the holidays, but any kind of serving people, especially the less fortunate.
And at this time of year, years ago, we started something called Project Good Cheer.
And it was just about random acts of kindness, small ones.
They don't have to be large ones, small ones.
It was about leaving post-it notes with cute sayings on bathroom mirrors and gas stations,
you know, with inspirational things and scriptures and just things that said, Jesus loves you
and just things that would brighten someone's day.
You know, buying someone a cup of coffee in the Starbucks line that's behind you in the
car.
Guys, it doesn't have to be big.
You have no idea what even the smallest, smallest act of kindness can do for someone.
I remember once I was at an airport, and this is what I felt the Holy Spirit wanted me to
do is just kind of tell stories a little bit.
Because when you're in pain, all you can think about is yourself.
I understand that.
And there were many times during the decades that I was in excruciating pain, mentally,
spiritually, that God continued to remind me that there's someone who's in more pain
than me.
And I cannot tell you how much joy it brings you to take your eyes off yourself and put
it on someone else.
Living a self-centered life is not abundant life.
Living a life where all you can think about is yourself and what you need and what you
don't have is not an abundant life.
And it is that kind of micro-focusing on yourself that will cause you to feel even more pain.
Even more pain.
But when we lose our lives, we gain our lives.
What does that mean?
Not just following Christ, but following the ways of Christ.
Not thinking of ourselves, but thinking of others, putting others first.
I know all of you are here in my program because you want a partnership.
But I'm just going to tell you, and I told David this this morning, I asked him to, you
know, we're not at our house and I left something out in the car and it's parked out on the
street somewhere because this is the city and it's not parked in a driveway at a home.
And I asked him if he would go get that for me.
And he very happily obliged and went out in the cold, it's cold here this morning, and
went and walked down to wherever that car is parked and got that for me.
And when he came back, I said, thanks, babe.
I said, you're a good friend.
I need to tell you guys something.
Marriage is 90% friendship.
If you're not a good friend, you're not going to be a good partner, a good married person.
Okay?
David is my best friend.
But a lot of times we've called someone our best friend that really wasn't that great
of a friend to us.
I had a best friend like that.
I love saying the words, oh, I have a best friend.
I love the idea of having a best friend.
But guess what?
I was a best friend, but she wasn't a best friend back.
I was a good friend and I prided myself on being a good friend, on being loyal and being
available.
and, you know, and always helping and serving,
but I wasn't getting that in return.
It wasn't a reciprocation.
There wasn't reciprocal relationship there.
I was the giver and she was the taker.
And you guys, in marriage, that can happen.
If you marry someone who's a taker,
and you're gonna see this even in courtship,
even during the time that you are not married,
the time that you're getting to know each other,
you have to have two givers.
Two givers have to marry each other.
Can't have a giver and a taker,
because eventually, you know, it might feel okay at first,
especially if you get your identity and your significance
from giving and serving others,
but if you're not being served in return,
you're gonna get burnt out.
Then you're gonna get resentful.
Then you're gonna get angry.
Then you're gonna get bitter.
Okay?
Now, there will be times, there will be times,
that's a doggie.
There will be times when,
there will be times when you're the person
that really needs to be served in the relationship,
because you're really going through something.
But then you'll have the opportunity to do that back.
So anyway, my husband went out today and he came back,
and I started singing that song from the Golden Girls.
Thank you for being a friend.
And it was just cute.
And then he started singing it with me,
and then we both started singing it,
because we're goofy like that.
And I just want to tell you that he's my best friend,
and he's such a good friend.
He's such a good friend, you guys.
And so your friendship for your future marriage,
it starts now.
Not just with others, but with Jesus.
You know, he's a good friend to you.
He's your elder brother.
But the Bible says that he is the friend
that sticks closer than a brother.
And we want that kind of friendship.
And so we have been served by him.
We want to serve others.
That's what it looks like to be a disciple of Christ,
is to do what Jesus does, right?
And I promise you,
your problems will begin to lessen
when you begin to help other people.
Do you know that we have not been designed
to carry our own burdens?
Bible says we should cast our burdens on the Lord.
But then it goes on to say
that we should carry the burdens of others.
So if you have your own burdens on your back,
then you're not being obedient to the word of God
that says to cast those cares and burdens on the Lord.
But if you have someone else's burdens on you,
that's biblical.
Now, of course, we're not carrying them alone.
We're carrying them with that person in Christ, right?
And so I want you to think of it this way.
When you cast your burdens, your cares on the Lord,
he is the source.
He's where all our help comes from.
But he's the head.
And you hear me say this a lot
because God gave me this word years ago and I use it a lot.
He's the head of the human resource department.
He's the source,
but he's the head of the human resource department.
And as he solves your issues, your problems,
as he covers your frailties and weaknesses,
it's probably going to include other humans.
When you have a problem,
God is going to assign other humans
to be part of the solution.
And that's when they come alongside you.
Guys, when I was at my lowest point in my life,
those decades, people would just randomly show up.
And they weren't people that I knew.
They were just strangers to me.
They were just resources
from the heavenly resource department.
Reaching out to me, helping me, encouraging me,
being with me, you know?
I remember I had to have a procedure done
and my mom had passed away and I just was in a bad place.
And I was laying there
and they were having trouble getting the IV in.
And I was like, ah.
And then there was going to be a nurse with me
throughout this procedure
because I was going to be unmedicated by choice.
I was going to be unmedicated during this procedure
that people are usually under sedation for.
And so the nurse that was assigned to be with me
and stay with me during the procedure,
she came in and guess what?
She had the same name as my mom.
And she was very motherly.
And she was probably old enough to be.
My mom and she sat down next to me and she took my hand and she was very un-nurse-like
and more caretaker-ish and I was able to breeze through that whole process.
That was God.
He's like, I got you.
Yes, your mother's with me.
She's in another dimension.
You can't see her right now, but we got you.
We got you, all right?
We have other motherly figures that we will send when you need a mother.
They will be there for you.
And you guys, I just want to let you know this morning, and this is the word that God
wanted to release here.
You are that person for someone.
You are someone that God wants to send from heaven's human resource department to a situation.
And if you live your life like this, you're not going to have time to be sad or pout about
what you don't have.
You are going to be way too busy being full of joy because you got to partner with heaven
to do something for someone else.
There's nothing like it.
Nothing like it.
And so Project Good Cheer, I want to release that in the community right now.
So we're all going to do that.
Advent has started.
We're all hounding down until the Christmas holidays.
For some of us, that's not great.
You have shared parenting.
You're not even going to have your kids this year.
You don't even know where you're going to be.
Well, you know what?
Don't worry about where you're going to be.
Start worrying about, not worrying about, but start putting your concern and your attention
on other people that don't have any family.
God will partner you with people that are lonely, more lonely than you.
You don't have to have a lot of money to be helpful to other people.
People need a kind word.
They need to be seen.
They need to know that they are seen, known, and loved.
These are the things.
So here's a story.
This is a story that came up in my spirit this morning, and so I'm going to tell it
very quickly.
David and I, we were helping to build a church.
We were helping to build a church.
David and I, we were helping to build a school of ministry two hours from where we lived
in Columbus, Ohio, and so we would go there on the weekend.
When it wasn't our weekend, our kids were with their other parents.
We would drive to this other city two hours away because we were helping this church build
a school of ministry, and it was always a mad dash.
It was like Mr. Toad's wild ride on Friday to get out of town, to get everything done,
get out of town, and get to this place so that we could be there to lead this school
of ministry, and so one weekend Friday morning, I'm racing around trying to get all my errands
done.
The kids are at school trying to do everything that I need to do so I can get out of town,
and I used to be a social worker.
For those of you that don't know that, for over 10 years, I was a social worker.
Hey, that's what I did.
I went to school to be a psychologist and a social worker, and I worked at the homeless
shelter, and I drove an outreach van to the homeless and to the less fortunate for 10
years, you guys.
I did a lot of crazy stuff, lots of fun adventures with the Lord, but during this season that
I'm telling you about, I hadn't done that in years.
In years and years, I had not been in that line of work, but because I was in that line
of work, I was very street smart, and I still am, okay?
I was already kind of street smart from my childhood, but I am very street smart about
what's going on in the underbelly of society, and so I'm racing down the road.
It's about October-ish.
It's cold in Ohio.
There's a cold rain that's falling, just a little drizzle of rain, and I see this woman
standing out in the rain, and she has a sign, and it has some version of help, need money,
need food, whatever.
Definitely not an unusual sight, and I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and I thought
to myself, I don't have time for that today.
Because of my background, I rarely see a homeless person if I'm in proximity to them that I
don't try to give something to.
I don't care what they do with it.
I'm going to give it to them because they've asked for it, and the Bible says the same
thing, and the Bible says if someone asks you, you give it, and so I'll give them the
change in my pocket.
I'll give them the dollar bills in my pocket if I have it.
I'll give them an unopened bottle of water if I have that in my car.
Whatever I have, I will give them, and they're always very thankful for it.
But this particular day, I was like, oh, I remember thinking in my heart, I don't have
time for that.
I'm about my business.
I got stuff to do.
And Holy Spirit said, you do have time for that.
I want you to stop.
And so I circled back around and I stopped and you guys, I was in such a hurry that I
was probably pretty rude.
Her name is Crystal.
And I was like, okay, hey, what's your name?
You know what's going on?
I was taking this woman in as she was talking to me about, you know, the same story, the
same song, homeless, living in one of those little motels, you know, the pay by the hour
kind of places.
We had lots of those in Columbus, Ohio.
Living in a motel, need money for the night, you know, otherwise you're going to be kicked
out on the street.
I'm like, okay, first of all, who's we?
And she pointed to this guy that was sitting under the bus stop, out of the rain, letting
her be out there in the rain, panhandling.
And I'm like, so I already don't like this guy, okay?
And he looks to be twice her age.
I can tell even though she was hardened by being outside and poverty and all of the things
that she's been through, she didn't have any teeth, y'all.
I could tell that she was young.
And she ended up only being 23 years old when I dug into the story.
And so his name is Matthew.
So it's Crystal and Matthew's story.
So she calls him over, he comes over.
I can tell immediately that he's kind of hard of hearing and he's not that much older.
He's probably in his forties.
And first of all, I don't know what to do with these folks and I don't have enough time
to listen to the full story.
And so I just say, hey, have you eaten anything?
When's the last time you ate something?
Oh, we ate lunch yesterday.
Okay.
All right.
Well, the very first thing we're going to do is we're going to go over here to this
buffet.
Okay.
Good old Golden Corral.
And I'm going to pay for you guys.
You're guys going to get out of the cold and you're going to go in there and you're going
to eat until your little heart's content.
And I'm going to run my errands and then I'm going to come back.
And so that's what I did.
I took them over there to the hometown buffet or the Golden Corral or whatever it was called.
And I paid for them and they went and they sat down and they were eating and I went and
ran my errands.
And the entire time that I'm running my errands, I'm like, okay, God, what do you want?
What do you want me to do with these folks?
You know that I have to get out of town.
I'm headed out of town to Canton.
I got to leave.
You know what?
What do you want me to do?
Because this is not anything that I can get involved with in just an hour, right?
I started calling the homeless shelters, seeing if they had any vacancies in them.
And you know, I started doing the footwork as I'm running errands and doing the things
I need to do.
So I come back and I'm like, okay, hey, great news.
There's some vacancies in the homeless shelters.
Oh, well, we can't go there because he's been kicked out.
Matthew has been kicked out.
Can't be there.
Every solution that I had for them, they had a reason why it wouldn't work.
In a legitimate reason.
I mean, if they've kicked you out and they kicked him out for fighting.
So what I basically find out is that this guy, every time he gets a job, every time
he gets into the shelter, whatever, he ends up getting into a fight with someone at his
job, his boss, whoever, not necessarily just physical, but verbal altercations.
And I discern that the reason why this guy is getting into fights with people is because
he can't hear.
And that, you know, he's, he's being told to do things that he's not hearing because
I'm listening to the stories about how the fights began.
Oh, well, this happened and they said that they told me not to do this or to do that.
And he has a hearing issue.
And I can tell that he's not hearing what people are instructing him to do.
And then when they call him out on it, he gets angry, right?
And so I'm like, okay, guys, listen, I don't know what else to do.
So get in the car and I'm just going to take you to the motel and I'm just going to pay
for another night.
You know, these motels are like 50 bucks a night, something like that.
I'm just going to do that.
Back then y'all, $50 was a lot of money for me.
Okay.
But I'm just going to do it because I don't know what else to do.
And so I'm driving and I'm driving them and I'm not telling y'all to do this kind of stuff.
Remember, I was trained in this kind of stuff.
I drove an outreach van full of homeless people.
One time a lady got on my van without any clothes on.
That's right.
She was completely naked.
So I just want to let you know, I have been trained in what I'm talking about.
God, well, listen, here's a word for someone, all the random things that you've done in
your life that you're like, man, you know, I don't even know why I did that.
I don't even know why I worked there for six months and then they fired me or this happened
or that happened.
God will use every bit of your experience.
He will use every bit of your experience if you will let him.
He won't use you, but he will use your experience.
experience, okay, to help serve others.
Nothing is wasted, friends, nothing.
Okay, so I've taken them over to this motel.
I'm driving, I don't know what else to do.
And then Holy Spirit gives me a thought.
And you know what the thought was?
I was putting together some women's meetings.
I had a women's ministry at the time
and I was putting together some meetings
and I had visited a couple different hotels
to find out pricing for their conference rooms.
And there's this one hotel that I went to
that the lady, the general manager of the hotel,
her and I just really hit it off.
And we just talked, Lisa, we just talked
and just really had a good old time with each other.
And Steve dropped into my head and God said,
I want you to call her and ask her
if she will allow these people to live
in her hotel for free.
Guys, I only met this lady one time.
And this is not a little motel, motel.
This is like a hotel, like a hotel,
like a Hyatt, like a hotel, all right?
And I'm just like, what?
Okay, they probably cost $200 a night or more at this place.
And I'm like, so it makes no human sense, friends.
And so often God makes no human sense.
And so that's why we have to bypass our human reasoning
and just be obedient anyway.
And so I called and I said,
hey, you know, is general manager there?
Can I talk to her?
They're like, yeah, she's in.
They put her on the phone.
I said, hey, do you remember me, Jackie?
I came in about the conference room.
Oh yeah, hey, how are you doing?
I'm doing good.
I said, well, I just wanna let you know,
you know, I met some folks today
that they're homeless unfortunately right now
and they need a place to stay
and they can't afford the motel that they're staying in.
And I thought maybe you just let them stay at your hotel.
And then y'all, I shut my mouth
and didn't say anything else.
You know why?
Because that's what God told me to do.
He told me to ask.
And I know it doesn't make any sense.
I already know that.
So I just gonna say what God said to say and then I'm done.
And so I said it.
And y'all, you guys, when I tell you
that there was the most painful silence after that,
and I could have started talking,
I could have started trying to explain myself
or said, hey, God told me to do it.
I could have done all that, but I didn't.
I just shut my mouth and just sat there in the silence.
And then she started kind of hemming and hawing.
She was like, well, I mean,
homeless people don't stay at this hotel, Jackie.
You know, I mean, it's almost $200 a night here,
you know, whatever the price was.
She just was all these objections.
Once again, I'm not saying anything.
She is going through all the objections
in her own mind out loud herself.
And then she's like, can you just hold on a second?
And then she gets off the phone
and I'm like, okay, God, here we go.
I don't know what's going on.
So she comes back on.
And this hotel that they're staying at
is like $50 a night, this little no-tell motel.
She comes back on and she says, listen.
She's like, I shouldn't do this.
She said, but we have a room right now
that we're not renting
because the mirror over the dresser was broken.
So it was removed.
So it doesn't have a mirror over the dresser.
So we can't rent it right now to customers.
She said, and the mirror's on back order
and we don't know when it's ever gonna come,
when it's gonna be back.
Ever gonna come, when it's gonna be in.
She said, so I will allow these folks
to rent this room for $25 a night.
It has a mini fridge so they can store food there
until further notice.
25 bucks y'all, right?
But that would be awesome if the story ended there.
And I just wanted to show you what will happen
with just a little yes of yours,
just a little baby yes of yours.
So I drove them over to the No Tell Motel
because we need to get their things out of the room
because they need to be out by noon.
So we got their things out of the room
and the man who was running this little No Tell Motel
was Islamic.
And he could not understand why I was helping these people.
Like these were the, you know,
all he sees all day long
because of the type of establishment that he runs
is just the dregs of society, right?
Prostitutes and crackheads and homeless people.
And he cannot understand like, where are they going?
Well, I'm taking them to a better hotel.
Well, why would you do this?
And I was able to witness Jesus to him.
So I'm talking to him about Jesus,
about how God spoke to me and how all these things
and he's listening.
So we're having this conversation
while Matthew and Crystal are getting their stuff.
And I don't know, God's seed was sown.
That's all that I know.
He was listening.
He wasn't refuting.
He wasn't pushing back.
He was listening because he was like, why?
Tell me why you have hope for these people, all right?
And so then we get all their stuff in the car
and we go over to the other hotel
and we get them all checked into this nice room
and all the stuff.
And then the general manager of that hotel confides in me
that she's always wanted to start a homeless shelter,
that that's the dream of her heart.
The dream of her heart is to do this exact kind of work.
And she felt like this was a God wink
with me calling her that it's time.
It's time to use her hospitality,
hotel management background, real estate background
to get this party started.
So she lets them stay.
And you guys, I checked in on them several times
in the next couple of months.
And guess what?
Crystal only had a third grade education.
She had dropped out of school in the third grade, okay?
Her and Matthew actually had several children in the system
because of their chronic homelessness.
They had children together that were in the system
that they weren't with them.
And Crystal was so smart and so good at math
that she became the night auditor of this hotel.
What?
You guys, all that started with is,
I don't have time for that.
God's like, yeah, you do.
Yeah, you do.
You have time for that.
Because the only thing that we are here for is people.
That's the only reason we're on earth.
The only reason that we're on earth
is to finish what Jesus started.
Otherwise, we could go to the heaven dimension, y'all,
because it's much better there.
I just wanna let you know that.
It is an upgrade.
It is much better.
Hey?
So the only reason that we're here
is because we're on assignment.
And the only reason that you need to be married,
please write this down,
is because your assignment is a two-person assignment.
That's all.
You need a friend.
So that when one of you falls,
the other one picks the other one up.
I'll tell you one thing about David and I.
Both of us have been down in the last 17 years of marriage,
but we're never down at the same time.
We're never down at the same time.
I hope you're getting ahold of this.
Hashtag project good cheer.
Why did I call it that?
Because Jesus said that in this life that you will,
in this world, you will have trouble,
but be of good cheer because I've overcome the world.
Be of good cheer.
And if there's any time that you're not in good cheer,
and if there's any time of year
that we should be showing people what it looks like
to overcome because Jesus overcame,
it's at this time of year.
As we're announcing, Advent is an announcement
that something and someone notable and important is coming.
But we know he already came.
So what if now, what if now at this time of year,
it's not him coming that people are waiting for,
it's not Santa coming that people are waiting for, it's us.
We are what people have been waiting for.
We are Jesus with skin on it.
We are, we are his disciples.
We are the ones on assignment in the earth.
We are the only Jesus that anyone is going to see,
except for the people that have visions
and dreams and encounters.
But you know what I mean.
So I want you to really be praying into this,
especially if you've been feeling sorry for yourself
because it's cuffing season.
Guys, that's not what it's about.
It's about having a partner for your assignment.
And I promise you this,
to whom much is given, much is required, okay?
I know that you're thinking about all the things
that marriage could solve in your life,
but there's a whole other list of issues
that will come with marriage.
And so it's never gonna be an issue-less life.
In fact, when you're asking for marriage,
you're asking for an upgrade of assignment,
an upgrade of responsibility, right?
You're asking for an upgrade of visibility.
I don't really focus a lot on warfare,
but there will be obviously an increase in that,
but the enemy is under our feet and we know that.
So I want you to be praying and if you do something, listen, God will open the door
for you to have opportunities.
If you wake up every day and people are like, Jackie, how do you have so many like crazy
stories to tell?
Because I would get up in the morning and I'd be like, okay, God, you know, I got stuff
to do today, but I'm available.
Here I am.
Send me.
I'm available.
Let my path cross with someone who needs to see you today in the smallest way even.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't have to be the big things.
I just told you a crazy supernatural story, but they're not all like that.
They're all supernatural, but they're not all like, wow, what?
Some of them are just showing the kindness of God to someone, complimenting someone.
Guys, the other day I walked out of my house, I live kind of in the country, there's only
a few neighbors.
The lady across the street, I met her and her husband when we first moved in a couple
years ago and we invited them to Thanksgiving and they came over for Thanksgiving one year.
And since then he's passed away.
So I texted her a week or so ago and said, hey, do you want to spend Thanksgiving with
us now that Ronnie's passed away?
I don't know if you have plans.
And she said, no, she goes, I'm going to go to my son, said, but thank you.
And then I was going out to the mailbox and I ran into her and she began to talk to me
about the last couple of days of Ronnie's life and hospice and the things that came
in and all the things.
Cause he was young.
He had dementia.
He was only in his sixties though.
And she, and I started to cry a little bit and you know, I don't know her that well,
but I gave her a hug and she held onto me and we were hugging.
And she said something to me that really made me so sad.
She said that after he passed away, they hadn't been to church in years because of his condition.
Couldn't take him anywhere.
He was really a live wire.
He was very volatile.
And they didn't have anyone to officiate his funeral.
They didn't have a pastor.
They didn't have a minister.
And I wish that she would have reached out to me and told me that because people are
hurting all around us.
They are, there's pain all around you.
That's even greater than your pain.
Even if people don't look like it on the outside.
And as you serve others, God will send people to serve you.
If you stop focusing on your own problems and you cast them on Jesus, he will send human
resources to your problems as he is sending you as a human resource to other people.
Isn't that beautiful?
And when you're feeling sad about your singleness in this season, remember it's about assignment.
It's about partnership for assignment.
It's about lineage.
It's about legacy.
It's about toucan.
It's about better together.
And so give God an even bigger reason to send you reinforcements.
Seriously, if we live a tiny, small little life where all we care about is ourselves
and we're not really doing anything, you don't really need a partner, do you?
I mean, no offense, but do you?
And don't take this in a legalistic and religious way.
I'm not saying go earn a partner because it's not about earning.
Remember, we have to receive what we don't deserve, but it is about necessity.
It is about necessity.
It is about one can put to flight a thousand, but two, 10,000.
It is about this.
So Father God, we thank you, Lord.
We're so thankful at this time of year right now.
We know that there are so many people that do not have what we have, a roof over our
head, food in our fridge, extra pair of shoes, an extra set of clothes to put on.
Lord, there are so many people.
We are among the 1% of the wealthiest people in the world.
And so Lord, we thank you.
We thank you that you've matched us with this era in this time and that you have confidence
in us that we are going to display your glory, that we are a display of your glory, that
your children are your glory.
The children are the glory of the Father.
And just like the firstborn, just like our elder brother Jesus, just like our best friend
Jesus, our Savior, our Master, our Lord, we are following in his footsteps.
So we lay down our lives so that we might find them.
We release the things that have bogged us down, the cares of life for you in this moment.
We release them to you, knowing that you care for us, knowing that you love us.
And as you freely give to us.
We freely receive and we freely give to others
what we have freely received.
We just declare that right now.
And Father, we are asking for partnership.
We're asking for friendship, Lord.
We know that we're better together.
We know that you've created us for these purposes
and we're asking for bigger assignments.
We're asking for more opportunities.
We're asking for the help that we need
to fulfill those opportunities.
We're thanking you, Lord, that you trust us
and that you have continued
to prove yourself trustworthy to us.
Go with us all.
In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, love y'all.
Sunday night, just as normal, and we'll see you soon.
Bye.