Welcome to Supernatural Saturday, you guys, so excited for this morning.
If you're new, which we have a lot of new people rolling in because we just had a live
challenge.
So lots of new ladies, new guys rolling in.
And I just want to tell you that this is my favorite time of the week.
I hope it becomes one of your favorite times of the week.
But this is where as a community, we lean into what is the current prophetic reality.
And today we're going to talk about that a little bit from scripture.
We're going to talk about leaning into current prophetic realities in our own lives.
Because there is a life that's going on all around you.
And then there's a life that's going on all around you.
So there's the things that you can see, there's the things that you can process with your
human reasoning.
And then there's an entire other reality that's happening outside of the dimension that you
live in.
In that other dimension that we call heaven, there are things that are happening.
And guess what?
You're in both dimensions.
The moment that you receive Christ as your savior, the Bible says you were seated in
heavenly places with him.
And that everything that would come against him or you is under your feet, right?
You are with him in heavenly places.
And then also you're here in this dimension, in your rising up and sitting down and sleeping
and waking and eating and drinking life.
And so we're going to look at the book of Romans chapter eight.
And the reason why we're going to do this today, I don't think that we've done this
before, is because I woke up the other morning, in fact, it was Monday morning, had a late
night, had jet lag coming from PST time zone, the Pacific time zone, back to central time
zone, losing a couple hours.
And I ended up waking up at after eight o'clock in the morning.
Usually my alarm goes off and I'm up, but I woke up at 828 in the morning.
And you know, 828 is one of my favorite scriptures in Romans and you guys all know it.
You can quote it, you know, for we know that God works all things to the good of those
that love him and are called according to his purpose.
And so when I saw that, I knew that God was speaking to me.
So all week long, I've been leaning into that.
God, I know that you want to talk to your people about Romans 828 and working all things
to their good.
I know you want to talk about that, Lord, you know, so talk to me about it.
And he said this morning when I woke up and started to prepare for this morning, like,
you know, God, what are we going to dig into for Romans 828?
And he said, well, Romans 828 is really good.
He said, but what about the rest of Romans 8?
And I'm like, well, yeah, it's really good too.
And you guys, I think that it's one of the best.
It's one of the best.
The book of Romans chapter eight, and you know what Paul is saying to the Romans, but
also all the beautiful nuances of what he is saying and confirming from the other books
of the Bible.
There's Exodus that he is referring to here.
There's Genesis that he's referring to in Romans eight.
He's referring to Proverbs.
He's referring to Psalms.
He's referring to so many prophecies and scriptures as he writes this letter to the
Romans.
And one of my favorite teachers of all time used to say, you can't just read the Bible.
You got to read the Bible.
You got to know the nuances.
Don't be afraid to dig in.
You guys, don't be afraid to read something in all the translations that are available.
There might be one little nuance that God is trying to get through to you.
Don't be scared.
Be like, oh, I don't know if that translation is correct.
Just believe that God can speak to you through all things.
Through all things.
Guess what?
That translation is better than whatever magazine you're reading.
That translation I guarantee is better than any show you're watching on TV.
Right?
It's going to get you closer to the Spirit of God than anything else that you would consume
with your carnal mind.
And so, yeah, there might be something that isn't in exact alignment with the original
text or the original language that it was written in.
But guess what?
I believe that when we read the Bible, no matter what translation, with the Spirit of
the truth, Holy Spirit, then we will find the truth.
So invite Holy Spirit.
to read the Bible with you, pray before you begin to read Scripture, ask Holy Spirit to
guide you and lead you through the Word, to show you things, to highlight things to you,
to speak to you.
And we're going to do that this morning.
Father God, we come before you and we love you so very much.
And what we're about to read tells us that you love us so very much, that we are your
dear children, and that we are heirs and joint heirs with Christ, and we need help believing
that this morning.
I'm asking that you would open our hearts and allow this seed to take root in our hearts
and to grow and to bear fruit.
Holy Spirit, we're asking you to come alongside us and open up our spiritual eyes to see and
our spiritual hearts to receive, so that we truly can step into the understanding, but
also the action of what it would look like to truly be God's children on earth.
In Jesus name, amen.
All right, so we're going to read, and the reason why I set that up with translations
is that we're going to read from the Passion Translation.
I don't study the Word from the Passion Translation.
For those of you that have problem with it, just going to have to get over it for this
morning.
You are free to follow along in the NLT or the NIV or the ESJ, ESV, or the King James,
if you think that that's the only true interpretation or translation.
You are free to do it.
I love you, and I bless you, and you can, all right, but here we go.
Living by the power of the Holy Spirit is the title of chapter eight in this translation.
So now the case is closed, you guys, we could just stop right there.
We can stop right there, and we can go about our day and chew on that for the rest of the
day, the rest of the week, the rest of the month, and still not fully grasp the idea
of what God is telling us here through Paul.
But think of it as a court case, and think of it as it's over.
It's over.
It's no longer ongoing.
There's no longer any idea of who is going to be convicted, who's guilty, who's innocent.
The case is closed.
And if you look at that same first scripture over in the NIV translation, it says,
therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
The case is closed.
There remains no accusing voice of condemnation against those who are joined in life union
with Jesus, the anointed one.
Woo, come on.
For the law of the spirit of life flowing through the anointing of Jesus has liberated
us from the law of sin and death.
For God achieved what the law was unable to accomplish because the law was limited by
the weakness of human nature.
Guys, that's powerful.
It's powerful.
The law was weakened by the flesh.
What the law couldn't do, God sent his only son in the likeness of us, in our likeness,
in the same sinful flesh, but without sin to be an offering for us, to condemn sin in
the flesh so that righteousness could come to all of us.
It's powerful right there.
Okay, let's keep going.
God sent us his son in human form to identify with human weakness, clothed with humanity.
And right there, you guys, it's the other scripture that says that we have a high priest
that understands our frailties and our weaknesses because he lived in a body like ours.
He understands the frailty of our form.
God sent his son in human form to identify with human weakness, clothed with humanity.
God's son gave his body to be the sin offering so that God could once and for all condemn
the guilt and power of sin.
So now every righteous requirement of the law can be fulfilled through the anointed
one living his life in us.
And we are free.
Say, I am free.
We are free to live, not according to our flesh, but by the dynamic power of the Holy
Spirit.
You guys, what is that saying?
It's saying that you are no longer a slave to sin.
You are no longer a slave to the curse, that Jesus came and he closed the court case in
heaven.
There is now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus.
And we are all in Christ Jesus.
We have put on Christ.
When God looks at us, he doesn't see just us.
He sees the blood of his son.
He sees Christ.
We are free now to do what?
To walk after the Spirit.
Before Jesus, you weren't free to walk after the spirit.
You had to live in the curse, and the curse looks different on all of us.
You guys, the curse looks different on you than it does on me.
It looks different on your family than it did on my family.
It affected you differently than it affected me.
Please don't sit in judgment of other people's cursed state.
Don't say, oh, well, my God, I can't believe that that person is out here changing their gender.
I can't believe that that person is living this lifestyle.
I can't believe that they're doing this or doing that.
Watch the news, and you see someone who's, you know, getting in trouble and going to prison.
Oh, my gosh, I would have never done that.
Well, you weren't cursed the same way that they were cursed.
The curse didn't look like that on you.
One of my favorite teachers of all time, even though I never knew her in person, but I read all of her books,
and God used her to disciple me in my early 20s, Corrie Ten Boom.
She says, there's no pit too deep or too dark that God cannot find us.
Let's go on, you guys.
I'm on verse 5.
Those who are motivated by the flesh only pursue what benefits themselves.
See, that doesn't look too scary or evil, does it?
It's like, well, you know, people that are living in sin, they're doing drugs, and they're addicts, and they're fornicators.
No.
The Bible tells us right here that if you're living in your flesh, you're just selfish.
Yeah, sometimes the curse looks like all those other things, but guess what?
Those people are just trying to find some peace.
Those people are just medicating themselves with sex and drugs and rock and roll, okay?
Because they're hurting, and they're in pain, and that is the medication of choice.
But the Bible tells us that being in your flesh is as simple as being selfish and going after things that only please the flesh.
But those who live by the impulses of Holy Spirits are motivated to pursue spiritual realities.
You guys, what are we doing here this morning?
I told you that we were going to talk about current prophetic realities.
They are motivated to pursue spiritual realities.
There's 228 of us here that are following after the Spirit this morning because we're motivated to pursue spiritual realities.
Isn't that exciting?
And Jesus made that possible for us at the finished work of the cross.
Otherwise, you would be doing some kind of selfish, crazy thing today because you would just be completely enslaved to your flesh.
Love it, you guys.
It's going to be so rich, so deep.
You might have to listen to it more than once.
I might have to listen to it more than once.
So we're motivated to pursue spiritual realities.
For the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset controlled by the Spirit finds life and peace.
That's when we walk after the flesh.
I'm just quoting from another translation because I know this verse.
When we walk after the flesh, it's death.
But when we walk after the Spirit, it brings us life and peace.
So good.
I want to go back to 8.5 real quickly.
What I just said about those who are motivated by the flesh only pursue what benefits them.
But those who live by the impulses of the Holy Spirit are motivated to pursue spiritual realities.
In the actual Aramaic that that was written in, that verse, it actually says those who are in the flesh see only in the flesh.
But those who are in the Spirit see God in the Spirit.
Whoa, whoa.
What's it saying there?
It's saying that when you walk after your flesh, even though Jesus died to free you from the slavery of sin and your flesh,
when we decide to walk after the flesh, when we don't walk after the Spirit, we're not seeing things the way they really are.
And we're not seeing Him the way He really is.
We have to ask God every day like we prayed this morning.
Open the eyes of my heart.
Let me see you in the Spirit.
Let me walk after the Spirit today.
And to quote another scripture so that I won't fulfill the works of the flesh.
If I walk after the Spirit, I'm not going to fulfill the works of the flesh.
And the works of the flesh, you guys, are just a bunch of, you know, orphan stuff.
Hatred and lying and...
patience, and it doesn't have to be terrible things, it can just be stuff that's not going
to lead to good fruit in your lives or my life.
Going back to verse six, for the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset controlled
by the spirit finds life and peace.
Verse seven, in fact, the mindset focused on the flesh fights God's plan and refuses
to submit to his direction because it cannot.
For no matter how hard they try, God finds no pleasure with those who are controlled
by the flesh.
But when the spirit of Christ empowers your life, you are not dominated by the flesh but
by the spirit, and if you are not joined to the spirit of the anointed one, you are not
of him.
And in the Greek that this was written in, it's literally translated, if anyone is not
joined to the spirit of Christ, they cannot be their true selves.
Whoa.
Remember the heart work?
What's happening there?
All these counterfeit identities, all these trauma-based identities that we're living
in, we're not even aware of them when we walk after the flesh.
We're reinforcing them when we walk after the flesh.
But when we walk after the spirit, we will be our true selves.
We'll be our true selves.
When we live our lives joined to the spirit of Christ, the real us begins to emerge.
Now Christ lives his life in you and even through your body, and even though your body
may be dead because of the effects of sin, his life-giving spirit imparts life to you
because you are fully accepted by God.
Yes, God raised Jesus to life and since God's spirit of resurrection lives in you, he will
also raise your dying body to life by the same spirit that breathes life into you.
What is it?
That's that scripture that says that the spirit of God, the spirit of resurrection lives in
me and quickens me.
So then beloved ones, the flesh has no claims on us at all and we have no further obligation
to live in obedience to it.
For when you live controlled by the flesh, it brings death.
But if in the life, but if the life of the spirit puts to death the corrupt ways of the
flesh, we then taste his abundant life.
All right, so we're going to go on to verse 14 here.
The nature, I'm sorry, the mature children of God are only those who are moved by the
impulses of the Holy Spirit and you did not receive the spirit of religious duty leading
you back into the fear of never being good enough, but you have received the spirit of
full acceptance enfolding you into the family of God.
You guys look at that.
It says the mature children of God are only those who are moved by the impulses of the
Holy Spirit and in the Greek it's very emphatic there.
It says the mature children of God are those and only those who are moved by the impulses
of the Holy Spirit.
You guys say it again.
The mature children of God are those and only those is what it says in the Greek who are
moved by the impulses of the Holy Spirit.
What's that mean?
That means that if people are being moved by something spiritual, if they're being moved
by something supernatural, magical, but they're not children of God, guess who they're not
being moved by?
Holy Spirit.
They're not being moved by Holy Spirit.
They're being moved by spirit y'all, but they're not being moved by Holy Spirit because this
scripture tells us that they are those and only those who are moved by the spirit of
God and you did not receive the spirit of religious duty in other translations.
You guys know the scripture to say, and you did not receive the spirit of bondage.
You did not receive the spirit of bondage.
I have the NIV open here.
It's okay for us to go slow y'all, I know we go real fast a lot, but we got to get a
hold of this because God wants to take us someplace today.
For those who are led by the spirit of God are the children of God.
The spirit you received does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again.
Rather the spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship and that is why you're
able to cry Abba Father.
Remember the other scripture that says we've not received the spirit of fear but of love
and power and of a sound mind?
You guys need to know that membership in the family of God, sonship, comes with membership
benefits.
A lot of us, we receive Jesus, but we're actually not walking in what he died to give us.
And I just want to let you guys know it's not a one and done thing.
It's not, oh, you met Jesus, everything's better now.
No.
He tells us we have to continue in his word like we are doing together today and that
then we will fully know the truth and it will fully make us free.
Because we've been set free, you guys, over 2,000 years ago on a bloody cross.
That's finished.
He said it is finished.
But there are so many things that were given to us that day that we have not picked up
at will call.
We haven't picked them up at the will call of heaven.
We're not walking in them.
We're not living in them.
There's such a mixture in the body of Christ right now, such a mixture, you guys, between
the works of the flesh and the gifts of the spirit.
It's a real problem.
And I believe that God is purifying.
First Peter 4.17 says that God's people, his children, his house has to go first when
it comes to this purification, when it comes to this judgment of everything that's not
kingdom in our lives.
Because it says if we don't go first, there's no hope for anybody else.
And I believe that we're seeing a First Peter 4.17 thing, wave, that's happening right now
through the body of Christ.
You guys have seen it, right?
Things that are not truly born of God are starting to crumble and fall.
Ministries, ideologies, it's happening, it's happening.
And there's people that are caught up in the crosshairs of that.
And Father, we pray today, Lord, that you would take them back to the rock from which
they are hewn, that you would put their feet on that rock.
Because you promised that on that rock, you would build your church and the gates of hell
would not prevail against it.
And so we declare that right now, Lord.
And we thank you, God.
We thank you, God, that you will restore.
You guys, I want to let you know something about God.
He doesn't expose, he's not an exposer.
He's a revealer for healer.
He's a revealing for healing kind of God.
And anyone that's caught up in sin of any nature, God will reveal it, not for the purpose
of exploitation, not for the purpose of exploiting that person or exposing that person, but for
the purpose of that person being able to get healing if that's what they choose.
It's important for us to understand that because I know that there's a lot of accusations happening
in the earth right now against people.
If we didn't receive the spirit, and I love, I like how this translation says this, because
it kind of just hits it right out of the park.
You did not receive the spirit of religious duty, leading you back into the fear of never
being good enough.
But you have received the spirit of full acceptance and folding you into the family of God.
And you will never feel orphaned again, for as he rises up within us, our spirits join
him in saying the words of tender affection, beloved father.
And you guys know in the some other translations, it says Abba right there.
I was producing a film festival for an Israeli man who did not have a good attitude.
He had a bad attitude.
He's obviously not a believer.
And he wasn't even, you know, he wasn't even practicing Judaism.
He wasn't even a practicing Jew.
He was just an Israeli, kind of born into being a Jew, but didn't really understand
what that meant.
And so he was far from God is what I'm trying to say.
And he had, you know, a potty mouth, and he had a bad attitude.
And it was really difficult to work for him.
And there were several times when I just wanted to walk out, walk away, just be like, I'm
done with this.
The day of the event that I was producing for him, his wife and son arrived.
And his son was five years old.
And I had not met his wife or his son yet.
And his wife and his son had not seen him because he had come straight from Greece to
Texas for this film festival.
And he had been gone from home for a few weeks.
And I heard a little voice running down the hall towards the office that I was in yelling,
Abba, Abba, where are you Abba?
Sweetest little voice that I've ever heard.
And the door burst open
and there was this little blonde munchkin standing there.
He's like, Abba, where's my Abba?
And Abba was my cantankerous boss
who was standing behind me
and I was standing in between him and this little son
that saw him much differently than I did.
And he ran and he jumped in his Abba's arms
and I saw this man who was hard
and kind of on the line of being mean,
melt as this little boy snuggled into his arms.
Abba, Abba, I love you Abba, I miss you Abba.
And you guys, that was my first real life encounter
with the word Abba.
And I was like, wow, Abba, daddy.
And that's what the scripture is saying.
The scripture is saying that the curse
which had us enslaved you guys
and the law that was given to Moses
to try to curb back sin,
that also caused a different type of slavery.
And this is why religion is not good enough.
We have so many brothers and sisters
that are living religious lives,
but they're not alive to the spirit of God.
They're living like orphans under a list of rules
and regulations that cause them always to fear
that they're never gonna be good enough.
You guys have to understand,
the Jews even to this day have like 610 rules
that they have to follow every day
in order to be found pleasing or good or righteous.
This is what this is talking about.
You have to remember, Paul was a Jew
and he's talking about the spirit of religious duty
leading you back into the fear of never being good enough.
Paul says in a whole different scripture
that if you decide that you're gonna be a rule follower,
you're gonna be a law follower, okay?
The mosaic law, if that is how you're gonna live,
then you have to follow all of it
and that it makes grace void in your life.
You guys, you have to choose.
You're either righteous by your own works
or you're righteous because of the work of Christ,
but you can't have both.
You can't have both.
And I'm just gonna tell you the better choice
is your righteousness is of Christ
because there's no way,
there's no way that you can fulfill the law.
You can't.
And that people that cry to do it
are always living in fear of never being good enough.
I'm gonna say something even more shocking.
In John 10, when Jesus says in that famous verse,
John 10 10, the thief has come to steal and to kill
and destroy, but I have come, that's him talking,
that you might have life.
Who has come?
I have come.
Who has come?
I have come.
Who is I?
Jesus.
I have come that you might have life
and that now you might have it abundantly.
You might have it overflowing.
You might be fully alive.
What did the beginning of Romans did say?
It says, you're not fully alive.
You're not your real self outside of the spirit.
Jesus is saying, now not only is the curse gonna be broken,
but the band-aid for the curse, the law, the thief
is no longer going to be here either.
And you're like, whoa, wait, what?
Yeah, friends, religion is the thief in that scripture,
not the devil.
Go back and read the entire book of John 10.
Don't just read that scripture.
I'm like, oh yeah, that devil, he's trying to kill
and steal and destroy.
No, read the entire chapter.
The entire chapter is about the bad shepherds.
The entire chapter is about the religious people
that were trying to put the people in bondage.
All of it.
That's the thief.
That's why Jesus said,
restore the joy of your salvation, y'all.
That's why the Psalm has said that echoing Jesus
who wasn't even here yet.
Restore to me the joy of salvation.
What is that?
All that blood guiltness is off of you.
All that shame is off of you.
All that injustice is off of you.
All the condemnation is off of you.
You cannot enjoy salvation
if you're still trying to receive it
and achieve it in your own works and performance.
There's no joy in that.
It's like, okay.
Hey, all right, today maybe I'm going to do okay.
Yesterday was pretty bad,
but today I think I'm going to be saved
because today I'm going to do it all right.
I'm going to cross every T and dot every I
and it's going to be a good day.
And then you get out in your car
and someone cuts you off and you flip them the bird.
You're like, well, today, tomorrow's going to be a good day.
Tomorrow's going to be a better day than today.
You guys, we have to understand that it's a good thing
that this is not based on our performance.
I'm not saying that we will fully sin, we don't.
But you know what?
The more and more and more and more and more and more
that you receive what is being said right here,
the love of God that has received you
and called you his children,
because he is love.
Your Abba, the more you receive how he sees you
and how he loves you,
the more that you'll be able to love yourself and others.
The more grace you'll have for yourself and others.
One of the things that God said to me years ago
is he said, Jackie, whoever I am to you
is who I will be through you.
Whoever you let me be to you
is how you will represent me to others.
If you let me be a loving father,
then you will represent me as a loving father to others.
If I'm a tyrant, if I'm a hard master,
if I'm a hair splitter, if I'm a ledger keeper
full of your sins and your wrongdoings,
you're gonna do the same thing with others.
If you don't believe that I have unconditional love
and grace for you,
then you will not have grace for anyone else.
And so friends, if you feel like you're hard on yourself
and others, then you probably don't believe
God truly loves you.
You don't believe that God has mercy and grace for you.
You somehow have gotten the idea
that you have to get it all right all the time.
And I would love for you to lay that down this morning
because it's holding you back from life in the spirit.
It's holding you back from the big abundant life
that Jesus was talking about in John 10, 10.
All right, you guys.
So the mature children of God are only those
who are moved by the impulses of the Holy Spirit.
And you did not receive the spirit of religious duty,
leading you back into the fear of never being good enough,
but you have received the spirit of full acceptance
and folding you into the family of God.
And you will never feel orphaned
for as he rises up within us,
our spirits will join him in saying the words
of tender affection, beloved father.
For the Holy Spirit makes God's fatherhood real to us
as he whispers into our innermost being,
you are God's beloved child.
And since we are his true children,
we qualify to share all his treasures
for indeed we are heirs of God himself.
And since we are joined to Christ,
we also inherit all that he is and all that he has.
Turn the page.
We will experience being co-glorified with him,
provided that we accept his sufferings as our own.
You guys, you've heard this scripture
in a lot of different translations, I bet.
And it talks about that if we suffer with Christ,
we'll be glorified with Christ.
But that's not the full story here.
I want you to see it in this translation
because this is actually in the Aramic,
this is how it would read.
Okay?
Accepting the feelings of pain that he had,
accepting the experiences that he had on the cross
by implications, his sufferings.
I want you to look there and understand
the scripture is really saying that you will,
you are seated with Christ in heavenly places.
You are heirs and joint heirs with Christ.
Everything that God has, he gave to his son.
And now you are a co-heir of all of the treasures of heaven
provided that what?
Because I know we read that scripture the other way
and we're like, oh yeah, like if I can suffer with Christ
and someday I'll be allowed to be glorified with him.
No friends, Jesus has already suffered and been glorified.
It's past tense.
That's not future.
He's not gonna be glorified in the future.
He's already been glorified.
He resurrected, he was glorified.
This scripture is saying that you can have all this stuff
if you accept his sufferings.
It literally says as your own.
What's that mean?
That means that he died for you and as you on the cross.
If you wanna walk in the glory of God on earth
and even be glorified and even be the glory of God,
you're like what, the glory of God?
Yeah, the Bible says the glory of the father
is his children.
So the next time you try to dumb yourself down
with a religious mindset of diminishing yourself
and saying, oh, well, I can't be too great.
I can't be too good.
I can't be too talented because I might steal God's glory.
You are God's glory.
And when you do good works,
people will glorify your father in heaven.
You can't steal his glory, friends.
That's a religious idea.
You are God's glory.
And you can only be his glory
if you accept the truth that Jesus died to give it to you.
That you're not having to cut yourself and kill yourself
to try to get it because he already did it,
not just for you, but as you.
This scripture is saying you can only have these things
if you accept that his sufferings were your own.
Now, does that mean there's no suffering in this life?
Yeah, but friends, the suffering in this life
has nothing to do with being glorified with Christ.
The suffering that happens in this life
is because we're surrounded by a fallen world
that still thinks it's under the curse.
I want you to say this to yourself.
God does not bring suffering on me.
God does not test me with suffering.
He does not give me suffering.
This scripture is not talking about,
well, if I suffer, then I'll become more and more like Jesus
and then I'll get to be glorified with him.
No, you guys, the suffering that happened already happened.
He nailed to that tree all of your infirmities.
The Bible says, past, present, and future.
He died for you and as you.
The Bible says by one man's disobedience,
sin entered the earth, but by one man's obedience,
Jesus, we have all become righteous.
Righteous, not degrees of righteousness,
not future righteousness, righteous right now.
Right now, do you realize that if we understand
that he suffered and died for us and as us,
we can be glorified right now?
That we can walk as sons and daughters of God on this earth,
performing good works, not based on our performance,
but on his, on the finished work of the cross,
and that we could get deeper and deeper and deeper
our roots into his love so that we can be fruitful
and prosper and so other people can see
that we have a God in heaven.
818, I'm convinced that any suffering will endure.
Any suffering that we do endure is less than nothing
compared to the magnitude of glory
that is about to be unveiled within us.
So any suffering y'all that you go through on this earth,
and there is suffering and Jesus told us,
hey, you know, there's gonna be suffering here.
There's gonna be trials, there's gonna be tribulation.
And then he said, because I'm sending it to you
because you know, I gotta get you strong
and I wanna make you better.
And so there's gonna be suffering and trial and tribulation.
So just get ready for it
because I'm gonna give it to you.
I choose my most strong warriors,
you know, to test them with suffering.
No, that's not what he said.
What he said is there will be trial and tribulation.
There will be suffering.
There will be those things in the world.
He said, but be of good cheer
because I've overcome the world.
This scripture in a different translation says
the sufferings of this present time
are not even worthy to be compared
to the glory that's being revealed within us.
These little tiny trials and tribulations,
Jesus already overcame those on the cross.
They're not coming from him.
They're coming from a dying world
that we've been commissioned to resurrect
because the resurrection power of God lives within us.
We already read the scripture.
The same spirit that raised Christ from the dead
dwells within you and quickens your mortal body.
Come on, you guys.
It's such a lot of truth
and it's hard to take it all in,
but Holy Spirit, help us to take it in.
I'm convinced that any suffering we endure
is less than nothing compared to the magnitude of glory
that is about to be unveiled within us.
The entire universe is standing on its tiptoes,
yearning to see the unveiling
of God's glorious sons and daughters.
What does that mean, you guys?
Another translation that says that
the earth is groaning and prevailing,
waiting for the revealing of God's sons and daughters.
It means it's time for us to show up on the scene.
The curse has been broken over us
and so we are the curse breakers.
God did not free you from the curse
for you to just enjoy being free from the curse.
He freed you from the curse so that you could go free others from the curse.
For against His will, the universe itself has had to endure the empty futility resulting
from the consequences of human sin.
But now with eager expectation, all creation longs for freedom from its slavery to decay
and to experience with us the wonderful freedom coming to God's children when they are glorified.
To this day, we are aware of the universal agony and groaning of creation as if it were
the contractions of labor for childbirth.
And it's not just creation.
We who have already experienced the first fruits of the Spirit also inwardly groan as
we passionately long to experience our full status as God's sons and daughters, including
our physical bodies being transformed.
For this is the hope of our salvation.
It's saying that we've received a taste, you guys, we've received the first fruits by experiencing
the new birth experience through Christ and being filled with the Holy Spirit.
We're having a taste of that resurrection power.
We're having a taste of what it's like to be fully glorified.
But these bodies that we're in, we're not taking these to heaven.
Our physical bodies will be fully transformed.
That will complete our transformation.
Right now we have a mental, a spiritual, and emotional transformation.
And I believe if we follow the laws of God, even though this body is not going to heaven
and it's not eternal, I believe we can live in good health on earth.
I believe that we can live in vibrant health on earth, even though this body is going to
go to the dust.
But hope means that we must trust and wait for what is still unseen.
For why would we need to hope for something we already have?
So because our hope is set on what is yet to be seen, we patiently keep on waiting for
its fulfillment.
And in a similar way, the Holy Spirit takes hold of us in our human frailty to empower
us in our weaknesses.
For example, at times we don't even know how to pray or know the best things to ask for,
but the Holy Spirit rises up within us to super intercede on our behalf, pleading to
God with emotional sighs too deep for words.
I want you to take a look that there's three different groanings in this little passage
right here.
You find three groanings.
Creation is groaning to see the glorious freedom of God's children come.
We're groaning to experience the fullness of our status as God's children.
And the Holy Spirit is groaning within us to complete our destiny, for our destiny to
be fulfilled.
And for those of you that have ever experienced any kind of prevailing in the spirit where
you're crying and you feel like you're giving birth and you're groaning, I want you to raise
your hand if you've ever experienced that.
Raise them up.
Little avatar hands.
I want to see all the avatar hands where you're praying and even you guys, you don't know
what childbirth feels like.
A lot of you ladies don't know what it feels like.
You've never had a physical child, but you feel like this is what this feels like.
The spirit is groaning within you.
It's birthing something, you guys.
Look at all those hands birthing something because we don't know what to say.
We don't even know half the time what's going on.
We don't know what's going on, but the spirit does.
And that's why this is so important that you walk after the spirit, that you make way for
the spirit, that if you have your prayer language, you pray in the spirit.
Allow the spirit to intercede for you.
This is the gift that you've been given.
Jesus said to his disciples, I have to go, but I'll send another and he'll not just live
with you.
He'll live in you.
Really important, you guys.
Sighs that are too deep for words.
Okay.
God the searcher of the heart knows fully our longings, yet he also understands the
desires of the spirit because the Holy Spirit passionately pleads before God for us, his
holy ones in perfect harmony with God's plan and our destiny.
You guys, we want things.
God knows our longings, but when we give way to the spirit in prayer, what will happen
is an agreement will happen between us and our destiny and God's plan for us.
It's important.
So we are convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together.
So here's the scripture that I woke up to the morning, Romans 8, 28.
So we are convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together to fit
into God's perfect plan of bringing good into our lives.
For we are his lovers who have been called to fulfill his design purpose, guys.
Every detail of our lives, like a beautiful tapestry, are being woven together, bringing
good, bringing good.
I know that you don't know how in the world that one little thread, that one situation,
that era of your life, how it could ever be good, but God's saying, I can weave it together
with other ingredients, with other situations, with other eras in your life, and you'll look
back and say, blessed be God.
He took this detail, and he made it good.
He knew all about us before we were born, and he destined us from the beginning to share
the likeness of his son.
This means the son is the oldest among a vast family of brothers and sisters who will become
just like him.
Having determined our destiny ahead of time, he called us to himself and transferred his
perfect righteousness to everyone he called, and those who possess his perfect righteousness,
he co-glorified with his son.
Because we are called, we are chosen, we are justified, and we are glorified.
So what does this all mean?
If God has determined to stand with us, tell me, who then could ever stand against us?
For God has proved by his love, by giving us his greatest treasure, the gift of his
son, and since God freely offered him up as a sacrifice for us all, he certainly won't
withhold from us any other good thing.
Who then would dare to accuse those whom God has chosen in love to be his?
God himself is the judge who has issued his final verdict over them, not guilty.
So who is left to condemn us?
Certainly not Jesus, the anointed one, for he gave his life for us, and even more than
He has conquered death and is now risen, exalted and enthroned by God at his right hand.
So how could he possibly condemn us since he is continually praying for our triumph?
You guys, take that in.
He is your intercessor.
He is your lead intercessor.
He is your head intercessor.
He is your advocate.
He is your high priest.
Remember what the high priest did back in Moses' tabernacle?
He risked his life to go into the holies of holies to sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat.
Jesus is your high priest, and the Bible says you have a high priest that understands your
frailties and your weaknesses in your flesh.
He has grace for you.
He has mercy for you.
He is interceding for you.
The Spirit, you guys, two-thirds of the community of heaven, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Son
and Holy Spirit are continually interceding for us.
What?
It says here, how can Jesus condemn you when he is continually praying for your triumph?
Who could ever separate us from the endless love of God's anointed one?
Absolutely no one.
For nothing in the universe has the power to diminish his love towards us.
Troubles, pressures, problems are unable to come between us and heaven's love.
What about persecutions, deprivations, dangers, and death threats?
No.
For they are all impotent to hinder omnipotent love, even though it is written, as all day
long we face death threats for your sake, God, we are considered to be nothing more
than sheep to be slaughtered.
And of course, that's about the persecution of God's holy ones on the earth.
That's spiritual warfare.
And of course, back in these days, when Paul was writing this, the early church was being
gathered up and executed.
You know that, right?
Guys, that particular passage of scripture is really important to me, because even though
I never saw my mom pray when I was a child, and she didn't really seem to know God, and
I had a lot of questions because I had a lot of fear, at nighttime especially, and I'd
yell for my mom to come in my room, and I'd ask her, Mom, is God real?
What happens when we die?
My mom really didn't have a lot of answers for me.
But she did teach us some spiritual songs.
And one of those songs is based on this passage of scripture about nothing being able to separate
us from the love of God.
And she taught it to us, and it was a funny song, and it was a rhyming song, and me and
my brother, who's 18 months older than me, we would sing it as fast as we could.
And that was the game, like who could sing it the fastest?
And because we were singing it, it got embedded into our memory, but neither one of us knew
that it was scripture.
I don't even know if my mom knew it was scripture.
But I will tell you that when my brother was 21 years old, and he fell off a mountain in
Colorado where he had been a snowboard instructor, and he was hurling down to his death.
to his certain death.
This song popped in his head and he began to sing it
and he was supernaturally and miraculously saved
by a tree coming out of the side of the mountain.
I am persuaded to believe that nothing could ever separate us
from the wonderful love of God.
Up above, he will send you if you let it dwell within you
along the simple world you trod.
Neither height nor depth nor principalities,
things present or things to come.
Though the devil hate us, he can never separate us
from the wonderful love of God.
This scripture has power, my friends.
Nothing can separate you from God's love.
You are heirs and joint heirs with Christ
and everything that God has to offer belongs to you,
not later when you get to heaven, right?
Now.
Right now.
His peace, his joy, his presence right now.
Yeah, there's some things that this body
isn't gonna be able to experience
until we get our transfigured body.
Like I'd like to walk through some walls.
Maybe you can do that.
I'm not sure, but Jesus did that
when he got out of his fleshly body.
You know, I'd like to be over in Spain in two minutes.
That'd be great.
And there are some people that experience miracles
like that on earth, like Philip, he was here one minute,
the next minute he was over there.
The bottom line is, friends, is that we have access.
We have full access because the finished work of the cross
to what it looks like to be a child of God.
We have that, but we have to grow in it.
A lot of us don't know what that looks like
on our own lives, and we're not fully utilizing
the benefits of membership of this family.
You guys, I have a business credit card
and I can't even tell you what the membership benefits are.
I know that there's lots of benefits
that I'm not using right now.
Lots of things like discounts on rent,
or just all kinds of things that I get access to
if I use that card, but I haven't taken the time
to sit down and study the pamphlets
that they sent me in the mail
that talk about all those things.
And you're never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,
and you're never, ever fully gonna understand
what Jesus' death on the cross means to your life
right now on earth, not someday in heaven.
All of us know that he died so that we can live.
All of us know that because he died,
we now can live forever in heaven
if we make him our Lord and Savior,
but you guys, it's so much more than that.
It's so much more than that.
Jesus didn't die to get you in heaven someday.
He died to get heaven in you here on earth now,
and that is why the Bible says, pray this.
When his disciples asked him how to pray,
remember, these are praying people.
These are Jews.
They have all kinds of prayers.
They have prayers for their prayers,
and they're like, okay,
which prayer is the most important, Jesus?
Because we're figuring that now that you're here,
Meshuach, Messiah, that you're gonna deliver us
from all these hours and hours of prayers.
You feel them, right?
That's what they're really saying.
What's the most important prayer?
And that is when he began to speak
what we call the Lord's Prayer.
Our Father who art in heaven,
our Father, our Abba, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
on earth as it already is in heaven.
Heart stop right there.
Let your will be done on earth as it already is in heaven.
You guys, we are here still on earth
so that we can bring heaven to earth.
We can be heaven's agents on earth.
God can show himself strong.
The Bible says he's looking to and fro.
It's in the book of Chronicles.
Every day, looking for someone to show himself
strong through on earth.
On earth.
I think it's Jeremiah that says
he's watching over his word carefully to perform it.
What's his word?
It's not just his spoken word, his Rhema word,
his Logos word, but it's also Jesus.
The word was with God and the word became flesh
and dwelt among us.
And where is that word now?
It's in you.
Jesus is living his life in you.
All of the investment of heaven
that's been put inside of you at your day of salvation,
God is looking to make interest on.
He's looking every day to see
if what's been invested in you can be cast in,
if what's invested in you can be multiplied.
Guys, I just heard a story the other day
about the Lord's Prayer that was so powerful.
This guy was saying that he's this English guy
and I have to admit, I started listening to him
because I loved his voice.
I love the sound of English people talking
and I'm just listening to him telling the story.
But long story short,
they had neighbors that really loved him and his wife
and the lady that lived next door, the neighbor,
she had a stroke and her family told him and his wife
that she was brain dead and that they were gonna
pull the plug at the end of the week.
And he asked if him and his wife could go and see her
and they said, of course, she loved you guys.
And you know what she called them?
She called them the neighbors from heaven.
Heaven invading earth friends.
And he didn't say any of this.
And when I first heard him talking,
I thought maybe he was a comedian.
He didn't sound like a preacher
and he definitely wasn't going to pay his last respects
to his neighbor to see anything supernatural happen.
In fact, he said, let's go see her,
and then off she goes, off she goes to heaven.
So him and his wife went and they circled her bed
and they held hands and they both held one of her hands
and they just said, hey, we're here, Thurley,
whatever her name is,
we're just gonna pray the Lord's prayer
and then off you go to heaven, you're free to go.
And they prayed.
And then when they got to that line,
thy kingdom come, thy will be done, she woke up.
She woke up and the hospital was an hour from their house
and they went back home and they saw her husband.
They said, he said, well, how did it go?
And they said, you know, she's awake.
And he's like, no, she's not.
And he's like, yeah, they're like, yeah, yeah, she is.
And he's like, no, no, she's not.
But then she was home by the end of the week.
You guys, we are connected to,
and we are members of a family
that has been created to show this world,
you have been sealed, you have been marked,
you have been chosen, you have been justified,
you have been glorified to give this world
a representation of what's going on in heaven.
So Father, we ask Lord that you would help us right now,
that you would help us to understand how deep your love goes,
that you would help us to understand
what Jesus really did for us on that cross.
It's not about someday, it's about this day.
It's about now, Lord, and we're asking
that you would quicken us, that you would quicken our spirits,
that they would come into agreement with the idea
that we are your dear children,
and as your children, you are happy to bless us.
Every good and perfect gift comes down from you, Abba,
the Father of lights,
and that we just need to ask and receive,
and the Spirit will help us to ask
according to your perfect will for our lives, which is good.
Your plans are good, your hope is good.
Your idea of us, it is to bless us, it is to prosper us.
Even as our soul prospers, it's to prosper us.
You have given us the power to prosper in this earth,
and nothing that has come against us,
like this scripture tells us, can defeat us.
In fact, it will be used as an ingredient to bless us,
Romans 8, 28, and so Lord,
we come into agreement with that today.
We say that we want nothing less than this,
so be it, in Jesus' name, amen.
Friends, I really want to challenge you to read Romans 8,
to read it and read it again and read it again
and read it again and read it again
until it begins to permeate your heart,
until it begins to give fruit in your life.
I will do it too.
Romans 8, Romans 8, read it, every single verse,
dwell on it, meditate on it, chew on it
until it brings you life in the spirit,
breakthrough in areas where you've been stuck
and you living powerfully as God's child in the earth.
I love y'all, I'll see you soon.