Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Supernatural Saturday.
Happy Sabbath.
Shabbat Shalom.
We're going to talk about Sabbath today.
We're going to talk about resting today.
I want you to raise your hand if you feel kind of burnout.
Raise your hand if you're feeling a little burnout.
Raise your hand if you've been going through some trouble.
You've been going through some troubles and they have you feeling weary.
You're looking to the Lord.
You don't necessarily see Him looking back quite yet, but you're just feeling like you
need help.
All right, lots of hands, lots of hands.
I'm right there with you.
I'm living right there with you.
How many of you have some kind of issue that you've been working overtime to try to figure
out how to solve, but you just can't solve it?
You just can't figure it out.
Raise your hand.
Keep your hands up if you have your hand up.
If you've answered yes to anything, just keep them up.
You just can't figure it out.
That troubled relationship with someone in your life, you just can't find the magic bullet
of happiness there.
Something going on with your health.
I got that.
You guys know I have some health situation happening right now.
I'm not really sure what it is.
There's a huge temptation to try to figure it out yourself.
I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV.
I'm going to try to figure this out myself.
I'm going to fix it.
We're fixers.
I'm going to try to fix it.
I've got a financial issue.
You're laying up at night in bed trying to do the math and the math ain't mathing.
I'm trying to figure it out.
You guys, all of that, just so you know, and it all seems good.
We're proactive people, right?
We don't just sit around.
We take action.
That's good things, right?
Well, yeah, but a lot of that is based in a foundation of orphanhood.
A lot of it's based in a foundation of a poverty mindset.
There's a fine line, friends.
We have to hold the tension between being completely toxically passive and trying to
farm everything out to heaven.
Oh God, you know, you're just going to have to fix it and also doing our part.
There's a tension between those two things of doing our part and also making room for
God to do what only he can do.
And we have to make sure that we are in that tension of that and we're not overdoing our
part, striving and or expecting God to do everything.
I just heard a story yesterday about a woman.
She got a word about her house, about keeping her house.
She couldn't afford her house, okay, couldn't afford it.
And you know, an elderly woman and she couldn't afford her house, but the Lord gave her a
word, a prophetic word like, hey, you know, you're not going to lose your house.
You're going to keep your house.
The problem is, is that when people receive words from the Lord, a lot of times they don't
know how to walk that out.
Just because God tells us something doesn't mean that we don't have a part to play in
it.
And so she, she takes, she took that word and she stood on that word, which is good.
I admire that holding on to a word when everything in the natural is going the opposite direction,
but she didn't do anything different and she's not working, she's not making any kind of
income besides whatever, you know, coming in from, you know, uh, probably S you know,
Social Security or something.
I don't know all the details, don't need to, it's none of my business, but I just know
that she didn't do anything differently as far as trying to bring in more income.
When God says, hey, you know, you can't afford this house, but you're not going to lose it.
That stands to reason that there's going to be an influx of income, right?
Now there's two ways that we could go about that.
And both of them are not discerning the promise that God is making us.
One, we just jump up and we run out and we try to do anything and everything to make
the money, to make up the difference of whatever we need to keep the house.
Wrong answer.
And the other is just sitting idly and doing nothing.
We don't put any legs on our prayers.
We just pray and then we just don't do anything else.
We farm everything out to heaven.
You guys see, do you see those two things you're like, well, Jackie, what's the right
way to do it?
First of all, people have not been taught.
The prophetic is pretty widespread now.
Most churches have some kind of prophetic, especially if you're non-denominational.
People are not taught how to walk out a word though.
People receive words all the time, but then they don't understand the anatomy of a prophetic
word.
and what to do with a prophetic word
and how to activate a prophetic word.
They don't understand their part
that they play in a prophetic word.
I will tell you that it is my understanding
that when God gives us a promise,
he also gives us a process.
He gives us an invitation to participate
in whatever it is that he's telling us we can have.
And so we're gonna do a teaching on that
and I'm gonna bring in the best of the best, friends.
We're gonna actually do a little series
on how to walk out your promises,
specifically how to war over your promises
and also how to activate your promises
in your prophetic words.
And you'll be able to write out your prophetic words.
You'll be able to do some good things there
with understanding what it is that God was saying to you
and what he was inviting you into when he said that.
So back to my story.
So the rubber met the road, friends,
and the bank was like,
psych, we're taking your house from you
because you haven't made payments
in months and months and months.
Now, why hadn't she made payments?
Because she couldn't afford to make the payment.
So she wasn't making the payments
and she was just believing
that God was going to save this house.
And I had been in the exact same situation
when I was a young woman.
When I was a young woman, a younger woman,
because I'm still a young woman.
When I was a younger woman in my early 20s,
I went through the exact same thing, mid 20s.
I had a child, my husband at the time,
not David, my first husband,
my daughter's father lost his job.
He was a designer.
After 9-11 happened, he lost his job.
A lot of people got laid off.
I know a lot of people don't know that
because if it didn't affect you, it didn't affect you.
But the industry that he was in, 9-11,
affected his industry and he got laid off.
And so our house went into foreclosure.
And I promise you, we were in the second toxic camp
of believing the promise of the Lord,
just not doing anything and expecting God to fix it.
Go ahead and put your hands down.
I promise we're going somewhere good today.
Might be a little tight, but it's gonna be right
by the time we end right now, or later on.
So this lady, she did exactly the same thing that we did.
She was just waiting for, I don't know, a check in the mail.
A check in the mail from someone,
some sort of benefactor to show up
and give her the money.
For those of you that come from the prophetic environment,
she was waiting for her Cyrus to show up.
But they didn't.
They didn't show up because that's not
all the time how it works.
I'm not saying that there aren't miracles like that.
Of course there are.
But just because God gives you a word
about financial provision doesn't mean
that it's gonna come from a secret admirer.
Doesn't mean it's gonna come as a random charge back
to your bank account.
Anyone ever heard these stories?
Oh, I just woke up and there were $50,000
in my bank account.
Well, I just wanna let you know, friends,
while that may seem supernatural,
I know people who have spent that money
and the bank was like, oh, hey, we made a mistake.
You gotta give that money back.
Not a good idea.
If money just shows up in your bank account,
do not spend it.
Do not spend that money until you find out
whether or not you can.
It's important stuff.
Important, important.
Look at all these little nuggets,
little gold nuggets falling from heaven.
Come on now.
So she waited and waited and it was 24 hours
before the bank was going to not only foreclose her house,
but auction it, y'all.
Auction her house.
24 hours to auction.
And guess what?
A voice of reason stepped into the situation.
One of my friends who knows her,
this is how I know the story,
stepped into the situation and said,
here are your three options.
Your three options are it's a big house
and she's just a little lady.
Your options are to sell the house.
Your options are to sell it like a short sale.
I know the person that can help you do that.
We can get an investor, we can get it done.
You can get roommates.
You can rent the house out, get roommates.
And or your third option,
your third option is to move out of the house
and just rent the whole house to someone else.
There's lots of equity in this house.
It's a good opportunity.
So friends, here is what happens when God speaks to us
and tells us that we can have something.
There are solutions, okay?
There are ideas, God-given ideas
on how the problem can be solved.
on how we can have the thing that God said we could have.
And that's why it's important when you get a prophetic word
that you judge that word with others,
people that you trust, people that are spiritually wise.
And it's not about putting your heads together
and coming up with a human action plan
to walk out that word,
but it is about discerning first and foremost
is the word from God,
and secondly, what is my part to play?
Does everyone understand that?
I had no intention of talking about that today
because I don't want to talk about the Sabbath,
but it goes into rest.
It goes into our subject.
And the reason why is this.
We're always striving.
Even when you're sitting around trusting God for something
and you're not taking any action, you're still striving
if you're putting all your hope and faith on the wrong thing
and we don't want to strive anymore.
We want to rest.
Psalms 126,
Psalm, I think it's 126.
It says, he gives his lovers rest.
Right?
It talks about how he provides for his lovers
even while they're sleeping.
You guys like that one?
Even while they're sleeping, he's providing.
What does that mean?
That means, you know,
cause it's the same scripture that talks about
it's vain for you to stay up all night worrying,
striving, trying to figure it out
because God provides for his lovers
even while they're sleeping.
Saying, hey, God's going to be up all night anyway.
So why don't you go ahead and cast your cares on him?
And for those of you that have been single
for a really long time,
this is a really, really, really good message today
because you have taken the weight
of the world upon yourself.
So God is calling me into a sabbatical.
Oftentimes people say, Jackie,
I don't know how you do it all.
And I just want to let you know this.
If people say that to you frequently,
well, Jackie, I just don't know how you do it all.
I don't know how you remember all these people's names.
I don't know how you remember
all these people's love stories.
I don't know how, if people say that to you,
then it's probably a good sign
that you're doing something you shouldn't be doing.
If lots of people look at your life from the outside
and they get exhausted just thinking about it,
it's probably a good sign that you're overextended.
Now, friends, I'm an entrepreneur.
I'm a true entrepreneur.
I've been an entrepreneur since I was a child.
What does that mean?
It means I'm a visionary.
It means I think of grand ideas and then I execute them.
And they're always solving the problems of people.
Good entrepreneurs create things
that solve other people's problems.
When Papa God invited me into doing this,
this beautiful marriage and family revival movement,
when he invited me into this in 2020,
it was two weeks before pandemic,
two or three weeks before the world was gonna find out
that there was a pandemic.
I didn't know, you didn't know, none of us knew.
I was just fat, dumb and happy sitting in my office,
looking at my heartwork materials.
I was already a heartwork coach online.
I had already written that book.
I've already doing lots of ministry for 20 something years,
all different kinds, you name it, I've done it.
Prison ministry, yep.
Human trafficking ministry, yep.
Pro-life ministry, yep.
Women's ministry, yep.
Outreach ministry, uh-huh.
Ministry to people who don't speak English, yeah.
Jackie, do you speak another language?
Nope, that's what made it even harder.
Teaching, preaching, yes, yes.
All the things, yes.
Homeless ministry, yes.
Worked at a homeless shelter.
I was a social worker.
Do you guys know that I did that in my previous life?
I've had a lot of lives.
So none of us knew.
None of us knew that our whole worlds
were gonna get turned upside down in just a couple weeks.
But you know what?
I really missed something about pandemic.
You know what I missed about it?
I don't miss, obviously,
there were a lot of people that lost their lives.
It's horrible, it's horrendous.
Families were ripped apart by political issues.
That was gross.
And that's just uncalled for and unnecessary.
But I know people that don't talk to this day
because they were on the other side
of the vaccination question.
People had to actually be in their marriage
instead of running away from it to work
and to all different types of busy schedules.
And they had to actually come face-to-face,
locked in the house with the person
they've been married to for decades and to protect them.
divorces happened. There were a lot of things. There was a big pruning.
There was a huge pruning that happened, purging during pandemic.
But you know what else happened? We all went into a forced sabbatical.
We did. You didn't have any, you didn't have any other option,
but to rest. You weren't going nowhere. If you lived where I lived,
you weren't going anywhere. And in some States,
you really weren't going anywhere. You were like locked in your house,
like under house arrest.
You know, I missed,
I missed that because here's the thing you can go into a sabbatical,
which I'm about to, and I'm going to talk to you about Sabbath here in a minute.
You can go into sabbatical, but the world's not going to stop turning.
But during pandemic, it did. It did stop turning.
I remember when my mom was passing away in the ICU and I was in the ICU room
and the ICU room is in the ICU wing of the hospital.
And the ICU wing is really quiet. And the ICU room is really quiet.
Unless there's some kind of crisis going on in the ICU, it's very quiet.
And I went into my mom's room and it was like,
it was almost like I was in a soundproof place besides the
beeping machines. Very, very quiet, like being in a vacuum.
And I was in there and I had, I was in the peace bubble.
You guys, when my mom was passing, I was in the peace bubble.
The grief didn't happen until after.
God's presence and his peace was in that room. Angels were there. You know,
I felt fine in that, in that place.
And then my mom passed and we were there for weeks.
She was in that state for, I think about three weeks. And when,
when it was over with,
when she passed away and we're in the room and she passed away and now we're all
leaving the room and, and we're not going to come back into this room.
We're not going to come back into this wing. Okay.
There's nothing here for us anymore.
She's with the Lord and it's time for us to move on.
And when I, I remember I made a video about this back then this was 2020.
This was before pandemic.
This was before I had that epiphany in my office where God invited me into the
revival of marriage and family.
I walked out of that ICU,
out of her room and then out of the ICU wing into the rest of the hospital and
friends. It's as if the world had stood still.
But as soon as I opened that final door to step out into the hospital,
it's as if nothing had ever happened.
And I was really offended by it. I was super offended. Like I was,
I was just angry. I walked into that last door. I walked out to the hospital.
People are talking and they're laughing and they're eating their lunch and
they're doing all the things. And it's like,
don't you know that my mom just died? Like have some respect.
No, they don't know because the world doesn't stop turning.
The world doesn't stop turning. It doesn't stop moving.
Except during pandemic, which actually started, you know,
started like six weeks later,
God was merciful to take my mom onto heaven before pandemic started.
Cause otherwise our lives would have looked a lot different.
And for those of you that had family members in the hospital during that time,
you know what I mean?
You know what I mean? You wouldn't have been able to be with them.
And so I got home and once again, I'm in the office and God just speaks to me.
You know what I feel when I'm looking around at all the heartwork materials,
I'm feeling the pain of those materials because people don't want to do their
heartwork.
Oftentimes none of us are willing to do the work that we need to do,
the partnering that we need to do with heaven until there's a crisis.
We're not willing to Sabbath until there's a crisis.
We're not willing to stop striving and trying to do things on our own until we
hit a brick wall. But friends, you don't have to Sabbath out of crisis.
You can Sabbath out of covenant.
You can out of partnership,
out of understanding that anything that's worth having,
you're never going to get on your own.
Anything worth having, you are never going to be able to get on your own.
You're not. And so that moment, God invited me in,
but remember I'm an entrepreneur and I have something that I call
entrepreneurial disease. You know what that means?
That means God tapped me on the shoulder to build this with him.
And I did. In fact, we're about to celebrate five years on October 26th.
Some of you guys are coming to that party here in Austin, Texas.
I can't wait to see you in person.
And we're going to have success stories.
We're going to have all kinds of success stories coming, like all kinds of people
that have gotten married through this movement coming, all kinds of single
people will be there.
You might meet your spirit mate there, who knows, but we're going to party.
We're going to party.
We're going to celebrate the revival of marriage and family.
We're going to have an amazing time.
Right?
The five is really important to me because that's the number of grace.
And it's as if God's saying, Hey, you know, you've done well, daughter, you
did what I asked you to do, but now you're tired and it's time to rest.
Because when I tell you I've run hard for five years, I'm not, I'm not exaggerating.
I've run hard and my team has run hard.
And I feel like Jesus, when I say, God, these that you've given me, I haven't lost
one of them, except that son of perdition.
We got the best team and we're intact.
We're intact.
But friends, you can only run so hard.
And the thing is, you have to remember, God knows that I'm a race horse.
He created me that way.
He knows that I'm Secretariat, which by the way is my nickname.
He knows it.
That's why he gave me the race to run.
But everybody has to rest sometime.
And if you have any orphan tendencies, if you have any poverty mentalities, they will
come into play in any assignment that you have.
Remember friends, behavior follows identity.
So you will overextend yourself.
For those of you that are in ministry, you will overextend yourself.
You're like, but it's good.
It doesn't matter.
You can get burnt out doing a good thing.
Well, I got to take care of my aging parents because it's the right thing to do.
Uh-huh.
Just because it's the right thing to do doesn't mean you're doing it the right way.
You guys hear me?
Raise your hand if I'm speaking to you at all, it's got a lot of sad faces, got long
faces in here.
I used to, I was discipled by the Holiness Pentecostal people and I used to say, yeah,
the people that discipled me had long hair, long dresses, and long faces.
They were all sad.
None of them had any joy in their salvation.
I'll tell you that right now.
Why?
Cause they was wearing those hot dresses outside trying to play kickball.
I don't know.
Something's not adding up.
All right.
So friends, God is inviting us and he might not be inviting you into Sabbath the way
he's inviting me into Sabbath.
All of us, all of us look differently.
It's important that we go to God for instructions.
Some of you might just be coming out of a Sabbath and now it's time for you to run
with the Lord, run with the Lord.
I'm going to say it again, run with the Lord, not run, run with him.
What Jesus say, he say, take my yoke upon you.
My yoke is easy.
My burden is light.
Let's read that real quick.
In fact, I really love that scripture in the message translation.
Here it is.
Matthew 11 verses 28 through 30.
Are you tired?
Worn out, burned out on religion?
Come to me, get away with me and you'll recover your life.
I'll show you how to take a real rest.
Walk with me and work with me.
Watch how I do it.
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
Come on, learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
I won't lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you.
Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.
Friends, does that not sound beautiful?
Does that not sound beautiful?
You can even apply that to your love life.
You know, my new book, Modern Dating Sucks, is about modern dating hustle culture.
You know, swiping until your thumb hurts, overanalyzing every text message from
people who are not marriage-minded mature, settling out of fear that there's not
something better out there, chasing people who aren't chasing God.
That's all part of that modern dating sucks hustle culture.
And it's exhausting, right?
In fact, it takes all the joy.
You know how you can know that you're exhausted?
You don't have any joy.
Remember the joy of our salvation is that Jesus died for us
but also as us, as us.
The Bible says that if we're willing
to partner in his suffering, what does that mean?
Does it mean that it's like, oh, are you willing to suffer?
We're all gonna suffer friends
because we live on this earth that's still broken.
But that's not what that scripture is talking about.
It's saying if you're willing to accept
Jesus' suffering as your own,
meaning he suffered for you and as you,
if you're willing to accept that
then you can be glorified with him.
If you're willing to accept that you already suffered
with him on that cross, that you can be glorified with him.
Jesus is telling us in Matthew, he's saying, come to me,
get away with me and you'll recover your real life.
You won't strive anymore.
You don't have to strive for love.
You guys, friends, love especially.
Any type of striving is birthed in fear.
And so if we're striving in this area of our love lives,
and I don't want to just apply this to our love lives
because this is a holistic thing.
It's all of our lives, every part of our lives,
but especially for love.
If you have to strive for love, then guess what?
You're calling it by the wrong name because it's not love.
Resting in love.
Jesus is inviting us to walk with him and work with him.
He's inviting us to watch how he does it.
Remember, rabbis, for those of you that listened
to that Supernatural Saturday,
their disciples followed them and watched them do life.
They watched how the Torah was acted out by that rabbi.
How was he interpreting it in everyday life,
in the living that he was doing?
And Jesus is saying as our rabbi,
because remember the yoke is the rabbi's teachings.
And so he's inviting us to take his yoke,
his set of teachings, his set of philosophies
and ideologies on us.
And he promised us in the scripture
that he wouldn't put anything on us
that was hard or ill-fitting.
He's saying, come with me, work with me.
Watch how I do it.
Learn the what?
The unforced rhythms of grace.
And if we apply that to love life, then that means what?
Don't force connections.
Don't rush timelines with people.
Let God's alignment bring us peace, not pressure.
Anytime we feel pressure,
we're not in the rhythms of grace.
Friends, I know when I'm in my flesh and doing something
because I feel so pressured.
I feel so much pressure to get it done.
I feel so much pressure to figure it out.
I absolutely know when I say these words,
oh my God, I can't do this.
I'm in my flesh.
And that's when the Holy Spirit reminds me,
oh, hey, you don't have to do this alone.
I want you to take your hands down.
Everyone has hands up.
Put them down.
Put them down, put them down, put them down.
I know this is a heavier Supernatural Saturday,
but I really believe it's an invitation to come into
a rest that you're gonna feel deep in your bones.
Take them down.
Hands are still up.
Take down your hands.
Because we're exhausted, friends.
Even if you have good boundaries, you're exhausted.
This culture that we live in is exhausting.
And the reason why a lot of us don't even know
we're exhausted is because we're so used to it.
It's all we've ever known.
There was a simpler time.
There was a better day.
Okay, now your hands are mostly down.
I want you to put your hands up
if any time in the last six months you've said,
I just can't do this anymore about something.
You cried out, I just don't wanna do this anymore.
I just can't do this anymore about something, anything.
I just can't figure this out.
I'm so tired.
You might've even wept tears of exhaustion.
Wow, friends, friends, come on.
God's saying, come to me, get away with me.
You'll recover your real life.
This is not your real life.
Real life, this is not your real life.
This is not the way it was meant to be.
This is not the life that Jesus died to give us.
It's not.
So what would a Sabbath look like?
Well, let's look at what the Holy Sabbath looked like.
Can we do that?
Just look at what the Holy Sabbath looked like.
Like, right, so biblically,
they didn't do any labor on that day, no work.
They didn't sell anything, they didn't buy anything.
There was no striving at all.
If you had a farm, you didn't go out
and do anything with the animals.
You didn't do anything, you didn't sell anything,
you didn't buy anything, you didn't go to market.
Whatever food you had, ladies, because back then,
you know, we would have been in charge
of all the domestic duties.
You didn't clean, you didn't cook.
You had to eat stuff that was prepared
at some other point in time.
What was going on?
Everyone was getting a chance to take a breather,
to take a pause, to take a beat, everybody was.
It was a full stop, friends.
Say that, it was a full stop from all productivity.
Full stop.
Some people live like this still.
But I wanna talk to you guys about not just the Sabbath,
right, yes, you should be having at least one day a week
where you're Sabbathing.
And I'm saying that to myself too, not just you.
I never really turn off and I need to and I'm going to.
I believe this is a wake-up call.
I heard the word, I saw the word,
and then God spoke to me about the word watershed.
And a watershed is a moment
where everything changes.
A watershed is a tipping point
where you go a whole different direction.
And friends, I promise to you
and I want you to hold me accountable
that this movement during this,
we're about to go into Rosh Hashanah.
We're about to go into Rosh Hashanah, September 22nd.
And when we go into that, it's gonna be a new year.
It is, a Hebraic new year.
And that's the new year that I care mostly about.
And I will tell you this, when we go into that,
during that, during the first month of that,
we're gonna celebrate a five-year anniversary here
at Last Year's Single.
And I promise you that this movement
is going to find its sweet spot in the rhythms of grace.
And I believe that that grace is gonna trickle down
onto each and every person that's involved in this movement.
I believe it with all my heart.
I believe that that is the watershed moment.
God's like, hey, you know what?
I asked you to do this with me.
And I might cry.
I asked you to do this with me.
And you said, yes, and I'm so proud of you, daughter.
But somewhere along the line,
you started doing it yourself.
Because friends, that's what we do.
We hear from the Lord and we partner with the Lord.
But somewhere along the line,
we start doing it in our own strength again.
And friends, this is not something
that can be done in your own strength.
First of all, the volume of people is absolutely
beyond your wildest imaginations.
You should see my inboxes.
We're talking about hundreds and hundreds
and hundreds of people.
Y'all are like, where's my husband?
He's in my inbox somewhere, friends.
God knows how to get him to you.
Don't worry, he's not lost.
But I do know this.
I know that at some point,
I stopped leaning into the supernatural
because I got so overwhelmed with the daily stuff
that I just started trying to do it myself
with my own ideas, with my team and their ideas.
We just stopped being in the rhythms of grace.
Has God still blessed us?
Yes.
Are things still amazing?
Yes.
But could they be beyond amazing, supernatural?
Yes, and I want that.
And I'm not gonna settle for anything less than that.
God has blessed our obedience with more success stories
than anything that is out there.
But I believe that the tsunami wave of kingdom marriages
that God promised me is only gonna come
from a true spiritual revival.
And that is not gonna come from the flesh.
It's going to come from unity in this community
of all of us coming together and looking to the Lord.
Because you're part of this too.
It's not just me.
And I have been, because I am a personality
that's a pioneer, because I am an entrepreneur,
because I care so deeply about trying to solve this problem.
I care about your love story.
In fact, for some of you,
maybe more than you do right now,
because you're done.
But that pressure has crushed me
because I wasn't carrying it with the Lord.
I was at first,
but then somewhere in the last five years, I stopped.
And I wanna get back to the supernatural, don't you?
I want to get back to the supernatural.
I don't want to do anything in the flesh.
If God's not doing it, I don't want to do it either.
All right, so the Holy Sabbath looked like ceasing from all those things.
What does it look like in the modern to cease from work?
Okay, let's talk about that.
Turn off your email.
Turn off your phone.
In fact, leave your phone at home.
Turn off the notifications on your phone.
Sabbath isn't just you resting from your nine to five.
It's resting from your side hustle.
It's resting from everything.
Sabbath is an invitation to lay on the couch and consume your mind with the news or scrolling
on social media.
It's not an invitation to watch and binge movies.
Why?
Because that is not giving rest to your soul.
It's not giving rest to your heart.
It's not giving rest to your imagination.
Is it?
It's not allowing you to dream with God.
Okay, someone's got to get muted.
Let's find them and mute them.
All right, okay, so there's some practical application.
Let's talk about the next thing that the Holy Sabbath looked like.
It looked like a sacred gathering.
You guys, I started getting targeted by these ads.
You might have started getting targeted by them too.
There's something like 80s nostalgia is what they're called.
And I was a kid in the 80s, like I was in elementary school in the 80s.
And so when I see those ads, it really does bring back nostalgia for me because they're
using AI to recreate what the 80s look like.
Teenagers with big hair, hanging out, you know, there was no social media.
There was no internet.
People are like, you know, driving their cars on Friday night and meeting up at spots and
everyone hanging out and they're playing games together outside and doing things.
I mean, that barely exists anymore.
And when I see that, I long for that simpler time.
I long for that, right?
And so the second part of a Holy Sabbath is a sacred gathering.
These communities gathered, friends, this is what they do.
In fact, people still do this.
You know, the Jews still keep Sabbath and some Christians keep Sabbath.
They gather for what?
For worship, for prayer.
They read the Torah together.
They ate food.
And so what does that look like in our modern time?
It looks like the same thing, gathering together with friends, with family, reminding each
other of the goodness of God, sharing a meal, singing, praying, speaking blessings over
each other, you know, choosing community over isolation.
The third aspect of the biblical Sabbath was delight and joy.
The Sabbath wasn't just about not working.
It was about being delighted.
It was a day to enjoy creation, enjoy food, enjoy other people.
It's Isaiah 58, 13 through 14, if you want to look at that scripture.
So in the modern time, we can enjoy good food without rushing.
You could take your time.
You guys, when I went to Europe for the first time, I was so amazed that people ate so late
at night.
That was the number one thing.
And people weren't fat.
That was the second thing.
I was like, hmm, what are people doing around here?
They're walking a lot after they eat.
I'll tell you that.
A lot of steps, no elevators, crazy stuff.
But they also took hours and hours to eat.
Eating was like a thing.
You didn't just get in and get out.
You got in and then you dined.
Say that, dined.
I just want to let you guys know that the marriage feast of the lamb is not going to
be in and out.
In fact, because we have eternity, maybe we're going to stay a couple thousand years there.
Just doing what?
Just fellowshipping.
Just Sabbathing.
Real Sabbathing.
Dining.
For those of you who thought you weren't going to eat in heaven, well, there's a lot of scriptures
about eating.
So I think you are.
Eat, eating, dining.
There's a difference between eating and dining.
Remember that old song?
Who remembers that old song?
Come and dine, the master calleth.
Come and dine.
Remember that song?
You can eat at Jesus' table all the time.
He who fed the multitudes and turned the water into wine, to the hungry calleth now.
Come and dine.
Remember that?
Dine.
Eat your fool.
Be satisfied.
Don't rush.
So what else can we delight and joy in?
Nature, friends.
When's the last time you got out in nature?
When's the last time you took your shoes and socks off
and grounded yourself in the grass?
You know why we were so much healthier when we were children?
It wasn't because we were young
and our cells weren't old yet.
It was because we were outside a lot.
We were in the sunshine.
We were in the grass.
We were in the nature.
Yeah, we got some poison ivy.
It doesn't matter.
We were in the woods.
We were down with our faces in the dirt
watching ants build their home.
Anyone else?
Just watching them.
What are they up to?
You guys, that was making us healthy.
Just so you know, you are a creation
that came from creation.
That's kind of your origin when you get down in the dirt.
It's part of our superpower to be out in God's creation.
God's creation brings us life.
It reminds us of who he is.
Now we're behind closed doors all day long
with slathered on sunscreen.
Come on, popping a bunch of supplements that we could get
if we just went outside for a minute.
So take a walk in nature.
Do things, friends, whatever it is
that brings you joy and restores your soul.
Play music, paint maybe.
Laugh, play family games together.
Read, read something that restores your soul.
Another thing that they do is they remembered God
and they worshiped him, remembering what he's done.
When's the last time that you just listed out
all the things God has ever done for you?
All the times that he's ever come through for you?
All the times when he's comforted you and helped you,
whether it was just supernaturally or through another person
remembering God, creating memorials
of what God has done for us.
The Jews, of course, they remember God's creation,
his rest, his deliverance, Israel, freedom from Egypt.
There's certain passages of scriptures
from the ancient texts from the Torah
that they would read during Sabbath every time
just to continue to remember what God has done.
And so what we can do in the modern world
is we can journal.
We can be grateful for what God has done for us.
We can journal it out.
What did he do for you this week?
Write it out.
Worship him, give thanks to him.
Give thanks for your freedom in Christ.
If nothing really great happened this week,
then just be thankful that you're free.
Share testimonies with the people that you're gathering with.
Testimonies are God's invitation.
They're an invitation for God to do it again.
Whatever he did for them, he can do for you.
And then friends, we just rest.
They just rested.
Everyone, men, women, children, servants, foreigners,
even the animals, everybody rested.
That's Deuteronomy 5.14.
So that means that on a Sabbath,
if you're really going to do a Sabbath,
don't just rest while others serve you.
Okay, go out to eat, make other people serve you.
Because unfortunately, you know,
we're not in a forced sabbatical
where everyone gets a day off.
Some people have to grind and work.
They're caught in the snare of poverty
and they never can stop.
And maybe you're one of those people.
Release the pressure from anyone else
to do anything for you.
Everyone gets to rest.
Create rhythms of rest in your household.
If you have kids that are still at home,
teach them the rhythms of rest.
And then once again, we just dedicate that time,
whether it's a couple hours a week that you're Sabbathing,
whether it's a day a week that you're Sabbathing.
Remember, you want it to become a lifestyle.
Whether it's the evenings after you get home from work
that you're Sabbathing,
whatever you're doing, make it holy unto the Lord.
In the ancient times, Sabbath was consecrated.
It was a set apart time as God's time.
So we have to dedicate some time in our lives to the Lord.
It's not just a day off for you to just roll around,
be a little carnal cornflake.
It's a sacred space.
It's a place where you can be recentered.
It's a place where you can guard it.
Guard it from being consumed by chores or errands
or endless scrolling on social media.
You have to let yourself be reset in your spirit
for the days ahead.
And Ben, anyone getting anything out of this?
Here's some ideas that I have written down here.
So whenever you want to Sabbath,
here's some ideas of what you can do.
Just shut down your work devices, light a candle,
pray, welcome God's presence.
Just close out whatever you're doing for the day.
Just take a little Sabbath.
I got a sauna for my 50th birthday.
I can go in there and Sabbath.
And go in there and I can, you know, you can't have electronics in there because they get
too hot.
So you can just go in there and you can just close your eyes and you can just meditate
on the Lord and on the goodness of the Lord.
I could take a book in there.
I'm going to sweat all over it, but I could read in there.
I could Sabbath.
Another modern way that we could Sabbath is just community.
Have all your friends put their phones in the center of the table and just talk.
Consider a slow meal together.
Just say, Hey, you know what?
Let's go out to eat.
Let's not let's go out to eat.
Let's come over my house to eat because remember we don't want other people serving us.
Let's let's come over.
But everyone, hey, drop your phone in the basket at the door here and let's just spend
some quality time together.
Let's play a game.
Let's bring out a board game.
Let's play a game.
Let's talk.
Let's go around the room and find out about everybody's week.
Can worship friends.
That's a modern Sabbath idea.
Read scripture, pray, journal.
You can attend, of course, a church service, but make sure that whatever you're doing,
you're taking time in your week to rest, to nap.
Okay.
Maybe even a nap.
For those of you that can do that, my body doesn't really want to sleep during the day,
but okay.
Nature walk, creativity, laughter.
I had a good laugh with a friend yesterday.
I had a good laugh and it felt so good to laugh.
When's the last time you had a good laugh?
Friends, I want you to put it in the chat right now.
When's the last time you had a good laugh?
Just a good belly laugh.
When's the last time?
If you're not laughing regularly, it's probably because you have the weight of the world on
you.
Let's be laughing.
Delighting.
One of the practical ways you can just stop and have a Sabbath is just stop hustling,
planning, striving.
For those of you that are planners, you have to have every moment of every day of your
life planned out.
Maybe a Sabbath for you is just being spontaneous.
Just saying, you know what?
I don't have any plan today.
Nothing.
And that might make you nervous and that's good because the Sabbath is going to rest
you and stretch you.
You don't need to have certainty.
You don't need to have it all planned out.
You can be flexible and spontaneous.
And of course, we always want to just end every day with a little Sabbath time with
the Lord, just gratitude, blessing, preparing to reenter into the new day tomorrow with
renewed strength.
And really what I realized here is that the Holy Sabbath was never really about restriction.
A lot of people see it as legalism and rules and regulations, but it was God's revolutionary
gift of rest.
Even back then when the world wasn't spinning a million miles an hour, it was God's gift
of rest.
And back then it was a divine protest against slavery, against striving, against self-sufficiency.
You have to remember, friends, it was slavery.
A lot of people, they kept the Sabbath.
There are a lot of people that were enslaved, different things were happening.
So it was a divine protest against striving, against scarcity.
And for us friends, when you really take a Sabbath, like a real Sabbath, and you stop
buying and you stop selling, you stop working, you stop doing all those things, it really
is you just protesting against the systems of this world.
God said that if we love the world, then we don't love Him.
And the systems of this world are capitalism and globalism and materialism and all the
things.
Have you noticed that there's absolutely nothing closed anymore?
Even on Christmas, there's something open all the time.
There's someone who's not Sabbathing.
There's someone who's not being able to rest because their company is greedy and wants
more money.
I remember one year I worked at JCPenney, you know the store, for Christmas because
I wanted to earn extra money.
Well, I didn't want to earn extra money for Christmas because I was striving to buy my
daughter those Ugg boots that she wanted.
All the other kids had them.
And my husband and I were in ministry and we couldn't afford them.
And her dad, who had money, wasn't going to buy them.
So I was out there doing a little contingent holiday job at JCPenney.
And guess what?
JCPenney was open till midnight during that season.
I think pandemic has changed a lot.
Stores are not open as late.
If you notice that, people are like, hey, we like this.
this not being open thing.
So let's let people off at eight o'clock.
Around here in Texas,
stores are only open to eight o'clock
even on the weekends, you guys.
That is unheard of.
Stores used to be open till nine, 10 o'clock at night.
Anyway, this foreigner came in.
I don't know where he was from,
but he just wasn't from America.
And he was checking out
and he marveled at the time that it was.
It was like 1130 at night.
And he's like, what time are you open till?
And I told him midnight.
And you know what he said?
This is what he said and I'll never forget it.
He goes, oh, you Americans love money.
And I was like, dang, he's actually right.
Right?
And you know what we love money more than?
People's health, people's families, people.
And so friends, when we Sabbath,
we are basically saying we revolt against that.
We rebel against that.
God provides for his lovers even while they're sleeping.
We are coming out of the rat race.
We're not gonna compete anymore.
We're not going to strive anymore.
We're not orphans.
God didn't say good luck, kid.
Here's a granola bar.
I hope you make it.
That's not what he said.
He didn't thrust us into the earth realm
and just say, figure it out on your own.
We don't have to live like this anymore.
And friends, if you have to remind yourself
that you don't have to live like that,
just one hour of every week where you Sabbath
and you come out of all the striving, maybe start small.
Maybe work yourself up to an entire day of Sabbath,
a Saturday or a Sunday or whatever day off work you have.
Some of you have Mondays.
I remember I used to have Mondays and Tuesdays off work.
I hated that.
You know why?
Because everyone else had to work on Mondays and Tuesdays.
And so when I was off, everyone else was working
and I didn't have anyone to play with.
And I like to play.
When's the last time you played?
Maybe that's your Sabbath.
You've been all work and no play and now you're no fun.
Oh honey, sir, you're no fun.
You're no fun anymore.
You don't laugh anymore.
You take everything so serious
because you're so pressured.
You're so overwhelmed.
It's time to play.
I didn't play all summer, you guys.
I've been swimming one time.
I've been hiking one time.
I canceled all my vacations.
And I think that the Lord wanted me to Sabbath
and that's why I was canceling my vacations.
But you know what I did in the space
when I canceled my vacations?
I worked.
I made a mistake.
I'm here to confess that to you.
The Bible says, confess your faults to one another
and be healed.
I'm asking to be healed right now.
Will you extend and release healing over me?
I messed up.
I done messed up, A.A. Ron.
I messed up.
God was creating margin for me.
And you know what I filled that margin with?
I already told you on the last Supernatural Saturday.
I filled it with a puppy that I don't have capacity with.
I filled it with a bunch of work.
I wrote a stinking book.
Y'all listen, if it's obvious to you
that I don't know how to rest,
then maybe you should also look in the mirror
and ask yourself if you do.
I'm a high capacity person.
And that's okay.
That's a gift God gave me.
But you know what?
I have to do it with him, not for him.
Some of you, that's the shift today.
You love to serve the Lord.
You love to help other people because you love Jesus.
But you're helping other people until it hurts you.
And I just wanna tell you, that's not of God.
If helping is hurting, it's not of God.
Say it to yourself.
If helping is hurting, it's not of God.
God's definition of relationship
is it can't be good for them if it's also not good for you.
It has to be reciprocal.
Some of you are people pleasers.
You don't say no.
You're overextended.
Overextended.
Yeah, I know you're doing good things.
But because those things are hurting you,
that makes them not a good thing anymore.
I just wanna let you know,
for all of you that are super hoping to get married,
because some of you kind of are losing that hope.
And I believe that that is a real sign of burnout
when what you used to wanna do, you no longer wanna do.
And so it's important that we stop striving.
is handed to the Lord. For some of you guys are going to take a sabbatical from
the dating apps. You're going to get off there.
You're going to put this back in the Lord's hands where it needs to be.
But back to what I was going to say, for those of you that are hoping to get
married, you have to have time for a marriage.
If you're out here striving, doing all this other stuff,
you're not going to have time to even enjoy this relationship.
You're not going to have time to really be with each other.
Look each other in the eyes, talk to each other, listen to each other.
I know what I'm talking about. I have a good marriage, but I'll tell you,
there's a lot of times when David and I were both on our phones.
One of us is trying to talk to the other person,
but the other person is working on something.
And when you own your own business, for those of you that do,
because I know there are some business owners here, you don't work nine to five.
You work 24 seven.
I know people think it's glamorous to own your own business,
but only if you have really serious boundaries,
because when you own your own business, you do not work nine to five.
You work 24 seven.
So part of a Sabbath could be, Hey,
I'm not going to talk about business after five o'clock at night.
No business conversations are allowed to happen.
I'm just giving you guys all kinds of different ideas as Holy Spirit leads me
today.
Let's pray. Father God, we love you so much.
And we thank you for our original design.
We come into alignment with original design this morning.
You did not create us to strive.
You did not create us to be beggars.
You created us to be children that are provided for that are loved.
You created us to live in the rhythms of grace.
And so Laura, we come out of the curse right now,
whatever that looks like on each and every one of our lives,
we come out of it right now. We are no longer going to strive.
We are no longer going to be in poverty and orphan mentalities.
We want to live the way that you created us to live.
We know right now that rest is found in a person, not a place.
It's in the person of Jesus.
And he's offering us and we're receiving his rest today.
He's not taking, he's not telling us to just take a vacation.
He's telling us to take his yoke and we receive his yoke today.
We declare his yoke upon us today.
He isn't telling us to just do nothing, but he's saying, do it with me.
I released that over myself. I released that over everyone on this call.
He's not saying do nothing. He's saying, do nothing on your own.
John 15, he's saying, if you abide in me and I abide in you,
you can have what you want. He's saying apart from me, you can do no thing.
And we are just saying that to ourselves right now.
I can't do anything worth doing if I do it apart from his grace and his
strength and his peace. And so we take that yoke upon us today.
I want you to see yourself just putting that yoke on right now.
And it's not tight and it doesn't pressure you. It's not ill fitting.
It's made just for you, just for you.
Just put it on like your favorite piece of clothing that just makes you feel so
safe and so comfortable.
It feels like you're naked when you put it on because it's just so easy to wear.
Put that yoke on right now. Feel it.
Feel that yoke of Jesus on your body right now. It fits you.
It fits you so well, but it's also light.
So light that you barely feel it on you.
That's because Jesus is carrying that weight that you were never meant to carry.
And when we're walking in that yoke,
we're walking wearing this garment of surrender.
We move in the rhythms of heaven.
We're coming out of the rhythms of the world right now.
We're coming out of the rhythms of hustle right now.
We're exchanging our exhaustion for his rest.
We're exchanging our anxiety for his peace.
We're exchanging our thriving for his sufficiency.
He said, my grace is sufficient for you.
We are exchanging all of these things.
Sabbath, we're coming into it right now.
God, give us a revelation of Sabbath for each and every one of our lives.
It's not just the absence of work. It's the presence of Jesus.
The presence of Jesus.
You said that your creation doesn't even toil.
The lilies are clothed with splendor.
How much more will you clothe us, your children?
You tell us in your word,
good parents wouldn't give their children a rock or a snake.
How much more will you give good gifts to your children that ask you?
And I just want to end today by saying this, friends, a couple of years ago.
Remember, God's been trying to teach us this.
He's been trying to teach me this for years.
And he's not, I just want to let you know,
he's not disappointed in you.
Please don't hear any condemnation in today's message.
It's an invitation, not condemnation.
An invitation to come out of exhaustion and rest,
out of striving and surrender.
Orphans grind, but children rest.
Orphans strive, but children surrender.
Orphans hustle, but children inherit.
Do you guys know that I just read you?
That was a post that I created 15 years ago,
what I just said about orphans.
God's been trying to teach me this,
because remember, I came into this world pretty orphaned.
And that identity has stuck far longer than I want it to.
But God's been teaching me so many things.
And I want to end with this.
A few years ago, God told me to take the entire month off.
It was when this movement was in its heyday.
And he said, take an entire month off.
My little grandchildren were just born, they were babies.
And my daughter and son-in-law were coming here
to visit us for the entire month
and bringing the babes, twins.
God said, take that entire month off.
Guys, I was so scared.
Oh my God, if I don't show up, how are we gonna make money?
We own our own company, what's gonna happen?
And I took the entire month off.
And you guys, the day that I put her on the plane
to go home, I got two invitations to come on two podcasts.
And those podcasts were Annie Downs, that sounds fun,
and Chris Vallotton.
And both of those podcasts brought in more students
than I ever could have brought in
if I had hustled all month.
Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people
added to our movement.
I just wanna release that over you right now.
What have you been trying to fix that you need to let go of
and put on your Jesus Cares board?
What have you been trying to figure out?
What do you need to do less of?
Where do you need to rest and just let God,
L-I-G it, let it go?
What do you need to see supernatural provision in
but you could never do it on your own
even if you stayed up all night and slept with one eye open?
I want you to ask yourself these questions.
And I wanna hear testimonies.
The next couple of Faith Fridays,
I want you to show up if you can
and give testimonies of what happened
when you declared a Sabbath.
Arrest from striving.
Maybe that's your Sabbath.
You just declare, I'm not doing this anymore.
I'm not gonna try to figure this out.
I'm not gonna try to rob Peter to pay Paul.
I'm not doing this anymore.
I'm going to allow God to show me
his supernatural provision.
And then when he gives you instructions, you follow them.
If he asked you to partner with him
and do something specific, you do it.
And so Lord, help us.
Help us to receive this word in balance.
Help us to receive this word and activate it.
In Jesus name, amen.
All right, friends, love you so much.
Have an amazing Supernatural Sabbath Saturday, bye.