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Perfection: The Fable and The Factual · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Look look with me at Genesis chapter 10, because that's where I want to start.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh every time I go to this chapter here, um I think of that uh uh did you hear about that pastor that he was doing it doing his Saturday visitation as his custom was, and there was one and there was one man that missed church the week before, and uh he normally made it, but he wasn't there the week before, so so the pastor went to his house on a Saturday to visit him and see if he was okay.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so he pulls up at his house and the driveway, his car was in it, and and he walked walked through the garden area there all the way to his front door and he heard the TV on and knocked on the door and nobody answered and knocked and knocked again.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: The lights were on in the house, and and uh uh well what happened was the man was taking a shower, or he had just got out of the shower and he heard the knocking, but he didn't have any clothes on, you know, so he didn't want to answer the door, so he was just hoping that he would knock and leave.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the pastor knocked and knocked and knocked, and finally he pulled out one of his cards, his business card, and he stuck, he wrote something on the back and he stuck it in the door, and he he walked on down the driveway and walked and got in his car and left.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when the man saw that he left, he he opened the door and got that card.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And uh on the back of the card, all it said was a verse of scripture.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: It just said Genesis 3.20.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, excuse me, Revelation 3.20.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Revelation 3.20.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the man said, Well, I'm not sure I know what that means.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: So he looks it up, and when he looks it up in the Bible, Revelation 3.20 said, Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: If any man hear my voice, I will come in to him and dine with him and him with me.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the pastor's funny little clever way of telling him that I've been here, you know.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a good, good little joke there, and the man chuckled.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so the next day he did go to church, and and uh uh when the pastor was done preaching, he went back to his office there, and somebody had left a uh they'd laid a uh a card that they found in the offering plate, and it was the man had left his business card.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And all he did was wrote on the back of his Genesis 3.10.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, in fact, it's right there we're looking at it.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: In Genesis 3.10, the pastor said, I don't, I'm not sure I remember exactly what that says.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So he opened his Bible and looked at Genesis 3.10, and it said, Um, what's it say?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I didn't die.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: So here we are.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm gonna I'm gonna read this here in Genesis 3, actually 9 and 10.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh what we're gonna uh look at this morning, now get this.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Open your heart and mind to this because this is important.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is big.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that I have I have consistently run into everywhere that I go.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I I realize finally with clarity what we're dealing with here is this there is the biggest lie that I can that I can see, the biggest scam in all of humanity.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: It the biggest thing that derails all of mankind and most of the church world is this lie called perfection.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there is perfection.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: I totally believe in perfection, but what's wrong is man's definition of perfection.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: It has it has caused people in the church to not go to church anymore.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: It has caused Christians that that will never leave church to still struggle and not and still struggle with their faith, still struggle with with uh self-worth, still suffer, still, still struggle with with receiving the goodness of God, the blessings of God in their life.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's something that's common in the world and the church, and it started right here in Genesis chapter 3.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and man has a wrong, false definition.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lie.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: God doesn't think like this, God doesn't do it, but man's definition of perfection means to be without flaws.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: A perfect diamond has no flaws.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: They'll tell you that a perfect face has no flaws, a perfect body has no flaws, a perfect flower, a perfect, a perfect anything, they'll tell you, is that their definition is it is in perfection only if it has no flaws to it.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is, and because man thinks this, has thought it since the fall of man.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And religion thinks it.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Man thinks it in the in the religious sense, in the religious world.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's why even in Christianity, we'll say, even things that we'll say, well, well, God, you know, I know that Jesus has made us perfect.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I know we're perfect in Him.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I know spiritually we're perfect, but we're still being, God's still working to make us perfect in our actions and all that.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you why that's wrong right there is because we're defining perfection as having no flaws.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we're chasing a carrot on the stick because it's not real, it's a fable, it's a fantasy, it's a lie.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a lot of people in the world they'll agree with me on that, and they'll say, yeah, I don't believe in perfection.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, there's no such thing.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the difference between me and and and that is that I do believe in perfection.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that I know what perfection really is.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not with it's not to be without flaws.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here in Genesis 3, we look at this story, and and I guess for the past three years, I I can't preach without referring back to this because this is where it all went south.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Looking at and looking at what really happened and how how everything went bad was right here, and with the restoration of Jesus, what he did was undid that bat, and he brought brings us completely home in reconciliation with him.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And in Genesis chapter 3, verse 9, it's where we see they eat the they've eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the Lord God called Adam and said to him, Adam, where are you?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Who told you that you were naked?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Have you eaten of the tree that I told you not to eat?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, he's saying, You would never know that.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: You've been naked all this time, Adam.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter to me, and it didn't matter to you.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: That was never the issue.
• 6:28
  unknown: Right.
• 6:28
  unknown: That's good.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: You were naked this whole time.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Who told you that?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't me.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't do that.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: There is no condemnation in me.
• 6:37
  unknown: Right.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: The only way you could know that is that you went the way that you chose the knowledge of good and evil.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: You you you chose the way that I told you.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I told you, Adam, not to do it, because it it'll it'll kill you.
• 6:49
  unknown: Right, right, right, right.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And Adam became, what happened was man became about self.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's about us.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know why it didn't matter?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was all about God.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter what we were, it didn't matter if we were clothed or naked or tall or short or or whatever.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't, nothing mattered.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: All that mattered, God would be our life, God would be our protection, God would be our provision, God would be our fullness, God would be our self-worth, God would be the fullness of Him that fills everything in everybody.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't even matter what we looked like.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: But when we went that way, when we when we went after carnality, to make it about us, to make it about our senses, what do we do?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: We look at us and we see, what's the first thing we notice?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: We see something wrong about us.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: A flaw that needs to be fixed.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we can't be worthy, we can't be right unless we fix what we just now saw was wrong, so we cover ourselves.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was naked.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: I needed to be clothed.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: That didn't matter.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been that way ever since.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Mankind has since that time has strived to be better, has strived to make himself better.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: We've done it with religion.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: We have, we have the the the some of the biggest, biggest businesses that people are starting up every single day is they are self-help people in every area, whether it's your food or your money or your body or your or your your whatever success, whatever, your your family.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody now is a self-help master, and if you'll you'll buy my program, I'm gonna finally cause you to be what you've been trying to be all this time.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm finally going to get rid of those flaws that you've been trying to get rid of.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and man keeps trying to perfect himself, and in the church they do that.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: They keep they they use this beautiful gospel somehow and twist this gospel to make it some kind of way that we're supposed to become perfect, and we we think that God's whole purpose for doing this was that we could become perfect without flaws when that was never God's definition of perfect.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Man made that up.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Adam made that up only after he got the knowledge of good and evil.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Then he believes a lie and he makes up, believing this deception, that I have to become without flaws.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: So Christians, so we adopt, that's how we we took this beautiful word, holiness, and somehow we made it carnal perfection.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Took this word holiness, and in some most churches what it meant was that we that holiness was that we acted more perfect.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: With less flaws, less mistakes, less sins, less things wrong.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so much of the religion is directed at getting something wrong out of you.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Gotta get, you know, and it's about get the sin out of you, get the sin out of you.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why in church we're never good enough.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we keep having preaching, no matter how much we love the Lord, no matter how long we've loved the Lord, no matter how secure we are in the Lord.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of flaws, but doing our best with what we got, with where we're at.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow we keep, you know, we will come in and preach and keep thinking what we need is to try to inspire you to get rid of more flaws.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Try to inspire you.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been praying three hours a day, that ain't good enough.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta do, uh you gotta do seven hours a day, some holy number, three, seven, twelve, something.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, so you a lot of times are our evangelist or are uh the the the type of evangelistic ministry that they're just preaching to to church people.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's trying to motivate you to do be something better than how you're acting right now.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why no matter how much, and I and I can I live this.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I always say I don't know anybody that tried harder than me.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I prayed more than anybody, I shouted louder, I jumped higher, I I stayed longer, I mean, I didn't did all of it, and you know what?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Almost everybody around me would look at me and they would think that they would like to be like that.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: They want to be able to pray like I did, they wanted to they wanted to have that passion and a pursuit like I did.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: But you know how I felt?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how much I did, I wasn't getting there.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: I still wasn't there.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was never enough because because once you do it, once you achieve something, what do we do?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: We move the goalpost back again.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we stay on this merry-go-round.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: We just keep going and going, always learning, but never coming to the knowledge of the truth, never attaining.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like Carol was saying here, up here, you know, is that that satisfaction that you that you that you have in you, have in God.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: In Jeremiah 31, 14, God said, My people will be satisfied by my goodness.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And satisfaction is not complacency, that means fullness, satiated, full, heart full.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know what happens with a heart that's full?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to be selfish anymore because your heart's full.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're loved.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're in the Garden of Eden, you're taken care of.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: It ain't even about you.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what about people treating me this way?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: You don't care about that.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're full of God.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: You don't care if they love you, you love them.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: You get bigger because of what because of what God's done in you.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where the real perfection is.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna show you something here.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: If if if we think that perfection means to be without flaws, then look around at God's beautiful creation.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: If creation means to be without flaws, then God has never made a perfect thing in his life.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the mountains.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: They're not perfectly shaped.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know what happened if man makes mountains?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: We do.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: We call them skyscrapers.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Go to the cities and look.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: We got mountains in there, they're perfectly geometrical shaped, they're rectangular square, they're right there.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's a great engineering device that man has come up with, but but but because with man, a perfect we is what we call a perfect square.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not one degree off, not one flaw.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: God doesn't use a perfect square in any of any of the things that He has created out here.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we think creation's beautiful.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: The mountains are lopsided, the trees are gnarly.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're not perfect trees.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: I got a perfect tree.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I got a perfect tree by man's definition.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: I got a perfect tree in my house.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's in my attic.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: I bring it out at Christmas.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's made of plastic.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: And by man's definition, without flaws, it is perfect.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Every branch is perfect, the perfect length.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it is perfect.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: They are exactly as they're so as they should be, but but it don't look near as pretty as the imperfect ones that God made.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say imperfect, it's not imperfect by God's definition, it's imperfect by our definition.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: But we think it's beautiful.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: We want to straighten everything up.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: God ain't never made a straight river in his life.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Man's made lots of them.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Every river God ever made was crooked.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Depths aren't, you know, they're not the same.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're not consistent.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen lots of man-made rivers.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're straight as an arrow.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're not pretty.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to take a boat on a can on a man's canal or navigation channel.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: We want to go down one of them crooked God-made rivers.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: But it's perfect, it's beautiful.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: We look at it creation, and what are we looking at?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: We feel like we're looking at perfection when we look at it.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: We look out over a valley, we look at that, and it just ministers to us because we're looking at God's beautiful handiwork, and we're saying man could never make anything that good, but there's not a perfect thing about any of it according to man's definition to be without flaws.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: God did not create you to be without flaws.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you'll be honest about it, if you look at man and being naked by himself, he's totally flawed.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Only with God is the completeness done in man.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: You were never supposed to be without flaws.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: My Bible says God chose on purpose, he chose the weak and the foolish things of this world to confound the wisdom of the wise, which says, no, it has to be without flaws.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: So what is perfection then?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Look at creation.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it so beautiful?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Why are the trees not perfect?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Why are the mountains not perfect?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why are the rivers not perfect?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: But why does it look perfect?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because Colossians 3 14 says it.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is the contemporary English version because it says it the clearest.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Love is more important than anything else.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: It is what ties everything completely together.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: King James will call it the bond of peace.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Love is what ties it all together.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's so here's what perfection is.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Perfection is not the absence of flaws.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Perfection is God's perfect love in the midst of flaws.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: That, are you hearing me?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's perfection.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: No wonder, Paul, I'll boast in my infirmities, my weaknesses.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because in my weakness, that's where the strength of God is perfect.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's perfect in me.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all here?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm saying this because listen, we want to kill that lie.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, I we don't see this is what causes people to think that they've never arrived, they're never there.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not there, Brother Rick.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: How do I get there?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you want to tell them, you're there.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: You just you're looking at the wrong thing here.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: You've been perfected forever.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it ain't just some legal, spiritual only kind of thing that doesn't really mean anything to us in our natural life day to day.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: It means everything to us.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: You wake up in the holiness and the beauty and the beauty of holiness and perfection in Him.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're I I I dare say I don't ever see me in this life ever.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's it was it's it's the plan for me to come to some idea of being without flaws.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: We don't even know what it what it really would even look like.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because every time we make ourselves perfect, we we change it again, what it's supposed to be.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: How many years have some of us done that?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how many how many years have I felt like if I just get this one more thing in my life straightened out, I'll finally be what God really wants me to be.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then you get it, you work at it and you get it fixed.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: You get victory over it.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then doggone if you don't find something else.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't, they will.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's fake, it's false, it's not real.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's no such animal, no such thing.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we believe that.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Mankind has believed that since the fall of man has been on this quest to get rid of the flaws because we believed a lie.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: We thought if we got rid of the flaws, that that would fix us.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that was never the intention, never the plan.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: God never made us that way.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: He made us very, very weak and flawed and incomplete except in Him.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: He would be our completeness.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think, why do you think He made us naked in the first place?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Why didn't He cover us?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: He made the bears and the deer, He covered them with fur.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Made the birds, gave them feathers so they wouldn't have to walk around in underwear.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the Tennessee birdwalk?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, fish have scales.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody, they all got something to protect them, something to protect them from the elements.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's things about them that he gave them ways that they could provide for themselves.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: They got weaponry to defend themselves, whether it's just protective coloration or whether it's antlers or claws or strength or speed or something.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we got none of that.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're relatively slow in the animal world.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Naked?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: No claws, no big long teeth.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Bears and lions are stronger than us.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're so incomplete, so flawed.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: He made us that way on purpose.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't make us stronger than the bear, faster than the antelope.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't give us camouflage to hide.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: What did he give us?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Him.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was our all-in-all.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: He was our provision.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: He was our provided.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: He would protect, he would cover, he would complete.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think Jesus said in Matthew 6, he says, don't be anxious about anything.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Your father knows that you need these things.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: See, the whole father's the father's heart in the beginning was that He would be the provider.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we created in the first place?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we could be on some quest of perfection?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because God had all these high standards.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: See, we talk about that too.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a standard to give.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Throw that away.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: The standard was met, the standard was kept by Jesus.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Standard was given to us.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know Paul talked about, you know, you know, live this way, don't lie, and don't let the ministry be playing.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a given there.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: We know that.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't have to be preaching that all the time.
• 20:59
  unknown: Right.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: But but if only if all we do is preach living up to a standard, then what we're doing is preaching a carnality.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're putting it on us to try to attain something.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: But if we preach the fullness of God, see, I'll tell you, this is my experience.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: I found this.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I'm crime crazy about it.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: When I saw, when I laid on that floor of my church and the heavens opened up, and I saw that everything I was trying to get from God, everything I was trying to be in God, I already had it and I already was.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: He filled my heart with all that he is, and I never wanted again because the Lord became my shepherd.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't need to protect me anymore because I was full.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was covered.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been protected ever since.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have to worry about what I'm gonna eat, what I'm gonna drink, how am I gonna be close.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Father knew that I would need these things in these ways.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: World.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Never had to worry.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Never had to be stressed again because you've had a sense of fullness which brought perfect peace all the time.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: See, before this, I it was on me.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was trying to get peace.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was trying to talk myself into having peace.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Before that, you know, somebody would, you know, I'd get stabbed in the back sometimes.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'd get betrayed.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: It hurt.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I would have to try to forgive.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that's what you're supposed to do, and I would mean it and I would try.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: But something's different now.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even have to try.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: You do something to me, you're just forgiving.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: It don't even, it's not even the same anymore.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Woo! This is fullness.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is real, people.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I mean.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you cross that line from carnal perfection and carnal pursuit, even carnal pursuit in the name of God, in the name of Jesus.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And realize where you're at, that you're in the garden.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: That you're with God.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's all in all.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he's not.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, I found out he never expected me to be strong.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: He intended to be my strength all the time.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't waiting to see if I could muster up enough love in my heart to have love and passion in pursuit of him.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted me to know that he loved me.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: That would take care of my love for him.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: I used to beg God, help me love you.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I want to love you.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'd read about David.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: I say, I want to be about David.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: He would just cry and say, Oh Lord, I just want to know you.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I want to be with you.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: As the deer paddeth after the water brooks so much, oh long after the other, I wanted to be like David.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, David was crying because he wanted to be like you.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: David was crying.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: God said, David was crying because David wanted to be like we are.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to have what we have.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: When I saw fullness, I didn't cry like David anymore.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't pray that God would help me love him anymore.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's been years and years and years and years since I prayed that God would help me love him.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: He loves me.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now I just love him.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: I wake up and I just love him.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: We hear each other talking about all the time, going down the road, Father, I love you.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh God, I love you.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh God, so good.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's just always bubbling out all the time because you're just aware of goodness.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're full.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: See, why were we created?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because God had all these rules that He would He wanted us to keep, and but so He makes us with weak flesh, and we can't keep them anyway because we're so weak, and then we're gonna fail, and then He gets to burn us all up, and you know God, all these wonderful rules, but nobody keeps them, so let us make man.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know why did He do that?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because God is love.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the heavens of heavens could not contain the love of God.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: He what does love want?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: It wants somebody to give it to.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: If there's any kind of need, if I could use that word, and I don't know if that's the right word, but if there's any kind of need that love has, it has a has a need to give, it has a need to bless, needs an object.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we're here.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm on this earth.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: I am here to be loved by God, to receive of his goodness and his abundance, his life, to enjoy that.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I found out one of the best ways I can worship him is to enjoy the life that he's given me.
• 25:30
  unknown: That's true.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't you afraid enjoying life?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: You might you might just slip over into sin.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: All that fear is gone.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's not an issue anymore.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: The fullness of God becomes the issue.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: See, the only reason, the only reason sin is an issue is because people are still about their self.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: And all sin comes from real from a self-self-ishness, self-centeredness anyway, and that self-centeredness moves away when it becomes God-centered.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I quit preaching about what's wrong with you.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: I preach about what's right with God in us.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: With us with God, union with God.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: And union with God.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that he's joined to God as one spirit, not two.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, there's just me and God here together somewhere.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: You become one person here, a new creation.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, somebody.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that's where your perfection is.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's what that's perfection.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: That is perfection.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: There ain't nothing more perfect than where you're at right now, what you are.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: You start, you start looking at this.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: See what Paul's saying in Romans chapter 8, verse 5, he says, for those who live according to the flesh, what's that?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: According to your carnality, your outer man, your works, the world around you, what you do, how good you do, how bad you do.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: What is that?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's all flesh.
• 27:00
  unknown: Right.
• 27:00
  unknown: Right.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's all flesh performance.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: We'll judge people's Christianity on that.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Judge ourselves on that.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that that's got no no nothing to do with the judgment and discernment in Christ.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're so dumb when we look at it.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when I say we, you know, I mean not me.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: But but we in the church world, we we draw these lines wherever it suits us.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, Brother Rick, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not perfect, but at least I ain't doing what he's doing.
• 27:36
  unknown: Well, come on.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's all just flesh, just outer performance.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: And outer performance, outer manifestations, whether it's acts of goodness or acts of sin.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's just those are just outer manifestations.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the churches, church world has made a mistake by trying to stop the outer manifestations, and you and you can't do it.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: All you can do, you can pick fruit, and it'll come back next season again.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta make the tree good.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: How's the tree good?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: The tree's good in perfection in him.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta walk in this.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta you wake up, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: You wake up thinking you're perfect, you're gonna act pretty good.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna love, you're gonna, you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna love in a more perfect way.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: By that I mean you're gonna love in the in an unselfish way.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's automatic when you walk in the spirit.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, that's how the yoke is easy and the burden is light.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Without this, it's hard.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Those who live according to the flesh are those who set their minds on the things of the flesh.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, see, this has been in the Bible a long time.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: For so many years in my younger years in church, people would say that to walk in the flesh means to commit a sin.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it'll result in that, of course.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: But he says, those that live according to the flesh, what it means is they're setting their attention, their mind, their focus on the things of the flesh.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: What is that?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: What's wrong with you?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's a thing of the flesh.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get in church.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: What the church, what's wrong with the church today?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: She needs this and she needs that, and so then we go out trying to get rid of it.
• 29:04
  unknown: Uh-huh.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get somebody to motivate us no matter how hard we're trying.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: It'll get us feeling bad because we must not be trying, trying, trying, trying good enough, and we'll come ball and squall down here.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or we'll sit there and we'll say, Yeah, I guess I just need to try harder.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: What's that?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's flesh.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Try harder.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Pastors will tell me, well, Brother Rick, you know, you just you gotta talk about it.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta to set that standard of holiness and and godliness.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we're supposed to be called to walk and act just just like just like God.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And say, do you do that?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if they say yes, just ask them a couple of questions and you can expose them.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because the truth is most of the time they'll admit that they don't.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: They'll say, what they'll say is, no, but I'm trying.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: At least I'm trying.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: As if you get points for trying.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's nowhere in the Bible.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: That if thou triest, it's accounted unto thee for righteousness.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's not in there.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's him who believes on this, on him.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: But see, people believe a lie because they think it's about attaining some standard of human perfection, which is try to get rid of all the flaws.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: I heard one preacher saying, when God, when when you when you stand before the Lord, and you know, and you, you know, God's not gonna say how many, you know, how many did you have in your church and how many countries did you go to?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: What he's gonna ask you is, did you get all the sin out of your life?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, oh my goodness.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I had been to his church a couple of times, and I thought, I thought this guy was listening to me.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently he wasn't.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I saw the, I saw him on a video.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: I saw him on the TV screen, and he was saying, what he's gonna say is, did you get all the sin out of your life?
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he was preaching it and sweating it hard.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: Within six months, the man had gone back into his old sinful lifestyle.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Lost his family, his marriage, and spent years.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think he's back, he's he's he's he's he's been restored, but it took him years.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: But see, and and and and he didn't want to go into sin.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: He was trying to fight it, but he was trying to fight it carnally.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: He was trying to fight it carnally.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: He thought God was expecting him to get rid of his flaws.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: But those who live according to the Spirit, their minds are on the things of the Spirit.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: On the things of the Spirit.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: How many flaws are in the Spirit?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Even by man's definition, there's none.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Things of the Spirit.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: What's in what's what's what's what are the things of the Spirit?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, love, joy, grace, fullness, God.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everything.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: There ain't nothing in the spirit.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Negative.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: There ain't nothing wrong in the spirit.
• 32:10
  unknown: Come on.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: I I can't, you can't condemn me.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: My wife will tell you that.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: We got into a disagreement one time and it's over.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: She goes and takes a walk, she'll tell you this while I'm telling it, because she likes to tell this story.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, I say, Lord, I know there's no condemnation in you, but I think he could use just a little bit.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can't condemn me.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Can you point out what's can you point out what's wrong in my life?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, that's not hard.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: I can help you do that.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Paul said, most gladly, therefore, I'll just glory in my weaknesses.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's all about him anyway.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead, talk to me.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and blame me.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and accuse me, devil.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and accuse me, people.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and point it out.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the good thing about this thing, because in this perfection in him, we do grow.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: And of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: It just keeps going and going.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to point out my flaws, go ahead.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: It really don't hurt my feelings because I know about them too.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: But you better take a picture, it will last longer.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're growing in this.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is where this is where people say, Well, if you don't have that pressure of condemnation, you know, how will you, how will you push on?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: How will you grow?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: How will you get any better?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: How will you know more?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: It what I'm talking about, you will grow like a weed once you finally get rid of those things that entangle the things of the flesh, the things of the world that entangle us, which are trying to fix the things of the flesh.
• 33:43
  unknown: Amen.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: See, it's because of that.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's why a lot of ministry, a lot of ministry got away from the whole gospel thing and became more about self-help and about just trying to make you better and get you more financially on this and get your get your your, you know, got into more psychology thing because it's all about, all that is, is about fixing your flaws.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because the lie says, if I fix my flaws, I'll get happy.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: If I fix my flaws, I'll be blessed.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: If I fix my flaws, I'll have a good life.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: The thing about it, it's not possible.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: You were, it was never the plan.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was never the plan.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: He made us naked on purpose.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Nakedness speaks of weakness, vulnerability.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: He never looked at Adam and said, Here you are.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: I made you this way.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now I expect you to make yourself better for me.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Nowhere in the mind of God.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all hearing anything?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, Hebrews 10 verse 14.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Just a clear verse that says it.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so many others.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you want some homework, I can tell you, go to the New Testament.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Look up everywhere in your Bible where it says perfect or perfection.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you will find every single time it's in the context of God's love.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew 5.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Be ye perfect as your father is perfect.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: What's he talking about?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Love.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Everywhere that I've seen through that, it's always love.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's one perfect thing.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 13.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: What's 1 Corinthians 13 all about?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Love suffers long.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Love is kind.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's all love.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: What's that perfect thing?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was God's perfect love.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: That is perfection.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: God's love is perfect love.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Not human love, but it's perfect love.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: For by one offering, he has perfected forever.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody say forever.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: Those who are sanctified.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, some of your Bibles might say who are being sanctified.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's not right.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's not even in there.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's not in the in the in the in the text there.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: The translators put that in because that was their own idea.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Look it up in a concordance where it says they are being.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: It does not say that.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: It says those who have been sanctified.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Stand up with me, y'all.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: How y'all doing?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: May the God of peace present you holy.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: Blameless.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Come on.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: Father, I thank you for your goodness and your purity.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: How your flood just washes away the covering, the refuge of lies.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no covenant with death and no agreement with any of that.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hell.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: I thank you, Father, for the goodness that you are, and I thank you for the fullness you are, that it's you, you, you, you are our life.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: You are everything.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: We are with you, one with you, perfected with you, one with you.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: We walk with identity.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: We know that we're perfected in you.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Has nothing to do, let it all wash away in every heart and every mind today.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Has nothing to do with any of that.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: But we walk in you, trust in you, enjoy you, and watch this relationship union with you do all the work that makes us to walk just like you do in this earth.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: We give you praise.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Father.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, church, I see something.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: See, right now, a lot of people, a lot of times we think a church is supposed to go out and make a stand for Jesus.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're not to go out and make a stand for the Lord.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're not to try to just tell people what God would want or what wouldn't want.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're to be Christ in this world.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is who we are.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Rather than, guess what?
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have fights with people.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have fights with the liberals and the Republicans and this and that.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I know what I believe is the way to go and what what we believe is right and wrong.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: I know all that.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I know what this world needs is not for somebody to just take a stand for what's right.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because we'll operate in the knowledge of good and evil, thinking that we're operating in the spirit.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: We'll remember that we are Christ to this world.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: We are Christ, presenting a kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: We ain't even called to fix this world in carnal ways and join carnal sides here.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now I vote, I get involved, and I know, I mean, I have opinions about the whole thing, but I don't forget who I am in this world.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all listening to me?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: When you go out of here today, you're going out of here with one identity.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care what you've done, I don't care what you did this morning, I don't care if you kicked the dog on the way out of the house and yelled at your family on the way here.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, God has presented you holy, perfect, blameless, thoughtless.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: None of that stuff means anything.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, I was thinking of something that you were saying, uh, Carol, when about those memories that people can't forgive themselves.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember a pastor saying that that he was praying for people, and there was a lady that came up and she was just crying.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: She was heartbroken.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I asked the Lord, I said, What's her issue, Father?
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, She has, he God told him, so he told her what God told him.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: He says, God tells me that there is a really horrible sin that you've committed.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: And she just, oh no, she just knew she'd been found out.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: She said, and I asked, I asked the Lord, what did she do?
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I don't remember.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: He told her that, and she looked up, and this big smile came on her face.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that whole thing, there again, she had this mark on her, and it left because in reality, God didn't remember she was perfect.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's give the Lord a praise.