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The Hidden Season | Jon Koo · Generations Church

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Hey there, you're listening to the Generation's Church podcast. We pray that the
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word of God today will challenge, change and channel you into your God given
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destiny. Now let's get started. We know in nature there is some spring,
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summer, autumn, winter, four seasons. Right in Malaysia only two
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seasons, and in life the many seasons, right. But I want to
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talk about a season that is hidden. It's the season between the seasons.
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There's a lot of seasoning today. There is a hidden season between all days,
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in all our seasons in life. And this hidden season is something that
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sometimes a lot of us don't take note off, but we encourage you to
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pay attention to the hidden season that you're in. Some of you may be
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in it right now, some of you may have been in it for a
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long time or slightly coming out of it. Some of you are probably just
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about to enter into a season that is hidden. And what I mean is
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about this hidden season is a season of transition. The transitions between the natural
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seasons are very obvious. Like from spring into summer, it gets hotter,
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summer into autumn, the leaves turn brown. Autumn into winter, the leafs
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turn, the leaves fall, and that snow right, Whereas here, once
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we smell the haze, we know the hay season is here, and after
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that we are going to pray for the rainy season. Right. But they
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are the transitions that actually happen. And sometimes these transitions are very nuanced.
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There's a lot of elements to it, and sometimes we may miss it,
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and if we miss it, sometimes we might be stuck. And so there's
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a scripture that kind of sums up and explains or best described this hidden season,
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this season transition. So if you have your Bibles with you, you
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can highlight this. Turn to the Book of Ezra, chapter three, verse
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twelve to thirteen. I'm going to read from the ESV. And all the
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people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation
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of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and
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levites and the hates of the father's houses, old men who had seen the
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first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this
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house being laid. Though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people
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could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's
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weeping. But the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was
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heard far away. How does this explain the seasonal transition? In this passage,
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the Israelites were going to rebuild the temple. The temple was destroyed and
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they were in exile, so the old temple was destroyed, and the didn't
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want to rebuild a new temple. But in this whole process, as they
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were laying the foundations, the dimensions of the temple were the same as the
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previous one, but because they were in exile, they didn't have as much
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resources. They didn't have a lot of the materials. Also, whatever they
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could get, and the King of Cyrus gave them the resources, but it
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wasn't as the same as the previous house, which was the temple that Solomon
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built. Solomon's temple was the most glorious temple of all right. It was
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the most ornate. And so when they saw the foundation being laid, and
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when they saw everything being set up, there were two loud cries, one
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of joy and one of weeping. Now take note of some of these elements
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here. The people that were laying the foundations was the new generations or Levites
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and noblemen, Yeshua and zero Babel Yeshua is the head of the Levi's the
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high priest Zero Babel was the nobleman. So you had you had the priesthood,
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who were the worship team members, the pastors, the leaders of the
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church and all that, and you have the noblemen, the businessman, the
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the people in politics and in power, and they were coming together as one.
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Now, the group of the Levites were twenty years old. Before that,
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Levites were appointed at thirty years old, but David King, David brought
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the h down to twenty. So we are seeing a new generation of builders,
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priests, worship team members, leaders of the church, even noblemen you
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know, coming together. By the same time, we also have in this
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picture here multiple generations experiencing this transition. Now, the past few weeks,
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past and Day has been talking about building this church. We are the church
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the people. If you've been hearing the messaging, it's about us as generations
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setting up. This is our fifth entering into our fifth month. Correct,
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and in five months, almost five months, look at how far we've come.
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But at the same time, look at how much further we need to
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go. Right, this is not the building that we own, and who
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knows how long we'll be here. We knew that we were going to move
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from chatanting, you know, number seven, to come here. There was
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one transition, and now we're in another transition. But beyond the building,
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beyond the stage, beyond all the equipment, as we are building this church
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together, as we see the generations come together, I begin to recognize that
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we're in, we're gonna we're actually in a long season or transition. But
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I'm not going to talk about just a corporate field of transition, because a
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lot of times transition is felt personally. I think every one of us have
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come from a place two generations, meaning you're still in transition yourself. Some
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of you left your previous church. Some of you have been away from church
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for a long time. Some of you come from different parts of the world
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and have come back here. Some you are waiting for something that happened in
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your life and not just about church. Some you're in between jobs. Some
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of you have retired. Some of you are going to switch from from high
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school to from from primary school to high school, high school to college and
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union. There's going to be so many transitions. Some and for us,
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we are in transition because we're gonna expect maybe number three right, Oh,
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everybody, she's pregnant really, ah? Yes, And and so there's so
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many things. Some of us have come up, come out from a breakup,
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someone has lost a job maybe and come in transition between jobs. Some
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us probably have been stuck in transition for the longest time, four years.
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And so today I just hope that this message will encourage you and speak to
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your hearts, and I pray that the world God will move you and open
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up. Have you see that as an opportunity even in the season. So
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of course I like to use different enalogies, and I find that there's one
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analogy that I love to use with this, especially with this scripture, and
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it's actually the life cycle of a butterfly. Now we know what a caterpillar
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looks like, We know what a butterfly looks like because we know what a
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cocoon looks like, But do we know what the inside of a cocoon looks
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like? Not sure? Right, So transition feels like that it's not the
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caterpillar face, it's not a butterfly face, because the butterfly face is the
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face that we want to be in. That's where we want to come out
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and spread our wings, you know, express ourselves and be free and turn
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into the butterfly. But transition feels a lot of times like being in a
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cocoonon this is the face, and when the when the caterpillar is getting ready
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to turn into a butterfly, it goes into the cocoon face. And this
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cocoon face can last up to three weeks. That is very interesting. I
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discovered this as I was trying to understand this whole analogy. Do you know
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that inside the cocoon, when the caterpillar begins to metamorph right, metamorphosis.
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So, but caterpillar morphs into the cocoon phase, the caterpillar literally breaks down,
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not has an emotional breakdown. The caterpillar's external structure begins to liquify.
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It's interesting, right, So it liquifies, all right, and what remains
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is actually the basic structure of the creature. And this basic structure carries the
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code, the source code the DNA, and these are called imaginal discs.
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Okay, say with me, imaginal discs. So I'll talk about that in
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a bit. But it's very interesting. So now the caterpillar no longer looks
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like a caterpillar, it doesn't look like a butterfly. When you do a
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scan right, m I scan of the cocoon, what's inside is caterpillar soup
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with probably you see veins like structures, and the only structure you probably see
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is like a form of sort of like a head taax body and some organs,
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but everything else. If you can't open the cocoon, what ooze us
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out is the caterpillars guns. I don't know what you're gonna have for dinner
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tonight, but I would suggest you can try some on day on day right.
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But this is the most interesting part. The caterpillar has to surrender to
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the process of transition. Caterpillar can't fight it. And we know the caterpillar
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is just like that. It's like it doesn't do anything but eat and wait
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for its turn to become a butterfly. A man of its sometimes might feel
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like that. The way we're in this transition stag. We feel like we're
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in a cocoon because there's nothing else we can do. We don't understand the
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season. I like the caterpillar, sometimes we just have to surrender to the
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process. Some of wors may take three weeks, three months, three years.
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The issuelcs took forty years as they transition in the desert, wandering around,
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and probably some almost have gone to that, but you know that there's
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no choice in that sense. And I like to call this, and I
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hope this doesn't trigger anybody, but think of it as an identity suicide,
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not a physical suicide, but an identity suicide. The caterpillar's identity becomes nothing,
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is indistinguishable. What remains are imaginal discs, So it's no longer a
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caterpillar, it's not a butterfly. And for three weeks, the caterpillar doesn't
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know what it is anymore. We cannot recognize it. Sometimes we cannot even
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recognize the person we are in this season on transition. There is a sense
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of meltdown in our identity that happens previous version of ourselves, letting go attachments
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of attachment of our identity to our jobs, our ministry, locality where we
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used to be, our functions, our roles, our finances, our money,
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our ego, attachment to mindsets, personalities, and even theology. Maybe
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some of us have our have maybe going through a deconstruction of our faith,
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and that's because we are questioning everything that we kind of learned in church.
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I went through that. So just very quickly going to share about this.
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When I left my previous church, Glads Hidings. Right when I resigned as
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pastor there, I literally went into a cocoon face. I did not contact
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anybody. It was in a pandemic granted, so it was just me and
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my family every single day. And once I resigned and had the last send
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off service online, I didn't even show my face because it was all online.
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They just show picture, you know, and made their announcement and then
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that's it. So nobody saw me. Nobody saw my son because that year
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he was about to be born. In fact, right, you guys are
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the first people to see my son when we first joined generations because the people
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that have that saw him recently have only seen him at this age. They've
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never seen him as a baby or young toddler. So anyway, so what
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what was interesting is I had attached my identity to my job, my ministry.
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I was pastor. I kind of enjoyed being called pastor during that time
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because you know, young young minister, right, you grew up in the
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church. Are you walk your way up hierarchy? Right? I was the
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youth pastor. Now you're the youth assistant youth pastor, campus pastor. And
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then became the worship pastor. And I resigned as the worship pastor because after
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worship pastor is like assistant, senior pastor or whatever. I mean, it's
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that's that level ready, Right, So I got so used to being called
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that attached to the title, to the ministry, to the job. And
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when I resigned, right, I went into this existential crisis. I had
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no idea who I was, even though at home I was still called baba,
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I was still called honey, I was still called Oi. I had
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three identities at home, but I could not detach from the whole pastoral thing.
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It took me actually a year and a half to let allow God to
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just shift my mindset. And this is very interesting, So there's a previous
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version of myself. I did not just had to deal with the emotional,
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psychological, spiritual detachment. I had to also detach from being the fat guy
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in church. I was ninety six cages diagnosed with type two diabetes. I
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was given like a long death sentence. Doctors say, you don't take medication,
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you're gonna die young. I was huge and I was battling with so
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many things. So so remember this that the last time people saw me,
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right, I was really fat. I'm not fat shaming here. I'm just
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giving you a picture that I was twice this size. I didn't wear glasses.
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I did not have tattoos, usible tattoos. I had hidden tattoos because
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I was very cautious. I did not dress this way. I was like
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buttoned down shirt, slacks, you know, jeans, very straight kyla.
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And the last the last time people saw me. The next time they saw
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me was at a funeral. I remember it was at a friend's mom's funeral.
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I had long hair, rainbow long hair. I dyed my hair and
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I multiple colors rainbow long hair, ponytail. I had a goatee, and
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I tried to grow whatever this chinaman can grow two years, right, I
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could only grow this small little patch. I have visible tattoos. I dressed
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in all black. I lost twenty other cage's in just that one year I
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went to this funeral. Now people have not seen me right the woman they
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saw me, they're like, and I wore glasses, Like, who's that?
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You could see the confusion on their face, right, familiar but not
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familiar the when they finally realized that's John or that's Pastor John. So after
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the funeral procession that the whack some came up to talk to me x Worship
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team members. This was their first question, see John, sorry, second
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question. First first question was how are you hell? They know, see
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how are you doing? Second question, what are you there? Caught me
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by surprise that really I was taking so aback what I used. So I
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shocked. I was done for a moment, like shots the kid, I
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am what you see? I am this is what you see? Is what
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you get? That was the only answer I could think of at the time.
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Now I went and they couldn't. They couldn't, they couldn't understand it
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like, oh okay, and they were. They were actually very mean in
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the conversation. They started making fun of me. It was the our first
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conversation I've ever had coming out of the pandemic, entering back into a community
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I once recognized and people who I used to pastor. It hurt, actually
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it hurts so deep because no one could recognize me and no one could care
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for me anymore. That's why I felt at the time I went home,
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I shared with my wife, and I said I don't want this anymore,
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and so I broke even more. My identity began to be crushed and disintegree.
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But that made me wake up to realize that I had every opportunity to
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rebuild, reset, and allow the process to shape me. There might be
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people who will have a previous version of who you are in your minds,
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and there will always be people have not seen you, even for weeks or
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months, even if they've seen you every other week, right they always have
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a particular version of you. Please be encouraged that that does not define the
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version of you right now, of who you're going to be. It does
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not define who God has called you to be. Please remember that. And
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so I also went through disconstruct deconstruction of my theology, my faith, everything
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I once knew growing up in church. I was interested since I was nine
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years old. I went in the Bible school, I was I was trained,
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you know, had to. There was this way of doing ministry in
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glad Tidings. It's very unique. There's no one, no one else.
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I don't say that like it's a very proud way. I just say that
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like there was. It was a weird experience coming out of here, I
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just realized that we're and taught about theology, about God, about faith,
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about prophecy, prophetic, you know, ministry, and all that worship in
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a very interesting way. So that all broke down. So there was this
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identity suicide was going on in me right and in this hidden season. This
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isn't transition. Maybe many of you might feel this, And this is no
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judgment, this is no shaming. Please don't take this the wrong way.
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I'm just describing what I probably went through. Most of it a lot.
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There was a lot of mental break down. I cried so much in the
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silence. I made a lot of poor choices. I had a lot of
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anger issues. I was let me be very honest and real here guys,
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if you're okay with that. I was punching walls when I was so frustrated
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because I couldn't find an answer or a footting or just to anchor my soul
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because maybe not substance abuse, NOA, but I did. I did drink
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a lot in the in the pandemication affected my health, and that's also that
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also woke me up. I realized, oh okay, no, no,
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cannot cannot it a confusion I was fearful. I didn't take prescription medication.
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Of course that was good, but sleepless nights loneliness. It was the loneliest
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season of my life because I had no one else. I lost all my
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community, all my friends. Now I'm not asking for sympathy. I'm not
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I'm not even saying, you know, whatever you're going through, there's this
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judgment upon you. I'm just saying I get it. I totally get it.
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It's okay. So if we're in this transition phase, we may not
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sound and look like saying. There will be people who dislike it, and
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someone will celebrate it, like the people who are shouting for joy and the
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people who are weeping when they saw the foundation being laid. Someone celebrate your
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transformation. Some will celebrate the season of transition you're in, and some may
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don't like it. And then my criticize and you know what, that's not
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on you, it's on them. So it be hard to distinguish the emotions
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and voices sometimes because there might be people who will say, what are you?
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There might be people who say I don't I don't like you anymore,
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don't recognize you. I like the old you. Why because some of the
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old you was the person that they could uli. The old you was a
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person they could maniplate, and I had that. I had so many people
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who spiritually abused me when I was in ministry. I'm just being very honest
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and real right here that happens at times, and not saying that that.
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You know, you should be be very jaded of church. You know that
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they're all all pastes are not good. IM not saying that there are people
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who display such behavior and all I can say is God is going to deal
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with them. But you know, in this season transition, if you're feeling
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confused, you're not sure, go back to the voice of God his word,
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because this is not your final form yet. If this is not your
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final form yet, then what is your final form? So remember I talked
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about imaginal discs. Imaginal this is like a sect like epithelial structure found inside
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the lava of insects that undergo metamorphosis. Once the lava turns into a pupa,
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almost all the lava tissues degenerate and the imaginal discs turned into external structures.
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Right Like I said, it carries the source code the DNA for the
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new being, and so let's go back to the scripture nixt like so in
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next one. In the earlier passages, we read twelve to thirteen. The
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early Passages, Verse two to three extra describes this. Then josodaics son of
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son, Josodic's son, Yeah, sure, and his brothers got up along
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with shirttails son. Zerebbel I mentioned them and his brothers. They built an
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altar of the God of Israel in order to offer burn offerings as prescribed by
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the law of most is the Man of God. Right, this is taken
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from the International standard version. Even though they feared the people in the neighboring
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regions, why because all of the people in the neighboring regions were Eagan worshippers.
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Now Israel, they don't have a city, a temple. They were
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vulnerable. They will exile, right, the neighboring nations could attack them,
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wipe them out easily. And so this was a step of faith and courage
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to build the altar. And it wasn't just a small altar. The auto
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looked like that. Like the priests woke up the remp and offered burn offerings
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there. This is the main altar of burn offerings. They rebuilt the altar
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where it had stood before. Commenters commentaries say that they rebuilt the altars on
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the ancient foundations, meaning the original location of the altar. Why am I
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highlighting this because in this season transition, they did not build the temple first.
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They built the altar first. This is the corporate decision. I want
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to encourage you today as your personal season transition is to build your altar first.
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It's not about the external, it's not about which church you decide to
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go to. I want to say is that this could be a halfway house
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for you. This could be a transitional church for you. We don't know.
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Only God knows where he will place you. Right. But what's important
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is that we build our altars first on the ancient foundations. That we don't
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have an ancient foundation for ourselves right in our context, our ancient foundation are
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our imaginal discs. Our faith is always anchored on a few things. You
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may not understand a lot about theology. You may have been confused about it
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or disillusion but one thing, the few things that remain is Jesus is lord
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of our lives. God is sovereign, Amen, God is in control.
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God's promises are yes, and amen, God will never fail you. God
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will fight for you. We carry imaginal discs if I can say that we
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carry the ancient foundations in our hearts, because when we accept the Christ as
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a Lord and Savior, we came before the Cross of Christ. Every one
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of us encountered the Cross of Christ. That is our heritage, our foundation
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as believers. And so this is what they did in the early days of
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worship. They had to offer a lot of sacrifices, right, but because
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they could only do this, they couldn't build a temple. Yet they built
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the only They only built one altar, and it was the main altar.
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And this is what they did because they didn't have any other materials any other
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time to do anything else. They did the essential, the essential to their
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faith. Right next light, the burn offering is, if I were to
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take the parallel of the New Testament, the burn offering is actually to remember
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the sacrifice of Christ. Christ was the ultimate offering, the sacrifice for our
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sins. Correct, the meat offering is actually a personal worship and act of
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surrender. The act of offering meat is not that to feed God, God
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doesn't need to eat, but our meat offering is our personal worship, our
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daily surrendered to God in this season of transition, and the drink offering is
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our communion with God. Have you seen in movies where sometimes friends, right,
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they go on the last mission, they cheers, and then they pour
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the drink and then they got a mission to fight, and like don't know
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whether they're gonna live or die. Right, this is the same. It's
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the same symbolism. As we offer a drink orfering, right, we're saying
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God, I'm with you all the way. It's a drink offering unto the
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Lord. Because we are we are proclaiming and recognizing our friendship with God.
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Now we may not feel as though we are near God. Maybe in this
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season a transition we are. It's dark. We don't understand it, like
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God, are you near? Are you here? Are you even? God?
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Or if we stick to the essentials, we just say, God,
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you have called me your friend because I have been faithful in the past.
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Maybe I've done something and I told you to God. No, in that
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season, I say God, please remember me because the step I'm about to
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take, I have no clue whether I'm going to be disobeient or not.
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I have no clue what's going to be a hit. But all I ask
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is this that my relationship with you is remembered for the days that I silked
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you with all my heart and soul. Please remember me next like well,
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maybe lonely and a vulnerable season. Your personal alter is what keeps you secure.
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So this callar, say this, The ruined Jerusalem was better guarded by
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that altar than if its fallen walls had been rebuilt. Let us think in
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your altar keeps you secure. In God keeps you safe, keeps you protected
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more than running to a building, a church, per se, more than
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building everything else. Your personal altar before the Lord is what keeps you safer
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in a time of war destruction than anything else. Why So again I talked
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about the surrounding nations. They build their altar first. Right Once the nations,
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the enemies of Israel, saw that the altered was being built, it
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meant that Israel had turned back to God and in According to past records,
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if anything, when God is for Israel, everybody else right will run in
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fear. It struck fear in the hearts of nations. That's what the Bible
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tells us when God fought for Israel. So when the neighboring nations saw the
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altar was being built, Gigi super gg. No way they could attack your
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read. That's why this guys said it better guarded by an altar. When
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your altar before the lord is secure, the enemy can't touch you. Then
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they would try to shake you in your seasonal transition, trying to confuse you,
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try to throw things your way, try to tear you down. Can't
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even cut open the cocoon to let your mush out because your alter keeps you
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secure. Next, like, there cannot be a temple without an altar,
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but that may be an altar without a temple. God meets men at a
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place of sacrifice, even though there may be no house for his name.
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You know how much God loves you and I even if he doesn't have a
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house, if you have your altar before him, that's all he needs.
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That's all he needs, And so I won't leave you with this whole feeling
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of like, oh, transition or cocoon or identity disintegration, are feeling all
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loneliness or pain because when the season of transition is over, the season to
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become a butterfly happens, and that means that there is a new season in
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store for you and I next night. Because no one puts new wine into
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all wine skins or else, the new wine will burst the wine skins and
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be spilt, and the wine skins will be ruined. But new wine must
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be put into new wine skins, and both are preserve. And listen carefully.
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I'm about to do a new thing. Now it will spring forth.
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Will you not be aware of it? I will even put a road in
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the wilderness, rivers in the desert Isaiah forty three, verse nineteen. God
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is going to do a new thing. Say new thing, tell yourself new
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thing. And so what do we all want to crisis are firm foundation.
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God will not fail you. God is doing something new, and you are
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fearfully and wonderfully me. Thank you for listening to the Generation's Church podcast.
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We hope you have been blessed by the Word of God today. Remember to
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stay tuned by subscribing to this podcast. For more inspiring content, do share
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it with your family and friends, Follow and tag us on social media at
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Generation's Mind. For more information, check us out on bit dot Lee's slash Generation's Mind