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The Secret Garden: Alicia Crawford · Wow God

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  I am so grateful for this opportunity, as I said, and I don't know,
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  I always have a hard time figuring out where to start whenever God gives me a word to share.
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  So I feel like this morning, I feel like I need to start in the word and I have
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  an Old Testament scripture and a New Testament scripture.
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  I'll tell you both of them so you can bookmark them real quick.
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  The first one's going to be 1 Samuel chapter 16, and the second one's going to be in John chapter 15.
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  And you know what? We'll start in the book of John. We'll start with that one first.
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  John 15 verse 1, it says, this is Jesus speaking, it says, I am the true vine,
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  and my Father is the gardener.
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  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, While every branch that
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  does bear fruit, he prunes, so that it will be even more fruitful.
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  You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
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  Remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself.
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  It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
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  I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you,
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  you will bear much fruit.
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  Apart from me you could do nothing if you do not remain in me you are like a
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  branch that is thrown away and withers such branches are picked up thrown into the fire and burned,
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  if you remain in me and my words remain in you ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you,
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  this is to my father's glory that you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples.
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  All right, and we're going to jump into 1 Samuel chapter 16,
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  and it's just going to be verse 7. It says, just a quick backstory on this.
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  This is whenever Samuel is getting ready to anoint David to be king.
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  And this is what it says in verse 7. It says, But the Lord said to Samuel,
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  Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him.
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  The Lord does not look at the things people look at.
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  People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at. the heart.
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  Lord, I thank you for this day. And God, I just thank you for this opportunity
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  to bring forth your word.
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  And Lord, I just pray that your Holy Spirit would begin to move in this atmosphere,
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  begin to stir this atmosphere, Lord. And I thank you that you've been preparing
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  our hearts for this word.
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  God, open our eyes to see and our ears to hear you.
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  Soften our minds and hearts to receive all that you have in store in this service.
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  God, I thank you in advance for the testimonies that are going to come through
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  this word, not because of me, God, but because of you. And I step aside and
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  I allow you to have your way in me, God.
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  And I pray this all in Jesus' name.
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  Amen. Amen. Well, this morning, this word I have, I want to entitle it the secret garden.
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  The secret garden. And whenever you read the Bible, a lot of it refers to like
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  the secret place, the secret place with the Lord. but the way the Holy Spirit
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  led me to this is just so beautiful. It's called the secret garden.
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  And just as we read in the beginning in the book of John, how we're talking
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  about the vine and the branches and everything, just a quick story on how all
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  of this came about in my spirit.
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  The Lord gave me a vision for this message.
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  And it was really cool because all I saw was just a jungle and a forest of all
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  greenery It was beautiful and then it was scary and then it was beautiful again
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  It was all green and all branches and everything,
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  And it was like, it was like, just like different trails leading different places.
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  And all of a sudden there's this area where if you weren't paying attention,
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  you would totally miss it.
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  And this is the vision that the Holy Spirit was giving me. But if you,
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  if you didn't pay attention, you would miss this area.
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  And what it was, was a secret door hidden in vines and branches.
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  And whenever I recognized what that was, the door opened and Jesus was there.
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  And he brought me into that secret place that secret garden and this is how
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  this this is how this message came about and,
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  i i share this because i don't feel like that was just for me because the secret
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  garden that i'm talking about it's more than just a place it's your heart.
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  Your heart holds so many different areas, so many different things,
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  so many emotions, so many memories, so many things are held right here in your heart.
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  And the Word talks so much about your heart throughout the whole Bible,
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  especially in the Psalms and stuff.
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  I encourage you to study that out this week if you feel that,
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  just to study what the heart's all about in the Bible.
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  But this morning, as we're talking
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  about the secret garden, I have five different areas that I pray that,
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  encourage you, encourages you, but also makes you step out a little bit and
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  recognize that you're not alone in the garden.
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  See, I've tried. I love the gardening. I really do, but it's a lot of work,
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  and I learned that this summer, especially with the heat coming on.
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  If you don't have any shade, boy, those flowers are in for a treat.
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  They may not last as long as what you would like, but gardening,
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  there's so much to it. You have to take care of the soil. You have to take care of the weeds.
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  You have to know what plants you have if it's a hybrid or if it's whatever it
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  is you got to know your plants you got to know which ones you're allowed to
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  plant next to each other it's actually funny thinking of that right now in colorado we had a garden,
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  a vegetable garden out in our front yard and we planted i think it was like
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  cucumbers right next to our bell pepper or not our bell peppers our,
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  jalapeno peppers and stuff and the cucumbers are really spicy so you got to be careful on what you.
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  It was crazy. Anyways, but there's so much to gardening and so much that happens
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  in the garden and you think it's very beautiful and everything and it is,
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  but there's so much work put into it.
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  So the secret garden, and I love how I bring in 1 Samuel whenever he's getting
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  ready to anoint David, because if you've ever read it or if you want to study it, you'll see how,
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  Jesse, David's dad, brought in all the sons aside from David.
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  And the Lord told Samuel, like, no, these are not the guys that I want to be the king.
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  And that's where we get the scripture
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  is that the Lord doesn't look at the appearance. He looks at the heart.
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  And so the secret garden the first point i have this morning is um.
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  Invite the lord in invite the lord into your heart into the secret garden,
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  and what i'm meaning by this is not just accept accepting him as your king and
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  as your savior but inviting him in to those dark scary places in your heart,
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  because it just as a rose is beautiful there's thorns on those roses and it
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  hurts if you get pierced by it
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  and it's there's those areas in our hearts where it's just those memories come up or lose
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  whatever it is comes up and it's dark and it's scary and sometimes we try to
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  toss it under the rug and we're like well this is another day problem i'm not
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  going to worry about this today but before we realize it this
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  this it turns into a mountain of things that we we push off to the side and
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  we're like okay we're going to shove this in the closet now the door is about to.
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  Go open because everything is pushed in the closet but But what I'm saying is
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  invite the Lord in to those dark and scary places.
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  Allow Him to be the one to go in there with you to do the work.
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  This is what I'm trying to get about is you don't have to do this by yourself.
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  Whatever you're walking through, you don't have to walk through this by yourself.
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  Invite the Lord into those dark and scary areas, those areas that you don't
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  want other people to see or to come into.
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  Allow the Lord into those areas. and invite him in.
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  It could go as far as being inside a car, driving to work or driving to the
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  store, driving to a friend's house and inviting the Lord into that drive.
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  Clear off the passenger seat and say, Lord, take this drive with me.
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  Lord, I invite him to drinking coffee with you in the morning.
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  God, I invite you to just come and sit here and drink coffee with me and let's
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  have a chat because I just need to talk to you. I need a friend.
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  I need someone I could talk to about this.
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  So invite the Lord in.
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  Now this next one.
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  It could step on your toes a little bit, but that's okay. I had to step on my toes.
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  Point two, it says, humble yourself before the Lord.
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  You know, whenever we get in that selfish mentality of like,
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  I could do this by myself. I don't need no one's help.
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  I could do this by myself. I don't need to pull anyone else into my drama.
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  I don't need anyone else to go through this with me because I don't want them to carry the burden.
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  That's what Jesus is there for. That's the whole purpose why he went to the
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  cross for us. The whole purpose why he was sent here to this earth was to help
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  carry that load for us, to carry it entirely and humble yourself before the Lord.
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  What that means is taking off those selfish thoughts, that selfish mentality.
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  As humans, it's just part of our nature, unfortunately, of being so selfish
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  and being so self-centered, thinking everything revolves around us.
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  But in all reality, whenever we invite the Lord in, He'll open our eyes to see that it's all about Him.
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  The things that we go through, the trials that we go through,
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  the fear that we go through, we need to keep our focus upon the Lord because
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  we'll see Him in those areas.
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  And this morning I was driving up here.
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  I couldn't help but think about these mosaics or even like a stained glass window.
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  How they're pieced together.
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  They have to be broken before they're able to be pieced together.
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  And that's what I really love about the Lord is that he'll take our brokenness
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  and our pain and he'll piece it together. He'll weld it together.
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  He'll melt it together. However they do that.
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  He'll piece it together and turn it into something so beautiful.
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  Something whenever the light, like a stained glass window, if you imagine those
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  churches or those places that hold all those stained glass windows and the light
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  shines through it, those are some beautiful, beautiful pieces of artwork.
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  If humans are able to do that, imagine what the Lord is able to do with your
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  brokenness And whenever he pieces it all together, he puts it in those areas
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  in your life, in your heart.
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  And the light of Jesus that's in you begins to illuminate through those stained
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  glass windows of your past brokenness.
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  Imagine the beauty that can come from that.
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  It'll change a whole room. And what that is, is like pictures of your testimony,
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  of where you used to be to where you are now.
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  Imagine the light and the beauty that will shine through all of that if you invite the Lord in.
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  And if you humble yourself before the Lord and say, God,
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  I can't do this on my own. I need you to piece this together.
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  I need you to soften these rough edges. I can't do that. This is too much work
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  for me. I can't do this myself.
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  And while you're in the middle of the secret garden with the Lord,
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  it's just you and the Lord in there working together.
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  I really love this next point because it flows with point number two of being
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  humble. Humble yourself before the Lord.
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  Point number three says, become teachable and become multiple.
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  While you're in the secret garden, allow Jesus to be your teacher.
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  Allow him to teach you his ways. Begin to have that heart of,
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  Lord, teach me your ways.
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  I humble myself before you, teach me your ways. Show me your heart in this.
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  Show me your heart in this season. Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your ways.
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  Become teachable, become moldable. And what that also does is learning new techniques,
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  learning new ways, and stepping out of old ways, old habits,
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  old motives, old mindsets.
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  What you're doing is learning something new. You're learning the way of the Lord.
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  Become teachable and become moldable. This next one, point number four.
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  While you're in the middle of the secret garden and you and Jesus are working
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  together, you're learning from him and you're listening to his ways,
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  you're digging into his word, you're learning scripture,
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  do not forget to behold the king.
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  In the Bible, it talks about, there's different areas in the Bible where it
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  talks about, behold, like whenever Jesus was born, it says, behold the king.
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  And it goes on about that. Just beholding the king. Beholding is...
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  An active moment. It's an active moment to look and observe with wonder.
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  Sometimes we just need to behold the King and recognize His mighty and His greatness
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  of how big He is, beholding the King and knowing that He is a God above all gods.
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  He is the creator of the universe, just beholding the king.
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  And sometimes just falling to your knees and falling to your face and just crying
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  out to him, just saying, thank you, Lord, for being so big and wonderful.
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  Thank you, Jesus, for dying on the cross for me. Just behold the king.
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  It's an active moment.
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  And number five is to dwell in his presence.
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  To dwell is the state of being to live or stay in his presence so to kind of
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  clarify this a little bit to behold is a moment.
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  But to dwell is the continuous state of being continuing to dwell in the presence
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  of the lord we could read so many scriptures about dwelling in god's presence and I think it's Psalm,
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  let me double track here, Psalm 24 about knowing that the Lord is our shepherd.
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  We lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures and just hiding in the
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  shelter of His wings, dwelling in His presence.
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  It's a beautiful place to be because once you dwell in His presence,
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  once you behold the King and dwell in His presence, something inside of you
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  changes because you recognize that this man, Jesus,
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  and that the God that we serve.
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  Is not comparable to anyone any other god that tries to come up any other person
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  in your life no one compares to jesus no one could compare to our god drawing in his presence,
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  you know the more you hang out with people in your life if you could think of
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  your friend circle the more you hang out with your friends the more your personality
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  and you just kind of you guys kind of blend together,
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  Your friendship grows and blossoms and all the things, but you begin to act
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  like those people that you're around, right?
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  But whenever you dwell in the presence of the Lord, that's the same thing as,
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  being friends with Jesus, talking to Him always, growing that relationship with the Lord.
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  The characteristics of Jesus is going to rub off on you, and you're going to
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  start acting like Him. You're going to start talking like Him.
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  And people are going to notice that. People notice that. People notice even the little things.
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  It's crazy how that all happens. But dwelling in the presence of the Lord is
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  a continuous state of being.
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  The secret garden is more than just an invitation as the Lord,
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  as asking the Lord into your life.
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  The secret garden is more than just that.
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  It's an everyday thing.
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  It's a relationship is what it is. a continuous relationship.
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  And what I saw during worship this morning was a continuing vision of this.
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  And all I saw is whenever you invite the Lord in to that secret place,
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  to that secret garden in your heart, all I saw was a bench.
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  And I don't know who this is for. Maybe it's for everyone. But all I saw was
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  a bench. And I'm going to use this as an example. All I saw was a bench.
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  And I saw someone just sitting down here.
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  And Jesus sitting right next to you, just like a friend.
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  And in that secret place, you guys are observing every area of the garden.
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  You're listening to the birds that are in the garden. And you're just,
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  your attention and your focus is with them. You're just having that conversation with the Lord.
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  And preparing for the service, all I heard the Lord say was that he is so delicate with your heart.
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  He is so delicate and he is so gentle with your heart because he knows the heart
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  is so sensitive and it holds so many things.
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  And all he's asking this morning is for you to invite him into those areas.
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  And I want to invite you guys to stand with me this morning.
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  Because I feel like even though I'm done with the ministering or the preaching
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  part, I feel like God wants to do a work in someone's heart this morning.
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  So I want you to take a moment right now, close your eyes if you have to,
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  but take a moment and observe what's in your heart,
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  the openness in your heart, the dark like areas in your heart,
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  those areas where it feels like there's a lot of brokenness or hurt, maybe areas of joy.
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  And this morning, if that is you,
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  and you feel that tug and you recognize that you're ready to just humble yourself
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  before the Lord and say, Jesus, you are my King.
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  And I've tried this on my own. I've tried taking care of some of these things
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  on my own, but Lord, I need you in this.
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  And if you're ready for just a deeper step, another step closer to the Lord
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  this morning, and you're ready just to further your relationship with the Lord this morning.
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  I invite you down to these altars, and I want to pray over you because I feel
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  like something beautiful is about to happen this morning.
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  Hi, I'm Jamie Crawford, lead pastor of Epicenter Church in Oklahoma City,
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  worldwide evangelist with Breakthrough Ministries, and lead host of Wow God Podcast.
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  Our ministries are actively reaching lives across all 50 states and every region
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  of the world with the transformative power of the gospel.
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  You're invited to worship with us this Sunday at 1035 a.m.
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  At Epicenter Church, 11122 North Rockwell Avenue, Suite 17, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
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  That's Epicenter Church, 11122 North Rockwell Avenue, Suite 17,
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  Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
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  Can't make it in person? Stay connected with us online through our websites
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  EpicenterChurchOK.com.
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  BreakthroughEvangelism.com Subscribe to our Wow God podcast available on all podcast platforms.
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  a message of hope and breakthrough through Jesus Christ.
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  Partner with us and let's make an eternal impact together.