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#160 The Presence Centered Life (12 - Joining God at Work) · The OneCry Podcast

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  The Holy Spirit can tell you, go talk to that guy, say a word to that waitress,
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  pray for that man, reach in your pocket and pull out a $20 bill and give it
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  to that student right there.
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  Because, well, why Lord?
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  I don't know their need or I might be doing the wrong, no, I want you to do it.
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  And you have no idea what God is doing on the other end of that equation.
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  Just join God.
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  Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
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  The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
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  Hey, welcome to the One Cry Podcast. We are humbled that you'd give us a few
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  moments to really speak some truth, Lord willing, that will help you believe
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  personally for revival,
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  revival in your city, your church, and we're believing for nationwide revival and awakening.
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  I'm Kyle Reno. This is Bill Eliff. Bill, how are you doing over there, buddy?
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  Man, I am so good. So good. You look good.
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  I don't know when somebody's going to be watching this podcast,
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  ask yeah uh but uh right at
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  this particular moment it's like
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  a zillion degrees in arkansas
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  where i live yeah yeah and uh but i'm
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  saying is so yeah i'm in
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  this air condition you know praise god for air conditioning we're right in it
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  and we're we're just enjoying it i'm and in arkansas we say happy as a pig in
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  the sunshine and that's that's me man i'm just having a great And I'm really
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  excited about what we're going to talk about today.
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  Yeah. Well, I know, man, the Lord's been using you to take us on a spiritual
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  journey to see what it's like to have a presence-centered life, man.
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  And I want to encourage our listeners, if you're just picking up today,
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  man, listen to today, but then go back and start this journey.
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  Each one stands alone in light of what it means to be a presence-centered man or woman.
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  But there's a cumulative work here. And I think all of it's been building, Bill, toward today.
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  And I know you. And at some point, these things that God's doing in us,
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  God wants to do something through us. And there's more in store.
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  That's absolutely it. So we've been looking at the ways, you know, God wants...
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  His presence is our greatest need, we've been saying, but also it's his greatest delight.
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  And so he's been pursuing us since the garden to come back into his presence.
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  And we've got to cooperate.
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  If we don't cooperate, we can live far from God, right? Right.
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  And even as a believer, we can have Christ in us and yet live real distant from
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  the presence of God and the power of God.
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  And our life just completely missed the mark.
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  It would be tragic come the end of your life and stand before God and said,
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  well, I love you and I've saved you.
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  But, you know, those last 70 years, it didn't amount to much for my kingdom.
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  Him when I had so much more that I wanted to do in you and as Kyle just said, do through you.
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  So that's what we're going to see in this moment, Kyle.
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  I want to take us back and last week we kind of showed you this diagram if you're
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  looking at it by video or maybe that you're just kind of visualizing it as you're
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  going down the road in your car.
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  But we looked at what are the ways of a presence-centered man.
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  In other words, everybody's got their ways, and those ways are established over time, right?
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  These habits, these non-negotiables of your life, they say, well,
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  he just always blows up in anger.
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  That's just the way he is, right? Well, that's tragic.
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  When God has more for you, well, the presence-centered man has his ways that
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  have have been developed over time.
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  And we've looked at four of these.
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  First of all, the presence-centered man knows how to draw near.
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  He knows how to just draw near because we're constantly pulling away.
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  He knows how to come back into the presence, into intimacy with God.
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  And secondly, he knows how to commune to the word of God in prayer. This is established.
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  He's learning how to pray without ceasing, to stay in the presence of God all the time.
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  And when you're in the presence of God, you see your sin and your need.
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  And so he's learning how to experience the cleansing of God,
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  how to quickly recognize anything that would grieve God, anything that would
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  quench the spirit of God.
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  And he knows how to keep the roof off and the walls down, nothing between him
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  and the father and him and anybody else.
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  And then, as we saw last week, he knows about the filling of God,
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  the filling of the Holy Spirit.
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  So the great purpose of God is to make God men, right?
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  Make us in his image, fill us with himself so he can live in us.
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  But here's the most important thing, that he might flow through us.
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  So the filling of the Holy Spirit is so that we can join in the activity of God.
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  So here's the fifth way of a presence-centered man, and that's their joining.
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  They're joining God.
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  Now, all of us have benefited from the extraordinary work of Henry Blackaby
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  and Claude King and experiencing God.
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  God, one of the things that you just instantly remember when you mention all
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  that study and that teaching is Henry teaching us how to see where God's moving and join him.
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  Just see where he's moving every day because God is moving every day and he
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  wants you to be involved.
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  He wants you to be a part of that.
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  I love the story found in Acts chapter eight of Philip and Philip was in Samaria
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  with the other disciples and, and man, there was just a great movement.
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  There was a harvest happening. All these people were getting saved and,
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  and it was incredible. And God said to Philip, I want you to get up and I want
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  you to go to this desert road.
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  And I'm sure Philip thought, what in the world? Why go down there?
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  And he was going down there and he saw this chariot and in it was a man from Ethiopia.
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  He was an official from Ethiopia who had come to worship in Jerusalem.
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  Jerusalem, and notice this one verse,
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  Acts 8.29, it perfectly illustrates what it means to live a life of joining God on his mission.
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  Acts 8.29, then the Spirit said to Philip, go up and join this chariot.
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  So the Spirit just said, go to the chariot, get up in that chariot.
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  Now, put yourself in Philip's place. Can you imagine that day?
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  Lord, I don't know that guy. What are you talking about? It'd be like a car
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  at a stoplight, and the Lord said, open that door and get in that car with that guy in the stoplight.
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  You'd say, well, there's no way I'm going to do that. That's odd.
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  That's unusual. usual. But, you know, the Holy Spirit knows what he's doing.
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  And God had already been working in that Ethiopian's life.
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  In fact, he was reading some scrolls and he was reading Isaiah.
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  And it just happened to be on the passage that was speaking about Jesus Christ
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  and his sacrifice for us.
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  You see, God was moving, and God invited Philip to join him, joining.
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  Now, Philip could have resisted. He could have said, no way.
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  I'm not going to do that. Just like you can resist.
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  I mean, the Holy Spirit can tell you, go talk to that guy. Say a word to that
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  waitress. Pray for that man.
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  Reach in your pocket and pull out a $20 bill and Give it to that student right
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  there. Just because, well, why, Lord?
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  I don't know their need or I might be doing the wrong. No, I want you to do it.
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  And you have no idea what God is doing on the other end of that equation.
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  Just join God.
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  Philip could have ignored the prompting of the Holy Spirit and not join God.
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  And we wouldn't even have this story. that man might not know Christ,
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  and Philip would have certainly missed one of those extraordinary moments of his life.
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  But when Philip, full of the Holy Spirit.
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  Experiencing the presence of God, was prompted by the Spirit.
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  He just joined the Spirit and did exactly what he told him to do.
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  And he got up there and from that spot where the man was reading in the scroll
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  of Isaiah, he preached Jesus to him.
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  And the man was saved and they came by a pool of water. And he says,
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  anything prevent me from being baptized?
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  They took him down and instantaneously baptized him on the spot.
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  I mean, what a deal, what a moment, what a divine encounter.
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  And you know what was happening in that moment?
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  God just invited Philip and the Ethiopian into his agenda.
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  And he accomplished because he had a man who was willing to join God.
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  My wife, Holly, she's so good at this, way more sensitive than I am, I think, in many ways.
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  And one day she was in the grocery store and she came to the checkout line and
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  she was just pleasant and like she always is.
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  And she was talking to this older lady that was checking her out.
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  And she realized that the lady was burdened and just troubled.
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  And she looked at the lady, Holly did, and she said, are you okay?
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  And tears began coming down her cheek. And she said, no, I'm really not.
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  She said, I've just found out that my new grandbaby has serious cancer and is
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  just filled with tumors.
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  Well, Holly just began to minister to her. And she reached across the groceries and prayed for her.
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  And, of course, there was a line she had to go on. But she got her contact information.
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  That led to about six months of Holly and then an expanding circle of ladies
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  and then our whole church just ministering to this young family,
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  this young mom and young dad.
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  They were unwed, and it was their first child, and the child went into the ICU and eventually died.
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  I had the privilege on just the day before that child's death to lead both that
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  mother and the father to Christ. I had the privilege to lead while I was in there in that room.
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  The one of the technicians who came in to work on it, baby, over and over again.
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  And he pulled me aside and asked me about things at the privilege of leading him to Christ.
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  This whole family, I mean, this whole group coming to Christ because one woman at a grocery store.
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  Joined Jesus in his mission.
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  This shouldn't be an unusual story.
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  This should be the normal experience of believers.
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  And you know, Kyle, I was thinking about this. I had this massive pile of mulch.
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  And I've got four boys, as Kyle knows, and they were young.
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  And I had my two older boys out there and we had wheelbarrows and we were just
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  moving this pile of mulch. It was summer, it was hot.
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  And my son, Daniel, was really too young to do it.
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  But he comes out there and he said, I want to do that.
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  Well, his big brothers, they just, they laughed at him and you can't do Well,
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  he picks up a shovel and I didn't realize, if I'm lying, I'm dying.
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  He filled up two wheelbarrows to their one over the rest of the day.
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  He just worked. He just nonstop. He was just working. And we were laughing and
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  enjoying it. But here's the point.
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  I had so much fun having my boys join me on the mission.
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  And the Lord, just think of this,
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  how it delights his heart for us to join him on his great mission of not moving mulch,
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  but moving men and women and boys and girls from every tongue and tribe and
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  nation on earth from hell to heaven and from death to life.
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  Man, I'm sitting here thinking, we all know where I've seen this at some point,
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  but you think about Jesus looking into the eyes of the disciples and basically
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  saying, let's go change the world.
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  Like the great invitation to that.
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  First circle expanded through his finished work and is still so that the Lord
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  has decided that the primary way that he would advance his purposes in his kingdom is through his kids.
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  Yeah. And that through the empowering of his spirit, that each son and daughter
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  of the kingdom gets the invitation that you just said to say,
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  hey, let's put our hand to a work that will matter a million years from now.
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  Amen. I mean, and it's what a what a what a privilege.
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  What a privilege that a present centered man and woman get to be a part of that,
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  get to join God in his work in the in the world.
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  I've watched you, Kyle, because you came you came to Christ later in life.
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  You I think more than most men, you understand what it's like to be lost. Yeah.
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  I came to Christ real early, which was wonderful.
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  And but but you have never lost that sense of how terrible it is to be lost.
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  And I've watched you both join God, but also mobilize people to join God at the mission.
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  And I would love for you to just help pray this in with our listeners today.
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  Would you do that? Yeah, I'd love to.
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  Well, let's do that. If you're driving down the road, even just in your spirit,
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  let's just walk into the presence of the Lord.
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  Walk into the throne room of grace and mercy. And don't merely listen to me pray. Start praying.
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  Start asking the Lord by the power of His Spirit to allow you to join Him in His work right now.
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  And so, Lord, I am asking. The urgency is now, Lord.
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  I'm thinking about the passage of John 9, that He must work the works of Him
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  who sent Him while it is day, because night is coming when no one can work.
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  That Lord we got one moment we got one life
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  we got one chance Lord for those of us specifically that have been redeemed
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  we got the brevity of this life to put our hand to a work that your hands already
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  on and Lord that you love people everywhere and that you are pursuing a forever family.
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  And that you allow us to be a part of that work.
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  God, I've seen people redeemed and saved to see nations changed.
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  And so, God, thank you, one. Thank you that you let us be a part of your work.
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  And I would ask that we would do it in empowered ways like never before.
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  I pray that every listener, Lord, would believe, rightly believe that their part matters.
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  And in light of that right belief, then they would live by the power of your spirit,
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  that they would live with more to them than meets the eye, that your transforming
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  work in them would bring about transformation in the lives of others, God.
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  So I'm just begging you, Lord, help us to believe and live right into it,
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  Lord God, right into it to join you, Lord God.
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  I pray that a great invitation is going out to your children all over the world,
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  even today in this season, that we would hear the Spirit saying to us,
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  come, come be a part, come be a part of the greatest work that will ever happen.
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  So, Lord, we love you. Thank you for letting us do it. And let us remember that,
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  Lord, there's only so much time.
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  There's an urgency right now. And I pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.
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  Amen. Amen. Well, I agree, Bill, with, man, And everything you're saying and
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  just to think we get this one shot, you know, one shot to join in that one day
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  we're going to be home. But right now we're here and it's time to work.
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  You know, it's time to give ourselves fully to that.
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  Well, I'd encourage our listeners. Listen, this has been this has been too much good truth, Bill.
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  So just encourage you. Thank you for man searching it.
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  And Kyle, I'll tell you something real quick.
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  I just encourage our listeners. Last week, I was in a church in Atlanta.
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  And I was speaking to their intercessors and this church has been taking the
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  One Cry podcast and all of their intercessors.
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  I think they have 75 or 100 intercessors.
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  It's a larger church. They all listen to the One Cry podcast and they all get
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  together and kind of discuss it some and then pray it in.
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  It helps to form their prayer times. And I just thought, man,
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  wouldn't that be wonderful?
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  It's just a simple right there every week tool that anybody can use to develop a one cry group. Right.
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  Just a one cry prayer group is very easy to do. You don't have to be a professional
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  or a great theologian or whatever.
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  We'll just bring that to you through the podcast and then you can use it as
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  a tool. Just a thought. Yeah.
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  But that's our desire. just to see the movement of God spread more and more.
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  Yeah. Well, man, I amen to that.
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  And I remember the inception days of One Cry Come Together, that the heart is
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  just to help, you know, just to help as many people as possible to pray better,
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  to believe bigger for a move of God right now.
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  And so, yeah, I would encourage anyone to share it, man, send it to somebody,
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  start a group of people praying. You have no idea what God can start in the
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  hearts of just a few in your church community.
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  We believe revival has started that way and will again. So, man, we're grateful.
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  All the resources, onecry.com. You want to check that out and find ways to continue
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  your spiritual journey. And we look forward to being with you.
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  Music.