Welcome back with us. We're glad that you guys were able to join us today in the study of God's Word. We believe that we have some enlightenment for you and some encouragement for you. We just believe that you're going to receive today and be strengthened in your walk and also encouraged in what the Lord has called you to do.
Please connect with the Rise and Shine by visiting our Facebook page at facebook.com slash a Rise and Shine TV show or emailing us at a Rise and Shine TV at gmail.com. We look forward to connecting with you. Dr. Welcome you again to share the truth of God's Word with us.
We're just excited to be here and excited about what God has been sharing in our hearts. We want to remind you, we've mentioned this verse before, but it's probably verse 23-7. It says, as he thinks in his heart, so is he. I guess because Revelation, see information is one thing.
That's stuff that you get every day through your five physical senses and that you're constantly getting this kind of information. There's a difference in information and revelation. Revelation is something that you want to get when you can get yourself in a position where God is able to actually reveal something to you, something that was hidden, something that was beyond your grasp, beyond your ability to focus on, be able to see, or recognize. And Revelation is an amazing thing.
Revelation, once it comes, if you treat it properly and embrace it in the right way, it'll change your life forever. I mean, it'll change your life and it'll change it to the better. Your life will get better because of that revelation. And this is just one of those revelations that came to her and I listened to it three years ago, just as soon as I woke up I heard those words.
And when I heard those words, something kind of went off, that only inside of me. And I knew at that point that how critical, how we think is important rather, how we think is to us. I mean, it controls everything about us. And we're constantly hearing things, we're constantly processing information, we're constantly categorizing this information.
And a lot of this information that we get actually will go to the point where it becomes something that we believe, something that we embrace to be true. And the longer we embrace these things and the longer we deal with these things, the more we'll begin to incorporate them into our lives and they will actually become who we are. They will define us. And so a lot of times we're trying to curve sin on the external, you know, and there's things you need to do, you know, on the external and especially in the day and society we're living the day, even in the church where else it's like, you know, some of these people they don't get it, you know.
So they need to do some, we need to do things externally, but external will not curve or change anything. It's when you change from the inside out. See when you get the change on the inside, the change will automatically show up on the outside. It becomes a reflection of who you are internally, you know.
And so as you think of things as art, Proverbs 23 and 7 says that he says that so is he and you can't change that. So if you want to change your situation, change your circumstances, change what's going on around you, then what you have to do is you have to start at the starting point and that's changed the way you think. And many times that means you've got to, you've got to change what you're allowing yourself to hear and what you're allowing yourself to see. Sometimes you may have to change who you're hanging out with and who you're running around with and who you're allowing into your life to influence you.
Because we don't understand it a lot of times, but it says Peter writing about a lot when he was, he pitched his tent towards Adam, you know, I guess because his grass was green and all that and here's this wicked city down here. He said he vexed his right of soul with the things that he saw and which he heard. See what you see and what you hear has a way of becoming your thought life and your thought life will begin to do, you know, begin to do, go through that motion of becoming who you really are. And so we believe, and this is really this teaching that we're doing, you know, I'm stating at my desk spending time in prayer, you know, I just want to just teach anything, you know, what's Lord, you know, what do you want?
What do you want to talk about Lord? I mean, what is it that you want to try to get across to people? People need to hear something. What is it?
And so I hear this. I can't, what I heard was, you know, I heard, you know, discovering who you are. And so, and I began to put scriptures and it started off with second Corinthians 5, 17. That was the first verse that began to come to me when I began to give thought to that phrase of discovering who you are.
And so I jotted down some scripture and I gave it some thought praying about this. And then I got with Melissa the same day or the next day. I don't remember exactly when it was. And I just talked to her about, you know, what are you thinking about what's going on inside you?
And she came up with, what was that you said? Who do you think you are? So that's pretty darn close. You know, that's the way the Holy Ghost operates, you know, because he knows we're going to do this together and he's not just going to talk to one or not talk to the other.
I mean, that would be kind of rude, but it's since stick somebody out there and not even give him any insight into what you're supposed to be doing. You know, he's not like that. See, and the Holy Spirit is amazing because it can be in everywhere he needs to be all at the same time and he can get everybody on the same page. If we just learn how to walk in the Spirit and be led by the Holy Spirit, there wouldn't be any more problems in local churches and among Christians because he'd always lead everybody in the same direction.
There wouldn't be any more arguing over what color the carpet's going to be or, you know, where the paint on the wall is going to be because everybody be on the same page. So but anyway, the Lord began to show this to us. And when you talk about this concept, what is it the Lord was talking to you about when? Well, I think the biggest thing that he was talking to me about was the fact that, you know, this time that we're living in and you kind of touched on that, the body has got to come together to be able to do the work, to finish this thing up and to be able to go on.
I mean, this isn't it for us. Earth is not our final home. This is not where we were created to be forever in this position and predicament that we're in. And for the body of Christ to be able to come together, they've got to find out their place.
They've got to become what they were created to be. And of course, that's individually because we all have separate callings. One of us are called to do the same thing as the other. You know, you have to look at your giftings, where you're at and where the Lord has placed you.
And of course, we all have our own platforms and all of that. But then there's a place to where once we find out who we are and what we're supposed to be doing, that we all come together and form that body for him. And right now from my perspective, what I see, but I do see change. I've seen a lot of changes in the last year of people just begin to search, you know, and try to find out for themselves, which is where again, we have to start.
But then the body has to come together and to be able to fulfill the ultimate call, which is the fulfillment of the FIFO ministry, the fulfillment of the signs and wonders and miracles so that the people come in and are drawn in, you know, to complete his body. We're nowhere near complete yet, you know, until those people come in. But we have to be able to work together to be able to fulfill the ultimate call until we can find out for ourselves what we're supposed to be doing. That's not going to happen.
And so to begin to walk in your ministry and what God has told you to do, you have to find out what his will is and what his thoughts are towards you. And of course, that's only through the Word of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit. And in finding out who you think you are is going to be what moves you into that place. There are lots of us that still consider ourselves to be, I don't want to put myself in that category, but there's lots of people in the body of Christ that still consider themselves to be sinners and woeful worms that, you know, aren't worthy to do anything for the Lord.
And as long as the devil can keep again your thoughts and your mind into that set of circumstances, you're never going to be able to do what God's called you to do. You have to find out who he says you are and who he thinks you are. And that is once we are washed in the blood of Jesus, we are placed into his body, he gives us power through the Holy Spirit and through the giftings and through the anointings to become the person that he wants us to be. And each of us just has to finally just bite the bullet and say, I don't want to do what I want to do anymore because it's conducive to my life.
It's easy or because I don't want to be set out front and pointed out and said, why are you so different kind of thing? Yeah, which is something we all have to overcome. But Jesus was pretty different in his ministry and what he did. And he's called us, the Father has called us to be like Jesus.
And so you have to get past that. And at my age now, I think I finally got past that. I mean, you just come to the point to where what's really, really important to you. Well, a lot of people don't understand this life is temporal.
So temporal. Yeah, and eternity is forever. And everything you do here, everything, everything that you do here will either be positive or negative pertaining to your eternity. And so you're living for eternity right now.
And a lot of people don't know that. And they're so caught up in this natural physical world, which is swiftly fleeting away. And they don't even know it. See, and what they don't realize to hear real soon, you know, this thing's going to be over.
And now you're going to be faced with the reality of eternity. And so we need to live not for the temporal, but we need to live for eternity. What really matters. What really matters.
See, and that's what you've got to discover and come to your own conclusions in what really does matter. And the Lord's open our eyes to a great degree. It's like, you know, it don't matter how many cars you got or how many houses you got. And he's got to be blessed and half things.
But my God, I'm going to tell you, you're going to leave them. You're going to leave them out. And he's not going to reward you because you had so many cars or had so many houses or you had dang so much money. What he's going to reward you for was your obedient to his will and call and purpose for your life.
You know, in Ephesians 3, you know, there's a verse in there that says unto him that is able to, this is Ephesians 3, 20, which I'm just on what she was saying. It says, now, to him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think according to the power that works within us. And I know we use that verse for an individual basis, like for you personally. But Paul wasn't writing this letter to an individual like John Smith or Sally Jones at a certain place.
He was writing this to the church as a whole. So when he said now unto you unto him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or think. He's talking about, and if you read this in context, he's talking about the body as a whole operating like you said and being capable of achieving and doing what God has called us to do in these last days. And because he goes on and says the next verse is unto him, be glory, not in you, but in the church, which is his body.
It says, be it says be glory in the church, by Christ Jesus rather, throughout all the ages world without ends, amen. And then the next verse of the next chapter is this, I therefore, therefore, because of what he just said, he said the prisoner of the Lord. He said, I beseech you or beg you that you would walk. Now listen, well, worthy of the vocation we're with, we are called.
So see, I don't need to tell you to walk worthy. See, everybody has a call. Everybody has a vocation. Everybody has a place in the body of Christ.
And there's so much confusion in the world today and so many people trying to, you've heard a phrase, you know, somebody so and so is going off, I need to find myself. We hear that, you know, quite regularly anymore. And what that really means is that they don't understand, they're discontent. They don't like where they're at.
They don't like who they are. They are. They don't like the color of their skin. Situations that they've been placed in, they don't, you know, this is one of the biggest problems, the source of most of the problems that people have in life.
I'm talking about people only, I'm lost in, and lost in sight, born again and not born again is the fact of being very, very, very discontent within yourself. Hurt people hurt people. And that's just the way it is. Much of the way we treat others, much of the way we talk, much of the way we respond to life in general is all based on our own self image of who we are.
And the problem is even in most churches, most churches, a lot of churches, I'm going to end all churches because I don't know all churches and I don't know all pastors. I don't know, you know, because I don't go there and I'm not involved in that. But when you get out in the public and you begin to rub shoulders with people, you begin to talk to people. You let them talk and you can discover where people are, how they think and what they believe and what they've been exposed to in the past, just simply by listening to them.
We express who we are on a daily basis, you know, and you see people just like Melissa was saying, you know, even, I'm talking even in charismatic, full gospel churches, they still see themselves as sinners. Well, you know, you say, well, you know, everybody makes mistakes and everybody says, but to be a sinner means you practice sin. And if you see yourself as a sinner, that's what you're going to be as a man, thinketh or as he thinkseth in his heart. So is he.
And see, we have more faith in sin and its ability to dominate and to control us than we do in the blood of Jesus and the fact that he died for us and he made us his righteousness. We don't understand that because of that. We were constantly going over and over and over the same things and dealing with the same things over and over and over instead of getting past them and going on and doing and becoming what God's called us to do and walking worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called. You know, go ahead.
That just, that just takes us to the first scripture that we wanted to look out. And again, like you were talking about, obviously this, we're talking about the body of Christ, a little more here than than we are to the world. But finding out your place is what's going to change the thoughts that you have about yourself. And obviously when you accept Christ, you are placed into the body of Christ and into his church.
And this scripture here in 2 Corinthians 5 and 17, I think that's the first one you want to start with, it says, therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away and behold, all things are become new. And that just kind of, if you can get to a place to where you understand what he's talking about here, it will give you such enlightenment and such, it really gives you hope to be able to become what he wants you to become. But this is something that you have to think on regularly.
I mean, you have to renew your mind to this on a regular basis because again, like you said, it's not that we say we don't ever sin, we don't ever mess up or miss the Lord, it's just that we don't have to say that that defines us. We don't have to say that that's who we are. This is what defines us. This is who we are.
Yes. And you know, and it's just like what you were saying there, if any man be in Christ now, I guess this verse, I didn't even know it was in the Bible. Okay. But it didn't take me long after I got born again to realize something happened to me.
He said, if any man be in Christ, when I bowed my knees on that little altar in that little Baptist church and I poured my heart out before the Lord, I was being placed in Christ right then. Yes. Yes. He accepted my prayer and he did for me what I asked him to do is to come in and change me.
I give you my life. But he did. And I didn't understand it when I first got it. I didn't understand it for the first few days.
But after two or three weeks, I began to discover that I was different than I was before that event. I could tell and I couldn't put my finger on it. I couldn't define it. I didn't exactly know what it was all about, but I knew something had happened.
I knew I felt different and I had peace and the confusion and the drugs was gone, the alcohol was gone, all those things were gone. You know, I had no luck. I'll see that was the motivation behind me that was driving me to him. Yes.
And because I wanted free from that really, really bad to the point that I was willing to go back into an environment that was not good for me in the days gone by in the past. And I was willing to go into that situation and where everybody knew me, they knew my life, they knew what I used to do and where I was at. And I was willing to swallow all of that. See, I think we have to, listen, we have too much casual prayers about accepting Jesus into our life.
Many people, I don't think you're not ready. You're not ready until you're willing to surrender your entire life to him. And because that sometimes takes an element of desperation. All I know is when I did that, I was free from the drugs.
And the amazing thing was I didn't have to try to quit. I didn't have to go to some classes. I just, I was saying, I didn't want them to know more. I knew what they would do.
I knew they were destroying me. I knew where it was taking me and anything else to do with it. I liked the peace and the contentment and the joy that I had found. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature.
That means something down on the inside of your spirit man was reborn. That spirit that was separated from God, that was filled with sin and that sin nature all of a sudden no longer exists. You become a new creature, a born again in the image and likeness of God. And now if we will allow that inward man to dominate and control us, we can walk in at the newness of life.
And that's what we're here talking about today to help people. I know the Lord spoke to me here a while back in a certain situation, you know, and I just, you know, you hunger to see the spirit of God moving the spirit of God do things, you know, and you just want more. You want more. There's got to be more.
There's more. And it drives us, you know, because we want more. And Lord spoke to me and he said, the problem is, now listen, the problem is in my church, that's his church and in his body is that most people have absolutely no awareness or consciousness that they have any involvement or responsibility in what goes on around them in their lives and especially in the gathering inside the local church. They think it all follows up on the leadership.
If there's going to be something, you know, I'm here to get my needs met, you know, I'm here, I'm needy, I need this and I need that and, you know, and it's all about, you know, coming here, I need that need. You know, but no, God wants, you know, everybody has needs and you need to know that you can't, he will meet your needs. But can't we get to the place where that our needs are met to the point where we can actually come bringing something, being a contributor, you know, instead of being there just to get something, God wants us, because you've got something. You have no idea what you've got, but the Lord spoke to us to that, and he said, your responsibility is to teach them, to show my body, to show the church who they are in me, show them their position, show them their importance, show them the power that has been made available to them, help them to see who they are in me and help them to find their place, because when my body gets in the right position of where they are supposed to be, then will my power be able to flow freely, then will my power flow unhindered, and then where we'd be signs, miracles and wonders.
And so that's our job. That's what God's called us to do. That's why if you're going to study God's words, you need to spend the majority of your time, you know, I read from the book of Psalms every day, I read from the Old Testament every day, I read from the book of Proverbs every day, but I would spend most of my time in the letters to the church from the book of Acts, Romans on through, because those were the ones that were written specifically to us, and you will not, you cannot, it is impossible to get any understanding or revelation of who you are in Christ except in the letters to the church, because see, and primarily it will come, that it'll come from Peter, it'll come from Jude, it'll come from James and others, but primarily it'll come out of the pistols to Paul Roquos, it's called the Paul Lane Revelation. This is a mystery that was given to him, by revelation the spirit of God began to give him this revelation of who we are in Christ and what it means.
And so, 2 Corinthians 5, 17 is important. Be the man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are passed away, Bill, God, all things become new. Amen.
Amen. Just part of what you were talking about, about, you know, you're sharing your salvation experience. You know, lots of times I think people, like you said, they want something from the Lord, but they're not willing to give anything to him. And sometimes I think, you know, we open up our door, you know, this much just so we can get in kind of what we need, but we're not willing to let him completely in.
You want to hold on to the things. Yes, yes. And he can't do much for us when we hold back from it. He can only change what you gave him.
We've said that before, you know, and repentance is the first element in the equation of salvation. And it's first, it's first in the equation. See, he knows the heart, he knows your intent, he knows your motive, he knows if you mean what you say, he knows everything about you. And they're something about being desperate and coming to the Lord.
And I know there was one minister and I can't remember who it was, but he would tell people that times they would start to come forward for, you know, for the, for the altar college, and they'd say, no, go back to the town. He said, you're still green, you're not ready yet. He had a certain amount of discernment about him. He said, bring forth fruit, bring forth fruit that will remain.
See, we have a lot of conversions. You know, people say, you know, I raised my hand and I prayed this prayer. And then people go right back and you never see them again or they'll come back and they'll do the same thing six months later. Yeah.
I think lots of times it's, it's a release of the burden. It's the crying, it's the emotion. It's, it's, I'm giving everything to you, but you still have to take Christ. You have to take him on, you have to be willing to live a life for him.
And sometimes we just kind of, and that's the whole purpose. That's why you're here. If you understand, it's not about evolution. It's about creation, a God Almighty that created us for this time.
And you're only here because he won't you hear and you're here because he has a purpose for you and you can live your entire life and never, never, never really experience why you're even here and never discover who you are. You will, and if you understand the sacrifice and the price that Jesus paid for humanity, that's how you can discover what your true value really is, that he was willing to give his only son and allow him to suffer at the extent and the level that he allowed him to suffer. No man on this planet ever has suffered like he suffered. No man was ever willing to go to hell itself and experience the penalty for your sin like he did.
Now that is enough right there. If you understood that and he made a way for us to come out. And only the only way you can come out, so you won't stand before God and give an account so much that you will for your actions and the things you do. But you won't go to hell because of all the sins that you've committed.
You'll go to hell because of rejection of Jesus Christ. He is the way out. There is no other way out. Sin is destructive and he paid the price for your sins, so you don't have to.
He did it for you, so you can come out and be free. Now it's up to you to accept that. Now you have to pay the penalty for your sin. And so if you're out there today and you've never made Jesus Christ the Lord of your life, you say, well I've done these things before but I've never seen change.
Well this is your day. Repeat it. Repent. Sincerely with all your heart and your heart telling to Lord I'm tired of this.
I won't change. I won't be different. I won't this. I won't this second Corinthians 5 17 experience.
I want to be a new creature in Christ. Behold, all things have become new. Show me that. Let me experience that.
Say this prayer with this. Say Jesus, I take you today as my Lord and Savior. This day I renounce sin. I turn away from the devil.
I turn away from my past and my evil ways. And I choose to follow the Lord with all my heart. Thank you Jesus for coming into me and allowing me to experience this new birth, changing me from the inside out. And I thank you Father for receiving me and doing for me what only you can do.
And I give you all the praise to glory and honor for it in Jesus name. Now if you prayed that prayer for the first time or if you prayed that prayer for the thousandth time and you men it with all your heart then he heard you and your life will never be the same. Let somebody know, don't try to hide in the dark. Let us know, email us, Facebook us at all the things that you can do.
We love you and God bless you until we see you again.