Open your Bible to Proverbs, or Proverbs, chapter 23, we'll read verse 7 in just a moment. But we're in the second week of a series, and we might even do it for the duration of summer or the bulk of it, called recalibrate. Recalibrate simply means to adjust. You can have everything pointed in the right direction but not be calibrated and you're still off-center.
An example would be, and it happens all the time, is your body, if you are healthy, your body literally recalibrates constantly to keep you level-headed. What I mean is, when you're standing on flat ground and both of your legs are the same length, you stand with both of your legs relatively straight or the same length, and it keeps you level-headed. Your body naturally recalibrates itself, but if you step on something that is off-center, if you want to keep level-headed, your body has to recalibrate. Now one leg can't be as straight as the other leg, you have to readjust for you to keep the same level-headed.
So for instance, if I stood on the speaker and I wanted to try to keep both of my legs straight, the only way to do it is for me to lean, which will eventually make me fall over, which means my body has to naturally respond to my environment and I have to recalibrate in order to keep myself level-headed, does that make sense? So in our Christian life and our spiritual life, we have to constantly be recalibrating who we are, which means we look in the mirror, we decide we're going to pay more attention to the log in our own eye, then we are going to pay attention to the spec and somebody else's eye. No, we're going to recalibrate who we are. We're going to change the way we think because the Bible says in Proverbs 23, if we can change the way we think, we can change who we are and what we are.
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he that we're thinking is a word like gatekeeper, which means what you allow to come into your mind determines what you will be, what you meditate on, what you marinate in, who in here likes a good ribeye steak, show me your hand. I just lost everything for a minute. I was picturing the steak ahead of it, I lost everything. But what happens is, is that ribeye steak, if you have time to prepare it, some salt and some pepper or your favorite seasoning and you might like to marinate that thing before you throw it on the grill, but what you marinate the steak in, the steak begins to taste like what you marinate it in.
So when you have thoughts rolling around on the inside of your brain, when you have thoughts rolling around on the inside of your mind, when you, the gatekeeper of your soul, your mind or will and emotions, when you allow things that are contrary to the word of God to come into your life, to come into your mind and you begin to marinate on them and you roll them around in there and you shake them around in there and everything against it just against the permeate who you are and just like that steak, now you start to taste like what you are sitting in. But you and me, see, we were wise, we recalibrate, we readjust, we make sure that we shift, we make sure that we keep ourself, no matter what situation comes, no matter if I have to stand on a speaker, I've got to put one foot on a ledge or I've got to sit down or I've got to get in a different position. I keep myself recalibrated, I keep myself adjusted, I keep myself level headed because I've come to find out after living for God for a little bit, it is word is true and the scripture says that whatever I will think on, then I will be. So for me, I'm just going to roll around the thoughts of God, open your Bible to 2 Corinthians chapter number 10, 2 Corinthians chapter number 10, side note, bring your Bible to church.
Even if it's on your phone, that's fine with me, I do it on an iPad most of the time, but your Bible is the sword of the Spirit, it's the word of God. 2 Corinthians 10 verse 3, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war, we do not war after the flesh. One translation says, though we live as human beings, meaning we live as human beings. That doesn't mean that you're just a human, but we do live as human beings.
And you said yes to Jesus, when you decided to believe in the gospel related to an old rug across and an empty tomb, when you said yes to the God and the King of glory that decided to change your life, you shifted gears from being just a human being to now, I'm a new creature in Christ Jesus, old things have passed away. I might look like a human, I might talk like a human, but I'm not like every other human. See, there's only two types of humans walking around the world today. There are the saved humans and there are the unsaved humans and I am in the saved human, which puts me in a different position than everybody else.
I might walk around the world in the flesh, but I don't war after the flesh. That means that I don't war like everybody else wars. It doesn't mean I don't go to war. See some Christians get in and they think they're jumping in the middle of a parade.
When God actually said, I want you to jump in the middle of the battlefield, I didn't say you're not going to war, I said you're not going to go to war like they go to war. Which means when you said yes to Jesus, you'll have a moment where God will just deliver you from everything that you're going through. You'll have a moment when God will baptize you through what you're going through. You'll have a season of man on the ground, but before it's over, God's going to walk you right up to a place called Jericho, with walls that look like won't fall down.
And the only thing he's going to tell you is I want you to shout at those walls until they crumble in front of your face. He didn't call you because he needed more people in the process of procession. When a parade comes down the streets of glory, he called you to be an ambassador in this region. He called you to be an ambassador to the laws.
He called you to be the head, not the tail. To be blessed in the city, blessed in the field. I go to war every day. I just don't go to war like the heathens go to war.
I said, what's a heathen? I used to be one. I should know. There is safe folk and there is unsafe folk.
You are either with price or you are not with price. The Bible says that Moses was the biggest man that ever lived. Yet he found himself in a day when he walked down and the world that he knew had gone so carnal and so evil and so perverse that they were dancing around a golden image that they had made with their hands to the point that they were blaspheming God and making all of God's laws look like they were of no effect. And God and Moses said, real clearly, he said, I tell you what, if you're on God's side get on this side.
And if you're on the devil's side get on this side because there's a day coming when a dividing line is going to be drawn and the only thing that will matter is is your name on that road. We live in the flesh, excuse me. We look like we live in the flesh, but we do not war after the flesh. The Bible says that you do go to war.
You just don't go to war. Like a world goes to war. Verse four, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Verse five, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.
Casting down imaginations that were casting down put together, it literally means to take wrestle to the ground and throw down with force anything that is contrary to the word of God in your mind. Now when you hear, grab a hold of, wrestle down and throw down, I want you to picture WWE or WWF, I want you to picture the UFC, I want you to picture the most violent martial art you can think of, but I don't want you to think about it in the flesh. Like somebody's walking around, they say something crazy to you, oh thank God he gave us the ability to do that. No, that's called Godlessness, that's what the Muslims are doing when they go around killing people, that's what they're doing.
They're warring after the flesh, but our Bible says we don't war after the flesh, but we do war and our weapons are mighty, not through us, but through God to the pulling down of strongholds, the way we do it is we take down, we arrest violently every thought that is contrary to the word of God. Which means when you have the thought that comes in your mind that says, oh there's that report again, oh this needs, it's always been whatever, let me tell you what you're doing, Mr. Teevon, Mr. Rivai, you're marinating in what the devil's trying to put on this world, which is the idea that God himself would somehow be a child of user and be willing to make his children sick, which is not true.
So you take that same thought, you say well bless God, there's that symptom again and immediately you wrestle that thing down in your mind and you say thank God that I am healed by the stripes on Jesus back, then five minutes later that knee's still acting up again, then you remind yourself again, thank God I don't live by what I see, I don't live by what I touch, but I live by faith in Jesus' name and by faith I believe that this thing is healed, how long until the healing manifests, what if I go to heaven first, I say like this, healing is guaranteed to every believer, it will either happen instantly, eventually or eternally, but you will be healed in Jesus' name. We don't war after the flesh, but we do go to war because as a man thinks, that's how you are, that's who you become, whatever you roll around in your mind, oh we don't have enough, we never have enough, last week we proved, we're on the shadow of an hour that God wants us people to be blessed. If you weren't here last week, go get the podcast and if you were here last week, go get the podcast and just let it marinate, put it in your car, just let it listen to you because the more you can believe what God will do in your life, the more you'll experience it. See Jesus died for everybody, but everybody's not going to be saved.
You're not supposed to talk like that in 2016, you're not going to be supposed to talk like that in 17, 18, 19 or 20, but if Jesus carries, this church will be preaching the unadulterated gospel of Jesus Christ and it says that there is one way to heaven and that is through the man Christ, Jesus, who took your strides, who took your nails and grieve it for his days later. He walked out of an empty tomb and he said, I've got the keys to death, hell in the brain and anybody who will believe this word can follow me. There's only one way to heaven through Jesus, but literally in our life he wants us to prosper the Bible says, third John two and be in hell, which means we have to come to turn terms with the fact that God wants us to be healthy and then we have to believe that because it is not the gospel that will save your soul, it is you believing the gospel that will save your soul. There are people that will burn in hell that know the gospel.
The Bible says that you believe in your heart and with confession and you make confession with your mouth and then you're saved, you're born again. It is not the gospel itself, it saves you, it is you believing it. It is an individual act. I've beat my head against the rock trying to get some of my friends born again.
They can, oh God, what do I have to say to get them born again? How many miracles do they have to see? Because it is eventually their decision whether or not they serve Christ or not. So for you and for me, we have to recognize that it is not the information that saves us, it is believing the information.
So when it comes to your health, we've got to recalibrate what we think because what we think, that's what we'll be. Luke chapter number five, beginning in verse number 12. Luke chapter five, verse 12, and it came to pass in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy, leprosy is always indicative of what the world wants to put on you. It's a disease, but it's communal in fashion.
It has visible effects on you as well as mental and emotional effects on you. A man full of leprosy seeing Jesus fell in his face and besought him saying, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. If you will, you can make me clean. Number one, it's imperative to know that God can make you clean.
God is able. This man knew that Jesus, the son of the living God, could heal him. The only question was, will you or do you want to heal me? Which personally, I think is a very good question, especially considering when this took place because Jesus is walking the earth, bringing the new covenant, bringing the new doctrine, bringing the new reality that Jesus himself was going to bleed and die for a loss in dying world.
And nobody knew exactly what he would say in every situation. So it's a reasonable question. The difference is, Jesus no longer walks the streets as a man on a normal basis where you and me can go book a ticket and go see him or go go by the river and see him teaching or go by the lake and see him teaching. Jesus walks the street that he walks the street in the form of the B-I-B-L-E.
He walks the street, but most of the time he lays dust covered sitting on your nightstand instead of being put on the inside of you where when he gets on the inside of you, everything against the shield. So you and I can't go to the man Christ, Jesus walking around and flag him down like Bartimaeus did. You and I can't go to the man like Jesus, like Jesus walking around and climb a tree like Zacchaeus. You and I can't go to Jesus and see the man in the middle of the night like Nicodemus did.
You and I can't go to Jesus and try to bring him out of red in our fish like a little boy did teaching by the sea because he's not a man anymore walking around. The Bible says that he is seated next to the right hand of the Father constantly making the intercession for you and for me. So we can't go to Jesus like that. We have to go to his word because the Bible says in the beginning of the book of John, it says in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God.
We go to the word of God and determine what does the Bible say about my situation because whatever the Bible says in my situation is what I'm going to recalibrate myself to believe. I got to know what the books say. Somebody wants to bring me a word and it's contrary to the Bible. I don't give it two seconds and I probably won't let him finish the sentence.
You say, what do you mean? You won't let him finish the sentence. The Bible says that my eyes are the window to my soul. The Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, which means doubt comes by hearing and hearing everything other than the word of God.
I want the word of God spoken over my life. I want the word of God spoken into my children. I want the word of God spoken over my church. We're praying in this place.
We're not praying. We're praying God. We're praying God. Let your kingdom come.
Not because it's a good idea but because when Jesus was asked, he said, how do we even pray? He said pray that his kingdom will come here. I'm so sick of people praying for deliverance in situations when Jesus has personally planted you there so that you can be proof that his gospel is true. We're trying to get out of the fight and I'm trying to tell you, get him to fight.
I love the three boys. Shabbat and he's shacking them in the go. They said, you're going to have to go in the fiery furnace. If you don't bow and they said, well, we're not bowing.
So choke us in there. But the Bible never says that those boys saw Jesus. The only one they know of saw Jesus was Nebuchadnezzar, which is your enemy, which means that your situation, you might not see God moving, but the devil does, and if you won't quit, you won't burn. Man, is it the fourth thing you lie?
What? Come on, give God a hint of praise. We got to know what's the word say. This man's not wrong for asking Jesus.
Do you want to heal me? How could he know? But you and me, we don't have to go chase down. You know, the man Jesus walking the streets because he doesn't walk the streets, he can still show himself not trying to belittle anybody's experience.
But in grand terms, he's in heaven preparing a place for you and for me. And the Bible says, Jesus answered, put forth his hand, touched him saying, I will be thou clean and immediately, everybody say immediately, the leprosy departed from him. There were two variables in the equation. The first is can God, and the man believed that God can.
The second is, is God willing? And Jesus answered with two words, I will, or I'm willing. When you go to God with any infirmity, when your children or your grandchildren have a fever, when they have a sore throat, an earache, or something that we consider larger, maybe cancer, asthma, emphysema, glaucoma, blindness, deafness, dyslexia, ADD, ADHD, ADHD, ADHD, which is probably what I've got. Don't even worry about it.
You've got to know God didn't put that on you because if he had, he would be an abuser of his children. And if he made you sick, how could we believe that he wanted us to be healed? The man says, if you can, excuse me, the man says, I know you can. My question is, are you willing?
And Jesus said, beyond the shadow of a doubt, I'm willing. You see, in our Bible, we have several different opportunities. We have specific opportunities, tithing is a very specific thing with God. He laid it out specifically, 10%, not 8%, I had somebody come to me one time, and it's I believe that the tithe has any percent you commit to, I said, well, write your own Bible.
There's other situations that are broad, do unto others, and she would have them do unto you, the golden rule. You know, if we get back to that, if that was still hung in schoolrooms, that was still hung in classrooms. Come on. If teachers had the authority to help educate these kids and not just babysit these kids because of so many different regulations and rules that have been put on them, some things are broad, doing to others is you would have them do unto you.
You'll know my disciples by their love for one another. Well, to find that Lord, my love is patient, love is kind, doesn't envy. It's not boastful. It's not haughty.
It doesn't look down on other people. So you'll know if you see people that are not envying one another, I've been praying for a breakthrough and brother Billy gets to pray through every time, I just want that breakthrough. Glory. Not boastful.
I tell you what, I pray 18 hours a day, God is so speaking to me, I know everything there is to know about God. You'll know a disciple because they're not envious, they're not boastful, they're kind, brother bucket mouth, come into the church, grumpy every single time. Sister sandpaper ain't said nothing nice in 65 years. You will know my disciples, not because they say I love you, not because they hug you, not because they kiss you on the cheek, but because they're kind to one another, they're not envious over one another, they're not boastful over one another.
Some things are broad. It's just like a big brush. It's like, come on guys, don't be silly about it. But then there's other times where we don't have a specific and we don't really have the broad.
So we have to look at example. So when it comes to your healing, your health, we've got to see what Jesus did because I know there's doctrine out there that makes confusion about, oh man, when I pray, can I say, hey, Jesus, when I pray, do I have to say, Father God, when I pray now, the Holy Spirit's here, should I talk specifically to the Holy Spirit? Which way do I go? Well, if you really want to be specific about it, when Jesus taught us to pray, he said, our Father.
So I make a decision that typically I'm going to the Father in the name of Jesus because that's what Jesus said to do. That's my prayer method and I take it from the Galilean Savior. However, in your life, in my life, it's imperative to recognize that even Jesus says he doesn't do anything that he didn't see his Father do. So if you want to know what's God like, it's really simple.
You read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which are called the Gospels, which are four different men's recollection or history of what Jesus did and how they remember it or the stories that they were told that they remember that was jotted down for you and me under the function of the Holy Spirit. But Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, thanks a picture of who Jesus is because Jesus didn't do anything without his Father doing it first. Everything he did, he did because the Father told him to do everything he did because there was an example of the Father. So if we want to know what God is like and we don't have a specific like tithing, which is 10%, because you can't look at it and say, well, how many times does God want us to be healed?
10% of the time, 5% of the time, 100% of the time, 9% of the time. We have to look at it from an example standpoint because he never gives a percentage. We can't look at it in a broad standpoint because he really doesn't make any broad brushes like he does with the golden rule. So what we have to look at is the example.
So let me tell you, let me show you an example of Jesus day, number one, he got up before you get up and he prayed, which means he thought God and his relationship with his dad was more important than his relationship with his cup of coffee. I love coffee though. He thought his relationship with God was more important than his relationship with all of his friends and I love my friends. He thought his relationship was God was more important than anything else and he would walk the streets, the Bible says, and people would see him coming from afar off and they would begin to scream and they would be, oh, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me and Jesus would just be walking and he would hear faith and he would hear desperation and he would hear a cry and he would turn from what he was thinking about and he would walk over to this person and he says, yes, do you need something?
He says, yes, I can't see. I'd like to be able to see. And Jesus would reach down with his holy hand and he would touch them and he would heal them on the spot. Sometimes there would be lepers walking around and nobody could touch and they would say, oh, Jesus, help me.
Let me run into him. And the disciples would be like, I mean, you got to get away from him because he's a leper, he's unclean. You guys don't know who you're dealing with. He can touch me.
That's fine. He would heal him. He would go about his business. Everywhere he went, he was healing people, he was touching people, he was blessing people.
Everywhere he went, he was making life better. So since all we can really see is an example, sometimes it's good to look at the reciprocal or the opposite. Did Jesus ever make anybody sick? He never walked through the crowd and said, whoo, Billy, you are looking pretty healthy.
Have the flu. He never walked up to a pregnant woman and said, I want your pregnancy to be so hard and so rough and so terrible that you're going to hate being pregnant. He never went to the hospital and said, you guys stay here a while. He never had anyone sick, brought to him that he said, I tell you what, I don't think you've lived good enough, long enough, you can stay crippled.
All he ever did was heal and your Bible and my Bible says he is the same yesterday, today and forever. So you and me, we got to recalibrate. We got to change our thinking and change who we are. We have to change our mind because when we do, everything else follows.
Exodus chapter 15 in our current terminology just says, I'm the God that heals you. He doesn't make us sick. Sometimes I understand that it could be difficult to comprehend why things happen. I get it.
Jesus was asked that question many times, but one of the keys to keep in mind, one of the keys to remember is just because something is against the law doesn't mean that a criminal won't do it. Your body is legally healed, have another great teaching on our podcast called the legality of your infirmity. It is against the law of God for you to be sick. Well how does it happen?
There is an enemy. You live in a cursed fallen world. Bad things happen to good people. Jesus says it rains on the just and unjust alike.
I can give you example after example, but literally it doesn't mean that it was legal. It just means that it just means that it was a criminal act. And sometimes, sometimes you ever seen me in the political thing going on right now with Trump and Hillary and all the nicknames in between and you have the protesters at one and the protesters at the other and the police are there and the police are saying, you got to go now because you're breaking the law, you're disturbing the peace and the person screaming says, I'm not going anywhere. And the police says, you are going to go now because you're breaking the law, you're disturbing the peace.
I'm not going anywhere just because it's against the law doesn't mean a law can't be broken. But here's the good news. He's the God that heals us. He's the God that cleanses us before it's over, whether it's immediately, eventually or eternally, the healing power that was purchased with the stripes on our Galilean Savior's back.
That power is going to manifest in your life and the healing that belongs to you. You will experience in Jesus name, but you can't let the poison of popular ideology penetrates your mind because as you think so you are, stand to your feet, please.