my field, because I'm looking for a harvest for my God is real. Welcome back. Our friends and partners here on Spiritual Impact. I'm Associate Pastor Steve Rose and I am here with my pastor, Pastor Tim Parton.
I know you've got something good for us today. Amen. It's always good to come together. We appreciate this time that we get to spend with you and I'm sure that we've got a lot of regular viewers and maybe this is your first time and you say, well, what's this program about?
It's all about Jesus. Everything that we do is about Jesus. Amen. And if we lift up that name that is above all names, amen, then the light shines and darkness has to fade away.
Amen, because Jesus is the light of the world. But it's good to be here. We hope and pray that the program has been blessing you if you've been watching and that you'll pray for us that we'll just do what God wants us to do and that He'll open up our wisdom and knowledge as we present week to week the Scriptures that we can even have more to offer up because you'll never exhaust the Word of God. That's true, amen.
I believe Pastor Steve that we truly have just scratched the surface and you know what, it's your fun getting in there. Amen. You can't get it out. But today we're going to read in 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7 here in just a moment.
But we want to talk to you about struggles and inward struggles. And oftentimes, whether I was standing on a stage singing or standing for a congregation preaching, looking out of the congregation, and you see the smiling faces, but you know that we all have struggles with them, things that we are dealing with. And you wonder behind all those smiles what is going on in that person's life. And we want to deal with some of that today.
You know I kind of acquainted to having a mask on. You know as kids, you watch kids play and they like to do a lot of pretend and they'll be this character and that character. And sometimes as adults we feel the necessity to pretend that everything's okay, even when we're hurting. But God wants you to know it's okay to let down the guard and tell Him that He knows it anyway.
Nothing's here for Him. We can't hide anything from God. He knows everything about us. So those struggles that we have within and maybe we try to cover them up and hide them because maybe it's something we're embarrassed of or ashamed of or some of the struggles we struggle with.
A lot of people struggle with acceptance. They struggle with past issues. They struggle with a lot of things and the enemy is going to pound you with that. But our inward struggles, we need to turn over to God and we need to rely and trust Him and know what spirit that we are listening to.
Because here in the Second Timothy chapter 1 verse 7 says, And that sound mind is self-discipline. And self-discipline in the life of a Christian is very important for a lot of reasons. I mean, trying to keep this flesh intact is more than we can really do. That's why we seek the Spirit of God to help us.
The Spirit of fear comes from one direction and it comes in many forms because the devil is always trying to get you to be afraid. He's trying to get you to worry because fear, amen, will get in front of faith. If you're not careful. You know, Pastor, when you're talking about that inward struggle too, a lot of times you do push yourself there.
Somebody will push you there. But what popped into my spirit there was be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. When you look at that to be conformed, it means what the world tries to push you into their mold to try to make you like them. But he says, we're not supposed to be pushed into that mold.
We're supposed to be transformed. How are we transformed? How are we transforming? We're renewing our mind.
How do we renew our mind? You've got to say this is what God says. You know, the enemy tries to use so much and the playground that he can get access to if we allow him is in the mouth. Because he can't cross the bloodline.
So he deals with our mind through thoughts and he brings negativity and things that we've done in our past. He'll bring that to mind or maybe he wants to really bring up failures. He says, you know, you didn't read today. So what kind of Christian are you?
You know, you actually forgot to pray. How could you forget to pray? And just constantly is condemning us all the time and trying and we a lot of times people through things that have maybe happened in their life. And it might have been how they were brought up as a child.
They struggle with, you know, self-worth. And they have the mentality that, you know, I deserve this problem. I deserve this trouble. I don't deserve anything better.
You and I were talking before we came on the air. How the lot of times traditions within the church will put people, you know, if this happened to you, it was God punishing you. I don't believe that. I don't believe that God does bad things to people.
I believe that we serve a loving God. Now, I do believe that sometimes we put ourselves in circumstances and that there's consequences that we have to pay. But God is faithful and just to forgive us. And we talked about so many times people put them on their own self in prison with thinking, I deserve this.
I failed and I don't expect God to do anything about it because, you know, I deserve to have this issue. I deserve to be here. I deserve to be without. That could be farther from the truth.
Because God wants to restore people back to better than what they were. That's what I like about the word restore. It means that it's better. It's even more valuable because if you take something that's old and it gets restored to a new vessel, then it's valuable.
So much. We see that with old cars and stuff. It increases in value. And God wants us to think of ourselves like that.
We are of great value to Him. If He cares about the birds of the air making sure that they're fed, counts the very hairs of our head and knows them and deals with everything. How much more is He going to do for us? And that's the thing too.
A lot of times people, we talk about our failures. That's what people bring up. But if you think in life, what teaches us more from life, it's really failure. And we don't go out and strive to be in failure.
But sometimes we're going to fail even when we have the best intention. We'll fail and if we learn from that failure that we don't repeat it, God can use those things. He takes the broken vessel. He's got the bomb of ghilliad to put on those broken hearts and those broken dreams and broken emotions.
He can heal us. You know, and the chains of addiction are strong. And sometimes even in trying to make a better life, trying to break free from that because the enemy don't want to give up. The enemy's not going to ever let up.
But whom the son of a set free is free. And these, when we trust Him, He is the only help that we can have to break the chains of addiction. You know, an alcoholic, the first time that he ever took a drink of alcohol, didn't do that with the mindset that, you know, my goal was becoming alcoholic. Same way with a drug addict.
The first time they ever did drugs, they had no inclination what would take place in their life. But see the thief, we talk about this a lot. The thief comes to kill, steal and destroy. Mom, my mother, and she's going to be with the Lord her and dad, but she told us boys things.
She'd say, boys, the devil will always paint a pretty picture, but he will never turn it over to reveal what's on the backside of it. That's the same way in life. The devil will make things look appealing and he'll make the fleshly desires want that. But you know what?
At the end of that is destruction and bondage and guilt and shame. But Jesus has come to take all that away. He's come to give you a new start in life. He's come to give you a self-worth to let you know that there is value in your life and that what the enemy has tried to restore, destroy, that he's going to restore.
And you're going to shine like no one. Amen. Amen. You come forth.
I like the verse that you read there. It's just, for God has not given us a spirit of fear. So if you're living in a spirit of fear right now, what God gave you to you, that means that comes from the enemy. But it does tell you what God does give you.
I like that too. He makes a say, I don't give you a spirit of fear, but he says, but of what he says, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. So, so many people live in fear. And when we talk about, when we talk many times about faith, the substance thinks hope for the evidence of things not seen.
But you know, what is the opposite of faith? Fear. Because when you have fear, what comes next? When you have fear, what comes next?
Doubt. And then you have doubt in the Word of God. But the Word of God stands through the Word of God stands as sure. That's the one thing you can count on in this life.
You know, many times we see that come on the tell us what's best for us to eat. They'll say, eggs are great for you to eat, these means you can. And a few years later, we'll come back on, eggs are killing us. Stop eating.
But see, when you get into the Word of God, what is right now will be right forevermore. Amen. And he says, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my Word shall never pass away. Amen.
You know, fear hath torment. And it's a strong tool of the enemy. There's people, maybe they're watching right now, that things have gone on in your life, that your whole world has been rocked. And you've grown up feeling that you're just dirty, that everything's happened is somehow been your fault.
But you know what? There's things that have happened in people's life that they didn't have any control over. They were a victim of the circumstances. But you know what?
That's the great thing about God. He doesn't condemn. He wants to, He's given us the spirit of love. Yes.
Of love. And of power. Power to rise up, to believe Him for something better, to believe Him that He cares for you. He only created one of you.
There's not another person that He made like you. You are of great value to God. And it doesn't matter what your life was like growing up. God wants you to break free from your passing.
Your past is not going to define the destiny that He has planned for you. But it's going to take the power of God to get you through that. And the love of God to help you understand what He's doing. And then the sound mind, the self-discipline to turn loose and allow Him to do the things.
Because when we try to do it within ourselves, we're just going to, you know, if you're in quick sand, a lot more you struggle, they say the deeper you sink. And it's like sin. The more that you struggle in it, and you don't get the proper help, the deeper in it you're going to sink. They say, an old faithful saying is that sin will take you farther than you expected to go, keep you longer than you want to stay.
It costs you more than you ever wanted to pay. And that's true. The wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So those inward struggles people are struggling with, whether it's because of something in your past that you can't seem to break free from it. And no matter where you turn around, it seems like it's just popping up here and there. God can fix that. God can fix that.
You know, when you started earlier, you said fear at tour me. And what it also says, you know, and when we're in fear, it says though the fear has not been made perfect in love. So walk and cast out that fear. Perfect love.
Love. Where's that perfect love come from? Jesus Christ. See, that's what the Word of God says.
Now we got to do things according to the Word of God. So I mean, if you're living in fear, it's time to turn that fear over, live by faith in Jesus Christ our Lord. You know, I guess what we're trying to get over. Whatever state your life is in right now, if you're not serving God, that was never His intention.
God doesn't intend for anybody to be a failure. God doesn't intend for anybody to be in bondage. God never intended for anybody to be wrapped up with addictions, whatever they may be. And they don't have to be alcohol or drugs or things like addiction can come under the form of many names.
But you know what God did intend for you to have an abundant life in Jesus Christ? Jesus said, I've come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly. So what you need to do is those struggles that you're going through turn over to God. And it's a process.
I'm not going to say that every today or tomorrow is going to be all sunshine and roses, but I am going to tell you that God said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So He's there. So, you know, I may be struggling today and maybe tomorrow I still haven't got broken free from that. But at least if I'm looking unto Jesus, who is the author and the finisher of our faith, I'm going in the right direction.
It's like, if you get sick and go to the doctor and he gives you 10 days of antibiotic, well, you're not completely better the first day you take the antibiotic. But if you do, according to the directions, if you do according to the directions, there's a healing process. And God will make you whole. There is going to be a brighter today.
There is going to be a hope and a future for your tomorrow. If you'll simply trust in Jesus, take off that mask. Allow that hurt and that pain to be open so that God can heal those wounds for you. Whether they were self-inflicted or whether they came from something somebody else did.
God is here to set you free, to comfort your heart, to strengthen your mind and give you the courage and the strength and the determination to seek more, to live a better life. You do not have to be your yesterday. That's right. Amen.
And I want to tell them right now, you are not a failure. I can say that by the Spirit of God. Spirit of God says that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Hallelujah.
But see the enemy comes in with that deception. And again, me timing to self-deception. But I'm glad that the light shines in darkness. Hallelujah knows that light shines in darkness.
It'll show you what life you live. But glory be to God. It'll also point you in the right direction to where you find freedom from those things that bind you. Find freedom and help in your time of need.
That comes to the power and the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and trusting in Him and trusting in the Word of God. You know, we talk about the power and trusting in the forgiveness of God. But forgiveness goes other ways as well. Pastor Steve, we have to learn how to forgive ourselves.
You're right. You're right. We've all failed. We've all come short of the glory of God.
We all have a story. We all have a past. I've said many times in the church world, if you've told your congregation, you know, this Sunday night, we're going to have confession service. And everybody's going to empty out their closets.
I don't think you're going to have any volunteers that want to go first. Because we've all failed and come short of the glory of God. But in God, it forgives us. We've learned how to forgive ourselves.
And sometimes, Pastor Steve, we have to learn to forgive those that have trespassed against us. And sometimes that's not always easy. Because you might say, you don't know what happened. You're right.
I don't. But God does. And sometimes the healing process has to begin with forgiveness to help you be able to break the chains and the bonds of the situations that are in your past. But if you can learn to forgive and let go and trust God, then you can begin the process of healing and becoming a brand new person.
Now God has got a plan for every heart and life. God's intention is for you to live for Him. You were created to be His child. And God loves you.
And as our Heavenly Father, He only wants the best things for you. You know, I have children and grandchildren, Pastor Steve, and I always want good things for them. And when they struggle with things or when they are going through pain or going through a storm, I suffer along with that. And you know, we pray for them and lift them up and encourage them.
And sometimes, even in all that, I still have to be pastor as well. And you know, sometimes the truth will hurt at first. But the Bible says that the truth shall set us free. So come in terms with the truth, the reality of the truth is another step in the process of healing.
But once we can accept that we need Jesus, we first got to realize and know that we are sinners and that we need a Savior. That's any of us. People say, well, I never done this. I never done that.
You were born in sin. And this flesh without the blood of Jesus Christ being applied to it, you'll be on your way to hell. I don't know any other way to put it. Unless the blood is applied, there is no hope for salvation.
There are not several different ways to get to God. There's only one way through Him by Jesus Christ. He is the door. He's the window.
He's the way. He's the light. And we've got to come through and buy Him. We can't, you can read all the self-help books you want.
You can go all the counselors you want. We're not speaking against them. They're all well and good. But the only thing that's going to fix what's wrong with you and stay fixed is Jesus Christ.
That's one of the things one of the lives of the enemy to, you know, the enemy will tell you, you got to get yourself cleaned up first before you come to Jesus. That's not true. The fact is you can't clean yourself up. That's the whole fact of the gospel.
It says we can't do it by ourselves. If we could, then Christ to die in vain. But we can't clean ourselves up. When I come to Him, there's an old song that says, just as I am.
That's how you want you to come to Him. Just as you are right now. If you're in the midst of addiction, that's the way you want you to come right now. If you're in the midst of pain, that's the way you want you to come right now.
That's the whole thing about the gospel. He loves you. He died on the cross that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly. And He is still alive and well and stands.
And I believe you stand on the right hand of the Father. Says He sits, but you know, when we look around the world and His coming could be any day, no man knows the hour that our Lord does come. He says, we shall know the times and the seasons. And at this last time, it may be perilous times, but there's going to be a great outpouring of the Spirit of God.
And I believe that God's touching hearts right now as we speak. Amen. You know, a lot of people don't know Pastor Steve is retired police officer 30 plus years on the job. And I said here, think of Pastor Steve, that no doubt you had to go to court many times in your career there.
And especially maybe with young people and things. And sometimes I know you've watched and a judge has learned how to show mercy and grace in some situations. Maybe not all of them when you get those repeat, repeat, repeat defenders. There's sometimes a judge says, you know what?
I just feel like you need a break. You know, God tells us I am your break. I am your deliver. I am your help.
He's a present help in the times trouble. And He's wherever we're at. David said, wherever I'm at God, you are there. God said He's always close to us.
And maybe you've never known that relationship with this man called Jesus. You've never known what it was like to have somebody that loved you that much. And maybe you can't even understand that kind of love right now. But I'm here to tell you the love of God is real, the love of God, God is love.
That's the essence of His character, His love. And God wants you to know today that He loves you just as you are, as Pastor Steve says, just as I am. He wants you to come today and allow Him to wrap His arms around you. Pastor Steve, will you take us to the Lord for somebody out there today is hurting.
Father, as we come to you, I'm going to pray the Sonors prayer right now. For those that are listening that don't know Jesus, Father, I'd ask you Lord right now, they'd pray this prayer. Father, I ask you Lord, forgive me of my sins. Father, I thank you that you sent Jesus to die on the cross of Calvary, that when He spilled His blood on the cross, He forgave me of my sins.
Lord Jesus, I ask you to come into my heart. Yes, Father. Forgive me of my sins. Become my Lord and my Savior.
And Father, I believe this to have taken place right now in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. I truly believe that somebody watching today really needed this program.
When I was going over some lesson ideas, I just felt in my spirit that somebody today needed this, and maybe it's you. And I want to tell you, if you prayed along with Pastor Steve, you've got a brand new life. You've got a brand new start. All that pain, all that hurt, you can take that mass covering away because you are brand new in Jesus Christ today.
Isn't it wonderful? If that's you, we would love to be able to hear from you. Pastor Steve will give you some ways that you can communicate with the church. You know what?
We'll be praying for you. You find wherever you live. If you live in our area, we'd love for you to come visit with us. It'll be part of our family.
If not, you find you a good Bible believing church. And get in there and grow. And don't let anything bother you. Leave that past buried because that's where Jesus just goes.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen. You know, you know, we pray for them by everything.
You know, as always, it's good to be in the presence of God. And it's good to study God's Word. And we appreciate a network like WVLR that will get behind the Word of God and programming and make it accessible to people. So you pray for them.
You pray for us and we'll be praying for you. You know what? Together. We're going to succeed together.
We're going to get through all these struggles. Together. We're going to be in heaven with Jesus one day for evermore. But until that day, Pastor Tamron, Pastor Steve saying, we love you.
truly, truly loves you. And we'll see you next time on Spiritual Impact. God Bless. Hello everybody.
This is Pastor Tim Parton of Abundant Life Worship Center. For those of you that live in the Subramal Area, or maybe you just visit from time to time, we'd like to take a moment and invite you to come visit us at the church. We're located at 923, Dolly Parton Parkway, right here in Subramal. Our service times are Sunday morning at 11 a.m.
Wednesday evening at 630. We just love sharing the Word of God. We're just a family church. So we invite you to come grow with us.
God Bless. We can overcome just a little faith. We are never alone. So this battle I won't fear, cause I can hear the sound of hell.