Hello and welcome to today's inspiration. We are so glad you joined us today. We pray that today you will have ears to hear, a heart to receive of some encouragement. Truth, I am glad to be sitting here with my husband, my beloved, my baby, coming on 27 years to share the Word of God with you.
Know this that you are loved and that God has so much for you that even though there's stuff going on around this world and you may be in a place of just uncertainty, God is always certain. He is never shocked. He is never taken back. He hasn't forgotten you.
He's not forsaken you. He's not left you. He is everything you need in this very hour. So as my husband opens us up with some truth today, tune in.
Listen, because it may just set you free. Again, like you probably heard many times before, if you watched any of our episodes, I'm a word guy. I do ram, I can ram along, but I like to dive into scripture and look at scripture. My wife has actually made comments, honey, you got way too many scriptures and I do because I just get carried away.
But anyway, if I was going to put a title to this message and there are many titles that could today, this message could be titled this and then you know, tomorrow another message could be titled the same thing. But it would be it would be be strong and courageous. Now I know that everybody thinks that I'm going to Joshua, but that's a whole that's a whole other message there. But be strong and courageous.
Everybody knows who Apostle Paul is. Everybody recognizes when you talk about the Damascus road and that whole conversion. And and if you know anything about scripture, you know that Apostle Paul at the beginning, when he was really just called Saul before the conversion, he was going around trying to get Christians and put them in jail and kill them. And he actually was a eyewitness to the stoning of Stephen.
But that being said, he was on the road to Damascus and all of a sudden a conversion happened. He met Jesus. I believe in my heart, he met him face to face. Nobody else could see.
Nobody else could hear. It was just Paul and Jesus at this moment and it had a conversation. And then there was scales that was placed on Paul's eyes where he couldn't see he was blind. So he had to get the gentleman that was with him to lead him to a place that Jesus had told him to go.
So he had to go there and he was anointed and prayed over by a, you know, a man that Jesus had already spoken to him and says, you know, you need to go to this place. You're going to be meeting Paul. Remember the God that's going around throwing people in jail and everything. And I want you to pray for him.
Jesus had this conversation with this gentleman and I want you to pray for him and anoint him because he's going to be a follower of me and he's going to actually preach my word. And I mean, these are, I'm just, you know, not don't quote me, but but he prayed for him and Paul had this conversion. He, he then began to chase Jesus and begin to learn about Jesus and begin to preach his word. I mean, it's, and now we're in Romans.
And a lot of people, you know, when they think of all the, the disciples, well, they walk with Jesus. They talk with Jesus, you know, they were in the upper room and we read scriptures and Romans is a book that, that Paul wrote. So I took a passage out of that and the passage that I want to start with is Romans chapter seven. And starting with verse 14.
And I have two translations here. I'm reading out the new American Standard Bible. I think my wife has a new King James version and I also have the passion translation and some people don't agree with that. But, but as long as it is lining up with what scripture says, I'm okay with it.
But starting in Romans seven and 14. Honey, do you want to read, Sarah? For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin, just the 14. We read the thing.
Well, let's just hold right there on 14. Now see, you heard her version. Now, I want to give you my version for we know that the law is spiritual. Understand spiritual.
And, and I'm going to, as I'm talking, I'm going to merge the two versions together. So did something, you know, for we know that the law is divinely inspired and comes from the spiritual realm. So understand that the law, and I'm not talking about the law of the Old Testament, I'm talking about the law of Jesus Christ, the law of God. There's a law that comes, that comes into play, but he says, but I am a flesh.
We are flesh and it says, in that, but I am human being made a flesh. Now, it goes on to say, sold into bondage of sin, sold into bondage to sin. The other version says, I am trafficked, trafficked. Am I saying that correctly?
Traffic as a slave under sense authority. So, just those two scriptures, just at one scripture right there, there is a spiritual realm that the law of God comes from that is divinely inspired, but we are not in that spiritual realm. We are, we are human bodies with flesh and blood. We do have a spirit that is within us, but we are born in a flesh and to better understand that.
Jesus was flesh and blood body, but when he died and rose again, then he was completely spirit. You can, he still had a visible look about him that was, that looked like his natural body, but he had moved from a natural human being to a spiritual, which all of us as Christians will, at some point, we will have a new body and it will be a spiritual body. But that being said, Paul is talking about that law and spiritual, but he is flesh. This is Paul saying this about, I am flesh and sold into bondage of sin.
He is sold into slavery of the sin. Now going on to verse 15, it says, for what I am doing, I do not understand. Don't, that just, if you stop and think about that one, one statement there, for what I'm doing, I do not understand. Do you ever wonder why you do what you're doing?
You don't understand why you're doing what you're doing, and you just, you, you try to understand, you know, why do you go to church? Why do you serve God? Why do you have this job? Do you ever wonder why and ask all these questions?
Yeah, it reminds me of the scripture, lean not into your own understanding, but trust him with your whole heart. Amen. Lean not into our understanding. So in other words, he's already telling us, do not trust your own understanding.
Exactly. And just trust me, just believe, and I'll guide you through this. So that being said, which is why they put, he put scales on Paul's eyes. Yeah, yeah.
And that being said, he says, I do not understand for, I'm not, for what I'm doing, I do not understand, but scripture says that, and maybe you're just going to have to jump in as this stuff because I don't know how to, you're just going to have to jump in. The scripture says, it says, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't understand, but yet scripture tells us that we don't lean on to our own understanding. We lean on his understanding, but going on it says, for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I'm doing the very thing I hate.
You ever figured, you ever thought about the things that you do and the things that you don't want to do, the things that you hate? You ever stop and thought that, you know, you've sinned today, you ask for forgiveness, you send them all, you ask for forgiveness. Have you ever thought in your mind, why do I keep doing what I'm doing? I feel like I go around the same mountain over and over and over and I just keep repeating all the time.
You've ever felt that way? I'll be honest, I do too. But if we go on, the scripture says that, but I am doing the very thing I hate, but if I do the very thing I hate, I do not want to do, I agree with the law confessing that the law is good. Now, before going further, let's go back to this other translation in Let's read it.
Verse 15, it says, I am a mystery to myself. Have you ever thought that you don't understand yourself, you're a mystery to yourself, you can't figure it out? For I want to do what is right. We all want to do what is right.
But end up doing what is morally instincts condemn. Instincts condemn. And if my behavior is not in line with my desire, does that, do you understand what that? What your desire is, but what you're actually doing is not in alignment.
It's out of alignment. My conscious still confirms the excellence of the law. Now, we're talking about the spiritual things of God. So he's sitting here thinking to himself, here, this is what my desire is.
I want to do that. But for some reason, I end up doing this over here that I hate that I do that. I end up sitting and I'm wanting to do what is right and what is what will bring glory to God. But I end up doing this over here that I hate doing that.
Why? See, Paul is trying to show and express to you that he himself is dealing with his own issues that he deals with. Well, let's go on and keep going. Verse 17, it says, so now no longer am I the one doing it, but sin who dwells in me.
Where I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is my flesh for the willing for the willing is present in me, but the doing of good is not. Now, sometimes scripture is hard to understand. That's why I wanted to get this other translation. And it says in that my lofty, because I'm, what verse was I in, honey?
No, I'd already passed 15. 17. It says, and now I realize that it is no longer my true self doing it, but the unwelcome intruder of sin in my humanity. Verse 18 says, for I know that nothing good lives within the flesh of my fallen humanity.
The longings to do what is right or within me, but the willpower is not enough to accomplish it. I want to say something. Go ahead. I want to say this.
My husband has preached oftentimes about the flesh and spirit man. If you are feeding your flesh continuously, you will not do right. You will not do what God has commanded you to do. And so when scripture says, in Proverbs three, verse five and six, it says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding and in all your ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct your path.
If you find yourself and your path is being directed away from God in a way that you're participating in things that are not bringing glory to him, but bringing glory to yourself or to man you have fallen out of for the lack of a better word relationship because you are choosing to not stay in spirit, but you're choosing to allow your flesh. And it's a choice. Scripture also says that we are to crucify our flesh daily, crucify it daily and to renew our mind. So that tells me that when God made a commandment that we were going to have to renew our mind every day, that means our flesh is going to continuously try to trip us up.
So we have to crucify that. We have to crucify our flesh, put ourselves on that cross as Jesus did for us and follow him. What does that mean? That means that you cast down every imagination that is not in this word that does not line up with God and you say, okay, Lord, you promise me that you will direct my path.
You promise me that you will order my footsteps. That's leaning not on your own understanding, but trusting him with everything in you. Everything. That means I trust him with my phone.
I trust him with my bank account. I trust him with my husband. I trust him with my son, my other children. I am trusting him that he's going to help me to help them navigate this life.
And I think Paul was having to learn by the skills being on his eyes of how to follow him, not himself, not what everybody wanted him to do. And you know, he was told to go out and kill all the Christians and do all this. He had to learn in a very quick manner. Okay, this is all a different perspective.
This is all a different idea. I'm being told to do something that is way out of my comfort zone, but he made a choice to crucify that flesh. He had to make a choice. He had that Damascus experience and he had to make a choice to follow Jesus, knowing he was a sinful man with a sinful nature and he had to make a choice.
Saints of God, we have to make a choice daily to follow Christ. When I get up in the morning and I lift my head up before my feet touch the ground, I let say no right then. I choose to serve the Lord this day and I choose to crucify my flesh. I choose to pick up my cross to follow him.
And I think Paul was in that place and that Damascus experience. You said that in your spirit, you felt like that he literally was faced with Jesus. When you've had that kind of experience, you're not going to want to lean to the left or the right. You're going to want to keep your focus because you've had something that has completely transformed your life, completely shocked you and made you shudder, that it is so earthshaking to your spirit that you no longer want to be that old person.
You don't want to be that old creation. And I think that's what Paul experienced here in a nutshell, that he had to learn not to lean on his own understanding. Yeah, but the thing is about what Paul though is this is something that he dealt with because if you go to the book of 2 Corinthians 12 verses 1 through 10, it talks about Paul being that he had, well, I'll just read it. 2 Corinthians 12, 1 through 10 and I'm going to read out of the the Passion translation.
It says, although it may not accomplish a thing, I need to move on and boast about supernatural visions and revelations of the Lord. Someone I acquainted with who is in union with Christ was swept away 14 years ago in an ecstatic experience. He was taken into the third heaven, but I'm not sure if he was in his body or in his or out of his body, only God knows. And I know that the man, again, I'm not sure if he was still in his body or taken out of his body, but God knows what's called up in the ecstatic experience and brought into paradise where he overheard many wonders and that inexpressible secrets that was so sacred that no mortal is permitted to repeat them.
I'm ready to boast of such an experience. He's ready to boast, Paul is saying this, but for my own good, I refuse to boast unless it concerns my weakness. However, if I were to boast, it wouldn't be ridiculous at all for I would be speaking the truth, yet I will refrain less others think higher of me than I demonstrate with my life in teaching. So he's talking about that he could boast, but he doesn't want to boast.
Now, verse 7, it says, the extraordinary level of the revelation I received is no reason for anyone to exalt me. For this, to see a lot of people want to exalt Paul, I mean, there's a lot of churches and I'm not going to name any of them that exalt Paul to a level that he shouldn't be exalted. For this is why I, it says the extraordinary level of the revelation I received is no reason for anyone to exalt me. For this reason, for this is why a thorn is in my flesh was given to me.
The adversary's messenger sent to harass me, keeping me from becoming arrogant. See, Paul, if you talk and think about what was going on in Romans, now you're looking at Second Corinthians, Paul is having to deal with something in his life that is nagging him, is bothering him. And it's a thorn in his flesh, exactly what that was. We don't really know except for that it was spoken that it was an adversary's messenger sent to harass him, exactly what that was we don't know.
But Paul actually had pleaded with God not once, not twice, but three times for this to be removed out of his life. How many, what are you dealing with that you continue to ask God, can you remove this out of my life? Maybe it's someone, maybe it's something, maybe it's whatever it is. Are you sure that that is the time that that is supposed to be removed out of your life?
Because listen, it says, but Jesus answered him and said, my grace is always more than enough for you and my power finds its full expression, expression through your weakness. So Jesus is telling him, look, you know you have this thorn in your side. You are dealing with this all the time. This messenger has come and he's harassing you.
And you're asking me not once, twice, but three times to remove this. But I'm allowing it to stay there because this, if I remove it, what I read this is Jesus, it was simply saying is if I remove this, then the possibility of your walk, you will become arrogant and you will want to boast on yourself. So I leave this here. I leave this thorn in your flesh right here.
So as you know that it has nothing to do with you, it keeps you humble. That's what he says. So I will celebrate my weakness. Paul is saying, since Jesus is not going to remove this out of my life, but Jesus says, my grace is more than enough for you and my power finds its full expression through your weakness.
So when I find myself weak because maybe the enemy harassing me on something, man, I can't get it to remove it. I can't move it. Yes what? God's grace and power and strength can come down upon you and you can push through whatever situation that you're having to deal with.
God, as a Christian, it's never going to be easy. It's not always going to be pretty and running through the tulips in short, you're always going to have stuff that you're going to deal with. But God's grace and mercy and strength will always be enough that maybe he ain't going to move it, but he will give you the strength to endure it. And then it goes on to say, so Paul says, so I will celebrate my weakness.
For when I am weak, I sense more deeply the mighty power of Christ living in me. You know what that's telling me? That's telling me that if I want to get through whatever problem I get through, I'm only going to be able to get through it with the help of Jesus Christ. If I get through it without him, then it's within my own power.
And then I will be more likely to boast and say, I done this when I don't want any of the glory, I won't God to get the glory. So therefore I have to rely on him. So then he goes on to say, so I am not defeated by my weakness, but delighted. For when I feel my weakness and endure mistreatment, when I'm surrounded with troubles on every side and face persecution because of my love for Christ, I am made yet stronger.
For my weakness becomes a portal to God's power. God's power. So at the end of the day, whatever you're dealing with, whatever is that you find yourself struggling with, hey, you're in good company because Paul dealt with the same thing. Paul dealt with it.
I'd say every one of the disciples have dealt with it. All Christians on this earth deal with adversities, deal with stuff that they are battling against. And if the only way that you're going to be able to get through all of that stuff is allow Jesus Christ to come right into your life and strengthen you and put your trust in him, strengthen you and all of a sudden you're going to find things you'll be able to get through them a lot easier if you depend on him versus yourself. Amen.
Amen. Any last words, honey? It's a choice. It's a choice.
It's a choice on whom you choose to serve. You can choose to serve and make it and endure through it or you can not choose and destruction. But I am believing that today you will choose life and life more abundantly because God loves you and he is the best choice. God bless you and we will see you next time.
I appreciate y'all watching our show this evening. If there's anything, anything whatsoever that you have heard that has spoken to your heart and you feel the need to either rededicate your life or turn your life over to Jesus, I encourage you to reach out to us. We would be more than happy to speak with you either on the phone or via email or however you can reach out to us. And it's easy.
We can say a prayer for you. Jesus says to Nicodemus that you must be born again to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. So I encourage you to turn your life over. If you need to rededicate, that is also to turn your life back to.
Repentance is simply turning from the direction that you were going to a new direction. You're no longer the old person that you are. You become a new person through the gift of salvation. So I encourage you to reach out to us at EagleWeemsFaith.org.
You can click on the tab, contact us, and you can put it through the website or you can email us at ewfmchurch at gmail.com. And we look forward to hearing from you. God bless you and we will see you later.