Understanding The Supernatural Power Of Your Spiritual Gifts

James Greer: [00:00:00] Well, let's give it up for them. Amen? Oh, that was cute. I loved it. Hey, everybody should’ve got a devotion when you came in because this is the last message on Assemble and Avengers. And we start next week, we start a new series, Multiply. The first one will be just the very nature of God is to multiplier. And then the next will be how to multiply your joy, then how to multiply your peace, then how to multiply your money. So we start our new series. Now what I want you to know is inside, I didn't write this, but the way to make the very best of this, starting Monday, these are really short devotions and that's done intentionally. You can do it in two or 3 minutes. But some people, you know, they don't read their Bible every day. So this takes two or 3 minutes. But ask yourself these four quick questions, and it can really add to your devotion. Number one, is there a promise to claim? And what I would do is I'd write this in the front. This is what I’d do. I stuck mine in there because then it's almost, whether it's your reading your Bible, sometimes it's not how much you read your Bible. It’s how much you hear from God. So is there a promise to claim? Is there a commandment to obey? Is there an insight to share or learn? Or is there an action to take? Now, see, it doesn't matter whether it's this devotion or whatever you're doing, it'll change the way that you're reading your Bible and the way you're hearing from God.

James Greer: [00:01:28] So is there a promise to claim, a commandment to obey, an insight to share or learn, or an action to take? And just, hey, just read one a day. And then as we're going through Multiply, at the end of the series, you'll have read through the devotion. So in top of that, this is our last message on Assemble and Avengers. So but I want to bring you up to date. The whole series on God helping you find your gift. But one thing we know, that you're important to God and you're important to Journey Church. Everybody has at least one gift or more. You can easily find your gift or gifts because you either have a speaking gift or a servant gift. And you can be around somebody very long and you'll know which one they have. If they have a speaking gift, you don't have to guess it. And if they have a real servant gift, if it's really there, you don't have to. So you have one or the other. But if you found your gift and you're all stressed out, you can't use it anyway. Or if you find your gift and you use it the wrong way, still trouble because we're going to be talking about Samson today.

James Greer: [00:02:33] And Samson had a great gift from God. Sometimes you use it the right way, but sometimes Samson used it the wrong way. So what I want you to know is if you're all stressed out all the time, you can't use it at all. And so we're going to talk about a couple of ways to handle stress. And we've been doing that for two weeks. And we're going to use it almost every week for a while till we get it. One of the reasons we do that, because I'm a slow learner. It takes me doing the same thing about five, six, eight weeks before I can get it. And it's about genuine concerns and fearful concern. Genuine concerns are we really have problems. I got personal problems. I got financial problem. I got family problems. I've got problems. You got problems. We all have problems. Amen? It's how you deal with the problem. Say, God, I've got a problem and I need help. But God, what are you going to do with the problem? God, how are you going to handle the problem? Now, but then we have fearful concerns. We express our dependance on self instead of God. We start saying, Hey, God, what am I going to do? We refuse to let it go and instead we piled it on our shoulders, pile it higher and higher and higher. The situation gets out of hand and out of our control.

James Greer: [00:03:44] Then it starts stress and anxiety and worry. It's so much pressure. And we say, God, what am I going to do? How am I going to do it? How am I going to do it? Yeah. I don't know how you’re going to do it. That's fearful concerns. Fearful concerns, you know, instead of genuine concerns is God, what are you going to do? So you've got to have a consistent fellowship with God. This is real easy. Everybody has at least 3 minutes in the morning. Amen? Now, some of you, I hope you read 2 hours. I mean, I don't know. I hope you pray 3 hours. But at least you have 2 minutes. That's an easy way to start. Everyone at least do that. Because you have to have a consistent fellowship with God before you can have the John 10:10. Jesus said I came that you could have life and have it more abundantly. Because everything in your life rises and falls on your personal fellowship with Christ. Everything. Your peace, your love, your joy, your family, your relationship. Everything rises and falls on that. Now, today, though, we're going to be talking about Samson. And I think it's interesting when I was studying Samson, but I also found out that Samson's in the Hall of Fame. He's actually in the Hall of Fame with Gideon and David. And it's really weird because people like David and Paul and Moses, God used them in a great way.

James Greer: [00:04:52] Amen? They were all murderers. I mean, God, the more you said He didn't use anything but mess ups. And that's why I know God can use you at Journey Church. Look, we got a lot of mess ups at Journey Church. I mean, if you're not a mess up, you're probably not going to fit in here because you've all messed up. I messed up. You messed up. We've all messed up. So but we're going to talk about Samson today. And when we hear the word Samson, we don't really think of him as an avenger. But the truth is God had called him out to use him in a great and mighty way to avenge the enemy and begin to help Israel be delivered from the Philistines. And it talks about Judges 13:5, it says, For behold, you shall conceive and bear sun. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb. From where? Isn't it something that God called Samson from the womb? Now, that's interesting because there's a lot of talk today about abortion and not abortion. Should have abortion, not have abortion. I can tell you, God called Samson before he was physically born. John the Baptist was in Elizabeth's womb, and Mary walked in and talked and he heard them and he leaped while he was in the womb.

James Greer: [00:06:27] So there's a lot of things that are socially correct that aren't biblical truth. So there's life in the womb. And so Samson was one of those that was called by God in the womb. And He said he shall begin to deliver. Begin to deliver. That's just calling. Israel out of the hands of the Philistines. God said, listen, I'm going to give him some supernatural power, some supernatural energy to be used to start delivering the children of Israel. The children of Israel are in bondage. They're in bondage to the Philistines because of sin, and they started worshiping the wrong thing. And now they turn it back to God. God said, I'm going to start sending him to deliver them. So the woman bore a son, called him Samson, and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him. Who blessed him? Where do our real blessings come from? See, if you're not careful, you'll forget the Lord gives you blessings. The more you understand the Lord gives you your blessings, the more blessed you will be. The more that God will give you the freedom instead of worry and stress. You can go down the road and you start saying, Hey, God, thank you for the blessings. Thank you for my family. Thank you for my health. Thank you for my kids sometimes. Thank you for my wife most of the time. Thank you for my house. Thank you for my home. Thank you for the birds.

James Greer: [00:07:47] I mean, there's so many things you can thank God for. And the Spirit of the Lord began to move upon him. Now the Spirit of the Lord began to move upon Him. See, when you get born again, when you get saved, you get the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit begins to move on you. And that's what God wants you to understand. He wants to move on you. And that's what He tells us in 1 Corinthians 12:1. In the amplified version, he said, Now about your spiritual gifts. He says, Now, when you're using your spiritual gifts, I want you to know there's a special endowment of supernatural energy. He said, I want you to know that God moves upon you powerful. Every time you read in Samuel that God moved upon him, think of 1 Corinthians 12:1 that the Bible says about spiritual gifts. The special endowment of supernatural energy, brothers. I don't want you to be misinformed. I don't want you to be ignorant because it tells you in 1 Corinthians 10:11 about that. It says, what was happening in the New Testament, these things have happened in the Old Testament to those people for examples. Samson was an example for us to learn from, not to do what he did. You're going to find this lesson, one time, Samson, he fought 30 men and killed them. You're going to find another time, Samson took a jawbone and killed a thousand men.

James Greer: [00:09:20] Those are the examples. He said, examples that that were written down to us to teach us, because we live in a time when all these things of the past have reached their goal. They've come about. In other words, what he's saying, Samson was a physical example of power that God wants to give us spiritual power. That was a physical example of spiritual application. That's what he's trying to tell you. Later on, it's also a physical example that he was using Samson to start delivering the Israelites. It's a spiritual example how God can use the power of the Holy Spirit to give you victory in any area of your life. That's good. But it's also an example of how if you misuse it, the problems come on your life. So first of all, I want to give you some examples of the power of God coming upon your life. Number one. Number one, he killed a lion with his bare hands in the spirit of the Lord. In other words, well, 1 Corinthians 12:1 says, the supernatural energy or power comes upon you. And the spirit of the Lord came mildly upon Him. God can give you power to do things that you don't know. I mean, it's neat. When we stuffed those 150 backpacks, it was some of the people that packed those, God gave them supernatural energy to be able to do that.

James Greer: [00:10:54] One of them came up to me the other day and said, you know, without the supernatural energy of God, I wouldn't even do that. There's impossible. So I got the experience. No, they didn't pick up 150 backpacks and they didn't pick the bus up, but they gave them the energy to do what they normally couldn't do. And they knew it came from God. Amen? So the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, mightily upon him, and he took a lion apart as he would have torn apart a young goat. Well, I can't even tear apart a young goat. But this is it. Men, don't try this. It was a type. It was an example. I would not go down to the zoo and said, Hey, I'm filled with the Holy Spirit. Let me in there with that lion. That's called being ignorant and you will die. Daniel went in the lion's den and slept. I would not do that. All those were types, they were pictures of how the power of God upon your life. The Bible said in 1 Peter 5, it says, The devil walks about like a roaring lion. He's not a roaring lion. He walks about like a roaring lion, seeking who he can devour, does he not? Sure. And so that line, Samson took his hands and he tore it apart. He walks about like a roaring lion. But when you're born again, you've got the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit, and you got the Lion of Judah on your side that can always whip the one that's like the roaring lion.

James Greer: [00:12:16] Amen? So that's who you've got. So what he's trying to tell you is that's a picture and a type of the power of the Holy Spirit that you have against the enemy. Oh, that's good, Brother James. I'll just amen. 1 John 4:4 says, Greater is He that’s in me than he who's in the world. Let me give you another example, another example. In Judges 14:19 and it says, And the spirit of God. Now, I told you, go back to Corinthians. Supernatural power of God. Came upon him mightily, and he went down to Ashkelon and he killed 30 of their men. He took their apparel and gave it away. I mean, that ain’t bad. Any of y’all ever try to fight 30 minutes at one time? I couldn't even whip 30 women, much less 30 men. Matter of fact, I might rather fight the men. But anyway. What I'm trying to tell you is this. That is a physical application of the spiritual power you've got. You know what he's telling you? Why are you worried about what other people do and say? Some of you are saying, well, I can't believe so-and-so said something about me. He killed 30 men. And you're worried about one person saying something or doing something? I tell you, when you're right with God, you don't have to worry about what somebody else.

James Greer: [00:13:38] Romans 8:31 said, If God be for you, who can be against you? In other words, who can win? It doesn't matter if you got 10 people, 30 people. I have people talk about me all the time. Sometimes it's true. God's going to take care of you. Quit worrying about what other people do and worry about what God says for you. If you’d worry about as much of what God has for you and what He has to say for you instead of other people, you don't have time to worry about that. Okay? Then you know he does? He goes from there. He catches 300 foxes. Man, he had to be rocking and rolling to catch 300 foxes. You hear me? Listen. Judges 15:4. Look at that. And Samson went and he caught 300 foxes. That's tough. He’s not only big, he’s not only bad, that dude’s fast. And then he took a torch. He turned the foxes tail to tail, and he put a torch between each pair of their tails. Why did he do that? Because what had God called him to do? To begin to deliver the children of Israel from the Philistines. Actually, when he killed 30 of them, when he's doing right now, he's still doing what God called him do.

James Greer: [00:14:48] And he set the torch is on fire and he let the foxes go into standing of the grain and of the Philistines. Uh-oh. He burned up both their shocks, their standing grain, as well as their vineyards and their olive gardens. So he's still doing what God called him to do. This is a mean motor scooter. He's delivering. He's destroying their food. He's destroying their men. I mean, it wasn't long. I'm not going to read them all. It wasn't long. But if you kept reading, then he gets a jawbone of a donkey and he kills a thousand men. He's killed 30. He's destroyed their food. He kills 1,000 men. He's pretty tough. Amen? And so he's doing what God told him to do. He was fighting. He got thirsty. And he said, God, I'm so thirsty, but I want to keep going. He spoke to a rock. God gave him water. But that's the type of the supernatural power of God that you can also begin to lose the power of God. In Judges 14:1, now, Samson went down to Timnah and saw a woman. What did he see? He saw a woman in Timnah and a daughter of the Philistine. God called him to deliver the Philistines, not go with the daughters of the Philistines. So he went down and he told his dad, his father and his mother saying, I've seen, he’s sure show looking a lot.

James Greer: [00:16:12] I've seen this woman in Timnah and the daughter of the Philistines. Now, therefore, get her from me. Get her from me for a wife. He don't even know her. I mean, she's so good looking. Mom, Dad, just go get her for me. I don't care about the rest of it. But she's not for you. I don't care. I don't care. I don't think he's thinking right. He said, Just go get her. Then the father and the mother said to him, Is there no woman among the daughters of the brethren, in other words, of the Israelites, among all of our people, that you must go and get your wife from this uncircumcised Philistine. He said, Man, we got all these women. You want that one? Samson said, Go get her for me. She pleases me well. I don't know. I don't know what he was thinking, but he was not thinking well. I can tell you that. I can tell you what he's thinking, but I won't. Got him in trouble. But anyway, Samson thought, really, in essence, the same thing gets everybody in trouble. He thought he was smarter than God. God had already told him not to do this. His mother and daddy told him not to do this, and he did it anyway. Really what happens is when we sin, what happens most of the time, we start thinking we're smarter than God. See, God told him not to do this and he said, I'm going to do it anyway.

James Greer: [00:17:25] He had been set apart to be used by God. See, when you get saved, that's what God said. I saved you and set you apart and I empowered you to be used by me. Samson wanted a non-Christian where he could do non-Christian things in non-Christian ways. But God told him, Hey, don't fool yourself. Bad friends will destroy you. And later on he gets destroyed. See, he chose, you ready? He chose lust over love. Big difference. He chose lust over love. Lust overcame his love for God. Lust overcame his love for his parents. Lust overcame his love for his future mate. See, Samson was infatuated with her and flattered by his own ego. See, infatuation is impatient. Infatuation won't sit right now. Infatuation itself. Infatuation is Hey, we go out on our first date and I want you know. Infatuation can't wait. Love was what's best for the other person. Infatuation wants what's best for me and I want it right now. See, one of the reasons he began to get powerless, though, he not only tried to mix the wrong things together, he begins to mix her gods with his God. See, there's no power greater than our God. But when we start mixing the two gods, we begin to lose our power. God already told us in Exodus not to do that.

James Greer: [00:18:53] He said you should not bow down. Not the women either. You should not bow down to the wrong women, the wrong god, nor serve them. Why? The Lord our God, He said, I'm a jealous God and I'll visit the iniquity of fathers upon the children of the third and fourth generations. But He wants us to know that He is a jealous God. But if we're living right, He tells us also, He says, Listen, God is a jealous ruler over those He loves. He said, Don't worry about it. I'll take vengeance on those who try to hurt them. I'll fiercely destroy your enemy. God says, Listen, I'm a jealous God, and when you're doing what's right, I'll protect you. When you're doing what's right, I'll punish them. Don't be serving the wrong gods. You tell them. Can you be saved? Can you be saved and serving two gods or trying to serve two gods? Yes. Can you be saved, wait a minute. You're going to see. You had Samson. God created to be a hero for the children of Israel. Instead, he's sleeping with a harlot. You can't sleep with a harlot and be God's hero. You can't sleep with a harlot and do heavenly things. You can be saved and sleep with a harlot. You can be saved and even given to ungodly things. You can be saved and doing ungodly things. But then you just live like ungodly people.

James Greer: [00:20:21] You can do that. But what you have, the same thing later on that happens to Samson, you lose your power, you lose your peace, you lose your joy. You lose your happiness. You can do it, but you're just like everybody else. See, the problem with Christians today, if you're not careful, Christians and non-Christians, you can't tell any difference. They're just as worried, they're just as frustrated, they're just as stressed out as non-Christians Well, God didn't create you to live like that. He tells us also not to be unevenly yoked. He said, do not be unevenly yoked together with nonbelievers. What fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness and commune with dark. Not only this is what young people say. Well, I know he saved or she saved, but they're not practicing. The really thing is you're not to be as couples. You don't run around with non-practicing Christians and single people. You don't run around with non-practicing Christians. Not just that they're Christians. Samson was the type of a Christian. He's running around with all the women and all the harlots and doing everything he shouldn't do. So you don't want him. You don't want to go get advice. Hey, Samson, I'm having marriage problems. Can you give me some advice? Oh, yeah. I'll tell you. I see her. She's hot. That's who I want. I mean, you don't want to ask him for advice. Amen? Point number one, when you're having problems, don't go to other people who have the same problem.

James Greer: [00:21:36] I'm having marriage problems. Don't go to Samson. Amen? Amen? Well, stop doing it then. I got people doing it all the time. Going to people who have the same problem. Think they’re going to get it fixed. No. They're going to have the same problem they have. Then Samson starts telling the women the wrong things he shouldn't have been telling them. It's just between him and God. He told her things. There was a covenant just between him and God. He was doing the wrong things with the wrong people. That's when he was saying the wrong thing. When you're doing the wrong things with the wrong people, you'll start saying the wrong things. It’ll just happen. It doesn't matter who you are. You drink too much. You smoke too much. You do too much dope. You'll do the wrong thing. Say the wrong things. Don't act like you're all that dadgum innocent because I know y'all. I call names. If you drink too much, if you smoke the wrong funny cigarettes too much, if you do too much dope. I'm not saying you should do any of it. I'm saying if you do too much of it, you will do and say the wrong things. Okay. That's what Sansom was doing. He was doing the wrong things and he starts saying the wrong things. You know why? You know why I know? Because now Samson, he went to Gaza and he saw he had a problem with his eyes, didn't he? Now he saw a harlot there, and he went to her.

James Greer: [00:23:06] She's pretty, too on the outside. But She is sorry, sorry on the inside. See, he kept getting in trouble because his eyes. Right? His eyes, his eyes, his eyes, his eyes. I see this. Mom, Dad, go get her for me. I see harlot. Now I'm going to be with her. And then you know what happens pretty soon? The Philistines take him captive and they gorge his eyes out. Then he said to him, How can you say, this is her. He finally got her. Anyway. They were together about this for a while. And all she wanted. She had taken some money to find out what his strength was and tell the enemy. So she's with him. And she started saying, Samson, how can you say you love me? They don't know what love is, I'm telling you. But anyway, how can you say when your heart is not with me? Where was his heart supposed to be? With God. Where's your heart supposed to be? With God. Anytime somebody asks you to do something contrary to what God asks you to do, God's first. It doesn't matter if you're married, don't matter if it's work or whatever. When they start asking you to do something contrary to God, your heart is always with God.

James Greer: [00:24:24] He said, You've mocked me these three times. In other words, and you've not told me where you get your great strength. Now, Samson, common sense you're lacking. What she's saying is, Samson, tell me where your strength is. And three times he told her a lie, and then she would call the enemy to come and get him, and he would stand up and he would break it and he'd kill the enemy. Now, after two or three times, I'd say, I don't really think she's on my side. Because the way she looked and what he was doing, he let it blind him to the truth. So it came to pass when she kept pestering him, pestering him daily with her words and pressing him, his soul was vexed to death. In other words, he got tired of her talking. So what he should have done is got tired of her. But he didn't. So instead, when she lured him to sleep in her knees and she called him in and had him shaved, the seven locks of his head. And then she began to torment him and his strength left him. In other words, all this time, all she was wanting to do is get the money they promised her. And she said, the Philistines are upon you, Samson. They've done this three or four times, only he awake from his sleep. He said, I'll go out as I have before, as other times, and shake myself free. Model the stories. Don't let women tie you up. No, I’m just kidding.

[00:26:00] I don't know where that came from. Let's get back to the story. But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him. And that's the sad part. He didn't even know God had departed from him. Isn’t something that he had all this power and all this presence of God, and that when the Lord left him, that he didn't know that God's power had gotten away from him? And so what happened after that? Philistines took him. What did they do to him? They put his eyes, they gorged his eyes out. What had gotten him in trouble? His eyes. And they brought him down to Gaza. And they brought him in bronze. And they put him in prisons and put him there. Isn’t it something that you can come to church and not even know the power of God's gone from you? Isn’t it something that you can be buried and not know the power of God's gone from you? You do know how you can know if you still have the power of God working in your life, right? You can know if you've got the power of God today because the Bible says in Galatians 5:22, The fruit of the spirit of the power of God is love and joy and peace. One translation says, the power of God makes you have love and joy and happiness. Love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, faith, temperance against there's no law.

James Greer: [00:27:24] In other words, God says, when the power of God's in your life, you have to have love. You have to have joy. You have to have happiness. You have to have patience. So in other words, you have to have it. See, the love and joy and peace is not circumstantial. You ready? It's relational. That's what I'm telling you, you have to have a consistent fellowship with Christ, that everything rises and falls on your fellowship with Christ. See what happened to the Samuel, what happened, the only reason they destroyed him is because he broke his relationship and fellowship with Christ. There's no area in your life that you cannot overcome sin except the ones that we don't. I still have places I struggle with sin. You do too. But those places are because we have not given those areas over to God. We said, God, we hadn't surrendered that area to our life. We're still sinning in that area. Because when we give it to God, greater is He that’s in me than who’s in the world. I always triumph through Christ Jesus. So when we have those areas, those are areas we never surrendered. So He wants us to. Free insight. You better be careful what you look at, what you read, and what you listen to. He was looking at the wrong things. Wasn’t he? And he was listening to the wrong people. The Bible says in Matthew, the lamp of the body is the eye.

James Greer: [00:28:44] Therefore, your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. If your eyes are bad, the whole body would be full of darkness. Therefore, if light that is in you is darkened, how great is the darkness? Then it goes on to say, this is how you know, because you can't serve two masters. You’ll either love one and hate the other, or else you'll be loyal to one and you'll despise the other. You can't serve God and men. God says, You better listen to me. You better be careful what you look at. You better be careful what you read. But most of all, you better be careful who you're listening to. JD is a good example. JD can't see physically. Right, JD? JD is blind. But he still can read. He's got sensitive hearing. And he's a counselor to listen to. So in other words, if you're having problems, you're having a marriage problem, you wouldn't go to somebody else having marriage problems. You go see somebody like JD, right? So what he's saying is that I think some of the biggest places people get in trouble is if you're having a problem in an area, go to somebody that can help you overcome that area. It doesn't have to just be marriage. It can be financial, it can be emotional, whatever it is. But you go to somebody else.

James Greer: [00:30:02] That’s why I’m telling you be very careful what you read, what you listen to, and who you listen to. I like to listen to the news. If I listen to the news too long, I start getting discouraged. I think the whole world is falling apart. I have to change it. I have to start listening to Christian music for a while, and then I flip it over and listen to the preaching for a while. I listen to the news a while. I listen to the preaching a while. It's not long, emotionally, I feel better because I'm listening to the right things. So you do the same thing. That's what He's trying to tell us. So for time's sake, I’m going to tell you what happens after this. He had shaved his head. And so they took him into bondage. And the Philistines were gathered together, and they sacrificed the Dagone. That was their God. They had this huge feast. Man, it was like being in an arena with thousands and thousands of people and they were saying, man, our god, Dagone, he's giving us Samson. And our gods delivered us now from him, and they had him in prison. They said, in fact, let's march him out here and make fun of him. And they were eating and they were celebrating. And there's thousands of them in the arena and they were all watching.

James Greer: [00:31:08] And they brought him out. But they forgot something. His hair started growing back out. They didn't shave his head. Samson got out and he told the one with the chains. He said, Listen, can I feel the pillars where I can stand ready? But one on one side and one on the other. Do y’all know who held His hands out and died for us? Jesus Christ. He had his hands out and he begged God. He said, God, I want to return to you. He said, God, would you give me strength one more time? Can I avenge those that gorged my eyes out? In other words, can I do what you call me to do, God? God called him to help deliver the children Israel from them. All the leaders. All the people in there celebrating. And they're celebrating their god and he's going to show them. And he grabs the pillars and he pulls them together and he kills more people at that time than he had all killed in his whole life, including himself. It's never too late to come back to God. Never too late to be used by God. And he did exactly what God had called him to do. But he did at the end of his life, not the beginning of his life. So what I want you to know, when you get saved, God gives you supernatural power to be used to further God's kingdom and defeat the enemy.

James Greer: [00:32:32] So, first of all, if you're not sure that you're born again, if you're not sure you have Jesus Christ as your Savior, today's the day. You said, Hey, I know I've sinned. I believe Jesus died for my sins. I want Him to come into my heart and be the Lord of my life. Then those that are saved here, are you just living like the rest of the world? Are you going around stressed, worried about what's going to happen in the world? You worry about the world collapsing. You worry about taking over. I mean, I serve the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He’s in control. Nobody else. And you got to have that consistent fellowship with Christ where you can have the consistent love and joy and peace and patience that only comes from God. And you know if you've gotten out of that. You know, downstairs, upstairs, online, you know, if all of a sudden, you're totally stressed out and you're totally worried about the world. In Matthew 6:33, it says, Seek ye first, the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. He said, I'll take care of every other need in your life. Some of you, when I give the invitation in a minute need to come and just say, God, I've got my priorities mixed up. I've been living in stress and worry and I've been trying to take care of it all myself. And God, I want you to take care of it.

James Greer: [00:33:41] I can't do it. And you just surrender. Say, God, I can't do it. How are you going to do it? I don't know. But you got to take it. You told me to cast all my cares on you, and I'm carrying them to you. And God has a picture and a type. I'm going to leave them right there on the altar. I'm not taking them back with me because that's what He said. That's what He wanted you to do. Some of you have been looking, reading, and listening to the wrong things, running around with the wrong people. You might be couples, you might be singles. I don't know. It's time to change. They just ain't been a good influence on you. And it's hard. I can remember. We've had to make that decision several times and it's tough. You love them. They love you. But they're not going in the same directions and that makes them hard choices. Say, God, you know, I pray that they would either follow me or I have to break it off. I can remember the times that me and Debbie had to do that. Sometimes it's family, sometimes the people we love the most. But we hope that they come our way. We just did it in love, but just have to do it. And some of y’all know that you need to do the same thing.

James Greer: [00:34:49] Some of you, doesn't matter what you did, no matter what you did and how you did it. God's telling you, it's never too late. It's never too late to come back to God, whether you're coming to Him for the first time or you coming back to Him because you hadn't been there. It's never too late to be used by God. Never too late to be forgiven by God. And today's the day to do that. Would you stand and let me pray with you and pray for you? God, you're such an awesome God, you're such a powerful God, and you're such a practical God. So I love your Word. God. I pray today, first of all, that those that may not have that spirit, Holy Spirit, living in them because it only comes through Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, the life. No man can come the Father but by me. If you're not sure that you’re saved, that you're born again, that you have Jesus as your Savior, the Holy Spirit living in you, the first thing when I say amen, if you just step out and come here at the altar. There'll be people that'll meet you. If you are sure that you're saved and you've been born again, your next step is follow through in public baptism. Death, the burial, resurrection. I'm talking about you go down and come up.

James Greer: [00:35:51] If you hadn't done that since you're saved, that's the next step. After you do that, if you're born again, you've been baptized, but that you're living in fear and worry and stress and anxiety, you need to say, Hey, God, I need your power. You said in Galatians that you make me have love and joy and peace. Not me. Nothing I can do. You make me have it. You give me patience. You give me joy. You give me happiness. You give me peace. That comes from you. That's the only place you can have it. It's relational. It's not circumstantial. And, God, I need that today. And you just say, I can't handle it, God. I cannot do it. But God, you can. And I'm just going to give it to you. Some of you are visiting and visiting. And today's the day. You just want to physically join the church and be part of the family. Every one of you have a next step card in your bulletin. Maybe you want to write it there. But, man, if I had the burdens and the worries and the stress, I had an act of obedience, I would leave it on the altar as a way of giving it to God and I wouldn't take it home with me. God, I pray that you could have your will and your way in each individual's life. I pray it in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.


Recorded in Pineville, Louisiana.