Dave shared…
I want to start with a testimony. Over the last couple years, I’ve had some real struggles physically. I know it doesn’t look like I have challenges. I look fantastic. Ha, ha… But there has been ups and downs. One of the things I want to point out in this testimony is this. We need the body of Christ. We need one another. No matter who you are, you need people. Jesus is the head of the body and there are many parts and joints that supply. Arms, legs, fingers, feet, shoulders… all kinds of parts to the body and every part is necessary. Whatever you are that God has called you to be, you’re needed. Because you are the eye and not the hand, you’re not more important than the hand. You’re just important because we need the eye, right? Without hands, the eye is very limited, right? But the eye is very important. I said that before I give you this testimony because I personally have spent a lot of time in the Word, in prayer. I’ve gone to Bible college, more than one college. I’ve got a lot of paper on the wall. Done a lot of study and continue to do so. But like Paul said, none of that even matters. Because when you get into a situation where you need help, it doesn’t matter what is on the wall. Your problem doesn’t ask what your credentials are.
I’m saying this as an encouraging word because this is something that the Lord has been getting to me in the last several months. He’s getting me to understand that “What you possess, mister, is not more important than who I am. And your understanding of who I am.” Your bank account, your accolades, whatever you do… You can work your whole life doing everything right and that still wouldn’t be enough. It’s very important to the Lord, for us, as people of prayer to understand that. If you’re a person of prayer, you’re going to hit a limit, a ceiling, and then you’re not going to go any further. You’re going to be effective but not effectual. You’ll be able to pray. God will do things but there is a point in your life that you can grow spiritually and you’ll hit a wall. You know what to do. You know how to pick up the Bible and meditate. You know how to pray. You’ve got all things down that you’ve learned. And you know how to do all those things. But the hardest thing in life to do is when you know everything and you hit a wall. What does that indicate? That you don’t know everything. That’s eye opening. All the different people who are great people of faith, we respect dearly. They’re all going to tell you the same thing. We need to recognize within ourselves, we can do nothing without Him. In our minds, we say, ‘Yeah, I get that. And I believe that.” I believe that in my head. I’m just going to share this because what I’ve had to do in order to get past the challenges that I’ve had, is I had to get beyond that point.
Let me give you an example. A couple years ago, I had a head injury. I was in a bad car accident. I had a bad concussion. When you have a head problem, things don’t work. Your rational thinking doesn’t work. I was sitting at a table and I as adding three single digit numbers up. Three. And it literally took me ten minutes to do it. Try sitting there and reasoning that out that number and coming up with numbers. I’ve giving my wife numbers and she’s saying, “No, that’s not right.” I can’t get there. So what do you do with that? There is something broken.
So if you have the ability within your own mind or the way you think about things… If I get into a situation, I pick up the Word and read it. But what if your mind doesn’t rationalize the Word? What if your mind is broken to the point where you hear the words but they’re not actually getting in there and you’re not comprehending what you’re reading. What do you do in a situation like that? You’re limited. If you’re a person of faith, you have the Word at your disposal so you can use it to help you in your faith and overcome. But if you don’t have that ability, how do you overcome? You have a limitation. That’s just one example. There are other people with limitations too. Every one of you have this limitation. When you read the Word sometimes, and you’re working and you have a challenge in your life and you’re reading the Word to get your mind renewed on the truth of His plan or whatever. Do you know that you can read the Word and it not have any effect on you? People do it all the time. We have theologians out there who are not even saved. They can’t see how salvation comes through Jesus. Anybody understands if you’ve read Romans. The basic salvation message. It’s so basic. It’s 101 Bible, right? John 3:16, for God so love the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believeth on Him shall be saved. It’s that basic. But you have people with degrees and paper on the wall who can’t even figure that out. So they’re limited, right? So what is their limitation? They don’t have revelation.
That same Word that heals us, that delivers us and sets us free has power in it. But it only has power to the extent that it’s impregnated with the anointing of God. Otherwise it’s just words. Literally. Do you know words are just sounds? In every language, words sound differently. So you could say the word Jesus in five different language and it may sound a lot different in each language. So they’re just sounds. But what makes God’s Word powerful is the anointing on that Word by the Holy Spirit. And that is why we need the Holy Spirit. That’s why God said I must go unto the Father that I might send you a comforter. The one who teaches you, leads you, speaks to you. Any of life’s problems, Jesus, through the Holy Spirit is the answer. And He will speak to you a word in season for today, for you, right now. He’ll speak something to you that you can get. And that will set your faith on fire. Calm the storm and allow you to pass through. It’s that holy anointed Word by the Holy Spirit. It’s not the Bible itself. You can’t separate the two. The Bible talks about how He is the Word, that He’s the Living Word. But you cannot separate the Holy Spirit from Jesus, can you? And you can’t separate the Holy Spirit from the Godhead, the Trinity. They’re one, right? Where you see one, the other one is. So is true with the Word and so is true with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God, when He speaks to you and speaks to you in your hour of need, whatever it is… and this is relative to prayer, because you don’t want to be praying unless you’ve got the Holy Spirit speaking to you. Because you waste more time and go backwards in prayer. You literally can pray and go backwards. I’ll explain that to you.
There are people that pray and they’re like, “Oh LORD! AHHH AHHH…” That’s the way they are. As if God doesn’t know and understand the situation. That’s not an effectual prayer. The Holy Spirit is moved with compassion by our infirmities or limitations. So He gets it. But it’s like a little kid. When we have kids and they’re like, “OOooo.” You say, “Calm down.” Maybe they dropped their ice cream or lollipop and their whole world falls apart. He doesn’t know you have a purse full of them. Give them another one and BOOM, everything is alright. Got that? That’s the way God is toward us. So literally we can pray in a way that is ineffectual and can cause us to go backward.
I don’t want to discourage people when it comes to prayer because it’s a good thing and the Word is a good thing. But it’s important to understand that we can constantly have to find this place of grace, place of peace and prayer. We look for that. We should be searchers for the Holy Spirit in our time of prayer. When we get in prayer, we should search to find our way. We come into prayer and have to shake the day off. It takes me a few minutes to just shake that off. You know what I’m saying? Then I just get that joy inside of me and the Holy Spirit is there with me. Boom. That is where I need to be. Not, “Oh Lord, this, this, that, and the other.” I can’t live in that place.
Here’s my testimony now. The other day, due to the accident that I had, I had some issues with concentration and some of the challenges that I was having mentally. It was really rough. And I said, “Lord, how can I work with You if I can’t even concentrate at a level that can get me… there is something wrong here.” So I was frustrated. But your spirit is different. The other day I was walking around and the Lord said to me, “When the storms of life come, don’t focus on the storm. The rain is going to come down, but just learn to dance in the rain.” Remember the singing and dancing in the rain movie? Don’t let the circumstances of life affect you. Learn how to dance. Don’t sit down and fall back into your place. Learn how to dance. When He said that to me, I didn’t know what He was talking about. I said, “Okay, I got it. I hear You.”
Two days later, I get a phone call from somebody. In that time of prayer, I was asking the Lord for some direction on some things and whatever. This friend called me two days later and said, “Dave, I’ve been thinking about you and the Lord wanted me to call you.” He started quoting me scriptures that were good. It was good to hear the Word. After about ten minutes of just talking, he said, “I got something the other day. I don’t know if this is going to help you. And I don’t know how this even matters. But the other day I was out shopping and I found this sign and it says, ‘the storms of life may come, but don’t focus on the storm. But we need to learn how to dance in the storm.’ Two days earlier the Holy Spirit told me that in prayer! Two days later, somebody calls me up and says, “The Lord called me to tell you…” He said “I don’t even know how this fits because it doesn’t make sense to me.” But then he says that to me. I just started laughing. He said, “What are you laughing about?” I said, “Just two days ago, I was in prayer and the Lord said this to me.” And he wanted me to get this. “I’m here for you! And there is nothing you ever can worry about because I’m so close to you. Any harm, challenge that you face, I’m right here.” He said, “If you keep doing what I’m telling you to do, you’re going to see yourself through.”
I just said that because… I told you about the ceiling you can hit in prayer where you’re quoting the scripture and doing all the different things but they have no effect. I like effect. I like whatever it is that I’m believing for to come to pass. I want to be able to pray and see the results. What’s the point of prayer if we’re not going to see results? I would tell people to stop praying if they don’t see results. If you’re not praying right, then learn to pray right. The Holy Spirit leads us. That’s His job. The Holy Spirit teaches us how to do it in such a way where we’re getting effective prayer. We don’t have to worry. All you have to do is find that place I told you about a moment ago. You find that place where the Holy Spirit is and let Him do the work. You ride along. He’s basically in the driver’s seat. You’re in the back seat. He’s taking you to your destination. That’s the way we do prayer.
So the day He told me that and then two days later, I just started laughing because the Lord needed to say that to me. I needed to hear that. But I got results. That call was like money in the bank for me. That was the confidence that I needed, that the challenges I was facing at the time are going to be fine. Everything is going to be okay. Healing is important. It’s more important for you to hear a word of the Lord for you than you to read the Bible. I’m going to say that. Because when you hear the word of the Lord in prayer and communion, it will be the Bible. He’ll be using the Word to minister to you. He may not put it in a “thee, thou” and whatever. He’ll put it in a way that you can understand. But I guarantee that if He’s talking to you by the Holy Spirit, it’s going to be relative to His Word.
It’s more important to hear that because that is infused with power. That thing will run chills down your back and you will know that you know that you know that you know God spoke to you. And that’s the biggest challenge that faces the believer nowadays is knowing they know that they know that God spoke to them. Cuz I know everybody here that if God appeared to you and spoke to you and you knew it was Him, there is no doubt that your faith would get strong. Correct? I know that. So it’s just a matter of being able to… “Well, Lord, is that just me or …” No. There shouldn’t be that. It should be the Holy Spirit speaking to you and you get a word hot from heaven. And that word will take you over to the other side. And that’s a different way to receive the word, then just pushing yourself in the word because here’s what it does. The Holy Spirit will give you that word and then what your responsibility is, is to take that word and go into the Word and start digging out the scriptures concerning what He’s telling you. Then all of a sudden, it starts coming alive. That word is now relevant to you.
How many have read through the Old Testament in Leviticus and it’s like, “Do we really need to know who begot who?” If you want to fall asleep, that’s a good place to start. Well, that’s the way it is sometimes. I just wanted to give you that testimony because I wanted to let you know that… I started out saying that we need people. And God used that brother to help me. I help people all the time. But I still need help. Everybody needs help. And it’s okay to say, “Look, I need prayer.” That’s okay to do that. Because if you remember when Naman came to Elisha that his servant girl told Naman to go to Elisha. There is this prophet named Elisha. If you want to be healed of leprosy, you go to this guy. So he went there… you know the story. The point is that when Naman got to his destination, Elisha didn’t even come out to visit with him. Not only did he not come out, when he told him what to do, he didn’t like what he told him to do. So he kind of “dissed” him. And he was upset about it. But I truly believe in that example that God did that for a reason. God gave him something different than what he was used to. It was something he expected to be a certain way and God changed it. He didn’t want Naman looking to Elisha. He wanted Naman looking to God. Elisha is just a messenger.
We need to recognize that like in my situation, do I have the qualifications to get what I need out of the Bible? Yeah, I do. Why wasn’t I getting it? It doesn’t matter how you get it. The importance is that you get it. If getting whatever it is that you have need of requires you to get it in a way that you may not be accustomed to, it’s okay. The way I’m going to deliver you today, if you’re going to have to get up and dance in the aisle. Then I will deliver you from your affliction. Can God deliver you from your affliction in your chair? Yes, He can. You don’t even need to be here for Him to deliver you. So if He can do that, then why doesn’t He do that? Why would he require you to do something different that may be out of your comfort zone?
I’ll tell you why. He wants you to understand there is a dependency that needs to be in place of Him. If we took the mud in the eye thing, if all of Jesus’ miracles were done with mud, we’d have stores that sold mud. We’d have doctrines around it and mud services. Right? Instead of a baptismal service, we’d have mud services. God doesn’t do it that way. And, frankly, whatever way He wants to do it, I’m okay with that. It keeps us humble. It keeps us in check where we don’t feel like we have everything.
The worst thing you could have in life is feel like you got it all figured out. That’s the worst place you can ever be. That’s why when things are going well, you’ve got money in the bank and everything is great. That’s the time to be thankful for the Lord and recognize Him for the things He’s done. Get in a place of thanksgiving. Be grateful. Because that’s a constant reminder from where your source is to you. You don’t take it for granted. You’re a blessing to everybody around you because you know that where you got your grace from, it was free. As a Christian, you’re liberal because you know it came to you free and you’re willing to help others to get it free too. That’s why it’s important for us to be that way.
I’m going to read this scripture and then we can pray.
Psalms 136:1 O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever.
2 O give thanks unto the God of gods: for his mercy endureth forever.
3 O give thanks to the Lord of lords: for his mercy endureth forever.
4 To him who alone doeth great wonders: for his mercy endureth forever.
5 To him that by wisdom made the heavens: for his mercy endureth forever.
6 To him that stretched out the earth above the waters: for his mercy endureth forever.
7 To him that made great lights: for his mercy endureth forever:
8 The sun to rule by day: for his mercy endureth forever:
9 The moon and stars to rule by night: for his mercy endureth forever.
10 To him that smote Egypt in their firstborn: for his mercy endureth forever:
11 And brought out Israel from among them: for his mercy endureth forever:
12 With a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm: for his mercy endureth forever.
13 To him which divided the Red sea into parts: for his mercy endureth forever:
14 And made Israel to pass through the midst of it: for his mercy endureth forever:
15 But overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red sea: for his mercy endureth forever.
16 To him which led his people through the wilderness: for his mercy endureth forever.
17 To him which smote great kings: for his mercy endureth forever:
18 And slew famous kings: for his mercy endureth forever:
19 Sihon king of the Amorites: for his mercy endureth forever:
20 And Og the king of Bashan: for his mercy endureth forever:
21 And gave their land for an heritage: for his mercy endureth forever:
22 Even an heritage unto Israel his servant: for his mercy endureth forever.
23 Who remembered us in our low estate: for his mercy endureth forever:
24 And hath redeemed us from our enemies: for his mercy endureth forever.
25 Who giveth food to all flesh: for his mercy endureth forever.
26 O give thanks unto the God of heaven: for his mercy endureth forever.
