Shut up And Dance

Joy is not a mood, it’s a lifeline and when it disappears, strength goes with it. We start with John 15: Jesus is the vine, we are the branches, and apart from him we can do nothing. That connection is not poetic, it’s practical: it shapes what we produce, how we pray, and whether our faith holds up when life turns painful. We also pray for healing and restoration, believing God still moves in bodies, minds, and homes.

From there, we talk about what helps you get your focus back, especially after a season like a 21-day fast. Fasting is more than skipping meals or logging off social media. It reveals what’s been feeding you, what’s been distracting you, and which “voices” have been speaking the loudest. We break down external voices, local voices, and internal voices, then challenge ourselves to take every thought captive and stop giving the microphone to people or patterns that keep us stuck.

The heart of the message is simple: Shut up and dance. Not performance, not hype, not pretending life is easy, but a return to Spirit-filled joy that changes the atmosphere. Nehemiah 8:10 says the joy of the Lord is your strength, so we unpack the difference between happiness based on circumstances and joy rooted in God. We also talk accountability, fighting isolation, praising in the middle of the process, praying blessings over enemies, and pursuing the power of the Holy Spirit for real transformation.

If you’re tired, numb, or stuck in your head, let this be a reset. Listen, share it with someone who needs their strength back, and subscribe and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s one thing you can do this week to protect your joy?

Ending

Transcript

The Vine, The Branches, The Warning

SPEAKER_00 0:01

John chapter 15, verses 5 through 8, three short little verses that explain something so vital and serious to your growth spiritually. Verse 5, it says this Yes, I am the vine, and you are the branches. Sometimes we get that flipped and we think we're the vine. Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like useless branches and it withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile and are burned. To me, when I read this, I immediately thought of hell. There's no coming back from that. Verse 7, it says, But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want. And it will be granted. When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to the Father.

Prayer For Healing And Renewal

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Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your presence here today. I thank you in advance for the miracles that we have not heard back about yet that are right now being done. I pray, God, that healings begin to break out, even when the people could not be here today in their homes. They begin to report of healings. Something's happening in my body. Something is happening in my mind. I'm thinking straight again because God, you are the healer, you are the redeemer, and you restore anything and everything the enemy has tried to take. We speak life over this church in the name of Jesus. Let this church be the true body of God. In your precious name we pray. Amen. So some

After The Fast And Why We Fast

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of you may not know, but today is January 22nd. For those that did not participate, today is the day after our 21-day fast. Y'all must have not fasted anything that great because I was dancing a little bit when my wife said Chinese food. And it's going to be buffet. And what a buffet means to me is I'm going to challenge the price they're charging me because I'm going to get every bit of it. My wife and I have been going to the gym, but today it ain't going to matter. I'm going to walk out of there 15 pounds heavier and it will not be muscle. But sometimes, sometimes it's it's nice after you go through a season of suffering to get on the back side of it on day 22. And you just say, Woo! That was good. I need a cheat day. And I am going to cheat. Only on food. Amen. Oh, I'm sorry. Was that too real too quick? My bad. So I hope I've been hearing reports in this 21-day fast, and I plan as well to do it during the summertime. Probably when we come back or before the summer, I'm not really sure, depending on what we discuss and hash out. But there's something about when you give up something you really love, how you start to regain your focus on things you lost focus on. And that's what a fast is all about. It's not about just making you suffer. Yes, if you like some people, I was talking with Brother Vernon, and he's one of those rare breeds that he actually fasts everything. He don't pick nothing out, it's just everything. And I was standing out here in the parking lot, not thinking, because sometimes him and I go to lunch and I say, hey, you hungry? He's like, yeah, for 14 days. And I was like, I feel like such an idiot. I'm so sorry. But the first lady and I, we got a we got a lunch plan today. And then yesterday, out of their sinful nature, some people planned a birthday that had cake and cupcakes, and I don't even know what else the other stuff was. I heard strawberry and then I heard Oreo. And I told Jesse when we left, I said, that's just sin like putting its temptation right in my face. Because to me, when I hear strawberry and Oreo, that means I get a slice here and a slice there, and I dip twice and eat it, and I get Oreo strawberries. And I couldn't have it. Now I was, you can ask them. We were standing next to the cake the entire time because I had to be able to at least smell it. But today they brought me, I don't know how much how full that plate is. I'll stay away from it. But it's got cake in there, something else too. I don't know. But and cookies. Josh broke one of them. I said, I don't care if it's broke. It's all going to the same place. And quickly. But I hope, and I've been hearing reports about in this fast, that God has been speaking to his people. And that's that's what the fast, that's what fasting is about. I tell my leaders here, they don't have to do it, but I let them in, and not as a brag from me, but as a challenge to them, and I want to do it to you as a church, that I would suggest if you want to start seeing things happen in your life, begin to fast at least once a week. I have the same principle with your tithing. If you think we want your money and we're just trying to get your money, tithe to a different church of your choice, I don't care where it is for three months, and watch God's principle begin to work in your life. The same is with fasting. You bring up fasting, and people are like, You don't eat? You're not on social media? That was probably harder than the eating part. And then I found myself this morning, day 22. I grabbed my phone and I was I started, I opened up some apps for a second, and I'm like, this is kind of dumb. I don't care what they're doing. And I shut it back down. And Jesse and I have discussed the way we've been eating through this. We're gonna, after today, day 22, don't count. After today, we're gonna try to live a healthier, better lifestyle where we actually say that we are honoring the temple God gave us by doing things that honor the temple that God gave us. I know I'm I'm I say I'm preaching to the choir, but the choir is the one that eats the worst. Church folk like to eat, but we got to give up some things to let God know in the physical realm, things we can control, that we are meaning business spiritually. It's so crazy how that works. That he allows things that we sacrifice for him in the physical realm, and he starts to open doors and pour out his blessings on us in the spiritual realm. But in a fast, you have to you have to learn real quick where you draw your source from, where you get your nourishment from. So the last few weeks

Voices In Our Heads And In Culture

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we've been talking about voices. So two weeks ago, we kind of broke it down a little bit about the types of voices. We have external, that's the media, social media, maybe some family that lives way out there that you never see, maybe once a year on the holidays and it's the worst day for you, or you know, whatever. Anyone who's not in your immediate sphere of influence, that's external voices. But every single layer of voices into external, local, our family, our church, our pastors, our friends, our kids, our moms, our dads, and then we have internal voices, which we talked about last week. But every single one of these layers influence the next one down and they get in your head. If you do not take every thought captive and make it subject to Jesus, has anyone ever had a bad thought in here? It may be about somebody else, it may be about yourself. But today we're gonna be we're in our shut up series. Some of y'all know I was raised, you don't say shut up, and a bunch of other church curse words that I'm not going to say from the pulpit. But shut up was one of those things, but we need to learn to tell the devil, to tell our thoughts, to tell people who are speaking into our lives that have no business being there to shut up. And now we're gonna turn it back on you. And today's title is Shut Up and Dance. We're not talking about twerking, so y'all calm down. Now, some of the some of you might be a little confused about this and about the type of dancing. We ain't talking about that at the club with your booze and y'all, poop. I'm not gonna do it on the stage, but you know what I'm saying. Lord help the sinners, amen. But some of you might be a little confused, so let me break this down just for a second. There is something about dancing. Now we're talking about the harmless, not bumping and grinding dancing. Some of y'all don't even know what that term is. Ask your neighbor. Do not Google it, but ask your neighbor. Now let me explain.

Shut Up And Dance Explained

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Yesterday there was a birthday for Truitt. He turned one, and there's something. Yeah, he didn't do anything, no clap for him. He just existed. The parents should get the applause. They're raising an awesome child, right? You made that, you did that. And he was an answer to prayer. But there's something about dancing when you get around a little infant, they cannot even walk yet. But you get some music going or something on the TV, all of a sudden they get that. Exactly what you just did right there. That baby starts doing like that. It don't, he don't care about the music. She doesn't care about the lyrics. She just knows there's a beat and she's gotta move. Something that baby starts bouncing, and then guess what happens? People around the baby then pay attention to the baby, and then they start doing their thing. We got some people in here that can break it down a little bit. Just a little pop, no. Just kidding. Just kidding. All right, all right, all right, all right. And so there's something about when a little infant, something so pure that has no agenda at all, but the music starts breaking down. It don't matter what the beat is, it could be a goofy kid song, it could be some commercial, but the kid will start bouncing, and all of a sudden, everybody in the room that is with that child, they start laughing, they start cutting up, and it brings joy to the place. And it all started because of dancing. Somebody here today, you have lost your dance in the spirit. You have been robbed, you have been manipulated, you have been tricked into that you will never dance again. And that's a lie. The atmosphere will literally change from an innocent infant that has no clue what's going on, then they start laughing more, they their smile gets bigger, the grandparents start joining in, everybody starts dancing, and before we know it, we all look stupid, but we're having a good time. When you get your joy back, you get your dance back, you get your faith back, it will look stupid to everybody who ain't hearing it. Because you're walking different, like that little baby bounces. Your steps got a little bounce in it. Like, come on, Jesus. You get a little groove going. You feel good because you got your joy back, you got your dance back, you feel like you can step out again and cut a rug. There's something about when the dancing begins. So, whatever your situation, whatever season in your life that you are going through right now, let me tell you something. God still has a dance for you. Whether the storm is raging or you feel alone in the quiet of the desert, just keep on dancing. When you have a little dance in your life, what's going on around you don't really matter so much anymore. It doesn't matter what was going on in the atmosphere of that house, but when that baby started moving, everything else didn't matter. All of a sudden, the very atmosphere of the place changed. And when you dance, it takes the focus off of what things are like, and it puts a smile on your face. So now let's connect it to our key verse today. Some of you here today have lost your dance. Let me explain what that means. You have lost your joy, you have lost your dance. You've gotten so serious in life. Y'all know me. Pastor Dean then were sitting in service last week, and afterwards, she came up laughing. She's like, You're a you're crazy. I'm not arguing. But I got some dance. I'm not gonna do my moves on the stage because I don't want y'all to be so impressed. But some of us have been living a joyless life for so long. We've been so damaged and weathered by the storm, we suck the joy out of the room when we walk in. And then we want to tell everybody else to come to Jesus. It's fun, and they're like, it doesn't look fun. It looks like you're miserable. No joy in your life. Now, why is this so important? Why does joy matter so much? If you

Joy Versus Happiness And True Strength

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have your Bible or your app, turn to Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 10. Now Nehemiah says something very, very specific here. In verse 10, it says, And Nehemiah continued, Go and celebrate with a feast of rich foods and sweet drinks, and share gifts of food with people who have nothing prepared. This is a sacred day before the Lord. Do not be dejected, which means sad or depressed. For the joy of the Lord is your strength. The joy of the Lord is your strength. If you're taking notes, I want you to write this down. If the devil can rob you of your joy, he can deplete you of your strength.

unknown 15:13

Come on now. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

If he can rob you of your joy, if he can take your dance away, he can deplete you of your strength. In our culture today, we have made the source of joy come from things or people instead of God. Now, y'all know this. I say it all the time. It's a part of me. I like clothes and shoes. When I get a new shirt, I go and put it on, and I stand in front of my wife. I was like, what's up, girl? And when I get some new shoes, I just walk in there and go, pow. She knows. Because it makes me feel good. There's something about it. When I got that truck that I'm not in anymore, it was a 2020. Man, I felt good. My wife was taking pictures of me and my son in front of it. I was like, I'm a man now. I got a truck. Which, by the way, does not make you a man. But I felt like one. The church we were at when I got it, they had some yard work. We went and got a wheelbarrow. We got a wheelbarrow. I got some shovels. I can fit my shovels in there now. I wasn't in my little car. I pulled up to the church. I backed it up to the and I put down the tailgate, and I'm like, and they started laughing because all them had big four jacked up trucks, and I came up with a little Chevy Colorado. And they was like, oh, nice toy, bro. The first question every man would ask me, Oh, what kind of engine does it have? I don't know, it's a truck. Shut up. I'm in the club now. Talk about joy robbers. But it made me feel good that I had something that seemed to add something I desire to be added to me. It doesn't matter about your clothes, it doesn't matter about your shoes. It matters a little bit, but it doesn't matter about your shoes. It doesn't matter about what truck you got, no matter how shiny it is. I know I need to wash mine. God has to be the source of our joy. And why is this? Because when things disappear or situations or relationships go south, when then we feel like we are unhappy and dissatisfied because we have placed our hope. We have placed our joy in things or people. And it is not, it is nice, and we feel satisfied, but this is the wrong source, and it is not sustainable. So if you're grafted or rooted, which next week our sermon is going to be shut up and dig. Because there's some things in our life that we allow to grow in our garden, and we never actually go down into the roots. We mow them down, we say a little prayer, we can even come up into the altar. And we feel a touch a true, real touch of God. But the roots are still there, even though there's a mowing that takes place. We have to get to the root. So if you're grafted and you're rooted into that vine, talking about things of the world, into that vine, you will reap joy that is constantly fluctuating. And it is not sustainable through dark times. It will not come to your rescue. Don't matter how pretty your truck is. When someone in your family is dying, the truck doesn't matter anymore. Your clothes don't matter anymore sitting by their bed. When you're having struggles and issues at your job or in your house, those things don't matter anymore. But yet we still gravitate to them and we want to buy more because there's something in us that thinks if we get something, it'll make us feel something. And the truth is, it always ends up leading us wanting more. There is nothing in this world that can satisfy your soul like Jesus Christ. There is nothing in this world that can make you feel more powerful and in control than feeling being filled with the Holy Spirit. Luke 12, 15 says this. Luke 12, 15. Then he, being Jesus, said, Beware, guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own. In this study by Jeffrey Sachs, he's the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He published the World Happiness Report. World Happiness Report. Look it up. The report showed that the United States, one of the world's wealthiest and most economically stable places on the planet, we are the richest countries, came in on number 15 on the happiness scale. On our level of happiness, and our level of happiness has gone down since 2005 when this study was made. Because you go past this threshold in this point to where you're wanting to be happy, you're wanting to find some meaning. And so you start to fill your life with pointless junk that actually holds no value or substance. And then we end up, I came up with this term about 10 years ago, and I call them cool whip Christians. To where it looks like there's a lot there, but there's actually no weight, there's no substance. And so when we start feeling, we feel like we're having some sort of connection. We feel like we're having some sort of satisfaction in the things that we own. We start to compare ourselves with other people, and oh, now I have what they have. They said they're successful, and on the surface, they seem satisfied and happy, but yet when you go into their home, it's worse than yours. But we constantly compare our satisfactions, we compare our culture of am I good enough to fit in their realm? And it leaves us unhappy. Followers of Christ, we have to understand that joy and happiness are not the same. Happiness is the feeling you get when things are going. Well, have you ever had a day where you wake up and you smell coffee in the air? And you didn't ask her to, but your baby got up and she made your breakfast. Amen, somebody. And she left the thermostat alone. Yes, Lord. And she, some of y'all just lost it right there. And she had the perfect combination of clothes and shoes laid out already for you. Said, here, baby, you will look your best wearing this. Oh, and by the way, here's your breakfast before you even get up. And it feels good. But when you get in a fight the next day, you forget about the breakfast.

unknown 22:52

Come on, man.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

When she touches the thermostat, you forget about the day she didn't. When she comes in mad and angry and takes something out on you, I'm just coming from a man's perspective. I don't get y'all women, so I'm not even gonna play that game. And all of a sudden the house and the atmosphere changes because something happened at work or something else. And it's just, I'm just an innocent bystander. I don't ever shoot my mouth off at her. Sorry, I'm gonna get in the altar too later. But this is happiness. It fluctuates when things are going perfect, when things are so good, happiness is at the peak. And then when everything's going wrong, which can be within hours of something blindsiding you, your happiness, you're not enjoying it anymore. You're at the bottom. You're asking God, where is he? Happiness is when everything's going good. It's based on circumstances. It's based on how you feel in the moment. Happiness. You see people all the time, both that know God and those that do not, chase after happiness and fill their life with things or relationships that really, in the first place, had no business being there. Because happiness is something that we base and we end up labeling it falsely as joy. And so then you walk around and you say, I don't know where my joy is. I don't have joy it's because you're tapped into the wrong root system. It's because you are not grafted into the true vine where joy does not fluctuate. It is constant in every season and in every circumstance, your joy, if it comes from the Father, will remain intact. Joy is a deep sense of pleasure, it's delight, it's gladness, and having a well-being feeling around you at all times. And this is independent of any circumstance. When we understand that the joy of the Lord is our strength, we understand that we have to remain in him and he in us. As Jesus displayed and said over and over again, you need to be in me as I am in him, so that you, if you know me, you know my father. Some of you aren't displaying joy, and so you say you know the father, but anyone else that knows you would not say that. Because you've lost your dance, you've lost your joy. Joy flows from a deeply rooted conviction, a conviction that we know is true, that God, we say this all the time, that God causes everything, both good and both bad. Everything we go through, good, bad, ups, downs, hard, easy, everything for the good of those that love him. And so if you love him, you are grafted into him, and if you are tapped into the true vine, your joy will not waver because you know that no matter what you are in now, he is working it for you. Even though it feels, it feels like destruction. Oftentimes, it's just discipline. You know that was where disciples came from, right? But true joy, we have this blessed assurance in joy from the Father that brings true delight that flows from within us. See, this is what we have to change in our mindset is that we try to get external things to fix the internal problem. But that's not how we're designed. We have to go to the Father so that he can pour out into us and then we overflow onto everything else. If you want blessings of God in your life, you have to first let him be Lord of this. We talk about things around us, God, I'm gonna make room for you. And yet we leave our heart full of things that do not please him. This brings true delight and it flows from within us, even with when everything around us is feeling like it is falling apart. In all

Accountability, Community, And Fruit That Grows

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of life's circumstances, it is crucial for us to ask ourselves Am I relying on my happiness or does my strength come from the joy of the Lord? Now, I can't I can't come to you, each one of you, face to face, and say, listen, here we're gonna hash out some things. You got some problems. That's not me, not doing it. And it will not help you at all. If you've ever had a child, you understand that sometimes you have to let them figure it out for themselves so that it sticks. But I want you to hold up a spiritual mirror to your mind, to your heart, and say, God, am I actually making room for you? Have I become bitter? Have I become some sort of lone wolf and say that I don't need anybody else? Because if he can separate you from the herd and get you feeling like you're alone and get you lost in your own thoughts, he can attack you easily. Because you have no guard around you. That's why we need to reach out to each other, that's why we need to have fellowship with each other because we need all right. Come on. Accountability has been lost on the church for a while. The church needs to come back to accountability. Now, what does that do? That means that you have to open yourself up to someone else. That means it's gonna be uncomfortable, it's gonna be awkward. But if you do not do that and you begin to close yourself off and you hide things in your heart that is not the word of God, it will plant seeds of poison for yourself. It will plant seeds of poisons for other people. You begin to bear fruit in your life of hurt and pain. And you wonder why you end up always having hurt and pain, and why is there always conflict in my life? Because you've allowed those seeds to stay in your heart and they have made root and they continue to produce what they are. A seed cannot produce anything but what it is, always, there's no way around it. So if you are producing joy, you will get more joy. If you decide to stop worrying about what other people think about you, and say, I'm just gonna dance anyways. Look stupid. Because there'll be somebody that comes along that they'll start dancing with you. And then, what is it, a flash mob, they all start dancing? You got the little or whatever. And then the people not dancing are the one that looks stupid. Because y'all are having a blast. Now, this comes with the scripture also, too, that says that our spirits will bear witness with one another. And so if you have joy in your life, if you get your dance back and you your faith is being built, that's why it's so important. That's why the Bible says for us to lay hands with each other for two or three to get together. Because when you have numbers, you have someone to keep you accountable. You have someone to lift you up because who in here has never had a down part in your life? You've never had a valley you've gone through. We all have. So at every given moment, there is someone in the lowest of the valleys. There's someone on the next step up, just coming out of the valley. There's someone above them coming out of the valley even more. They can almost see over the mountains. And somebody else on the mountaintop, just whoo, I'm up here. But then they start going back down. Well, in front of them, there's somebody else who's going lower and lower. But if we hold hands and we stay together, we can all encourage each other and bring each other along and keep each other from falling, which is what we are meant to do. So if you have joy and God is the source of your joy, and you stay grafted into the vine, and he is in you, and you are in him, you have no choice. Your spirit has no choice but to produce joy because you know that everything you're going through, he is working it for you. And not just for you, for your good. No matter if it feels like a good day or it feels like your worst day, dance, anyways. Dance your way. Sometimes

Praise In The Middle Of Pain

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I was talking with somebody the other day, and he said that you know, after things are over, you hear the testimony. You don't hear a lot of people talking about the testimony of what God's doing while they're in the middle of it. Sometimes in the painful places in the process, it stinks, but you praise, anyways. You dance, anyways. And oftentimes, what I have experienced myself in the short amount of time that I've been on this earth is that when I was in a little time in a dark valley where I felt like nobody knew where I was at, and I was in the deepest recesses of my mind, but I chose to praise God for what I did not yet see. There was something that clicked in my head, there was something that broke in my spirit, and I knew, I knew that my God was gonna come through. And I am here today to tell you that he is still on the throne, he is still gonna come through. Dance, anyways. Sometimes you gotta praise yourself through a breakthrough. We have become, for lack of a better term, weak in the church. We have no endurance. There's a term in my father's generation that I'm sad to say I don't hear much anymore because we have agendas, we have plans, we have things we want to do, but we don't tarry before the Lord anymore. And we wonder why we don't experience the breakthrough is because we don't want to break. If you want things to begin to happen in your life, you have to submit yourself to say, God, whatever you want to do in me. Because it always, always, always begins inside of you and begins to manifest outside of you. Every time. That's why the Bible says, Greater is he in me than he that is in the world. When he is inside of you, when he is Lord, literally, physically and spiritually Lord of your life, everything that you do, everything that you say, every conversation you have, he is the Lord of your life. I told y'all last week, I seriously praise God for green lights. Like if I pull up, there's a lot of bad spots here around Longview to where it's like when I get closer, a lot of times they're like, oh, he's coming, turn red. Or they'll let three cars through. That's a true test of my Christianity. I know they got me on a camera somewhere. But I praise God in the small things, just for little things. I've told y'all this every day. If you're having trouble in relationships, or you got somebody in your life that is an actual true enemy of you, the Bible says to pray blessings over your enemy. Some of y'all ain't gonna do it. I'm just telling you what the what God says. Now, why does it why why is it that see, here we go. We're focused on the external. Think about this. God is not saying to pray blessings on your enemy so that they be blessed, it's so that you have a good posture of your heart. Once again, it's something about you inside that will then manifest itself outside. Sometimes the situation will change, and sometimes God will move the situation to somewhere else. But because we have this hope, that sorrow that may last for a night, we know that what comes in the morning? Joy will come in the morning. When you remain rooted in Christ, you're remaining attached and nourished by the true vine. Your life has no choice but to begin to produce the fruit of the spirit, and joy is right in the middle of them. We must stand up against the enemy and take back all that he has tried to take from you. And one of those that he likes to try to take from you is your joy and your peace because he knows if he can take you and rob you of your joy, he can deplete you of your strength. If you don't feel like you can go on, you won't fight anymore, and you'll give up.

Holy Spirit Power, Gifts, And Healing

SPEAKER_00 36:22

God desires for us to live a wonderful and a fruitful life, full of the joys and wonders and things he has available for us in the spirit. Some of us that are more mature in Christ, we're asking God for the gifts of the Spirit to become manifest, but that will not take place until you have put yourself at the mercy of the Almighty God. Brother Vernon talked earlier about being filled with the Holy Ghost. There's something to be said about the power. If I was not refilled with the Holy Ghost, I would still be addicted to drugs. I needed something outside of me. I needed something that I could not obtain on my own. I could move zip codes and A codes and get an hour away from where I knew where all the drug heads were, where I can get it and have it called in there in an instant. But even though I still could not stop thinking about where I used to be, until the Spirit of God came in and filled me to overflowing and all the impurities that were inside of me when the spirit filled me, it began to flow out of me and it did not return. Because I allowed the spirit to fill me and to stay every single day. If you have been filled with the Holy Ghost, you need to pray in the Spirit. You need the Spirit of God to rule your tongue. Some of you, if you don't understand it, let me tell you this. There's not one person. Jesus said, There is something that will follow after me. Here's the thing: we see other people doing things, and we want what they got. You need to have your mind and your heart in a posture of whatever you have for me, Lord. Fill me, fill me with your gifts, fill me with your spirit, and begin to pray and pour out your heart to him, and he will give you your heart's desire. Don't chase after what everybody else has, don't chase after what gifts they have. Because God has something specific for you. You say, Well, I don't understand it, I don't really get it. They didn't either. But the Spirit of God filled the room and manifested Himself where there was no question in anyone's mind who was there that it was nothing but God. Do not get discouraged if you see others seeking and they get it first. Because it is not man's time to a point when things like that happen. It is a hundred percent only God's and the Spirit of God. We must stand up against the enemy and take back. Some of you have not spoken in tongues in a while, and you you don't even remember what it feels like. Or maybe you've never been filled. I'm telling you right now, as a pastor, that stuff used to freak me out. It's like, what are they what are they saying? What did for me to know? God desires for us to live more than just now I'm saved, great job, I got my ticket to heaven, everyone. Let me ask you this. If you knew today that God wanted to fill you beyond anything you've ever understood or known, would you be willing to submit to him? Now I ask you that because every day that is available to you. To me, that is so cool. That God did something, he designed something that gives me a fleshly person a spiritual power. I don't understand why. I don't know why. I still don't know why I'm a preacher. I have no clue. But God doesn't say, hey, get your junk together and then I'll call you out. Matter of fact, he went to the places where the disciples were in their jobs and called them. God is not asking for perfect people, he's asking for people who are just willing, he wants empty vessels. Despite the season we face, or that you are in, you can not only just get through it, but you can grow through it. There is a purpose of why you are where you are, and so many times in the Bible there was affliction, there was sickness, there was all these things. Jesus Himself once pointed out that it wasn't a sin of a mother or father. It was so that today glory would be brought to God's name. If you have sickness in your body today, God wants to bring glory to his name through healing you.