Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: You ready? You sure? Ready for the work? My good
Speaker 1: catch y'all. Don't have confidence in me. You got nervous? Ready?
Speaker 1: You ready? Josh better stick with the front row. It's
Speaker 1: a very retigious society. Ready now, just like she did,
Speaker 1: we're about to do around the audience response to my
Speaker 1: best premium ministry. My brother look at somebody next to
Speaker 1: you and say, I caught a thought. I caught a thought.
Speaker 1: Chunks you ready, let's see caught it? Sorry about that,
Speaker 1: Collie caught something. By the way. This guy who just
Speaker 1: threw me the Bible, it's like my best friend in
Speaker 1: the world. But he's the worst. He's always blaming people
Speaker 1: when he gets sick. He's always trying to track back
Speaker 1: to who had a running nose four months ago, blaming
Speaker 1: it on my kids. You know soon, So you came
Speaker 1: back from the mission trip. I think I caught it
Speaker 1: from them it was food poisoning. You can't catch food poisoning.
Speaker 1: Why are you trying to blame the missionary because you've
Speaker 1: got a stomach virus. He's magnum pi trying to investigate.
Speaker 1: It's a pop culture reference for the young people, very
Speaker 1: relevant and current. I caught it. Look at somebody and say,
Speaker 1: I caught a thought. Let me ask you something. Is
Speaker 1: it possible to catch an attitude? You got anybody just
Speaker 1: when you see their name on your phone. Y'all responding
Speaker 1: a little too much to this, you might be giving
Speaker 1: yourself away. I caught a thought? Can you catch Can
Speaker 1: you catch faith? Can you catch fear? Can you catch
Speaker 1: an idea? Can you catch a dream? Can you catch
Speaker 1: a vision? Can you catch a word from God that
Speaker 1: will cause you to worship from a deep place past
Speaker 1: the shallows of feelings and emotions? You're here today because
Speaker 1: you caught a thought. You thought you should come to church.
Speaker 1: You caught a ride and you came. But before you
Speaker 1: caught a ride, you caught a thought I should go
Speaker 1: to church. And because you caught a thought, you're about
Speaker 1: to look at twelve people. Ready, That's how we aught too.
Speaker 1: I caught a thought. Now, I'm demonstrating this physically, but
Speaker 1: I'm want to demonstrate it scripturally. Go in your Bible
Speaker 1: to Numbers, chapter thirteen, and I want to look at
Speaker 1: a passage of scripture that has been really helpful to
Speaker 1: me so many times through the years when I am
Speaker 1: caught between two thoughts, and when one thought says you
Speaker 1: should and you can, and one thought says you can't,
Speaker 1: so don't try. This passage has often helped my perspective.
Speaker 1: And it's a familiar story for anybody who knows about
Speaker 1: Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had Father Abraham.
Speaker 1: I am one of them, and so are you. So
Speaker 1: let's just praise the Lord. That Bible school stuff. It
Speaker 1: works in grown up life too, because the children of
Speaker 1: Abraham are of course coming into the land that God
Speaker 1: promised them, and in the Book of Numbers, have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to receive the gift, but they get more focused
Speaker 1: on the giants that oppose them than the gift that
Speaker 1: God has given them. And that happens to us all
Speaker 1: the time. So what we see in Numbers, chapter thirteen,
Speaker 1: verse thirty. And I'm so excited to show you this,
Speaker 1: I'm having to contain my excitement is that there will
Speaker 1: always be a thought that God will bring you to
Speaker 1: deliver you. There will always be a thought that the
Speaker 1: enemy will bring to destroy you. And they're both right
Speaker 1: here in numbers Chapter thirteen. Let's study this together. The
Speaker 1: Bible says, then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said,
Speaker 1: we should go up and take possession of the land,
Speaker 1: for we can certainly do it. But the men who
Speaker 1: had gone up with him said, we can't attack those people.
Speaker 1: They are stronger than we are. And they spread among
Speaker 1: the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored.
Speaker 1: They said, the land we explored devours those living in it.
Speaker 1: All the people we saw there are of great size.
Speaker 1: We saw the Nephilim there, the descendants of Anak come
Speaker 1: from the Nephilum. We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes,
Speaker 1: and we looked the same to them. Stop. There was
Speaker 1: no conversation between the giants and the spies about who
Speaker 1: was bigger. That wasn't what they heard, that was what
Speaker 1: they thought. The nation never saw the promised land for themselves.
Speaker 1: They relied on the support or the report of the
Speaker 1: spies to give them a picture of the promise. Of
Speaker 1: God as well as give them a prediction about the outcome.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't because they saw something, It was because
Speaker 1: they heard something. And what they heard was a result
Speaker 1: of something that the spies thought. So when it said
Speaker 1: in the scripture, they spread among the Israelites a bad report,
Speaker 1: and that report kept the Israelites from going into the
Speaker 1: land that God had given them. I realized it is
Speaker 1: possible to be stopped not because of your giants, but
Speaker 1: because of your thoughts, not because of something that is
Speaker 1: actually bigger than you, but because of something that you
Speaker 1: have made bigger than you on the movie screen of
Speaker 1: your mind. How many of you have an Imax screen
Speaker 1: in your mind, and you can blow things up all
Speaker 1: to all different proportions. The whole nation caught a thought
Speaker 1: and it made their faith week. And God had given
Speaker 1: them the land, and they could have had the land.
Speaker 1: In fact, the land was already theirs. Because the enemy
Speaker 1: can't take away anything that God has given to you. However,
Speaker 1: if he can attack your faith through weakening your immune system,
Speaker 1: that faith immune system that is supposed to filter out
Speaker 1: those microscopic germs, those seeds of discontent that will cause
Speaker 1: you to walk away from what God has calling you
Speaker 1: to walk into although he can't take it away from you.
Speaker 1: If he can get to your faith, if he can
Speaker 1: get to that part of you that believes God and
Speaker 1: cause it to be disrupted by something that your eyes
Speaker 1: see or your ears. Here, Holy Spirit, help me say
Speaker 1: this the right way. He can't take it. So what
Speaker 1: he wants to do is to move you from a
Speaker 1: place of believing that He loves you, called you, qualified you,
Speaker 1: set you apart, put you there to do it. And
Speaker 1: the issue with me is that I experience both thoughts,
Speaker 1: both voices simultaneously. Let me try to break this down.
Speaker 1: I got Caleb telling me this is one thought you
Speaker 1: should you can, and then I got ten other spies.
Speaker 1: You ever noticed how it seems to be more reasons
Speaker 1: why you shouldn't than that you should. You ever felt
Speaker 1: outnumbered in your thought life? Yeah? I got ten spies.
Speaker 1: Now the spies are going into the land. And the
Speaker 1: number one rule of being a spy is don't get caught,
Speaker 1: right yo with me? Yeah, it's the number one rule
Speaker 1: of being a spy. Whatever you do, sneak in. And
Speaker 1: Joshua told him, or Moses told him. Joshua was one
Speaker 1: of the two spies that saw it the right way,
Speaker 1: and he told him. Moses told Joshua and Caleb and
Speaker 1: the ten other spies. He said, when you go in there,
Speaker 1: make sure, make sure that they don't see you. Okay,
Speaker 1: But then they got caught. But they didn't get caught
Speaker 1: by their enemies. They got caught by their insecurities. I'm
Speaker 1: a preaching to you. They got caught by a thought.
Speaker 1: And the thought was, we're not big enough. The thought
Speaker 1: was we don't have enough. The thought is, we can't
Speaker 1: they're bigger. And so then now all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: they are dominated not by their enemies, but by their thoughts.
Speaker 1: And God said that I was preaching to somebody today
Speaker 1: who is caught between two thoughts. One is telling you
Speaker 1: that God gave you everything you need to raise that child.
Speaker 1: The other is telling you that you're the one who
Speaker 1: screwed them up. I'm a preaching to your business today.
Speaker 1: One is telling you that it's all right. God can
Speaker 1: restore the years that the locusts have eaten. The other
Speaker 1: is telling you you've wasted too much time and now
Speaker 1: nothing good can happen in life. So I'm caught between
Speaker 1: two thoughts. And on one hand I see the size
Speaker 1: of the grapes. I see the size of the promise,
Speaker 1: and I know the size of my God. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, I hear all of the reasons why a great,
Speaker 1: big God could not use a little puny person like
Speaker 1: me from Monks Corner, South Carolina, a little puny person
Speaker 1: like me who never did this on this level before.
Speaker 1: Even as I preach to you, I'm caught between two thoughts.
Speaker 1: She looks like she's never heard a better sermon in
Speaker 1: her life. Somebody up there looks like they hate me
Speaker 1: and are contemplating how they can slip out. And how
Speaker 1: did I get stuck in the middle of this row
Speaker 1: for this sermon? And why is he yelling like that?
Speaker 1: And that shirt is too bright and it hurts my eyes,
Speaker 1: and I just want to get out of here. I'm
Speaker 1: a preach to you. I'm a preach to the I'm
Speaker 1: a preach to the love in the room. I'm going
Speaker 1: to preach to the faith. You're feeling better, LJ. He
Speaker 1: had to miss last Sunday. It's the first time he's
Speaker 1: missed playing behind me in three years. He's never missed.
Speaker 1: But he caught, and he caught a stomach bug and
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie to you. This may make me
Speaker 1: a bad pastor. When I saw him Tuesday, I waved
Speaker 1: at him. I didn't wap him up. I don't love
Speaker 1: him that much. I'm not going to spend the whole
Speaker 1: week throwing up just to tell you, hello, we can
Speaker 1: do this virtually. I love you, man, praying for you
Speaker 1: from a distance, I'm not getting close enough to catch it.
Speaker 1: M hm. And honestly, this is why I had to
Speaker 1: stop hanging out with some certain people, because I started realizing,
Speaker 1: you catch what you're close to. Now, if you need
Speaker 1: to take out your phone at this point in my
Speaker 1: sermon and do some surgery with that, swipe left, delete, move.
Speaker 1: Some of y'all don't need to lift your hands to
Speaker 1: have more faith, you need to swipe your thumb because
Speaker 1: it is your contacts. I caught something. I catch something
Speaker 1: every time I'm around them, every time I scroll. I
Speaker 1: noticed this the other day. I get in a certain
Speaker 1: mood and I can't figure out how was I so
Speaker 1: happy three minutes ago? And now have you ever had
Speaker 1: a switch that quick? Yeah? So I started studying it,
Speaker 1: and I realized that before I caught a feeling, I
Speaker 1: caught a thought. Now, sometimes that thought is just me
Speaker 1: going through my feed and I will see something that
Speaker 1: won't register. Now, here's what I noticed. You don't feel
Speaker 1: it while you're scrolling. When I ate a whole bag
Speaker 1: of oreos one Thanksgiving after I'd already eaten three meals,
Speaker 1: I didn't feel sick while I was eating them. My
Speaker 1: taste buds didn't tell me to stop. So I'm scrolling
Speaker 1: and I don't feel sick until after I've stopped. What
Speaker 1: I realized about myself. And maybe you're more spiritually mature
Speaker 1: than me, and you can find a church where the
Speaker 1: pastor is whole, healthy and doesn't have these issues. But
Speaker 1: for all of us who understand that, sometimes you are
Speaker 1: mad about something that you saw ten minutes ago on
Speaker 1: your phone because you were in everybody else's life but
Speaker 1: your own, trying to figure out am I better than them?
Speaker 1: Are they better than me? And so what happened while
Speaker 1: I was scrolling? I saw them on vacation and I
Speaker 1: know they're in debt. So I caught a thought of judgment.
Speaker 1: Why should they be on vacation when I know they're
Speaker 1: in debt? And now I feel sick ten minutes later
Speaker 1: because of the thought that I caught while I scrolled
Speaker 1: through somebody else's situation that has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: my responsibility. Y'all gonna help me with this, or am
Speaker 1: I gonna? So what happened to me was I caught
Speaker 1: a thought of offense, and then I reaped an attitude
Speaker 1: of frustration. I got offended the other day because I
Speaker 1: saw God blessing somebody that he wasn't supposed to bless
Speaker 1: Did you ever watch God just do something awesome for
Speaker 1: the wrong person? He didn't consult you? And so I
Speaker 1: found myself feeling insecure. The reason that I felt insecure
Speaker 1: in myself is because I caught a thought of offense
Speaker 1: about somebody else. Now here's what happens. You become a
Speaker 1: victim of your own judgment. When you judge others that way,
Speaker 1: you judge you that way. So when you catch a
Speaker 1: thought of judging others, don't be surprised when the judgment
Speaker 1: comes upon you. The less y'all say, amen, the more
Speaker 1: I know I'm preaching. So I caught a thought. I
Speaker 1: caught a thought, and I realized that the thought that
Speaker 1: I hold on to the thought that I you know,
Speaker 1: like you can catch a wave, you could catch a
Speaker 1: football for the game winning touchdown like Graham Fredick did yesterday,
Speaker 1: just this very yesterday. But I never knew I could
Speaker 1: catch a thought. I knew you could catch a case.
Speaker 1: I had some relatives that did it. I knew you
Speaker 1: could catch a cold. But I found out you could
Speaker 1: catch a thought. And then I trace sometimes the weakness
Speaker 1: of my faith, and I ask myself the question, where
Speaker 1: did that thought come from? And it's important where it
Speaker 1: came from, because where it comes from determines where it
Speaker 1: leads to. My issue is that when I say I
Speaker 1: hear from God, I don't hear him out loud. God
Speaker 1: bless you if you do. I've never heard the audible
Speaker 1: voice of God. I mean, he speaks through my wife
Speaker 1: all the time. But other than that exception, I've never
Speaker 1: heard the audible voice of God. If you have, I'm
Speaker 1: not mad at you unless you start trying to use
Speaker 1: it to manipulate people by making up stuff that God
Speaker 1: told you, because God has three way calling and he
Speaker 1: can tell us both. So don't tell me God spoke
Speaker 1: to you something that I'm not in agreement with and
Speaker 1: try to get me to do something you want to
Speaker 1: do by saying God told you to, especially if you
Speaker 1: say God told you to quit your job because you're
Speaker 1: just tired of dealing with frustrating people. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's God or if you're just tired. Need to
Speaker 1: get some sleep, and I have better attitude when you
Speaker 1: show up. I've never heard from God out loud. So
Speaker 1: one guy asked me one time. He was like, when
Speaker 1: you say God spoke to you, how do you know?
Speaker 1: Great question, because I don't hear God at an auditory level,
Speaker 1: So when I say God spoke, that can be misleading.
Speaker 1: You know. When Peter said Jesus spoke to me, it
Speaker 1: was literal. Jesus was a person. He spoke to me.
Speaker 1: I was fishing one night. I hadn't caught anything. I
Speaker 1: was frustrated, and Jesus said, let down your nets in
Speaker 1: the deep for a catch. And Peter would say, at first,
Speaker 1: I was frustrated because I thought you're a carpenter. I'm
Speaker 1: a fisherman. You do your job, I'll do mine. You
Speaker 1: wanted my vote to preach from. I didn't know you
Speaker 1: were going to try to drive it. But watch this,
Speaker 1: because you say so, I will let down the nets. Now,
Speaker 1: when he let down the nets, he caught a great
Speaker 1: number of fish. But God was showing me that before
Speaker 1: he caught the fish, he caught you. Like this church,
Speaker 1: before there was a seat, there was a thought. Now
Speaker 1: see the issue with this is I don't hear God
Speaker 1: out loud like that, and so I connect with God
Speaker 1: not at an auditory or sensory level. I connect with
Speaker 1: God at the level of thought. Which would be fine
Speaker 1: if God spoke to me at the level of thought,
Speaker 1: and he was the only one who spoke that way.
Speaker 1: But I got this other joker. They call him the devil.
Speaker 1: But when I say the devil tempts me or the
Speaker 1: devil discourages me, I'm not talking about a guy in
Speaker 1: a Halloween costume that he got on clearance at Target,
Speaker 1: walking up with a pitchfork and a cape and some horns.
Speaker 1: I never saw the devil like that. I just put
Speaker 1: him off my shoulder. He's not on my shoulder when
Speaker 1: he comes to me. He comes to me through a thought.
Speaker 1: So now I got God speaking to me through my thoughts.
Speaker 1: I've got the enemy trying to speak against what God
Speaker 1: spoke to me through my thoughts. I got two voices
Speaker 1: on the same device, and I'm caught between a thought.
Speaker 1: One is telling me your greatest years are ahead of you.
Speaker 1: One is telling me you've already done all the good
Speaker 1: things you're gonna do. You better write it out because
Speaker 1: it won't be much longer. One is telling me go
Speaker 1: ahead and speak it and say it and do it
Speaker 1: and step into it and believe for it. And the
Speaker 1: other one is telling me, well, you better not go
Speaker 1: too far out there. You know, if you go too
Speaker 1: far out there, you be embarrassed. And after off you
Speaker 1: climb high, they can pull you down. And I'm caught
Speaker 1: between Caleb we Can and the other spies. I'm caught
Speaker 1: caught got a thought. I got caught. I got caught
Speaker 1: by a thought. I don't know how it happened, but y'all,
Speaker 1: I got this thought that goes through my mind all
Speaker 1: the time that says it doesn't matter, just all the time.
Speaker 1: I could be doing anything and it'll be like it's
Speaker 1: Almo the way the thought you know that eye roll
Speaker 1: emoji that you yeah, that's that would be the face
Speaker 1: of it. But the thought behind it is like, you know,
Speaker 1: who cares doesn't matter? You ever had that thought catch
Speaker 1: you trying to do something? Mm hmm, Raise your hand again.
Speaker 1: If you've ever had that thought, why did y'all raise
Speaker 1: y'all saying so much higher? The second time I asked her,
Speaker 1: oh oh, oh, you're not enough. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you say it exactly like that, but it's crazy how
Speaker 1: many people I talked to. And I used to think
Speaker 1: it was deep who didn't have a lot of confidence,
Speaker 1: But then I realized professional athletes have this thought that
Speaker 1: I'm not enough. They are the ones who are society worships,
Speaker 1: and still there's a thought. It's a thought that's going around.
Speaker 1: The reason is going around so much more now than
Speaker 1: it used to go around is because now we don't
Speaker 1: judge ourselves or measure ourselves according to the calling God
Speaker 1: has given us. We compare ourselves to a fictionalized account
Speaker 1: of somebody else's life. That's where you always get in trouble. Now,
Speaker 1: get this point. You always get in trouble when you
Speaker 1: start comparing your calling to somebody else's because when you
Speaker 1: compare callings, you catch insecurity. When you compare callings, you
Speaker 1: catch in sufficiency. When I think I'm not enough, you
Speaker 1: know I'm not enough. Even the disciples, you know it's
Speaker 1: not enough food to go around Jesus, you need to
Speaker 1: send them away. How many times have I sent away
Speaker 1: something that God put in my life because I caught
Speaker 1: a thought that I'm not enough. They wandered around and
Speaker 1: around and around in the wilderness for forty years, not
Speaker 1: because of their enemy, but because of their thought. And
Speaker 1: then even sometimes when things are going good, I got
Speaker 1: this thought. I don't know where it comes from. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's God. I don't think it is. Sorry
Speaker 1: to tell sometimes because it's not like he talks like this.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that was. I'm glad he
Speaker 1: didn't talk like that. That was super weird. Yes, So,
Speaker 1: like Morgan Freeman, it's just a thought. Come on, if
Speaker 1: God sounded like Morgan Freeman, you could do it. If
Speaker 1: you narrated your life like that, you could do it.
Speaker 1: You could make it. You would go to sleep and
Speaker 1: wake up and just be ready for the day. But
Speaker 1: it comes like a thought. You know, even when it's
Speaker 1: going good, it won't last. They'll leave you too. You
Speaker 1: can't count on them. Then you sabotage the gift because
Speaker 1: you're not securing it, because even while it's happening, you
Speaker 1: don't believe this real. This is my thoughts. I don't
Speaker 1: know where I caught them. I had a good mom,
Speaker 1: good dad. I mean, they weren't perfect, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1: I wish I could trace it back to just one
Speaker 1: traumatic event. I think that would be easier, not enough.
Speaker 1: Where that thought come from. I'm not sure where it
Speaker 1: came from, but I know where it takes me. And
Speaker 1: when I look back on the seasons of my life
Speaker 1: that I was so deep in depression. Oh yeah, and
Speaker 1: I know the Bible verses. Yeah, I know better than you.
Speaker 1: Let's have a quote in contests, Rejoice in the Lord always.
Speaker 1: I will say it again, rejoice see my hand motions.
Speaker 1: I know the verse rejoicing the Lord Always. And then
Speaker 1: Paul says, I will say it again, rejoice. Well, you
Speaker 1: can say it as many times as you want to. Paul.
Speaker 1: I'm sad right now and I can't find my way out,
Speaker 1: and so now I'm fighting on the level of my feelings.
Speaker 1: But watch this before it became a feeling. And look,
Speaker 1: even Paul, it wasn't just like Moses was a bad leader.
Speaker 1: Even Paul had to fight against opposing voices and thought
Speaker 1: systems that undermine the essence of the grace of God.
Speaker 1: In the gospel, even in the churches that he started,
Speaker 1: even in the church at Corinth he would write to
Speaker 1: that church, and what would happen to them was they
Speaker 1: would they would be led astray or the word he
Speaker 1: likes to use in Second Corinthians is deceived. He says,
Speaker 1: I fear that you're being deceived by the power of suggestion.
Speaker 1: He uses the example he says, like Eve was deceived
Speaker 1: by the serpent. You remember that story when God said
Speaker 1: you can eat any of this, And then she caught
Speaker 1: a thought from a snake. She allows something that was
Speaker 1: beneath her to speak to her, and she caught a thought. See,
Speaker 1: I never had a snake slither up to me and
Speaker 1: talk to me. I wish I did. I wish it
Speaker 1: was a snake that I could chop the head off
Speaker 1: of it. It's a thought, and I have to live
Speaker 1: with this and I have to deal with it. And
Speaker 1: the serpent said to Eve, did God really say you
Speaker 1: see it? He introduces a doubt into the possibility and
Speaker 1: potential of faith, causing her to focus on what is
Speaker 1: not available rather than what is. And Paul says, I'm
Speaker 1: afraid that you will be deceived because there's these there's
Speaker 1: these spies in the church at Corinth, and there they're
Speaker 1: leading the Christians astray. They're doing it by the power
Speaker 1: of thought. They are introducing the thought into the Church
Speaker 1: that you need something other than Christ to justify you.
Speaker 1: He says, I fear that you have been led astray
Speaker 1: from your pure devotion to Christ. And pure is the
Speaker 1: right word. That's the important word. Pure. It's that uncontaminated
Speaker 1: place that you access occasionally where you know that God's
Speaker 1: got you and everything is going to be all right.
Speaker 1: You ever just felt that, and you had no reason to,
Speaker 1: and you didn't even have the facts to back it up.
Speaker 1: You ever just felt that, Like Wow, I just feel
Speaker 1: like I feel like I'm gonna make it and God's
Speaker 1: gonna do it. And I just feel and I can't
Speaker 1: even prove it on a flow chart or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but I just What happens is the enemy deceives you.
Speaker 1: He can't take what God gave you. You know that, right.
Speaker 1: I need to make sure you know that he can't
Speaker 1: take what God gave you. But if he can get
Speaker 1: you to catch a thought that opposes it, he can
Speaker 1: keep you so weak that you will not walk into it.
Speaker 1: And this is what he says to the church at
Speaker 1: Corinth because they got spies running around introducing lies to
Speaker 1: the church. They got thoughts that oppose the knowledge of God.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's how he phrases it in tewod Corinthians ten,
Speaker 1: verse four. He says, the weapons we fight with are
Speaker 1: not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they
Speaker 1: have divine power to demolish strongholds. What's a stronghold in
Speaker 1: military terms is a place that you go to seek refuge,
Speaker 1: a stronghold where you set up to do a battle
Speaker 1: where the enemy can't get to you, or it can
Speaker 1: become a place where the enemy traps you in. He says,
Speaker 1: what happens in a physical battle can happen mentally, spiritually,
Speaker 1: emotionally to any one of us at any time. See,
Speaker 1: because it is with the thought that I can experience God.
Speaker 1: Can catch a thought of Jesus and his grace for me,
Speaker 1: and his love for me, and his mercy towards me,
Speaker 1: and that thought can move me to worship Him in
Speaker 1: the beauty of holiness, in the splendor of his magnificence.
Speaker 1: In fact, I want to say this, one thought of
Speaker 1: Jesus can lift you above any wave of worrying, one
Speaker 1: thought of Jesus. Have you been having trouble breathing this week?
Speaker 1: Get a thought on your mind of the goodness of God.
Speaker 1: You see that battle he brought you through, You see
Speaker 1: that way He made for you? And just one thought
Speaker 1: of Jesus, how many no one thought can lift me
Speaker 1: out of the pit one thought, But a stronghold can
Speaker 1: also Ensnare you a thought I'm not enough? A thought
Speaker 1: I wonder what they're thinking about me right now. Not
Speaker 1: but that thought, that thought, this isn't gonna end well,
Speaker 1: that thought, I'm not what they think I am. Here's
Speaker 1: one of my here's one of my strungolds. If they
Speaker 1: really knew you, they wouldn't like you, if they really knew,
Speaker 1: because all of us are bluffing. All of us are
Speaker 1: faking it. All your little cool friends are faking it.
Speaker 1: They all got acne, they all got his shoes, They
Speaker 1: all feel lonely, and none of y'all are cool. Everybody's
Speaker 1: faking it, God expense, if your shoes are you ain't perfect.
Speaker 1: But Paul, they were coming into the church like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's an impostor he's not a real one. They were
Speaker 1: introducing a thought to rob them. You know, the devil
Speaker 1: is a thief. Right, he can't take your promise, so
Speaker 1: now he wants to steal your thoughts. Bob was reading
Speaker 1: something in Proverbs. Can I show you this real quick?
Speaker 1: I didn't get to show him last night. In Proverbs,
Speaker 1: Chapter six, verse thirty, it says people do not despise
Speaker 1: a thief if he steals to satisfy his hunger when
Speaker 1: he's starving. A thief is just a thief. You know,
Speaker 1: the enemy is a thief. You can't blame him for
Speaker 1: trying to steal what he doesn't want you to have.
Speaker 1: But check the next verse. I love this verse thirty one.
Speaker 1: Yet if he is caught. Yet, if he is caught,
Speaker 1: he must pay seven full. So today we came into
Speaker 1: this service to catch a thief and to let him know.
Speaker 1: Give me my joy back, give me my peace back,
Speaker 1: give me my wisdom back, give me the joy of
Speaker 1: my salvation, restore seven fall ik of thought. I kind
Speaker 1: of thought, I realize that he loves me, and if
Speaker 1: he loves me, it doesn't matter if you like me.
Speaker 1: I kind of thought. I'm bold about it. I'm form
Speaker 1: for it, I'm made for it. I'm called to it.
Speaker 1: I believe I'll walk right forward into my future holding
Speaker 1: on to a thought of the favor of God. Some
Speaker 1: of y'all need to catch this. Come on, catch this favor,
Speaker 1: catch this word, catch this joy, catch this peace. You've
Speaker 1: been hanging around Facebook, but you came in here for
Speaker 1: some faith today, didn't you. Well? Catch this. God is
Speaker 1: for you. He's more than the world against you. Kick
Speaker 1: those ten spies out of your hand and listen to Caleb.
Speaker 1: We can, we should, we will. He is I have.
Speaker 1: I am Hi five of them and say, I caught
Speaker 1: a thought. I caught a thought. I caught a thought,
Speaker 1: just like I caught a cold last February. I caught
Speaker 1: a thought. I found out that he is Avil. I
Speaker 1: found out that he who began a good work in
Speaker 1: me will be faithful to complete it. I found out
Speaker 1: he is the bread of life. He is El Sadai,
Speaker 1: He is more than enough. I caught a thought of God.
Speaker 1: A thought brought me into depression, and a thought is
Speaker 1: gonna bring me out. When I surveyed the wondrous cross
Speaker 1: on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain
Speaker 1: I count but loss and poor contempt on all my pride.
Speaker 1: What's he saying. I caught a thought the goodness of God,
Speaker 1: and it lifted me out of the pit of my despair.
Speaker 1: You can't keep the thought from coming. But what's what
Speaker 1: Paul said? He said, we demolish strongholds. How do we
Speaker 1: destroy it? Verse five is important? He said, we demolish
Speaker 1: every spy that says we can't and every pretension that
Speaker 1: sets itself up against the knowledge of God. How many
Speaker 1: know something about God that is deeper than a feeling.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've known it since you were a child.
Speaker 1: You've known it in your soul, You've known it in
Speaker 1: your spirit. Deep calls to deep. So when I have
Speaker 1: a thought that opposes what I know about God, What're
Speaker 1: you gonna do about it? I can't keep it from coming.
Speaker 1: But he said, we take different every thought to make
Speaker 1: it obey Christ. And so when they say you seem
Speaker 1: different this week, you don't look so stressed this week,
Speaker 1: tell them, oh, yeah, it's craziest thing. I caught a thought.
Speaker 1: It was about this big I found out God is
Speaker 1: about this. I caught a thought of his greatness. I
Speaker 1: magnified him in my mind. I began to rejoice in
Speaker 1: the rock of my salvation. This I recall to my mind.
Speaker 1: Therefore I have hope. I caught a thought and it
Speaker 1: led me to a hope. Now, the thought that you
Speaker 1: hold on to the one that you allowed to dominate,
Speaker 1: that will be the stronghold of your life. If the
Speaker 1: Lord is your stronghold, if he is the place where
Speaker 1: you hide, if you catch a thought, a glimpse of
Speaker 1: your calling. Okay, here it is. There was a woman
Speaker 1: who was bleeding on the inside. She heard Jesus coming
Speaker 1: through her part of town. She had done everything to
Speaker 1: fix it at the level of the symptom, but nothing worked.
Speaker 1: The condition that she had was a deep one. It
Speaker 1: was causing her to hemorrhage and lose blood, just like
Speaker 1: many of us are hemorrhaging emotionally and losing energy and
Speaker 1: losing hope. When she heard Jesus passing through, her desperation
Speaker 1: for a change caused her to do something dramatic in
Speaker 1: her life because she had gotten a second opinion, and
Speaker 1: a third opinion, in a fourth opinion, and none of
Speaker 1: that word. But here comes healing and here comes hope.
Speaker 1: And the Bible says that she did what she had
Speaker 1: to do to get through all of the people who
Speaker 1: could have blocked her, and to grab a hole to
Speaker 1: catch Jesus as he was passing by to heal somebody else.
Speaker 1: And he's moving quickly, and Peter's backing everybody away. Don't
Speaker 1: touch him. He's in a hurry. But she reaches out,
Speaker 1: and the Bible says that she is this verse thirty seven. Yes,
Speaker 1: she touched his cloak. She caught him. She caught his cloak.
Speaker 1: She caught what could hear her? She caught a flow,
Speaker 1: she caught a miracle, she caught a change verse thirty
Speaker 1: eight because she thought before I caught the answer. I
Speaker 1: caught a thought. Yeah, before I caught forgiveness. I caught
Speaker 1: a thought before I caught bitterness. I caught a thought.
Speaker 1: If I can catch a thought, I can catch his cloak.
Speaker 1: And if I can touch him, he can make me well.
Speaker 1: With everyone standing and your hands lifted to heaven like
Speaker 1: you need to catch what Heaven has today, I declare
Speaker 1: over your life that faith and favor are flowing from
Speaker 1: the person of Jesus in the form of the Holy
Speaker 1: Spirit in this moment, across every location and our epam
Speaker 1: around the world. Catch this. You've been holding on to
Speaker 1: thoughts of low self worth and low self esteem, all
Speaker 1: to lead you to this moment in the presence of Jesus,
Speaker 1: that if you can catch a thought, the woman was
Speaker 1: made well because she touched his cloak. She touched his
Speaker 1: cloak because she caught a thought. And there are great
Speaker 1: opportunities for love and for joy, and for peace and
Speaker 1: for provision. There is a great calling assignment on your life.
Speaker 1: My sister. There is a tremendous promise in front of you.
Speaker 1: And there's Caleb saying you should you can, And there's
Speaker 1: ten other spies saying you can. And I don't care
Speaker 1: if you're out number ten to two. If you will
Speaker 1: follow Caleb into Canaan, you can eat the fruit of
Speaker 1: the land. You can experience the joy of the Lord,
Speaker 1: if you can catch this thought. This I recall to
Speaker 1: my mind. I caught a thought, and it lifted me
Speaker 1: from my despair. I caught a thought and it lifted
Speaker 1: me from my addiction. I caught a thought of Jesus,
Speaker 1: and it lifted me from my shame. And I begin
Speaker 1: to rejoice and worship him with gladness because I caught
Speaker 1: a thought. A victory for the battle belongs to the Lord.
Speaker 1: He is my stronghold. He is the strength of my life,
Speaker 1: and I will not be put to shame, for the
Speaker 1: joy of the Lord is my strength. Come on, catch
Speaker 1: this victory, catch this wind. Lift your sails and catch
Speaker 1: this victory. Catch this wind. Sing it over the people,
Speaker 1: Chris till they catch it. I'm gonna see it in
Speaker 1: the land of the Living. I'm gonna see the goodness
Speaker 1: of God. I'm gonna sing it. I'm gonna see till
Speaker 1: I see it. I'm gonna see Tixie. Come on, touches God,
Speaker 1: touch his resens touch his healing touch as I'm gonna
Speaker 1: see you fixy for come on, you can catch them.
Speaker 1: It's an importation. I'm gonna see your fixy. Thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who
Speaker 1: give generously to this ministry. Is because of you that
Speaker 1: this ministry is possible. You can click the link in
Speaker 1: the description to give now, or visit Elevationchurch dot org
Speaker 1: slash podcast for more information and if you enjoyed the podcast,
Speaker 1: you can subscribe. You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 1: You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
Speaker 1: share it on your social stories and tag us at
Speaker 1: Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening, God bless you.