Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 2: I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
Speaker 2: this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it
Speaker 2: gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Speaker 2: Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: You ready? You sure?
Speaker 3: Ready for the work? A good catch, y'all. Don't have
Speaker 3: confidence in me. You got nervous?
Speaker 1: Ready? You ready?
Speaker 4: Josh better stick with the front row.
Speaker 5: It's a very retigious society.
Speaker 1: Ready, It's like she did. We're about to do.
Speaker 2: Around the audience response to my best premium minister, my
Speaker 2: brother look at somebody next to you and say, I.
Speaker 6: Caught a thought. I caught a thought. Chunks you ready,
Speaker 6: let's see.
Speaker 1: Caught it? Sorry about that, Collie caught something.
Speaker 2: By the way. This guy who just threw me the Bible,
Speaker 2: it's like my best friend in the world. But he's
Speaker 2: the worst. He's always blaming people when he gets sick.
Speaker 2: He's always trying to track back to who had a
Speaker 2: running nose four months ago, blaming it on my kids.
Speaker 2: You know it soon So you came back from the
Speaker 2: mission trip. I think I caught it from them. It
Speaker 2: was food poisoning. You can't catch food poisoning. Why are
Speaker 2: you trying to blame the missionary because you've got a
Speaker 2: stomach virus.
Speaker 1: He's magnum pi trying to investigate. It's a pop culture
Speaker 1: reference for the young people, very relevant and current. I
Speaker 1: caught it. Look at somebody and say, I caught a thought.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you something.
Speaker 2: Is it possible to catch an attitude? You got anybody
Speaker 2: just when you see their name on your phone. Y'all
Speaker 2: responding a little too much to this, you might be
Speaker 2: giving yourself away.
Speaker 1: I caught a thought?
Speaker 2: Can you catch Can you catch faith? Can you catch fear?
Speaker 2: Can you catch an idea? Can you catch a dream?
Speaker 2: Can you catch a vision? Can you catch a word
Speaker 2: from God that will cause you to worship from a
Speaker 2: deep place past the shallows of feelings and emotions? You're
Speaker 2: here today because you caught a thought. You thought you
Speaker 2: should come to church. You caught a ride and you came.
Speaker 2: But before you caught a ride, you caught a thought
Speaker 2: I should go to church. And because you caught a thought,
Speaker 2: you're about to look at twelve people. Ready, that's how
Speaker 2: we all too. I caught a thought. Now I'm them
Speaker 2: fonstrating this physically, but I want to demonstrate it scripturely.
Speaker 2: Go in your Bible to Numbers, chapter thirteen, and I
Speaker 2: want to look at a passage of scripture.
Speaker 1: That has been really helpful to me.
Speaker 2: So many times through the years when I am caught
Speaker 2: between two thoughts, and when one thought says you should
Speaker 2: and you can, and one thought says you can't, so
Speaker 2: don't try.
Speaker 1: This passage has often helped my perspective.
Speaker 2: And it's a familiar story for anybody who knows about
Speaker 2: Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had Father Abraham.
Speaker 2: I am one of them, and so are you. So
Speaker 2: let's just praise the Lord. That Bible school stuff. It
Speaker 2: works in grown up life too, because the children of
Speaker 2: Abraham are of course coming into the land that God
Speaker 2: promised them, and in the Book of Numbers, they have
Speaker 2: the opportunity to receive the gift, but they get more
Speaker 2: focused on the giants that oppose them than the gift
Speaker 2: that God has given them.
Speaker 1: And that happens to us all the time.
Speaker 2: So what we see in Numbers chapter thirteen, verse thirty,
Speaker 2: and I'm so excited to show you this.
Speaker 1: I'm having to contain. My excitement.
Speaker 2: Is that there will always be a thought that God
Speaker 2: will bring you to deliver you. There will always be
Speaker 2: a thought that the enemy will bring to destroy you.
Speaker 2: And they're both right here in numbers. Chapter thirteen. Let's
Speaker 2: study this together. The Bible says, then Caleb silenced the
Speaker 2: people before Moses and said, we should go up and
Speaker 2: take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.
Speaker 2: But the men who had gone up with him said,
Speaker 2: we can't.
Speaker 1: Attack those people.
Speaker 2: They are stronger than we are. And they spread among
Speaker 2: the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored.
Speaker 2: They said, the land we explored devours those living in it.
Speaker 2: All the people we saw there are of great size.
Speaker 2: We saw the Nephilum there, the descendants of Anak come
Speaker 2: from the Nephilum. We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes,
Speaker 2: and we looked the same to them.
Speaker 1: Stop.
Speaker 2: There was no conversation between the giants and the spies
Speaker 2: about who was bigger. That wasn't what they heard, that
Speaker 2: was what they thought. The nation never saw the promised
Speaker 2: land for themselves. They relied on the support or the
Speaker 2: report of the spies to give them a picture of
Speaker 2: the promise of God as well as give them a
Speaker 2: prediction about the outcome. And it wasn't because they saw something.
Speaker 2: It was because they heard something. And what they heard
Speaker 2: was a result of something that the spies thought. So
Speaker 2: when it said in the scripture, they spread among the
Speaker 2: Israelites a bad report, and that report kept the Israelites
Speaker 2: from going into the land that God had given them.
Speaker 2: I realized it is possible to be stopped not because
Speaker 2: of your giants, but because of your thoughts, not because
Speaker 2: of something that is actually bigger than you, but because
Speaker 2: of something that you have made bigger than you on
Speaker 2: the movie screen of your mind. How many of you
Speaker 2: have an Imax screen in your mind, and you can
Speaker 2: blow things up all to all different proportions. The whole
Speaker 2: nation caught a thought, and it made their faith weak.
Speaker 2: And God had given them the land, and they could
Speaker 2: have had the land. In fact, the land was already theirs.
Speaker 2: Because the enemy can't take away anything that God has
Speaker 2: given to you. However, if he can attack your faith
Speaker 2: through weakening your immune.
Speaker 1: System, that faith immune system that is.
Speaker 2: Supposed to filter out those microscopic germs, those seeds of
Speaker 2: discontent that will cause you to walk away from what
Speaker 2: God has calling you to walk into. Although he can't
Speaker 2: take it away from you, if he can get to
Speaker 2: your faith, if he can get to that part of
Speaker 2: you that believes God and cause it to be disrupted
Speaker 2: by something that your eyes see or your ears. Here,
Speaker 2: Holy Spirit, help me say this the right way. He
Speaker 2: can't take it. So what he wants to do is
Speaker 2: to move you from a place of believing that He
Speaker 2: loves you, called you, qualified you, set you apart, put
Speaker 2: you there to do it.
Speaker 1: And the issue with me is that I.
Speaker 2: Experience both thoughts, both voices simultaneously.
Speaker 1: Let me try to break this down.
Speaker 2: I got Caleb telling me this is one thought you
Speaker 2: should you can, and then I got ten other spies.
Speaker 2: You ever noticed how it seems to be more reasons
Speaker 2: why you shouldn't than that you should.
Speaker 1: You ever felt outnumbered in your thought life? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I got ten spies. Now the spies are going into
Speaker 2: the land. And the number one rule of being a
Speaker 2: spy is don't get caught, right yo with me? Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's the number one rule of being a spy. Whatever
Speaker 2: you do, sneak in. And Joshua told him, or Moses
Speaker 2: told him. Joshua was one of the two spies that
Speaker 2: sought the right way, and he told him. Moses told
Speaker 2: Joshua and Caleb into ten other spies. He said, when
Speaker 2: you go in there, make sure, make sure that they
Speaker 2: don't see you. Okay, But then they got caught. But
Speaker 2: they didn't get caught by their enemies. They got caught
Speaker 2: by their insecurities. I'm a preached to you. They got
Speaker 2: caught by a thought. And the thought was, we're not
Speaker 2: big enough. The thought was we don't have enough.
Speaker 1: The thought is, we can't they're bigger.
Speaker 2: And so then now all of a sudden they are
Speaker 2: dominated not by their enemies, but by their thoughts. And
Speaker 2: God said that I was preaching to somebody today who
Speaker 2: is caught between two thoughts. One is telling you that
Speaker 2: God gave you everything you need to raise that child.
Speaker 2: The other is telling you that you're the one who
Speaker 2: screwed them up. I'm a preaching to your business today.
Speaker 2: One is telling you that it's all right. God can
Speaker 2: restore the years that the locusts have eaten. The other
Speaker 2: is telling you you've wasted too much time and now
Speaker 2: nothing good can happen in your life.
Speaker 1: So I'm caught between two.
Speaker 2: Thoughts and On one hand, I see the size of
Speaker 2: the grapes, I see the size of the promise, and
Speaker 2: I know the size of my God. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: I hear all of the reasons why a great, big
Speaker 2: God could not use a little puny person like me
Speaker 2: from Monks Corner, South Carolina, a little puny person like
Speaker 2: me who never did this on this level before.
Speaker 1: Even as I preach to you, I'm caught between two thoughts.
Speaker 2: She looks like she's never heard a better sermon in
Speaker 2: her life.
Speaker 1: Somebody up there looks.
Speaker 2: Like they hate me and are contemplating how they can
Speaker 2: slip out. And how did I get stuck in the
Speaker 2: middle of this row for this sermon? And why is
Speaker 2: he yelling like that? And that shirt is too bright
Speaker 2: and it hurts my eyes, and I just want to
Speaker 2: get out of here. I'm a preach to you. I'm
Speaker 2: a preach to the I'm a preach to the love
Speaker 2: in the room. I'm going to preach to the faith.
Speaker 2: You're feeling better, Lja. He had to miss last Sunday.
Speaker 2: It's the first time he's missed playing behind me in
Speaker 2: three years.
Speaker 1: He's never missed, but he caught. He caught a stomach bug,
Speaker 1: and I'm not gonna lie to you. This may make
Speaker 1: me a bad pastor.
Speaker 2: When I saw him Tuesday, I waved at him.
Speaker 1: I didn't wap him up. I don't love him that much.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to spend the whole week throwing up
Speaker 2: just to tell you, hello, we can do this virtually.
Speaker 2: I love you, man, praying for you from a distance,
Speaker 2: I'm not getting close enough to catch it.
Speaker 1: M hm.
Speaker 2: And honestly, this is why I had to stop hanging
Speaker 2: out with some certain people, because I started realizing, you
Speaker 2: catch what you're close to. Now, if you need to
Speaker 2: take out your phone at this point in my sermon
Speaker 2: and do some surgery with that, swipe left, delete, move.
Speaker 2: Some of y'all don't need to lift your hands to
Speaker 2: have more faith, you need to swipe your thumb because
Speaker 2: it is your contacts. I caught something. I catch something
Speaker 2: every time I'm around them, every time I scroll.
Speaker 1: I noticed this the other day.
Speaker 2: I get in a certain mood and I can't figure
Speaker 2: out how was I so happy three minutes ago?
Speaker 1: And now have you ever had a switch that quick? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So I started studying it, and I realized that before
Speaker 2: I caught a feeling, I caught a thought. Now, sometimes
Speaker 2: that thought is just me going through my feed and
Speaker 2: I will see something that won't register. Now, here's what
Speaker 2: I noticed. You don't feel it while you're scrolling. When
Speaker 2: I ate a whole bag of oreos one Thanksgiving after
Speaker 2: I'd already eaten three meals, I didn't feel sick while
Speaker 2: I was eating them. My taste buds didn't tell me
Speaker 2: to stop. So I'm scrolling and I don't feel sick
Speaker 2: until after I've stopped.
Speaker 1: What I realized about myself.
Speaker 2: And maybe you're more spiritually mature than me, and you
Speaker 2: can find a church where the pastor is whole.
Speaker 1: Healthy and doesn't have these issues.
Speaker 2: But for all of us who understand that, sometimes you
Speaker 2: are mad about something that you saw ten minutes minutes
Speaker 2: ago on your phone because you were in everybody else's
Speaker 2: life but your own, trying to figure out am I
Speaker 2: better than them? Are they better than me? And so
Speaker 2: what happened while I was scrolling? I saw them on vacation,
Speaker 2: and I know they're in debt. So I caught a
Speaker 2: thought of judgment. Why should they be on vacation when
Speaker 2: I know they're in debt? And now I feel sick?
Speaker 2: Ten minutes later because of the thought that I caught
Speaker 2: while I scrolled through somebody else's situation that has nothing
Speaker 2: to do with my responsibility. Y'all gonna help me with this,
Speaker 2: or am I gonna? So what happened to me was
Speaker 2: I caught a thought of offense, and then I reaped
Speaker 2: an attitude of frustration.
Speaker 1: I got offended the other.
Speaker 2: Day because I saw God blessing somebody that he wasn't supposed.
Speaker 1: To bless.
Speaker 2: Did you ever watch godja do something awesome for the
Speaker 2: wrong person?
Speaker 1: He didn't consult you?
Speaker 2: And so I found myself feeling insecure. The reason that
Speaker 2: I felt insecure in myself is because I caught a
Speaker 2: thought of offense about somebody else. Now here's what happens.
Speaker 2: You become a victim of your own judgment. When you
Speaker 2: judge others that way, you judge you that way. So
Speaker 2: when you catch a thought of judging others, don't be
Speaker 2: surprised when the judgment comes upon you. The less y'all say, amen,
Speaker 2: the more I know I'm preaching.
Speaker 1: So I caught a thought.
Speaker 2: I caught a thought, and I realized that the thought
Speaker 2: that I hold on to the thought.
Speaker 1: That I you know, like you can catch a wave.
Speaker 2: You could catch a football for the game win touchdown,
Speaker 2: like Graham Fredick did yesterday, just this very yesterday. But
Speaker 2: I never knew I could catch a thought. I knew
Speaker 2: you could catch a case. I had some relatives that
Speaker 2: did it. I knew you could catch a cold. But
Speaker 2: I found out you could catch a thought. And then
Speaker 2: I trace sometimes the weakness of my faith, and I
Speaker 2: ask myself the question, where did that thought come from?
Speaker 2: And it's important where it came from, because where it
Speaker 2: comes from determines where it leads to. My issue is
Speaker 2: that when I say I hear from God, I don't
Speaker 2: hear him out loud. God bless you if you do.
Speaker 2: I've never heard the audible voice of God ever. I mean,
Speaker 2: he speaks through my wife all the time. But other
Speaker 2: than that exception, I've never heard the audible voice of God.
Speaker 2: If you have, I'm not mad at you unless you
Speaker 2: start trying to use it to manipulate people by making
Speaker 2: up stuff that God told you, because God has three
Speaker 2: way calling and he can tell us both. So don't
Speaker 2: tell me God spoke to you something that I'm not
Speaker 2: in agreement with and try to get me to do
Speaker 2: something you.
Speaker 1: Want to do by saying God told you to, especially
Speaker 1: if you.
Speaker 2: Say God told you to quit your job because you're
Speaker 2: just tired of dealing with frustrating people. I don't know
Speaker 2: if that's God or if you're just tired. Need to
Speaker 2: get some sleep and have better attitude when you show up.
Speaker 2: I've never heard from God out loud. One guy asked
Speaker 2: me one time. He was like, when you say God
Speaker 2: spoke to you.
Speaker 1: How do you know?
Speaker 2: Great question, because I don't hear God at an auditory level,
Speaker 2: so when I say God spoke, that can be misleading.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: When Peter said Jesus spoke to me, it was literal.
Speaker 2: Jesus was a person. He spoke to me. I was
Speaker 2: fishing one night. I hadn't caught anything. I was frustrated,
Speaker 2: and Jesus said, let down your nets in the deep
Speaker 2: for a catch. And Peter would say, at first, I
Speaker 2: was frustrated because I thought you're a carpenter. I'm a fisherman.
Speaker 2: You do your job, I'll do mine. You wanted my
Speaker 2: boat to preach from. I didn't know you were going
Speaker 2: to try to drive it. But watch this, because you
Speaker 2: say so, I will let down the nets.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: When he let down the nets. He caught a great
Speaker 2: number of fish. But God was showing me that before
Speaker 2: he caught the fish, he caught a you like this church,
Speaker 2: Before there was a seat, there was a thought.
Speaker 7: Now see the issue with this is I don't hear
Speaker 7: God out loud like that, and so I connect with
Speaker 7: God not at an auditory or sensory level.
Speaker 2: I connect with God at the level of thought. Which
Speaker 2: would be fine if God spoke to me at the
Speaker 2: level of thought, and he was the only one who
Speaker 2: spoke that way.
Speaker 1: But I got this other joker. They call him the devil.
Speaker 2: But when I say the devil tempts me or the
Speaker 2: devil discourages me, I'm not talking about a guy in
Speaker 2: a Halloween costume that he got on clearance at Target,
Speaker 2: walking up with a pitchfork and a cape and some horns.
Speaker 2: I never saw the devil like that. I just put
Speaker 2: him off my shoulder. He's not on my shoulder when
Speaker 2: he comes to me. He comes to me through a thought.
Speaker 2: So now I got God.
Speaker 1: Speaking to me through my thoughts.
Speaker 2: I've got the enemy trying to speak against what God
Speaker 2: spoke to me through my thoughts. I got two voices
Speaker 2: on the same.
Speaker 1: Device, and I'm caught between a thought.
Speaker 2: One is telling me your greatest years are ahead of you.
Speaker 2: One is telling me, you've already done all the good
Speaker 2: things you're gonna do. You better write it out because
Speaker 2: it won't be much longer. One is telling me go
Speaker 2: ahead and speak it and say it and do it
Speaker 2: and step into it and believe for it. And the
Speaker 2: other one is telling me, well, you better not go
Speaker 2: too far out there. You know, if you go too
Speaker 2: far out there, you be embarrassed. And after off you
Speaker 2: climb high, they can pull you down.
Speaker 1: And I'm caught between Caleb we Can and the other spies.
Speaker 1: I'm caught.
Speaker 2: Caught got a thought. I got caught. I got caught
Speaker 2: by a thought. I don't know how it happened, but y'all,
Speaker 2: I got this thought that goes through my mind all
Speaker 2: the time that says it doesn't matter, just all the time.
Speaker 2: I could be doing anything and it'll be like it's
Speaker 2: almost the way the thought. You know that eye roll
Speaker 2: emoji that you yeah, that's that would be the face
Speaker 2: of it, But the thought behind it is like, you know,
Speaker 2: who cares doesn't matter? You ever had that thought catch
Speaker 2: you trying to do something? Mm hmm raise your hand again.
Speaker 2: If you've ever had that.
Speaker 1: Thought, why did y'all raise y'all saying so much higher?
Speaker 1: The second time?
Speaker 2: I asked her, Oh oh, oh.
Speaker 1: You're not enough.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you say it exactly like that,
Speaker 2: but it's crazy how many people I talked to. And
Speaker 2: I used to think it was people who didn't have
Speaker 2: a lot of confidence, but then I realized professional athletes
Speaker 2: have this thought that.
Speaker 1: I'm not enough.
Speaker 2: They are the ones who are society worships. And still
Speaker 2: there's a thought. It's a thought that's going around. The
Speaker 2: reason is going around so much more now than it
Speaker 2: used to go around is because now we don't judge
Speaker 2: ourselves or measure ourselves.
Speaker 1: According to the calling God has given us.
Speaker 2: We compare ourselves to a fictionalized account of somebody else's life.
Speaker 1: That's where you always get in trouble. Now, get this point.
Speaker 2: You always get in trouble when you start comparing your
Speaker 2: calling to somebody else's because when you compare callings, you
Speaker 2: catch insecurity. When you compare callings, you catch in sufficiency.
Speaker 1: When I think I'm not enough, you know I'm not enough.
Speaker 2: Even the disciples, you know it's not enough food to
Speaker 2: go around.
Speaker 1: Jesus, you need to send them away.
Speaker 2: How many times have I sent away something that God
Speaker 2: put in my life because I caught a thought that
Speaker 2: I'm not enough. They wandered around and around and around
Speaker 2: in the wilderness for forty years, not because of their enemy,
Speaker 2: but because of their thought.
Speaker 1: And then even sometimes when things are going.
Speaker 2: Good, I got this thought. I don't know where it
Speaker 2: comes from. I don't think it's God. I don't think
Speaker 2: it is. It's hard to tell sometimes because it's not
Speaker 2: like he talks like this. I don't even know what
Speaker 2: that was. I'm glad he didn't talk like that. That
Speaker 2: was super weird.
Speaker 1: Yes, like Morgan Freeman. It's just a thought.
Speaker 2: Come on, if God sounded like Morgan Freeman, you could
Speaker 2: do it. If you narrated your life like that, you
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: But it comes like a thought. You know, even when
Speaker 2: it's going good, it won't last. They'll leave you too.
Speaker 2: You can't count on them. Then you sabotage the gift
Speaker 2: because you're not securing it, because even while it's happening,
Speaker 2: you don't believe this is real. This is my thoughts.
Speaker 2: I don't know where I caught them. I had a
Speaker 2: good mom, good dad. I mean, they weren't perfect, don't
Speaker 2: get me wrong. I wish I could trace it back
Speaker 2: to just one traumatic event. I think that would be easier,
Speaker 2: not enough. Where that thought come from. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: where it comes from, but I know where it takes me.
Speaker 2: And when I look back on the seasons of my
Speaker 2: life that I was so deep in depression. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: and I know the Bible verses. Yeah, I know better
Speaker 2: than you. Let's have a quote in contest, Rejoice in
Speaker 2: the Lord Always. I will say it again, rejoice see
Speaker 2: my hand motions.
Speaker 1: I know the verse rejoicing the Lord Always.
Speaker 2: And then Paul says, I will say it again, rejoice. Well,
Speaker 2: you can say it as many times as you want to.
Speaker 5: Paul.
Speaker 2: I'm sad right now and I can't find my way out,
Speaker 2: and so now I'm fighting on the.
Speaker 1: Level of my feelings. But watch this before it became
Speaker 1: a feeling.
Speaker 2: And look, even Paul, it wasn't just like most was
Speaker 2: a bad leader. Even Paul had to fight against opposing
Speaker 2: voices and thought systems that undermine the essence of the grace.
Speaker 2: Of God in the gospel, even in the churches that
Speaker 2: he started, even in the church at Corinth he would
Speaker 2: write to that church, and what would happen to them
Speaker 2: was they would they would they would be led astray
Speaker 2: or the word he likes to use in Second Corinthians
Speaker 2: is deceived. He says, I fear that you're being deceived
Speaker 2: by the power of suggestion. He uses the example. He says,
Speaker 2: like Eve was deceived by the serpent. You remember that
Speaker 2: story when God said you can eat any of this,
Speaker 2: And then she caught a thought from a snake. She
Speaker 2: allows something that was beneath her to speak to her,
Speaker 2: and she caught a thought.
Speaker 1: See, I never had a snake slither up to me
Speaker 1: and talk to me. I wish I did.
Speaker 2: I wish it was a snake that I could chop
Speaker 2: the head off of it.
Speaker 1: It's a thought. And I have to live with this
Speaker 1: and I have to deal with it.
Speaker 2: And the serpent said to Eve, did God really say
Speaker 2: you see it? He introduces a doubt into the possibility
Speaker 2: and potential of faith, causing her to focus on what
Speaker 2: is not available rather than what is. And Paul says,
Speaker 2: I'm afraid that you will be deceived because there's these
Speaker 2: there's these spies in the church at Corinth, and there
Speaker 2: they're leading the Christians astray. They're doing it by the
Speaker 2: power of thought. They are introducing the thought into the
Speaker 2: Church that you need something other than Christ to justify you.
Speaker 2: He says, I fear that you have been led astray
Speaker 2: from your pure devotion to Christ. And pure is the
Speaker 2: right word. That's the important word.
Speaker 1: Pure.
Speaker 2: It's that uncontaminated place that you access occasionally where you
Speaker 2: know that God's got you and everything is going to
Speaker 2: be all right. You ever just felt that and you
Speaker 2: had no reason to, and you didn't even have the
Speaker 2: facts to back it up. You ever just felt that,
Speaker 2: Like Wow, I just feel like I feel like I'm
Speaker 2: gonna make it and God's going to do it. And
Speaker 2: I just feel it. And I can't even prove it
Speaker 2: on a flow chart or anything like that, but I
Speaker 2: just What happens is the enemy deceives you. He can't
Speaker 2: take what God gave you.
Speaker 1: You know that, right.
Speaker 2: I need to make sure you know that he can't
Speaker 2: take what God gave you. But if he can get
Speaker 2: you to catch a thought that opposes it, he can
Speaker 2: keep you so weak that you will not walk into it.
Speaker 2: And this is what he says to the church at
Speaker 2: Corinth Because they got spies running and around introducing lies
Speaker 2: to the church. They got thoughts that oppose the knowledge
Speaker 2: of God. In fact, that's how he phrases it in
Speaker 2: tewod Corinthians ten, verse four. He says, the weapons we
Speaker 2: fight with are not the weapons of the world. On
Speaker 2: the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. What's
Speaker 2: a stronghold in military terms is a place that you
Speaker 2: go to seek refuge, a stronghold where you set up
Speaker 2: to do a battle where the enemy can't get to you,
Speaker 2: or it can become a place where the enemy traps
Speaker 2: you in He says, what happens in a physical battle
Speaker 2: can happen mentally, spiritually, emotionally to any one of us
Speaker 2: at any time.
Speaker 1: See, because it is.
Speaker 2: With the thought that I can experience God. I can
Speaker 2: catch a thought of g Jesus and his grace for me,
Speaker 2: and his love for me, and his mercy toward me,
Speaker 2: and that thought can move me to worship Him in
Speaker 2: the beauty of holiness, in the splendor of his magnificence.
Speaker 2: In fact, I want to say this one thought of
Speaker 2: Jesus can lift you above any wave of worrying. One
Speaker 2: thought of Jesus. Have you been having trouble breathing this week?
Speaker 2: Get a thought on your mind of the goodness of God.
Speaker 2: You see that battle he brought you through, You see
Speaker 2: that way he made for you, And.
Speaker 1: Just one thought of Jesus.
Speaker 2: How many no one thought can lift me out of
Speaker 2: the pit one thought. But a stronghold can also Ensnare
Speaker 2: you a thought I'm not enough? A thought I wonder
Speaker 2: what they're thinking about me right now.
Speaker 1: They're not.
Speaker 2: But that thought I thought, this isn't gonna end. Well,
Speaker 2: that thought, I'm not what they think I am. Here's
Speaker 2: one of my here's one of my strongholds. If they
Speaker 2: really knew you, they wouldn't like you, if they really knew.
Speaker 2: Because all of us are bluffing. All of us are
Speaker 2: faking it. All your little cool friends are faking it.
Speaker 2: They all got acne, they all got his shoes, They
Speaker 2: all feel lonely, and none of y'all are cool. Everybody's
Speaker 2: faking it the expense. If your shoes are you ain't perfect.
Speaker 2: But Paul, they were coming in the church like, oh,
Speaker 2: he's an impostor, he's not a real one. They were
Speaker 2: introducing a thought to rob them. You know, the devil
Speaker 2: is a thief. Right, he can't take your promise, so
Speaker 2: now he wants to steal your thoughts. Bob was reading
Speaker 2: something in Proverbs. Can I show you this real quick?
Speaker 2: I didn't get show him last night. In Proverbs, Chapter six,
Speaker 2: verse thirty, it says people do not despise a thief
Speaker 2: if he steals to satisfy his hunger when he's starving.
Speaker 2: A thief is just a thief. You know, the enemy
Speaker 2: is a thief. You can't blame him for trying to
Speaker 2: steal what he doesn't want you to have. But check
Speaker 2: the next verse. I love this verse thirty one. Yet
Speaker 2: if he is caught. Yet, if he is caught, he
Speaker 2: must pay seven full. So today we came into this
Speaker 2: service to catch a thief and to let him know.
Speaker 2: Give me my joy back, give me my peace back,
Speaker 2: give me my wisdom back, give me the joy of
Speaker 2: my salvation.
Speaker 1: Restore seventh fall con talk.
Speaker 2: I kind of thought, I realize that he loves me,
Speaker 2: and if he loves me, it doesn't.
Speaker 1: Matter if you like me. I kind of thought, I'm
Speaker 1: bold about it. I form for it. I'm made for it,
Speaker 1: I'm called to it.
Speaker 2: I believe I'll walk right forward into my future holding
Speaker 2: on to a thought of the favor of God.
Speaker 1: Some of y'all need to catch this. Come on, catch this.
Speaker 2: Favor, catch this word, catch this joy, catch this peace.
Speaker 2: You've been hanging around Facebook, but you came in here
Speaker 2: for some faith today.
Speaker 1: Didn't you. Well, catch this. God is for you. He's
Speaker 1: more than the world against you.
Speaker 2: Kick those ten spies out of your hand and listen
Speaker 2: to Caleb.
Speaker 1: We can, we should, we will.
Speaker 8: He is.
Speaker 2: I have my air.
Speaker 1: Hi five of them and say, I caught a thought.
Speaker 1: I caught a thought.
Speaker 2: I caught a thought, just like I caught a cold
Speaker 2: last February.
Speaker 1: I caught a thought. I found out that he is Avil.
Speaker 1: I found out that he who.
Speaker 2: Began a good work in me will be faithful to
Speaker 2: complete it. I found out he is the bread of life.
Speaker 2: He is how Shadai, He is more than enough. I
Speaker 2: caught a thought of God. A thought brought me into depression,
Speaker 2: and a thought he was going to bring me out.
Speaker 2: When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince
Speaker 2: of Glory died.
Speaker 1: My richest gain I count but loss and poor contempt
Speaker 1: on all my pride. What's he saying? I caught a
Speaker 1: thought the.
Speaker 2: Goodness of God, and that lifted me out of the
Speaker 2: pit of my despair. You can't keep the thought from coming.
Speaker 2: But what's what Paul said? He said, we demolish strongholds.
Speaker 2: How do we destroy it? Verse five is important? He said,
Speaker 2: we demolish every spy that says we can't and every
Speaker 2: pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.
Speaker 2: How many knows something about God that is deeper than
Speaker 2: a feeling. I mean, you've known it since you were
Speaker 2: a child. You've known it in your soul, you've known
Speaker 2: it in your spirit. Deep calls to deep. So when
Speaker 2: I have a thought that opposes what I know about God,
Speaker 2: what you're gonna do about it? I can't keep it
Speaker 2: from coming. But he said, we take captive, yeah, every
Speaker 2: thought to make it obey Christ. And so when they
Speaker 2: say you seem different this week, you don't look so
Speaker 2: stressed this week, tell them, oh, yeah, it's craziest thing.
Speaker 1: I caught a thought. It was about this big I
Speaker 1: found out God is about this. I caught a thought
Speaker 1: of his greatness.
Speaker 2: I magnified him in my mind, I begin to rejoice
Speaker 2: in the rock of my salvation. This I recall to
Speaker 2: my mind. Therefore I have hope. I caught a thought
Speaker 2: and it led me.
Speaker 1: To a hope.
Speaker 2: Now the thought that you hold on to, the one
Speaker 2: that you allow to dominate, that will be the stronghold
Speaker 2: of your life. If the Lord is your stronghold, if
Speaker 2: he is the place where you hide, if you catch
Speaker 2: a thought, a glimpse of your calling.
Speaker 1: Okay, here it is.
Speaker 2: There was a woman who was bleeding on the inside.
Speaker 2: She heard Jesus coming through her part of town. She
Speaker 2: had done everything to fix it at the level.
Speaker 9: Of the symptom, but nothing worked. The condition that she
Speaker 9: had was a deep one. It was causing her to
Speaker 9: hemorrhage and lose blood, just like many of us are
Speaker 9: hemorrhaging emotionally and losing energy and losing hope. When she
Speaker 9: heard Jesus passing through, her desperation for a change caused
Speaker 9: her to do something dramatic in her life because she
Speaker 9: had gotten a second opinion, and a third opinion, in
Speaker 9: a fourth opinion, and none of that word.
Speaker 1: But here comes healing and here comes hope.
Speaker 5: And the Bible says that she did what she had
Speaker 5: to do to get through all of the people who
Speaker 5: could have blocked her, and to grab a hole to
Speaker 5: 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.
Speaker 2: But she reaches out, and the Bible says that she
Speaker 2: is this verse thirty seven.
Speaker 1: Yes, she touched his cloak. She caught him. She caught
Speaker 1: his cloak. She caught what could heal her.
Speaker 8: She caught a flow, she caught a miracle, she caught
Speaker 8: a change verse thirty eight because she thought.
Speaker 1: Before I caught the answer. I caught a thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, before I caught forgiveness. I caught a thought before
Speaker 2: I caught bitterness. I caught a thought. If I can
Speaker 2: catch a thought, I can catch his cloak. And if
Speaker 2: I can touch him, he can make me well. With
Speaker 2: everyone standing and your hands lifted to heaven like you
Speaker 2: need to catch what Heaven has today, I declare over
Speaker 2: your life.
Speaker 1: That faith and favor are flowing.
Speaker 2: From the person of Jesus in the form of the
Speaker 2: Holy Spirit in this moment, across every location and our
Speaker 2: epam around the world.
Speaker 1: Catch this.
Speaker 2: You've been holding on to thoughts of low self worth
Speaker 2: and low self esteem, all to lead you to this
Speaker 2: moment in the presence of Jesus, that if you can
Speaker 2: catch a thought, the woman was made well because she
Speaker 2: touched his cloak.
Speaker 1: She touched his cloak because she caught a thought.
Speaker 2: And there are great opportunities for love and for joy,
Speaker 2: and for peace and for provision. There is a great
Speaker 2: calling and assignment on your life, My sister. There is
Speaker 2: a tremendous promise in front of you. And there's Caleb
Speaker 2: saying you should. You can, And there's ten other spies
Speaker 2: saying you can. And I don't care if you're out
Speaker 2: number ten to two. If you will follow Caleb into Canaan,
Speaker 2: you can eat the fruit of the land. You can
Speaker 2: experience the joy of the Lord, if you can catch
Speaker 2: this thought. This I recall to my mind. I caught
Speaker 2: a thought, and it lifted me from my despair. I
Speaker 2: caught a thought and it lifted me from my addiction.
Speaker 2: I caught a thought of Jesus, and it lifted me
Speaker 2: from my shame. And I begin to rejoice and worship Him.
Speaker 1: With gladness because I caught a thought.
Speaker 2: A victory for the battle belongs to the Lord. He
Speaker 2: is my stronghold. He is the strength of my life,
Speaker 2: and I will not be put to shame, for the
Speaker 2: joy of the Lord is my strength. Come on, catch
Speaker 2: this victory, catch this wind. Lift your sails and catch
Speaker 2: this victory.
Speaker 1: Catch this wind.
Speaker 2: Sing it over the people, Chris till they catch it.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna see it in the land of the Living.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna see the goodness of God. I'm gonna sing it.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna see till I see it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna see sixy. Come on, touches.
Speaker 2: God, touch his resence, touches Healingna Tom, I'm gonna see
Speaker 2: you sixy.
Speaker 1: For come on, you can catch It's an impartation.
Speaker 2: Gonna see your fixy.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
Speaker 2: this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 2: You can click the link in the description to give now,
Speaker 2: or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information
Speaker 2: and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1: You can share it with your friends.
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Speaker 2: Elevation Church.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening. God bless you.