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Speaker 5: Hi, this is Joel and Victoria. Thanks for downloading our podcast.
Speaker 5: We enjoy spending this time with you. I hope you'll
Speaker 5: leave Inspire.
Speaker 6: Make sure you subscribe to get new messages every week.
Speaker 5: We appreciate your support. It helps keep the ministry going.
Speaker 7: Enjoy the message.
Speaker 5: Well, God bless you. Thanks so much for letting us
Speaker 5: come into your homes. And if you're ever in our area,
Speaker 5: please stop by and be a part of one of
Speaker 5: our services.
Speaker 6: I promise you we'll make you feel right at home.
Speaker 5: But thanks so much for tuning in, and thank you
Speaker 5: again for coming out. I like to start with something funny,
Speaker 5: and I heard about this man that was very stingy
Speaker 5: with his money, and just before his death, he made
Speaker 5: his wife promise him that she would have him buried
Speaker 5: with the fifty thousand dollars he had saved. The wife
Speaker 5: reluctantly agreed, and at the funeral, before they closed the casket,
Speaker 5: she snuck in this small wooden box. Her friend said,
Speaker 5: surely you didn't just bury the money, did you. The
Speaker 5: wife said, of course I did. I'm a Christian. I
Speaker 5: can't lie. She said, you mean you just buried fifty
Speaker 5: thousand dollars. The wife said, yes, I did. I wrote
Speaker 5: a check.
Speaker 6: Hold up your.
Speaker 5: Bible, say it like you mean it. This is my Bible.
Speaker 5: I am what it says I am. I have what
Speaker 5: it says I have. I can do what it says
Speaker 5: I can do. Today I will be taught the word
Speaker 5: of God. I boldly confess. My mind is alert, my
Speaker 5: heart is receptive. I will never be the same. In Jesus' name,
Speaker 5: God bless you. I want to talk to you today about.
Speaker 3: Just do it.
Speaker 5: Sometimes God asks us to do things that don't make sense,
Speaker 5: doesn't seem logical, doesn't fit into our budget, doesn't line
Speaker 5: up with our schedule.
Speaker 6: God, you want me to go back to college.
Speaker 5: I'm forty years old. God, you want me to give
Speaker 5: them a gift? I was saving those funds for my
Speaker 5: own dreams. Or God, you want me to lead this
Speaker 5: secure position that I've had for years and start my
Speaker 5: own business. Too often we overanalyze it, we debate it,
Speaker 5: look at it only in the natural. We end up
Speaker 5: making excuses, talking ourselves out of it. That couldn't be God.
Speaker 5: But if you're going to reach your highest potential, you
Speaker 5: have to have bold obedience. That means you obey even
Speaker 5: when you don't understand it.
Speaker 6: You just do it, even when it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 6: That's what faith is all about.
Speaker 5: If you can understand everything, you have the time, the money,
Speaker 5: it's all lined up.
Speaker 6: That doesn't really take any faith. God will ask you
Speaker 6: to do things that seem far out, unusual, not practical.
Speaker 5: With every act of obedience, there is a blessing attached
Speaker 5: to it. When you do what you know down and
Speaker 5: here God wants you to do, a blessing will follow.
Speaker 6: God rewards obedience.
Speaker 5: One time Jesus made mud put it on a blind
Speaker 5: man's eyes. He told him to go wash it off
Speaker 5: in the pool of saloon. Jesus could have just as
Speaker 5: easily healed.
Speaker 6: The blind man on the spot.
Speaker 5: He could have opened his eyes right then and there
Speaker 5: and sent him on his way. Obedience activates God's power.
Speaker 5: He put the ball back in the blind man's court.
Speaker 5: He said, in effect, if you want to be healed,
Speaker 5: you're going to have to do something that doesn't make sense,
Speaker 5: something that's not logical. You're going to have to show
Speaker 5: that you trust me and go wash this off in
Speaker 5: the pool. The blind man could have wiped the mud
Speaker 5: off with his own hands and thought, I'm not gonna
Speaker 5: do that.
Speaker 6: That doesn't make sense. That's going to be a waste
Speaker 6: of time. He could have thought, I'm.
Speaker 5: Blind, I have these disadvantages. I can't make it down
Speaker 5: to the pool. But instead of making excuses, instead of
Speaker 5: talking to himself out of it, he decided to just
Speaker 5: do it, went to the pool, washed it off. Immediately.
Speaker 5: He could see here's the key. The healing wasn't in
Speaker 5: the water. The healing was in the obedience. When you obey,
Speaker 5: dreams come to pass. When you obey, health is restored
Speaker 5: when you obey.
Speaker 6: Turn around.
Speaker 5: I wonder how many miracles we would see if we
Speaker 5: would simply do what we know we're supposed to do.
Speaker 5: Are you talking yourself out of something because it's not practical?
Speaker 5: Doesn't make sense. I know I should volunteer, but I'm
Speaker 5: too busy. I know I shouldn't hang around these friends,
Speaker 5: but I don't want to be lonely. I know I
Speaker 5: should get out of this job where I'm not going
Speaker 5: any place, but at least I'm comfortable.
Speaker 6: No quit putting it off and just do it.
Speaker 5: If you'll have bold obedience, you'll see God's favor in
Speaker 5: a new way. When Joshua and the Israelites needed to
Speaker 5: get across the Jordan River, God said he would open
Speaker 5: it up, but they had to get their feet wet
Speaker 5: before the water's parted. They could have sat back and thought,
Speaker 5: as soon as God opens it.
Speaker 6: Then we'll walk toward.
Speaker 5: It doesn't make sense to go now. The river's still flowing.
Speaker 5: Everything's normal, nothing's unusual. They took a step of faith
Speaker 5: and started walking toward the water. I can imagine when
Speaker 5: water got up to their ankles, they thought, what are
Speaker 5: we doing walking into a river?
Speaker 6: We could drown.
Speaker 5: Water got up to their knees and thought said you
Speaker 5: better turn around. You're making a mistake. Water up to
Speaker 5: their waste. They just kept walking. What is that bold obedience?
Speaker 5: About that time the river supernaturally parted, they walked into
Speaker 5: their promised land in the same way. If you're going
Speaker 5: to make it to your promised land, it's going to take.
Speaker 6: This bold obedience.
Speaker 5: You're not always going to understand what God is doing.
Speaker 5: God is not always logical. The scripture says His ways
Speaker 5: are not our ways.
Speaker 6: And take this in the right sense. Sometimes you have
Speaker 6: to turn your mind off.
Speaker 5: If you overanalyze it, look at it only in the natural.
Speaker 6: You'll never get off a dead sinner. Faith is not
Speaker 6: your head. Faith is in your heart. Down in here.
Speaker 6: You'll know the right thing to do. Up here.
Speaker 5: You'll have a thousand excuses, a thousand reasons why it's
Speaker 5: not going to work out. You've got to turn your
Speaker 5: mind off and listen to your heart. That's what I
Speaker 5: did in nineteen ninety nine when my dad died.
Speaker 6: I knew I was supposed to step up and pasture
Speaker 6: the church.
Speaker 5: I felt it so strongly down in here, but in
Speaker 5: my mind it didn't make sense. I had never ministered before,
Speaker 5: never been to seminary. I said, God, this doesn't make
Speaker 5: sense to me. But I'm going to take a step
Speaker 5: of faith, believing that you know what's best for my life.
Speaker 5: And as I stepped into the water, as I got
Speaker 5: my feet wet, so to speak, that's when the water's parted.
Speaker 5: God's taken me places I've never dreamed of. But some
Speaker 5: of you are waiting for the waters to part. Then
Speaker 5: you're going to take a step of faith. But your
Speaker 5: obedience is what the water to part. You're waiting on God,
Speaker 5: but God's.
Speaker 6: Waiting on you.
Speaker 5: If you'll do what you know God's asking you to do,
Speaker 5: your obedience will activate the favor, the increase the blessing.
Speaker 5: Much of what happens along the way are simply tested.
Speaker 5: God is seeing, Do you trust me? Will you obey
Speaker 5: even when.
Speaker 6: You don't understand it?
Speaker 5: Will you take a step of faith even when it
Speaker 5: doesn't make sense.
Speaker 6: Back in the nineteen.
Speaker 5: Sixties, Lakewood was still in its original building, a feed
Speaker 5: store that held two hundred people. The church was really
Speaker 5: growing and they needed a larger auditorium. My father told
Speaker 5: the congregation that on a particular Sunday he was going
Speaker 5: to receive a special offering for a new building. He
Speaker 5: asked them to see what God would have them to
Speaker 5: give and really pray about it, and he encouraged them
Speaker 5: to stretch their faith, to believe big, and to do
Speaker 5: their very best. He received the offering. It was a
Speaker 5: little over six thousand dollars.
Speaker 6: To them back then, that was like six hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 6: Daddy was so excited.
Speaker 5: That was enough to pour the foundation and get the
Speaker 5: building started. But one day, driving home from church, my
Speaker 5: father passed a small Spanish church about six blocks from Lakewood.
Speaker 5: This Spanish church had been building on a little auditorium
Speaker 5: for years. They would build and take time off, build
Speaker 5: some more.
Speaker 6: And on and on.
Speaker 5: As my father passed, he heard a voice down in hearsay,
Speaker 5: I want you to give that special offering to this
Speaker 5: Spanish church so they can finish their building.
Speaker 6: Daddy's first thought was get behind me, Satan. That could
Speaker 6: not be God. He began to reason it out. God,
Speaker 6: you mean you.
Speaker 5: Want me to give the money. I just raised the money.
Speaker 5: We need the money. We've been dreaming about money, we've
Speaker 5: been praying for it. You want me to give that
Speaker 5: to a church down the street. Didn't make sense, didn't
Speaker 5: seem logical. He needed the funds, Yet God said, sow
Speaker 5: it as a seed. My father had this bold obedience.
Speaker 5: He said, all right, God.
Speaker 6: He wrote them a check and they nearly passed out.
Speaker 6: Over the next few months.
Speaker 5: People begin to come from nowhere giving money.
Speaker 6: To the Lakewood New Sanctuary.
Speaker 5: They not only had enough for the foundation, but enough
Speaker 5: for the whole building. A year later, they moved into
Speaker 5: a one thousand seat sanctuary, totally debt free. You can't
Speaker 5: outgive God. When God asked you to do something, just
Speaker 5: do it. If you talk yourself out of it, not
Speaker 5: only is the other person not being blessed, but you're
Speaker 5: missing the blessing God has for you. How many times
Speaker 5: have I taught myself out of doing what I knew
Speaker 5: God wanted me to do. I knew I was supposed
Speaker 5: to call a friend and encourage them. I knew I
Speaker 5: was supposed to help that family with their rent. But
Speaker 5: I got busy, thought, God, they look like they're doing okay.
Speaker 5: They got as much as I do. Maybe next time,
Speaker 5: I wonder what I missed out on. I wonder what
Speaker 5: God couldn't release. When you obey, a blessing is always
Speaker 5: attached to it. Eight years ago, we moved out of
Speaker 5: our old sanctuary from the other location we'd been at
Speaker 5: that piece of property for over forty years before I
Speaker 5: was born. On the last Sunday there after the final service,
Speaker 5: I was driving away and just reflecting on all that
Speaker 5: God had done out there through the years, and thinking
Speaker 5: about where God was taking us.
Speaker 6: My heart was filled with gratitude.
Speaker 5: About that time I passed the small Spanish church six
Speaker 5: blocks down the road. They had written on their little
Speaker 5: makeshift marquis, thank you Lakewood for giving us our first sanctuary.
Speaker 5: They remembered it forty years later. I thought, how we
Speaker 5: were headed to this place, a four hundred million dollar facility.
Speaker 5: But it all started over four decades ago when my
Speaker 5: father took that bold step of obedience, even when he
Speaker 5: didn't understand it, even when Lakewood needed the funds, he
Speaker 5: was willing to give it away. Now I realize I
Speaker 5: am reaping a harvest from seeds that were sown many
Speaker 5: years ago. And when you have bold obedience, you don't
Speaker 5: know where God is going to take you. You don't
Speaker 5: argue with God, you don't reason it out, you don't.
Speaker 6: Make excuses, You just do it.
Speaker 5: You can't imagine the doors God is going to open,
Speaker 5: not only for you, but for your children. I'm sure
Speaker 5: my father is looking down from heaven right now, thinking
Speaker 5: I never dreamed Lakewood would be where it is today.
Speaker 6: That's what happened. When you have bold obedience.
Speaker 5: We can all obey when it's easy, when it makes sense,
Speaker 5: when it's logical, when it doesn't take any extra effort. Yeah, Joel,
Speaker 5: I'll go to church, I'll tithe my income, I'll be
Speaker 5: kind to people. I have a good attitude that doesn't
Speaker 5: really take much faith. But what about when it's out
Speaker 5: of the ordinary, and God asks you to not only
Speaker 5: go to church, but swing by and pick up that
Speaker 5: couple that's struggling and bring them to church with you
Speaker 5: each week. God, wait a minute, I got a full
Speaker 5: time job. I'm raising these children. I'm very busy. And God,
Speaker 5: they live twenty minutes out of the way. I'm gonna
Speaker 5: have to get up earlier. That's gonna take extra gas money.
Speaker 5: And God, they may want to come eat.
Speaker 6: Lunch with me afterwards. God, I'll pick them up, but
Speaker 6: I am not buying their lunch.
Speaker 5: No, when God asks you to do something that takes sacrifice,
Speaker 5: something that's out of their ordinary, it's because God wants
Speaker 5: to release blessings in your life that are out of
Speaker 5: the ordinary.
Speaker 6: When you radically obey.
Speaker 5: You will be radically blessed. You know what this building is,
Speaker 5: It's a radical blessing. It's because my parents and that
Speaker 5: first group of Lakewood members sowed a radical seed. That's
Speaker 5: what happened to Isaac in the scripture. There was a
Speaker 5: great famine in the land. There had been a drought
Speaker 5: for many years, hardly any food, no water. People were
Speaker 5: struggling to survive. God told Isaac to take a step
Speaker 5: of faith and plant his crops. That didn't make sense.
Speaker 5: There was no way to water the crops. Look like
Speaker 5: it be a waste of time. Isaac could have said, God,
Speaker 5: have you seen the conditions lately? Have you checked the
Speaker 5: weather report? Do you realize it hadn't rained in years?
Speaker 5: Nothing's going to grow. He could have looked at it
Speaker 5: just in the natural logical way and talked himself out
Speaker 5: of it. But Isaac had this bold obedience, says in
Speaker 5: Genesis twenty six, in the midst of the famine, he
Speaker 5: sowed a seed in the land. I can imagine his
Speaker 5: friend saying, Isaac, what in the world are you doing?
Speaker 5: Do you realize nothing is going to grow in a drought?
Speaker 5: He didn't talk himself out of it. Didn't get discouraged.
Speaker 5: He just kept planning. What was he doing?
Speaker 6: So in a radical seed? What happened? He reaped a
Speaker 6: radical harvest. The scripture says.
Speaker 5: In the same year, in the famine, he received a
Speaker 5: one hundredfold return. He could have held onto those seeds
Speaker 5: for years, waiting for the conditions to be perfect, nothing
Speaker 5: would have happened. Isaac understood this principle. The power was
Speaker 5: not in the seed. The power is in the obedience.
Speaker 5: That's when miracles happen. The conditions don't have to be perfect.
Speaker 5: The economy doesn't have to be booming for you to
Speaker 5: be blessed. You don't have to have the most education,
Speaker 5: the most talent, live in a certain neighborhood.
Speaker 6: All the odds can be against you.
Speaker 5: But when God asks you to do something and you
Speaker 5: don't argue, you don't make excuses, you just do it,
Speaker 5: Like Isaac, God, I don't understand it, but I'm going
Speaker 5: to sow a seede anyway like my father.
Speaker 6: God.
Speaker 5: We need the money, but I'm gonna bless that Spanish
Speaker 5: church anyway like I did God. I don't feel qualified,
Speaker 5: but I'm going to take a step of faith that's
Speaker 5: when you'll see a horrvest in the midst of the famine.
Speaker 5: You'll be blessed even though others are struggling. You'll be
Speaker 5: promoted even though you weren't the most qualified. You'll see
Speaker 5: dreams come to pass even though the odds were against you. Friends,
Speaker 5: God is looking for people who will have this bold obedience.
Speaker 5: If God has to talk you into it, send you
Speaker 5: seven signs before you decide to believe God. If you'll
Speaker 5: just have lightning strike across the sky, spell my name
Speaker 5: out in smoke, I believe God. If you'll have Moses
Speaker 5: show up at my front door tonight, or God, if
Speaker 5: I see a camel walking down the freeway this week,
Speaker 5: then I'll believe. Don't make a decision to just do it. Well, Joel,
Speaker 5: what if it's not right? What if I miss God?
Speaker 5: Like Joyce Meyer says, then God will find you. But
Speaker 5: God would rather you take steps of faith and miss
Speaker 5: it every once in a while than to play it
Speaker 5: safe your whole life and never get off dead. Sinner,
Speaker 5: the only way you're ever going to really know is
Speaker 5: by taking a step of faith. A couple of years
Speaker 5: after Victoria and I were married, we sold our town
Speaker 5: home and we found this house that we really wanted
Speaker 5: to buy. We made a great offer, we prayed over it,
Speaker 5: we believed for it, but unfortunately they sold the property
Speaker 5: to someone else.
Speaker 6: For the next several months, we kept looking and looking.
Speaker 5: One day we found this old, run down house was
Speaker 5: on a large piece of property in a nice neighborhood.
Speaker 5: The house had been abandoned, doors were missing in the
Speaker 5: kitchen for some reason.
Speaker 6: They had a scarecrow.
Speaker 5: There was a big garbage can, water was dripping from
Speaker 5: the ceiling. It had major foundation problems. The floors will
Speaker 5: all bode. Nothing about the house was nice. The lot
Speaker 5: was very beautiful, but the house in the current condition
Speaker 5: wasn't livable. I wasn't there ten minutes when I heard
Speaker 5: something down in here saying, Joel, this is it. I
Speaker 5: thought to myself, I don't know who you are, but
Speaker 5: this is not it.
Speaker 6: This is a piece of jump. I couldn't get away
Speaker 6: from it.
Speaker 5: That feeling would not leave, and here we had just
Speaker 5: moved out of a beautiful town home. I said, God,
Speaker 5: we want to move up and not down. This is
Speaker 5: the wrong direction. That still small voice kept saying, Joel,
Speaker 5: trust me, I know what I doing about that.
Speaker 6: Time, Victoria came up the big smile.
Speaker 5: She said, Jeel, this is the place for us. Thought,
Speaker 5: Dear God, we're both going crazy. Long story short, We
Speaker 5: bought the property, fixed up the house. A year later,
Speaker 5: a builder knocked on the front door, unexpectedly, unannounced.
Speaker 6: I answered it.
Speaker 5: He said, I'd like to buy this property and build
Speaker 5: two new houses here. And I said, well, thank you,
Speaker 5: but the property is not for sale. He said, how
Speaker 5: about I pay you this much? I said, like I said,
Speaker 5: we'd love to sell it. God did exceedingly abundantly, above
Speaker 5: and beyond. We felt like Isaac that one hundredfold return.
Speaker 6: What am I saying?
Speaker 5: God knows what he's doing. God has information that you
Speaker 5: don't have. He can see what you can't see. He
Speaker 5: knows the end from the beginning. Don't argue with God.
Speaker 5: You'll never win. God knows how to get his way,
Speaker 5: and even when it seems far out, dare to have
Speaker 5: radical obedience instead of reasoning it out, making excuses, talking
Speaker 5: yourself out.
Speaker 6: Of it, no making decision to just do it.
Speaker 5: The quicker you obey, the quicker, God can release what
Speaker 5: he has for you. In Acts chapter nine, there's the
Speaker 5: story of Saul. Saul was the greatest enemy of the church.
Speaker 5: He hated believers, and he was passionate about it. He
Speaker 5: went around having them arrested and put into prison.
Speaker 6: He was known for his persecution.
Speaker 5: The scripture says Saul was breathing out threatenings and slaughters
Speaker 5: against the disciples. One day, Saul was traveling to Damascus
Speaker 5: on his way to arrest more believers when a bright
Speaker 5: light shine down from heaven knocked him flat on his back.
Speaker 5: Saul became totally blind, couldn't see anything. The men with
Speaker 5: Saul were speechless. They picked Saul up led him into Damascus,
Speaker 5: totally blind. There was a man that lived there by
Speaker 5: the name of Anonius, a believer. God spoke to him
Speaker 5: in a dream and told him to go to the
Speaker 5: house where Saul was staying and pray for him.
Speaker 6: So that his sight would be restored.
Speaker 5: You can imagine what Anonius must have fought. I can
Speaker 5: hear him say, excuse me, God, you want me to
Speaker 5: go pray for the man that's actively trying to kill us,
Speaker 5: the one that's hunting us down, the one that's breathing
Speaker 5: out threatening us.
Speaker 6: I don't think, Saul.
Speaker 5: How about I send somebody from the prison ministry, or
Speaker 5: how about I give him a phone call instead? But God,
Speaker 5: that's too dangerous. I'm not going to go. God said, no, Anonius.
Speaker 6: Do what I say. He is a chosen instrument to
Speaker 6: bear my name.
Speaker 5: Verse seventeen says Anonius went and found Saul. He laid
Speaker 5: hands on him and said, brother. Saw he not only
Speaker 5: found him, but he called him brother. He could have
Speaker 5: called him a lot of other things. You lousy, no good, loser,
Speaker 5: trying to kill us. I hope you stay blind.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 5: Anonius prayed for Saul. His sight was restored. He became
Speaker 5: the apostle Paul, who went on to write over half
Speaker 5: of the New Testament. None of this would have happened
Speaker 5: if Anonius had not had this bold obedience. Sometimes God
Speaker 5: will ask you to do things that don't make sense. God,
Speaker 5: you want me to do them a favor when they
Speaker 5: left me out on purpose. God, you want me to
Speaker 5: help them when they wouldn't help me. Like Anonius, your
Speaker 5: first thought may be, no way, I'm not going to
Speaker 5: do that. But if you listen again, you'll hear God saying,
Speaker 5: just do it. Sow a radical seed, take a step
Speaker 5: of faith. When you do, God will do something radical
Speaker 5: in your life, and we can all make excuses. Joel
Speaker 5: is too hard, it's too big a sacrifice, it's too inconvenient.
Speaker 5: But if you keep putting it off, that's causing God
Speaker 5: to put off what he has in store for you.
Speaker 5: When you obey, a blessing is attached. You may not understand,
Speaker 5: it may not make sense. That's okay, Be like Antonius
Speaker 5: and just do it. My brother Paul was a surgeon
Speaker 5: in Little Rock for seventeen years, had a very successful practice.
Speaker 5: He was the chief of surgery. He and his partners
Speaker 5: owned the new hospital.
Speaker 6: Life was good. He was helping a lot of people.
Speaker 5: But when my father went to be with the Lord,
Speaker 5: Paul was driving home from the memorial service, going back
Speaker 5: to Little Rock, Arkansas, when he heard that still small
Speaker 5: voice say go back to Houston and help them pastor
Speaker 5: the church in the natural.
Speaker 6: That didn't make sense.
Speaker 5: He'd gone to school for twelve years to become a surgeon,
Speaker 5: had all this training, all this expertise. His colleagues thought
Speaker 5: he was making a big mistake. They told him he
Speaker 5: was having a midlife crisis and tried to talk him
Speaker 5: out of it.
Speaker 6: But deep down, Paul knew that he was supposed to
Speaker 6: lead his practice.
Speaker 5: He had to turn his mind off and listen to
Speaker 5: his heart. Even though he didn't understand it. It's not
Speaker 5: what he had planned for his life. He made a
Speaker 5: decision to just do it. That was fourteen years ago.
Speaker 5: Lakewood wouldn't be where we are today without my brother Paul.
Speaker 5: Now Paul goes to the remote villages of Africa and
Speaker 5: spends months every year operating on people that would normally.
Speaker 6: Have no access to healthcare.
Speaker 5: He's still using his gifts. He thought he was walking
Speaker 5: away from medicine, but God knew what he was doing.
Speaker 6: God's plan is better than our plan.
Speaker 5: Not only that, now he gets to work with me
Speaker 5: every day.
Speaker 6: How great is that.
Speaker 5: When you have bold obedience, God will take you into
Speaker 5: the fullness of your destiny. God asked Abraham to do
Speaker 5: something radical, to take his son Isaac, the one he
Speaker 5: had prayed and believed to have his whole life, the
Speaker 5: promised child, and put him on an altar and sacrifice him.
Speaker 5: Abraham didn't understand it. It didn't make sense. But Abraham
Speaker 5: had this bold obedience. Just as he was about to
Speaker 5: go through with it, and Angel said, stop, Abraham, don't
Speaker 5: do it. God just wanted to see if you would
Speaker 5: be obedient. The scripture says the Angel called to Abraham
Speaker 5: a second time. The blessing is not the first call.
Speaker 5: The first call is obedience. If you'll obey, there will
Speaker 5: be a second call.
Speaker 6: Genesis twenty two.
Speaker 5: Says the Angel called a second time and said, I
Speaker 5: swear by myself, says the Lord Abraham, I will bless
Speaker 5: you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars.
Speaker 6: You will conquer your enemies.
Speaker 5: Your offspring will be blessed in every nation of.
Speaker 6: The earth because you have obeyed me.
Speaker 5: Notice when you radically obey, God promises he will radically
Speaker 5: bless But here's the key. The first call is not
Speaker 5: the blessing. The first call is the test. Will you
Speaker 5: obey me? Will you buy that old house even though
Speaker 5: it doesn't make sense. Will you give that Spanish church
Speaker 5: the money you need? Will you leave a successful practice
Speaker 5: and come help your family pastor the church. If you obey,
Speaker 5: you'll pass the test. Then you'll hear the second call.
Speaker 5: That's when God will say, all right, now, I'm going
Speaker 5: to bless you more than you can imagine. Some of
Speaker 5: you today, there's something you know down deep you're supposed
Speaker 5: to do you're debating it, you're analyzing, you're making excuses.
Speaker 5: God is saying, just do it. Sow a radical seed.
Speaker 5: Answer the first call, be obedient, and you'll come into
Speaker 5: the second call, the blessing. You may not understand it,
Speaker 5: it may not make sense.
Speaker 6: That's all right. Just turn your mind off and listen
Speaker 6: to your heart. God knows what he's doing.
Speaker 5: If you'll make a decision to just do it, then
Speaker 5: I believe and declare. Because you radically obey, You're about
Speaker 5: to come into radical blessings. Because you have bold obedience,
Speaker 5: God's going to do something amazing in your life.
Speaker 6: Like Isaac, the seeds you've sown are going to.
Speaker 5: Be multiplied back to you, and like Abraham, God's going
Speaker 5: to thrust you into the fullness of your destiny, taking
Speaker 5: you further than you ever even dreamed of. In Jesus' name,
Speaker 5: if you receive it today, can you say amen. We
Speaker 5: never like to close our broadcast without giving you an
Speaker 5: opportunity to make Jesus the lord of your life.
Speaker 6: Would you pray with me? Just say, Lord, Jesus, I
Speaker 6: repeat of my sins.
Speaker 5: Come into my heart. I make you my lord and savior.
Speaker 5: If you prayed that simple prayer. We believe you got
Speaker 5: born again. Get in a good Bible based church. Keep
Speaker 5: God first place.
Speaker 6: He's gonna take you places that you've never dreamed of.
Speaker 8: Thank you for listening to the Joeloustine podcast. Help us
Speaker 8: continue to share the message of hope with those all
Speaker 8: over the world. Visit Joeloustine dot com slash give Hope
Speaker 8: to give a gift today.
Speaker 6: Thanks so much for listening to today's message.
Speaker 5: I hope you'll subscribe so you can receive the latest
Speaker 5: podcast to keep.
Speaker 6: You inspired all through the week. We're praying for you.
Speaker 6: I know God's best is still ahead. We'll see you
Speaker 6: next time.
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