Women's Day 2019

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Good morning, everybody and welcome to our lady's service. This is presented by the ladies of the church. And this week. We're focusing on prayer and women's hearts of stones and things about prayer. We also the WMU is instrumental in putting this phone and we meet tonight and I'll send the Baptist fan. So we want to get a plug-in for that for all women and all men to come out and join us in our Baptist women and Baptists man, and I know right now it might seem strange to talk about Easter, but I think this goes along with what other artists Video was going to be this morning Annie Armstrong Easter offering is coming up and it will be here soon. So we're going to talk about Easter this morning. The week of prayer is March 3rd through the 10th. That's the national days, but you can pray anytime and we'd like to have you begin praying now for Missions and support this any Armstrong Mission offering this year was so happy to have our children helping us with missions and supporting all missionaries. I'm referring to the RAC nga's and the younger children and their leaders, they'll be at the doors and she leave with a card that they've made personally for you and a prayer guy. So I'll take this information from them put it on your refrigerator or somewhere for you'll remember to pray for missionaries and for the mission offering and support. And please pray for our children and thank them for doing this and being involved Nations. Thank you.

Good morning. I have the scripture reading for this morning. It's 1st Timothy 2:1 since I urge then first of all that request prayer intercession and Thanksgiving be made for everyone.

So the Bible tells us to pray for everyone including ourselves. So we're going to stand and we're going to sing one that you're going to think. I don't know that it's not in the hymnal. It's not in the head, but you will know it before we get through. It's me, it's me. Oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer. Would you stand as we sing?

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Now we're going to have our time of prayer and if anybody wants to come forward you can at the front. I know we've had a couple of families that have lost family members this week and some other things going on. There's a lot of illness and sickness going around. So you need to pray for that and just continue to pray for our church and pray for Missions as we go into this season of our spring Mission offering us prey or we just thank you for this day. We thank you for the wonderful people said it is to come here and worship together in church. We just ask that you be with those in our church that are hurting be with those who are sick that have lost loved ones and family members and we just pray that you just give them comfort and peace at this time. We pray that you continue to be with all of our missionaries home and abroad and we just pray that has been to this time of missions for the spring and for the Easter offering that you discontinue lay on her heart's what we would do to support our missionaries in our home missions here. We just acid you can tend to be with us the rest of the service be with our speaker and she comes with us today and be with the ladies and help us Altura might be reminded that in order to have The heart that we need to have as women as a church, we need to look to you for everything that we need. We ask all these things in the precious name of Jesus, Amen.

Our next scripture reading is from Ephesians chapter 6 verse 8 knowing that whatever good anyone does this he will receive back from the Lord whether he is a slave or free.

Good morning. I am nervous this morning. So y'all pray for me while I shared his testimony to tell you something about myself today that you do not know or you might not know. I'm a miracle you see my mom and dad they wanted children, but they she didn't get pregnant. The doctors told him you can't have children back. Then that was the late fifties early sixties there weren't all these things. They have nowadays. There was no ultrasound. There was my fertility clinics. So my mom and dad did the thing that they always did when they had problems. They prayed they prayed they asked their church to pray everybody surprise well for 10 years they prayed. 1961 my mom got pneumonia. She went in the hospital. They did an x-ray and they said guess what your 5 months pregnant. So that was my brother my brother. She was pregnant with him and she had him in May of 1962. Well, you can have one baby and so immediately I started trying to have another child 15 months later. Guess what? I was born on July 21st 1963. Well, she wondered why she had to wait for 10 years when I was 15 years old. She got her answer wasn't the answer. She wanted my dad died suddenly. If we had been older we would have been out of the house. We would been gone. She would have been by herself. We were the age where we were there with her. We were still going to high school. We were where we could comfort each other and you know, my parents they were active in church. My dad even preached some they both both of my parents went to Seminary my mom play the organ in church, so church was a big part of their lives and then he was always a big part of my life and he died on Easter Sunday morning. We all it was cantata mama had to play the organ. I had a solo we were in church. That was that was where we thought we needed to be and we knew that dad was in heaven and what better way for us to celebrate than with his people. So today we're singing the song Somebody Prayed for me and I can say with confidence that somebody to pray for me before I was born.

And I know that somebody has prayed for me at different times since then Psalm 139 13 and 14 says you formed my inward Parts. You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made marvelous are your works and that my saw in it and that my soul knows very well and decided that this was what I was going to talk to y'all about and this week Bruce sent me a a devotion and I want to read you a paragraph in that devotion says God's love is unfailing God alone has all the interest effort and understanding of your life and your situation. He does not lack previous knowledge having you together in your mother's womb. He knows and has seen every moment of your life. Nothing catches him off guard. He is always prepared and always follows through he is faithful and swerving and perfect. Why would we look to anyone or anything else? Amen? I accepted Jesus as my savior when I was a child and I have never strayed too far in my relationship with him. There are times when I've been closer to him than others and tell him that I haven't obeyed but I know that he's telling me to do but I can say without a doubt that he is faithful best for us and I'm so glad that he is in control. even when you go through difficult times like

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God is with you every every every step. And you can fill those prayers for step.

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I'm so thankful for my husband my son or daughter my son-in-law. They all leave for God and serve him and I'm so blessed for that. And I'm also glad for praying parents who were members of a Praying church. He prayed for me before I was born. To God be all the glory.

So nothing is too small. Nothing is too big. Nothing is too silly and nothing is too serious. We need to go to our Lord and Saviour for everything. So let's sing for him a praise number 455. I must tell Jesus will sing to versus.

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I'm glad to have the opportunity to do this this morning because I do have some experience as I'm I'm happy to share. Joy had texted me one day and asked me if I'd be willing to do this and then and I knew I knew immediately that it was the right thing for me to do was very blessed also to grow up in a Christian home very loving family and very strong faith and I'm learning to pray and learning that God answers our prayers.

Moschino being surrounded by a family of faith is not what saves you you have to find your own way. You have to make your own commitment and you have to you have to find the way that you can serve God and what he wants from you and develop that relationship with him. Sometimes I get the notion that I think I want to be in control of things and I'm probably known for that at work. But I know that deep down I really want God to be in control because he can do a much better job than I can and sometimes he lets me mess things up pretty bad before. I realize that I should have already gone to him and asked him what what I should do before. I move forward. I'm always a little too preoccupied with wanting things to run smoothly. And so I think I have to exert my control, but I'm still learning to let go when I've come a long way. But being Christian really is a journey. I think the the first time that I really well, I always knew that I wanted to give my life to Christ and that I always wanted to live my life the way that he would want me to live it. But I think the first time that I really consciously I turned my life over I was probably in about the the fifth grade and realized a little bit more about what the responsibility was and you know, I've come a long way since then. I know a lot more experienced a lot of things and my fate then my personal relationship has evolved with all those life experiences. I think it's supposed to think we're all supposed to be that way. But the more you learn and the more you're exposed to the more your face can be tested. Never ever doubted God's love for me through anything. I've been through or that he was there for me through everything. I've never doubted that any difficult or painful circumstances that I went through weren't to teach me something or to prepare me for things that were ahead. We put our own limits on God's power. We think sometimes that we know what he can or can't do or will or won't do and we have no idea. We have no concept whatsoever. I think that he Longs for us to step out in faith and End in prayerful consideration and to test what he will do for us. Sometimes he's just waiting for us. Some of United ma. My mother moved in with me in her later life and lived with me for several years and it was very glad to have had that time with her. But it was also very very hard. Her health was not good at the time and that's the reason she moved in but it went steadily downhill after that before she died at the age of 80. There were many times and now I wish I had kept a journal to write down some of the experiences that we went through because there were many times that things were very Blake by the situation was very serious and we prayed about it and we have so many people praying for us. I know there were a lot of people here at Krispy that we're praying for us and also had some family members who were very very strong Believers in prayer and even had a my aunt has a set of what she calls prayer warriors that she will call around 2 and ask for prayer and and it's very powerful it works. There was not a time and all the things that we went through. Sometimes it was with the sitter's that she had to stay with her that we would suddenly not have one or you know that your mother would be she was hospitalized a few times when she was with me and at least once she came very close to dying before she recovered and came back home and live for three more years, but there were so many instances. It was very clear to me that God was the one who rescued us and everything we could to give him all the glory but like I said many people were praying for us and every night when I put my mother to bed. We prayed together and that was so special to me that such a special memory. experiences often influence our response to God and we just thinking about talking to you this morning it just

God really laid it on my heart because this is woman's Sunday and and we're focusing on prayer and and the heart that you know, women are really kind of expected to be the nurturers in their families and being a parent is is such a huge responsibility. We really need God behind us to do that. Well because we're so human we have we we have our faults we mess up we make mistakes and it's always so much easier in hindsight to see our mistakes then then to see them coming up my parents divorced when I was around the fourth grade and my dad was not in my life very much after that and I always wondered how that that maybe has influenced my response to God, although I was rich Very blessed to have good examples. I have three sisters and my sit and my mother played a huge role in our lives teaching us to go to God and to pray and to you know, don't be afraid to lean on your family or even to lean on God to pull you out and help you through and she was she was such a great example. She provided it's such a stable and and Christian influence and You know, I just we all believe that we couldn't have had a better mother and there's nothing there's not a better one out there we could argue about it. Probably that there's not a better one out there my mother never remarried. She she really spent her entire life taking care of us. And you know, she was hard worker. She was a nurse and she provided very well for us. The devil sometimes encourages me to doubt myself on things to doubt my self-worth or to forget that I want to go to God In Prayer about something before I realized later that I should have done it sooner Oriana sings. I'm a I'm a firm believer that the devil is the devil is out there. He's alive and well and we need to be prepared for him. We need to know that the closer we get to God and so Paces the harder. He's going to come after us. So we need to be prepared for that. I think life experiences can trigger doubts, especially when your experiences were painful and the devil tries to use our weaknesses against us, but I know in my heart that God loves me and that he loves me no matter what and so even when I experienced some of those day outside I can fall back on what I know to be true. Sometimes what your emotions try to tell you or not. Always the truth. Then you need to know what the truth is. So you can fall back on the truth. I know that he loves me and that his choices for me are perfect regardless of what I think I want to do or what I think I want to play in his choices are perfect and whatever he has planned for me is perfect. I don't have everything all figured out God is still working on me and that I know that no matter how many times I mess up and no matter how many times I might doubt myself that he's just waiting to welcome me back and to welcome into his arms and with love and forgiveness and that that's all we really need.

Good morning.

Scripture I'm reading is from Romans chapter 8. first 26 and 27 and it reads in the same way the spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express and he who searches our hearts knows the minds of the spirit because the spirit intercedes for the Saints in accordance with God's will

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The scripture I'm reading this morning is John 14:13, and I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the sun may bring glory to his father.

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Can I contest announcement? It's at the end of this introduction to our speaker. If all the RAS and gas will go out to this state or where Linden lure are staying. Go ahead. Now. If you are the children that are going to be handing out the cards and the younger children to lie in

I hope you've been enjoying our presentation this morning and it's all to glorify God and also to glorify women just to say that we can be leaders and that we are a leader in the family with a prayer and with our heart for Missions. And for I heart for God I right now I want to take this opportunity to introduce you to Nikki Bliss. Carol. Nikki is a member of Christian Freedom Baptist Church in Kings Mountain when she helps lead the worship team and she's frequently invited to leave women's Bible studies Nikki and her husband Ron and their three children, I think around here with us this morning. Right now Nicky's stop position in the work field as she's English instructor at Cleveland Community College. She wants assistant director of University Communications and media relations at Gardner-Webb. She was also associate editor and writer for the award-winning by annual publication of the Garden Way of the magazine from 1996 to 2012 many of you may remember her as the anchor and reporter and producer for Cleveland headline news, which is our local channel in Shelby. She provided programming News sports weather headlines and everything. I every 24 minutes. She also worked as vice president of programs and Communications for the Cleveland County Chamber of Commerce and economic condition commission. Sorry, so we're happy this morning to have Nikki come and speak to us. Share with us, whatever she would like to say. Thank you.

All right, Bruce. Are we ready to hook up? We got a little a technical stuff. We're going to get taken care of real quick. You just give me the thumbs up if you see.

Yeah, I see some of it. There we go. So you just click where it says Nikki Carol is presenting. Did you join awesome? Alright, so it should be where I can control it now. Thank you for that wonderful introduction. I realized upon hearing all these things that I've been so blessed to do in this community that it's it's no wonder I feel like I'm from this area because I've been here for about 22 years the Lord saw fit to bring me out to North Carolina after I graduated from college in New Mexico. And once I got to Cleveland County actually met my husband in Wilkes County North Carolina, which is where I was actually working when I first moved out on TV 33 here and Shelby had actually started another television show up in Wilkes County. That was what brought me to the community and about six months after being in Wilkes County. They move me to Shelby in about a month after that. I was covering a law enforcement memorial ceremony at Christian Freedom Baptist in Kings Mountain and Edwin Bridges, son. Chambers was singing at that event and he is the pastor was the pastor of that church. He was my pastor for almost 25 years and much of What the Lord Has Done in my life and in Ron's Is a result of what your son poured into us. We love him. And because we love him we love you guys cuz we can be a little more free with the tears. I think when Jackie Jackie and I had the privilege of working together as reporters. She was working with the star and I was with TT 33 and she was always someone that would just help out and never viewed our relationship as one of a competitive relationship. She was always just so just warm and wonderful. You'll know Jackie is just that way but I was so grateful that she was willing to join our team at Gardner-Webb a few years back because it gave me a chance to know her and to become connected and did it to her as a sister in Christ and there is just nothing more amazing. Then the Common Ground we can find as Believers of Christ Jesus and so as I considered what the Lord would have me to share this morning. This message is one that he wants to share with all of us for such a time as this I'm going to try to keep it. They said about 30 minutes. I'm going to try to keep it to that but

the prayer and the Heart is such a basis for us to examine where we are in our walk and I think that we can get kind of used to what I would like to call are some rhythms. I mean, I think it's people we like for things to how to follow a pattern we find some comfort in that but I have discovered in my years as a believer in it walking with the Lord that sometimes he challenges us to disrupt those patterns. And I don't like that. It'll tell you never. I never became more apparent than last year about this time and I'll share a little bit more about that. But first I want to go to God's word the scripture that he has shared and put on my heart to share from I'll tell you this when I was in prayer. He said John 4, and I didn't remember what John for was, but I went to John 4, and this is what I read. Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John. Although in fact, it was not Jesus who baptized but his disciples so he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called sicar.

Near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's Well was there and Jesus tired as he was from the journey sat down by the well, it was about noon. When is Samaritan woman came to draw water? Jesus said to her will you give me a drink his disciples have gone into town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him. You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink for Jews did not associate with Samaritans Jesus answered her if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Stir the woman said you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well and drink from it himself. I did also his son and his last Talk Jesus answered everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst indeed the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him sir. Give me some of this water so that I won't get thirsty and I won't have to keep coming here to draw water. He told her go call your husband and come back. I have no husband. She replied Jesus said to her you were right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you have had five husbands. And the man you now have is not your husband. What do you adjust? That is quite true. Through the woman's that I can see that you are a prophet our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem notice how she changes the subject real quick. Woman Jesus replied believe me a time is coming when you will worship the father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem you Samaritans worship what you do not know we worship what we do know for salvation is from the Jews get a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the father in spirit. And in truth for they are the kind of worshippers. The father seeks God is spirit and his worshipers must Worship in spirit and in truth. The woman said I know that Messiah called Christ is coming when he comes he will explain everything to us. Then Jesus declared I am the one speaking to you and he just spend his disciples return and were surprised to find him talking with a woman but no one else. What do you want or why are you talking with her then leaving her water jar the woman went back to the town and said to the people come see a man who told me everything I ever did could this be the Messiah they came out of the town and they made their way toward him. Meanwhile, his disciples urged him Rabbi to eat something but he said to them I have food to eat that, you know, nothing about then his disciples said to each other. Could someone have brought him food? My food is to Jesus it to do the will of him who sent me in to finish his work. Don't you have a saying it's still four months until hardest I tell you open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for Harvest even now the one who reads drawers away than Harvest a crop for eternal life so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying once those and another reaps is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for others have done the hard work and you have reaped the benefits of their labor. Many of the Samaritans from that town believe in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I ever did so in the Samaritans came to him. They urged him to stay with them and he stayed for two more days because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman we no longer believe just because of what you said now we have heard for ourselves and we know that this man really is the savior of the world. So the Lord showed me some unhealthy rhythms Even In this passage that we often can get kind of baby used to I don't know what the word is for it. Sometimes I think the unhealthy rhythms that we get involved in our there perhaps because

It's all we know maybe we don't really know what else God wants us to do. But I wanted to take a minute and describe to you what my husband Ron has been going through and I would say as a family we've been going through since last year about this time around December 15th or 16th of last year. Ron came to me and he said my heart is racing and it's not coming back down. It's running at about 110 beats per minute and sometimes upwards of around 130 know that if you're not familiar, that's a pretty good job on a treadmill and that was happening to him all the time and he has had it was born with aortic stenosis, which is a faulty aorta valve. It doesn't allow an up blood so kind of move through his system. And so as a result, he's actually had three open heart surgeries. The most recent one was in 2009. So about 10 years ago. He had an open heart surgery and is he came out of that open heart surgery? I thought this was really interesting. He had the surgery on a Friday. On Saturday night sometime the nurses came in and checked him and they said this is very common. But you've gone into an A-fib pattern in your heartbeat. So this is something I didn't know. I was thinking heart rate every time they kept saying heartbeat that I was thinking heart rate, but the heartbeat has going to each individual beat the heart is moving blood through the chambers and said the top chamber beats the bottom chamber beats. That's where we get the bum bum bum bum so we can answer them. What happens is that top chamber the atrial chamber does like a wiggle instead of an actual beat and what happens with that is the blood ton of lazily slurs around in the top chamber of the heart and the bottom chamber has to work really hard to try to get blood through to oxygenate your blood. And so what ends up happening is at Bond chamber starts beating faster. So long story short. That was what was happening. He was in an A-fib Rhythm. So the only way to really fix that is to shock the heart and hope that it establishes on its own a sinus rhythm that does electrical patterns start behaving normally again, So we were pretty familiar with this only because he had the experience right after his open heart surgery and the nurses told us. She said it's kind of like the heart is a little bit rebelling against all of the surgery and being messed with and so it creates this little funky pattern and I thought wow we can really relate to that on a spiritual level. Right? So for 9 years round had not had any more instances of irregular heartbeat at all until last year in December. So he goes to the doctor go to the emergency room actually flashlight. Guess the doctor first and then the doctor send them to the emergency room and hit heat what they'd established that he had was something called atrial flutter. He doesn't like that name. He says, it's not very manly name for a heart condition. Better sweater beats better sweater beats. He's on a blood thinner already. So there's no real danger of him having a stroke or anything, but it's just a very exhausting Pat and I think as Believers we can get into exhausting patterns in our walk father forgive us and I just think wow, this is so amazing cuz it shows us what can happen with our physical heart can happen with our spiritual heart. So let's take a look at this text and see what the Lord is saying about Inefficient rhythms unhealthy rhythms. So the first thing that we see in the text in the verses 1 through 4, and I don't know if this thing is giving me a lag or what are we still connected? Okay. So, let me see. Okay got it is moving along. All right. So we see now he had to go through Samaria. So she's in Jerusalem. Basically the people of Jerusalem the Pharisees don't want him there. He's ruffling feathers and he decides it's best for me to move on out and it says now he had to go through Samaria. They didn't go through Samaria people would go around some area. Now for those of you who aren't familiar with the background story of what Sumerian Samaritan's where puncture many of you probably are but they were the Jews who intermingled with the Assyrians which God said don't do so in the Old Testament when we see that intermingling of marriage that's what ended up happening was this this group of people that were almost considered a different kind of race and we can experience we experience the same kind of racism all the time in modern culture, but that's what they were dealing with. And so Jesus what we see him doing it's he's not doing what everyone else would typically do which is stay away from the heart right? Avoid the hard don't go walk. Straight into a conflict that you know is, don't you know just kind of all of these things that we typically do we avoid what's hard we avoid? What is messy? I know I avoid what's Messi? I want to sidestep the junk. I don't like walking through that stuff that I know is going to mean difficult conversations. I know it's going to be challenging and difficult. No, thank you. I remember a lady speaking one time and she said Lord, I'll do whatever you ask me to do as long as it's easy and I thought that's the kind of work I want to have right and so I love that we see Jesus is kind of first of interrupting that normal and kind of doing what is not expected and walking straight into what he knows. It's going to be a very unusual interaction. So the next thing that we see that happens is on the woman's part. We see an attempt to hide sew-in verses 5 and 6. It talks about the fact that it was about noon. So Jesus is sitting down at this well, and if you look into this area outside on this area sick are right outside of shechem. There's some really interesting biblical background there. If you go back to the Biblical times, I'd like when Jacob was coming back through that area with his Twelve Tribes. There's some really interesting things that happened with Jacob's daughter Dinah in the same region. So if you're interested in looking into that, you can find out a little more about that in the Old Testament, but Jesus sits down if they tell you about noon and he's tired from the journey, it's hot he's exhausted. He's ready for a break and right then and there is where he encounters the woman and I think this happens to us. I have a friend that I was talking to recently about this and she recently experienced a sort of a it's a diagnosis that she had been prepared for and kind of been working through but she wasn't really expecting to have to walk through some of the treatments that she's been having to go through and for about 2 weeks. She really just pulled back and she kind of isolated herself and I thought you know, I can relate to that when I am dealing with something tough. Sometimes my first reaction is not to actually be around the people that I know can help uplift me and undergird me in prayer. It's almost like I'm going to hide I'm not going to be vulnerable. I want to kind of power through this on my own and so when circumstances are difficult look for the people that are retreating and isolating themselves. Just like the Samaritan woman did she was going to the well to draw water in the morning or in the evening when it was cool because that's when everybody else was there and she didn't want to experience the rejection that she was probably going to be experiencing and head experienced many times before So I love that we see that Jesus intentionally seeks out and finds the people who would prefer to live in the shadows of obscurity. Only Christ. Has that kind of love? Not verses 7 through 10 you notice it says that Jews do not associate with Samaritans says what are the other unhealthy rhythms is that we kind of tend to want to associate with honorable people that we tend to kind of want to rub elbows with those that we know have a certain reputation. We know that maybe they're perceived in public in a certain way. I know I've been guilty of this. Sometimes it just means I want to sit with my friends at the lunch table and not necessarily make room for a group of people that I don't know as well. And so just being aware that that can be one of our one of our rhythms that were in seeking out those that are honorable or maybe familiar when the Lord might be wanting to challenge you one of the questions. I feel like holy spirit ask me what this is, you know, if we see Jesus Friend of Sinners and tax collectors, that's what Pharisees called him. And that was meant to be kind of a a name-calling. Oh, that's Jesus. Yeah, he's Friend of Sinners and tax collectors. Clearly. He doesn't understand how his reputation is being sullied by the company. He keeps But he is a living water who makes all things clean. I thought about that song that Natalie Grant sings. There's nothing too dirty that he can't make Worthy. and so I really wanted to ask you know in what ways am I I maybe disengaging from the marginalized in the society around me. How can I Minister the love of Jesus displays to the Samaritan woman to the people that maybe I don't understand or affirm their lifestyle. How do I develop a relationship with them so that they experience the love of Christ through me? And not the Judgment of God because of me. So those are some things that I feel like the Lord is kind of asking the church to consider.

I love the scripture here about Sometimes we aim for heads we try to get to a place where we can rationalize and understand. So we've got the Samaritan woman after hearing Jesus say all of this stuff about water. She's like well, that would be cool because I really don't want to have to come out here. Anyway, I don't like having to face the public. This is a very uncomfortable place for me, but I have to have water to live. So here I am day in day out trying to go when no one's going to be there. And yet she uncovers a truth about what she's come to believe and the patterns that she's falling into heads or Jesus starts to say all of these things and she says how can you have access to this living water? You have nothing to draw with so she starts relying on what she can see. She's trying to rely on what she can understand and kind of comprehend about that made me think of Proverbs 3 three four and five. I believe it is. Lean not on your own understanding trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don't lean on what you can figure out for yourself and everything acknowledge Him and He will show you the path is straight. And so I love that that we see that she's kind of leaning into this idea of I can actually rationalize I can figure this out and Jesus cuts to the heart of the matter and he basically says, you know, even though we can be tempted to do the same thing. We should be aiming for heart knotheads. There's a place and a time for revealing all of the knowledge that God has given us but most of the time it's through the testimony. That's one thing that no one can ever argue with you about on the Lord reminded me of that as Linda was sharing that Revelation 12 12 tells us. Yes, the enemy is real and he is alive but I don't know that I would say he's alive and well, I think the thing I would say is yes, he is a real force that is trying to tear down. Our walk and do everything that he can to interrupt us, but the word tells us that he is filled with fury because he knows his time is short. So I think that understanding that temptation to lean into what we understand what we can figure out is one of the things that we have to acknowledge and we have to strip it had an example here that I want to show you all and hopefully it'll be a little funny for you. So when Ron was going through this and he's left so I can do this completely without worrying. It looks like he's taking the boys out. He bought this mask thing back in January and it's one of those oxygen trainers. If you guys ever seen as where they work with people maybe athletes will take this this oxygen deprivation mask and it started prevents your ability to breathe in as much pure oxygen and what it's supposed to do is actually prepare your body to handle maybe like I think a lot of people will do this like if a train and say something like Denver Colorado where the oxygen levels are lower and then they come to I like Charlotte where it's much higher they perform really well because now it's like there in an oxygen-rich environment. So I found this item online and it was a mask and I didn't know he had bought it. All I know is I looked out in the yard one day and that's what I saw.

And I said, what are you doing? And he was literally I mean he was so why would I want to say dying that's being very dramatic but he was struggling and he was trying to huff and puff. This world are up the hill really just trying to get back to where he felt strong and it was like he said, I feel like I'm running a marathon just walking to the mailbox. It was very difficult. That's what you please get in the house. I said you were looking like Hannibal Lecter and all of our neighbors are seeing it. This is very embarrassing.

But I feel like that is such an example of where we try to figure it out and come up with a solution and maybe we stopped short of saying a lord. What is it that you want from me in this time in the season? I know Ron that wasn't his heart. He was seeking the Lord with everything. What do we do with our next step? Do we do an ablation? Do we do a cardioversion? What what is it that we need to do in the meantime? He was trying to function trying to just get to where he can function and I just thought why I wasn't that so true. The Lord will take us to a place where We had to experience a level of ruined in an area and then an area of repentance. So what we ended up having to do with a family was just a lord. We didn't even know that we were doing these things in our own strength. We just didn't know that but we're seeing that we haven't leaned into everything that you have. We haven't thought you for the specific instructions and examples to be obedient what you want for us in the season. And so I love that. This reminds me that we must acknowledge the state of our ruin and repent in order to be restored. And you see this in Joel in the Book of Joel. This is a process that the Lord will take us through in this area is in that area than this area heard that story as well. You're either coming out of a trial you're in the middle of a trial or getting ready to go through one. It's kind of the same concept. But what we're looking at is the trial is are we willing to release all of our expectations in this area and just let the Lord do what only he can do. I have we gotten to a place we've stopped trying to fit all with stuff and make it better. So that God can do the the glorified Supernatural work that only he can do and it's been a tough lesson for a family this year. But I feel like we're finally getting there and so The other thing that we see if this is such an interesting thing, I didn't really understand what was happening and I was like Lord, what is it that they're doing with this whole conversation where she talks about this is what we do. This is what y'all do which one's right which one's wrong. So she's kind of like I said changing the subject because first of all Jesus just called her out for all the things that she had going on that were apart from him and then but what's right and I love that the ultimate thing that she figures out is you know, what the Messiah is coming and he's really going to be the only one that can sort this all out. And I sometimes feel like you know what that's sometimes it has to be our answer. You know, I don't understand this mess. I don't like it. I don't want to be in it. I am not comfortable by it or comforted in it at all. I hate it. However, the Messiah is going to work it out and then he reveals I am the Messiah. I am the one and the Lord honors those who get real with him. And who don't hide stuff from him he can see it all anyway a few years back in about well now I think about it Riley with one while he's almost sixteen. So I guess it's been about 15 years ago. We have Pastor that came and spoke at our church during the Revival and he had formerly been a construction contractor general contractor. He had been asked to investigate a little bit further a house that a man had bought. So a friend of his had bought that take the David. Will you come look at this house? Something's going on that. I can't quite figure out things aren't adding up and I just need you to take a look at it. So he goes and he measures the whole outside of the house and he measures every kind of outside of the foundation and he goes into the basement and he starts measuring and he realizes these measurements don't add up the outside measurements and the inside measurements are not the same and he said there was a brick wall. In the basement that didn't look like it lined up with the exterior of the house. And so he said to his friend. He said with your permission. I'd like to remove some of this brick wall here and see what's going on. And so he they remove that wall and sure enough the exterior foundation wall with crumbling and I head that crumbling foundation with a facade. And his messaging that was you can try you can probably full me. But you can't fool God. He knows. So getting real with him is the most amazing experience. It says I have been trying to do it my way for so long and with such poor results Lord. I'm ready to put your yoke upon me because I know that your yoke is easy and your burden is light. Do we advocate for Heritage and cling to the Traditions that we love and sometimes that's without regard for the moving of the Holy Spirit and install many areas. The modern church has to be willing to identify and Purge the spirit of religion. That's what Jesus came to disrupt. Is that external rhythm of this is what we do. This is how we worship. This is what we do and Jesus was trying to tell the Samaritan woman. There's a better way that comes from a source inside of you that will never be exhausted. And that's what I think is so incredible that when we actually let him operate through us. It's such a different feeling. It's so very different than the Rhythm that we get into that are almost so inefficient and exhausting that it seems like we're not getting anywhere moving forward in any way shape or form. Do I feel like Jesus says are turning point in the text and we see Jesus start to show us that we operate in 10. So I change the graphic a little bit. These are things we must do in order to be operating fully in the power of the spirit because if we're operating in the power of the Flash There's no fruit that's going to be lasting. It's not going to matter. So we see that Jesus says we have to acknowledge a hunger and I love that verses 27 through 34. He really talks to the disciples about that. And he said my food is to do the will of him who sent me now you think about that and it's pretty interesting because I mean this time of day when we all start getting hungry and we start thinking all right where we going to go eat and I bet if I made you all turn in your bulletins right now there be scribbled notes on where we're going after church kids have done that. I remember when I was a kid my mama, I would beg my mom. Can we please go to McDonald's after church, and now that I'm older, I'm sure she's probably thinking McDonald's.