Mike Bickle emphasizes the transformative power of the Gospel, urging believers to remember and claim all the benefits God has provided, as exemplified by King David's declaration to forget none of God's benefits. He explains that the Gospel is not just about believing in facts but involves an ongoing interaction with Jesus based on those truths, which leads to experiencing God's power in our lives. Bickle reassures that God's grace is available to everyone who believes, regardless of their past, and encourages the congregation to actively engage with God's promises to renew their minds and hearts. He highlights the importance of confession and speaking God's word over our lives as a means to release His power and transform our circumstances. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a community that refuses to settle for less than all that God has made available, fostering a culture of faith and healing.

Well, I gave you a teaching handout today, teaching notes, and I covered page one two weeks ago. So I'm going to go over just a little bit of page one, just a little bit of review, just because they're very important truths anyway. Then we're going to give the practical application. That will be page two, the backside, and that's what I'm going to focus on today. Well, this is one of my favorite themes in the Word of God, the power of the gospel. And the thing that I want to emphasize again, like I did two weeks ago, was that King David's zeal, when King David said, I will forget none of your benefits. I want to walk in everything the grace of God has provided for me in this generation. So we'll begin in Romans chapter one, just by review. Paul said, The gospel is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed. The righteousness of God is revealed in it. So the gospel, meaning responding to the Lord in gospel terms. If we respond to the Lord in gospel terms, then in a way the gospel says we will experience the power of God. This is a quite remarkable declaration of the Lord that human beings, Paul made this in Rome. It was a new declaration. He said, The power of God can be experienced by human beings if they believe and interact with Jesus according to the truth that He died, rose from the dead, ascended to the right hand of the Father, and gave the Holy Spirit to human beings. If we believe that, but more than believe those facts, if we will interact with that man according to those truths, humans can experience the power of God even in this age. That was a startling, surprising, dramatic announcement. And that announcement we're still making as the gospel is being preached across the earth today. Then he goes on and he says, This is for everyone who believes. In my many years of pastoring, one thing I run into all the time is that people believe this works for everybody besides them. They think, so many people think they're the exception. That it was their sin, they've gone too far, their abuse was too deep, their failure was too dark, and it won't work for them. But I want to say, as Paul said, just declare it, it works for everyone who believes. Now this idea of believing is not just believing in the factual information. Some people have reduced faith and believing to if you give a cent to the factual information that Jesus died and rose from the dead. Paul's saying much more than that. He's saying it's more than believing in the fact, but it's interacting with a man in light of those facts and bringing those facts to him and interacting with him, having the confidence that to interact with him according to those facts will make a difference in your life. That's what believing is about. It's not a one-time deal years ago when you heard the message and you said, I believe in those facts. Believing is an ongoing, day-to-day interaction with a man, but not just interacting with him, interacting with him based on those truths, bringing those truths to him and interacting with him according to those truths. Paul went on to say in verse 17, he says, for in it, the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed, the way that humans can receive the gift of righteousness is revealed in this gospel message. And so what a startling statement that the very righteousness of God has been given freely to human beings. So therefore, God does not hold our sin against us. There is no more condemnation because the righteousness of God has literally been given to us. Look at paragraph B. Just continuing another few moments on the review. Paul says the same thing, but a little different way. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. He says, if anyone is in Christ, there he goes again, anyone, doesn't matter how messed up you are, it doesn't matter what you've done since you've been a believer. See, some people believe the anyone is an invitation to unbelievers only. But the anyone is still effectual even as a believer that stumbles and fails. The Lord still says to you, anyone, it's you, even you. If you have said yes to this relationship with Jesus Christ, a glorious reality has happened. You are a new creation. Old things have passed away and all things have become new. We looked at this two weeks ago, a few of the details related to that. And here he says it again, you have become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. That means that you're born again spirit, that you can't see your spirit. So you can feel your emotions, you can see your body, but we can't, by our five senses, measure our spirit. But it's in our spirit, man, that the Holy Spirit dwells in us and we receive literally the righteousness of God, so much so, Paul declares it as a fact. You are the righteousness of God. He means you possess it and it's an eternal part of your being, but he says it differently. He says it in such a personal way. You are the righteousness of God. You possess it forever entirely in your spirit, man. Now again, we would look at ourselves and say, I don't feel like I am, but Paul says the word of God declares that you are. So don't go by your five senses. Don't go by your experience. Go by what God says happened in your spirit the day that you were born again. Well, he declared that old things passed away and there's a number of those things that passed away. I don't want to go into that. We looked at that two weeks ago, but one I will say, condemnation. There is therefore now no condemnation for anyone that has said yes to this saving relationship with the man Christ Jesus. Romans 8.1, I want to declare it over you. I don't care how grievous your sin was yesterday. I don't mean just your sin years ago. Yesterday, you come to the Lord Jesus and you say, Lord, I renounce that. I receive your forgiveness. He says there's no condemnation. There's no accusation. You stand boldly before me with confidence. Now the reason it's so important to know that these old things have passed away and condemnation is one of the several of the old things that have passed away because when we have confidence in our spirit before God, when we have confidence that even in our weakness and brokenness, we stand as the righteousness of God in his presence. We have the righteousness of God and that God actually enjoys his relationship with us even in our weakness, even in our brokenness. That does a profound change in the way we approach God. I remember some years ago when this began to really connect with me. It's paragraph A, that all things are new and that the new thing begins with we're accepted by God freely. But it's an acceptance. I like to add an extra thought to that. It's not just a legal acceptance. He actually enjoys the relationship that he has with us. When I began to feel just a little bit that God enjoyed relating to me instead of God was just at the end of his patience going, Bickle, one more time. Okay, I forgive you. Here we go again. That's kind of how I thought it was going on. It was like, Lord, me again. I promise I won't do it again. Forgive me one more time and I'll go far away to the mission field if you'll just forgive me one more time. And the Lord says, no, no, it's not like that. All things have become new. The way that we relate is new. The way that I see you is new. There is no combination. I actually enjoy you. Not only after you mature while you're maturing. Well, the other things, there's several things that are new. You have the indwelling Holy Spirit. Now, a lot of folks have the indwelling Spirit but they never communicate with Him. They don't really interact with Him. So it's almost they live without Him though He is in them but He wants us to interact with Him. We have the authority to use the name of Jesus. Well, we have some other things too that became new but that was, again, two weeks ago. But I want to move on to some new material. Psalm 103, one more point of review from two weeks ago. I love this psalm. In this, we see David's zeal. David was zealous. I don't want to come up short of anything that God has made available to me in the grace of God. Look at this. I mean, I love this psalm and I say, Lord, this is what I want in my heart. I want this to express who I am. And as a spiritual family, as a local church in a ministry, I want us, this in our culture, that we refuse to be denied anything that's made available to us in the grace of God. So, David says here in verse two, oh, I thank the Lord, I bless Him. In other words, I'm thanking you and I'm not going to forget any of your benefits. Meaning, I'm not going to neglect anything that you've made available to me. If you've made it available to me, it's important for me to interact with you based on your promise to give that to me. God doesn't just want us loving Him. He does. He wants us, that's number one, He wants us to love Him. But He wants us to relate to Him with confidence that what He said about us is true. We relate to Him based on the truth of what He said about us. So David said, I'm not going to forget any of your benefits. And he starts off in verse three. He goes, you forgive all my sins. And any of you that have studied the life of King David in the Old Testament, he had some pretty scandalous sins. I think this was one of his favorite verses. He wrote, you forgave, and I can picture him writing, all, oh yes, all of my sins. And beloved, if it's true of any of David, it's certainly true of everyone in Christ Jesus. The enemy comes as the accuser, and he wants to tell you, God has forgiven all of your sins except for this one and that one. Those are bigger than the blood of Jesus. And I want to declare to you that old things have passed away. The condemnation is gone. New things have come. God has fully accepted you, and He enjoys the relationship that He has with a believer that is sincerely giving their heart to Him, to the Lord, even in their weakness and their brokenness. He goes on. He says, you heal all of our diseases. We looked at that last week a little bit. Verse four, you redeem our life from the pit. One translation says, you redeem our life from destruction. And what that means is, David's life had destruction in it. I mean, he stumbled. It's like the pit. But part of it was his own sin brought that destruction, and part of it was people were mistreating him and treating him unjustly. So part of the destruction in his life he caused. The other part was brought on him by mistreatment of ill-willed people. Some were friends and family members. Some of it was betrayal. But what David said is, you redeem my life. My failures, your leadership causes them to work together for good in my life. The mistreatment against me, you will cause this thing to be overruled, and you will work together for my good. So when he says to the Lord, I'm not going to forget this part of my walk with you. You redeem me from every negative circumstance. You turn it around. Even my own sin, you cause it to end up benefiting me in the grace of God if I say yes to you with a whole heart in the present tense. Now some people, they camp out in their failure because their life has certain destruction in it, but they won't interact with the Lord as the one who redeems them from destruction. Or others camp out with how bad they've been mistreated by somebody, and they have this residue of bitterness. They don't call it bitterness because as Christians we can't say we're bitter. We just say I'm troubled. We just say I'm pained. Pain's a good word because pain is good. It's okay to be pained, but it's not okay to be bitter. But a lot of bitterness is masked under terminology, but it's bitterness at the end of the day. And David said, I'm not camping out there. Why? Not because I'm being so gracious to the guys that treated me wrong. I mean he had to show grace because you redeem me. You're involved. I trust your ability to turn this thing around. I mean Joseph. We know the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. His brothers all betrayed him and sold him into slavery, threw him into prison. Well slavery, then he ends up in prison. God used that betrayal and that time in prison to put Joseph in Pharaoh's court, to put him in relationship with Pharaoh through the whole story. So Joseph ends up going from a pit and a prison to a throne. And David's saying the same sort of thing. You know how to redeem my life. You crown me with loving kindness and compassion. You satisfy my years with good things so that our youth is renewed like the eagle. David says, I refuse to camp out being burnt out. I'm not going to camp out in burnout. I'm not going to do it. You're going to renew me all of my days. Well David had this seal in his heart that he was not going to let the enemy's narrative over his life dominate him. He goes, No. The word of God, your promises, your leadership, that's my confession. That's my testimony. That's how I'm relating to you based on these things being true. I'm not yielding to the other things. That's what David says here in Psalm 103. So as a spiritual family, I want to say that we don't want to neglect any of his benefits. Everything he's made available to us, we want all of them. Lord, we want all of them in the name of Jesus. Here in paragraph E, it says that he heals us. Well, I looked at the verse we ended last two weeks ago. It was Mark 16. It says these signs will follow those who believe. They will lay hands on the sick and then they will recover. They'll lay hands on the sick and they'll recover. And the point that I made is is that we like miracles which are instantaneous. But healing is progressive. It's recovery. It's a process. And the Lord says, I will heal my people. But it might be a hundred times that people have prayed for you, maybe a thousand times. And I was mentioning last week that as a community, we don't want to try to break down all the analytics involved in why the guy died and didn't get healed. I've seen people do this for years. They figure out who was wrong, who missed it, why he died, why he didn't get healed. And what I've observed in groups that have done that, and I've seen groups up close, they end up with a spirit of condemnation and accusation, and they end up with no faith at the end of the day. So what I determined years ago, I don't know all the information. I'm going to believe God for healing. When they die, I don't have the answer, but I'm not backing away from praying for the sick, and I'm not offended at God's leadership. And I'm going to keep going until the end. And I mentioned how my brother was paralyzed 33 years, and me and my five sisters and a whole bunch of us, we prayed for him thousands of times. And on his deathbed, I was still asking the Lord to heal him. And when he died, I didn't say, God, you lied, or we didn't have faith, or he didn't believe. I said, I don't know. I don't know. I have a covenant of trust with you. I trust your leadership, and I'm going to pray for the next paralytic starting tomorrow. I'm going to keep on going. And we're going to stand believing for recovery. We're going to believe God for Wes Adams healing. He's been paralyzed over 50 years. Bob Sorge's voice. Terry Bailey's eyes. I mean, to the very last minute. Somebody's 90 years old, and they're on their deathbed all sick and coughing. I want them to get healed, and then the Lord take their spirit after they've been healed. I don't want them to die of sickness. And if they die, I'll say, Lord, I'm going to pray for the lady in the bed over here then. Let's just keep on keeping on. You know, it was 34 years ago that I ended up with a tumor on my vocal cords. I went to a couple doctors, and they both said it. Yeah, you've got a tumor. This is pretty serious. And I won't tell the whole story, but the Lord spoke in a real clear way. I'm going to heal you without having a surgery because the doctor said I needed a surgery. And I believe in surgeries, and I believe doctors, God uses them, gifts them, calls them to medicine. It's the whole science of medicine. It's God's gift. He's given to human beings over the generations. That's part of his redemptive gift to the human race. So I don't look at medicine as opposite of divine healing. There's so many ways that God has gifted human beings with wisdom and understanding. That's part of his grace, again, to the human family. So I wasn't against going to a doctor, but he made it really clear, I'm going to heal you. So I thought, oh, that's pretty scary because it was a real tumor, and two specialists said it. And I thought, okay. They said, you're going to lose your vocal cords for your life if you don't get this. I went, this is pretty serious. And again, in a real clear way, I don't want to go into the details of it now, the Lord made it clear, I'm going to heal you directly. I thought, okay. So I figured it'd be a week or two. Well, it's a month or two, and I'm talking like this, and some of you remember that. How many of you from the old days remember that? You remember that, Jane? Oh, a bunch of you guys remember how bad that was. Oh, Jane remembers, and two rows back is that girl that I've been married to 40 years. You remember that? I was always talking like this all the time. And so, three months. Ugh. But here's what I was doing. I was asking the Lord, I'm saying 10 times a day, probably more than that. I was speaking the word over my vocal cords. I said, you're Jehovah Rapha. You're the God that heals me. And I mean, I thought it'd be two weeks. It's three months. Lord. Then it was a year. And I was getting weary, and I was going, Lord, come on. I mean, come on. Let's think of all the good things that would happen if I could talk more, Lord. Or something like that. Maybe that's not the right way to say it. No, but I just said, Lord, and then it was two years. And I mean, every day. A day doesn't go by, because I mean, it hurts, and I can't talk. I'm talking like this. And it goes on and on. I'm going, Lord, you promised it was so clear. I don't know, you know. Three years. And then at the three-year mark, over a couple months, it just gradually lifted. But it was three years ago. Why couldn't you just have done this three years ago, Lord? And you skipped all this drama. And it's like, ah. But since that time, that was 30 years ago, I got healed. I still, for 30 years, I have this inherent weakness in my voice. So I still need prayer for my voice all the time. For 30 years, I'm always on the verge of losing it. Never quite do lose it. But I get right to the line. But He healed me supernaturally. But after three years of nothing, then it was slow over a few months. Then I'm left with 30 years of weakness. He says, keep talking to me about healing. And I'm never going to stop talking to Him about healing. And so, we're going to, as a community, we want to press into healing. We want to forget none of His benefits. You know, me and my wife at home, you know, she'll have a little sniffle. You know, or I will. And we'll stop and pray for 90 seconds. We believe in 90 second prayers. Or we'll get a, you know, the word that one of our grandchildren, you know, they bruised their knee. I don't care if it's a bruised knee, broken leg, bruised knee, sniffle. Let's just take 90 seconds. Doesn't have to be three hours. We speak the word over them. And we don't kind of rev all up. I stay in my chair, you know, with my grandfather's slippers on. And I go, in the name of Jesus, Lord, heal them. And so, you don't have to like, kick into a, you know, a revivalist preacher tone, you know, in the camp meetings in the old days. You can just speak the word over every situation, small and big. So, as a community, we want this embedded deeply in our culture. It's a kingdom culture that we're not going to accept anything less than God's benefits. And he has many benefits of giving us wisdom, economic provision, forgiving our sin, giving us favor in relationships, guiding us by his power, dreams and visions, the spirit of revelation on the word. I mean, we could go on and on for a few minutes on the benefits, but I don't want to come up short on any of them whatsoever. Let's look at top of page two now. This is just, you know, 90% of you know everything I'm going to say here. So, it's by way of reminding you is what I'm doing here in top of page two. It's by way of remembrance. But, here it says in Romans chapter 12, verse two, we are transformed by renewing our mind. Our emotions are transformed by changing the way we think. We can change our mind and God can change our emotions. We don't have the power to change our emotions. We can't grit our teeth and our emotions change. We can change our mind and then through that, the Holy Spirit changes and transforms our emotions. So, when people are looking for emotional transformation and they're looking for liberty in their heart, they need to aim at filling their mind with the word of God, with the promises of God's word. So, you renew your mind as the way for emotional transformation. Jesus said the same thing in a different way. He said, you'll know the truth and the truth will set you free. But, I want to add a phrase to it. You'll know the truth and the truth will set you free if you interact with Jesus based on that truth. It's not just the truth floating in the air frees you. It kind of chases you down and frees you. It's not even the knowledge of the truth. End of story. It's more than that. It's the knowledge of the truth, but it's our interaction with a person with that truth. That's what frees the heart. And a lot of folks, they don't spend time renewing their mind, putting the truth in their mind. But, that's only part of it. But, then we got to interact with a person based on those truths. So, when I come to Jesus, it's not just I love you, I love you, I love you. That's all I have to say. It is I love you, but I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I am your beloved. I am a new creation. There is no condemnation. I'm going to relate to you based on what you say about me. And the Lord says, I delight in that. And that's the only way our heart gets free. But, we have to relate to God, not just knowing the truth, but bringing the truth into the conversation with a person. Because faith is more than, look at paragraph B, faith is more than confidence in a fact. Faith is confidence that our interaction with Him with those facts will make a change in our life. I want to say that again. Faith is me coming, I have confidence that if I talk to that man about that fact, it will change me. Some people, they just fill their mind with the fact. But, the fact outside of a relationship with a person, that fact doesn't have real power to change your heart. It's better than nothing, but it's not quite there. Faith is an ongoing interaction with a person in a dialogue, and the facts of what that person said, Jesus said to us, are part of that dialogue. That's what faith is. Some people think faith is, well, it was, you know, 20 years ago, I prayed the prayer of faith and got saved, so I did the faith thing. I believed Jesus died and rose. I did faith. No. Faith is much more than intellectual assent to historical facts that Jesus died and rose. That's important that we believe that, but faith is much more, faith is an interaction with a person based on those facts. Faith is confidence that when I interact with him based on those facts, it will change me or affect change in my circumstances. Well, in Romans chapter 10, verse 17, he says, Paul breaks it down. Here in Romans 10, he says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Now, some people pray for faith, but Paul said, it's okay to pray for faith, but the way you get faith to grow is you hear truth. Faith comes by hearing more than faith comes by praying, and I'm good for praying for faith. The Lord gave me more faith. He says, okay, I will, but hear the word then because faith comes by hearing, and so we want to be intentional about hearing the word, but the thing that I really want to press here, and I have this written down here, is that the way that your heart hears the best, the way that your heart hears the best is when it comes from your own mouth, meaning you can hear me tell you the facts of faith, but when those facts of faith, you hear yourself say them, that impacts your spirit more than anything else. You know, I remember hearing one guy say, he's talking about Kenneth Hagin, who was a famous, he's with the Lord now, you know, a man associated with the faith movement, and he said, I hear Brother Hagin three hours a day, and I think, well, you know, that's good to hear teaching three hours a day, you know, if that's what you're supposed to do right at that time, but what's better is if that guy heard himself speak the word to God three hours a day because his own voice would impact his spirit more than hearing a teacher on the outside. Now, we don't have to pick one versus the other, we do both, but I want to see people speak the word of God with their own mouth back to the Lord, and the hearing of their heart will increase. The way that we're designed as human beings, the voice that you hear most is your own. The voice, and I don't mean hear it the most hours a day, of course, because you're you, but you hear your voice the most, that's not what I mean. Your voice impacts your emotions more than anybody else's voice. We might think, no, you know, my father's voice or the leader's voice or somebody's voice, that's an important voice, but the voice that impacts you the most is yours. That's why complaining, which is the natural way of human life, is so damaging, not just because complaining wears out your friends and family, and it does, complaining, it actually, it impacts your heart because you believe the thing you're complaining about, and complaining is, this is bad, I don't have that, I'm left out, I'm a failure, I'm bad, I don't have enough, and the Lord's leadership says that's the main dialogue of your heart, you are schooling yourself in unbelief, you are renewing your mind in unbelief is what you're doing, and you're confessing it with your mouth, and you're sealing it in your heart. Complaining hurts the complainer far more than it hurts the people around them, because it shifts and it solidifies a unbelieving negative narrative in their inner man, and so it's very important that we speak the word of God with our mouth. Let's look at paragraph C here. You know, the Bible talks about this word, it's called confession. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 14, let us hold fast to our confession, and let us come boldly to the throne of grace. Now, to confess means we speak the word back to God, we speak the word to ourself, we speak the word to the devil when he attacks us, and we speak the word to others. Now here's the problem with this idea of confession, is that the faith camp, and some of you, most of you in the room know what I'm talking about, the faith teaching camp, there have been people in that camp that have abused this powerful reality called confession. They've abused it, and so a vast majority of the body of Christ, they won't confess the word anymore because they associate confessing the word with the abuses of several people in the faith movement, so they just let confession go, and the enemy really wins big when we do that, because we believe in speaking the word at a prayer meeting, we're at a prayer meeting, you know the guy or girl gets up and they pray, Lord send revival, we speak the word at a prayer meeting, we all believe that, and we sing it and speak it, then somebody comes up at a ministry time, and we say in the name of Jesus heal their body, we believe in speaking the word at a ministry time, and we believe in speaking the word at a prayer meeting, but that same person often doesn't speak the word over their own heart, so they engage in that principle of speaking the word to release God's power, because that's the principle, you speak God's word to release His power, that's one of the foundational principles of which the kingdom of God operates, we speak His word and release His power, we do it in a prayer meeting, we do it in a ministry time, we do it in encouragement, we'll say it to somebody else, and their hearts will be lifted up, and the power of the Lord, the presence of God touches the person you're encouraging, so we believe it for encouragement, ministry time, prayer for revival, but when it comes to our own struggle, our fear, our discouragement, our lack, condemnation, guilt, lust, we just kind of grit our teeth and make, we don't want to confess the word, because then we're embracing the abuses of a few people from faith camp, and this is one of the most dynamic important principles in my life, and 45 years of walking with the Lord as I speak the word, I didn't call it confession of the word, I just called it talking to Jesus, but it is called confession of the word, I would say back to God what God says, again I do it in a prayer meeting, I do it in a healing time, I do it in encouragement to a friend, but I do it in my heart, this is probably the most important thing, maybe there's one or two other things I would put in that category, in my spiritual life in 45 years, I say what God says about me back to God, and I do it throughout the day, I mean I can't fathom my heart staying alive in God without that, and yet so many believers don't do that, and I want to say it's kind of a statement of alert to our community, I've taught this here and there over the years for 35 years that I've been here in Kansas City, and I have a pain in my heart about this, because 35 years, the years I was a pastor of the church, the 17 years, and then the 18 years here, I hardly hear anyone ever engage in this truth, and I want our teachers to teach it, I don't think I've heard this truth in the mouth of more than two of our teachers in 18 years, I don't hear it in our leaders, I don't hear it in our people, it's the truth that has completely liberated my life, and I go, you know I've taught on this a few times, probably two or three times a year over the years, and I want our community to go, I am not going to let a few abuses in the faith movement steal this truth from me, I want this truth to get in every single facet of our life, we speak the word of God, we confess the word, John the Apostle used different terminology in the book of Revelation, he called it, we overcome by the word of our testimony, he called it the word of our testimony, Hebrews calls it the word of confession, it's the same thing, and some folks say, well our testimony, you know, 40 years ago I was born again, that's my testimony, no that's day one of your testimony, your testimony and your confession are the same thing, they are what you believe is true about you and Jesus right down to the present tense, that is your testimony, and John said in the end times in the rage of the antichrist, the body of Christ will overcome, because they will testify what they believe about his leadership, but not only that, but what they believe about who they are under his leadership and in a relationship with him, they will speak it with their mouth, and it will transform their heart and it will empower them, so I'm wanting our community to embrace this, and again, over the years, I'm not trying to sound messianic or heroic, it's just that I've not said it enough for sure, but I've taught it over the years, and I said Lord, I want our people to grab this, but I can't, I don't know that I've heard it except for in the mouth of a few ladies, and maybe one or two of our teachers in our 18 years here, so I want to send a signal to IHOP, let's take a quick, strong, right turn, and let's really grasp the power and necessity of confessing the word of God, again, we do it in intercession for revival, we do it in ministry time, we do it in encouraging, speaking the word we call prophetic, let's do it in the caring and the stewardship of our own hearts, when for the first time when fear hits me, I speak the word, I don't just grit my teeth, when condemnation hits me, when worry hits me, when lack, any kind, I say wait, Lord, and that realigns my heart, it's called renewing your mind, and faith rises in me, because faith comes by hearing, I'm hearing the word through my own lips, way more than I hear through other people, I mean other Bible teachers, although I believe in that, strongly hearing it from others, but it's got to get in your lips, or it's not going to really impact you, now the, this faith, this ongoing believing, you can call it leaning on your beloved coming up out of the wilderness, it's the same thing as leaning on your beloved, this confession of the word, you can call it abiding in Christ, you can call it intimacy with God, you can call it partnering with God, you can call it walking in the spirit, because the way you walk in the spirit, I can tell you real simple how to walk in the spirit, talk to the spirit, talk to the indwelling spirit, not just any dialogue, speak the word of God to the Holy Spirit, you talk to the spirit, you walk in the spirit, and the reason that's important, because in Galatians 5, verse 16, it says, if you walk in the spirit, means if you talk to the spirit, you'll overcome the lust of the flesh, a lot of folks, they kind of have a face off with the lust of the flesh, lust of the flesh, I'm not yielding, and they grit their teeth, and they, and they try to hold tight, Paul says, turn around, walk in the spirit, and you can rebuke lust a lot better, how do you walk in the spirit, you walk in the spirit, how do you get in that spirit to walk on it, is it like a sidewalk, no, talk to the spirit, if you talk to him, you speak the word to the indwelling spirit, I assure you, it will transform your emotions, slowly, but surely, well, let's go on to paragraph G, just a couple more moments here, now, we're in Romans 10, in paragraph G, verse 8, now, in Romans 10, verse 8, remember the verse we just looked at, faith comes by hearing, that's Romans 10, that's just a couple of verses later, verse 17, so we're backing up, a few verses, and Paul says, let me tell you how faith works, he says here in verse 8, the word is near you, it's in your mouth, and what he means, the word of God's promises that release God's power, he says, it's right there, the word of his promises is on your lips, and it will release his power, he goes, it's in your mouth, he said, it's the word of faith, it's this ongoing conversation with Jesus, or the indwelling spirit, based on the promises of God and who you are in Christ, if you'll confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart, you'll be saved, now, when he says confess in your mouth that Jesus is Lord, it means more than Jesus has total authority, he's the boss, it does mean that, but it means more than he's just the boss, to confess with your mouth he is Lord, means when you're in difficult circumstances, he has power over it, when you're being attacked by the enemy, he has authority over the enemy, when you're confused, he's Lord, he has all the wisdom, speak with your mouth, his excellent leadership over your life, that's part of speaking that Jesus is Lord, Paul says, you'll be saved, now, if a few folks in the faith camp have abused the word confession, a few folks in the evangelical camp have abused this word of confession the other way, because they have, some that I'm thinking of, have reduced confession and being saved to the day you were born again 20, 30, 40 years ago, I did confess Jesus, I am saved, this is an ongoing reality of being saved, walking in the power of God is what being saved means, we don't relegate it to the day we were born again, well, I got that verse taken care of, let's move on to the next stuff, this is an ongoing abiding in Christ principle, so we don't want to let go of the confession because of the abuses of a few people in the faith camp, nor do we want to minimize confession because of the misunderstanding of a few people in the evangelical camp, we want to make confession the way we release the power of salvation in our life, now look at here, paragraph H, we'll end with this, we find out that this principle that Paul was talking about in Romans 10, how to grow in faith, Paul was actually quoting Moses from Deuteronomy chapter 30, I mean it's verbatim, Paul was just taking Deuteronomy 30 and just breaking it down again, to his readers in the city of Rome, you go to Deuteronomy 30, now I didn't have time on my handout, but in Deuteronomy 30, if you like that chapter, I love this chapter, there's so many great things in it, but it's not like a real popular one, but verse 6 is a promise that the first commandment, the people of God would walk in the anointing of the first commandment, that's verse 6, I didn't have time to get it on the, I should have put it in there, but anyway, verse 11, when he said this commandment, he's talking about the call to walk in the first commandment, to love God, when he says this commandment, he means the power to walk in loving God with all of your heart, now he says in verse 11, he goes, this commandment, to walk with God, it's not too mysterious, he goes, you don't need a 12 part series on it, although I do have one coming next fall, 12 part series on the first commandment, but you don't need a 12 part series on the first commandment, he goes, it's not that confusing, it's not too mysterious, because a lot of people go, I've taught on the first commandment, they go, I don't get how to do it, I go, no, it's not that hard, it's not that confusing, he goes on, he goes, it's not far away, it's not out of reach, a lot of folks say, I don't get how to walk with God, it's confusing, and it's out of reach, I'm so broken, I'm so mixed up, I've been treated so bad, I go, no, it's not out of reach for you, Moses goes on, verse 12, he said, it's not in heaven that you should say, who will go up to heaven and bring it back, you know, somebody might say, hey, don't you got some prophet friend that went to heaven a couple times and came back, why don't you tell him to tell me or lay hands on me, no, you don't need a prophet who went to heaven and came back to tell you how to do it or lay hands on you, you don't need somebody to ascend and descend to make this work in your life, verse 13, Moses said, it's not beyond the sea, you don't have to go to the revival center across the sea to have the man of God pray for you so that you can love God, I mean, I'm all for going across the sea and go to a meeting, that's cool, you don't have to though, I mean, it's not bad to go get blessed in another place, that's cool, I like that, but he says, no, no, look, verse 14, he goes, it's near you, it's in your mouth, say it to God and don't just say, I love you, say, Lord, I'm a new creation in Christ, I have the indwelling spirit, there is no condemnation in Christ, the Holy Spirit will lead me to everything the word of God says that seems out of reach of our everyday life, you start saying it with your mouth to God, I say it to Jesus that way and I say it to the indwelling spirit that way, they both listen, it works either way, I just go up and down and nobody's confused, okay, and I say, Holy Spirit, I am the righteousness of God in Christ, I just really messed up, I feel rotten, I feel tired, I feel moody but I know who I am and I know that you enjoy me and my faith gets bolstered up, Paul, Moses here, verse 14, he said, it's in your mouth, it's not too mysterious, you don't need a 12 part series, it's not far away, it's not out of reach, you don't need someone to go to heaven and come back and lay hands on you and you don't need to go to a far away revival center, just start saying it with your mouth and you say it with your mouth, faith will arise, a renewed mood and your mind leads to transformed emotions, yes, it's little by little but beloved, this thing is within reach for every one of us, amen and amen, I went a little bit long today but I enjoyed it, okay, let's stand, now I'm going to ask, again, when we pray, because we do this every meeting, we have our people come up for prayer, I want our leaders to come up every time for two or three minutes, here's why, number one, it's a statement, we care for the people who need prayer but there's another reason, that's a big reason, we're making a prophetic statement that when we don't see the power of God as a leadership team, we don't back away and give up and say, well, it's not happening, I've had these prayer meetings at the end of meetings, the whole 34 years, we've been here, 99% of every meeting and if we don't see the power of God the way we want, the fact we're here as leadership, it's a leadership act, we are declaring, if we don't see all that we are believing for, we're not backing down, that's a big reason, that's why I do a meeting after I just refuse to quit this, because it's a prophetic statement, it's a leadership statement, not just a ministry to people, which that's my first reason, it's care for people, but I want to declare to all the young ones in our midst, we have a leadership team that won't back away when we don't see the dynamics that we want, so with that little introduction, leadership team, go ahead, come on up, I want leaders that I hop you, all of our department heads, I want our worship leaders, our district pastors, anybody in any place of leadership, sweetheart, you're the most beautiful woman in this room, and anyway, well I don't get to see her, I leave early in the morning and I see her at church and I go, woo, I would say sorry, but it would be a fake apology, okay, so leaders go ahead and come on up, and anybody on the ministry team as well, come on up, yeah, I want all of our department leaders, I mean, every time we pray, I want you to take 90 seconds, pray for two people for 90 seconds, again it's a statement, we care about you, but it's a statement, we're not too busy to stand and believe the word, well the guy didn't get healed last time or the time or the time before that, guess what, we're not backing down, we're going to stick with it all of our days, no matter if you're here or you're in another city, God moves you, we're doing this thing to the end, anybody that needs prayer for healing, I want to invite you to come on up if you would, anyone that needs prayer for healing, go ahead, you know if somebody brought you to this meeting and you've never given your heart to the Lord, you can receive the free gift of salvation, you come forward, let us tell one of the people praying with you, say hey, I want to be saved, I don't know how this works, and they'll pray, you can walk out of this room saved, totally forgiven today, on the way to heaven when you die, we refuse to back away, we're going to believe, Lord release your power, we're going to believe, when your heart starts burning, nothing matters more than just, to sit here at your feet and worship you, you don't have to feel the power when you pray for him, just use the authority, just lay hands and say in the name of Jesus, we worship you, you don't have to measure it, you don't have to feel it, you don't have to see it, but you just pray it over them, when you walk into the room, everything changes, the darkness starts to come, when you walk starts to tremble, at the light that you bring, when you walk into the room, your heart starts burning, we invite you to come up, we want everybody to pray for him one or two times, again you don't have to pray real long, pray 90 seconds and move on to the next person if you want, or you can camp out for a while with one person, I'm asking for every leader to pray for two people at the end of the evening, as a prophetic statement and as a pastoral statement, and you can't get enough, all this is for you, Jesus, release your glory right now, release your glory right now, when you walk into the room, sickness starts to bend, every hopeless situation, sickness starts to bend, every hopeless situation, sickness starts to bend, sickness starts to bend, sickness starts to bend, every hopeless every hopeless sickness starts to bend, begins up to deeper, deeper weakness for you I'm going to ask you for the Spirit of power to be released in Jesus name, we ask for miracles, we ask for healing, we ask for recovery of sickness.