Radah Church | Thursday Worship & Word with Dr. Mike Woods | Principles of Enlargement, PT. 2

worship and word service. I'm super excited to share the word of the Lord with you on tonight. Listen, do me a kind favor. For those of you that are coming in right now, whether live or by replay, I need you to do me the kind favor and share this video. So y'all come in, please. We're going to give a few moments. Uh, matter of fact, what I'm going to do is grab my phone and I'm going to share this with a few people as well. I need you to share this for me, okay? I promise you there's a word from the Lord tonight. I know everybody is getting ready for Christmas. Glory to the name of God! And excited about the holiday. Praise God! But do me a favor, we're going to keep it streaming right now, but I want you to share this for me. All right guys, if you're coming in, make sure you share this, all right? Please, by all means, share it. This is going to be exciting word. I pray that everybody's excited and amped about the big day on tomorrow. Um, just don't forget that Jesus really is the reason for the season. The word Christmas, Christ Mass, uh, it was a word that was created around Mass, around the birth of Jesus Christ, to remind those that loved him that he was born on that specific day. And I want you to just be totally mindful that he indeed, with unequivocated terms, is the reason for this season. Praise God. So do me a favor, guys, share it, share it. I see a few of you coming on, say hello. Uh, let me know you're here. Praise God. And, um, I want you to share it. Glory to God. Uh, whether you're watching by YouTube right now, on our Facebook public fan page, or on my personal page, uh, the instructions are the same. Please do me the favor and share it, guys. Somebody needs to hear this. Glory to God. There is a word from the Lord. Praise the Lord. And this is Principles of Enlargement Part 3 we're sharing tonight. It's going to be a good teaching, a good message. Somebody needs to get in on this. Glory to God. Thank you, Lord. We bless the name of Jesus. He's a mighty God. There's none like him nowhere. He rules, he super rules, he's wonderful, he's perfectly and absolutely wise. Hallelujah! And we give him the glory, we give him the honor, we lift him up, we exalt him, and we praise his great name. Glory to God! Again, you guys come on in and we're going to share with Thus Said the Lord tonight. I believe somebody's going to get a breakthrough, somebody's going to get blessed. I just need to see you here. Glory to God! Please like, comment, share, uh, let me know you're here. Praise God! Wonderful Jesus! I want to make sure everybody gets blessed tonight by this life. Wonderful Savior. He's a great and mighty King. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Just say hello if you're here. I see some of you here. Just say hello. I'm on my personal page, so if you're here, just say hello. Glory to God. Let us know that you're in the room tonight. I think a lot of people are out getting their last minute Christmas shopping in. But again, if you're catching this replay, uh, don't scroll, stay here. Uh, there's a word from the Lord. I'm gonna jump right into this tonight. Glory to God. I'm gonna pray in a moment, just giving a few moments for you guys to gather and come in and share with us tonight. All right, hallelujah. We bless your name, God. You're worthy of all the praise. Jesus, you're worthy of glory and honor. Glory to God. Hey Corey, cuz, God bless you. Good to see you, man. God bless you, Susan. Welcome tonight. Thank you guys for being on. Hallelujah. And whether you're coming in again live or by replay, please come in. Um, I'm in a different setting. I'm actually in the living room of my house. Glory to God. But we're going to share with us, said the Lord, tonight And I believe you're going to be tremendously blessed. Glory to God. We have been teaching a series on enlargement, and I'm just going to really review the last couple of messages, and then we're going to jump right into the heart of tonight. Let's pray. Father, in Jesus' name, we're grateful. We're thankful for your people. We thank you for the opportunity to share your word once again. What a privilege it is, God, to be called of you. What a privilege and an honor to serve you. And God, I take no personal gratification from this. God, in the name of Jesus, I thank you that I recognize that this is all you, and I give you the praise for it. Lord, I thank you, God, that is no weapon of my own, it's no talent of my own, but whatever I say, God, it's all you, and I yield my vessel to you tonight. And Father, I'm asking you to move by your power. I'm asking that healing virtue would flow out of this life, for your word declares healing and deliverance is the children's bread. So I decree and declare tonight that as we teach the word, with your stripes we will be healed, we will be delivered, we will be set free. And Father, I thank you that no weapon formed against us can prosper, that we have victory over the enemy. Thank you, God, for the light, the illumination, and the intelligence of the Holy Ghost. God, sit Michael Woods down, and Holy Spirit, have your way in this teaching tonight. Thank you that you brought us through this entire year, God. We've had our challenges, but our faith has kept us strong, God, and we're still here. The enemy has hit us with his best shot, many people, but we're still standing, God. And we give you praise now. We give you glory for it now in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. And thank God. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Again, welcome, everybody. We're going to plunge right into the heart of this. I want to take just a few moments to review the last two messages so you can kind of see where we're going with this. It has been my desire and my goal, actually, to share with you principles on expanding your capacity or enlarging in a way that you can handle what God is about to do. Listen, and that means you got to position yourself. You got to be very deliberate. You got to on purpose, praise God, put yourself in the place so you can receive what the Lord is going to do even in this year to come. Praise God. I'm telling you right now, in this year to come— God bless you, Brooklyn, welcome, I see you. Glory to the name of God. Brooklyn, as a matter of fact, I just looked down and saw you, but I saw you earlier today. You, you posted something. I don't know whether it was old or recent, but let me say this to you right now. The Lord told me to tell you, when I saw that post earlier, I was going to eventually get around to sharing this with you, uh, before this weekend was over, actually. But it's ironic that— it's not ironic that you're here. So when I saw the post, it was on your business Instagram. The Lord said to say to you, whatever you do, don't quit. Hear me, Brooklyn. Whatever you do, Brooklyn Davis, don't you dare quit, because at the end of the day, the Lord— hear me— is going to supernaturally prosper your business. He told me to tell you that the difference in massive success and small success is revelation. So he told me to tell you, as you begin to move into these next dimensions of 2021, God says, I want to do amazing things for your business. I want to do amazing things for your business, Brooklyn. But I heard the Lord say he— in order to get to that massive place of success where he scales your business to a point where it overwhelms you even, You got to tap into the revelation concerning your business. Now watch this. You got to understand that is not always spiritual revelation. There are some people that have gone before you in that same business who have become successful. God says you need to walk out behind them and see and pattern some things that they did. And God's going to even give you favor with some of the people in that industry. So that they can share with you what you need to do to cause your business to explode. Well, I heard him say that 2021 is going to be a year of amazing things for you in business. I heard him say you're going to come up with something so unique in the baking industry. God's going to give this to you that is going to revolutionize the industry, that your cakes, your cookies, your designs, they will literally be able to be received and bought, not just in Alabama, but I heard the Lord say around the world. You receive that in the name of the Lord. Hallelujah! Glory to God! Hallelujah! I feel the Lord here. Praise the Lord! Thank you, Jesus. So I've been teaching how we need to enlarge our capacity. God's going to do some tremendous things in 2021. Don't you let 2020 deceive you to believe that 2021 is not going to be great for those that position themselves. Now I want to tell you something. If you do the same things you did this year, next year, you're going to have the same results. Nothing's going to change. Nothing that I'm saying right now is going to matter. You got to be very deliberate in positioning yourself strategically and expanding your capacity, because right now what God wants to do, it can't get in. So you got to expand your prayer life, expand your worship life, expand your study life. You shouldn't just study the Bible when you go to church. You should study the scripture every day. The Bible says, search the scripture, for in them you have life. So you should be searching the scripture because your very life is found in it. So we've been sharing this, some principles on how to deliberately enlarge. The first thing I did, I share with us, the saints, glory to God, what it takes to actually actually enlarge, what you should avoid. Avoid. I shared how you cannot progress and you cannot move forward and enlarge if these things happen. So I gave 4 principles. Number 1, you cannot enlarge and your progress breaks down when your external reach is greater than your internal capacity. Secondly, I— and I'm not going to teach these again. You got to go back and watch message 1. I taught them in message 1. Secondly, glory to God, you cannot enlarge when you expend your energy on fruitlessness, fruitless people, fruitless dreams, fruitless ideas. You will never enlarge and your progress will always break down. Number 3, I shared, you cannot enlarge, glory to God, when you're more concerned about what God said versus what God is saying. You're chasing something that God said to you 20, 30 years ago, and you got out of line, and you cannot receive it now because you missed the season. And God is saying something fresh for you right now, even while I'm talking. There's a fresh word. The Bible says every morning he anoints us with fresh oil. So you need to be hearing what he's saying even now. What is God saying? How is he moving your future? Glory to God. And then fourthly, I shared You cannot enlarge and your progress breaks down. Glory be to God. Hallelujah. When your comfort zone is a place of consistency. So when you're consistently doing those things that are comfortable, you never take risk of faith. You never take risk of obedience. And in order to enlarge, you got to break that box, totally annihilate that box, get out there and do something by faith that only God can help you do. Listen, I'm inclined to believe if you could do it yourself, you really don't need God. Glory to God. But you need to step out on that dream that's much bigger than you and make the decision collectively to say, hey, I'm going to do exactly what thus saith the Lord for my life. Glory to the name of God. Hallelujah. So I began to give those things, but then I also shared some principles. I said, first of all, in order to enlarge You must strategically be faithful. You must have faithfulness. You must have fearlessness. You must have fruitfulness. Glory to the name of God. So you need to go back and watch messages 1 and 2 where you can gain all the principles. I'm not going to go back through them because I'll be tempted to teach about them. But tonight I want to give you 3 more. Siri, I ain't asked you a thing. Glory to God. She trying to help me preach. She said I asked her a question. I didn't ask a question. Glory to God. Listen, let me share this with you. There are some things you got. You got to expand your capacity. Matter of fact, I dare you type it on the screen. Type this to the Lord. Say, Lord, expand my capacity. Lord, expand my capacity. The reason why those big things haven't opened up yet, because you have not expanded or enlarged your capacity to receive it. So the first thing I want to do, let's go to the Bible. Let's go to 1 Corinthians. Praise God. I want to read this scripture because it's just apropos to do it, and then I'm going to teach this tonight. 1 Corinthians 14. I didn't— the Holy Ghost just, just led me over here. I, I didn't even have this in my notes. 1 Corinthians 14. But this is where we're going. We're going to start here. Glory to God. We're going to take a, a rabbit trail. Praise God. Hallelujah. I hope y'all get somebody. I think it's 14. Let's see. I'm sorry, it's 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 11. Let's do that. It says, oh ye Corinthians, our mouth is open to you, our heart is enlarged. Hear that? Then he drops— I'm gonna drop down to verse 13. He says, for a recompense in the same, I speak to you as my children, be ye also enlarged. So the apostle is saying, listen, our heart is enlarged toward you. What we need you to do is also enlarge your heart. Not only so you can receive, but an enlarged heart has the ability to receive and give. So an enlarged heart is not just a receiving heart, it's a giving heart. So the apostle says, I want you to be enlarged. So I submit to those of you watching us live tonight or by replay, be enlarged so the things you've been praying for can get in. Because you've been reaching for something externally that internally you cannot handle. So you got to expand that capacity. You got to deliberately decide, I'm going to be faithful, I'm going to be fruitful, I'm going to be fearless, and I'm going to do the things that God has called to— call me to do. Touch yourself and say, self, be enlarged. Glory to God. Hallelujah. It's all right, tell yourself that. Tell yourself again, be enlarged. You got to get big. Listen, if you're going to be thinking— listen, let me tell you something. If you're going to be alive and you're going to be thinking, you might as well think big. On this Christmas Eve night, I'm giving you a Christmas gift of revelation knowledge. Listen, so you can understand as you run into the rest of your life that if you— you got to think beyond where you are, and you got to dismiss people who can't see you for who you are. I posted something yesterday, I think it was, it may, might have been this morning, and I said something to this effect: those that do not have a revelation of your purpose and cannot endure your process, they are not worthy to partake of your profits. You sharing profits with people who don't know who you are, who don't understand clearly who God has assigned you to be. And people that wanna get on when you make, when you get successful, they don't wanna go through the process with you while you're struggling trying to get there. Well, listen, you need to make sure you're in the right company. Glory to God. So you can enlarge. All right, let's move. So here's the first principle I wanna give you tonight. As long as you are in a hurry, you'll never enlarge. People who are trying to move too quick without going through the process will never enlarge. Now, they may get there quick, but most people that do it that way, they lose it just as soon as they get it. Oh my God, because they're trying to be something for other people, and they're trying to represent something that's not them. And many times they're too proud to ask for help from somebody that can help them. And because they're just trying to run to achieve this, and nothing really great happens quick, it's a process. So here's what I'm going to leave you with right here in the introduction: life is a marathon, not a 50-yard dash. Let me say that one more time: life is a marathon. A marathon, you You have to pace yourself. I'll say that again. Pace is important to enlargement. Pacing yourself so that you're getting all the tools you need so that when you arrive at where you're trying to go, you're qualified, hear me, to keep it. So many people, oh my God, they get places so quick and they're not qualified to keep what they've ascertained. So what you got to do is make sure you're equipping yourself to keep it, even if you get your hands on it. I can raise both my hands. I've gained stuff in my life. I probably had things that any man could ever want. More things, just money. I've had all kinds of stuff, and I've gone through stuff because I wasn't ready and lost things and had to rebuild because I wasn't ready. And I'm just trying to speak to you in wisdom because I'm telling you right now, if you run too fast and you get it too fast and you're not ready, you're not going to keep it. So again, life is a marathon. You got to pace yourself. Watch this. In a marathon, it's an individual race. It's not a 100-yard dash, 50, 200, 220 meters. It's not none of that. It's a cross-country 5K run, most of the time that the one person got to pace themselves to win it. In order to finish, it takes pace. In the realm of the spirit, you got to synchronize yourself with God and pace yourself. Pace yourself through the process because guess what? You got to have the grace to finish, and it's pace, pace. Synchronize yourself with his mind, his timing, his will, and don't try to do it too fast. All right. Secondly, and I'm just an introduction, you got to recognize that being in a hurry— watch this— it literally damages purity. Wow. Because it's an impure place. See, I know we define all the sexual sins as impure, and they are, but it's really— because God is pure in every area. He's pure in motive, he's pure in love, he's pure in his actions toward us. So if you're out of the will of God, that's an impure place. I said this Sunday, I never want to be where God was, I always want to be where God is. So I don't want to be in a place where God is not, because when I— but when I compromise the purity by doing things my way, when you compromise the purity by following your own agenda, following a dream that God didn't give you, you gave it to yourself. Now you're in an impure place, and most people get frustrated in those impure places because they're asking God for help. Hear me, they're asking God for help. Oh, Jesus. And God didn't even ordain you to be doing that. And you wonder why he ain't showed up. And it impedes your ability to go, impedes your ability to go for it. Not only that, it damages purity. It distracts purpose. You know, there's a movie and I'm telling on how old I am right now. Hallelujah. Called Fatal Attraction. In the movie Fatal Attraction, man cheats on his wife, but he cheats with a crazy woman. I mean, she's crazy, man. Crazy, you hear me? So she's— he decides he wants to cut the affair off, be faithful to his wife, move on with his life. No, she ain't trying to hear it. She shows up at his house, ball his little girl rabbit. Threatens to kill everybody, tries to kill him because she's that messed up. She becomes a fatal attraction. But can I tell you something? This is why it's so important for you to stay focused, because there are some distractions that can be fatal. Not attractions, but distractions. Fatal distractions. That's a book title, Fatal Distraction. You get distracted on the road to purpose. And that distraction— watch this— creates a delay. Now things take longer than they should. You're delayed. You— something that should have took a year takes 12 years because you got distracted with the wrong person, with the wrong thing, doing the wrong dream. And then finally you say, okay, I'm gonna obey God and get right on track. You create a great big delay, and when you're delayed, oftentimes that delay leads to a detour. You start taking a shortcut, you, you start trying to take a different route because nothing's working, and the detour often leads to destruction. You end up not in the will of God. So you got to stay focused. Only desire the devil has in a battle with you is to break your focus. He wants to break your focus. And he's trying to break your focus on what truly is the authentic thing that God has called you to do. So being in a hurry, running too fast, it damages purpose, it damages purity, I'm sorry, it distracts you from purpose, and then it disowns your potential. See, the potential that God gave you, he gave it to you so you can do his will. So you kind of push this supernatural ability you have aside and start doing something that God didn't even ordain you to do. And then you start looking for his help in that. You know, some people are just purposed to do what they do. And you just need to flow in that arena because your greatest blessing is going to come from that area of purpose because that's where your potential lies. Oh boy, God have mercy. Let's get in this. So let's get to our main point. So obviously I'm going to share with you about purity, purpose, and potential tonight. These are 3 things that are vitally important that you have clarity on if you're going to enlarge, if you're going to expand your capacity, to receive what God has for you in this year to come and in your life moving forward. Let's look at purity. Purity in its simplest terms, by definition, simply means to be clean, without spot, without blemish. Well, we know when we come to Jesus Christ and get saved by his efficacious, vicarious, substitutionary work of Calvary, that his blood makes us clean. Now here's the problem. He cleans us up and forgives our sin, but we spend so many times in our life using grace to get back clean 'cause we mess up so much. So what we gotta start doing is instead of practicing using grace to help sin, grace does both. It forgives sin and it empowers purpose. So I need this because charis in Greek is empowering. It's a free gift that empowers. So God says, I've given you the grace to be pure in every single way. I want you to be clean in every way, is what the Lord is saying, so we can get the blessing. That's what we want. Okay, watch this. So Jesus— here we go— he lived in purity and power, okay, so that we would have an opportunity to do this. And he wanted to show us what it would look like if we live like he did, okay. His— he's proved that in the human body you can actually live— hear me— a life of purity. Praise God. Go to Titus 1:15. Let's read the Bible. Glory to God. Let's read the Bible. Titus 1:15. The Bible says, watch this, unto the pure all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure, but even their mind and their conscience is defiled. That's a big statement. That's a powerful statement. He says, to the pure, all things are pure. So when you operate in pure integrity, when your life is clean, when you're pure with people, when you're pure with yourself, you're pure with God, you don't have time to be trying to find fault in everybody else, the impurities in everybody else. See, the Bible said to them Oh my God, that are defiled and unbelieving. Nothing is pure. See, people that's always passing judgment and trying to say what's wrong with other people, that, that's a reflection on them and the level of purity that operates in their life. And most of those people never enlarge. I always say big people— watch this— talk about big things. Mediocre people talk about small things. Watch this, small people talk about each other. That's because their mindset is rooted in an insecurity that makes them feel good when they say something negative about someone else. Glory to God. Yeah. And you know, I hate to use this for an example, but this is what's coming to me right now. And some of you may find it some folly in it, but in the end of the day, you know, this is a true story. This is what happened. So there was a lady one time, she always would talk. She was in the church, and this is in the past, not in my church now. She would always talk about other folks' children, how bad they were, And she would always call the little children ugly. And we would all say, look, don't do that, you don't call them kids ugly. But you know what, she never was bringing her children to church. And I'm saying to myself, it's something about her children that she keep calling these children ugly and bad. Then one Sunday, she brought them children to her church. And when I tell you them children were bad, man. They were bad, and they weren't easy on the eyes neither. Now let me tell you something that let me know then she was making herself feel good about her own kids talking about other kids. Come on, man, that's the devil. You need to be pure in all things. You need to be honest in all things. God cannot bless you if you're living a life where you're constantly operating in dishonesty, and you're trying to feed your self-security by being something you're not. That's impure living. Let's keep moving, let's keep moving. Let's look at the Bible, let's look at the Bible, let's read the Bible, because I want you to see where purity really comes from. I mean, I know it means clean, but that's just a small portion. So you could take a bath and still be impure. Come on, church! You can take a shower and still be impure. You could show up at the church every Sunday, every Tuesday night, every Thursday night, every Friday night for prayer, Monday night Bible band. You can come to church on Sunday night. You can live in the baptism pool, but if you don't change your heart, you're still impure. All right, watch this. Psalm 24 and verse 4. Watch this. The Bible says, he that hath clean hands and a pure heart. See, again, you can wash your hands and you can sanitize, glory to God, and your hands can be clean, but your heart can still be jacked up. Clean— I've seen people go down in the baptism pool and come up shouting out the water, speaking in tongues out the water, everything, about to drown the preacher coming out the water. Because they so happy. Okay, but I don't see them same folk live like the devil, mean as rattlesnakes. Why? Because they got baptized, come to church every week, and their heart was still dirty. But God wants to clean up your heart. He wants you to clean up your heart. He said, and a pure heart, who have not lifted up his soul unto vanity nor sworn deceitfully. This is how you have a pure heart. You got to keep your soul humble. Your soul is your mind, your will, your emotions. You got to keep your mind, your will, your emotions humble and subject to God. You can't be lifted up in pride and vanity. You got to understand that everything that happens in your life, it happens because God allows it. It happens because God— hear me, glory to the— on this Christmas Eve 2020, whatever takes place for you that's good And it comes from God. It comes because of his heart toward you. Glory to God. So you, you have to humble yourself. Glory to God. Jesus, let me move. He says, no sworn decision. And then you got to tell the truth. Oh boy, you sworn deceitfully. Wait a minute, he didn't say sworn. He didn't say him that tell a lie. He said sworn deceitfully. Which means constantly saying things they believe is right and is wrong. Deceived. A deceived person is worse than a liar. A deceived person believes they are right. A liar know they telling the truth— telling a lie, but they can tell the truth at any time. A deceived person think what they're saying is truth. And the only hope for them is a greater truth to purify their heart. Oh my God, let's move. Matthew 5, verse 8. Purity begins in the heart. Somebody type that on the screen for me. Purity begins in the heart. Glory to God. Purity begins in the heart. Watch what happens when your heart is pure. Matthew 5:8 says, blessed, whoo, are the pure in heart. Glory to God, for they shall see God. Did y'all, did y'all hear that? Jesus— it's in red too— Jesus said that blessed— the word blessed in Greek is makarios, which means there's an indwelt quality that gives you access to the supernatural to be empowered to achieve at a high level. That's what being blessed is. Means that you are empowered from another realm to achieve at a high level. Wow, man. But the Bible said you get that when your heart is pure. This is why there's a whole lot of people underachieving and not enlarging, because their heart is not pure. They look good on the outside. They churchy, dance, shout, speak in tongues, spit, blow bubbles, go to IHOP. On the outside, but they're not blessed on the inside. We need to, we need to make sure our heart is pure. Lord, purify our hearts. Lord, purify our hearts in the name of Jesus. I'm asking you tonight to purify our hearts, make us clean, because the Bible said when that happens, watch this, you shall see God. Now let me help you with that. The word see there is, is not a matter of physical eyes. It's literally a matter of the heart. Vision is a matter of the heart and spirit. Sight is a matter of the eyes. This word in Greek deals with seeing from the spirit, seeing from the soul. So he says, basically he's saying you will have intimacy, you will be close to God. See, you could be churchy and not be close to God. He said, there are many that prophesy in my name, but their heart is far from me. My God, they preach, they prophesy, they go to the church, they shout, they dance, but their heart— you know, I know some people— oh God, let me say this, I'm gonna say this for y'all, especially y'all that's in the church. I, I, let me say, I know some folk that don't go to church. Watch me on this. I'm not saying they ain't right, they right for not going to church, because they should go to the church and get the word because they need to learn. But I know some people that won't go to church, but their heart is pure. Ah, they read the Bible, they pray at home. Oh, oh, they listen to their preacher through the internet or on TV, but they choose not to go to church because one older lady said to me, son, the church ain't what it used to be. She said, she said to me, she said, Dr. Woods, the church is not what it used to be. She said, it ain't nothing but a bunch of hypocrites in the church now. She said, so I stay at home and I, and I get my prayers through and I minister to people. You know, and I'm trying to convince her, yeah, I get it, but you, you need something too. But she's afraid of her heart getting contaminated by church folk. That's a dangerous place, man, when the church is that strong in deception and impurity that you got somebody that's seasoned that don't even want to cross the door of a church because of what they perceive to be wicked inside of it. That's a dangerous place, man. So we shouldn't let that be named among us. We need to get our heart right. Yeah. Oh Lord, and just examine yourself tonight. I don't mean to get on you on Christmas Eve. I love you, but I'm just saying, God, if we're going to enlarge, we got to have a pure heart. We gotta have a pure heart. Hallelujah. Say purity. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Let's move on. So you got to have purity because I could teach about that all night. You got to have purity. I'm almost done. I just sound long, y'all. Just sound like it, but I'm almost through. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Thank y'all for staying with me. Thank y'all for sharing this. Glory to God. If you're gonna enlarge, here's number 2: you gotta deliberately— glory to God— walk in purpose. Somebody say, you gotta deliberately walk in purpose. Okay, so here we go. I need you to understand that purpose Let's define it. Let's get a good working definition, cuz a lot of people like to touch this and really don't want to explain how this operates in the life of the believer. Glory to God. So here we go. Say purpose. It's— type it on the screen. Purpose. Purpose. Purpose. Purpose is the original intent for the creation of a thing. It's the original reason why God created you. Hallelujah. So everybody listening to me, live or by replay, I need you to understand on this Christmas Eve that there was an original authenticity, original reason why God created you. You're here for a reason. I'm not talking about what you are, I'm talking about why you are. Ha! Shabai! Oh, breshi! Every person under my voice has a why, a reason, And I'm talking about an intent, a thought that God had when he created you. There was a thought on his mind. One of my mentors, a lot of people claim this and he really wasn't, but he was really one of my mentors. It's the late Dr. Miles Monroe. And nobody taught purpose like Miles. So everything I learned about purpose, I learned it from Miles. A lot of people be teaching it and act like they didn't get it from him. I've been listening to this man since '83. Glory to God. So praise— I was a, a sophomore in high school. All right, so, uh, anyway, I want you to be clear about something. And over time, the— my teaching of this has evolved because I learned so many foundational principles for him. But I want you to understand there's a thought in God's mind. Now let's go to Jeremiah 29:11. Let me just show it to you. Jeremiah 29:11. Jeremiah 29:11 says, for I know— watch this— the thoughts I think toward you. Here we go. Let's stop right there for a minute. I know the thoughts I think toward you. Mahakabash. Toward. Mahakavash, that's the word in Hebrew. It means I know the thoughts that I deposited in you, and then I consistently throw these thoughts at you. But you got to be in the place spiritually to catch these thoughts so you can live. But God is thinking about you and he's always thought about you. So in the inception of your life, God had a thought and he said, I'm going to create this one to do this, this one to do that, this one to do that. Because he knew how he needed the kingdom to function on earth. So he put an authenticity in every one of us, so much so that there are no two fingerprints on this planet alike. That means if you murder somebody and you leave your fingerprints on the gun, guess what? They coming for you. They know what your fingerprints look like. Glory to God. So I suggest you don't do that. Praise God, because everybody's unique. Our DNA makeup is unique. The parents we were born to, every one of us had to be born to the parents we were born to because inside of the DNA strand of both parents was something we needed as children to function in this world. Oh, touch yourself and say, I got a purpose. Let me share this with you. The very fact that your heart is beating right now, Lord, I feel like running. I feel like running around the Christmas tree. Glory to God. Your heart is beating right now. It is an indication that you have purpose. If you were not necessary, if your reason for being alive wasn't necessary, you'd be dead right now. Listen, anybody that dies before their time, that's called murder. You died prematurely. You were murdered. Whether you were murdered by someone else or you murdered yourself by doing the wrong things, at the end of the day, it's murder if you die before you complete your purpose. Because God has a reason when he creates purpose. He also creates a time to finish that purpose. Your birth certificate is your time card that clocks you into life. Your death certificate is your time card that clocks you out of life. You do not clock out until you're finished. There's a work that we all have to do, but we got to finish it, and we cannot clock out until our shift is over. And that's why we got to move in purpose so we can enlarge and make sure we don't waste time and we can finish what God called us to finish. Glory to God. Watch this. Matter of fact, let's go here. Proverbs 19:20. Well, I didn't finish Jeremiah 29. For I know the thoughts I think toward you. Let me just finish it. They are thoughts of peace. Peace, shalom in Hebrew, it means the presence of assistance, not the absence of confusion. So when you start moving in what God thought, he signs up, woo, to assist you. Glory to God, he signs up to assist you. On this Christmas Eve, I'm telling y'all right now, none of us are alone. God says, I'm present to assist you. Ha! You're not in this thing by yourself. Glory to God. I need you to know that God's got your back. He's lifting the heavyweight for you. All you got to do is align yourself in purity and in obedience and say, God, whatever your plan is, I'm gonna do it. Thoughts of peace and not of evil. Watch that word evil. It's the Hebrew word— watch this— ra, R-A, and it means injurious. He says, my thoughts toward you is to assist you in expansion, in enlarging, and being better, in having good success, in fulfilling your purpose, not to send you things into your life that to injure you. Listen, God ain't in the business of hurting his people. That's not what he wants. He said, I have thoughts of you that are of peace and not of evil, that you might have an expected end. Hear me when I say that. Unexpected hope, which means now God says, I'm gonna give you a revelation of where you going so you can live in expectation of what's coming. I'm telling you right now, it's coming. There's something good coming for your life. You just gotta line yourself up to receive what God has. All right, so purpose then. Let's go to Proverbs 19, verse 21. Here we go. 19:21 says this: There are many plans in a man's heart. Yeah, every one of you listen to me, all of us, me, we We all got plans in our heart, dreams, things we could do, things we desire to do, many plans. But the Bible says nevertheless. Anytime you read nevertheless in the Bible, it means that God's version or God's plan is never less than yours. Is always greater. So even though you got a lot of plans in your heart, nevertheless, God's plan is bigger. It says the Lord's purpose stands forever. What's eternal is the purpose of God, not what you plan. So you need to find out what you are— why you are here. Now, what— why you are here. God, why did you put me on this Planet? Why am I breathing? Why is my heart beating? Purpose is never found in the mind— oh, here we go— of the thing. So if I want to know the purpose of a thing, I never ask the thing. I'm sitting in front of a Canon camera. If I want to know the purpose of all of the functionality of this camera. Glory to God. I can't walk up to the camera and say, 'Camera, what's your purpose? What does this do?' It's not going to tell me. The purpose of the camera is found in the manual. I had to consult the manual. My God, glory to God. And the manual tells me everything and how it works on this complicated device— how to focus, how to manual focus, how to autofocus, how to do this, how to set this scene, set that scene. It's all in the manual. Because purpose is in the mind of the manufacturer. If you want to know why you're here— help us tonight, God. Yes, Shemaiah. Oh my God, if you want to know why you're here, you need to have a conversation with the manufacturer, the one that created you, the one that made you. He knows why you're here. Glory to God. He knows your purpose. He's the manufacturer. And then you need to often pick up the manual, the Bible. Read the manual, find out the instructions for your life. When I was in Sunday school— God, we don't have Sunday school in churches no more, but I grew up in Sunday school. I learned the Bible not in seminary, even though I went. I learned the Bible in Sunday school. Glory to God. And because I'm learning the books of the Bible, I'm I learned how to memorize verses, all of that in Sunday school. And in Sunday school, my Sunday school teacher when I was a little boy used to teach us that the Bible is B-I-B-L-E, basic instructions— what is it, Bria? Basic instructions for believers leaving earth. Basic instructions for believers leaving earth. See, I forgot, I'm old now. I told you I was a little boy. When I knew it was something. Glory to God. Hallelujah. See, my son got a young mind. He's sitting there. Glory to God. Listen, let me tell you something. You need to construct the Bible and understand why you're here, because you got many plans, but it's the Lord's purpose that stands forever. Watch this. Purpose is the key to fulfillment. You want to be fulfilled in life? Find your purpose. Are you hearing what I'm saying? I mean, people who are frustrated and angry and mad and don't like themselves and don't like people, always fussing, always arguing, always upset, they don't understand their purpose. They're not clear about who they are. So here's a reality. You gotta discover your purpose so you can be fulfilled. Listen, I know married people who get off work, drive around 285, 3, 4 hours, then they go home 'cause they want their wife to be asleep when they get there 'cause they not happy, they not fulfilled. That's crazy because you need to be with somebody that fulfills you, that makes you happy. See, when you walking in what fulfills you, You get up in the morning, throw your clothes up in the air, run up under them and run into your day because you're so excited to do what you're doing. If you're sitting at work and you're looking at the clock saying, I can't wait till 5 o'clock, it is not your purpose. People who are doing what their purpose to do will work all night. They will not sleep because that's who they are. That's their purpose. I can't tell you the sleepless nights I have working on purpose because— and I don't, I don't even be mad at myself. I have to be told by my wife to go to bed. There are days she would get up on her way to her job and I'm still sitting up working. She comes, well, I'm about to go. Have you been to bed? Uh, you didn't see me come in there, did you? No, but son, because it's purpose for me. And I don't even have no knowledge of the time because I'm being fulfilled doing writing, doing what I'm called to do, producing. Whatever it is I'm doing, I'm doing it because it's something God has purposed. If you're frustrated, I want to challenge you. Thank you, Chelsea. You and Ben helped me out, help my brains out. Basic instructions before leaving Earth. Thank you. Glory to God. Thank you so much. Listen, let me tell you something. God wants you fulfilled. He wants you to walk in purpose. Here's another point about purpose. Purpose always designates and measures the value of time. I'll say it again: purpose always designates and— oh my God— measures the value of time. See, when you understand your purpose You don't waste time doing the wrong stuff with the wrong people in the wrong places, doing the wrong thing, because you know it doesn't connect with where you're going. When you understand purpose, you connect with people who operate under the guise of purpose, who can contribute to what God has called you to do. Are you hearing me? I got to get out of here, y'all. I'm boring some of y'all. I got to go. So here's the problem. Everything in life, you, me, everything in life, this is how God operates because God is a God of purpose. Everything in life has a purpose. Everything. The cockroach has a purpose. He has a purpose. He, I don't know what his purpose is, but I was watching some videos of the Vietnam War. Stuff was blew up, flattened on the ground, humans dead, and here go a cockroach just crawling through the ground. The bomb couldn't even kill that joker. Lord have mercy. And I'm like, he's gotta have a purpose. He's helping clean up something. He's food for something. I don't know what it is, but he has a purpose. The coco plant has a purpose. The marijuana plant has a purpose. Not telling you to smoke weed, but the marijuana plant itself was created for medicinal purposes. Everything in life has a purpose. Money has a purpose. Your— oh God, your children have purpose. Your spouse has a purpose. Everything has— your little toe, that little crusty toe. Glory to God that when you go get a pedicure, the Chinese lady said, I can't cut that, can't cut that because it's just too crusty. She can't even get it together. Glory to God. But, but at the end of the day, That little toe has purpose. If you cut that toe off, you'll lose your balance. Glory to God. The hairs in your nose, they have purpose to keep debris out of your nose. So everything, as minute as it may be, has purpose, has a reason why it exists, including you and I. Here's the problem with that. Every purpose— this is what I learned from Daddy Miles. Is not known. And Miles would always say, where purpose is not known, abuse is inevitable. When you don't know the purpose of a thing, you'll abuse a thing. So if I don't know the purpose of the cocoa plant, I'll be a fool, turn it into cocaine, cause it to be illegal drugs, and now I'm abusing it. That's called drug abuse. If I don't know the purpose of the marijuana plant. Hallelujah. Oh God, I'll go out here and start smoking weed and say, oh, it's a natural herb. Well, you're not smoking a natural herb because they don't laced it and put everything else in it. Y'all don't help it. Okay. I know I'm hitting somebody that's going to smoke a blunt as soon as you get off of here. But I'm telling you right now, don't smoke it. Don't smoke it. Glory to God. Don't do it. I'm telling you, don't do it because you're— it's drug abuse. That's— and then it's not even legal in Georgia. If you're in Georgia, it's only legal in about 3 states, 3, 4 states. So you're breaking the law, and it's not the natural herb that you're smoking when you go to the weed man and buy it. All right, I need you to understand that, ladies and gentlemen. Glory to God. You don't know what they putting in that stuff. There's some people that don't smoke reefer and went crazy because they got a hold to some bad drugs. But everything has a purpose. If you don't know the purpose, you'll be— you don't know the purpose of your wife, brother, you will abuse your wife. That's called spousal abuse. A weak spaghetti back, jelly back man that hits a woman, he does that because one, he's stupid. Two, glory to God, he does not understand the purpose of that woman. He's abusing her, and that ain't the will of God. Glory to God. I gotta move because I'm walking in somebody's house right now. Let me move, let me move, let me move. Here's my last one. If you're gonna enlarge, not only do you need purity, not only do you need to have clarity about purpose, but you need clarity about your potential. Your potential is not why you're here. Your potential is what you are able to do. What you can do. Everybody here— and I've got to close, I ain't gonna, I ain't gonna, I ain't gonna tarry on this. I stayed on purpose too long. But there's something in all of us. Let me tell you something. What's in you is greater than what's behind you, is greater— watch this— than what you can physically see in front of you. You got potential in you that's huge. We often say— the church uses this word loosely— that God is omnipotent. Omnipotent, which means he's all-powerful. The root of that word is potent, which is the same root of the word potential. So if God has all potential, all ability, when we receive him, our ability— glory to God— to, to do what we got to do and to perfect our purpose is magnified, because now we got God in us who is great and great to be praised. Glory to God. Hallelujah. See, we got a lot of people out here that got latent dormant potential that has not been tapped. And I'm saying to you tonight, as you move into— glory to God— your future, as we move into 2021, as we bring this year swiftly to a close in just 7 short days, I need you to understand something. You got great potential. You can do way more than you've done. Let me say that again. You could do way more than you've done. You have the God of heaven living on the inside of you by way of the Holy Ghost. You can perform at an optimal level in life. You can supersede— glory to the name of God— the expectations of men. You have the kratos, the supernatural potential and ability of God living on the inside of you. Oh my God, watch this. Having potential is good. Listen to me guys, I'm closing. But keeping it is bad. I'm having trouble hearing you. I'll say it one more time. Having potential is good. But keeping it is bad. God gave you all that potency, all that power on the inside, all that ability so you can use it— watch this— to release his authority and ability in the earth. For some people, the only God they'll ever meet is inside of you. But you got to release it so they can experience the supernatural through you. Oh God, this is good. Let's go to Psalm 8:2. I'm done. This is my last scripture. 8:2. Uh-uh. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings babies hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mayest steal the enemy and the avenger. Watch this. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings. He's El Shaddai. He's the Breasted One. We are his babes. We're his children. We receive nourishment from him. Hear me. Oh my God. He says the strength, the potential— that's what it is in Hebrew, the ability, the latent ability— is in us because we got an enemy that opposes the ability of God. But I'm telling you something, God is all-powerful. He's big, y'all, and there's nothing he cannot do. That's all things are possible with God. So can I tell you this? And I'm closing my iPad. Everything that is and was— hear me— was in God. I'm gonna say it again. Everything that is and was, was in God. So there's nothing that exists that has come to fruition Hear me, without the hand of God being involved. You and I are products of God's hands. The Bible says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Lord, I wish I could preach this like I feel. Listen, you gotta understand, praise the name of God, that you are standing right where you are packed with potential. You are manufactured with purpose. Packaged with potential to lead a powerful, meaningful, and successful life. That's why you're here, so that others can see the power of God working through you and get the glory out of your life. Everything that is and was, was in God. Watch this. When God was creating— and I'm closing with this— if he wanted fish, watch this, He, he spoke to water and told the water to bring him forth fish. He wanted stars, he spoke to the firmaments and told them to bring forth firmaments. He wanted plants and trees, he spoke to the earth. Oh my God. And told them to bring it forth. Watch this, when he wanted a man, he spoke to himself. And said, let us make man. Glory to God. We didn't come out of— we came out of God. We didn't come out of the earth. We didn't come out— he formed us from the dust, but we— the spirit breathed into that dust and made us alive. We come out of God, y'all. Yeah, watch this. When something dies, guess where it goes? Back to where it came from. When a fish dies, it disintegrates to the bottom of the ocean unless you pull him out of there and eat him. Glory to God. But otherwise, his death is in that water. Glory to God. When a plant dies, it goes into the ground. When this earth suit dies, it goes back to the dust. When the spirit— hallelujah— it go back to where it came from, goes back to God. Here's what I'm saying. As we move into this new set of days, in just 7 days, guys, you don't get a blank page and you are the author. You can write on that page whatever you want because you got the potential. The purpose has already been established. You just got to purify your thoughts, purify your relationships, and make sure that your channel is open to receive what God says, and you can begin to live the life that God created for you. Let's pray. Father, in Jesus' name, I thank you for this word tonight. Hallelujah. Oh, I thank you for this, your people, God. I thank you for the opportunity to share. I pray, God, that those that watch live God, that this word landed on the good ground of their heart and they will reap it in this season of their life, that they will immediately go out and begin to apply these principles. I pray for purity in the life of your people. Let the blood of Jesus purify our minds, purify our motives, purify our hearts, God, in the name of Jesus. I pray, God, for purpose. Illuminate the purpose in the lives of your people, God. Let it come alive. Let it be strong in the mighty name of Jesus. Let the people who hear this talk to you, God, and find out why they are here in the name of Jesus. And I pray that you will give every person listening live or by replay a revelation, or listening to the podcast, a revelation of their potential. And I ask you for this now. And I believe that as we begin to be people of purity, people of purpose, and people of massive potential, that the world will be different because we will have groups of people operating at an optimal level, maximizing their purpose, maximizing their potential, and changing lives everywhere they go. And we give you praise for it now. In Jesus' name, amen. And thank God. Listen, I'm so blessed that you guys— glory to God. Hey, James Shepherd, God bless you— that you guys joined us tonight. Listen, I want to challenge you to share this video. So this word probably blessed me more than it blessed you. I'm, I'm always the first partaker of the fruit. The Bible said the husbandman is the first partaker. So when God gives me something, I always revisit in my spirit to make sure I'm good. Glory to God. And then I share it with you. Listen, I want you to share with somebody else. We're blessed to be a blessing. And I want to wish every one of you a Merry Christmas. Enjoy your families tonight. I pray, glory to the name of God, that this will be the best Christmas Day ever for you. I'm so grateful to God for what he is doing. I want to take a moment to invite every one of you to join us at Roddick Church on New Year's Eve. You can either join us in person or live online. We got a great lineup. The word of the Lord for 2021 is going to come forth. We're going to have some great music. We're going to have a great comedian. We'll have poetry. We got a mime coming that's going to dance. Ben's going to bless us again. It's going to be phenomenal. Uh, Chelsea, Harry, Lady Felicia, the worship is going to happen. Listen, you want to make sure— we've got limited seating if you want to come out, and God has charged me to prophetically speak into the life of every person that comes through the door. So if you want to come, there's a link on my page. Click that link in the flyer and go and register, because once we reach max capacity, we'll cut the registration off and it will be online only because we want to honor the CDC guidelines and do the social distancing we're supposed to do. Glory to the name of God. We love you. God bless you. Heaven smile upon you is our prayer. Be