The Dial of Destiny, Part 1: "Destiny and Order" | Apostle Michael Woods, Sr.

Say that with me again. Say the dial of destiny. Praise God. Hallelujah. Isaiah 46:10. If you got it, signify by saying amen. All right, y'all can do better than that. The Bible says, in the beginning was the word And the Word was God. Look at God and say amen. Amen. All right, there you go. The Bible says, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times— listen— the things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand and I will do all My pleasure. That's good. I'm gonna read it again because it's just all right to read the Bible. It says, declaring the end from the beginning. So your life was already decided, here it is, before you were ever born. God declared the end. Hey, Apostle, God bless you. He finished your life before you were ever born. He declared the end from the beginning. Let me show you how that looks. Let me— I think I need to show you. So this is the end of your life. That's where you're going to end up. You're gonna— you're gonna end— you, you're already— it's already been decided where you're supposed to end up, who you're going to marry, how much money you're supposed to have, how, how healthy you're supposed to be, how strong you're supposed to be in faith and in spirituality. That has been decided. But he declares that from here, before you even get in the earth, he decided that's where you're going. He decided that you're supposed to have the best of everything. He decided that there's a unique, authentic purpose and plan that's set aside just for you. Touch yourself and say, my life is already decided. So what he does is— so he'll say, Michael Woods, you're going to be a billionaire. I said it, Billy would be, right? He already decided that for me, so he backs up. And you know, people don't have to like that, but I'm happy about that plan for me. Glory to God. And he says, in my mama's belly at 15. Uh-huh. And when she gives birth, it is already— the trajectory is made for me to become a billionaire, for me to become an apostle that plants 8 churches by the year 2023. An apostle, glory to God, that has government on his shoulder. My mama, who wanted to abort me at 15, couldn't because this had already been declared. She went to the abortion clinic a few times, tried to fall down steps a few times. None of it worked. I might have came out a little crazy because she fell downstairs, but at the end of the day, not the abortion process— she could kill me because God declared the end from the beginning. He says to run a church, okay, you're going to be a presence in Atlanta, Georgia. A governmental presence, a governmental authority, uh, a place, a hub for revival and breakthrough for people. He says, your— this church will be a headquarters to many around this world. But then he says, back up and start with 2 people at 3418 Dogwood Drive in Hayville. So we can't get there without the beginning. He declares it. So the word declare means amar in Hebrew. He spoke it. And whenever God speaks a thing, it becomes law. So every life in here, there's a declaration, there's an end, there's a destiny. Say, I have a destiny. I have a destiny. Say, I'm going somewhere. I'm going somewhere. Say, because God spoke it. Because God spoke it. Say, that won't change. Circumstances don't change it. Say, the devil don't change it. The only thing that alters destiny— y'all ready? It's you. Okay, all of this is planned, but your decisions determine your destiny. How you ascertain destiny is based on how you make decisions. You can end up in a false destiny. Yes, because you make the wrong decisions. Yes, you can decide to marry a man that God didn't ordain for your in and be in the wrong destiny. You can decide to marry a woman that God didn't ordain and be in your wrong destiny. So you got to make the right decisions to line up with what God says, because again, he's a king, and whenever a king speaks, what he says becomes law. So wait a minute, so if I'm not in destiny, I'm breaking the law. And there are penalties for breaking the law, and the biggest penalty is you don't get what was declared. I don't want to miss it, so I got to make sure I manage my decisions properly. So in this series, what I want to do over these next several weeks is literally, for real, I want to show you how to dial into your destiny. Get on course and get what God spoke, not guess at it. See, religious people feel like they can keep following religions. Let me tell you something, I am not a religious man. Never have been, never will be. I'll go on record saying this, I'm, I'm really— let me just say it like this— I'm a kingdom citizen. I'm an ambassador. I've been sitting here on assignment. I'm not even a Christian. Listen, Christian is a pagan word. Okay, I'm saying again, the Antiochs first called them Christians. They were making fun of them. That wasn't even a godly thing. That was like, okay, something wrong with y'all. And we took it as something great, and we call ourselves that all the time. God never called you a Christian. Never. The Antioch did. That's right. God called you an ambassador. Amen. That's why people say, I'm a good Christian. Like, first of all, what is a good Christian? Because at the end of the day, if you got to put good in front of it, and you're supposed to be Christ-like anyway, it automatically tells me something's wrong with that, that you lying. Because you, you shouldn't have to put good Christian in front of it. But anyway, we ambassadors. We are citizens of another world. So God's plan is to rule the seen world— watch this— from the unseen world. The way he does that is through you and I moving in obedience to destiny. Touch yourself and say, I have a destiny. Come on, say it again. Say, I have a destiny. He says, I declare to him from the beginning, from ancient times, the things that ain't been done yet saying, watch this, my counsel shall stand. Where counsel is, my purpose. I'm not going to teach about purpose today, but purpose and destiny are different. Destiny is what's been declared. Purpose is the reason why the destiny was declared. Purpose is why you're here. Destiny is what you will become. It's what purpose produces. Lord have mercy. So he says, my purpose is going to stand. You could try to do anything else, but the only thing that really stands forever and eternally is purpose. The only thing that stays alive— that's why my wife and I was in the car yesterday, we was talking about some things. And you know, I get people offering me stuff all the time. And so we was talking about, uh, you know, people who have vacant churches that have thousands of people in it, people trying to hire me to be a pastor. You can't— first of all, you can't afford me to hire me anywhere. I ain't working for nobody because you can't afford me. I mean, that, that's the first piece. Secondly, I'm an apostle, not a pastor. Yes, the moment some deacons trying to hire me, uh-oh, that's gonna be a whole problem by itself because I'd rather have a demon-possessed church than a deacon-possessed church. I could cast the devil out any day, but them deacons ain't going nowhere. You'll be going for them deacons, I'm telling you right now. So no, I'm not interested. I'll keep plowing and pioneering in obedience toward the destiny, because even in destiny you can do one of three things. You can down down. So to dial down means that you turn your fire down, you compromise to make others feel good. You dial down, you don't tell the truth when the truth needs to be told. You dial down to make people comfortable. But when you're moving toward destiny, there's no room to dial down. But what you have to do is dial in. To dial in means that you follow a sequence to make a connection. I know most times that we don't really dial numbers no more. I come from the era where you had to hit a 1 and go, and then wait for it to come back, then go to the next number. You had to dial a sequence, and then we graduated a little bit, we got a touchtone phone. And we thought we was doing something, but you still had to dial the sequence. We don't do that much no more because we hit people's name. But guess what's happening when you hit the name? The phone is still putting in the numbers, it's dialing the sequence so you can make the connection. If the order of the sequence is not complete, the connection will not be made. So in order to reach your destiny, you got to dial in and follow the sequence. See, the space between the beginning and the end— listen to this— it's called the process. So what the process does, when you start and you start walking toward this, it takes you through changes and obstacles. Watch this, to qualify you to keep this. See, the moment you try to get this before going through the process, you're gonna keep losing stuff. That's why people can't keep nothing. They'll get a place because they done made the way themselves, because they weren't qualified to keep it. In order to graduate high school, you got to go through 12 grades in order to get that diploma and honestly say you got one. Here's the problem with us in process. We have to again go back to what was declared through not just a dial-in, but we got to dial up. Y'all remember dial-up internet? Maybe I'm old, but when dial-up internet, you log on and you'll go kshh, because it was connected to your phone line. Trying to connect you to the internet. Now you just hit a button, you're online. I mean, just that simple. But notice it still was a process that got you up into a place and a connection that you couldn't connect with otherwise. You gotta dial up in God. You got to get a worship life, a prayer life. You got to get an ear for his voice for real. Hallelujah! So he can share with you what he said in the beginning about your end. People get discouraged in the process because they never really saw the end. Here's how it has to work. When you dial up, what happens is God shows you the end, which is what I want to call right here the product. Yeah. This is the product that God's trying to produce with your life. He said, this is where I want you to go. This is the product. But then he backs up. It's the first thing I need you to do, because you dialed up. I need you to establish purpose, a reason why you have to go after this product. See, if you don't have a real purpose for doing something, the moment it gets hard, you're going to quit. The purpose can't be money. You have to have a real defined driving purpose that comes from the manufacturer, that comes from God. Once you establish purpose, you have to now establish a pace. How you're going to synchronize yourself with God to get to the end. A long-distance runner can't run like a 50-yard dash. No. When I was in high school and college, I played basketball. And one of the requirements when I was in high school playing basketball was we had to run cross country. I hated it. I wanted to just play basketball. But in order to be on the team, I had to run cross country. The reason is because the coach was teaching us pace. He was teaching us endurance. And the only way you're going to endure going toward a real destiny is when you dial up and get the pace right. The moment you start trying to run ahead of God— come on, come on— and do it better than God, and watch this, and feel like you don't need God— I don't care how talented you think you are, how smart you think you are, you can't do it without God. And watch this, you can look at your life and look at the things you've tried to do without God. And they will testify to you. Or do I need God right in this through here? So you've got to get a revelation of pace. So which means I don't move to him. You gotta learn to follow the cloud in pace and not the crowd. See, we're too busy trying to follow the crowd. We follow what's popular. We follow what— what— oh my God, what looks a certain way, what makes us feel a certain way. But I want to be where cloud is. I don't never want to be where God was. I want to always be where God is. I'm gonna get where I need to be, I promise you. I was going to talk about this first sequence in this down, but you got to pace yourself. Get the purpose, then you pace yourself, then you go through this process. Now, when I was younger, I'm really, really dating myself. Them now. When I was in 7th grade, my grandmother took me to Los Angeles. Nobody in Atlanta when I was in 7th grade and I left— at least I hadn't seen them— had a Jheri curl. Stay with me, there's a point coming out of this. Nobody had a Jheri curl. I get to California, I see all these people with this greasy stuff in there and they had this curl. Never seen Black people with that curly stuff in their hair like that. And I'm like, I want that. 7th grade, wanted a Jheri curl. My grandmama, because I was the only child, I told her I wanted it, she took me and let me get it. Well, really what I learned later, it was nothing but a process. You sit down in it, y'all know the process is right, sit on that chair, they put some Vaseline on your head. That's setting up boundaries to make sure the chemical don't get on your skin and burn you. So when you're in the process walking with God, pace yourself with God, one of the things he often will do is set up boundaries in your life so you can get to destiny. He'll give you— but he'll put the blood over you and protect you from stuff you thought you needed, protect you from people you thought you needed. And sometimes the process— glory to God— you don't understand. I don't understand why they put that Vaseline on my head, but it was for my protection. Some things God will do for your protection. Sometimes you understand why certain people reject you. Rejection is protection and direction. So you ought to be glad that in the process, certain folk rejected you. For certain folk walked away. But then the next thing they would do, glory to God, is they would start combing this chemical through your head. And what this chemical would do was start breaking down your hair. I'm telling you, I had some— I'm letting my daddy— got black folk hair. My mama got Black folk hair, and I just had them grapes in my head. So you can imagine that little white cream breaking that hair down. But when it broke it all the way down, and that's what the process does, it gets you out of you. It eliminates all of the transgression out of you. Watch this, that takes away the hardness in pursuing destiny. Y'all see that? The way of a transgressor is hard. Yes. So if you got transgression in you, life is hard. As long as you keep transgressing, things gonna keep being hard. But if you decide, I'm gonna align myself and pace with God, let him break all of that transgression out of it becomes easy to get to destiny. But they went through with you. The next thing they would do is wash that stuff out. They get some shampoo called neutralizing shampoo. I found out later that the neutralizer gives you balance because your hair done went through a horrific experience, so you need to bring it back into balance. Are y'all hearing this? Because your head don't know what done hit it. I'm telling you, man, that's why I'm 53 and already received right here. Glory to God. Because putting that stuff in my head— I wish I would have known then what it was really doing to my health. But that neutralizer brings you back into balance. The process, though it seemed hard sometimes Is great balance in your life. A false balance is an abomination to God. You can't be all the way super spiritual and then the pendulum swings back and you have nothing to offer when you leave a church building. Kingdom people are balanced. Kingdom people are able to function in their purpose, inside of the process, in every place, in every situation. You gotta have balance to do that. You can't— it's a time to speak in tongues. Yes, because light and darkness have no communication. So if you're in a restaurant speaking in tongues loud, 9 times out of 10, if the Spirit didn't give utterance, what's going to happen? You're going to offend somebody. They're not going to understand what you did. And they're gonna be turned off. So you gotta have balance. Balance brings wisdom. So that's that neutralizer. They wash it out, neutralize it. What's the next step? Conditioner. They put the conditioner in and that gets you ready. It gives you some more endurance that when you leave for this thing to last that just happened to your hair. Last thing they do after they wash that conditioner out and rinse it real good to clean you up They put that activator on it, and that's what makes it just dripping wet everywhere. But that's what God wants, and that's, that's the anointing. God anoints you in the process so that when things come to try to get a grip on you, you can slip right through it. Hallelujah. And that's— we gotta get that oily and anointing through the process so when things try to grip us and hold us back He can't hold us. Okay, let me give you a word picture. Jesus went to a place called Gethsemane. The word Gethsemane in Greek means oil press. They would go down to Gethsemane, there were grapes in Gethsemane, and the ladies would just go to dancing on the grapes and crushing them, and the oil was out. So when Jesus went to Gethsemane and prayed before he got crucified, he got real anointed. He got real slippery in the anointing, in the spirit. So when death tried to hold him, it couldn't. So I'm telling you, you got to go through a process so it makes it easy to get to the end. That's dialing up. So destiny then— here's the first key I want to give it to you. Let me just give it to you and we'll get out of here. The first key I want to give you is the key of order. You got to learn— if you— you're never going to achieve this decree, and this is one of several I'm going to teach this month, if you don't have no order in your life. God doesn't work in chaos. Say that with me. Say, God doesn't work in chaos. Let me give you an example. In Genesis 1:1, it should be in Genesis chapter 1, verse 0, I believe, because Genesis 1:1 is not the beginning. There's a prepositional phrase there in the King James that says, 'In the beginning,' which suggests whenever the beginning was, God created the heavens and the earth. So whenever the beginning was, God made heaven and earth. Then verse 2, something drastic has occurred. The earth is without form, is void, darkness is upon the face of the deep. Well, when God created heaven and earth, it wasn't chaotic, it was orderly. But between verse 1 and verse 2, Ezekiel chapter 14 happened. Come on now. And Lucifer was kicked out of heaven. And he hit the earth. And when Lucifer hit the earth, guess what? He's without form. The Bible says Satan comes as an angel of light, as a roaring lion. He never comes as himself. He's without form. Wait a minute, he's void. He has no God in him. He's disconnected from God. And watch this, darkness was upon the face of the deep. He was dark and he's still dark. So the first thing God had to do was bring some order. He cannot connect with us without order. So Genesis chapter 1, verses 3 through 20, he's reordering the earth. He's not creating it, he's reordering what he did in verse 1. He's making it orderly again so he can give the world his best creation, which is man. That's why he said, after everything was in order, on the seventh day— on the sixth day, let us make man. Okay, say, I must have order. Listen, I need you to understand something. Success, success. and kingdom effectiveness, it comes in small steps. And you got to dial in the sequence. So many people try to get past the sequence, they want to do it their way. It doesn't work. Again, it makes it harder than it needs to. I'm so glad I found it out, that I was working against myself and that I needed to work with God. And I needed some order. I need to prioritize him in my life. The Bible says in Matthew 6:33, it says, seek ye first, not second, not third. The word first is proton in Greek. It means to give superlative priority to, to make the kingdom the top priority in your life, in order which means there would be some second, third, fourth, fifth things. But the thing you ought to be seeking the most is the kingdom of God. Kingdom, basileia in Greek, which means his order, his rule, his way of doing things. So I can't get to destiny because my destiny is a kingdom destiny if I don't put the kingdom in superlative order. It has to be top priority. Are you hearing this? I need you to hear me because so many people get stuck right in the process. They die right here because they were deceived to believe they knew everything. They were deceived to believe that they didn't need to listen to anybody. Listen, I've been doing this almost 40 years. I still listen to people. I still take the position of a learner often. Because I know what my— what is tied into my destiny. So I have to learn from those who already sit in the seat. And if you feel like you don't need knowledge, then you missed one of the things that you'll actually take to heaven with you. The Bible said we'll be ever learning. And they said we'll be ever speaking in tongues. It said we'll be ever learning and coming into the knowledge of truth. So what we, what we want to do is speak in tongues all day. And then when you get through speaking in tongues, you need some knowledge. When you get through worshiping, you need some knowledge. I'm there. I've been in church a long time, Apostle, and what I know is there's a whole lot of stupid church folk in the world because they don't understand how to be students. Okay, I am at home right now, so I'm, I'm just gonna say what I need to say. There's a lot of dumb folk in the church. It ain't got to be. What they need to do is take the position of a learner. A lot of people missing their death, dying. I was at a funeral yesterday of a young man, just 15 years old. I tried to help the man a lot, the young man a lot, but he didn't want to follow God. I mean, you can't make people do anything. I'll pick him up, take him places, try to mentor him, try to pour into him, prophesy to him when he comes to church. Matter of fact, I don't even like these kind of fulfilled prophecy. Told him last year or a year and a half ago Sir, you don't change your life, you're not going to be on this earth. You're going to die. He didn't change. He got shot to death. That's not his destiny. Some ignorant person got up in church and said in the funeral— and I went to the funeral to not say anything, but when I heard this, I said, you know, I'm not gonna let that go. I gotta say something. That doesn't make sense. You— God wanted him more. Wow. No, God didn't want him. God declared a destiny. God had a plan that had not been fulfilled. And I got him and said, I disagree respectfully. God did not want him more. But what I will say is that God wanted him here more. And watch this, if you die before you get to destiny, that is called murder. Whether it be by gun, by food, by sickness, by disease, come on, by stressing yourself out and you just end up dying prematurely. That's murder. We got to stop saying God took them home. Uh-oh, God ain't took everybody home. Some people were murdered, some people murdered themselves, because God declared from the beginning a destiny. We just read that. And if I don't get there, I've been murdered because my life has been terminated before I get to the destiny. And there are a lot of people who are going to the grave prematurely because they won't dial in, they won't set order in their life. So order is important. So I want you to write these down because you're gonna need them. I'm gonna give you a few things about order. Number 1, order is the accurate arrangement of things. It's the accurate arrangement of things. 1 Corinthians 14:40 says, let all things be done decently. Somebody say decent. And in order. So anything I like there, so decency and order connect. The word decent, the Greek word studasso, means to be cemented in a pre-planned plan. So it's only decent when you jump both feet into something that was preordained by God. In other words, it's indecent. Y'all ever seen the movie Indecent Proposal? I'm dating myself again. Some people say that was a decent proposal. A million dollars for a night with your wife. I, I wouldn't do it, but some people say it's decent. That ain't decent because you should not sell your wife for no amount of money. Glory to God. They did it, regretted it later. It wasn't decent because the permanent plan was for them to be true to each other and each other only all the days of their life. That's why I was indecent, no matter how much money was attached. Listen, you have to jump in with both feet to the purpose that God reveals to you and the destiny that he shows you, and decide, I'm in this against all odds. It's got to be decent. And if you do it decent, doing it in order comes easy. Putting things in their proper place, putting people in their proper place. Yes, when you understand where you're going, you understand everybody can't go. Trying to take some people with you is out of order. Some people just don't get it. You trying to fit a 16 by 20 idea in a 3 by 5 mind. Their mind's too small, so you gotta leave them where they are. Because all they're going to do is be a hindrance to where you're trying to go. Oh boy, it's the accurate arrangement of things. Sometimes you have to love people from a long distance. There are people in my life I really and truly love them. They're family members I really and truly love, but I understand my mind is too expansive— oh my God— to try to take them where God is taking me. Yes. So what I do is I love them where they are, not saying they're bad, but I don't never impose my destiny on them. I have no expectations concerning my destiny regarding them, right? And when you're setting order, you put things in the right place, you put people in the right place. Uh, yeah, order is as little as something that's keeping your shirts Like for me, my shirts, my ties, my shoes, my pants, my everything in my closet has to be in a certain place. That's order. And it bothers me when stuff gets out of order. Oh, it bothers me bad. And I think that's part of the military in me. But at the end of the day, order has to be respected because order makes achieving destiny easier. Order will define places you're supposed to be. Some places you go, you know it's a waste of time. Yes. And you know it's out of order. You know, if you're trying to get somewhere in God, and they say, boy, you ain't got time to be playing all the time, you ain't got time to be in the club all week, you're in the club every day. Yeah, come on, that's out of order. You'll never be productive because you're not doing anything to feed your process toward destiny. Number 2, this is a good one. You were created for order. I'll say that again. You were created for order. The reason you are alive, whoo, because you were created to bring order not just to your life, but to help others come in order. Touch yourself, say, I was created for order. I was created for order. Listen, and whenever you allow anything into your life that slows you down spiritually, emotionally— that's why you got to kick the drama out of your life, because when you let stuff in that's slowing you down, God, it's going to get your life off course. It's going to set you in disorder. Oh my God. And guess what happens when you get so caught up in the emotional stuff? See, in order to fulfill destiny, you got to be a person of sacrifice. Two very important things you have to sacrifice when you're trying to get to destiny. You gotta sacrifice ego, number one. It's got to be an egotistical sacrifice. It's not about you, it's about the destiny. So you got to set your ego aside. I said, I'm not going to let ego stop me from going where God is taking me. I'm gonna stay the course and do what God is telling me. Secondly, you got to have emotional sacrifices. You can't get over-emotional about people and things that it delays you getting to destiny. Because if you get so overly involved in what distracts you What distracts you turns into a delay. Oh God, I'll give you an example. I hate traffic, right? Traffic. And I live in Atlanta. I mean, it's just part of living here. You're going to experience traffic most of the time unless you know how to get around. So I think because I've been in the city all my life, you know, I'm thinking, you know, I know how to get around this traffic. Better than most people. So I'm coming down, uh, 85 South from North Atlanta, get down by Midtown, 17th Street, all that. Decide, because I see nothing but cars stopping. I said, oh no, we're not going to do this delay. Immediately I got distracted by the obstacle of that traffic in my head, thinking I'm gonna go a better way. I get off of the highway only to find it's a thousand other people thinking what I was thinking. Because I didn't consider that because I know they don't know. But listen, you're the only one who knows what you know, so you can't get so distracted by obstacles that you start taking shortcuts that create delays. Because watch this, the delays end up turning into massive detours. Ask the children of Israel. The Bible says that Moses brought them out of the promised land, the test out of the Egypt, and the destiny was the promised land. He said, I'm gonna take you to a land, destiny, that flows with milk and we're hugging. But you got to go through the wilderness. Let me tell you something, the process to get from Egypt to the land that flows with milk and honey— watch this— 12 days on foot. Wait a minute. But because they were distracted, it took them 40 years. To take a 12-day journey. You talking about delay. Matter of fact, the original folk that came out of Egypt, the Bible said they died in the wilderness. I just told y'all so many people died in the process. God has declared this thing for you, but you got to make up in your mind, I don't get distracted and turn this into 40 years. Wait a minute, why was he distracted? They were distracted because they moved in fear. They was afraid of the Jezubites, the Moabites, the inhabitants of Mount Seir. And every time they saw— or the Perizzites— every time they saw these armies, they went another way. Okay, I didn't ask you nothing. I'm talking too much, I'm sorry. He says you can't allow things that he can defeat— I'm gonna say this very emphatically— to defeat you and to conquer you. Because if you get distracted, delayed, detoured long enough, the destiny ends up getting destroyed. Touch yourself, say, I'm going somewhere. Say, I was created for order. Number 3, write it down: order increases comfort. When things are in order, you're more comfortable. Listen, when you walk into a room where there's order, oh boy, you want to stay. I can't even shop in stores That's how I walk in the store, stuff's all over the place. Folks been digging for sizes, they ain't put stuff back. I get out of there, I mean, I can't be— I can't do that. Watch this, creates too much delay. You know, you, you wear a certain size, and every time you look on where your size supposed to be, it's every size other than yours because it's out of order, and you get uncomfortable with that. Ever walk— ever been real thirsty and walk up to a soda machine and say, 'Out of order'? That's, that's a frustrating thing because you expected to get what you needed from that machine. We don't need to have our— we need to have our life in order so that when people come looking for what's in us, they don't find an 'out of order' sign in our presence. And I'm telling you, unfortunately, most of the church, when people interact with them, they find an out of order sign because most ministries are moving in their flesh. That's a dangerous piece. They show up to entertain people. Preachers are preaching to keep their job. Yes, we was talking about this other day, a preacher in the city, and he's getting ready to celebrate, I guess, 3 years as the pastor of this church. He's been fighting to keep that job for 3 years. I've been watching, and everything he do, he's been doing the same thing the former pastor do, trying to make sure he keep his job. And I'm saying to myself, man, if you just don't be yourself and pastor this church the way God gives it to you and stop trying to please these people— but it's a sad thing when the preacher got to show up every week and make sure he watches what he says. To keep his job. That's out of order. I don't know about you, I like order. I'm, I'm uncomfortable in situations where people are in disorder with God. You can't get the destiny because you'll be uncomfortable all the time. Listen, when things are right, it gives you energy, it gives you clear focus. You can think clearer. I don't know about you, I can't even be in an office where everything is out of place. I've walked in people's office, they got stuff all over the desk. Let me tell you something, I'm already saying I don't know if I want to do business with them because this disorder tells me a lot about them. Yes. I mean, I might, I might be a little too picky, I don't know. I could be playing golf with somebody, I'm looking at their golf bag and their clubs ain't even in numerical order. Like, there's something right about that. But it comes out when I watch them play. Okay, that's why. Because at the end of the day, order makes things easier. Shout order! Shout order! Number 4, write it down. When you increase order in your life, listen to this, Oh boy, you increase productivity. Think about it, the areas where you've been non-productive, they can be connected to some level of disorder or disorderly people. Then you get out of bed in the morning, simple, make up your bed. It'll make you feel better when you walk back in the bedroom by the bed that you made it up. You're starting productivity right there. I know this is simple stuff, but I'm trying to get you to destiny. Wash the dishes. Are y'all hearing this? Okay, all right, let me keep moving. Uh, number 5: order eliminates stress and agitation. I know everybody's done this. You knew you had to pay a bill. Are you shuffling through papers trying to find the bill? I don't even do my bills like— all my stuff is electronic, it's on autopay. I ain't looking for no bills, just let it pay. But I've been there where I'm trying to find how much the bill cost and couldn't find it. That's, that's stress you out, right? But if you got a system, you ain't got to go through that every month. All right, this— I know it's practical, okay. I, I'm gonna bring Apostle Denise back again so y'all can hear him. Glory to God. But, but I, listen, let me tell you something. I'm trying to give you some practical stuff for you to use in your life. Number 6, watch this. Every little act in your life, it either increases order or disorder. Every little thing you do, something as little as when you go See, it's about obedience and following a process and making sure that you're creating habits that will produce what you want. Even if you go to— listen to this— the grocery store, you get the buggy, you know, shop with the buggy, put your groceries in the car, and you leave the buggy next to your car. There's a big sign in the parking lot that said, please return buggy here. How many times have you left that buggy by the car? But just practicing putting that buggy back, being obedient to what the signs say. It's a big thing. You, you, if you'll be faithful over a few things, God said, I'll make you rule over many. He said a little lump leavens the whole vine. So that little lump in your life will mess up your whole thing you're trying to bake and get to destiny. Just something simple, putting the buggy back. Wow. It's called integrity. So if God can't trust your character at this level— come on, come on now— he's not gonna trust your character over here. Come on. People believe in God for $100,000 a month but won't pay tithes on $1,000 a month. How you think God gonna give you $100,000 a month, you won't give him $100 a month? You surely gonna give $10,000 a month when you get $100,000. The money— you don't give $1,000? $100 out of that? Come on, man. So you want to make sure you're having activity that's increasing order. So everything you're doing is affecting order in your life. That's huge, man. If you, if you got a strong, aggressive leader mentality, you can't hang with people that don't have that. Come on, they're going to frustrate the heck out of you. And the moment they start trying to discourage you from being you, they will do it. You're gonna try to pull away from them. Can I tell you something? Don't let anybody ever make you feel bad about your strengths. Watch this, or your weaknesses, because a personal order is working on both. Some people don't want to see you get better. So it brings me to this: every person in your life is either increasing order or decreasing order. If something is not increasing you, it will ultimately decrease you. I'm gonna say that one more time. If something is not increasing you, it will ultimately decrease you. I'm convinced some people don't want to be increased. They don't. They want to stay stuck. They want to stay where they are. And I learned not to force people to expand their capacity. If that's where you want to be, stay right there. If you want to stay stuck and struggling and stressed out and robbing Peter to pay Paul— and listen, I want to maximize my destiny. I want everything God has for me. And if it means dismissing small-minded people, I'm gonna dismiss them every time. I can't— Jesus only had 3 in his inner circle: Peter, James, and John. He had 12. 3 was close. There's a reason for that. The, the higher you get, the closer you get to destiny, the smaller your circle gets. So you can't get mad that people are falling off. It just means you're closer than you were before. I heard a psychologist say this, and this is— and it's true though. The way things are arranged in your house and in your garage is an indicator to how things are arranged in your life. Most of the time, your garage is real cluttered, your life is too. If your life— if your house has a lot of clutter, your mind has a lot of clutter, and there's no order. You just kind of wake up and start doing what you do. Listen, that's no way to live. So here's the question, and I'm closing with this. I just sound long. I really— I'm really almost through. Why do we permit disorder? Why do we do it ourselves, and why do we allow others to bring it into our life knowing how dangerous it is? One, because most of us are raised by people who are unorganized, so that's what we learned. We learned unorganization from unorganized people. Oh boy, you are a product of your environment. That's why you got to find it. But watch this, because large families, people who have busy lives, single moms— I get it, it's hard to do everything, it really is. And so you've got to find a way to balance that thing, to bring order, because there's a destiny you got to achieve. Listen, sometimes it just boils down to getting some assistance. Oh yeah, because some people don't know how to organize what's around them. And you just got to be honest, sometimes you got to pay somebody to assist you to help you get order if necessary, or you got to find somebody that's willing to help you. Because if you don't know, you don't know. But chaos— and I'm going to Psalm 16, y'all go with me, and I'm closing with that— chaos is an enemy to order. It's the direct opposite of order. You got to get the drama and chaos out of your life. Some of you got people calling your phone. You need to change your name in your phone. Because every time they call you, your blood pressure go up. You want to cuss, you get angry. You need to change your name in your phone to Do Not Answer. I honestly— y'all pray for me, I'm telling you, pray for me right here. I got somebody in my phone right now. Thank God they never call anymore because I prayed until they stopped calling. But I got their name is listed in my phone as idiot. I did, I'm sorry. I just call a spade a spade. I, I mean, the Bible said it's a fool that said his heart there's no God. That word fool is transliterated to me idiot, and this person is literally crazy. And I changed my number when I got married. Somehow they got my new number. I have no idea how they got my new number. And with an iPhone, all your contacts transfer over when you And they called a new number and India popped up. I said, Lord have mercy, the devil is alive. It's a new number, how they calling me? But at the end of the day, you got to learn how to cut folk out of your life that are bringing that chaos, because chaos is not good for you. Okay, I said I was going to 16. I want to go to— let me go to Jeremiah 1 and 5. First, because it correlates with Isaiah 46:10. Jeremiah 1:5 says, before I formed you— let's start right there— before I formed— the word form is yetseb in Hebrew. That means before you became a living chromosome, before you had human faculties, before you had 9 systems in a body. You were just a soul and a spirit. He said before you got in your mama's belly— watch this— he says, I knew you. Wait a minute, the word knew there is yada in Hebrew. It means I was intimate with you, not sexual. I was one-on-one with you. Intimacy means into me see, which means God looked into every aspect of our life and saw Watch this, I had discussions with us about it before we got here. Lord have mercy. Touch yourself and say, he knows me. Stop fighting to get people to understand and know you. He knows you. And that's why you ought to have people around you that knows what he knows about you. And the only way people gonna know what he knows about you, they got to get a revelation of you. Look, you can't size me up in the flesh. I walk too close to God for you to do that. You got to get in the spirit. You can't just recognize me, I can't just recognize you, and I'm gonna respect you enough to get in the spirit to understand who you are. Because when you're moving toward destiny— hear this— you can never be recognized, you have to be revealed. Ah, just know somebody said, you can't recognize me, I must be revealed. Ah, say it, say it, say it with me again. Say, I must be revealed. And that's the problem. A lot of times people spend time trying to recognize you, and where there's no revelation— listen to this— there's always violation. If I haven't been revealed to you, you're gonna violate me. It's just true. So make sure that people know what he knows. See, that should be the sign that you let them in. Otherwise, they're going to be a hindrance to where you trying to go. He said, I knew you. I yada. We hung out, we talked. There's a pre-Adamic relationship that we had with God before we got to Earth. Yes. He said, not only did I know you— watch this— he said, before you came up out of the womb, I sanctified you. Sanctified there means I gave you an assignment. I set you aside for a particular assignment. In other words, there's a destiny you're assigned to. I've already given you everything you need to be who you are. I've already set the order. All you got to do is get in line and follow the order. Touch yourself and say, I'm sanctified. I grew up in that church that told me that sanctified was a long dress, no makeup, no earrings. Oh God, help us. But I found out soon that it was just as much hell in the long dress as it was a short dress. It just took the woman in the long dress a little longer to bend down, pull her zipper, do what she had to do. Because if you ain't changed on the inside— come on, it's just the truth. Listen, I understand that I'm sanctified for something greater than my humanity. And that God decided this before I got in the earth. Do you realize you have uniqueness? You're authentic. That's what this text is saying, that you're vintage. There's nobody else like you. Nobody else can do what you were born to do. Nobody else has the destiny that you have to finish. Nobody else would touch the people that you have to touch. These people are assigned to your sanctification. Yes, and it has nothing to do with how long your dress is. He said, I sanctified you. Watch this, here we go. And I ordained you. He said, I ordained you a prophet. You may not be a prophet, but you got an ordination on your life. The word ordained there— here we go— in the Hebrew word means I gave you an order and I gave you a structure, I gave you a way of living that will order you to your destiny. So instead of living to get out of here— see, most Christians live with their backpacks, they have an escapism mentality, they're trying to get out of here. They came, they looking out the window waiting for Jesus to crack the sky. When he coming? Please, come on, Lord. Come on, Jesus. That's not the mentality we have. God wants us to finish our course, to finish our destiny, and he's already given you the order to finish it, but you got to get a revelation of it. Go to Psalm 16. I'm closing with this, my friend. I'm closing my Say, Lord, help me to dial into order. Come on, say, help me to dial in to order so I can finish my destiny. It's a very important piece to getting there. Here's the last scripture. Psalm 16 says, for thou will show me, for thou will show me. This is David. Praying. 16:11, he's praying and he's saying, God, I'm on the run for my life. Saul's trying to kill me. I'm in a cave. I'm going through this process. God, I know you spoke and declared that I would be king of Israel, but God, I don't know whether I'm gonna live or die. And what David says is right here I need you to show me the path of life. Because most of the time— and hear me— trying to get to destiny— I was telling one of my daughters this on the way to church. I was telling her, a lot of times, you— when you've been trusted with greatness— oh God— when you've been trusted with to carry something no one else is carrying You're gonna have trials and storms that other people don't have. You're gonna go through processes that other people don't go through, because to whom much is given, much is required. And a lot of times we try to avoid the obstacles and knock the hurdles down instead of jumping them. Okay, I'll tell you something. Any process you avoid has to be repeated before you sit in the seat of destiny, because God says, I gotta qualify you. Yeah, there's no rabbit trails. You got to go through so you'll be qualified. He said— so David says, I don't want to give up. I believe I'm gonna be the king. But I need you right through here to show me the path of life. The word path there is orach in Hebrew. It's where we get words like architecture. It's the design, the plans. Every life has a design. Yes, every life has plans. And God said, I want to show you the plan. The blueprints. Come on now. If you go to an architect and you have them to design a home, a building, they're gonna finish the entire building on paper before one brick is laid, before one slab is poured. And when you leave the office, you can't even go and build it. You got to go to the city And you got to get those plans approved. And once the city approves— oh my— approves the plan, good God Almighty, they stamp it finished. You ain't built nothing yet, but on paper the design suggests it's finished, which means when you start building, you can't get midway and decide— I just realized who y'all— hey Tiffany, glory to God, I just realized who you are. Listen, you, you can't get halfway and decide, oh well, I'm gonna add a room onto this house. No, the, the plans suggest this project is finished. So if you want to add a room, you got to go back to the architect, he has to add the room, you got to go back to the city, it has to be approved. Your life is no different. You just can't decide I want to add a person. But God said no, they ain't supposed to be there, right? You can't just decide I'm gonna add a career when that ain't the career that God has lined in your destiny. You can't decide I'm gonna add an office and call myself an apostle, I'm gonna call myself a prophet, I'm gonna call myself an evangelist, and that ain't what God planned. You have to go back to the path of life. And the reason why it gets so hard Because we ain't looking at the plans. That's it. My daddy was a contractor, and he still, you know, he's retired. He builds all his own stuff now. He just added a room onto his house, and he's very proud of that room. And I am too. I mean, I love to see him do stuff like that. But every part of the plan, he designed it himself. He sat down, drafted it up, took it to the city, got it approved. Whenever he needed to make change, everything I'm telling you, he had to go back down there, give him a check. He couldn't just midway decide if it was just adding another window or another door. He had to get permission. There's a plan, there's an order, there's a design already in place. You just gotta say, Lord, show me. You don't have to be in order, in disorder. Just let the Lord show you. Let the Lord order your steps. Amen. And if you've gotten out of order before, you can fix it. He said, thou will show me the path of life. But watch this, for in thy presence— we live in a very presence-orientated society. Everybody's talking about the presence. Everybody wants to get in the presence and not really understanding what the presence is. The word presence there is a Hebrew word, nos. It's where we get words like mind or intellect, the pre-sense. So he says, in your intellect, in your wisdom. So you can't really get in the presence in here. You can worship until he comes and the glory shows up and we can encounter his presence. But getting in his presence is a process of aligning your nous, your mind, with his mind. Jesus said, let this same mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. So that had nothing to do with worship, had nothing to do with a high service. It had something to do with a deliberate act of duplication, duplicating how Christ think, because I've encountered him deliberately in my personal time. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know we want to, you know, get it out here, but that's why we're ineffective out there. Ah, because every day what we need to be trying to figure out is how to mimic the mind of Christ. In thy presence, watch this, is fullness, fullness. Wait a minute. Fullness means nothing is lacking, nothing is empty, nothing is void. Here we go. Nothing's without form, everything's in order. If my car is full, I got confidence, hallelujah, that I can drive a while. When I leave here, I gotta drive to Mississippi 2 days, but I'm confident that when my car is on F I'm gonna get about 500 miles out of it. Between my regular tank and the reserve tank, I got about 500 miles I can knock down without stopping again. When you on full, you got confidence that nothing can stop you from getting to the destiny. Touch your belly and say, fill me up. Hallelujah. You need to get full with his power, with his intellect, with his presence, with his anointing, so you get dialed in, man, so you can get to destiny. He said fullness— watch this— of joy. I love that word joy. Joy is shea in Hebrew. It means profit. Not profit like prophesy. Yeah, those are not— P-R-O-F-I-T. Ask a businessman to define profit. He's going to tell you what's left after the expenses have been paid and covered. It's profit. It's something left over. God said, in your presence, I got something left over to wave in the devil's face after this process. Uh, the prophet— the fullness of joy is getting to destiny and letting the devil know, you thought you had me. You should have killed me when you had the chance. You should have killed me when I was crazy. When I was hoeing, when I was lying, when I didn't have no sense to pray or worship. But you messed up and let me understand order. You let me understand structure. You let me understand worship. You let me understand the word. And now I got what I got, and you can't take it from me. That's why the old mother song— I know y'all don't like hymns, but the Bible says songs, hymns, and spiritual songs. So somebody said hymn, who's him? Listen, that, that's a That's a song that directly speaks to a testimony that God did in your life. And the old mother— oh my God— said, this joy that I have, the world didn't give it to me, and the world can't take it away. See, when you go through the process and get to destiny, you got a real testimony, some profit to wave in the devil's face. And you can tell those that were watching you, look at me. You thought I would die in the process. You thought the process would kill me. You thought the process would destroy me. You thought going through this hell, going through this storm was going to stop me from having victory. But look at me, I made it through and I'm still here. Glory to God. Do I have anybody here that's made it through the storm, that's made it through the rain? I dare you give God some praise for the testimony you got. Testimony is monologue about the test. If you don't go through the hell, you can't talk about it. You got to make up in your mind that you're gonna keep pressing until you get to destiny, because the kingdom needs your testimony. The kingdom needs your process. The way you get rank in the spirit, you gotta keep going through the process, keep going through the pain, keep going through the hell. Somebody give God glory in hallelujah, hallelujah. I know it's tough, I know it gets hard, but he said in thy presence is fullness of joy. Wait a minute, last piece. He said at thy right hand— the right hand is the hand of authority. He said under his authority under the auspices of his own— go ahead and teach your apostle— is pleasure! Yes, yes, yes, yes, it's pleasure forever more! The word pleasures, two words, is please and yurer. Yurer is a French word that means to extract. Please is an Anglo-Saxon word that means to be acceptable. So under God's right hand you extract out of life that which is pleasing, that which is acceptable. Can I tell you something? If you walk with God, you can have pleasure every day of your life. I'm a witness. I don't have no bad days. Look, you know, the song was a good song. I've had some good days, I've had some bad days, I had some hills to climb, but all of my good days outweigh my bad days. I won't complain. Well, that ain't my testimony no more. I've had some good days, I've had some good days, I've had some good days. I've had some good days. No more bad days because I choose to stay under God's hand. I dare somebody shout, no more bad days! I'm going to walk in the pleasure of the Lord. I need you to get on your feet and give God praise because you're moving toward destiny. You're, you're moving toward a new thing. You're moving toward God revealing his promise in you. Do I have anybody here that knows that the way it is now is not the way it's gonna be. Come on, clap your hands and open your mouth and give God praise and glory for the next place. Come on, I'm sorry. Come on, praise him for order. Praise him for order. I know it's just a few of us, but praise him for order. Open your mouth and praise him for order. Praise him for all the— I'm telling you, something is coming that's bigger than where you are. I came to tell you this morning that there's a— this afternoon, I'm sorry— that there's a destiny with your name on it. Glory to God. God is taking you into your destiny. He's taking you into a new place in him. Open your mouth. Receive it, receive it, receive it. Glory to God. You just got to say yes. It's a yes to be blessed. It's a yes to be blessed. Do me a favor real quick, grab one person by both hands. We're praying.