Staying Calm In The Crisis Pt 2 -Pastor Hope Carpenter

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Thank you, Jesus, for your goodness. We love you, Lord. Thank you for your goodness. Thank you, Jesus, that you give us the ability to overcome. I thank you for it, Lord, and I just pray you just bless this word today. Let it go into the hearts and minds of the people listening. Transform every person today. Set our feet on a high place, God, just take us out of darkness into light today, God, because your word is that it's revelatory. It's life giving. So I pray today, Jesus, that this word would change us, set us free and cause us to walk in dominion in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you guys for joining us. Wherever you are today, all over the world, no matter what you're going through, whatever hits your life, your emotions can be stable. You can be anchored. You can be sure. Even when all hell is breaking out all around you, you can stand in your peace knowing that God's got you, knowing that God will complete what he started, knowing that he's never let you down. You can look back over your life and see all the testimonies of how he's always brought you out, how he's picked you up, how he's made miracles happen for you. I believe it. I believe it. I know it because I've seen, seen it in my own life. If you didn't get to hear part one, go back and click on part one. It's on our YouTube channel, on Hope Carpenter.com, hope Carpenter Ministries on YouTube. Go back and listen to it. Share these. Send them to a friend who you know is struggling to overcome their emotions. Who you say, man, she's this way this day and tomorrow. We don't even know who we gonna meet tomorrow. So you know, you know her. You know who I'm talking about. Send it to her. This will really, really help her. Just want to encourage you that truly I understand and I am not belittling that. Life happens to people. Life happens to every one of us. Life, I mean, we struggle sometime, right? We wake up. Some days are better than other days. We don't live on the mountaintop always. No, but the Bible says that it's in our testing of our faith that we prove what we really have works. So we'll talk about that later. But Proverbs 18:21 declares this. It says, there is life and death. Your tongue. You are in control of your life. Nobody else is in control. That husband that drives you crazy is not in control of your emotions. Your kids are not in control of your emotions. We are 100% in control of how we respond to everyday life and situations and circumstances. We can't blame it on the devil, we can't blame it on our mama, we can't blame it on our job, on our husband, none of those things. We are in control of how we respond to life situations when it throws us a curveball, and it will. And Jesus told us this. He said, you have to walk by faith, not by sight. He knew. He said that because he knew that what we would see would attempt to throw us off track. What we would see would attempt to be different than what the word of God says is true. See, what we see in our feelings are not always true. Just because you feel it don't mean it's true. Right? Because, I mean, depending on what you ate or what you drank or what medication you on really can dictate or who you living with or who you dealt with that morning, but it doesn't mean that it's true. The only thing that is true is what God says about you. The only thing that is true is God's word over your life. So if you are not speaking God's word over your life, you are not operating in God's best for your life life. You are speaking death over your life, death over your situation. God help us. God forgive us. I think maybe we just need to stop right now and say, God forgive me for not operating on what I know is true. God, I'm sorry that I doubted you. God, I'm sorry that I put more faith in my bank account than the economy of God. God, I'm sorry that I put more faith in what my parents might have said about me than what my Abba father says about me. God, I repent today. I am sorry. And Lord, we're going to just step back. That's the beautiful thing about God, is if you failed yesterday, if you screwed up yesterday, you can start over today. You were kissed with mercy this morning. Mercy woke you up today. God's given you what you did not deserve. He's letting you live a life that you really don't deserve. That's what mercy's all about. He loves you that much. He wants more for us than we should ever want for ourselves. He really does. He would not have died. He would not have suffered. The road that he walked was called the Via Dolorosa. It was the way of suffering. He suffered so that you wouldn't have to suffer. He bled so that you wouldn't have to bleed. He died so that you could Live. Whoa. And he said, I have a life that I want you to live. He said, it's an overcoming life. It's an abundant life. It's a good life. It is a planned life that I have for you. He said, to give you a hope, future, a hope and a future. You should look at your future with excitement, not dread. With excitement, not dread, you can live like this. You're saying, well, Pastor Hope, you don't know my situation. You don't know my husband, you don't know my wife, you don't know my family. You don't know where I came from. You don't know my last name. None of that matters. The same blood he spilled for Billy Graham and TD Jakes, he spilled for little old me. The same life he wants for them, he wants for me. He wants for you. He loves you so much. And I'm going to tell you how to do it. Today David was saying he was not going to say what he felt, but he said, I will say of the Lord, See, he wasn't talking about his own strength. He wasn't talking about his own ability. He said, if I'm going to boast, I'm going to boast in the Lord. I'm going to boast about him. He said, I will say of the Lord about this particular situation, why don't you go ahead and practice that if you've got a situation in your life, you just need to say, you know what? I'm not going to say how I feel, but I'm going to say, say of the Lord today. I'm going to start saying of the Lord today, over my life, over my children, over my situation, over my fear. I will say of the Lord, look at Psalm the 23rd Psalm. David wrote this, and he wasn't king when he wrote this. He was in a Judean wilderness, hunted by Saul. He wasn't king. He was running for his life. Saul wanted to kill him. And although David did nothing to Saul, David was good to Saul. Saul's jealousy of David made him go and hunt him down day and night. You got any things in your life where you say, well, you know, I didn't bring this on me. This is just somebody else. They just won't leave me alone. It's just, you know, we got stuff like that. I got plenty. I got a list. I'm like, God, what about this? I didn't do this. God, what about this? I didn't do that. God, won't you get them? He says, no, send them flowers. Oh, Jesus, David, Fled to the wilderness to escape the storm. He was running. He was running to save his life. He was separated from his family. He was falsely accused, and he was running. Listen. He was in a tough, hard, barren place. He was in a situation. You know what I'm talking about. You ever been in a situation where you felt like your back was pushed up against a wall and there was no way you saw that you were going to get out? Only by God or a miracle? This was David's situation. There was mountains, there was caves, there was rocks. He was in a place of hardship, in this place. Listen, just imagine running for your life. Had to depend on God for your food, had to depend on God for your sustenance. Had to depend on God to sleep. You were scared to close your eyes because you didn't know who was coming at you, what spear was coming at you. I don't believe many of us have ever had to live like that. But David was in this situation, this hard place, this scary place, this running for his life. Didn't know if he was going to live tonight or today or tomorrow. And he wrote Psalm 23. It is one of the most comforting psalms in the Bible. And he wrote it out of a desperate place, a scary place, a hard place. Why? Because David knew how to anchor his soul. David knew that when all hell was breaking out around him, he knew where to run. He knew to say of the Lord that the Lord was his strength and the Lord was his helper. And the 23rd Psalm starts off by saying, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. See, don't you believe he had to talk to himself? Not that he completely knew that right then he was trying to convince his self. Sometimes you got to look in the mirror and you got to start convincing yourself not that you walk around, oh, I got it all together. I'm a woman of faith. I'm a woman of power. Sometimes trembling, you got to do it. Sometimes scared, you got to do it. Sometimes you got to do what you know is right, even when you scare. He said, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. In his natural soulish realm situation, it was bad. David had needs, right? He had to eat. He had to drink water. He needed food and shelter. He needed comfort. But he only had God to trust. So he began by saying, I will say of the Lord, I shall not want because in the natural I need, but in the spirit I shall not want. I will say of the Lord, I will contradict my natural situation because I know God. I will say of the Lord, I shall not want the second part. He maketh me to lie down. Well, listen, when you on the run, when you on the run for your life, that is not an easy thing to lay yourself down and rest. You're naturally afraid. You're naturally paranoid. You're naturally looking over your shoulder. He said, he maketh me to lie down. He was in war, and in war moves. You're tired, you're weary, you're hungry, you're. There ain't no bubble baths in war, right? You don't get a pedicure when you're on the run. And David said, he maketh me to lie down. Where in lush, plush, green pastures. He makes me to lie down in God's abundance. Why? To restore my. What. What have we been talking about? Your soul and your spirit. He makes me lie down so that I can get my emotions together, so I can get myself back where I need to be. He makes me lie down in his abundance so that he can work on my emotions, so that he can say, uh, girl, that ain't what you're supposed to be saying. You gotta think about what you're saying. You gotta get your situation back together. He makes me lie down in green pastures so that he can restore my soul. Who? He leads me beside still waters. Man, there's something about water that's so healing. He makes me lie down. He leads me beside still, still waters. And still waters represents peace. And see, what do you need when you're going through hell in your life? We just. How many times have we had to cry out for God? I just need some peace. God, could you make all this chaos slow down and give me a little peace? He leads me beside still waters to restore my soul and give me peace. Whoo. Because in the natural, there is no peace when you're running for your life in the natural. No. You're going to have situations naturally in your life that's going to cause upheaval and unrest. We all do. When you got more going out than you got coming in. Come on, now. Now, that's going to cause a little bit of unrest, right? When you get that doctor's report, it's going to naturally cause you to panic just a little bit, right when you get that phone call in the middle of the night that your child has overdosed, you are going to naturally begin to panic. But you know what he says? I'm going to make you lay down right here. I'm going to lead you right here. Where's I got to take you out of that and get you over here into my way. I got to get you over here. The way I look at it and the way I see it, to restore your soul, God says, in chaotic times, you can have peace. Say it again. Say, I can have peace. In chaotic times, I can have peace. It's a promise of God. We're all going to go through storms and trials. You're not exempt from it. The Bible says, in this world you will have tribulation. It says, but fear not, I've already. It's a fixed fight. Fear not. I've already overcome the world. Yeah, it looks like this, but just keep pressing. Just keep going. Just keep looking up. Just keep fighting the good fight of faith. To operate in faith, it is a fight. To operate contrary to what you see, it is a hell of a fight. You have to tell hell where to go every day. Get thee behind me, Satan. You are not the author and finisher of my faith. God is the author and the finisher of my faith. Faith. And like it or not, as a Christian, we are on display. We don't like it. We don't like to be held to a higher standard. Oh, I thought you was a Christian. You ever heard that? Oh, yeah. You ever heard your family say, oh, I thought, oh, you must not have got what you said you got over there. That redemption, you acting just like us. Yeah, your life is on display. Like it or not, your faith is on trial. First Peter 1:7 in the new living translation says this trials show that your faith is genuine. Your trials are what show that your faith is real. How do you know what's really on the inside of you till you put to the test. How do you know that you know algebra and trigonometry until you take the Till you take the test, your faith is on trial. And it shows that your faith is genuine. When trials come, it's a witness of our inner peace. It's a witness of our strength. It's a witness of who really lives on the inside of us. When you're going through trials and tribulation, I've been in ministry over 30 years, and I've heard people say, especially years ago when me and Pastor Ron were going through what we went through publicly, people would say, how do you do it? How do you keep pressing on? How do you keep loving people? How do you keep serving God in the middle of all this chaos? You don't know what you got on the inside of you till it's put to the test. You don't know how strong you are till Something's pressed up against you. You don't know how much weight you can lift in the natural till you keep adding more weight to it, right? I have to consistently confess what God says over my life. Man, if I went by what I saw in the natural, I'd be tuck tail and over there in that corner, sucking my thumb. But I have to constantly say what God says over my life. There is power of life in death. That is in your tongue. What are you doing with it? What way? Are you aiming your faith? Are you aiming your faith into life? Are you aiming your faith into death over your life? Number four. He restores my soul. And this is the goal. It's our emotional life that we've got to get intact. It is our emotional roller coaster. It's up one day, down the next praying for you one day needing prayer the next, you know, just. We don't know who we're going to meet. Those kind of people, I mean, they could cuss you out today or they could lay hands on you tomorrow. And, you know, we all. We all are imperfect. I'm not saying that. There is this place called there where you're going to live and you're going to get it all right? All the time. That's a lie. We. We are all human. But there is a place called Upward. We should be better today than we were yesterday. We should be better next week than we were last year. There is a place called Upward. He restores my soul. And the storms of life make you feel like chunking that towel. As far. I mean, how many of you ever wanted to give up, right? Yes. Me. Many, many times I have wanted to give up because why? Storms drain you. It just drains you. That's why your soul has to be restored. They drain you. And David probably wanted to give up, but instead he rehearsed God's word about his strength. Strength. He rehearsed God's word. Listen, there's no greater strength than when you are going through hell and you just open up the word of God and you begin to say about yourself what he says about you. Man, it'll charge you up knowing what God says about you. It doesn't matter what anybody else says about you. Only what God says about you matters. Psalm 73:26 says this. My flesh and my heart faileth. But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. My flesh and my heart fails. How many of you ever given up? Have you ever thrown in the towel? How many ever been so tired? You say, I can't do this anymore. I just. I'm tired. I don't want to deal with it anymore. My heart and my flesh fail me. But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. There is a place that you can live where your soul is anchored. There is not a place called there where you never have trouble, where you never have trials, where you never want to give up, where people just stop getting on your nerves. No, there's not a place like that. But there is a place where your soul can be so anchored in what you know to be true. Not by what you see, not by what you hear, not by what's coming against your life, but what you know to be true. I pray that for you. Nobody can do it for you. You can't come to an altar. Nobody can sprinkle pixie dust on you and lay hands on you. And you fall out in the spirit. And you come back up this powerful warrior for God. None of that is. None of that can happen. It's called hard work. It's called getting in the word. It's called crucifying your flesh. It's called separating from people who drag you down and who are not going the same place you're going. It's called being alone. It's called consecration. It's called separation. It's called being away from people who are not going where you're going and who's. What the world says over your life. It's called being focused in your faith so that your soul can be anchored when trouble hits your life, because trouble's coming. It may come to you in the form of a rape. It may come to you in the form of a divorce. It may come to you with your children acting up and going crazy. It could come in the form of a bankruptcy, Rupsy. But I promise you, there is a place that you can live, that no matter what hits your life, you can still be firm in what you know to be true. Come on, get up right where you are. I want you to clap your hands and say, God, I want to live there, God, I want to live there, God. I'm not going back to putting my faith in the negative. I'm not going back to putting my faith in death. But, God, I'm going to use my mouth to anchor my soul. I will say of the Lord, not what hope sees, not what you see, but I will say of the Lord, let me pray for you today. Just put your hand out. You say, I've never put my hand out to a TV or a computer, but that's just kind of like an act of faith, an act of surrender. So let me pray for you today Jesus I pray you meet them where they are right now today all over the world wherever they're listening. God it could be in the middle of the night it could be right in the middle of a storm. Lord, I pray that you meet them today and that you be their comforter that the Holy Ghost would go and wrap his arms around them and comfort them give them just great faith today. God you told us in your word that every one of us had a measure of faith. So God I pray today that you increase their measure that they would begin to believe you for more they would begin to trust you for more they would begin to use their mouth for more in their life in Jesus name. And I believe that we're going to see testimony after testimony after testimony from people who have gotten their life anchored in God. Amen. God bless you.