Peace that Passes all Understanding - John Humenik Ministry Weekly Podcast

Hello everyone, I hope you're having a great day today. So welcome to our first broadcast of John Humenik Ministries. We're here to talk about the peace that passes all understanding. So I want you to come into this moment with a prayerful expectation that the challenges that you've been facing with your life Whether they are of your own being or of external forces. Maybe you're concerned about work or finances, whatever that may be. I want you to come into this livestream being expectant that the Holy Spirit will come and touch your life, something in your heart and something in your mind, and that you'll walk away with a deeper understanding of what it really means to walk with God and to actually have that peace that just blows you away. That's something that you can't understand. It's something that when God drops on you from heaven, it's like a fire that comes in you and purges all the anxiety, all the depression, all the pain. That's what we're going to talk about today. It's the peace that passes all understanding. So here we're going to talk about the first Bible verse we're going to touch base on is John 10:10, and it talks about how the devil starts this process of stealing our peace. It says the thief comes To only steal, kill, and destroy. So what does that mean? Most Christians apply that to the word of God, where the thief comes and steals the word that's taken from you that you just received, in order for you that you can no longer stand upon it. This is an important topic because it actually is the, the foundation to actually how when you lose your peace, this is actually how it starts, is that you lose the foundational aspect of the word of God in your life, and it just disappears. So what does that actually mean for you in your life? So the first thing to understand is, is that when you lose your peace, you're losing your peace because you have— you want to control your life. You want to be able to walk life under your control, under your words, and under your perspective. And so what do we see? Hebrews 11:1 talks about that you have to walk through life With faith, with a faithful expectation, a faithful expectancy that you can accomplish great things because God does the work for you. So one of the roots that we have is, is that we like to control the situation. If you're a parent and you have a kid, it's very common for you to be able to raise that child and then have issues when the kid acts up, whether that they're acting up out outside or in the house, just before dinner when they're really hungry, or even when they're about to go to bed. It's very common for a parent to want to control that situation and then impress upon that child the, the, the rules and expectations that a parent needs. But what happens is, is that God calls us to another level. God's calling us to put that burden on the sacrificial altar and allow him to handle it. And you might be thinking, well, how does that work? And where do we get this knowledge and understanding? We'll go into that a little bit more as the livestream progresses. But what we want to see is, is that whenever you're trying to control situations, Control people, control your work, control the situation, and maybe a social circle, whatever it may be. That's when you start to lose control. You actually don't have it, and that's where the, the Holy Spirit will come into play. So I want you to be mindful, if that is a part of your life and you're concerned about your peace, look at your life and say, hmm, okay, is there something there that is related to me trying to control situations? I can give you a beautiful testimony myself because I remember growing up for a long time that I really struggled with this because I wanted to control every situation in my life. I remember even stepping on an airplane and wondering, could I do a better job than the pilot flying and landing that plane? And I know that kind of sounds a little bit silly, but it's true because in my testimony, I wanted to be able to make sure everything was ordered the way I wanted it. I wanted things done on a certain timetable. I wanted it to happen this way and that way. And I really made sure that as things evolved, that that's what happened. But what ended up happening was, is I learned that all it did was stress me out and cause more anxiety and really put me in a position where I would struggle with everything. And so the thing that really sourced the issue was, is I didn't trust God. And Proverbs chapter 3, verses 5 through 6 talks about that because it talks about how you're not supposed to lean on your own understanding. You're supposed to lean on God. And the thing about it is, is I really like this verse because This verse tells a beautiful story because it's about leaning. Think about it from the perspective. It's not standing, it's not laying on top of, it's leaning. It's a gentle lean. And so what it does is that you're just, just slightly moving over and trusting God to handle it. This is a really important piece of the puzzle because at the end of the day, God is King and he already knows your problems before they happen. He already knows the solutions. Mm-hmm. before they come about, and he's worked those things out specifically for you in your life situation automatically. And going back to the first one, when we talk about Hebrews, it is about walking through faith. And so when you start to release that control to God and then you start to lean on him, that's when things start to change, because when you start to trust him, it really revolutions— revolutionizes the way you think and how you operate. And so One of the key things that you understand about, um, the, the next thing that a lot of people get caught up on— and we're going to talk about the, the verses before this a little bit later— is Philippians chapter 4, verse 8. And it is to stop worrying about things. This is a really important thing because peace— while many people think peace is really the opposite of worrying, really peace is actually the opposite of anxiety. And we'll get into the heart of that here soon. What really you have to understand is, is that worrying solves nothing. At the end of the day, worry is the counterfeit for faith. It's because you want to be able to start to think about and mull over and wonder and think, okay, in this situation, let me think about what I should do and start to plan. If you're folks on here and you're listening to this livestream, whether it's live or recorded, you're going to start to think about, Am I a planner? Well, there's a difference between what Christ talks about as a planner and an overthinker, because Jesus said it's very important to plan because he talks about that in the New Testament. That as someone is an architect and plans to build a building, they need to sit down and make sure that they can count the costs, the labor, the material, and have everything ready. That's important. But what's not important is to be able to mull over something and to think and to constantly. Just constantly ponder in your mind. You're like, is there something going on in my life that I just want to just think every scenario through? And you'll notice that because what'll happen is, is as you're thinking about it, you start to run through scenarios over and over again. What about this? What about that? What about this? Let me think about what I should do tomorrow. What should I do next week? That's where the devil will— the devil will try to trap you because he wants you in a position where you can just think and think and think, and you're never going to get to the situation Whereas you don't have peace, you don't really trust God. So worry really becomes an undergirding for losing your peace because you're trying to solve the problem that in many cases, to be honest with you, you're just not equipped to do. I'm not equipped to solve a lot of my problems. That's where my faith walk with God comes into place and allows him to do the work. And then he'll let me know if there's anything that I need to do in my own perspective. And so the thing about that is, is it's important to understand who God is. and how he looks at you. We have a beautiful series that's going on in Pneuma, Your Identity in Christ. Definitely, if you get a chance to check that out, I would highly recommend it. But part of that series talks about your perspective of yourself and God's perspective of you, and then your perspective of God. And this is really important to understand who God is in your life and who you are in his life, because the moment you lose perspective, You start to understand, like, you start to worry about things, you start to put burdens on you that doesn't make sense. And Jeremiah 29:11 is the great verse that talks about this, is that God had great plans for you long before you were born. One of the things you have to understand is, as God created this universe, he planned out every single person from Adam and Eve to the last person that'll be born. He knew them all in advance. He had wonderful plans for all of them. He wants all of them to be in his family. So when you start to understand God's perspective of you and your life and how he wants you to operate in his kingdom, that's where you start to really start to understand who you are. But when you start to lose your peace is when you lose that perspective. You take your focus off of God. You take the focus off the things that God's calling you to do, and you start doing the things you want to do. And believe it or not, it's not even talking about doing things that are sinful. Like you can actually just, you know, go to a football game instead of going somewhere where you should have been, maybe spending time with your family. Maybe you went by yourself. It's these little things that start to turn your focus away from God little by little. And then when you lose that perspective on God, your peace disappears with it because now you're in a spot where God doesn't want you to be, and you're not either equipped to handle the situation, or God is gently trying to pull you back into alignment. And that tugging is a part of those, uh, part of that discomfort and the lot of the, the lack of peace that you may have in your, in your life. And so one of the things that you'll do in those situations is you start to fill your life with a lot of worldly things. And we can talk about this for a long time. You think about the situations where you'll deal with this. This is where addiction comes from. You can get things like alcoholism, addiction to pornography, you can get addiction to gambling. There's so many things, especially when you don't have your peace. Addiction comes in, drugs come into this place, because what happens is you start to want to numb your body. You're, you're dealing with this turbulence in your life and you're struggling. And what happens is, is that it starts to just pull out of you and then it starts to affect everything around you. Think about this situation. Imagine if you're— if you love sports and you start to do a lot of things around sports, you have a fantasy football team. At the time of this video, the NFL season is in midswing and it's a really big thing to have fantasy football teams and get really engaged and have it in your neighborhood, have a draft. And just be competitive with friends and family. And this isn't just for the gentlemen. I mean, women really get into the NFL Draft too when they want to build a team. And some of them have like a neighborhood team, some have a fantasy football team specific to their work, maybe their social friends, and so on. And so what happens is you get really competitive. And then what happens is, is this is where the devil tries to steal your peace. So think about it from this perspective. So it starts with a fantasy football team. And then you're like, wow, I really know these teams because as a part of fantasy football, you get used to studying what the players are and what they do. And you get used to, wow, in this situation, this team seems to win all the time. And then that's where the door starts to open because now the devil wants you to say, hey, you're like, hey, I know the over-under of that game. Oh, I know the, the point spread. I know all these different things that are happening. Let me go put some money down. On that game. And then this is where the slippery side starts, because now you're starting to gamble, and you're now starting to do the things God doesn't want you to do. There's really nothing inherently wrong ultimately having a fantasy football team. There's nothing really sinful about it. You can make it sinful, but there's really nothing inherently sinful. But what's— what happens is, is when you start to add these additional things on top of it, and you start to say, hmm, let me think about this, let me start to gamble. Let me put some money down. Because you'll see in the advertising in the football games, there's all kinds of things where they're like, let me give you like $500 free and you can bet that money. And that's where— that's kind of your seed money to start. And then what happens is then you start to do it and then you start to think about it. You start to look on your phone and say, oh, what about this? What about that? Now all of a sudden a player gets injured that would have potentially made a difference in the game and you start to lose your peace. This is how the devil starts to work in your life, because what he does is he plants a seed in a place where I would consider neutral ground. This is a dangerous area to be in. We hear about this all the time in the Bible, but there is the permissible will of God, and then there's the perfect will of God. And when you're in the perfect will of God, there's no neutral ground. But when you're in the permissible will of God, you can potentially be on ground that is ultimately neutral, where you're not actually operating the kingdom and you're not operating in the the kingdom of darkness. And that's where the devil starts to pull you in. And you can see this with fantasy football and gambling. You can see this with drugs. You just, as a kid, you could say, hey, let me start off with maybe a recreational drug like marijuana. And then, then you start to upgrade to cocaine and heroin and some of the other designer drugs that are invading this place. It really becomes that it's a gateway. And so that's the key thing to understand is, is that it's a door that's open. You'll hear this a lot in Christian circles. That it's a door that's open because it's a choice that you've made, and it's a decision that you're now sticking behind, and it becomes a truth in your life. And so what happens is, is that what that does is it then builds up a place in where the devil can start to work with you and drive a wedge between you and God. And it is very subtle. I mean, he is the serpent. That's the key thing is you don't see him sneaking in the back door. You can hear Jesus knocking on the front door. Revelation 3:20 talks about that. You know, I'm knocking on the front door. Anyone that opens the door and lets me in, they can sit— I'll sit down and eat supper with them, and them with me. But what you miss is, is that you— that your back door has a crack in it, and the snake slithers in behind you, and you never see him there. That's the thing, is that you get distracted by the things of your life, and then he comes in and starts to inject these moments that then cripple your peace little by little. Because what happens is, is it's not always All at once, because he wants it to be subtle so you don't know it. It's this— it's, you know, the old saying, like, you can put a frog in water and turn up the heat slowly, and it won't know that it's being boiled to death. But if you throw it in hot water, it'll jump out. This is exactly the same thing. This is how the evil one works, as he comes in and he slithers into your back door, and he starts to snip away little by little the pieces of your life that gave you peace and replaces them with worldly things. This is— this goes on to things like listening to different kinds of secular music. Music is specifically designed to worship God. Even if you hear and look at throughout the Bible, it creates an atmosphere. And when you listen to secular music, what it does is it actually opens your heart up to receive things that you're not really designed to receive. And so when you start to pleasure yourself in the world and doing things like these, you might think, well, that's not a big deal, it's not going to hurt me, it's not going to affect me, it's not going to make me any less of a Christian to listen to secular music or Taylor Swift or any Well, I will beg to differ because what you're doing is you're actually opening the door for the devil to come in and plant seeds in your mind and then turn you away from God. Because he doesn't have to turn you away that much. All he has to do is move you 1 degree. And 1 degree is not a lot, but that's all he has to take. Because when you're off course with God 1%, then what happens is you can completely be off course in 5 months. A year, 10 years. The devil is patient. He's not interested in always wrecking your life from the get-go. He's a player. He's going to think about, okay, how am I going to plan for the future and do something that I can attack him in 20 years, or I can crush her life in 25 years? Remember, he's immortal. He's seen and done this for thousands and thousands of years. He knows what works. And this is example of one way where he can start to just veer you Have you focused on the world instead of focusing on God? You're now focusing on the world and you're looking at the worldly things and saying, oh, that's really interesting. Let me go ahead and do that. Let me go out with my friends and now enjoy an extra drink. Let me go out with my friends and just skip my Bible time with God or my prayer time with God. It's okay. I, I was able to do it for a week straight. It's fine. I'll catch up, you know, tomorrow and so on and so forth. You see this. You can even see this with the people that are very much into the working out. Where they talk about not missing their workout days. This is a very common thing. The goal is to stay focused and consistent over the long time on God, and when you start to shift, it becomes a problem. And then what happens is, is then it starts to empty you out. This is the thing that the devil doesn't like to tell you, is that when he starts to steal your peace, you get empty. You're not being filled up by that worldly things. You're actually being emptied out. That's the difference, the nuance between what God does and what the others do. It's because God fills you up every time he has. He has you. He always wants you in a state of overflow. He pours into you, and then you flow out. This is the this is the old saying: Is I'm a I am blessed to be a blessing for others. That's how it works. He pulls heaven to earth through us, allowing us to bless others. But when he when the devil comes and starts to empty us with these these things that steal our peace, it becomes a problem because now what happens is is that the devil will come. and just empty us little by little. It's like, think of it as, as like a crack in a dam where a little stream comes out, where it's just a drip of water. Eventually even a lake would empty out. And so that's how he works in our life, is that once we start to focus on worldly things, we aren't filling ourselves up with the Spirit. We aren't filling ourselves up with the Word of God, which is important because that's our, that's our spiritual food. It's no different than not eating. If you go out a day without food, you can get pretty cranky. If you go out with food for 2 or 3 days, I mean, you might start having some issues with friends and work. You go out food for a week, you're, you're starting to risk your life. And so now think about that from the perspective of your Bible and your quiet time with your Father. Imagine not being with him for a day, a week, a year, 10 years. That depraves your spirit and it really puts you in a position where it's really like, it feels like a slow death. It's not an actual physical death, but it is something where it starts to drain you and pull you aside. And so these worldly things are like that. Think of it as from the perspective as you would think of them as being a well that fills you up, but they're rather— they're like a vacuum that pulls things out. And it's a light vacuum. It's just going to keep pulling like that water that drips from the crack, and it continues to pull you away. So think about the things that you're in your life that are doing that. What are you focusing on in your life that causes these problems to occur and then go ahead and fix them. And we're going to be here talking about that here soon on all these different aspects on how to fix it. But I got 2 more points I want to cover, and then we're going to hop into the section that's going to really transform your life. And so the thing that— another thing that really, really will wreck your peace, and I'm just telling you right now, and I know a lot of people won't receive this, but I have to say it anyway, is entitlement. And I just want to say this. Just to be fair, I'm a brother in Christ, and I love you, and I care about you. But you are literally entitled to nothing. That's reality. It doesn't matter your situation. It doesn't matter your nationality, your race. It doesn't matter where your ancestors came from, what happened to your ancestors. You are legitimately entitled to nothing. I'm entitled to nothing. And when you start to understand that, that's where you start to put yourself in a position where you can start to receive from God. But when you take the the posture of entitlement. You take the posture that I deserve this, I deserve some appropriation, I deserve this government money, I deserve this food, I deserve this fame or this attention or this, this, this. And now it's an inward thing. Entitlement will destroy your peace as fast as anything that can happen in your life, because entitlement at its root is all self-centered. That's the problem with entitlement. It's not an outward-facing thing. It's a worldly thing that the world tells you. You deserve to have some form of government support. You deserve to have some fame. You deserve to have some kind of money come towards you. You deserve this. You deserve that. And what happens is, is that you start to get in this, in your heart, this, this hardness where you now can't actually receive it. Because when you start to receive it, you're gonna want more. So this is like another form of an addiction. Like, this is a— this is how it works. It can chemically mess with you in your brain because you're like, you're programming yourself to saying, well, I need to receive this, I need to receive that, it's for me, I deserve this. I, I didn't have the start that I needed to have in life, and I didn't get the education that I should have got because I didn't have the grades because I didn't go to the school. And I can tell you, I can actually relate to that. I mean, I grew up in an area that was poor beyond poor. I went to a school that was the worst-rated high school in the entire state outside of the city schools. And that, and that's not trying to knock the school in any way, shape, or form. Its ranking was literally that low. I mean, that's just a truthful statement, no bias at all. And but what I did is I partnered with the Holy Spirit to push through that because I wanted to better myself, and I didn't want to allow my situation coming through what's going on in my life to limit what I did. And we have— and I will mention here shortly that we do have a video that's coming live here in the next about 40 minutes that will talk about my testimony. So that's something you're not going to want to miss. But I didn't have the start that a lot of people have. I didn't have the finances that other people had. I didn't have the things I needed to have in order to be successful because I literally had nothing. All I had was my family, and I had God at a young age. And when you realize that you have God, that's all you ever need. And guess what? That is everything. But when you take an entitled position towards life, it will just rip you and rob you of your peace because you're always looking for something to satisfy you ultimately that can't. And so really, the last thing that I want to talk about, another area that really, really will transform your mind is that you may be suffering because you're actually being spiritually attacked. So let's go into Isaiah. I'm going to go ahead and read this verse, Isaiah chapter 61, verse 3, and it says, and provide for those who grieve in Zion, to bestow upon them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and the garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. In some versions called heaviness. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. Now, I really want you to understand something very important about this Bible verse, that there is a real enemy out there and that the enemy really does want to destroy you. It doesn't matter what you think or how you act. You may be saying, well, Christians talk like that all the time. The reality is the reality. I've seen it with my own eyes. I've seen a demon manifest. I've seen a demon completely take over a person. It's pure evil. It tried to attack me, and the only name that casts it out is Jesus. And when you start to see those things, it doesn't matter when you look at the Bible and you look at other people's experiences. The reality is, is that there is a war going on in the spiritual world, and those who are not on God's side ultimately become the victims in the war. And that's just reality. And so I want to encourage you today that you may be doing the things that you're supposed to be doing in your life, and you're like, why am I still struggling with peace. I don't have peace. I'm worrying about things. All of a sudden, out of the blue, I get these visions of something. I'm thinking about things. I wanted to focus on this. I wanted to study for that. I wanted to go to the gym. I wanted to prepare for this. And then next thing you know, I'm thinking about things that had nothing to do with what I was planning on doing today. And now I'm struggling, and now I'm fixated on these things that I shouldn't be fixated on. Guess what? That's a demonic attack. And I'm just here to tell you that as a son of God, you have the authority to cast that out and cast it down. But that happens. I will be honest with you, and I'll talk about my own personal experience. I will probably get attacked up to 12 times a day just on this one thing, because the devil will want to distract me. He'll want to tempt me with something. He'll want me to, to push me over here and get me to You know, take away my Bible time or my quiet time with God. And so what you start to see is that spirit of heaviness becomes a real thing. It's something talking into your life and saying things to pull you off course. And it's a really challenging thing for people to understand that, because especially you may not believe that. Like, you may not come into the agreement with me and say there's these things called demons, there's these things called fallen angels. That come to try to destroy you. You may not believe that there's a devil. You may be an agnostic. You may be an atheist. But I'm telling you the truth. Here's how you know that Jesus is the only one true God. If you get it all of a sudden, you think you're in the right standing with God. Don't even think about right standing with God. Think about right standing with yourself. And all of a sudden you get some worry that comes out of the middle of the blue. Maybe you have a really important meeting at work and you're stressing out. this presentation, or you have, uh, you're going out to a social event and maybe you're concerned about your appearance, and all of a sudden you get this overwhelming, uh, fear of dread, or just slightly like heaviness where it just pulls you down. Declare the name of Jesus over your life and watch that disappear. I can guarantee you that name will drive that demon out and it will have no authority over you. Now, that demon may try to come back, and that's what I talked about earlier when I get attacked multiple times a day. Sometimes you just got to keep saying until they go away, and sometimes that takes a while, but they will go away eventually. That's the key thing I want to talk to you about today, is that the spirit of heaviness comes to truly steal your peace. And if you're a Christian that's walking that great line, if you're walking that fine line with God and you're doing the things you're supposed to do and these things happen, this is ultimately not you. And the reality is, is you're like, why is God allowing this to happen? Because I hear this all the time. Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? And I've heard variants of that, that question over and over again. And almost always the answer God tells me is like, hey, you have the authority over these demons. You have the authority over these fallen angels. Use it. He doesn't want us to grow up as invalid children. He doesn't want us to grow up doing— asking him for the things that we have the authority to do. It's no different than a parent tying a child's shoes until adulthood. It's the same thing. Do you go and feed your children when they're 18 years old with a spoon and fork? No. You, at a certain age when they're capable of holding the spoon and they're not spilling it all over themselves, you're letting them do that. It's no different than dressing them when they get older. It's no different than whenever they have their own license and they have their own car. Like, do you drive your child's car to work and then get an Uber home? No, this is the same thing. God's empowered Christians with authority to cast the devil out. He's not going to do the things that you are capable of doing for you. He may try to show you the first couple times, but afterwards, that's it. It's on you. You have to be able to step up and declare those things. And that's the key thing about spirit of heaviness. The spirit of heaviness comes to take away your peace. And that's what really happens when you're a Christian and you're walking that life and you're doing the things. Maybe those first things that we talked about don't happen in your life. That's when the devil is going to come in and try to inject himself and really try to steal the things that really ultimately he wants to destroy. Because remember, when we talk about this, is we, we went and talked about John 10:10. Remember, the first part of that verse is the thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. But there's a second part of that verse, and that part's, uh, every time I hear it gives me chills. And that is Jesus says, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. So what does that mean? What it means is, is that on this side of eternity, on this side of heaven, this is a key statement, and I hope this sets some Christians free, that you can have peace in this earth before Jesus comes and before you die. You can live a completely untethered Spirit-led life that's dominating and crushing the enemy every single day. And that is the truth. God wants abundance for you. He doesn't want a little bit. When Solomon was at his peak in the kingdom, he was the richest man in the history of the world. That's what a lot of people— when you study economics and understand the rate of inflation and the amount of gold that was coming into Israel, go back and look at those chapters in 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and 2 Kings. And even Chronicles, it talks about silver was so common it was like stone. Think about that. Silver was as common as stone. God wants an abundant life. He's the king of everything. He created all of this stuff anyway. That's the thing that's so amazing. He created gold. He created diamonds. He created silver. He wants only abundance for you. And so when you start to understand that you are Supposed to have peace. You're supposed to have calmness, love, and joy. That doesn't mean the storms don't come. That doesn't mean the devil doesn't try to attack you. I mean, devil has authority and power. He clearly does. But no weapon formed against me will prosper. And so you know that Jesus will come beside you and take your right hand, and the Holy Spirit will come and take your left hand and walk you through that storm in victory. What Jesus promised is that you can have peace in the storm. That's the key thing to understand. He didn't say that the devil will come and steal your peace and you'll replace it in the storm or in these couple situations that, that'll happen. And where do you get that promise? Well, it comes from Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 through 7, and it says, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, Present your requests to God, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. This is so powerful because what God is saying is put your worries and your concerns and your problems on the sacrificial altar and give it to Jesus and go deeper, go deeper. Think about it from this perspective. If you're not familiar with the First Temple or the Second Temple, let me give you a visual description. Of how the Israelites went through this process and then how that applies to Jesus and the New Testament. So whenever you walked into the, the temple, whether it was the First Temple or the Second Temple, there was a gate. You actually had to go through a gate. That gate represents Jesus. The first thing that they see when they walk in are these sacrificial altars. And what they were supposed to do is take the sacrificial offering, offering. Mm-hmm. That represented their sin. So the key thing is, is just as a side note, the sin did not actually— the sin didn't go away. So whenever you're in those Old Testament, and if you're a Jew and you're watching this and, and you don't understand, you— if you understand the old system versus the new system, the old system was never designed for salvation. It was never designed to take away their sin. What it did is you place the punishment of your sin on this animal, and then you killed it. in your place. That's what it really meant. And so what you did is you burned the animal and then you could sit with the priest and eat it. And that was a part of a fellowship piece, a part of that. And then the next thing was, as you go in deeper into the process and you go to the laver, which is basically like, think of it like a pool where you washed yourself and then you can cleanse yourself. And that's basically where a lot of the folks could go. And then obviously you had the inner sanctuary where the priests went, and that had the showbread and a bunch of other things. And then in the Holy of Holies. was where the Ark of the Covenant was. So when you look at it from the perspective of New Testament and a Christian, what you're doing is you're entering through. So you're, by your prayers and petitions— remember, this is what it's talking about— by your prayers and petitions, you enter into the presence of God. You are a Christian. When you talk to God, he hears you. You don't have to say, are you— do you hear me, God? You know, are you listening to me? Can you understand what I'm saying? He already knows. Like, that's the key thing is he already knows that. He already knows the words you're going to say before you say it. And so He's already attentive to your needs right then and there. And so when you give your petitions, what you're saying is, I'm trusting you, God, for the problems in my life, and I'm going to put them on that altar and I'm going to burn them. That's the key thing, is you're going to burn them. That's the thing, is like, think about it from the perspective of Elijah when he came and he put the mantle on Elijah— Elisha. And what happened was, is Elisha said, wait, Let me go back and say goodbye to my family. So what did he do is he slaughtered the 12 yoke of oxen, took the wood and sacrificed and burned them on it. So what he was doing was, is he was destroying his old life in order to have a new one. And that's what God wants you to do in this moment. He wants you to take that worry and put it on the altar and literally destroy it and give it to him so that you can't take it off that altar and, and, and grasp it yourself. That's the key thing to understand. This is where the trust, this is where the faith comes in, because once you place that worry on the altar, it's gone and God takes care of it. The how and the what, it's not your concern. He may ask you to participate in some things. He may ask you to do some things that are different, maybe a little bit of stretching season, but ultimately it's up to God to figure that out, and it's up to you to let it happen. And then you step further into his presence. Because this is the key thing, is you don't stop. You go deeper and deeper. And so now, as you get into his presence and you're at the wash basin, what does God want to do? He wants to clean the filth off of you. He wants to remove the things that have soiled you in the process and allow you to be clean in his presence. And so what does that mean? It means is that he wants you refreshed. He wants you to be able to receive What he wants you to receive, and if you're exhausted and you're tired, what are the things that are really good for you? What are really good for you is rest and food and water. And so that's key, and it's important to understand that as you go through this, that you trust God in a way that you can say, "I'm giving this to you," and now I can go deeper. Because that's the thing is if you go back to the verse, it talks about giving it to God. And then what he does— remember, and then the peace of God comes, and it'll transcend all understanding. It'll guard your heart. It'll guard your emotions. It'll guard your mental state, your mind. It'll guard you and protect you when the evil one wants to come and steal it. And this is a key point to understand, is that Jesus's peace is not the same as the— what the world's peace is. And he talks about this in John chapter 14, uh, verse 27. And he says, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. This is important because this is a free gift. The peace is meant to be something that you receive and that you can take, and it is freely given. And it is not like the world, because remember what we talked about— the world's peace is no peace. It's like a vacuum. It suctions out your peace. It actually doesn't replace it. God is the only one that can fill you up. This is why when you're struggling with peace, it's a lot of the situations you're putting yourself in, God's not present there. And when you start to see you're not in peace, The way to get peace is to find out where God is in that situation. And if you have to hand that situation over to him, hand it over to him. But at the end of the day, that's where the peace comes in, is when God's in that situation with you. He's got your right hand and got your left hand. That's why there's 2 intercessors. That's the thing. That's the thing that's so beautiful, is there's 3 persons in this beautiful Trinity, and the The Jesus who owns this universe, that everything's under his feet. Every name will bow at his declaration of his name. Everyone is on your side, and you've got the Holy Spirit, the most powerful person on this planet. More powerful than the president, more powerful than any spirit. There's no spirit that wrestles with the Holy Spirit. He's the most powerful person on this planet. You've got 2 literal persons of the Godhead walking side by side with you, taking you to the foot of the Father. There can't— you— I mean, if that doesn't get you excited, I don't know what will, because he's there for you. Jesus died for you. He did this so that you could be in freedom, that your mind could be at peace. And if you can't receive that, then I want you to just take a moment and just absorb it, because he loves you that much. And I know for some people that's hard to grasp because you may have been in situations where your peace is robbed and you've had so many situations. Maybe you've been physically abused, maybe you've been yelled at, maybe you've been, uh, just had tough times at school, bullied. Maybe you've lived a life where you've been poor and you've had such a— you're just such a version of lack that you can't even describe it. And you're struggling to even understand, like, how can this be true? But it is, because when you start to yield yourself to God and you seek his kingdom, This is the key thing. When you start seeking him, his kingdom, which is righteousness, because God is righteousness, he adds it all automatically. So you don't have to chase the things that you attract. That's the difference between Jesus's peace and the world peace, because when you seek Jesus, all the things come automatically. But with the world, everything gets subtracted. This is the thing. If you've heard the old term divide and conquer, This is what God does differently. What God does is that he adds something to you and then he'll multiply it. That's a kingdom principle. There is— when you go from season to season, it's an addition and then a multiplication. And so when you're going from faith to faith, glory to glory, it's an ascension. But what the devil does is what he does first is he actually divides. That's the thing is he comes in and divides and then he starts to subtract. You see this in our country all over the place. You see this with politics, the Democrats and Republicans. You see this with anything with sports teams. If you're in high school, you're— maybe it's a competitive thing with football, North versus South, East versus West. If you're a college football fan, you know, you got the SEC, the Pac-10, the Big Ten, the Big 12, the ACC. There's all these divisions that the devil wants to put in the world To divide us into groups— men versus women, women versus men, young versus old, generation versus generation— and then he starts to subtract. That's how he starts to steal your peace. Where God does— no, he adds, and he keeps adding and adding. Every season is supposed to be greater than the last. Every day— believe it or not, the worst day of your life is today because the next day is supposed to be greater. That's God's peace. And that's what Jesus does that's different than others, is that he gives it to you and then continues to go. So then what it talks about then, and next verse I want to give to you, is that the peace rules your hearts. That's important to understand because when you grasp that peace as a guard for your heart, it empowers you in ways that you don't think, because now your emotional state returns to the place of where it needs to be calm, peaceful, relaxed, joyful. You're gentle. You, you can handle situations where kids are acting up and they're having troubles, and maybe they're not reacting the way they're supposed to. So that verse comes from Colossians chapter 3, verses 15, and it reads, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since the members of one body You are called to peace and be thankful. So this is— think of it like from the perspective, if you want to kind of describe it in a way that kind of is literal, it's the way if your, if your heart is a playground, peace becomes the walls around it. And we're not talking about like an aluminum or a picket fence. We're talking about like the walls of Jericho. We're talking about walls that are, you know, 10, 20 feet Wide, 100 feet tall. You've got a roof, you've got a foundation. It completely encapsulates you. That's what God's peace does for you. It puts you in a place where that doesn't matter what the weather is that day. It doesn't matter what happens at work. It doesn't matter what happens at home with your relationships, with your social circles, whether it's in sports, whatever you may be enduring. You become a person on the rock, the rock that is Christ, and you become immovable, and nothing can get in. No lightning, no hurricane, no earthquake can displace you because your emotions are on the rock, because the rock is Christ, and because Christ owns the universe. The universe can't displace you because you're his. And one of the most powerful verses in the entire Bible that I'll give you comes from, uh, 1 John, if I remember correctly, chapter 4, verse 7. As Jesus is, so am I in this world. That's a powerful statement because as he is seated on the right hand of God, I am in this world. It's not like I'm like— it didn't say I'm like. No, it says I am. Okay, which is a powerful word because I Am is God's name from the Old Testament. So it's a really powerful statement. So When you're starting to think about your peace and how God will protect you, he does it with the all of his authority and power, and your heart is guarded against these situations where it becomes the the norm for you to be in a state of relaxation. You're never bothered. You're never upset. You're never in a situation where you're rattled. There's just nothing that happens if you see people that are like, wow, this person. Stays, uh, and, and just is just a rock-solid person and never concedes an inch. Wow. Why is that? It's because they have the peace of Christ. It's guarding their emotions and their state and all the things that come out. Because remember, everything that comes out of your mouth comes from your heart. That's the thing. And you see that. And that's the thing, you know the state of a person by the way they speak. If they're constantly critical, if they're constantly being problematic, if they can't say anything positive and they're constantly looking for things to nitpick at you or nitpick at anything, you know the state of that person is that of that they don't have any peace in their heart. There's no guardrails, there's nothing protecting them, there's no walls, there's no roof, there's no foundation. And so let's go out and talk about searching for peace because this is a really important thing to see. And when you start to understand searching for peace, we have to talk about Um, 1 Peter chapter 3, uh, verse 11, and it will— I'm sorry, verse 10 through 11. Let me go ahead and read it. For whoever would love life and see good day— good days must keep their tongue from evil and their lips from deceitful speech. They must turn from evil and do good. They must seek peace and pursue it. And I really want you to think about that statement from the perspective of seeking peace. Because as we read this verse, it says protecting your tongue from deceitful speech. And what you see is, is we just talked about that, is that if you have a healthy heart, a heart of flesh, what comes out of it is going to be words of love, words of joy, words of peace. You're never gonna hear, you know, people joking or gossiping or saying things about people. That is a heart of stone. If you are a person who constantly jokes and has to either demean yourself or demean others, or try to try to put a situation where you have to lift yourself up, you really have to look at the inside and say, "Why am I doing this?" Because healthy hearts don't do that. They don't need to do that. It doesn't mean you can't have fun and be joyful and have fun and actually joke. But, but you have to start to check the, the true, the true condition of your heart, because that's where God is saying you need to seek it out. You have to pursue it. And seeking peace, you can think of that even in, in the context of like countries where they seek peace with one another. They set up treaties. You, you want to be in a position where you're never at odds with other people. Now, there's going to come time, and it talks about this in the Bible, that there will be divisions, and divisions rise up to show who's approved by God. That's, that's a healthy way. But it should never become something that goes from a debate into a confrontation, because debates are fine, because you can disagree. We all Christians disagree. I could talk about different things all the time right now that would cause you to say, wow, I don't agree with that. But at the end of the day, we're brothers and sisters. We should agree on the one thing that matters, which is the pathway to heaven, which is Jesus Christ, and we should pursue that. We shouldn't be chasing the things that cause us to drain away our peace and to start these fights and push ourselves away from people. Now, God will pull people out of your life as as needed because He wants you to mature, and there are some people that are part of your life, and believe it or not, it'll be part of your family and your inner circle. It could even be your children. Don't, don't be surprised that, that will allow you to, once they go away, that you can ascend into that next realm. But at the end of the day, it is about seeking peace and pursuing it with a heart of love and knowing that at the end of the day, the goal is, is to be at peace with one another because that's what Jesus did. Even Jesus got angry a couple times in his ministry. He only did it twice. In 3 and a half years, technically 33 and a half years. That's all we saw was he got angry twice, and it was because they were desecrating the temple and profaning his Father's sanctuary, which is utterly an abomination. And so when you think about it from that perspective, he was righteously angry, and then he calmed down. You didn't see him continue. You didn't see lightning bolts come down from heaven. You didn't see The 72 legions of angels come. You saw God get angry and pull back. But even in our life, righteous anger only plays a part in a very small part of our life, and it really is supposed to just empower us and push us into a place where we come out of a place of what I would consider stagnation and into action. That's ultimately what righteous anger is supposed to do. So when you're looking at it from a peaceful perspective, you're chasing it all the time. And when you're chasing peace, It really does make a difference in your world because think about all the things in this world that you can chase, all the trouble that you can chase, all the neutral things that add zero value to your life that you can chase. Boy, chasing peace sounds like a great thing. And so let's talk about peacemakers because that is the essence of what a peacemaker is, is that they're always in a position to settle disputes. And Matthew 5 talks about this, and Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. And when you're a child of God, one of the core aspects is you're a peacemaker. You can help settle debates. You can help settle arguments and disputes and problems. Not like a judge where you're basically siding with a side, although in some situations that can be the case. But what you're doing is you're a person of wisdom and knowledge that can bring 2 parties generally together and come to a place of peace. That is the essence of a peacemaker. It's really important because that's different than the meek, which is a completely different situation because that is actually one of authority. The peacemaker is designed to generate and create a culture and atmosphere of love where people can voice their opinion safely in a safe place and discuss things without being feeling condemned. That's a peacemaker. If you're a type of person that is so welcoming that someone can come up to you and says, I sinned today, I really need someone to pray for me and, and just help me get through this one, one situation of just problematic. It's— I feel like it's rooted in something, but I know that you'll help me get through this because Where 2 or 3 are gathered, Jesus is there. Think about that. If you're a type of person that is that trusted that someone can confess their sins to you, you're a peacemaker. That's a great place to be. If you're a person that's trusted for wisdom and knowledge, that's a peacemaker. If you're a person that is reliable because you're blessed and you're— and you can be a person who, let's say for example, is you have You're blessed financially, and maybe someone is struggling and they're in a, in a season of their life where they just can't overcome the financial obstacles. And God is like, no, I'm going to give you overflow to bless them. And you constantly give them money whenever they ask because you know that their heart isn't abusing you, but rather you're there for them. And even if they are abusing you, maybe God wants you to help them get through the situation. I don't really know. But that's what I'm talking about when you're a peacemaker. You're a person that can come into a situation that's chaotic and causing worry or anxiety or depression, and you can just drive it all out. That's why you're called the children of God, because that's what us as children of God do. And so that really then can roll into having peace in your sleep. So I want to speak to some people today. If you're struggling with your sleep, I want you to hear this verse from Psalm In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety. This is a key statement because when you are struggling with your sleep, you're not putting your trust in God. Now, there are situations where that occurs, when there's demonic attacks and God's waking you up and speaking to you. Not talking about those things. I'm talking about you're going to bed worried and you're struggling. In those moments when you are struggling and you just can't get good sleep, consistently, week over week, month over month, what's happening is, is you've just truly not sat down with God and put the burden on him. We forget God's power and the, the majesty he has, that he could speak this universe and all of the different atoms and quantum level stuff and all the energy and physics and chemistry and just wrap it all together with words, simple words in fact. Boom, things just happen. Our problems literally are a nothing thing for him to solve. Like, I, I just want— if that sets anyone free, I want you to understand that our problems are a nothing thing for God to solve. And so when we lie down with God and we just sit and relax in a posture of rest and give these problems to him, God can then return it with peace, and you will feel safe. You will feel when you go to sleep, your mind will be at ease. It won't be racing. It won't be thinking, overplanning, or overthinking, or just constantly going from one situation to another. Like, I should be doing this today, and I should be doing that tomorrow. And what about this? What about my kids? What about this appointment? What about that? It all goes away. It just disappears. It becomes silence. And now you can start to dwell in safety. And so this is a really important thing because when you lie down and sleep, God's the only one that can guarantee your peace. And so when you're lying with him and trusting in him, that's when you can get true peace. And so let me start to wrap up this video with one last verse and we'll conclude it with that. And so God wants you to have abundant peace, powerful peace, in fact. And it talks about that in Jude chapter 1. Verse two: Mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance. This is something that I want to talk about for a couple minutes and really hammer home a key point. When you are at peace with God, when you are with joy with God, when you're at love with God, that when you're a child of God, when you have these things. You don't have a little bit. See, the world loves to lie to Christians and say Christians should not be rich, Christians should not have overabundance of anything, they should be humble and meek, sell all their possessions, give them to the poor, live in, you know, sackcloth and ashes on the side street. But that is the biggest lie, one of the biggest lies that the devil will tell you, because The kingdom of God belongs to God. This world belongs to Jesus, and he's delegated that to us. Our power and our authority and our dominion is this world. And so this world becomes our footstool. This is biblical because we're not supposed to come from a posture of lack. How— if you had, say for example, if you're a king of a country Or a queen, and you have your children, and you're very wealthy, you have unlimited resources like God, you can do whatever you want, and your children are running around in rags and eating dirt on the side of the road, they would literally look embarrassing to you. Not that we're talking about how you look to other people, but that's how God sees us. He has everything in the palm of his hands, and his children are not supposed to come from a posture of lack, because we're supposed to be blessed so heavily that it just overflows like a tsunami outside of us. And so how do you bless others if you don't have financial capabilities, if you don't have things that are just coming out of everywhere, just being a fountain that comes out of nowhere? That's the essence of what God is trying to say. Peace is supposed to be like that. When you're blessing people, you should be blessing them with things— material things, monetary things, you know, beautiful words, all these things. Those are things that are stored up inside of you and around you in abundance that then flow out of you. And that's how it's supposed to work. That's the, the whole essence of the kingdom, is God Flows through us. He gets the glory and we bless others with the bounty that he's given us. So we're never supposed to be in a posture of lack. He may call you to sell your car or give it away to someone. That happens. Those are lots of testimonies that I'm— I know people that have done that. But he doesn't say to sell the brand new house that you just built or to sell the brand new car that you just got. Those things just don't generally happen. That's more likely what the devil is trying to undergird and take away the blessing. That God just gave you. The reality is that you're supposed to have peace in steep abundance. And when you have peace in steep abundance, then it overflows. It overflows like finances. It's exactly the same thing. So when you're thinking about peace, your peace should be so abundant that you're so secure in what God is doing in your life. And there is a faith walk, and I get it, that there is some level of like, uh, There, there always can be some kind of tension, and that's perfectly fine. That's faith. But your peace should be so tranquil, so quiet, so relaxed that anyone that has anxiety, depression, or any form of worry, the moment they come into your presence, they should just feel that and instantly be at ease and say, wow, this is a great place to be. It's overflow, and that's what God wants for us. And so I want to kind of wrap up this livestream for the folks here. I want to thank you for joining, and I just want to say, let me pray this one prayer over you and then have one special request for you at the end. So let's go ahead. If you're watching this live or you're watching it later, go ahead and bow your head. I'm sure it'll bless you regardless of when you watched it. Dear Heavenly Father, you bless us with peace that permeates and every part of our body, our mind, and our spirit. It pours out of every opening into the world around us, affecting all those that come in contact with us. Let us be at peace with you. Let us share that peace with others. We live in troubling times where worldly peace is absent. Let us bring your peace where there is no limit and no end to the world. We pray this in Christ's mighty name. Amen. And so my last request for you is, is that John Humenik Ministries has this very bold vision. We here want to spread the gospel to all the people across the world before the Rapture. We want to be able to be empowered and grow and do things that just transform this earth into the kingdom of God. So if you are, uh, have the capability, I would prayerfully have you ask to consider being a monthly partner or make a one-time donation to the ministry. You can do this on our website if you go to humenik.com/give. It's spelled H-U-M-E-N-I-K.com/give. There you can go ahead and process a payment towards us If you feel led, I would highly encourage becoming a monthly partner because we are doing God's work. And the more opportunity and more finances that we have, the more things we can do, more people we can hire, and really transform this world and save souls. Because ultimately, that's what we're here to do, is help the poor and save souls. God bless.