Ministering To The Lord

One thing is sudden.
If you stick to the Word, you will come back with a testimony.
What God wants to give in your life is not a healing.
What God wants to give in your life is not a job.
What God wants to give in your life is not money.
What God wants to give you is the Word of God in your spirits.
It'll make you what it talks about.
And you are shining, and you are shining by the power of the Holy Ghost.
You are shining by the power of the Holy Ghost.
You are shining and nothing can stop you.
It is your season.
It is your time.
Nothing can hinder you.
This is your time.
This is your hour.
People is yours.

Glory to God.
Glory to God.
Would you turn to the Book of Acts so I can share some important thoughts with you?
Glory to God.
He says, in that church at Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers, and it gives us their names.
And then in verse two,
He says, as they minister to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, separate me, bonabbas and soul, blah, blah, blah, blah.
The part of it that I want you to notice is where he says, as they minister to the Lord.
These men that were listed for us in verse 1, minister to the Lord.
And then he says, as the minister to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost responded.
The Holy Ghost spoke to them.
But they minister to the Lord.
That's a striking statement as they minister to the Lord.
I'm ministering to you now.
And the different ways to minister.

But here they minister to the Lord.
What could that be?
And it was so important that the Lord told us what they did and how the Holy Spirit responded.
The Holy Spirit gave them a guidance that was so important for their lives.
He put them in the way that he had chosen for them for their future.

It does tell us something.
You know, there are a lot of people who do different things in their lives.
They haven't received any guidance from the Spirit of God on what they should do.
They just do what they think they should do.
Somebody said, well, I want to do what I enjoy.
Because, you know, they read all kinds of books.
In some books, they say, to be successful, do the job you enjoy.
Sleep might be one of them.
You know, do what you enjoy.
Somebody says, I love watching TV.
Is that what you're going to do?
Do what you enjoy.
That's not enough.
That's half truth.

Do you know that if God were to give you a related instruction, he wouldn't say do what you enjoy.
He would say enjoy what you ought to do.
For example, I tell people, God never said marry the person you love.
He never said so.
Someone says, well, this is the person I love.
So this is what I'll know.
He never said marry the person you love.
He never said so.
He said love the person you marry.

That's what he said.
That's what he said.

So, but if we don't understand the Word of God, we will take things that sound nice.
Things that seem like God might have said them.

Like, O Lord Jesus, I pray in the name of Jesus, it sounds nice, but it's stupid.
you can pray to Jesus in the name of Jesus.
But many people do that and nobody cares about what's going on.
They don't realize how unscriptural it is and they can't understand why they remain babies, spiritual babies, for a very long time.
And their Christian life is opened down.
It works now and then it fails the other time.
It works sometimes and fails sometimes.
And Bible describes them in this way, he says, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Praise the Lord.
So now he says, as they minister to the Lord, they minister to the Lord, what could that be?
If I minister to the Lord,
I may get what they got.
The Holy Ghost said, that means I'm gonna hear from the Holy Ghost.
And the Holy Ghost will give me direction in life.

You know, sometimes people do the right thing and then the devil comes and says, why did you do that thing?
So just because you've done something right doesn't mean your conscience will always say yes.
It depends on how trained your conscience is.
You see, your conscience is the voice of your human spirit.
How trained is it?
And how do you train your conscience?
You train your conscience through the Word of God.
See, your spirit has to be educated in the things of God.
Somebody said, if you feel good about it, it's from God.
If you feel bad about it, it's from the devil.
Oh no.
You might feel good about something that's wrong.
And you might feel bad about something, that's right.
It depends on how educated is your spirit.

You can't watch African movies.
For so many hours,
and not have your spirit overthrown, including some of them that are so-called Christian movies.
There's a lot of them that are not Christian at all.
They're just movies acted by Christians because of the unscriptural message that they project.
See, it matters what goes into your spirit.
Jesus said, be careful how you hear.
And then he also said, be careful what you hear.
See, because how you hear is as important as what you hear.
Are you listening?
What you hear is important.
How you hear is important.
That means your attitude in hearing.
Well,
In this second verse of the 13th chapter of the Book of Acts, he says to us, as they ministered, whom ministered, whom ministered?
Again, the prophets and teachers that were at the Church of Antioch.
They gathered together, they ministered to the Lord and fasted.
As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, the Holy Ghost responded, the Holy Ghost spoke to them, as they ministered to the Lord.
They ministered to the Lord.
It's an area that we need to consciously recognize.
A lot of us do ministered to the Lord in reality.
But sometimes some of us don't even realize that's what we're doing.
Some don't know that's what they're doing.
And you know the Bible tells us to praise the Lord with understanding.
Did you ever read that in the word?
To praise Him with understanding.
Now there's a difference between praising the Lord with understanding and praising the Lord with the understanding.
This might seem like mere semantics, but they're not.
The troops communicated.
Can I explain?
All right.
To praise the Lord with understanding means exactly what it says.
Understanding what you're doing while you're praising.
Knowing what you're doing.
Knowing what you're doing.
Praise Him with understanding, be clear about what you're doing.
You praise Him God, praise Him in reality, understand that this is what you're doing.
So that's why I said, in ministering to the Lord, the lot of us who do it, but we don't realize that that's what we're doing.
And God actually wants us to know what we're doing.
And it's only when you know that this is what you're doing, that you can attribute the result to what you did.
For example,
The Spirit of God lets us know, as the minister to the Lord and fasted the Holy Ghost said, he connected them.
He could have said as they were there.
The Holy Ghost said, without attributing any importance to their ministry to the Lord.
Now, ministering to the Lord wasn't something me.
It wasn't just a term rendered by Luke while he was writing the book of Acts.
Would he turn into the book of Deuteronomy chapter number
10, let's observe the use of that terminology.
Deuteronomy chapter 10, have you located it?
Turn to verse 8.
Read from verse 8.

to minister unto him and to bless in his name.
Did you see that?
To minister unto him.
The Lord chose the children of Levi to minister unto him.
He gave them no inheritance in Israel.
He said, the Lord is your inheritance.
Their responsibility was to minister to the Lord.

So, it wasn't something new.
It wasn't just a term that was merely picked by someone who was trying to construct something.
It was a responsibility that was already recognized, ministering to the Lord.
In fact, if you would read in 1 Samuel the second chapter, you'd notice the 11th verse and the 18th verse,
It refers to Samuel, ministering before the Lord as a little boy.
Hallelujah.
So they knew about the priestly ministry.
And now we come to the book of Acts in chapter 13.
He says, as they minister to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, as they minister to the Lord,
and fasted.
They knew they were ministering to the Lord.
They knew, can I say to myself, now I want to minister to the Lord.
I may say I want to pray and just pray and the different kinds of prayers and I might pray all kinds of prayers and not be aware that I need to set the time aside to minister to the Lord.
And that is what the Spirit of God wants us to know.
And to do, learn to minister to the Lord.
Now, to minister to him, the first thing you need is to give him attention.
Attention.
God needs your attention.
God needs your attention.
God needs your attention.
God needs your attention.

Tell somebody God needs your attention.
You know a lot of times we think we need God's attention because of what we're going through.
Oh God, I need your attention.
Please listen to me.
I got these needs in my family.
I got these needs in my job.
I got these needs in my finances.
I got these needs.
Oh God, I need you now.
Give me your attention.
We may not quite put it that way, but that's what we're doing every time we're trying to pray and ask for something.
Sometimes we don't even pray.
We're so tired of telling him that we just feel like, can't you see my heart?
Don't you know what I'm going to do?
You know?
We're so frustrated with him.
We don't want to talk to him.
That's why she blew up in his raising hands.
Well, fed up!
Maybe, maybe, just maybe, he needs your attention.
Look at them folks.
Only God knows what might have happened.
Only God knows what might have happened.
Maybe they have been thinking, what we gonna do now?
Persecution had broken out.
Somewhat had happened to them.
Some of them had been killed already.
And they're thinking, hey, what we gonna do?
And praying and praying and praying.
Finally, the problem came together and said, let us minister to the Lord.
You see, we've been asking Him questions.
Oh, God, why?
Oh, why?
Oh, why?
Like when you read when James, the brother of John, was killed, it stared the church.
They didn't think James could be killed.
James, one of the pillars, you had Peter James and John.
They were closest to Jesus.
How could James, the brother of John be killed?
They were the ones Jesus called the songs of thunder.
And James was killed.
When he was arrested, they thought, oh, James, come in arms.
We know he's coming out.
The teaching is about confession.
I know James is going to confess the word and walk out of the place.
And then he can walk out.
Somebody came and said, James has been killed.
They said he's alive.
That's not gonna happen.
In fact, if he dies, they bring him here, and we're gonna raise him up, because Jesus said to raise the dead.
And you can imagine, they might have gotten the blood and tried to raise him up, and prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and nothing happened, and buried him.
And then the Bible says when Herod found out he pleased the Jews that he had killed James, he said, I'm gonna take the big one.
I'm going for Peter now.
And he arrested Peter.
and put him in prison.
And he said, you know what?
We got Easter right now.
After Easter celebrations, we'll have his neck.
And the Jews were very happy.
And then the church woke up.
They said, James is dead.
Peter is arrested.
We gotta pray now.
And the barber says, Bex, prayer was made without seizing of the church.
for him.
They prayed without season.
They weren't going to take this lightly now because James was arrested and killed.
And we thought now he is coming out.
And then he didn't come out.
He was killed and we said, all right, now we're going to raise him.
And then he didn't rise up.
And they said, no.
Peter, too?
No, no, no.
We will stop this day.
They prayed.
The Bible says they prayed without season.
They prayed, they so prayed, prayed, prayed, prayed, prayed, prayed, prayed.
Listen, if Peter had been cured, Peter would have lost nothing.
James was cured, he'd lose nothing.
The Bible says to be with the Lord is far better than to be here.
Who lost something?
The church lost something because all that James knew that they could have received, they couldn't receive because he was there.
Now, Peter had been given so much revelation by Jesus.
And now, if he were to die, the church would be the loser.
They prayed without season.
And the Bible tells us how Peter was released.
An angel of the Lord was sent down.
Oh, I like that story.
Oh, I couldn't thank God enough just studying that portion of the Bible.
He's an angel.
Peter was between two soldiers.
in the night, and he was chained on either side.
And the angel of the Lord appeared to him, tapped him and said, Peter, get up.
The power says the chains of their own accord fell off.
The chains, he didn't have to unlock them.
The chains fell off of their own accord.
God is powerful, man.
He's big.
And the two soldiers that were there fell down as dead men.
He said, follow me.
And Peter followed him.
The barris is the dart to the first gate and the second gate.
They opened of their own accord.
The thought and mark the most powerful gate that led into the city, which no man could come through.
When they got there, that gate opened of his own account.

An angel walked with him through a street, and in that street he said, all right, sir, go preach the gospel.
And Peter realized he wasn't dreaming.
He had thought it was a dream.
And he decided to go and find the brethren.
He got to one of the houses where John Mark used to be.
And they were praying.
They were all praying there.
In the name of Jesus, Peter must come out.
Peter must come out.
Peter must be released.
In the name of Jesus.
They were all prayed, prayed, prayed, prayed, prayed, prayed.
Have you ever been there?
Where you felt like you were not going to take no for an answer?
It's not the kind of prayer you pray like this.
That would work here.

No, when that thing happens rather... Listen, the tougher the problem you find yourself, the greater your testimony will be.
Hallelujah!
And Peter got to the house, hit the gate,
They were praying so loud, couldn't understand what's going on.
A young lady by the name of Roda decided to find out.
She looked through the window.
She said, looks like Peter.
Looks like Peter.
She came to the others.
Hey, hold on.
Hold on.
Hold on.
Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.
I think it's Peter at the gate.
It's his ghost.
He's dead.
from faith to unbelief immediately.
Because you see, they knew that that prison house, there was no way of coming out.
But they prayed anyhow.
They wanted an answer.
And God had given them the answer.
Peter was right at the gate.
She said, it's Peter.
When they couldn't convince her, some of them decided to open the door and look at the gate.
Sure enough, it was Peter.
And they opened the gate and brought him in.
The rest is history.
Oh, praise God for evermore.
He can do that for anybody.
Glory to God.
He didn't do it because it was Peter.
He did it because the church prayed, because that's what he connected it to.
He said, but prayer was made without season of the church for him.
He did it because the church prayed.
Listen, if at any time something confronts any one of us, let's not hesitate to bring such a thing to the house of God.
How can they know I'm going through this?
Okay, go through it now.
Call your brethren.
Maybe your cell members.
Maybe the PCF members.
Sometimes it might even have to be brought here for everybody.
And we pray.
And pray.
Until something is done, hallelujah.
That's what's shown us in the Word of God.
Well then I said, God needs your attention.
Tell somebody God needs your attention.
All right, turn to Proverbs chapter number four.
Proverbs chapter number four.
We will read from verse 20.

Want to go.
Attend what?
Attend to my words.
Attend to my words.
God needs your attention.
Attend to my words.
Go on.
In kind, I kneel to my sayings.
In other words, listen to me.
You see, we think God needs to listen to us.
Oh God, I got a lot to tell you.
I got a lot praying to pray.
I got a lot of requests.
I need this and we think he needs to hear us.
A lot of times we need to hear him.
This is, give me your attention.
Listen to me.
All right, incline that ear and my sayings, uh-huh.
Let them not depart from your heart.
Why?
That means meditate on them.
Give me your attention.
Meditate on what I tell you.
Give me your attention.
Listen to me.
And when you hear what I'm going to tell you, meditate on what I'm going to tell you.
What's wrong?

For they are life to those that find them.
They are life to those that find them.
Oh, glory to God.
They are life to those that find them.
To those that find them.
Everybody may not find them, but there are those that will find them.
They are life to those that find them.
And what?
Held.
To what?
To all their flesh.
The word translated held there in the Hebrew translation is the word mape.
Mape means medicine.
It means kill.
Hallelujah.
In other words, he says, my words are medicine to those that find them.
Medicine.
God's words have curative powers.
Medicine to those that find them, life to those that find them, life and medicine to all their flesh.
Medicine to all their flesh.
Hiya.
Medicine, you know, there are things that people are sick of, and there's no medicine for those things.
They tell them, hey, brother, they're no care.
What?
Not when you have mape.
Hallelujah.
My pain to hold their flesh.
Medicine to hold their flesh.
No part of your body is hidden from the world.
He says, give me your attention.
As the minister to the Lord, as the first thing you need to minister to the Lord is to give him your attention.
Give him your attention.
Attend to my words.
That means you set a time aside, you take the Bible, you sit down there, or you put the tape on, and then you shut that door, and you're going to listen to the Word of God.
You're going to study the Word of God.
You're going to give attention to His Word.
And climb that ear into my sayings.
Listen, because the Spirit of God will bring His Word to your spirits.
You listen.
Keep them in the midst of your heart.
meditate on them for their life to those that find them.
Life to those that find them.
It will destroy every growth in your body.
It'll get rid of the pain.
Hallelujah.
There's some of you here who may be going through challenges in your health.
And you are all the time declaring, I'm here.
The Word of God is in me.
You are so declaring the Word, so talking that you no longer can't even give God attention.
You're giving yourself attention.
Too much attention on your condition.
Every now and then you move and you feel that thing is in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus.
All the time, all the time, you're attending to the pain.
Change your focus.
Minister to the Lord.
Are you hearing me?
Change your focus.
You have said enough.
Don't find yourself joining into unbelief.
You have said enough.
Now, minister to the Lord.
And in this way, you can also connect this whole thing in your ministry into the Lord.
For example, Lord, I thank you for giving me a wonderful body to serve you with glory to God.
This body belongs to you.
It is strengthening and healthy.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, praise God.
Your word will come far from this body always, glory to God.
See, you've connected it, and Satan can't do nothing about your body, because you're using your body now to minister unto the Lord.
Hallelujah.
Then learn to kneel before the Lord.
Learn to prostrate before the Lord.
You see, it's part of ministry known to the Lord.
Are you listening?
It's not all the time you lie on your bed, and you know, you're lying on your bed.
You know, just enjoying yourself on your bed, you know?

Sometimes, you have to humble yourself.
You know, get out of that bed.
Find your knees on the floor.
Let them hit the floor.
Stay there before the Lord.
You know, we are so blessed, you know?
Everywhere we are, there's air conditioning.
I mean, air conditioning car, to air conditioning room, to air conditioning, everything, you know?
I mean, so you are serving God.
I mean, everything's working out for you.
So much so that now you want to pray you cross your leg on your bed and say, Father, thank you, I've woken up.

Even when the Holy Spirit is saying, kneel down.
You see?
I can pray anywhere.
I thank you, Lord.
Listen, maybe that's why some of you get into some real serious problems.
Because until you have a serious problem, you never stop to give God attention.
Even to praying the money, it is prayer why you are dressing.
I thank you, Lord, as I am getting ready for work now in Jesus' name.
I thank you.
No time for God.
It's why you are on the traffic.
My name of the Lord Jesus, I just thank you, Father.
It was a great night.
I will have a great day as well.
Jesus' name.
What's wrong with that fellow?

destruction in your prayer.
And somebody is disturbing you in your window there, showing you a newspaper saying, and you are saying, what am I saying?
You need time!

But when you have a problem, guess what?
You don't even feel like going to work.
You get a problem.
You don't feel like dressing up to talk to God.
The audience is welcome.
We've been waiting to hear your voice.
Because when you have a problem, then God can have your attention.
Why don't you have a great life by not waiting for a problem?
Sir God, with Godless, given your attention, why you have it, before something else takes the attention.
There are people who are only praying in the hospital right now, and they might be there for some time, not because they are really sick, but that is the only way that God can hear their voice.
Since they've been there now, every day who is killing his.

All the food they've been eating and eating, nobody could tell them too fast, not even the Holy Spirit.
Now you bring the food to the end.
You were told to fast know that I'm trying to build.
I'm trying to build.
You've been building, okay now.
Keep building.
Until something that we collected,

serve the Lord why you choose.
Do it now.
Give him your attention.
He says teach us to number our days.
That means teach us to schedule our days.
Teach us to schedule your day.
Give God some time, some attention.
Doesn't matter where you might get that opportunity, because you may not have a place of your own to do that, but you can find a place.
You can go somewhere.
Take a chair.
Maybe go to a box and we'll sit down there.
Only you on the wall.
I love doing that.
Let's go somewhere.
Sit down there.
Like we say, holy go rise.
If something will happen.
So tell somebody again, give God your attention.
Give God your attention.
And He will bring you a word that will say something about your future.
Something about your tomorrow.
Hallelujah.
Open your mouth now and talk to the Lord.

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God bless you.