Power of Thoughts Part 2

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.
Devo is yours.

Many people in life are prisoners of thought.
Did you get that?
Prisoners of thought, they're in bondage to their minds.
We call it the bondage of the mind.
The prisoners of thought.
A lot of people who walk around sick or in the hospital today, or in some predicament in their lives,
are actually not in the condition that they talk about or in the condition that they feel, they are prisoners of thought.
Most poor people are prisoners of thought.
You are the reflection of your thinking.
You are the character of your mind.
The life you live today is a manifestation of the inner workings of your mind.
And that controls how people perceive you and how people relate to you on a regular basis.
It controls what happens to people when they come into your world.
Thoughts have a force field.
I wish that maybe I should give you a good definition of thoughts because sometimes we use words that are common that we just assume we know what they are.
Can I give you this?
I want you right now.
Thoughts are pictures of the mind with constructive or destructive meaning.
Thoughts are pictures of the mind with constructive or destructive meaning.
There are thoughts of the mind, or rather, there are pictures of the mind without meaning.
In that case you're not thinking.
Just because your mind caught a picture doesn't mean you were thinking.
But thoughts, when you are thinking, you get pictures of the mind with constructive or destructive meaning.
I'm finished.
Oh, I'm finished.
Oh, oh.
Why did he say that?
Because that's what was on his mind.
Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
And that's why God seeks to work in your heart.
He seeks to work inside you because he knows that what comes out of you is what destroys you.
Or is what takes you puts you over?
It doesn't matter what problem you find yourself in.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter what happens to you or with you.
It never matters.
What matters, yes?
What tools you got to deal with the situation?
And one of the most important tools is your thoughts.
Your thoughts, thoughts of fear, destroy.
Thoughts of impossibility, destroy.
Thoughts of weakness, destroy.
Ever heard somebody say, I know that I'm not a very bold person.
They even boldly say it.
She didn't get that.
They boldly declare that they are not very bold.
And yet he's bold to declare it.
I'm not a very bold person, you know.
I'm very, very hot in part.
See?
I know myself.
I'm very, very hot in part.
When something is happening, I start boiling.
You see, he is the character of his thoughts.
He's come to understand himself.
What is his life like?
He works.
backwards in life because he creates his future by looking inside him in the negative character of his mind and seeks to project that into his future.
I'm not a bold person because he saw that he was not bold.
He saw that he was full of fear.
He saw that his life was full of failure.
You know, I've started many businesses and they all failed.
So you see, he's no longer bold.
Just like, I don't like to do something, you know, because I don't know what might happen.
Why?
Because so many other things happened.
So he looks at the backside of his life and sees all the negativism and then projects those negativism into his future.
and wonders why he's traveling this journey.
A bondage of the man.
Ever thought that some people hated you?
You just look at them, yes, I know they don't like me, that is why.
You see, when you come into such places, you see, there are all evil people, so because I'm not evil, because I'm not Yoruba, you know, everybody speaks Yoruba, because I'm, why do you think like this?
Joseph was a Prime Minister in Egypt.

It's got, listen, your life is not the way it is because you are in the midst of houses.
That should be an advantage.
You know, you know, the foreigner is always a foreigner.
If you are not in your country, no matter how things happen, well, there is a letter come back to
Square one.
What kind of life is this?
As a young guy, I used to ask people in school, when you say you are able, you're about a door, whatever it is, when you say that, what part of your body or your life is?
What part of it?
If you were dissected,
What part of your body will be characteristically houses?
I said, you only said your house because your great-great-great-grandpa relocated himself to some area where they spoke that language.
And there's where you grew up.
If you grew up anywhere else, you would say you're from there.
Listen, no, no, no, no.
Well, son of the soil.
Son of where?
Is it a son of the son?
That's why you've got to be born again.
Because when you're born again, you're not son of the son.
You're son of God.
You see, my roots are... You know people, they like to act like they are cultural.
My roots are in half recall.
May God pluck you out of there.
My roots are... Where did they get that language from?
From somebody else who was just as dull as them.
Are you saying that we should not be culture?
This is our culture.
Where did you get it from?
Your great-great-grandfather are hoping that you don't take the road they took.
Are you still there?
There's a greater life out there.
Are you listening?
There's a greater life.
Don't be in the same bone that your great grandfather was in.
Your roots should be in Christ.
If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.
All things are passed away and all things are become.
Now, you look at your life and you think, well, you know, I'm not a very, I'm not a very outgoing person.
All right, all right, all right.
So, what are you gonna do about it?
That's a question.
You know, I don't easily make friends, that is my problem.
Okay, okay, for how long are you gonna think like this?
What are you gonna do about it?
Time to change.
You know when I was growing up, the way I was treated, I lived in my uncle, they so dealt with me and put fear in me, I grew up with fear.
Okay, okay, you are here now.
So, what are you gonna do?
What's your future gonna be like?
For how long are you gonna testify that they put fear in you?
How long will you be in bondage to your mind?
The bondage of the past?
For how long will you be there?
You still there?

How long?
Elijah, the prophet, said to the children of Israel, how long shall you hold between two opinions?
In other words, the word heart means a stagger, like a cripple.
He said, how long shall you stagger between two opinions?
How long?
How long are you going to stagger in your life?
When are you going to finally see yourself joining, upward and forward only?
I've told you, that's my life.
Awkward and forward only.
I don't have no downs.
Now there are many people who have known me for years.
There's been no down in my life.
I can't have a down.
I have no down days.
No.
I just keep moving upward.
I know people read things that tell them, you know, you win a few, you lose a few, sometimes down and sometimes up.
I don't believe that.
I believe Jesus gave us a life and he said, follow me.
He said, he that follows me shall not walk in darkness.
He shall have the light of life.
That's progress.
That's success.
That's prosperity.
That's victory.
Past of grace.
Oh, why do you give people forest hope?
Oh, everybody's life cannot be successful.
Who said, who said their own experiences told them?
Why does Pastor Christ tell people they can have a life without suffering?
I didn't say that.
I didn't say that you may not have some things to suffer.
The only thing you ought to suffer is persecution.
That's what the Bible says, and I've got quite a lot of it.
especially from those who tell me that I don't tell people the whole truth that I always don't tell them that there's the suffering part of Christianity.
Then I say, which one is the suffering part of Christianity?
You see, there must be persecution, they are persecuting me, and they tell me there must be persecution for the Christian.
I don't need to tell them that anymore because everybody can see it.
Hallelujah.
What am I saying to you?
You don't bother about what's happening around you.
It doesn't matter who likes you and who doesn't like you.
Are you listening to me?
You see, at work or in business, never limit yourself.
You know, you come in and you, oh, is this man here today?
Oh, I know he won't sign my paper.
He is not a factor!

If he will not sign it, don't be worried.
No, don't be in bondage to your thoughts.
Thoughts are coming to you that are wrong.
Thoughts are coming to you that are trying to intimidate you, trying to make you feel less than yourself.
You got to say no.
Your success is not dependent on a particular business.
If they don't give that to you, why should you care?
Hey, come on.
If they don't give that to you, there's a bigger one.
Have thoughts of hope.
That took me to the second part of the message.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 13, three great factors, three great principles, three great spiritual laws that are necessary for an exciting life.
You know you can have an exciting journey in Christ, even in the heat of trouble.
He said, when you go through the fire, you shall not be burnt.
He said it.
So why should we bother about the fire?
He said, when you go through the fire, you shall not be burnt.
So I know that I've got to go through the fire.
And I don't have to try to, you know, well, you know, this part of my life.
I know I'm going through fire now, you know, I'm going through fire.
He didn't say that you will notice it.
He didn't say that.
He said, when you go through the fire, you shall not be burnt.
Shadrach, Meshach in a bagnego went into the fire.
The Bible says nothing was burnt except the bonds with which they were tied.
And that there was no smell of fire on their clothes.

You still there?
Then he said, when you go through the water, it shall not overflow you.
So that's telling us about problems in life, in that when we go through them, we will not even notice them.
Why?
Because you stay.
You stay on the platform of the Word of God.
Stay on the platform of the Word of God.
These three principles, he said, come on, you want to see it?
All right.
I said, first, go into chapter 13.

And verse 13, got a little ready for you.
And now, hmm, abided faith, hope, love.
These three, the old King James translation says charity instead of love.
So it's love because it's translated from the Greek word agape.
God's love, all right?
So he says, now abideth faith, hope,
and love these three.
The greatest of these is love.
It says love is the greatest, but the three are the three greatest, with one being the greatest of the three.
Faith, hope, love.
Read for me the previous verse, read verse 12.

I don't know what you're saying.
Can you go to 11 and read it into 12?

Good stuff.
He said, when I was a child, I speak as a child.
I what?
Understood.
As a child.
And finally, I what?
Thought as a child.
When I became a man, I put away childish things.
It's remarkable how the spirit got gave that communication because he said, as a child, I spoke as a child.
I understood as a child.
I thought as a child.
No wonder it was a child because he spoke first and understood next before he thought.
You see that?
As a man, you think first, understand next before you speak.
You get it?
And he expressed that communication style in that particular epistle.
And so he comes to the 13th verse and he says, now abided faith, hope, love, these three.
The greatest of these is love, which means the first principle is love.
And then, until you know that you are loved, you will never make a success of your life.
You've got to know that you are loved.
If a husband doesn't know that he is loved by his wife, the family will never work out well.
If a wife doesn't know that he is loved by a husband, the family will be in shambles.
Love is not something you toy with.
Love is something you believe and speak.
Children have to know that they are loved.
And parents have to know that they are loved.
Learn to speak the law of language.
I'm an African man.
I don't talk like that.
I'm an African man.
We love what we keep in our hearts.
No.
Love has a language.
Love must speak.
If love doesn't speak, it dies.
It quenches, that is.
Don't let it quench.
Speak it.
Speak it.
So, you know, people who can't express love lavishly cannot believe in the lavish love of God.
And the Bible says, God has bestowed his love upon us, lavished his love upon us, that we are called his sons.
Lavished his love upon us.
Can you trust the love of God?
Can you have confidence in the absolute unfailing, unfading love of God?
Does God love you personally?
Does God love you?
Do you know that God loves you personally?
Can He single you out of a crowd?
This is the thought.
You know, we think, well, we are many.
If we are many, nothing is going to happen to us.
Oh, no!
I don't care how many we are.
It just doesn't matter to me how many we are.
Some people have most spiritual other, myself, here.
Who am I?
No!
That ain't got nothing to do with it.
God loves Pastor Chris.

That's the way I think.
And so I'm confident.
That's the way I think God loves me.
And his soul loves me.
And he don't care what anybody thinks.
He loves me.
Hallelujah.
Think like that.
in your life.
Be bold about it because Jesus died for you.
That's how valuable you are.
He gave his life for you.
If you were the only one on earth, he still would have done it.
He didn't do it because we were many.
He did it because we were important.
Individually important.
That's why salvation is personal.
Bring it home to yourself.
God loves me.
If God loves me, it means God wants me.
If God wants me, then he must have had a plan for me.
God has a plan for me.
And the most exciting thing the Bible says, it is the honor of God or his privilege to hide something, to hide a secret.
It is the honor of kings to set it out.
Not the honor of ordinary men, but of kings to set out the matter.
God hides it, then he says, all right, whose royalty find it out?
And I say, Lord, I'm royalty, I can find it out.
He says, go and locate it.
Look, I found it.
I found it.
I found it.
Thou will perfect that which concerned me.
You see that?
That's God's love.
Hey, He will perfect that which concerns me.
That means anything that concerns me.
It doesn't matter who you're in the world.
It doesn't matter who's talking about me, who's writing about me, who's got a file about me, anywhere in the world.
If it concerns me, God will perfect the situation.
You see my thinking?
Now, when you don't think like that, you say, I don't know.
They said they were going to promote me, but one man was against it, and that sport everything.
No, that has changed your life.
Every time you come to work, they wanted to promote me two years ago.
It was that man that said no.
Why should that change your life?
The man said no, and so that didn't promote you.
What does the Bible say?
Promotion doesn't come from the east or west or south.
It comes from the north.
So if it didn't come, because that man said no, you say, well, Father, I thank you.
He was just an instrument in your hand.
It's still coming, but it's gonna come in a big way.

Did you get that?
Faith, hope, love.
The greatest is love.
Confidence in the love of God.
Confidence in the love of God.
Love.
God loves me.
He doesn't want this cancer in my body.
God loves me.
He doesn't want this pain in my body.
God loves me.
He doesn't want me broke.
God loves me.
He doesn't want me unhappy.
God loves me.
Become confident of it.
It'll change the way you live.
Become confident of it.
It'll change your perception of your future.
God.
Hey, you're not talking about if you knew that the president of the Republic, the Federal Republic, liked you, what would you do?

I mean, if you knew that he liked you specially,
And somebody told you that he's been talking about you.

That's a man.
That's a man.
Who needs prayer for his own life, you see?
Oh, yes, all the presidents of all the nations of the world and they pray.
Barbara says, well, she'll pray for them because they need a prayer.
But God doesn't need prayer.
He doesn't need prayer.
He doesn't need help.
He's too big.
And he's the one who loves you.
Faith, hope, love.
We talked about love.
All right?
What about hope?
I said, hopes are based on thoughts.
What are hopes?
Hopes are expectant thoughts of a desired end.
Hopes are expectant thoughts of a desired end.
Now, why did I tell you that?
Because you see, he says these three abide, fate, hope, and love.
These three are powerful principles to live by.
I gotta trust in the love of God.
I gotta trust that God loves me and wants me.
If he loves me, he must want me.
If he wants me, he must have a plan for me.
So what?
I come into this world fulfilling the plan of God for my life.
Great confidence.
I'm not living for nothing.
You see it?
If you don't know why you're alive, you're going to be doubting about, doubting the darkness, not knowing where you're going.
You do this and you do that.
You get into this business and you run out of it.
And do this and run out.
You keep moving around.
Whatever they say is working is what you get into.
You see that?
No, don't let your life be swayed by the circumstances of the season.
Hope is based on thoughts.
And so how can I be expectant?
Because my thoughts are expectant.
So hope depends on what I think about.
What do I think about myself?
What do I think about God?
What do I think about my environment?
Am I going to give up and say nothing works?
I'm finished, nothing works.
Is that the way I'm going to think?
Am I going to think like, oh, everybody around me is it?
Nowhere is safe.
Is that how you're going to think?
Let's suppose, let's suppose everybody around you, everybody around you was a thief.
Okay?
You have come in among thieves.
So you're either going to be a thief or you're going to lose to the thieves or you decide.
Let me tell you something.
When I was
You know, years ago, when I was a student, they had these guys who were rough.
They were courteous.
They were rough.
And, you know, I could preach in the fellowship and preach strong and say a lot of things.
And I knew that they were going to hear those things.
And they were going to think about O'Neilian, you know, the thoughts who come to them will get this guy.
So, and I pray to God, oh Lord, I talk bold in that place.
And you know how these guys are wicked?
So what am I gonna do?
Then God told me to be bold and to challenge them.
So, I began to know some of them and I'll go straight to them and talk to them about Jesus.
When I did, it changed them.
They realized they were just men, just human.
And then the gospel became so strong, my brethren were so empowered and encouraged, and we started winning them.
We won the topmost of them and brought them into the fellowship.
You understand?
That's what we do.
There's more inside you than the world could ever fathom.
Amen.
All right, so I'm gonna think, hey, change your thoughts because your life, what you are today, is the expression of all your thoughts, all these years, period.
You look like your mind.
Now, I don't know how many people like that.
Now, if you found out, and this is true anyway,
that your face is the expression of the character of your thoughts.
How do you feel?
And not only that, your life, the way you are, is the character of your mind.
Plus that, the circumstances of your life are the expression of your mind.
Why do some people always have accidents?
By their confession, they have opened up their lives to demonic operations.
And they don't know this.
They have fear because they had an accident one time.
They said, was I had the cost of the first accident?
I was not the cost.
I was not the cost, okay?
Now, so how can I be the cost of the second one and the third one and the fourth one?
In one year, only five near-death experiences.
And we don't know how many, this is just the middle of the year.
Now, how many more are you gonna have?
And keep testifying, you know what happened?
Brothers and sisters, as I was coming like this, and something was coming like this, they almost finished me like this.
It was God that just saved my life.
When is your testimony going to go beyond that level?
As I was just going like this, they just shot the bullet, like you, I did like this.
Where will your life stop being constantly harassed?

Most you always be at the wrong place.
Every time you come, that's when the trouble is just starting.
No.
Then you come to a point in your life, you say, mm-mm, mm-mm.
See, there comes a time when you learn to say, I told you, there's trust on this face.
In trust, we say, it doesn't matter what happens.
In faith, we say, in my path, there is no death.
You see?
We trust.
We trust.
We say, I know my redeemer, leave it.
I know my redeemer, leave it.
I know my redeemer, leave it forevermore.
So you are looking up in your hearts, my redeemer, leave it.
No matter what happens.
In faith, you say, in the name of Jesus Christ, ministering spirits,
What are ministry spirits?
Angels.
Go forts.

Listen.
Listen.
You don't want to live a life of a constantly begging God.
He's already done everything for you.
faith, hope, love.
We've talked about love, hope.
Now, faith, faith, come to faith.
Are you hearing me?
Come to faith.
We're told the father of faith is Abraham.
Abraham demonstrated trust and he demonstrated faith.
I want to read to you a part of the testimony of Abraham in faith.
And I want us to see it.
You ready?
Okay.
Quickly to
the book of Romans, chapter number four.
I read this years ago, and when I did, I had a celebration of victory because that was my first time of understanding it.
That was way back in 1985.
I was meditating on the word.
in my room, I had read it many times before, but for the first time it made sense to me.
I began to run around in my room, run around and run around and shout, listen to it.
It is from verse 15, Romans chapter four, because the law work at Ross for where no law is, there is no transgression.
Therefore,
Verse 16, therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace to the end, the promise might be sure to all the seeds, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all.
That's what I want you to see.
It talks about the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all.
Amen.
Now he brings it into the light.
Verse 17, as it is written, I have made thee a father.
God was talking to Abraham.
I have made thee a father of many nations before him whom he believed.
Even notice something.
God said, I like it.
When you started in the book of Genesis, you understand it even better.
God said to Abraham, I have made you a father of many nations.
He didn't say, I will make you a father of many nations.
He said, I have made you a father of many nations.
The past ends of God's word.
All right?
Okay.
Then he says,
Even God, he tells us about the character of God here.
He says, God who quick connect the dead, that means God makes the dead alive.
He quickens the dead.
This is the best explanation of the operation of faith.
Look at it.
He says, God gives life to the dead.
In other words, nothing is ever too late for God.
He tells us about the God of Abraham, how Abraham perceived God.
This is before him whom he believed, even God.
Who quickens the dead?
Abraham believed in the God that quickens the dead.
And that's the same thing about Paul.
He said that we will not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.
Think about that.
So he, when you come to him, you understand that nothing is ever too late for him.
It can never be so bad that he don't know what to do.
So number one, he quickens the dead.
Oh, he can give life to the dead.
Has your hair stopped growing?
He can give life to the dead.
Are you listening to me?
Something happening in your body.
He can give life to the dead.
He quickens the dead.
That's how big he is.
Okay, look at the next thing.
And this, oh boy.
Hey, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, oh.
Understand it.
This is the principle of faith.
I said, it's different from trust.
Look at it.
I want you to read it for me.
After the word, dead, go on.

Say, say with me that space.
That's the fate of God.
You see that?
He calls those things which be not as though they were.
He said to Abraham when he had no child, I have made you a father of many nations.
He changed his name.
That's when he told him that.
He said, you have been called Abraham, exalted father or assumed father.
He says, your name shall no longer be Abraham, but Abraham.
Abraham means father of many.
He says, I have changed your name to Abraham, because a father of many nations have I made you.
Now look, the man could not fulfill the plan of God for his life, because every day they called him a Zoom Father.
Suppose, Father, they didn't quite say that to him, but that was the meaning of his name.
You see, they didn't make a sentence out of it, but that was the meaning of his name.
What does your name mean?
Well, you see, the truth is, those things are not presently in our consciousness, so we don't understand the power of faith's confessions.
We don't understand how those things affect us, what we hear every day, what we say every day, what is said to us every day.
We don't understand how those things affect us and create an envelope within which we function.
When you come into the arena of faith, and this is what I want to explain to you, when you come into the arena of faith, God's stats, oh glory to God, that's why He said without faith, it is impossible to please God.
Why is it so?
Because only the law of faith can connect you with God's realities.
Only the law of faith.
Only the law of faith.
Otherwise, you will see the promises of God.
But when you look at your life, it's not exactly so.
You sat wondering, I'm praying, I'm praying, I'm praying.
But the law of faith, the law of faith, the law of faith will make the difference.
Here, Christianity is a life to be lived.
Are you listening?
Don't let things happen by themselves.
Don't let things happen by themselves.
In the realm of the Spirit, life is different.
It's not going to change with time.
Do you know how far along Satan has been running around page all over the world?
So things are not going to change with time.
Those are given time.
Things will change.
No.
They will not change with time.
They can get worse with time.
If you leave your garden without cultivating it, what will happen?
Weeds.
Weeds.
It don't remain empty.
Some things will grow by themselves.
And the things that grow by themselves are often the things you don't want.
So your life can be full of weeds.
Weeds growing.
Your health now has weeds.
Your finances has weeds.
Everything, weeds, weeds, weeds, weeds.
Don't let weeds grow.
Decide the pace.
Move from trust to faith.
If you move from trust to faith, you will not lose trust.
You'll just learn to enhance your trust with faith.
Trusting God for our time and controlling things for now.
That's the way your life becomes.
The victorious life is brought by faith.
It is lived by faith.
Faith is your ability to see and make it real now.
That's why His faith is the substance of things hoped for.
Hebrews 11-1.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for.
The evidence of things not seen.
It is calling real what I have hoped for.
Hope sees pictures.
of unexpected and desired end.
But I see the picture far off, they haven't come.
Faith brings those pictures to today's reality so that I can function into this reality now, even though I have seen them far off.
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God bless you.