A Practical Approach To The Theology Of Suffering (Aeronova Retreat 2023) - Dick Dungan (Part 2)

​In this second part of the teaching, Dick emphasizes the importance of renouncing the world and crucifying the flesh to fulfill God's destiny and purpose in life. While the enemy of our soul, Satan, uses suffering as a tool to destroy our faith and confidence in God, God uses it to refine and develop our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
This series of teachings is recorded live from The Retreat by AeroNova 2023. To find out more about how to attend the annual Retreat visit theretreat.aeronova.org. 

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Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors):


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I really do have to share another picture of what it would be like when I meet one of my mentors in glory. The cool thing about it he's not there yet. He's 94. And during COVID, when some of the sons of these men that are with us were we were doing a a early Saturday morning Bible study on Zoom, because we couldn't get together. And so we were doing it. And on one particular I, my heart has been to introduce the younger generation to some of the classics AW Tozer and Andrew Murray and some of the classic writings. And so my mentors, early on in my journey, gave me those books. And of course, I've got mine all marked up from the years of just reading them and Sachin. So I got a stack of about nine, started taking these guys through this. Well, one Saturday morning during COVID, we're done with that and, and got off of zoom and, and I'm just sitting there at my decks desk on a Saturday morning, all of a sudden my phone rings. And it's my, at that time 90 year old mentor in my life, TD Hall. And he's got this deep bass voice. And he said, All deck, how you doing? He said, I just been sitting here and going through my roller disc. Anybody know what a roller disc is? We'll explain what a roller disc is in a minute. He said, and I was looking at your picture. And he said, I just thought I'd give you a call and find out how you're doing. You know. So here he is 90 years old checking up on me. Of course, I was only 78 At that time, you know, and he's kind of looking out for me. But connecting the generations and people that you walk with and you trust. And when I was going through a very, very difficult time. And I don't know if I'll get to it in my notes. I'll just add it to him right now. But when he gets to have it, and he's not there yet? Well, when we walk through some tough times, and I had a vision, a clear vision at a retreat we were at. I mean, it was Technicolor, living Technicolor. And I went to a medical school I was at a mesh road ministry school at that time, and he was a president of the school. And I went to him and I shared the vision. And he knew my story. He had spoken in my life and been a safe place for me. And he said this and he may just say this when he gets to glory, and he gets there before I do and I meet him, his words will sound something like this. Isn't that just like the Lord? Because when I shared the vision with him, he looked at me and he said, Isn't that just like the Lord, what the enemy has intended for evil? God is going to use for good. Those are the words he spoke over me, as I explained the vision that I had had on a Saturday morning. So Father, I just ask that you help us pick up where we left off, so that you can speak what you have to say as I attempt to share my heart. And I just thank you for your faithfulness. I thank you for hearing yours. Thank you that that I sense, just an awareness of your presence in our midst these last couple of days, Lord, it's been fresh and refreshing. And we have been able to rest in your presence. And we thank you for that. So as we continue, we just trust you to do what only you can do, and will give you praise. In Jesus name. Amen. So where I left off was as we were talking about our real enemies. And of course the first one is the world and what do we do with the world? renounced the world, it isn't that we don't live in the world but we have to discern the things that you Do that keep us captive from the world and hinder us from fulfilling God's destiny and purpose in our life. And so we have to discern that, so that we can choose to say, No, I'm not going to let that control my life, just like, the word I heard from the Lord was is, is, Do not give your heart to the world. Don't give your heart to the world because your heart belongs to me. And so as we discern those things that are distracting us and keeping us from the world, and it could be the phones that we have, which we've talked about, while we've been here, those kinds of things, it could be a multitude of things, you know, so that's the world, we've got to renounce that and then the flesh, what do we do with it, we got to crucified, we have to choose to go to the cross, we have to choose the way the cross that's we have. I mean, we know the word that says pick up your cross and follow me daily. And when you know, we can say that intellectually. But that doesn't really mean that that's what we do in reality, if we don't choose and recognize those things of the flesh, because the flesh is trying to destroy us. And of course, so some of those words, those descriptive descriptive terms were as man, you got to get pretty violent with the flesh, he got to decide to kill it. And of course, the only way it dies is not the cross. We don't have the strength to kill it in ourselves like that. So then we we covered briefly the reality of those three things somebody mentioned during the, our lunchtime, just the reality of, we think about sin, but the reality is, is we also have the iniquity that God forgave and the rebellion that transgression in our heart, and we have to, and I, I can remember ministering to a young man, one time and, and I've had a lot of young guys come help me in my yard, do yard work, because we have kind of a little place in the country that needs help at times more than I can do. And so one of the things I like to do is have the guys come out and help me and then work with him. And then Mary fixes a big meal. When we're done, we have time around the table and get a chance to interact. Well, one day, I'd ask this young man to do something, and, and he came back and told me he'd done it. So I put him on another project. And then I went over and looked at the project that I had asked him to do, and it wasn't done real well. And so after he got done with the project that I had put him on, I said, you know, we probably need to work on that one a little bit more, you know, so the next day he came in, because he was dealing with some issues, and we decided the issue was, you know, he's looking at the wrong things on on the to, you know, on the internet. And so I asked him that question. I said, Do you have any idea what God's forgiven you for? And, and he said, Well, he said, and I said, Well, let's look at Exodus. And so I took him there. I told him about God's forgiveness for that twisted nature, your iniquity as well. And then I said that word transgression, what do you suppose that means? He says, Well, I really don't know. I said, Well, that means rebellion. Like what I saw in your eyes yesterday, when you didn't like going back and fixing that first project. And he broke down and wept. And he said, My heart is full of it. Our hearts are full of rebellion, say, so we have to choose to crucify the flesh and deal with those things. So and I introduced the the reality of Satan, our enemy, and he's our opponent. He's the he hates us. He's the hater. The accuser, the adversary, the enemy, the one who resist obstructs and hinders whatever is good. I mean, we have an enemy that does not like us, you know, and we have to come to grips with that. I'm going to give you some scripture references. We don't have time to go into them, but they're all references to where the deep demonic world works. Okay. Demons try to hinder God's plan. You can go to Daniel 1013, for that, and you've got demons want to destroy people. You know, Mark 134, demons deceived people, Second Corinthians 1150 13 through 15. demons want to mislead people. First Timothy fort for one and two, Satan will tempt Jesus followers, Matthew four, one through 11, which he did with Jesus, he tempted them. And we all know these things that we've become familiar with him. But I think we lose sight of the reality of how the enemy is at work. And there's more that I won't cover now. But that gives you a little insight of just some of the things in Scripture that the Words been revealing to me. I wrote these words down. Just during this journey Satan uses suffering, to drive a wedge between us and God. He uses suffering as a tool to destroy our faith and confidence in God. The same tool that Satan uses to destroy our faith. God uses to refine and develop our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, what Satan inflicts to wound us. God intends to prune us what Satan inflicts to Prunus. Or to to to inflict to wound us. God intends to prune as he uses that process to prune us, no matter how difficult and painful the circumstances are. So we look at Luke 22, verses 31 through 32. And we recall it says in Scripture, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, Simon, Satan is asked to sift each of you, that's the new or the New Living Translation, I just, I just got new white, white pages. You know, every few years, I get my Bible all marked up. And so I try to get new white pages. And so I'm on to the New Living Translation, which really came out several years ago, but I'm slow learner, so I just got it, but I'm really enjoying it. And this is what it says, Says, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you know, I think in the King James or New King James and say, to sift you, you know, but I like that it just kind of hit me. Wow. He didn't know intended just sift Peter. He uses circumstances to sift us, you know, in our life to it says, gonna sift you like wheat. But I Jesus says, I have pleaded in prayer. For you. I love that word. In the New King James or King James, it says, I've prayed for you. Within the New Living Translation says, I've pleaded for you. Wow, you know, Simon, that your faith should not fail. And that's I really a prayer that I have for every one of us in the midst of trial in the midst of sifting in the midst of, of trying to walk with God and obey God in our life. And all of us get assignments. Every one of us has a sphere of influence, in which the Lord, the Holy Spirit of God, and the Word of God, used by the Holy Spirit wants us to say yes to in other words, we hear God say something, are we going to say yes, Lord, Your servant listens? Yes, Lord, that's what I'm gonna do. When we say, yes, you can depend that the enemy doesn't like it. I mean, because if, if the world is not consuming our life, and the flesh, it does not have dominion and control in our life. And the Holy Spirit is working through the word of God in our life, then, the only options that Satan and the demons of hell, you know, are they're going to, they're going to do everything to attack us. And that happened to me as we move along. I want to I want to, I want to, I want to talk about how we deal with at first, and then I want to share my own personal journey in conjunction with that. So Satan, bring suffering, in an effort to diminish our faith. This is another quote from Nancy Guthrie of the holding on to hope or discovering hope, however, that title is over there, says, But Satan brings suffering in an effort to diminish our faith. He brings temptation in an attempt to deceive us. He brings doubt about God's love and goodness, to try to strained us from God, to try to separate us from God. And that's one of the books that she wrote on hearing Jesus speak, in the midst of your sorrow. One of our excellent books, hearing Jesus speak in the midst of our sorrow, he wants to do that. So what do we do with Satan? What do we do with a demonic if we have to renounce the world and crucify the flesh? We got to cast out the devil. Okay. And so, this is what it says in Scripture in regard to how we, if you look up the definition on cast, now, this is what I discovered. First of all, we have to the big word is expel. We have to expel the devil. But get some of this and get get in the journey of What we've got to envision when we're fighting with a devil. We, we've got to banish. We've got to boot out, like, kick out, you know, we've got to bounce. We've got to chase. We had to chase him to chase him out. We got to dismiss him. We got to drum beat him drum him out. I think drum beat him with a word. You know? Okay, totally. And out of those promises, we got to eject him. We got to extrude him. We got to kick him out. We got to oust him. We got to route him, we got to run him off. We got to throw him out. We got to, we got to turf him. Going down on the turf? Yeah, let's stop him. Oh, we got to do. I mean, I love those descriptive terms, you know, is we envision that it's not an easy wrestling match. You know, it's not an easy. So we've got to recognize that we have to take authority over that darkness. Now, God put us in community. Because sometimes we get in the midst of the battle. And we can't get out by herself. You know, it's, it's hard to get out, you know. And that happened to me, in 2008. A year the Beijing Olympics was in Tasmania early in the year doing training of at some people to go in to do outreach in China, for the Beijing Olympics, I ended up taking a trip into China ended up doing a conference at home with some of our team, because God had spoken to me clearly about, about how we may love Jesus. And we may love the word. And we may even know the love of the Father to some degree. But many times we don't let the Holy Spirit work in our lives. And so we were doing a little conference with some of our teammates, in our home church. And a week before this conference was coming. One of our teammates, a husband and wife pair, the the gentleman whose book is on there, Jim Mackey is the name seeds of promises that book, he was going to come and speak on the father heart of God, and his wife was going to come and speak on the Holy Spirit. Okay. And so I knew is significant, because God had told me that there was a need for us as a people to open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, to yield ourselves and invite him to come in and work in our life at a deeper level become more sensitive to his voice. And so about a week before the conference, I'm Mary and I had went to bed, and at about two o'clock in the morning, all of a sudden, I had this horrific dream. And I was standing in the midst of a gathering. And as I was teaching the word out of my peripheral vision, I could see a python snake come through the cold air return on the wall. And in the midst of this, as I'm teaching, my response to seeing that was, oh, you again. So I recognize that it was the enemy. But I just went on teaching. And the serpent came in and came behind me and disappeared. And I woke up, I was startled. What was that? And, I mean, it was it was startling to have such a vivid dream, you know, I had no clue what it was. And at that time, I wasn't sensitive enough to what that meant. And because of the busyness of preparing for a conference and getting, getting things ready, I didn't spend adequate time focusing on it. So the night of the event, were gathered together as a group of people. And everybody's kind of excited. We're together. We're in the foyer of our churches, a small gathering of probably about 30 people. 2530 people wasn't large. But I knew that this was a word with Jim talking about the father, heart of God and Pam speaking, the intimacy of the Holy Spirit because she really walked closely with God, you know, and you can tell that in our life. And so I get up to introduce or to welcome the people and the introduce our worship leader, and to start to worship and all of a sudden I went mute I couldn't even remember his name. And we're, He's on our team. So finally, I just motion to him, you know. And I left the bike and walk around behind the group, and started praying in the Spirit immediately, and just praying, and all of a sudden, one of the daughters of one of our close friends who just got married not long ago, and, and has a beautiful little baby now. Anyway, she's about nine years old at that time, she gets up, she walks around, this beautiful little towhead girl comes up to me, stands right next to me, and thrusts her arm in the air, her arms, just like that, and looks up at me. And the Holy Spirit's had take authority and worship. And then she left I don't know what happened to her, you know, she didn't even remember doing it. But it was real as we're sitting right here. And so I went back forward, started taking authority and worship. Meanwhile, one of the other young ladies, it's been part of our church, family back home, she's over in the corner, and she's taken authority and just, you can tell an intercession and dancing and intercession. So we went on had a great meeting, the Holy Spirit worked in our midst, we moved because more people started coming, we moved into the auditorium the next night. And as we started to prepare again, I felt the same thing start to come on me, and just renounced it, okay. And, and then we started worship, and the Holy Spirit came and ministered to two people that were there that night. But I had no clue what was happening in my life, over the next several months, so much oppression came on me that I could hardly function. And the only way it would lift off is if I would go into my prayer closet, and turn on worship, and start worshiping. And then it lift off for a little while. And then I tried to go back to doing what I normally do. And I would get, be able to function a little bit, and then it hit again. And I'd have to go back into worship, and just start worshiping the Lord exalting the Lord and praising his name. And I went through that from August, or July, actually, of 2008, until May of 2010. Trying to function not knowing what was going on. And then Lord took me to his word. And we don't have time to go there. But in Acts 1616, Paul and Silas are going to prayer. And it says they come across a young lady that is telling everybody is there there to preach the good news. I mean, that's my paraphrase. You understand what I'm saying there. So she was promoting it. But Paul was discerning enough that she was actually mocking, say, and he discerned that and so he cast that spirit out. Now, most translations will say it was a spirit of divination. Okay, but if you look at the root word, the Greek word there, the word is Python. Oh. Which literally means constriction. constriction, okay. And that's what I was dealing with. And I got so unbearable, I could hardly function. I mean, I tried to function I tried to do what I could you press through, you just keep going, you know. And finally, one night, I said to Mary, meanwhile, our precious Pam that shared on the Holy Spirit passed away of cancer. We lost this sister, and she's home with the Lord. No, but we lost her. So her husband was grieving. And he was down at the International House of Prayer. And he kept saying to me, you need to come down here. You need to get down here. So finally, one day I gave in and I just told Mary, I said, I am. I'm going to leave. I'm going to go down tomorrow morning, I'm going down to Kansas City. So I got down there make a long story short, in the second night, I'm there I'm sitting there in the front row, and he was on the prayer teams, and I'm really battling was just there's a battle going on from my soul. All of a sudden, he grabs me by the arm, I look up and he grabs me and it's so funny. He says you're gonna get prayer. And he drugged me through about 50 people being prayed for it was during the ministry time. And I don't know if you're familiar with Alan hood. He was one of the leaders at IHOP he was up and he'd preached the Word. And then another friend is on staff by the name of Daniel Lim, who Mary and I had known stayed at their home one time when we were down there. And, and Jim just drugged me through the the crowd and stuck me right in front of Daniel, who was praying for somebody. And all of a sudden, Daniel was done. And he turned and looked at me and said, DEC said, you know, and just started embrace me. And Jim was all business. He said, Dick needs prayer now. So he shifted right away and started praying for me. And of course, I'm watching and just trying to, you know, to just receive whatever God has. And all of a sudden, I saw Allen, who would preach the Word, come off the platform, come down out of the steps, come through the crowd, and come right up beside Daniel Lim, in front of me. And they started praying. And when they started praying, and Jim was there with me, and all of a sudden the power of God came on me. And I had an out of body experience. I mean, I was physically on the floor, because I couldn't stand under the power of God. But what I saw while I was on the floor was my body was elevated. And this serpent was wrapped around me, and was looking me in the face, and I was about to give up. And take my last breath. And out of nowhere, I saw these, like hands, but not like fingers. But I think they were angelic hands. And all of a sudden, they came and they took a head of hold of the head of that serpent, and pulled it off. I saw myself spinning like this circling like that. And I saw the serpent go, saw these hands thrust that serpent to the ground, and it disintegrated. The next thing I knew is I'm on the floor. And I'm saying, like, breathe, I can't breathe. I can't breathe, thank you. I couldn't breathe. I just started weeping. I was just overcome with a powerful, powerful sense of God's love and presence for me, you know. And I share that with you. I don't share it in a lot of places. But I felt led to share this because the demonic is real. And he hates us. And I believe God gave me the site as an assignment when he gave me that vision when I was at a major stroke ministry school after I had led a church split. And I'm standing there with my wife on a Saturday morning. And all of a sudden, I have this Technicolor vision of me standing in the middle of a wooden arch bridge. And I can see the water and hear the water going underneath the bridge. And there's people on that side of the bridge and people on that side of the bridge. And I'm going like this encouraging them to come together. And as I was doing that, many of them came towards me in the middle of the bridge. But there were a few that remained on the bank that turned their back and walked away. And the vision was gone. So it was the following. Tuesday morning, I met with my mentor TD Hall. And I told him what had happened. And he said, in that just like the Lord, what the enemy is intended for evil God's going to use for good. And I believe that he's been doing that ever since. interesting sidenote, as I was a part, Mary and I were a part of the original along with David, the church plant in 1980, in Norfolk, Nebraska. After being gone from that church for seven years, the Lord told us to go told me to go back there to that church, and to be a servant is interesting. People didn't want me back there. So I requested that I could share and ask for forgiveness before the congregation. But the elders wouldn't let me do that. And I said, Why? Why? Because the Lord said, because I have a better way Asana. I'm going to allow every person you hurt to come in front of you. So you can personally ask her forgiveness one at a time. And over the next three years, many people whether I was working out at the Y or walking down a street, in a restaurant, where it was the Holy Spirit's say then so I'll go on will not say I need to ask you forgiveness for the pain that cost in her life when I created that church back in 1984, and thank God, most of them forgave me. One lady is very interesting. She looked me straight in the eye. And she said, some things will never be forgotten. And she did 180 and turn the other way. Is this is interesting, because a couple of years later, she had moved to town from out of town had no family in town. So a couple years later, she was alone for Christmas. So the Lord said, Why don't you invite her to come for Christmas? So we invited her to come for Christmas, and then we honey. And so she came to Christmas. And, you know, we never talked about it, but something changed in the heavenlies. You know, because now I can say or say hi to her, give her a hug. And you know, that So, God is good. That's where I'm going. Next, I'm going to talk about God's discipline as a way of suffering. Okay, so, oh, I forgot something. Did I did I cover what we got to do with the devil? Did I cover all that? Okay. I was afraid, you know, with this, you know, I said, we got to kick them out and do all that stuff. Okay, good. Well, that's what we got to do. Okay. So okay, so. So, okay, so that the next thing that I want to talk about is this suffering from a loving father's discipline. You know, we have a heavenly Father that loves us so much. He allows us to suffer, so that he can refine us and purify us. So I'm going to read the Scripture, a couple of scriptures, because I've really came here to become dear to my heart. But in Hebrews 12, five through 11. It says this, And have you forgotten the encouraging words, I want you to listen to some of these words. And have you forgotten the encouraging words, God spoke to you as children. He said, My child, don't make light of the Lord's discipline, and don't give up when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines, those he loves. And he punishes everyone he accepts as a child. As you endure this discipline, this divine discipline that says in the New Living Translation, as you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his children, his own children. There's more there, I'll leave that to read for you to read if you go on through it. But I've spent time there and recognize that my father loves me so much, and he loves you so much, that he will allow you to go through suffering. And remember when I said earlier, that often when we face trials, we ask the wrong question. We ask the question, Why me, Lord, instead of saying, Lord, what are you saying to me? What is it I have loved to do this over the years? Because he's taught me how, how faithful he is when I do it. And that is, I'll say, Lord, sometimes I'm just not feeling much like Jesus, ever. anybody in this room besides me not feel much like Jesus sometime. Okay. So I've learned I go to him and say, Lord, would you put your finger on that thing in my heart? That doesn't look like you. He's faithful. He's like, he likes that question. If we bill still, and he's never beaten me up. That's Satan. That's the enemy wants to beat you about the head, neck and shoulders. When we asked the Lord that question, he'll gently speak to you say, my son, my daughter, you know, I want you to realize the the impact that what you're doing or say, and has on those around us that He's so gentle, subtle kind. And it's all modern 19 I think Riley was, she really loved Psalm 19. And I love Psalm 19. Do But Psalm 119. I came across several years ago, I was reading through Psalm 190. And it was probably when I was going through one of them struggles and between Psalm 119, verse 50, and verse 75, so in 25 verses you have some profound insight into discipline and sufferings. So I'm just going to read those to you. And then we'll move on move towards some pretty exciting news. Okay? Okay. So Psalm 119 50 says this, your promise or some translations say your word revives me. It comforts me in all of my affliction. My net amazing, says your word, your promises, they revive me. They comfort me and all of my affliction. In verse 67, it says, I used to wander off until you discipline me. If anybody here ever wandered off a little bit away from ya, says, I used to wander off until you discipline me or it says afflicted me, depend on the translation. But now I closely follow your word. Psalm 119 71 says this, my suffering or affliction was good for me. That's an interesting perspective. You know, the soul must realize God's hand of suffering. infliction was good for says, Because I needed it. Yeah, that's what it says. I know the Lord. That's all that 75 I know, Lord, that your regulations or your state statutes are fair. You disciplined or afflicted me, because I needed it. How many of us recognize we need it? We need it just like our little children need it? They don't like it. And we're in a world today that says you can't do those things to little children. You can't speak spank him, you can't do this can't do that. And they don't have the opportunity to experience the Father's love through appropriate discipline, you know, because of all of these boundaries and these things, okay. Great. God's discipline is never punitive. But always redemptive. God's discipline is never punitive, but always redemptive. We live in a culture in a society that's full of systems that are not redemptive. They're punitive. We try to change people through the process of punitive damage, thinking that will fix them. But the world system doesn't work. Only God's systems or, you know, because God's system is always redemptive. You always want to see redeem, you know, little interesting note, our church in Norfolk that David and I were involved along with Mary and 21 other people started in 1980. Today, Mary and I are the last of the original founders. You see, God called us for the lack there, and to be a servant. And now today, we don't do nothing. We just pray and we greet people and shake their hand and tell them we're happy. They're there is cool. No, we really don't have to do anything. Well, she got enrolled back in the nursery. So I think she's actually got, she's got she, our good friend, who was in charge, oversees the children's ministry, she, she found out Mary would like to get back with little babies. And so now she gets a call on a regular basis. Okay. Now, the last one, I'll wrap up this and then we're going to ask the worship team to come but I titled this, the entrance into the eternal kingdom. The entrance into the eternal kingdom. I look around, I see these young people and they're at the beginning of their life, you know, and now that I'm an octogenarian, I don't know how many more days God's gonna give me You know, I don't know how many more days we'll have. Mary and I have a plan when we reach 90 We're going to hold hands and say be myself Lord. So when we get there, that's what we're gonna try. Was this ever work anyway? Let me read this three out of Second Peter, verse one, or excuse me, seven, Second Peter one verse three through seven I love this text, man hours, preach many messages with his divine power by his divine power. God has given us everything that we need for life and godliness. His divine power has given us everything we need for life, for godly life. We've received all of this by coming to know him intimately, the one who called us to himself by means of His marvelous glory, and excellence. And because of His glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share His divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by human desires. In view of all of this, make every effort to respond to God's promises, supplement your faith, with generous provision of moral excellence, some translations save virtue. And add to that moral excellence or virtue of that, to that knowledge, which is really the intimacy of getting to know God. And to the knowledge and self control. definition for self control that the Lord gave me years ago was instant obedience to the initial prompting of the Holy Spirit. I say that, yeah, instant obedience, that's immediate. Yes, little obedience to the initial, that's first. Probably the Holy Spirit. You know, that's self control. You know, and God's calling us to add that to our life and to that as patients are perseverance. I got a few stories to tell on that. But I won't tell you that okay. was so good bye, guys, then amazing. And to your patients are in patient endurance, add patient, to your patient endurance, add godliness, into your godliness, lead, add brotherly affection and to your brotherly affection. Love for everyone. So as eight characteristics there that Peter says that we need to add to our life, we need to participate in them by taking a hold of those promises that he's given us. Some reason I'm just while I'm here, going through this, all of a sudden, the Lord is just wanting me to talk about the issue of shame for a minute. A lot of people carry shame in their life for their past failure, and they can't seem to get free from it. So in the process of growing in my understanding of that I, I took my night 1960 Whatever it was when I went to the University, Collegiate Dictionary out off the shelf, and I opened it up. And I looked up the word shame. And then I looked down after the definition, and I look for the antonym. What's the opposite? Guess what the opposite of the word shame is? Glory. The opposite of the word shame, is glory. So when we come to that intimate place of walking with God, we are trading our shame for His glory. Remember, I said when we be hold him, we're changed from what? Glory to Glory. See, and shame can't stay on us. Some of you may be carrying some shame today for past failure. And as we have opportunity to respond, we will unveil and pray for you that you can walk in the revelation of what that is. I really believe Peter understood something there in time doesn't allow it today. But probably 40 years ago, the Lord showed me that there was a connection between this that Peter was talking about, and the Beatitudes. So if you go back to Matthew five, the very first sermon on the mount, you're going to find eight characteristics that Jesus said we have to have. Blessed are the poor in spirit Rent? Well, we don't come to saving faith, we can't come to faith until we become poor in spirit. And you can walk that completely around and find the key to what Peter is saying here in Matthew five, those eight things is try it sometime. It's pretty cool. You know, and our friend, Billy Skinner, after the Lord had shown me this, we were at a meeting, some, whatever years ago it was, I'm sitting there listening to our brother, Billy Skinner preached this message, the connection between the two. And it was like, I sat there, and I said, Thank You, Lord, somebody else is in this, you know, I thought maybe it was just me. That was encouraging. Okay, so I'm going to wrap with this verse right here. So go down a little further. And second, Peter one, verses 10 B through 11. Oh, I pray that we'll hear this in our spirits, brothers and sisters, it says so dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God is called and chosen, do these things, and you will never fall away. Then God will give you a grand entrance. I love that thought. I can see a drumroll. There they come. I'm calling them home. And all these cloud this cloud of witnesses, they're saying, Oh, wow. It's time for him to come. Those are the one before us. Well, the grand entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So I want to ask a question. We can just, I mean, not only my Baptist tradition, say everybody, every head bowed every you know, you can look right at it if you want to. You don't have to have every head bowed. But I want to ask you this. If we look at the enemies, the world, the flesh and the devil, during this process, have you asked the Holy Spirit? Is there have I given my heart to the world in any area, I'd encourage you to ask the Holy Spirit that you say, Lord, remember, he says Do not love the world. So I'm just saying in the phrase that I felt like the Lord said me Don't give your heart to the Holy Spirit. So the question would be is, Lord, have I given any part of my heart? To the world? If that's you, we want you to be prayed for today if you're willing to receive that. Secondly, the flesh we have to crucify the flesh, we have to choose to die daily, Paul said I die daily. We have to to but if you need prayer, if you're battling with something in that realm, remember I said these these three enemies are odd bedfellows. I mean, they just work together in different ways, you know, but if that's one of the issues, the the carnal nature, the breaking the power of that flesh, fleshly nature, if that's an area, you need prayer for the prayer team, pastoral team will come and be prepared to pray for you. And then lastly, I shared about the demonic know, when I want to share about this demonic experience that I experienced. I wasn't saying that everybody is going to be attacked that way. But the word Python is constrict. And where I have ministered this word, in other places, I've discovered that some of God's children feel constricted. They feel shut down. They feel like they've been limited, you know, in, in being able to fulfill God's purpose in their life. So I'm going to pray. And if that's you, we want to be able to pray for you as well. You know, I trust God to break the power of that off you for life. That good. Father, thank you. Thank you for your faithfulness. And thank you for your word, most of all, Lord, and the way your Holy Spirit works in our midst. I thank you for every precious one. That is here. It's not a coincidence, Lord. You have sovereignly sovereignly ordained that each bro Other each sister will be here for such a time as this. So Lord, I lift them up to you right now. And as we wait before you, Lord Jesus asked that you would speak to each heart in any area of need that they have, that they can come to you. They can receive from you. Thank you, Holy Spirit, you're our guide. You're a teacher, you're our comforter, you're the one that can fix. So we entrust and I plead your precious blood Lord Jesus, over everyone. In Jesus name, Amen. And amen. Thank you for joining us today. Erin Nova is raising up spiritual leaders in many nations through our spiritual enrichment events, syndicated net cast international prayer Council network, and numerous international seminary scholarships. 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