Spiritual Insights & Focus For 2024 (Part 3) Setting Our Houses In Order - Rod Mills

​Each year, we pray and seek the Lord for His guidance, insights, and direction for the upcoming year. This teaching is an overview of some of the prophetic insights God is highlighting to the AeroNova spiritual family for the year 2024 and beyond.

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Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors):




​So this is this, I know we have others who are going to be sharing things that the Lord is showing you. For 2024, I will tell you that on New Year's Eve watch night service, that was a record, we had three over three and a half hours straight of people sharing what the Lord was showing you in preparation for 2024. In the following years, in our history together as a spiritual family and community, we have not had that long of that many that may be just straight sharing the whole time. I have to say that I was surprised, but I'm very grateful. Now, did I digest all of that? No. I mean, it was firehose, but that's okay. Because we got folks to share what the Lord was showing you. And now what we want to do is be able to talk about these things and have conversations and follow on teachings and follow on sharing in the coming months, weeks and months, so that we can digest these things as a spiritual family. As we do, I'm going to be sharing some of the things that I shared over the next well over this month, and then we'll be out on February. But in the springtime, we'll be sharing more. I have not shared my notes out yet, because I'm adding to them so fast right now. So I will share my notes with you. But I'll share updates. So what I'll probably do is share a version. And by the way, if I ever share notes with you the way you know the version of the notes, as you'll see on the top, it'll say updated, and I'll give you a date. And I'm always updating notes constantly. So that's the way you'll know the version that you're dealing with. Rather than putting version three version 10 Version 20, I just put the latest date of when the update occurred. And I'm happy to share those. But I'm adding to him so rapidly, I wanted to just wait a few weeks to to get started. Several things and I'll recover some of the stuff we did on on the watch night service. I'll review a little bit of that. And then we'll publish some of that online as well. I'd like to do this, I'd like to just say, first of all, as an overview, the seven themes that I shared, that I believe are important emphasis that God is really focusing me on and I believe us on in 2024, and probably follow on to 2024. And the first thing was house and home, establish your house, establish his house, establish our home set things into order. I mentioned this before, we're gonna you're gonna hear things that we've heard before. But if you think kind of like this, you ever have a priority list and you've got something that's number nine. And then as time goes on, it's number six, and then it's number four. And then just number three? Well, some of the things I'm sharing, I believe on God's priority list have moved up, they're just moving up toward the top of the list. And in previous years, he's been preparing us, but they're moving up as a higher priority. And God is preparing us so we're not just he doesn't spring things on us. And one of the things has been set your house into order. I think this theme of house and home is going to have a lot of applications both physically and spiritually. And so I share that. We talked about that quite a bit. We'll talk about it a little bit today. Another thing was Joel to repentance and blessings. Joel to repentance brings Joel two blessings. And the first What 11 verses or so of Joel, God is bringing judgment and he's calling for repentance is what he's doing. And then after that he just overtly calls for repentance, it says these are the blessings I will bring if you will respond. And so I shared a little bit of that we'll talk more about it today and next week. Another theme was trees, plant and water trees. And one of the things I shared as the Lord was showing me he said Ron, if you plant plants, you plant for this generation, if you plant trees you plant for the next generation. So whenever we Plant and water trees were often planting and preparing for the next generation. And then after we were gone, Dan and Natalie had sent out I think Natalie had sent out a picture of Dan and the girls, and they were standing in front of a Sequoia, a redwood. And the trees were ginormous, surrounding them, and the tree behind them was ginormous. And she shared something to the effect that the trees to her were like legacy. It was like a visual image of the legacy of previous generations, who had been here through the generations to give us what we've been given. And specifically, she's thinking of faith. Specifically, she's thinking of those who've been given a Heritage of Faith. You may say, Well, I wasn't given one. But I was born into a family. We didn't have faith, we didn't really walk with the Lord. And and you know what, if that's you, then you're an Abraham, you're a pioneer. You are you get the privilege of being the first generation to bring that forth. And you and I will be those trees like that picture. But man, if you haven't seen that picture, let me know we'll get it out to you. I know it was on the the prayer stream that I don't know that it was on the air Nova stream, it was phenomenal. The next thing that I sensed the Lord calling us to was the apostolic call. Now I know we have an apostolic called the nation's. But I've I have felt strongly the Lord saying obey the apostolic call, don't get focused, if you don't get focused with just staring at yourselves, you know that the old saying, Don't just stare at your own belly button, look around and see where you can be invested in to other people in part of God's call upon us as a family of families is to the nations. It's different than a lot of spiritual communities, because our main call is to the nations and to the nations might be the nations in our own backyard in our own city and our own state and our own country, and also in other countries as well. But I feel that the Lord is moving up the list of priorities for us to obey the apostolic call. And I'm feeling an increasing what I call an apostolic burden for the church. As a matter of fact, this trip we're getting ready to make in February, there's a lot more we're doing to work with the pastors in the churches, because they're young churches, and they're starting to encounter challenges and different things, and they need help. And so we want to stay focused on on what God's call is, and not just get focused in our own little area and making ourselves better. Does that make sense? Jesus said, don't say that there'll be four months to the harvest, lift up your eyes. And so that's part of our practice as a spiritual family is to always be lifting our eyes up to the horizon. And in the horizon, the Lord shows us where the harvest is, consistently, pastors and friends and colleagues of mine around the country asked me they go, man, where are you finding these harvests? I'm like, Well, God, just leaving us to them, you know, and they're like, man, we don't have much happening over here and I in a, in a kind way, as I lift your eyes, just lift your eyes a little bit higher. Look beyond the four walls of your church, or maybe the neighborhood next to you and say, God, where is the harvest, and then that's where we go, we go to where the harvest is. Another theme that I felt strongly about was follow Noah, not lot. Follow Noah, not lot, Noah was prepared for what was to come in his generation in the judgment that came in his time, Lot was not prepared, and lot lost part of his family because of it, and lot. I mean, he was virtually shipwrecked morally through the whole thing. And we won't go into details again, we haven't really touched on this yet, but no one was prepared. And Noah's Ark building enterprise was a family and what I believe for us as a spiritual family enterprise, it's not a lone wolf enterprise. It's not something you do as a lone ranger by yourself. It's something that we do together Art Building, both in our spiritual lives and in our natural lives to prepare for what's coming, is a family operation or spiritual family operation. We can't make our natural families do what God wants them to do. And we all have natural family members who don't necessarily follow in that but we can be examples to them. And God always gives us spiritual family. He always provides and surrounds us with spiritual family.


True spiritual friendship and relationships. I still believe the Lord is increasing the emphasis on spiritual friendship and genuine relationships and this as we get into this in the coming months, this is going to be essential for us to be protected from the attacks of the enemy. No matter how strong you and I are spiritually, if we don't form heart to heart, friendships and relationships, we become vulnerable to the enemy. We're already vulnerable, but even more so. And I believe this will be key to return to spiritual friendship as a way of life and to cultivate Kingdom relationships. And then the last one was John's revelation, I believe God is saying revelation will come from Revelation. In other words, revelation will come from John's Revelation. Now, you guys, I've never been a big guy on spending a whole lot of time on eschatology in the church, probably not a good thing. I neglected the book of Revelation for many years of my ministry. But I believe that the Lord is now calling us to, to go deeper into the John's revelation. And I you guys know this about me, I feel right now a strong urge to look into the seven churches and what Jesus had to say, to the seven churches to prepare us as a body. So those are just to give you an overview, again, the seven areas, I believe God is really emphasizing for us in 2024. Some of the themes are what we have already learned. But some of them, you know, our layered growth, we talked about this, on a tree, it's layered with growth each year, another ring on the tree. And so some things, God is bringing another ring of learning, there's another ring of growth in the same area. So I want to avoid the I got it mentality. In other words, I go, Lord, you've already taught me that, well, God tends to teach in rings, he tends to teach like layers on an onion. As soon as you get that he goes, Okay, let me teach you that again. And then this time, he teaches a greater lesson than before each ring is bigger than the previous ring. And so we grow in that growth together. Now, I shared this also, when I'm sharing is just one piece of the puzzle. Now you guys know, you can't tell what a puzzle looks like, with one piece, or even five pieces. Your piece is very important. This spiritual family and this family of families is not an observation family, we don't have one guy on the platform, and everybody else sitting side by side in the pews. This is an interactive, everybody's a spiritual leader growing into spiritual leadership model that God's called us to, which I believe is modeled in early church. And this is the way God raises up great whim men and women of God. And so your part is very important to share those pieces so that as we put the pieces together, of what God is saying, we start to get a picture of what he's saying is so important. Now, we are at a moment in church history, where I believe we need to address a little bit more the serious moral failures of senior leaders in the body of Christ. And I've talked about this before, because we've been going through waves of moral failures in the body of Christ. And so I this is very important, because people have asked me that when we had our last two waves of moral failures by people they considered, they consider them senior a lot of times because of how big their ministry is. We won't talk about that so much today. But sometimes we people look at spiritual maturity as a thing that's commensurate with how big a ministry is, I hope we're learning that is not true by now I think that's starting to, to come to bear. But in this time, we're dealing now with another wave of moral failures. And even since I've been gone, it's just gotten worse and worse and worse, by people, many of us have respected and some of us have been impacted by deeply. And so it's very important, I think, as I was praying through some of these things that the Lord is saying about this year, that that what God is saying is contextualized, to the moment that we're in. So in other words, not just to share what God has emphasized in our lives, but also to talk about the elephant in the room. Now, it may not be an elephant in this room, but in many families, it's an elephant in the room and they're going man, why, why is this happening? Why is how does this happen? And then how does it relate to what God is saying to us in this hour for 2024? So as we seek God for his insights in preparation for 2024, I think it's important that we don't just discuss them in a vacuum. So I believe we need to see and hear what God is saying to us in this hour within the context of some significant things that are happening in the body of Christ. So how can God use leaders who are in serious sin? Peep? That's what people have been asking me I've gotten, I have senior leaders in the body of Christ that I deeply respect sending me text going, Hey, I want to have a conversation with you. How is this happening? These are I say senior because they already know, but they still want to talk about it, they still want to learn and understand. So I'm gonna say it this way that someone can grow a large and robust garden with many fruitful plants in their garden. The gifting that God has given them, enables them to do this. You can be a good gardener and plant good plants and take good care of those plants and they start bearing fruit. And before you know it, you have a beautiful garden of all kinds of fruit. But if they are also planting an invasive plant consuming vine at the same time, ie a certain kind of sin, eventually that invasive plant will consume the harvest Are you with me. So if it is not dealt with properly, that invasive plant that sin, certain types of sin more than others, will grow like an invasive vine, and it'll start to wrap itself around those other plants. And it'll start to take over until it kills the plants and it kills the fruit and it kills the harvest. We are watching this happen right now in some places, slowly but surely, it will contaminate and choke the other plants and the harvest that comes from them. Does this make sense to you? So God in His mercy will often let someone go for a period of time as a space for repentance. Most of the time, God will give a space for repentance, a gracious time for people to repent from sin. And so he'll give space. A lot of people they'll think, oh, you know, there's there's no consequence for this. You know, they're not realizing God has actually given them time. Listen, if you have something in your life, and you know about it, and it's sin, and you know, it's sin, it is time to deal with it right now. This is why I say we believe in a Joel two hour. And let me say this, everyone in God's house deals with sins, and they deal with mistakes now, all of us are the same. We like to call them mistakes, don't we? Like yeah, well, we all make mistakes. Well, yeah, we do. But some of the sins, you're not being honest. If you call them mistakes, they're bigger than mistakes, right? They're like no kid, and sin. And some of the things we're seeing now are perpetrators and bad stuff. So they're more than mistakes. But we all deal with Santa's mistakes in our lives. And I call those the weeds. If you've ever had a garden before, you got to pull weeds. And if you don't pull weeds pretty soon those weeds will take over the garden. And they may not be like that invasive vine, but they sure will affect your harvest to a certain extent in that garden. And so it's very important that that we that we're weed pullers. Now, this is why I like to say that it's every day, it's important to have repentance in our hearts and go, Lord,


I just turned toward you. What is repentance turning toward God, whether I turned 180 degrees, or whether I'm only two degrees off, and I turned two degrees, I'm turning toward the Lord. And what am I doing? I'm picking weeds. Have you ever waited to pick a weed? Some of you, I told you about our neighbor. And they let the weeds go for so long. That actually they were letting this week grow. And they didn't even know it was a weed anymore. They thought it was a tree it was six feet tall. And I was like, you know that's a weed and they're like, oh, no, that's it. That's a weed. And so then they realize, yeah, that's a weed. Well, then it was extremely hard. They pulled it up, and it had a huge root in it. You see what happens whenever you let the weeds grow, don't let the weeds grow. And so we want to attend to those every day. And all of us deal with it. So healthy Christians pick weeds and repent early of sin before it has a chance to take over now this is the other thing. Have you ever noticed when they're doing construction near your house? All of a sudden you start getting bunch of weeds in your yard. Why? Because all those seeds when They, when they're doing all that construction, all those seeds start the wind starts blowing them over and they land in your yard and they start growing in your yard. And weeds beget weeds. And it's a multiple, it's a multiplied thing, it's a lot easier to get the dandelion out of your yard when you have one dandelion then to wait until you have 10 Because they're spreading their seeds all over that yard. So removing weeds at their roots, and I want to say some words here, I want you to remember through number one repentance. Now, this is not a teaching on repentance today, but it's very important to contextualize some things I want to say, repentance, number one, removing weeds through grieving over sin. This is not often taught anymore, to feel the heart of God. We forget a lot of times that this is about offending God more than it is people even it's about offending God. And so I say Lord, years ago, a friend of mine was teaching me about this 35 years ago, he said, Rod, he goes, we need to grieve over our sin. When we commit sin, we need to grieve over it. It needs to, we need to feel how it touches the heart of God, how it hurts him how it hurts people. And there's a grieving over that and mourning over that sin. If you if you and I just repent and we don't have any grief over it, maybe it's there's there's a depth that we need to say, Lord, what have I done? And it's not to kick ourselves and say, You're not worthy already. No, I'm not worthy. That's why I got the blood of Jesus, right? Because I'm not worthy, but to see, Lord, what have I done. People don't teach a lot on this. And I don't even I'm not prepared to teach a lot on it today. But to say, this is very important. It's an important part of repentance. The next one is confession. Now the Catholics, they got this down, they confess they have someone to go confess to but Protestants, we, we just kind of well, I'll just confess them to God, just me and the Lord, we just kind of skip over the scriptures that say, confess your sins, one to another, that you may be healed. Now, I don't think this means Herbert, could you stand up right now and just go around the room and confess your sins to each person in the room? I don't think it means that. But I do think it means that there are people that I develop trust with that, or I'm close to you can't be close to everybody. But there are people you could be close to. You can't confess your sins anybody right? You've got there have to be people that you trust, who are godly, and preferably who are more spiritual than we are, right? I mean, the people I've found myself confessing my sins to are people that I deeply respect as spiritual leaders and saying, you know, I'm struggling in this area. Can you pray for me? Can you talk to me about this? Can you help me? We've lost the spiritual sacrament of confession. In the Protestant church, largely, the Protestant church doesn't even look at as a sacrament like we do communion or some of the other sacraments. But I think it's valuable that we see confession is very important. Because what it does is it keeps the enemy from cutting us off and isolating us. So we're doing this by ourselves. We have someone else to fight the fight with us, we have someone else who is with us in it. So I believe that confession is very important. And then the last one, close relationships. And it goes back to what I said, How can you have confession in the body? If you don't have people that you can trust? So how can you have people you could trust to talk to unless we develop close relationships? So I believe that these are very important. You'll see where I'm going with this in a moment as we go into these themes, inadequate repentance, inadequate repentance, think about this, inadequate repentance does not involve appropriating an appropriate, grieving our over our sin or feeling the heart of God, or repentance from iniquity. So the difference between iniquity and transgression, iniquity is in the heart. The transgression is what iniquity births in sin itself, but the iniquity is what's in the heart. Have you ever seen before and you look back and you go, Yeah, I saw where that was in my heart a long time before I did that sin. That's iniquity and without going into a word study on it, but the It's important to repent from iniquity before it has a chance to grow into sin and repentance over sin that includes confession to others combined with close relationships of trust, like I just said, this, if it if it doesn't have that it's not adequate repentance. In other words, it's lacking in its effect in what it can do for us. And you say, Rod, why are you talking about this? Because we see leaders right now and more has just come out in the past week who? Your gut, you're going, Oh, my gosh, how could they do? How could this person do this? Well, first of all, it lets us know any of us are capable of things far beyond what we understand in the flesh if we let sin grow. So it's very important. I believe we're in an hour when God is saying, Listen, you cannot compromise, you cannot let this stuff go. It's very important. And I said this a couple of weeks ago, when I was a kid. And I don't know how it was in your family, but I'll tell you how it was in mine. When I was a kid, if one of my brothers or my brother or my sister start getting into trouble, you did not dare put a smile on your face. You did not dare have any happiness about their troubles at all? Because if you did, you were right behind them in trouble. And the way my mom and dad taught me was they said, listen, when your brothers sisters in trouble, you need to look on and learn. Right? You need to look and go, How can I avoid this trouble? Now, with my parents, I guarantee you do that. So it's very important that when we see God bringing discipline in the body, that we are saying, Lord, what are you teaching us as a body of Christ right now? Because if the body is experiencing pain over here in this spiritual family, you ever stubbed your toe, and it hurts real bad doesn't. Somehow your hands are hurting too. It's like even though my hand doesn't hurt, my whole body is in pain. And when the body is being disciplined by the Lord, or the body is being judged which there is a difference, by the way, there's probably overlap. But when the body of Christ is in judgment or indiscipline, it's important for all of us to go. Fear the Lord come upon me right now, God have mercy. Lord, what are you doing? Help us God, we pray right now. What do we need to learn? How do we need to grow? And I want to tell you guys, that's where I am. Right now. This is where I am. Because I am looking at it. You know, we were waiting to get on the airplane yesterday. And this guy got off the plane. He had a really cool look. He was wearing, believe it or not, they were yellow sweats. But they looked really cool. Like they were classy. And embroidered on the front. It said what was either that? It said the fundamentals or the basic, I can't remember what it was either the fundamentals in it was embroidered. And below it is said, the fear of God. And I was like, well, that's the season I think I'm in and I hope that you're and I'm like, oh, yeah, so I thought how cool is this and it was really classy looking. But it made a statement. That right now I'm like, Lord,


help us to learn from this help us to grow, help us to enter into Joel to the grieving of Joel to the repentance. I'm not accusing you in the Lord's not accusing you of being in sin or me being in sin. That's not what's happening. But the Lord is saying such house in order. And the Lord's been saying this, but it's moving toward the top of the list, set your house in order, set your house in order, set your house in order, set your house in order which begins with my own heart, this house that I this body that I'm in, and it goes to my family house and my spiritual house, my spiritual family. And so I beg and plead with you to set your house in order set your heart in order, as we were talking about earlier. If there's areas of your heart in your life that you're you maybe you don't even know you're resistant to the Lord, you may not know ask the Lord to show you that's why I'm like Lord, is there any area that I'm not yielding to you show me right now. I want to be yielded man. I want to be just filled with what God has to give the promises in Joel Chapter Two are really profound promises. But the Lord requires repentance from sin and you know all all So repentance is not just repentance from what we do wrong. Sometimes God Remember Job man he get up repent for all of his children. Remember he get up he'd offer sack, good Lord, just in case there's something they've done all for sacrifice right now. That's a man who loves his family right there. He's repenting identification or repentance. It doesn't change the heart of his children. But it's identification and repentance. We need to be doing this for our nation right now, for our leaders right now. That does not mean God will not judge them. But it might mean that the Lord will have mercy. And, and in bring a protection of his presence like he did upon Noah, or like he did upon others that we read about in the Scripture. And y'all tracking with me so far. So now we pick up where we left off. Last time, we talked about house and home. And I'm not going to reteach that. But I want to draw your attention back to something that we looked at. And that was in Exodus chapter four. And the Lord had told Moses in Exodus chapter four, he told Moses, basically what was going to happen now Pharaoh had not yet invoked this judgment. But he let Moses know in Exodus four, that God was going to judge the firstborn of Egypt. So God already knew what was going to happen. And he told Moses, and he said, in verse 24th, says, The Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn. So I say to you, he's talking to Pharaoh, but he's speaking this to Moses, let my son go, that he may serve me. But if you refuse to let him go, indeed, I will kill your son, your firstborn. So even though all these plagues played out in Egypt, the judgment against the firstborn did not come until the end. But God had already warned Pharaoh, he says, Listen, if you don't let my son go, I'm going to kill your son, I'm going to take your son in judgment for the hardness, and rebellion against God, the God of heaven. And so then the Lord that the scripture says that God now this is, it's hard to understand this. And some people go, Well, this is not God. It says he sought to kill Moses, but the word salt there was he required of him, because Moses had not obey God, and he had not circumcised his son. So he had not set his own house into order. And guys, listen, I'll tell you, the Lord will set his own house into order before he will bring judgment against the wicked, God will not allow, in other words, God will not go well. I'm going to enforce the my ways and my laws with others. But with you, I'm just going to let it slide God doesn't do that. He will set his own house into order. First, a passage that will probably read again, but I'll read it to you. Now that many of you have heard is in First Peter, chapter four, verse number 17. Peter said, for the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. And if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? He says, Now, if the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear? In other words, he said, If the righteous barely make it, what's going to happen to the wicked? Oh, my goodness, this has my attention. And we see this part of the nature of God and how he deals with his house, over and over and over in Scripture in the one place we're talking about right now is in Exodus chapter four. When God does this in his own house, as we're seeing right now, in other places in the world, it will come to the world. In other words, he will set his own house into order, but then he will deal and I think there's a growing, understanding that God is going to do something to bring us a reset or order of some kind. And I think we're all aware of that. At least most of us in this family. But keep in mind that God first hits his own house in order. And I believe that we look at Moses and we think, oh, you know, Moses, we put him on a pedestal and that's okay, because God did. But what we see is that God still would not compromise. This is important for us that we go you know what, I will not compromise. I will set my house into order. I understand that I'll make mistakes I understand that I won't get some things right. But I'm gonna come back around and I'm going to repent I'm gonna seek the Lord and I'm gonna get people close. To me spiritually, and grow, and we're gonna get through this together. So anyway, we talked about this passage at length, so I won't rehash it, but I just wanted to remind us of, of talking about this and seeing how God requires us to set our own houses into order.


I mentioned this, and I want to just talk about it for a moment, don't fall into the lie of the wicked servant in the parable, where he, he basically, the guy said, he went and hid his talent, because he knew that the Lord was hard. You know, the Scripture also says that teachers will receive a greater judgment. But here I stand before you today, I have no choice. God has called me to be a shepherd, a teacher, a minister, and to walk in this calling. So it would be worse for me to bury the talent than to launch out and seek to obey God and do what he wants me to do, and seek to be faithful with it. And I want to encourage you guys to do the same. Don't let fear paralyze you from obeying God. Don't let in significance of the enemy, what he communicates is insignificant, paralyze you, because the guy with one talent goes on, I have as many talents as these other guys, it won't really matter if I bury my talent, it won't really make a difference. Don't say that don't say, Well, if I don't do anything, it won't really matter. It won't really make a difference. Because I don't really have any big giftings in my life, I propose to you, you don't know what giftings are in your life, because a lot of them sit in your heart and seed form. And the way we find out is we obey God and a seed starts to grow. And as that seed starts to grow, and we're faithful, all of a sudden, another seed starts to grow. And you go, Oh, I didn't even know I had that memory. Earlier, I was telling you guys about. I worked in children's church for years. And, man, I was terrified to sing in front of people. I mean, I was terrified. And they needed someone to lead worship and children's church. Oh, man, this was hilarious. I wish we had some recordings, you could see what I'm saying. But I get up there in our children's church, we have about 120 kids in this one place. And I'm up there. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, you know what I found out, kids don't care. They don't care if you carry a tune well or not. They're just glad you're there with them. And I actually got pretty good at it, just doing it. Because I launched out and said, Yes, Lord will do this. Yes, we'll do that. And I want to encourage you to cultivate what you have been given. This is part of setting our house into order. Part of setting our house into order is, is to do in my life, what God is showing me in front of me. Now listen, you don't have to have a big master plan, like, okay, what are the 10 things I'm going to do for God this year, unless he tells you, but what's what can you do right now? What are the basics that you can do? And you know what one of the things I like to you guys see this right here, we you know, what we do is I like to open my home for mission house I like to do because I'm like, God, I can do that. That's something I can do. I may not always do a good job. It may be hard at times, but I can open it up first things first, I'm, I'm looking at what can I do to help my family? I'm always thinking, Lord, what can I do to set my house into order with my own family? So this is again, just taking what we've been given. And really setting those things into order, and saying, Okay, I'm going to do the first things first, what are the first things that God calls us to do? And we've talked much about First things first, and being faithful with much begins with being faithful with little. And I just start out by going God, how can I be faithful in the in the little things? Here's a few areas God's calling us to make our house as the house of the Lord. In other words, I want to set apart my own home my own family, as unto the Lord. If Moses had done that, his son would have already been circumcised, but by and thank God for his wife, she stepped in and saved him from certain trouble. But I want to be able to say, Lord, I set my home apart unto you as the house of the Lord. What does this mean? Sanctify your homes, set your house in your home, your family and your estate, your spiritual estate and your physical estate, set them apart unto the Lord. His purposes come first. Now, guys, don't do this out of legalism. It can't be because I pressured you to do it. Most of you know that I don't pressure people to do things. Why have I? Why don't I do that? Because if it's not from the heart, it doesn't work. Because if I come along and I twist your arm to do something, and then you do it, what ends up happening is you do it. And then you're like, it's kind of like, wow, I don't really like that, you know, and that you know, what I'm talking about. The attitude is not in the right place. So it doesn't work to pressure people. What works is, is that we open it up and let people step into what God's call is. And so set your homes into order. First things first, daily prayer, Sabbath, tithing, sacrifice. David says, I will not give him anything that costs me nothing. Listen, if we set our homes into order, it will cost us something. Because whenever I put God's ways in God's heart first, it means there are other things that I'm not putting first. Right? It means there are other areas that I have to put and say, No, you're not. First, you're not. Second, you're not third, because God's God's order God's ways, God's agenda, God's priorities come first. Now, I don't mean to the neglect of your family. I mean, I know people who've said, oh, yeah, I'm serving the Lord in the ministry, and they neglect their families. That's not what we're talking about. But we're talking about setting our homes into order, not just our physical houses, but also our families and how we relate and who we relate to, and what we do with our time, and where our hearts are, where the affections of our heart is, where our money is, where our resources are, where our time and our energy lies. I have never regretted living the sacrificial lifestyle. I've never regretted I've never regretted whether it's sacrificial giving or whether it's sacrificial time, and energy guys want to tell you, God calls it always come back to me 1000 fold. And he will do the same for you. A lot of you already know this. But you've got to preach this to with your life and with your words. And God has to remind us again, like the rings on the tree, so that the next ring around, I do a better job than I did last year. And that's where I am. I'm like in 2024, Lord, I want to do more, I want to go deeper, I want to be closer to your heart, I want to be closer to your people. I want to feel your heart more than I felt in 2023. I want compassion to be deeper. I want forgiveness to flow further, I want to be a man of healing. I want to be a man of God, I want to bring joy to the heart of the Father, the blood of Jesus is there to give us the power to bless the heart of God to have access to him, but you still must access him, right? And through our sacrifice through our love. Man, it means something to him. When we do this, say set your homes into New Order, oh, this is different. For some, this is New Order, or remodel, or rearrangement. Now this was coming up in prayer Council a few weeks ago. And we were said sometimes God says reorder your home, remodel your home God, literally physically, God may tell be telling you remodel your home in this area, because it'll be more of a blessing in these things in your own family and in the kingdom. He may tell you to do that. Or there may be a remodeling of our home spiritually where we rearrange our priorities and different things. I think it was Riley who shared set your house and to order so that it appraises for what it's supposed to appraise for in the spirit. She was talking about how that whenever they they fix their home up and what have you that when the appraisers came in it appraised for a certain value. And she was bringing our attention to the fact that spiritually there is an appraisal on our homes. And that and so, Lord, how do you appraise my home right now Lord? You know, if he comes in and says 500,000 and you think you're living in a million dollar homes, but I'm told that spiritually, then you're going, oh, Lord Watson, well, you see this area over here and that area over there and you need to do some remodel, you need to fix this up here. Okay, Lord. And so just be sensitive to in 2024. The Lord may be calling you to reorder some things in your family or how your family does certain things. Don't fall under condemnation. I mentioned this when we were together last time when I was sharing on this but it's worth it. Engineering again, when the Lord comes to remove things from our lives, it can be really painful candidate.


So think about when you remodel that kitchen, remember the example I gave you remodel the kitchen. And the first thing they do is come in with sledgehammers, and start sledge hammer in the kitchen. Well, sometimes when God shows up in our lodge with a sledge hammer, we think he's there to hurt us. Because we have trust issues, or we think he's there to demolish our house. And you know what he is there to demolish your house, he's there to demolish your kitchen, because he wants to give you a new kitchen, that's 100 times better than the one you got. But if all we see is the sledge hammer, and we don't see the heart of the Father, we don't see his vision for the new kitchen and that big commercial gas stove that you want, and all the beautiful things that he's going to do to to beautify that kitchen. It's really hard to accept the sledge hammer actions of God, tracking with me. So in 2024, if the Lord comes in, and because I brought my sledge hammer, don't get scared, say, Okay, Lord, what you got in mind, I promise you, he has your best interests at heart more than you do. He does. God loves us more than we love ourselves. And he certainly loves us more than other people love us. I know I talked about this before, but I really felt we need to talk about it again, it needs to get embedded in our spirit, because the Lord is going to do some reordering this year. And it's good. He has good things in store. The other one is sacrifice your homes, sacrifice it for the work of the Lord, sacrifice it for what God has in mind, as a place to bring people in as a place to break bread with people, as a place to gather like we gather in Mission House, like we gather and gatherings, different kinds of gatherings, prayer councils, and all of that. Look for ways to bring the sacrifice to the Lord. And in that sacrifice. The Lord will bless you in the work and in the sacrifice. Again, we're talking about setting our homes into order. You know, a lot of times people go directly to the extremes. And they say, oh, man, how can I start bringing the homeless into my house and the drug addicts and and we just go straight to the extremes? And it's like, yeah, maybe he'll call you to do that. But what about your own spiritual family? What about this group here? What about your per councils? What about the fellowships that we have with the ladies or the men? The other things don't immediately just go to the extremes is, first, what am I doing to take care of God's people? And then as we do, the Lord will open up those other opportunities. Hmm, surely somebody said Amen. On that one. Let me look at this next note. I believe that God is going to expand Holmes. I don't know exactly what this means. But as I pray, I feel the Lord expanding. I feel like the Lord is going I'm gonna spread to tip pigs. I'm going to expand your family, your household, maybe some of you maybe he's gonna move you into a different house. I don't know. But I feel the Lord is going to bless those who are invested in his house. You can never outgive God it'll never happen. When you just go in and say, Lord, I'm gonna sacrifice I'm gonna give I'm gonna bless. Next thing, you know, for a little while, nothing happens. But then the waves start rolling in. And the waves get bigger and bigger and bigger. And I use this analogy with you guys talking about how you know you ever asked the Lord for something and you've been given a you've been doing what God's calling you to do. You hold your cup out, and you think God is going to pour with a pitcher. And you and you look up and there's a dump truck backing up to your cup. And that's the way God many times gives what you think is going to be a little bit and then it just overwhelming any any blesses us with an extraordinary return, as God calls us to be people of sacrifice in 2024. I'm telling you, God has His dump trucks. Get ready. And don't be afraid when he shows up with a sledge hammer. Don't be afraid because God has a way. Don't be afraid when you when you say Lord, I'm sacrificing this and I'm opening my home and I'm giving sacrificially, I'm doing all these things. And Lord, don't just wait if even if the seas calm. Just wait, the waves will come rolling in. And I believe that in this hour, as the Lord's calling us. We'll talk more next Quick about Joel to Joel to is like 11 or 12 verses about the judgment of the locusts. And then it's like blessing and blessing and blessing. He wants to bless His people, but he will not bless people who walk in disobedience. Hear him maleness. It's very important that we become people with hearts who are faithful to God, and to repent quickly from sin, and to repent thoroughly from sin, and to hear what God is saying to his entire body of Christ the church in this hour when he brings discipline in different areas. I want to learn from that. Can somebody say amen to that? One of my favorite scriptures is Mark 10. Jesus said, Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or my brothers, or sisters, or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake, in the Gospel sake, who shall not receive 100 fold now in this time, houses, and brothers, and sisters, and mothers and children and lands. Now, here's the part some of us don't like with persecutions. But that's part of it right? In the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last in the last first. As you are faithful, you will be given more. Some are coming into a new home. You guys just moved into a new home, but some are coming into a new home. And it might be you. Some are coming into New renewed homes. You say, Rod, what do you talk about? I'm not really sure. But I just feel it every time I pray. There's a new God is blessing his people and calling us into deep obedience, deep faithfulness, deep, deep walking with him. I want to talk just a moment about this. And then we'll close builders humility. So God is calling us to have builders humility in his house. And I want to look at Hebrews chapter three, again, I'm going to read verses three through six about builders humility, for this one has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, to talk about Jesus and his men in as much as he who built the house has more honor than the house. Now get get the picture. Even though Moses was a house builder, Moses was also the house, you guys tracking. In other words, just, even though you and I are house builders, the house of God builders, were actually the house, and God is really the builder. And that's what he's getting at. He says, For every house is built by someone, but he who built all things is God. And Moses, indeed, was faithful in all of his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things, which would be spoken afterward. But Christ as a son over his own house, whose house we are, you're with it? Listen, he says, whose house we are. So we're not just the builders were the house. So and that's what the dreamers writers identified whose house we are, if we hold fast, the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope, firm to the end, Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses, because Jesus built the house, which includes Moses, even though Moses built the house, he is part of the house. So as builders in God's house, and this is We are builders in God's house, even though we understand ultimately, God is the builder. He's the one that makes his house be built. We will be given much honor as builders in God's house, God gives honor to his builders. But make no mistake, the honor or the allegiance that's given to us please hear this, the honor and the allegiance that is given to us as God's builders is not for our own consumption. This is important.


You guys, we have a family of many spiritual leaders, and we ministered to pastors and leaders and people and churches. They will give you an extraordinary honor. They will honor you. Many of them when you're with them. You're like, Man, I don't even deserve this honor. You're right. They're given honor to Jesus. their allegiance is to him and the honor that they give us is simply an honor toward him. And don't make the mistake of owning that honor. In other words, don't take it upon your own consumption. That honor. And that allegiance is to the builder. This is builders humility. The builders humility is that I understand. Yeah, I may bring some boards in, but who made the tree, right? And I may bring some boards in and build some things, but who gave us the plans God did. If I'm here or not here, the house of God is gonna be built. But I guarantee if God's not here, it won't be built. Right. And so And also, if we just take it upon ourselves to do it our own way, or to own that allegiance, it's real easy. The enemy likes to do this with the leaders, especially when you start getting honor. You start owning it yourself. And pretty soon it's easy to compromise, and walk in sin. Because somehow, the house just keeps getting built and people keep on honoring you. That's what we're watching right now, is people kept on honoring those leaders, even though they were in terrible, terrible sin, and they mistook it for the favor of God. And I promise you it was not God's favor upon them for their sin at all. So what are we talking about as builders Humility is saying, You know what, anytime God's people give you honor and allegiance understand that is their honor to Jesus himself, and that's their allegiance to him. And so it's okay to receive it, but don't consume it. It's not ours. It's his. And so our allegiance is to Jesus, my allegiance is to him being glorified. Your allegiance is to him being glorified. Many of God's people are going to honor you, because you're doing his work. But just thank them and love them with humility. And always remember, point back to him, he is the builder. Because if we start to consume it, we will miss take it for God's favor at times. And that's how people get into sin because oh man, God still. And there are people I've known many people over the years, and they keep going in sin because they think everything's okay. Because you they're being honored the ministry is being built is that in the meantime, that invasive vines just growing through their garden, they don't know is getting ready to choke out a whole lot of fruit. Right? It's getting ready to contaminate a lot of stuff. Man, this is pretty intense. But here's, I feel like the Lord says this is important for us to talk about in the context of the things he's going to be saying to us this year, as we prepare for this year and the rest of this decade.


Well, that's probably a good place right there. I didn't get to Joel to yet. I didn't think I would. But I got a lot of good stuff on Joel to. And Luke 18. If when we get time we'll get into Luke 18. Next week, Lord willing, along with Joel too. But I You could tell that my heart is full because I feel the goodness of the Lord preparing us for this year. And he's preparing us for what's coming. And I don't take it lightly. Because I think it's heavy. We need to be like Noah, and have the fear of the Lord and say, God, what do we do to build our house? What do we do to build your house? What do we do to prepare the arcs and God shows us each step of the way. But the good news is that the Lord is with us. And he's patient, and he's kind, and the Lord is long suffering. He's with us. And so Lord, we just thank you today. God, we thank You that Lord, you have many things in your heart to do to do in us to do in our families, to do in our friends, Lord, to do in your house, father would honor it is to even be considered to be one of your workers in your vineyard. What an honor it is to be here and to be together and to serve You. And Lord, we pray that you will prepare our hearts so that as your workers and as Your servants, and as your people and as your friends that we will be faithful to you in all of your house in all areas. And Lord, we pray that the joy of the Lord will fill every family and Lord help us to give sacrificially, Lord, because we don't want it to cost us nothing like David says, We will not give you anything that costs us nothing. But we give you that which cost us something because it's an honor to sacrifice ice to the Lord our God. In Jesus name, Amen and Amen.


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