"Receive Ye the Holy Ghost" By Brother Parrish Lee February 14th,
2016
Thank
you, musicians, and thank
you, singers. You
may be seated,
everyone. Isn’t it
wonderful to be in the
House of the Lord this morning? Think
of
the options; think of your options.
You
could be many places, this morning, but, to be in the House of the
Lord, where
people are going to sing His praises, give Him obeisance. He’s going to get the
glory and he honor and
the praise forever and ever and ever.
And, as the song said, Name above all names, Worthy
of all Praise. My
heart will sing, How great is our God.
Amen. Giving
honor to God who is the
Head of my life, who is the Head of our lives.
Giving honor to those who have gone before us, our
founding pastor,
first, whose labor, he and his wife, brought forth this branch of
ministry. Our
general pastor, now,
who–what a wonderful visit it was last week, as he and his family came
and ministered. What
a blessing! Wasn’t
that a blessing? Amen;
amen.
For all those who have come and stood in the gap to
make up the
hedge. To all those
who have allowed
their lives to be offered up, that they might be able to serve the Lord. We give thanks to all of
them, and we give
thanks to all of you who come and resent yourselves before the Lord
that you
might receive of God what He has for you: A truly blessed day. Amen. Our
theme for this month, our
theme for this month—I think, actually, I gave—somewhere along the
line, I gave
the wrong Scripture. This
is actually a
mighty great scripture; it’s actually part of the service: “But ye shall receive
power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be
witnesses
unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto
the
uttermost part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
But, our true
theme for the
month, our scripture for the month, is from the Book of John chapter
twenty, as
our pastor preached on last week, and as we are going to continue,
verse number
twenty-two: John 20:22
And
when He had said this, He breathed on
them, and saith unto them, Receive
ye the Holy Ghost: John 20:20-23 And when He had so
said, He shewed unto them His hands and his side. Then were the
disciples glad,
when they saw the Lord. Then
said Jesus
to them again, Peace be unto
you: as My Father hath
sent Me, even so send I you. And
when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:
Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto
them; and whose
soever sins ye retain, they are retained. Amen. If we could just bow our
heads for a word of
prayer. Lord, we
thank You for all that
You have done for us, for all of our lives.
God, even for this morning; even that You woke us up
and allowed us to
be in our right mind, allowed us to get here today, God, to come and
worship
none other than You, to be in the presence of Your praise, God. We thank You for our time
of singing,
worshipping, of giving honor to You, Lord, as so many have testified. And, God, we thank You for
just being with
us. And, God, we
pray, at this point, at
this point of the service, that You would do as Your Word said, that we
would
not allow Your Word to return unto You void, but You would feed Your
flock, as
You said, both with knowledge and understanding, God, that Your Word
might have
its way, and You might have Your way in our lives, God, that we can
leave from
here in accordance to how You would have us to leave.
And we present ourselves, as we pray and
claim, in Jesus’ name, and everyone said, amen. Amen,
saints. So, we’re
talking, this month, about,
“Receive Ye the Holy Ghost.” So,
we pick
up our message today, and it starts after the crucifixion, if we were
to read
all of John chapter twenty, it starts after they had laid Him in the
tomb, and Mary
Magdalene had gone there, and she saw that the tomb was empty, and she
told the
Disciples, “Hey, there’s an empty tomb,” and they ran down, and they
saw, too,
themselves, that the tomb was empty. It
takes place after she went back, and looked, and saw the gardener, who
she supposed was the gardener and
she found
out that, truly, He was the Lord when he called her. It
takes place after all that. In
takes place when the Disciples
were in a room as they were in fear of the Jews and what they would do
to
them. It takes
place when the doors were
locked, and Jesus appeared in the room.
Going
through locked doors, and He showed then the marks in His hands and the
stabbing in His side. And,
the Bible says
that all the Disciples were glad when they saw Him, when they saw Him. And it goes on to say how
He told them, it
says here in verse number twenty-one, "Peace
be
unto you. As My
Father sent Me so send I
you." As
My Father has sent
Me, even so, do I send you. And
it goes
on, and He said, " Receive ye
the Holy Ghost: Whose
soever sins ye remit, they are remitted
unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.”
So, the
Lord did here, what the Bible says God did in Genesis.
He changed everything. He breathed on
this clay. In
Genesis, man became a
living soul, but, here in John, He breathed on them to give them of the
Spirit
that He had. In
Genesis, we got of the
Spirit of God, which was life, we got of the Spirit of the Living God,
who had
victory over everything. He breathed on them, said,
“Receive ye the Holy Ghost,”
and this changes everything. And it goes on to say, “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are
remitted unto them; and
whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.” In other words, I send you
forth in this
Spirit, with this Gospel. “You
are now
My ambassadors. I’m
giving you the power
of establishment, as you go forth.”
This
changes everything. So
as we get to part one—that was
just the introduction. We
get to part
one. Point 1: The Holy Ghost Is
Personal Acts 2:1-4
And
when the day of Pentecost was fully
come, they were all with one accord in one place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven
as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they
were
sitting. And there
appeared unto them
cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled
with the Holy Ghost,
and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them
utterance. Now,
the setting here is they were
all in—the Bible says that Day of Pentecost was fully come, which would
have
been, of course, fifty days after the Passover time.
When the day was fully come, it says that
they were all in one accord, in one place, in one mind, in one heart,
with one
purpose. They were
single-focused. All
together in a spirit of unity, with one
accord, and in one place. And,
it goes
on to say that there came a sound—now, what this must have been like! It had to be awesome. There came a sound, not
from a committee, not
from a group of people, not from some praise and worship, even. It didn’t come from Earth,
it came from
Heaven! The sound
came from heaven
itself, and form He who is over Heaven, and it say it came from Heaven,
and it
filled all the house where they were sitting, and it sat upon each—each—one of them, because that’s how
personal this is. Acts 2:5-11
And
there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews,
devout men, out of every nation under Heaven.
Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came
together, and were
confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed
and marvelled,
saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man
in our own tongue,
wherein we were born? Parthians,
and
Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea,
and
Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and
in the
parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and
proselytes, Cretes
and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works
of God. So,
here, this is how personal is
the Holy Ghost is. Those
who gathered,
those who were in one accord, in one place, in one mind, it filled them. But, the devout ones who
came, were ministered
to, seeing the evidence of God filling those who were in one accord, in
one
place, following the Lord, Himself.
The
Holy Ghost came, not to separate, but to bring everybody into the
presence of
God. Those that
don’t know, it pointed
the way, and they said, “You know what?
How is this that I can understand these people,
these Jews? These
Galileans? How can
I understand them? They’re
speaking in every single tongue that
is here.” Devout
people who came to
worship God! Because
the Holy Ghost came
to minister. It
came to fill, to
minister, not to separate, to minister!
And, when we present ourselves to the presence of
the Holy Ghost, he is
faithful, and ministers, right in a way we can hear Him. I come from Baltimore; I
speak a little bit
different than the people up here.
I
understand when the Holy Ghost is speaking to me, when I’m in the zone,
when
I’m in the right frame, when I’m in the right heart, when I get myself
together. I
understand what God is speaking to me.
And that is the testimony when we present
ourselves to God. I
love that scripture
that you shared, Brother Jesse, where it says God’s hand is not too
short,
neither His ear too heavy that He can’t save, but we allow our sins and
iniquities to come before us, therefore, He can’t hear our praises, and
our
prayers, and what we have to say to Him, and His arm can’t reach us,
because it
can’t cut through the sin and iniquity (Isaiah 59:1-2).
So, when we present ourselves to God, in that
one accord, in that one mind, in that one heart, in that unified
purpose, He is
faithful to speak and minister to us.
Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Act 2:38-39
Then
Peter said unto them, Repent, and be
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission
of
sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. […ye
shall receive
the gift of the Holy Ghost.] For the
promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar
off, even
as many as the Lord our God shall call. So,
the promise is unto us, and to
our children and to as many as are afar off as the Lord our God shall
call. But it has to
start with us! It
has to start with us, that the Holy Ghost
desires to be in our life, to fill our life, to walk up and down all
around our
life. To do things
that we’ve never
seen. To make it
bristle. To make it
special. To make
you hunger after the Holy Ghost. The
promise is unto us, that we might be able
to receive that gift. Two
points that we
need to make about this, about this starting with us. Pont
one:
The promise wasn't tongues; the promise was the Holy
Ghost. The promise
inns the Holy Ghost. The
promise is unto you, you shall receive
the gift of the Holy Ghost. What
would
tongues do, if it wasn’t about the Holy Ghost?
What would it be like, if you don’t got the Holy
Ghost involved? You’re
just out there stammering. It
has to be about the Holy Ghost. And,
point number two: The
evidence, the evidence, the evidence of the
Holy Ghost also is ours. After
seeking
after God, after presenting ourselves to God, not seeking after the
girt,
seeking after God. You
know, we do wrong
when we seek for something that we can materialize in our mind. We do wrong when we have
something, and we
have an image, and we want to set that up there before Him. We can do wrong with that,
because it can
kind of take the place of God. “God,
I
would really like to have this, and this is so special, I would take my
eyes
off of whom I should seek, to something else that is supposed to bless
God, and
I say, ‘Let that make me special.’” Jesse,
I feel like you, when you
said, “It is impossible to finish this message in this amount of time.” Part 2: The Holy Ghost Is
Given To Profit Withal 1 Corinthians 12:1-7
Now
concerning
spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that
ye were
Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led.
Wherefore I
give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God
calleth Jesus
accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the
Holy
Ghost. Now there
are diversities of
gifts, but the same Spirit. And
there
are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of
operations, but
it is the same God which worketh all in all. But
the manifestation of the Spirit is given
to every man to profit withal. Diversities
of gifts and of administrations
and of operations—but the manifestation of these gifts, and of these
administrations, and of these operations, is given to profit everybody. It’s give to profit the
body. It isn’t
given to separate, to make some a
little bit more special than others; it’s given to build the church. It’s given to make the
body what is great in
God. And, if you
are gifted in
administration or in operation, or even a gift, it is all given—given,
it’s not
like you got it on your own—it is given by God. It
is given by God. 1 Corinthians 12:8-13 For to one is
given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of
knowledge by the
same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts
of
healing by the same Spirit; To another the working of miracles; to
another
prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of
tongues;
to another the interpretation of tongues: But
all these worketh that one and the
selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. For as the body is one, and
hath many members,
and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also
is
Christ. For by one
Spirit are we all
baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be
bond or
free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:18
But now
hath
God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased
him. So,
to one is given by the Spirit
the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another,
faith, by
that same Spirit, gifts of healings, by that same Spirit, to another
working of
miracles, to another, prophecy, to another, discerning of spirits, all
these
things given by the same Spirit. It
should be that when these things are manifest, that everybody grows. Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Sometimes
we don't recognize that
certain things that are gifts that God gives. Sometimes
we don’t even recognize it. I
had the opportunity last Saturday, we had a
men's fellowship breakfast, men's fellowship breakfast.
Our General Pastor came up; it was a wonderful
time. But, it came
time for food, one of
my favorite times. It
came time to
eat. And, I was
kind of wondering how we
were going to work this out, and I didn’t give Brother Greg a lot of
warning
and everything, because, you know he seems to always work some kind of
magic. I saw the
little counter they had set up, and
they had three pans there, and I was like, “Three pans?
Three pans?
We got nearly forty brothers, here, and he’s got
three pans here. Oh,
well, we got this place for four hours;
that’s probably going to take an hour and twenty minutes. Ah, well, we couldn’t have
had it as great as
we wanted to, but, it’s going to be okay.
It’s still going to be okay.”
That brother got in there, and, with those three
pans, I got a chance to
see a gift of operation. Right
before my
very eyes. It
looked like magic to me. You
know why?
Because I hadn't given respect to the gift. I hadn't given respect to
the gift that was
going over, God had placed it in somebody else. Not
everybody has all the gifts. They’re
given to profit withal. And,
yesterday—yesterday—I had a chance to be
with the youth group and, you know, I was with a couple of them; Aaron,
Brother
Aaron, me and him, we went and Brother Jose, he was with us, and, we
three took
another three young people, and we went and visited the nursing home,
and then
we visited the VA. And
I got a chance—I
actually got a chance to see the working of God in the teens. And some of the teens,
gifts that I hadn’t
seen before! But,
given the opportunity,
they were shown, and you know who they profited?
Everybody who was there!
They profited those that we visited, they
profited those who thought they were going to go and be leaders; they
profited
me. Gifts of
operation, gifts in
administration, gifts from the Spirit of God. And,
in verse eighteen; just want to say that
one more time. All
these things given by
the same Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:18
But now
hath
God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased
him. “God,
what about this? God,
what about that? God,
God, God, God, God?” And
God says, “I’m going to give you what I
want you to have, because I know what I’m doing with my body. I know what I’m doing in
the body of Christ,
and I’ve got many things I want to add to your life, but I’m the One
that adds
it,” is what the Lord says. And,
if it ever got to the place
where—I’ve found myself here before. I
found myself desiring a certain gift.
I
had it all mapped out, “knew” what was going to happen.
I was going to get this certain job, and pray
for this certain gift, and these certain miracles were going to happen,
and
that was going to be the path that I was going to have.
I had it all mapped out.
And, you ever have anything mapped out in
God? And God had to
blow it up; He had
to blow it up! And
say, “Who is doing
the leading and guiding here? You?” And I had to come to find
out, where I say,
“Not my will, Lord, but Thy will be done.”
I
had a chance to talk to somebody
else, who was telling me the same thing.
And they said, “You know, I prayed for the gift of
healing.” I was
like, “Out of all the gifts, why that
one? Everybody
seems to want that
one.” “The gift of
healing! And, you
know what? I prayed
for a whole year, and I didn’t get
it.” Okay. I was waiting for the
other shoe to
drop. What was the
point of that? And,
actually, they told me, “That was the
point. I didn’t get
it.” I said, “You
prayed… It doesn’t
matter how long you pray. The
issue is that you seek God. If
I don’t get it today, I’ll look for it
tomorrow. If I
don’t get it this
week—there’s things I’m still looking for from God.
I didn’t give up!
I’ve been saved for thirty years, I’m still
looking forward to some things from God!”
Why would we let the devil take it away?
Why let the devil talk you out of it?
Why would you let the devil say, “Ha!
Got one over on you,” when you know God wants to
bless you? When you
know God wants to fill you, to set
us up, in particular, as members in His body by His Spirit? Don’t give it to the devil! And,
the last verse that we wanted
to see in First Corinthians twelve: 1 Corinthians 12:25
That
there
should be no schism [or division]
in
the body; but that the members should have the same care [the
same care] one for another. Part 3: Our Relationship with
the Holy Ghost Matters Did
you know it matters what we do
with that Spirit of God? It
matters to
God what we do with it? Some
may think
that they have a choice, and we could do anything we want with the
Spirit that
God gives us. We
could do anything we
want, it doesn't really matter, but, did you know—I’m saying this
facetiously,
I know you know this--but if we lie to the Spirit of God, did you know
you fall
into the same category as Ananias and Sapphira?
And that was all about saying they was going to give
an offering, and
they figured that they were lying to Peter, but Peter said, “You ain’t
lying to
me; you lied to the Holy Ghost. That’s
between you and Him.” And,
did you know
that it’s possible that we could grieve, or make sad, the Spirit of
God. God didn't
just give us His Spirit because He didn’t
have nothing better to do; He gave us His Spirit out of love. Because He loves us. His Spirit, He gave it to
us, to bring us
closer to Him. As
the Bible says, it is
the gift of God. In
fact, this gift is
so precious that the Lord Jesus singled this one out.
He said if you, or if anybody, if anybody
sins or blasphemes against the Holy Ghost, it won’t be forgiven in this
life
nor in the life to come, not in this world, nor in the world to come. And, we do need to take just
a moment on this
one. Matthew 12:31-32
Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of
sin and blasphemy
shall be forgiven unto men [Now, that is a
miraculous, awesome,
tremendous… this was before He was ever crucified, before He laid down
His
life. He said all
manner of sin that men
can do. All of them. What an amazing thing to
say. Every sin that
we can do. We might
have to pay for it somewhere, but,
we can be forgiven in God. I
might not
be forgiven in my brother or sister, but, you know, if I take their
food, but
God will forgive me, if I repent.]: but the blasphemy against the Holy
Ghost shall not be
forgiven unto men. [And
then,
then, He singles this out even more.
He
singled it out away from every other sin and transgression that men can
commit. He singles
it out so much, He
expounds on it in verse thirty-two:] And whosoever speaketh a word against
the Son of man [He’s
saying, “You might do me wrong. You
might sin against the Lord Jesus, Himself, and you could still be
forgiven! Look at
Acts chapter two,
verse thirty-eight, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” when they
found out
they really messed up. And
he said, “You
can repent of this. You
can repent, and
God will receive you.”], it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever
speaketh against the
Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world,
neither in the
world to come. Neither
the world to come. He
singles that one out, above every other
one! And there is
precedent for this,
Saints. There is a precedent for this in the Book of Isaiah. This was something that
they had heard
before. Isaiah 63:10
But
they rebelled, and vexed His Holy Spirit:
therefore He was turned to be their enemy, and He fought against them. Now,
vexed means that they pained
His Holy Spirit, or they angered His Spirit.
It even means they displeased Him, they grieved Him,
they hurt Him, and
they even made Him sorry. They
made the
Spirit, that God had sent them to help them, sorry that He was there,
that He
came to do that. Sorry
for that
relationship. I
have a little bit of a side bar
here: God really,
really wants to bless
us with so much of His Spirit. There
are
measures of the Spirit of God. I
mean,
the Lord Jesus received it without measure, but, we, of course, by measure.
And, God wants to bless us as much as we
allow Him to. He
has many things He wants to give
us. After all, the
Lord Jesus said, “…it is the
Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Once
again, I told the story before, but I
need to tell it again. Once,
when I was
in the service, I had a time when we were fellowshipping, and we were
on the
ship, and I knew I had the midwatch that night, which, for those of you
who
don’t know meant I was going to be on the job from 10 o'clock at night
to 3 o'clock
in the morning. And
it was somewhere
around 7 o’clock. So,
we fellowshipped for
a while, and, when it got to be close to eight-ish, eight-fifteen-ish,
and, I’m
not stupid, I can count. I’m
thinking,
“That’s going to give me about an hour, because I’ve got to get up
about 9:30. But I’m
pretty good at falling asleep, so, if
I go to bed at 8:15, at 8:16, I’m pretty well out.
So, we finished fellowshipping, and I lay
down and God woke me up. God
woke me up
and old me I needed to pray. And
as God
woke me up—I don’t know, I might have been asleep for 20 minutes—as God
woke me
up I could feel the presence of a heavenly chorus around me. I could feel it. It was amazing. I’d never felt that before. And God said, pray, and I
was praying and
praying, but I was really tired, and I had to go on the midwatch, and
that was
staring me in the face as I was praying.
And it seemed like the Heavenly chorus was going all
at the same
time. And I prayed
and prayed, because I
wanted to be faithful to God, and I prayed and then, maybe 10 minutes,
15
minutes, mint have been 20 minutes, I don't know, but I got to
thinking, “Man,
it’s getting close to that time; I still need to get some sleep minutes. Okay, God, I done my duty,
I prayed. Now it’s
time for me to roll over and go to
sleep.” and ayoom, I was out. And
before,
like I said, 9:30, they come and wake you up, but, before the person
came to
wake me up to go get ready to relieve the person on watch, God woke me
up. God woke me up
and told me, “You blew it! You
blew it!
I had something for you, and you blew it! What was so precious about
another thirty
minutes of sleep that you would blow Me off?”
And that was what God told me.
So, I went on watch, and I had to think about that
all watch. And the
next day I thought about that, and,
who could you tell that that has happened to you?
It’s between you and God.
And, my whole point on that, my whole point
on that is when God is calling you, is telling you something, when God
is
dealing with you, don't say no. Don’t
say no when he is communing and wanting to give you and bless you, and
talk
with you, wanting to bring things out in you.
In fact, not only do we not want to say no, but this
lesson has stayed
with me for not only don’t say no, say yes.
“Yes, Lord. God
it might scare
me. Never been
there before, but, yes,
Lord, anyway. God,
I know how You are,
and it seems like if You give me something, I’m going to have more
responsibility.” Say
yes, anyway. And,
how many times has God given you
something, and you find, “I might have been scared, but, what in the
world was
I scared of? Why
did I hesitate? He
had so much for me.” Yes,
Lord, yes, Lord, yes, Lord. And,
don't stop. Don’t
stop seeking God for what He has for
you. God’s going to
bless Malcolm. God’s
going to bless Andy.
God’s going to bless Sonia.
God’s going to bless Phil.
God’s going to bless Ty.
God’s going to bless Alex.
And I pray God bless you and you and you and
you, but I gots to be concerned about God blessing me.
I gots to be concerned about what God has for
me. People can pray
for you, but they
can’t do your praying for you. Part 4: The Greatest Gift This
is our last part here. The
Greatest Gift. Palms 145:9
The
LORD is good to all: and His tender
mercies are over all His works. “The
LORD is good to all: and His
tender mercies are over all His works.”
The works of God. You
start
thinking about the works of God, and, let’s face it, that starts with,
“Let
there be light.” That’s
a work of
God: Bringing light
where there wasn't
light before. Light! And the, let the whole
creation begin. The
solar systems and the galaxies, the
planets, the moons, the stars, what a work of God!
We have—people grab these great big old
telescopes, and they look up, they just want to see more about that
great big
creation going on out there. They’re
finding stuff all the time! “Well,
we
never knew it was like this!” The
works
of God are marvelous! Come
right here,
down to Earth. We
don’t have to be
concerned with Mars and Jupiter and Mercury and Venus; let’s just talk
about
Earth. Here on
Earth, we got grass, we
got trees, we got shrubbery, we got vegetation, we got fruit. And then we got meat. We got hamburgers, we got
lamb, we got
steak—I’m sorry. We
got animals that
come forth, and they have a harmony to come together.
Some of them are just marvelous to look
at. I had a chance
to go to Australia;
saw things that I’ll never see again, I’m sure.
Pet a kangaroo, hold a koala.
All
that stuff. Marvelous
creations of God,
and, it’s that way all over the world.
You can see that God put many different works all
over. And then, not
just on the surface of the
Earth; look at us! God
made us all
different, and yet, He made us all the same.
A beating heart in every one of us.
He didn’t leave anybody out with that.
He put a mind in your brain.
He
put a tongue in your mouth with taste-buds.
Taste-buds, and then you have the ability to talk. Look at what God did! Blood flowing through your
veins. You didn’t
have to ask for it; God did it
anyway. The oceans
and the fish
therein. The sky
and the birds that fly
in the sky. Look at
the creation of
God! The works of
God are enormous! From
microscopic to telescopic, He just fills
creation. And,
according to this verse,
according to this verse He is good to all, and His tender mercy is over
all. His mercy.
And, here, mercy is defined as the type of love that
a mother had for
her unborn child. It’s
that type of love. It’s
great, and tender, and precious
love. And that love
is over the entire
universe, and the solar systems; as great as that is, His love is
greater. The love
of God. And,
it doesn't stop there. If
we could go to John chapter thirteen.
Still talking about spiritual gifts and receiving
the Holy Ghost. As
Apostle Paul talked,
he said there’s diversities of gifts, and diversities of operations,
and
differences of administrations; he talked about whether it’s of
tongues, or interpretations,
or whether it’s of knowledge, or wisdom, or whether it’s healings, or
discernings, there’s all these things of God.
And then, the Lord says: John 13:15
For I have given you
an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. “I
have given you an example…” So,
the Lord, Great God in Heaven, says, “I have
given you all an example; I’ve given you an example. As
great as My works are, My love is greater. My
love is greater.” So,
somebody might say, “Hey! You know
what? I got the
gift of prophecy.” And
another person, "I got the gift of tongues, how about that?" Another one says "Check this
out; I go
the gift of healing." The
true
question is, "What about your love?" What
about your love? Because
love is over all of that. What about your
love? 1 Corinthians 12:31
But
covet
earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Though
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I
am
become as sounding brass, or
a
tinkling cymbal. And though I have the
gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all
knowledge; and
though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not
charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body
to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity
suffereth
long, and is kind; charity
envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not
behave
itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh
no evil;
Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all
things,
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity
never
faileth: but whether there be
prophecies, they shall fail; whether there
be tongues, they shall cease; whether there
be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part,
and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then
that
which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a
child, I
understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I
put
away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then
face to
face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am
known. And
now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of
these is charity. If
we could just bow our heads for
just a moment. Lord,
as we come into
Your presence, we go over Your Word, and, God, it’s amazing, the love
that You
have for us. It’s
amazing, just to come
before You and learn of You, Almighty God.
And what You want to do, what You want to give, how
you want us to be in
the center of Your will, and, Lord, all we ask is for You to bless us. For You to show us, for You
to mold us, for
You to make us, for You to guide us.
God, for You to make a difference in our life, and
look over us,
Lord. If there is
any area where we are
saying no to You, God, give us the strength to kick no out of the way,
to look
toward the hills, from whence cometh our help, and say, “Yes, Lord. Yes, I will receive. Yes, I will do. Yes, I will have what You
have for me.” So,
we do come before You, and we thank, pray
and claim in Jesus’ name. And
everyone
said amen. Give the
Lord a praise.
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