We in the church often encourage new people to get the Holy Ghost because it will change lives. This is not entirely true. Receiving the Holy Ghost will not automatically change people. Change is a choice. It has the potential to change, but In order to activate that potential, we have to choose to be different. Paul gives us a list of things that have to happen in our lives for us to become what God wants us to be. Paul gives a list of six things that we must choose to put aside in order to change, and seven things that we have to put on. The Holy Ghost is not a janitor that follows behind us cleaning up the messes we make. It will not instantly change us into better people. True change requires work and determination to become what God wants us to be.

We in the church often encourage new people to get the Holy Ghost because it will change lives. This is not entirely true. Receiving the Holy Ghost will not automatically change people. Change is a choice. It has the potential to change, but In order to activate that potential, we have to choose to be different. Paul gives us a list of things that have to happen in our lives for us to become what God wants us to be. Paul gives a list of six things that we must choose to put aside in order to change, and seven things that we have to put on. The Holy Ghost is not a janitor that follows behind us cleaning up the messes we make. It will not instantly change us into better people. True change requires work and determination to become what God wants us to be.

Desperation is an unusual condition. When someone is in the state of desperation, all rational and normal thought is muted. Instinct takes over and drives a person to be singular in purpose. Desperation like this is not a force to be challenged. Bro. Stanton declares that we must get out of the way of a desperate faith. To do otherwise is to get run over. The woman in our text had been sick for many years. She had endured the treatment of primitive medicine of the time. She had submitted to treatment methods that seem so strange to us, but the desperation to be healed was such, that she was willing to do whatever had to be done. Desperate faith hears what has never been heard before. In desperate faith, she heard in her spirit that she must get near enough to him to touch his garment. The world will tell us that we do not need to worship the way we do. They will tell us that we do not need to dance and shout the way we do. “Why do you have to run the aisles?” Because when we are desperate for a touch of God. We will do whatever needs to be done. Desperate faith doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. A desperate faith will do what has never been done before. Most of us would not think of crawling on our hands and knees to worship the Lord, but it to her, it was the right thing to do. The woman had to press through the crowd to receive what she had never received before. There are still crowds around Jesus today. She tuned out and ignored all the distractions as her desperation drove her toward Jesus. His words rewarded her desperate faith.

Desperation is an unusual condition. When someone is in the state of desperation, all rational and normal thought is muted. Instinct takes over and drives a person to be singular in purpose. Desperation like this is not a force to be challenged. Bro. Stanton declares that we must get out of the way of a desperate faith. To do otherwise is to get run over. The woman in our text had been sick for many years. She had endured the treatment of primitive medicine of the time. She had submitted to treatment methods that seem so strange to us, but the desperation to be healed was such, that she was willing to do whatever had to be done. Desperate faith hears what has never been heard before. In desperate faith, she heard in her spirit that she must get near enough to him to touch his garment. The world will tell us that we do not need to worship the way we do. They will tell us that we do not need to dance and shout the way we do. “Why do you have to run the aisles?” Because when we are desperate for a touch of God. We will do whatever needs to be done. Desperate faith doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. A desperate faith will do what has never been done before. Most of us would not think of crawling on our hands and knees to worship the Lord, but it to her, it was the right thing to do. The woman had to press through the crowd to receive what she had never received before. There are still crowds around Jesus today. She tuned out and ignored all the distractions as her desperation drove her toward Jesus. His words rewarded her desperate faith.

The word like has many definitions. In this context, it means that two things are comparable. In our text, Lucifer is declaring that he would be like God. It does not take deep theological study to come to the conclusion that Lucifer is NOTHING like our God. We know this, but in our human weakness, we can be tricked, or manipulated into listening to the whispers that the devil speaks into our lives. Too many people go through life driven by their feelings. The devil can sway those feelings and thus sway how these people end up. Feelings will lead us astray. We have to rely on what we know, not what we feel. Paul warned us several times in his writing to not be deceived by false teaching. He warns that the devil will use every kind of deception to undermine the truth. He will tell us that what he is saying is no different than what God says. He will tell us that what he is teaching is like what is written in God’s word. When we go to the store, there are some items that we will buy the store brand. On other items, the store brand that is like the name brand, is not as good. You can buy Dr. Thunder from from the store, but it will not be as good as Dr. Pepper. It is similar and good enough for people who are not willing to pay the price, but it is not Dr. Pepper. There are a lot of people in the world who will settle for church that is kind of like Christ’s church. It is like church. They have music. They have preaching. People will go to these places and have an experience, but they do are not experiencing a true relationship with God. When the Coke-a-Cola company began, they had a unique beverage, and many tried to copy it. The company realized that they had a problem and needed a way to distinguish their produce from the copycats. They designed a bottle that had such a distinctive shape, that it could be recognized in the dark. This distinctive vessel communicated that what was inside was the real thing. God inhabits our bodys in the form of His spirit. By our lives, we are representing God to the world. Some would say that the cost for living a life like that is too high. The truth is that the cost for the real thing is not too high and it is worth the effort to find the real thing.

The word like has many definitions. In this context, it means that two things are comparable. In our text, Lucifer is declaring that he would be like God. It does not take deep theological study to come to the conclusion that Lucifer is NOTHING like our God. We know this, but in our human weakness, we can be tricked, or manipulated into listening to the whispers that the devil speaks into our lives. Too many people go through life driven by their feelings. The devil can sway those feelings and thus sway how these people end up. Feelings will lead us astray. We have to rely on what we know, not what we feel. Paul warned us several times in his writing to not be deceived by false teaching. He warns that the devil will use every kind of deception to undermine the truth. He will tell us that what he is saying is no different than what God says. He will tell us that what he is teaching is like what is written in God’s word. When we go to the store, there are some items that we will buy the store brand. On other items, the store brand that is like the name brand, is not as good. You can buy Dr. Thunder from from the store, but it will not be as good as Dr. Pepper. It is similar and good enough for people who are not willing to pay the price, but it is not Dr. Pepper. There are a lot of people in the world who will settle for church that is kind of like Christ’s church. It is like church. They have music. They have preaching. People will go to these places and have an experience, but they do are not experiencing a true relationship with God. When the Coke-a-Cola company began, they had a unique beverage, and many tried to copy it. The company realized that they had a problem and needed a way to distinguish their produce from the copycats. They designed a bottle that had such a distinctive shape, that it could be recognized in the dark. This distinctive vessel communicated that what was inside was the real thing. God inhabits our bodys in the form of His spirit. By our lives, we are representing God to the world. Some would say that the cost for living a life like that is too high. The truth is that the cost for the real thing is not too high and it is worth the effort to find the real thing.

Our society has blurred the lines, and has established a false standard about how success is defined. We have allowed our world to dictate to us the definition of success. The world defined success in terms of money, power, position or social standing. In the process, we evaluate ourselves against this standard, and compare ourselves to what is declared to be successful. Social media has delivered a new psychosis: FOMO; the Fear Of Missing Out. Social media is not reality. It is in reality the highlight reel. It is a misrepresentation of what other people’s lives are. It is the view of their life that they want to present. This leads to an unhealthy comparison of what we know our reality is vs, a photoshopped, airbrushed, and wordsmithed life presented by other people. We are living in a world that is driven by pride. We have apps on our phones that apply filters on the selfies we take to make us look better than we really look. There are no filters in the kingdom of God, because they are not needed! God knows what we look like. He desires a close relationship with who we really are, not who we tell other people we are. Too often that concern about what other people think about us come into the church with us: “I can’t shout like that”, or “I can’t dance before the Lord like that.” But when God moves on us, we have to yield to Him. We cannot live a life trying to please men on one side, and God on the other. We try to hide the things with which we struggle, but God sees it all. We have to get over what people think about us, because what matters is our relationship with God. We cannot worry about what people think because as long as we do that, we will be inhibited from giving all that God requires of us. To truly live a Godly life, we have to be set free from what they think about us.

Our society has blurred the lines, and has established a false standard about how success is defined. We have allowed our world to dictate to us the definition of success. The world defined success in terms of money, power, position or social standing. In the process, we evaluate ourselves against this standard, and compare ourselves to what is declared to be successful. Social media has delivered a new psychosis: FOMO; the Fear Of Missing Out. Social media is not reality. It is in reality the highlight reel. It is a misrepresentation of what other people’s lives are. It is the view of their life that they want to present. This leads to an unhealthy comparison of what we know our reality is vs, a photoshopped, airbrushed, and wordsmithed life presented by other people. We are living in a world that is driven by pride. We have apps on our phones that apply filters on the selfies we take to make us look better than we really look. There are no filters in the kingdom of God, because they are not needed! God knows what we look like. He desires a close relationship with who we really are, not who we tell other people we are. Too often that concern about what other people think about us come into the church with us: “I can’t shout like that”, or “I can’t dance before the Lord like that.” But when God moves on us, we have to yield to Him. We cannot live a life trying to please men on one side, and God on the other. We try to hide the things with which we struggle, but God sees it all. We have to get over what people think about us, because what matters is our relationship with God. We cannot worry about what people think because as long as we do that, we will be inhibited from giving all that God requires of us. To truly live a Godly life, we have to be set free from what they think about us.

Bro. Hughes offers a powerful message in Wednesday Night Bible Study

Bro. Hughes offers a powerful message in Wednesday Night Bible Study