Expanding Our Horizons – Part 3 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in today. We’ve been talking this week about expanding our horizons. We’ve been talking about the subject of faith, how faith begins with what you see. But we’re gonna talk today about how faith continues with what you get a revelation of. God wants you to have a personal revelation of who Jesus is and what he wants you to have. Blessings. Friends, it’s great to have you with us today. We’re sharing on expanding our horizons. And in the broadcast yesterday, we talked about the fact that faith begins with what we see. And we started in Genesis 13:14, where God spoke to Abraham. And God said, “Lift up your eyes and look. For all the land that you see, I will give it to you.” You know, we’ve gotta begin to see from a spiritual sense. And if we can change the picture on the inside of us, we can change the picture on the outside of us. But after he said that in Genesis 13:14, he said in Genesis chapter 13:17, “Arise, walk through the land through its length and through its breath.” Praise God. So when he says walk through the land, I think he’s saying, “Hey, I want you to smell it, I want you to feel it, I want you to get a revelation of what I have for you.”

 

  And God, oftentimes, when he speaks to us, when we have an encounter with him, he gives us direction, he gives us vision, he gives us insight. And sometimes the things that he gives you a vision of don’t come to pass overnight. Some things will come to pass years later, decades later. And again, a lot of us just want to insta bake things, just microwave the things with God. But a lot of things take time to walk out. And really, faith is a lifelong journey. The race of faith, it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. And a lot of us need to have more of a marathon mentality versus just a ten-second sprint mentality. Amen.

 

  And man, just, when you keep trusting God over a long period of time, when you keep going to the word, when you keep believing God, good things are gonna happen. You know, just the other day, I’ve been pastoring now for eight years. And just this past Sunday, I was walking down the hallway and I ran into this, a young man. He’s about 13 years old. And he actually, him and his mom, he had a single mom at the time, started coming to church right when I moved back to be a pastor here. And he actually was like one of the sickest kids I had known. He had several issues going on, but I know the two most prominent issues with his health were, he had a digestive disease where he couldn’t eat hardly anything. And whatever he could eat, he had to take medication to eat. And he also just, basically, didn’t have an immune system. So, whenever he got just even the common cold, he’d be in the hospital for weeks at a time in the ICU. And, you know, he began kindergarten, but he missed like half the school year just ’cause he’s in and out of the hospital so much. But a after a few years, he was actually completely healed. Even the doctors looked at, you know, they could look at his blood work and see that everything was completely normal. You know, at one point, he was on 10 different medications a day just to survive, but he’s off of all those medications. And just walking down the hall, he’s as tall as me now. He’s healthy, he was volunteering. You know, his mom, you know, just dealing with everything with her son, it took a toll on her. She had just tremendous anxiety, would have panic attacks. Even at the church, she, you know, was having a major panic attack and had to, you know, be given help ’cause she was hyperventilating. But, you know, she’s like a different person. You know, God actually brought her a great husband. She has another child. Just… It’s amazing what happens when you’re around people of faith.

 

  Amen.

 

  In an atmosphere of faith where the promises of God are being taught, where you’re being encouraged, you know, good things are gonna happen.

 

  Where you’re actually believing the Bible. You know, this young man, when he was 10 years old, and they’d been in the church at that time, you know, like, five or six years, and he woke up one morning and he said, “God healed Pastor Lawson when he was a little boy, and God is gonna heal me.” And he said, “I am done with this sickness and I am done with the devil.” Praise God. And that day, he received the manifestation of his healing. And he had this deal where he couldn’t eat-

 

  Gluten.

 

  Gluten. And he ate like an entire box of Teddy Grahams. They took him to Chipotle. He’s a little bitty kid. He ate a whole Chipotle burrito. He has had no problems whatsoever. The doctors had told him prior to this that he wouldn’t live a very long life. Now they say he’s gonna live a normal life, that he’s gonna live, you know, a good long life, and all these different things, that he’s completely healed. And he was on over 10 medications a day, and he’s not on any of them. He was completely healed by the power of God. And you know what, God is no respecter of persons, he’s a respecter of faith, but he got a vision on the inside of himself being healed. He began to see it. And it just like God told Abraham, first of all, in Genesis 13:14, “Lift up your eyes and look. For all the land that you see, I’m gonna give it.” You need to see yourself healed, healthy, well, strong, prosperous, blessed. You need to see yourself going where God wants you to go. You need to see yourself doing what God wants you to do, but then you need to get a revelation of it.

 

  And one thing too about this young man who was healed. I know his mother, despite what they were facing, she just decided in her heart she wasn’t gonna let fear dominate their life. And the timing he was healed was actually at, kind of, at the start of COVID when a lot of people were in fear and just shutting things down. You know, after a few weeks, we realized like we needed to have the church open. The church is absolutely necessary. People coming together, worshiping God together, encouraging each other in faith was absolutely necessary. So we opened up, and she brought her son to church. They kept coming to church and she didn’t, she chose not to let fear dominate their life.

 

  Amen.

 

  And man, you need to make decisions that are based upon faith, not upon fear.

 

  Yeah, that is a great point, Aaron. You know, during this COVID thing, when, you know, our governor actually said he had to shut down the church, and we were actually the last large church in Colorado Springs to close, and we were the first large church in Colorado Springs to open. And mom… And I have talked about this, but the people that have done well, you know, are the people that just kept going, kept doing things, kept coming to church, kept getting out, kept, you know, just being who God made them to be, so on and so forth, and they didn’t live in fear. You know, we have a couple in this church, Herb and Judith Carter, and they’re the head of our prayer team. And Herb’s family was actually mad at us because Herb and Judith, you know, in 2020, Herb was probably 78, 79 years old. Well, he is just turned 83 maybe. So, you know, and we had the church open and he said, “What if my dad die?” so on and so forth. But kept coming here, and Herb actually had a heart attack one day and died, but God raised him from the dead right here at church with the prayer team, and he’s still alive and he’s doing well. And you know what, they’re up in their 80s and they are healthy and they are strong, and they are well because they believe God. And, you know, a lot of times what we get? We get what we believe for. And a lot of people aren’t believing for anything. So we need to start believing for it, but we need to not only see it, we need to go there. God said, walk together.

 

  Well, and fear is actually having a vision as well.

 

  Fear is like faith in the opposite. Fear and faith are polar opposites.

 

  And the devil will try to put fear on people, try to give them a vision of what God doesn’t want for them, what God doesn’t have planned for them. And the enemy tries to direct people towards fear. But you’re gonna like the journey of faith a lot better than the journey of fear.

 

  Amen.

 

  So when you’re making major decisions, when you’re looking for direction, ask yourself, “Is this a faith type of step or is it a fear type step?”

 

  Yeah, so many people make decisions out of fear. I know Christians that make decisions just completely based on fear. For instance, about their children and different things with educational choices and so on and so forth. And you know what, you need to pray and do not make decisions based on fear. Make a decision based on faith and based on what is gonna be the best thing for my child. And you know what, we’ve done that, and we believe God, and you boys have grown up and done well and not had a lot of problems. And, you know, there’s different things for different people. Different people have different giftings, different personalities, so on and so forth, but we don’t need to let fear be the dominating factor.

 

  And God will keep directing you too. You know, the Bible says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” So part of faith is sometimes having a course correction. You know, God will point you in a direction, but you need to keep hearing from God and he’ll keep directing you. It’s like a GPS device. It keeps giving you directions. And if you happen to get off, or maybe there’s a block there that, you know, your device wasn’t aware of, it’ll redirect you.

 

  Amen.

 

  So faith… The journey of faith is often full of redirection.

 

  Amen. You know, when we moved to Kit Carson and started our first church, we had a church built and paid for within like 16 months, completely done. And we moved here, and by the second summer, I was walking over in Bear Creek Park in, it’s on the south part of Colorado Springs, southwest part of Colorado Springs. And I was walking one Saturday afternoon and I was praying to God, and I think this is when we’d already been here two years. And I was praying, asking God, “Where’s my church gonna be?” And he’s like, that’s for me to know, and you’d find out. And he just told me, loss in faith is a journey. Enjoy the trip. And, you know, it took us eight years before God gave us a property, and then it took us another year and a half to move into that property. And, you know… And then, you know, since then, God’s done even more things in that realm. But, you know, it’s not, like you say, an insta bake society. You gotta keep walking with God and keep believing God, and you gotta get a revelation. It needs to be a revelation to you. You know, you can’t just live off somebody else’s revelation. You can’t say, “Well, because Andrew Wommack said,” or “Because Jesse Duplantis has said,” or “Because, you know, Pastor Lawson said.” You’ve gotta have a personal relationship with Jesus and let the word of God become actual revelation to you. And when the word becomes revelation, you’re gonna start saying some things, praise God. You can’t help say some things.

 

  And it’s something that continues to grow as well. You know, the journey of faith, when God gives you direction, when he gives you revelation, it’s something that you grow in. It’s not an instant type thing. You know, these heroes of faith is by faith and patience. And you’ve talked about this before, but that Greek word for patience, it means consistency as well.

 

  Amen.

 

  So part of faith is just being consistent in trusting God, and also realizing that he’s consistent towards you. You know, some people kind of view God like, He gave me a good gift, he did something good for me in the past, but that was it. And now I’m just in this desert-

 

  Keep walking with God.

 

  You keep walking in him. And his mercies are new every day. His grace for you. God has new things, has surprise things, he has great things in store for you.

 

  You know, we’ve had some great things come to us by faith. It’s really amazing the story of my life and what God has done for us, so on and so forth. But I am actually believing God today for more than I’ve ever believed him for before. We have went into, you know, I’ve been teaching and preaching the word of God for over 40 years. And just recently, we’ve made the biggest steps that we’ve ever made to expand the ministry. And God is blessing it, and God is helping us, and we’re excited about our future. And I believe the life is faith is exciting. And I believe God wants us to live by faith. And when we live in that, there’s an excitement about the future. We’re gonna come back and talk more about this, so stay tuned. Friends, I’m so glad that you’ve been watching today. We’ve been sharing on expanding our horizons. We have multiple hours of this teaching in downloadable audio, downloadable video, and many others, free of charge, on our website at charischristiancenter.com. So take advantage of these resources and be blessed.

 

  You know what, when God tells you to do something, you need to do it. And you don’t need to worry about every Tom, Dick and Harry over here and what they’re gonna say or how they’re gonna try to manipulate you or treat you. You just keep on plugging on and you keep doing what God told you to do, and he will work them out. You have to let God be God, and you have to do what he tells you to do.

 

  Friends, I’m so glad you stayed with us. We’re gonna continue to talk about, you know, how faith continues when we get a revelation of the word of God. And you know what, we need to have a personal revelation of the things of God. We need to have a personal revelation of what God wants us to do, where God wants us to go, what God wants us to be, what God wants us to have. You know, we need to have a personal revelation in the area of ministry and ministering to other people. You cannot live off somebody else’s revelation. God doesn’t have any grandchildren. And, you know, I talked about in the first half of the broadcast, it’s not because Andrew Wommack has a revelation, or Jesse Duplantis has a revelation, or, you know, pastor Lawson has a revelation. You need to have a personal revelation. Aaron, it’s not because I have a revelation. You learn things from me growing up in my house, but you have a personal revelation of the things of God. And so I’m going to have Aaron read in Acts 19:13, really, or you can start in verse 11 and 12 through verse 20, and you can read as much of that as you want to. We can stop and take some breaks and talk about it. But let’s talk about how having a revelation changes how you minister.

 

  So here in Acts 19:11, it says, “Now, God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul.” Now, God likes to do unusual things. He’s not done doing unusual things. You know, God likes to do unusual things, use unusual people from unusual places to do unusual things. And we see that that was happening here in the Book of Acts. And the Holy Spirit isn’t done working today. I believe that God is still, you know, doing miracles, still wants to astonish people and still do unusual things. So it says that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick. And the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits saying, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.” Also, there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest who did so, and the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus, I know, and Paul, I know, but who are you?” And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them so they fled out of the house naked and wounded. This became known to both to all the Jews and Greek and Ephesus, and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. So I love that ultimately Jesus, his name was magnified, and people, you know, the name of Jesus spread, the testimony of Jesus spread. But we see that these itinerant Jewish… So they were like traveling ministers. Itinerant means traveling. So they were traveling ministers, but they really didn’t have a revelation of who Jesus was.

 

  They didn’t have a personal experience of Jesus. You know, when we’re talking about being born again and knowing Jesus and being saved, we’re talking about knowing God through Jesus Christ. You know, I’ve heard this said before, and I believe it’s true, but God has no grandchildren. That means that we all need a personal relationship with Jesus. And you know what, when the children of Israel came out of Egypt, they had fresh manna every day. The word of God needs to be alive to us, it needs to be powerful to us. And it’s not because somebody else has a revelation. We need to get personal revelation of the things of God.

 

  It’s like, you know, driving your vehicle. You can’t run off of someone else’s gas. You gotta have gas in your own tank. And really, God wants all of us to have that revelation with him and our faith. You know, it’s a relate personal relationship with God as an individual. And we see that in scripture too. And we talked about Abraham earlier this week in the broadcast. And, you know, Abraham’s, you know, God wanted to impact Abraham, but also his descendants. But Isaac had to have a personal relationship with God. Jacob had to have a personal relationship with God. They couldn’t just run off of Abraham’s faith. And you can’t just run off of someone else’s faith either. You know, you can be inspired by someone else’s faith, inspired by their relationship with God, inspired by their testimonies and their, you know, insight they have in a scripture. But really, you have to have a personal relationship with God yourself.

 

  Amen. And you know what, God’s got an individual plan for every person, and God’s plan for us is good, but we get to know that plan through our relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And, you know, when you look at this, these demons basically spoke up out of these people who were possessed with them, and they said, “Jesus, we know, and Paul, we know, but who are you?” And there are people like that, their prayers are about that empty. You know, Andrew Wommack used to talk about how people could be as straight as a gun barrel and twice as empty. And you know what, we need to have a personal relationship with God and we need to have a personal experience. You know, when I just graduated from high school, I knew that I was called to preach. And I went and looked at two different Bible schools. And one of them my grandparents wanted me to look at, one of them was a very popular school. And I actually met a friend of Andrew Wommack, who’s a minister. I’ve known him and supported him on the mission field for years when I was at this place, looking at these different places. But this man is actually a prophet of God, and he actually told me, “You don’t need to come here.” He said, these people learn about faith. He said, you’re already operating in faith. And then the other one, and it just wasn’t God’s time. And then I ended up going back to the farm and just going to work. And I got married to your mother. That was really good. I believe that was part of God’s plan for me. And then after we were married, God spoke to me. You know, actually before we were married, I was actually reading a book by Dr. Lester Sumrall on “Miracles Don’t Just Happen.” And when I was reading that book, I looked at this ad in this book for World Harvest Bible College. That’s what his Bible school was called at first before it was changed to Indiana Christian University. And the Lord spoke to me about going to Dr. Lester Sumrall’s Bible school. And you know what, my mom walked by and I remember I was sitting in this chair in the corner of the living room and I was reading that book, and my mom pointed at me and said, “That man has a Bible school. Maybe you’re supposed to go there.” And God had just spoken to me, and it was like a confirmation of that word. That’s what God wanted me to do. And you know what, We need to do what God wants us to do. We need to go where God wants us to go. We need to be who God wants us to be. We wanna have what God wants us to. But so many people, you know what, they’re closed off. And so we need to hear God. And sometimes God will confirm that word through other people. And just like he confirmed, “This isn’t where I want you to go.” And then he confirmed, “This is where I want you to go.”

 

  And God can have new things in store for you as well. Maybe even a person of faith. You’ve been just walking with the Lord for a long time, for decades. God still has new things, a new direction, new revelation, just things he wants me to grow in as well. You know, every Sunday at the end of service, I gotta come up and take up offering and just lead the church in prayer. And I always, you know, give people a chance to receive Jesus, also to receive the Holy Spirit or to come up and just pray, you know, a prayer of faith with our prayer ministers. But just recently, I was just really excited. A 78-year-old woman who had been coming to church here for a few years came up and she went to receive the baptism and the Holy Spirit. And she received it. She started praying in tongue. She was so excited. And she’s been walking with the Lord probably most of her life, you know, 60 years or so. And she was just so excited. That God has something new for her, that he’s expanding her horizons. Even though she’s 78 years old, you know, she realized… And I believe that she’s getting fresh revelation. And, man, God’s not done with you yet.

 

  Amen. When I got baptized in the Holy Spirit, the word came alive. That was in Andrew Womack’s Bible study in 1978. I was 14 years old. And the word came alive to me. And if you’re watching today, if you’ve never received the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a believer with the evidence of speaking in other tongues, I encourage you to call in and have our prayer ministers pray with you. We have a lot of people that just receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. A lot of churches don’t even teach on this anymore. And we’ve got many hours of teaching on this, actually on our website at charischristiancenter.com. And you can download them, free audio, free video, downloadable. We’ve made it all free. It’s cost me thousands and thousands of dollars to do this. But you can download it and you can receive it, you can get that teaching. But you can call in and receive prayer, receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. You know, call in, receive prayer, receive-

 

  I love something that the Bible says in Jude 20. It says, “We build ourselves up in our most holy faith by praying in the Spirit.” And maybe some of you are at a place where you just feel like you’ve lost, you know, direction, you’ve lost vision, you’ve lost the ability to dream. Man, praying tongues, I remember when I was 18, I, you know, stepped out in faith. I went to college, and I went to like the best place to study music for me with the top flute professor. And I was feeling just a couple months in there, very, very stuck. Like, I felt like I wasn’t good enough And that I’d made a mistake. And my dad told me something really important, but he said, “Hey, pray in tongues every day for 30 minutes a day.” And I started doing that. And, you know, I actually was able, I got a key to like the basement of the music building. This a hundred year old, you know, building that Andrew Carnegie had built down. And it’s actually, they call it the steam tunnels there. It’s how they used to heat these buildings in Pittsburgh that Andrew Carnegie had built on this university. So I went down to the steam tunnel area and I praying in tongues for 30 minutes. And as I did that, God just, you know, that vision, that revelation, those horizons, it started to just, you know, get more clear, but even I could see further, and I started just getting really pumped up and excited. So, man, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, it’s something that needs to be active in the life of a believer. And you need to pray in tongues. And if you feel stuck right now, just take 30 minutes a day to pray in tongues, to spend time with God, and he’ll just reignite that fire he’s placed within you. The Bible says you need to stir yourselves up.

 

  Amen. Praise God. You know, when you read this scripture, you know, Jesus needed the Holy Spirit to fulfill his ministry. Paul needed the Holy Spirit to fulfill his ministry. We need the Holy Spirit to fulfill our God-given purpose and direction in life. And Paul was full of the Holy Spirit, but these people, they had a knowledge of God, but they had no personal relationship with God. And so when they tried to cast out these devils, you know, Paul cast out devils, Jesus cast out devils.

 

  They got beat up.

 

  They got whipped. But the name of Jesus was magnified, and it goes on and actually says this in Acts 19:18-20. “Many who believe came and confessed and showed their deeds, and many of them also who use curious arts like witchcraft brought their books together and burned them.” It was like $5 million worth of this witchcraft books. And they counted the price of them, 50,000 pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed. You know what, I believe that when we surrender to the Holy Spirit, when we surrender to Jesus, it will cause the word of God to grow and prevail. And I believe that that’s gonna change our life, it’s gonna change our experience of God, it’s gonna change what we receive in life, and it’s ultimately gonna make it so we can go where God wants us to go and do what he wants us to do. If you need prayer today, just give us a call. I don’t wanna leave this broadcast without giving you the opportunity to pray with me and receive Jesus as your Lord. So pray right now. Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your son. I believe that he died for my sins, and you raised him from the dead and made him Lord. And right now, I surrender to you in Jesus’ name.

 

  As you grow in wisdom and understanding, you start to get a bigger picture of what God has in store, but you have to see it in your spiritual eyes before you can go there. With Jesus, you have incredible purpose, and your future keeps getting brighter. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching, “Expanding our Horizons,” a $15 value free of charge. Download it today at charischristiancenter.com.

 

  Friends, I wanna invite you to give us a call today to receive prayer. Whether you need salvation, healing, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, or any of God’s other promises, we have trained prayer ministers here waiting to receive your call, and we would love to hear from you today. Thanks so much. Blessings. Friends, we have a great meeting coming up here at Charis Christian Center, June 12th through June 16th. We have special meetings for your children, your youth, and the adults. We have great worship with Philip Renner. We have Mark Hankins. We have David Winston speaking to the youth. Save these dates. June 12th through June 16th, 2024 at Charis Christian Center. Blessings.

 

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