Lifestyle of Faith – Part 10 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Welcome friends to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in. Today, we’re concluding our series of two weeks on the Lifestyle of Faith, and we’re gonna be talking about praise and thanksgiving. You know, the Bible says, “In everything, give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning you.” It does not say for everything, give thanks, but it does say, “In everything, give thanks.” God bless you, stay tuned. You’ll be blessed. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us today. Aaron and I are teaching, and we’re concluding our two weeks of teaching actually on the Lifestyle of Faith. And we talked about having a bold confession of Jesus, a bold confession of faith, a bold confession of the word of God. Then we talked about having a lifestyle of faith. We talked about Abraham who represents 50 years of faith in God, amen. And then we moved in at the beginning of this week and talked about being consistent in giving and receiving. And then yesterday, we talked about being consistent in prayer. And today, we’re gonna be talking about being consistent in prayer and praise. And you know, I believe that the sandwich method works best. And that’s when you sandwich your prayers between praise, you’re gonna get a lot more of your prayers answered. And at the same time, if you really believe God has done something, you should start thinking Him for it. And you know, there’s a lot of people that are very religious about prayer. We’re not heard because we pray to God a lot. It’s not because of the amount that we pray. It’s not because of the number of people that pray, that we get great things. That Jesus in the tightest places, did not get a whole bunch of people. And Jesus put everybody out and took just His three closest, Peter, James, and John with him, and raised people from the dead. He knew with a bunch of people, you’re gonna get a bunch of unbelief. Mom and I, when we’re facing a major problem, Barbara and I, we don’t call all these people and call a prayer line and tell all these people, you know, we call two or three good friends that know how to believe God, amen. And then we just believe God, and great things happen when you believe God. And we started yesterday with this scripture in Colossians 4:2 that says, “Continue in prayer and watching the same with thanksgiving.” We need to be consistent in prayer. We need to continue in prayer, and then we need to watch our prayers, amen, get answered. He says, “continue in prayer, watching the same with thanksgiving.” At the same time you’re praying, thank God. You know, Jesus actually said this in Mark 11:24. He said, “What thing so ever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them.” And if you really believe that you receive something, what’s gonna happen?

 

  You’re gonna rejoice.

 

  You’re gonna start rejoicing and praising God. You know, we’ve been going through a major challenge with a certain aspect here at the ministry for over three years. And Mark Hankins was here preaching a few months ago. And you know what? He preached, he said something, and it wasn’t what he was preaching about, he was preaching about the blood, but it came right out of his spirit. He said, “God is gonna beat your enemies down, before your face.” And I jumped up and shouted and lifted my hands because I knew that that was the answer. And I just knew that about a month and a half before Mark preached, I was preaching for you, you were somewhere on a Wednesday night. And I preached on redemption. It might’ve been just two weeks ahead of that. And we have a couple in our church, and I’ve known them for over 30 years, Larry and Carla Gifter. And they had been dealing with an issue for several years. And you know, when I was preaching on redemption, you know, she got something that I said from a scripture, she just grabbed a hold of it. She started rejoicing the same way. And they went just weeks after that, and exactly what they were believing for was accomplished. You know what, God can speak to you. And I asked Mark later that day, I said, “Is that a scripture?” And he said, “Yeah, it’s in Psalm 89. It’s talking about the covenant,” praise God. And I went and found it, praise God. And I’m believing it. And we’re gonna shortly see that thing come to pass. And I may be wrong sometimes I am, but I don’t think I am, praise God. You know, there’s a number of scriptures that talk about this. James talks about praying the prayer of faith. And when James says, he says, “When you pray, ask God and believe.” And he says, “Don’t doubt anything. He that doubt is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed.” And a lot of people that are praying aren’t really praying prayer of faith. I grew up in a church and we didn’t know anything about the promises of God. Man, we did know about salvation, but that was about it. We didn’t know about the baptism of Holy Spirit. We didn’t know about divine healing. We didn’t know about provision. We didn’t know about believing God for We just saved and stuck. But man, I got Andrew Wommack’s Bible study. Now, I just started hearing. The first night that I went to his Bible study, the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, “There is a Bible full of promises that you can believe, you don’t have to be sick, pouring, defeated by the devil.” And I started believing God. And listen, my life is a lot better because I believed than if I didn’t.

 

  I like in James, it says, “A double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways.” You know, you need to be single-minded about your faith, and really make it a part of your lifestyle. It’s your everyday life. It’s your everyday choice you make to trust God, to believe God. And when you’re single-minded like that, that’s the kind of prayer that avails much.

 

  Amen. The Bible actually says this in James 5, it says, “The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man of avails much.” And if you read it, another kind of paraphrase of it says, “The heartfelt hot prayer of a righteous man of avails much.” And in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, the scripture says this, “Rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing. In every thing, give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Man, right in between rejoicing and giving thanks, he says, “Pray without ceasing.” And rejoicing is a form of praise. And we can see this exact same thing we probably will later in the broadcast today in Philippians chapter four, Paul sandwiches between rejoicing. In Philippians 4:4 and 4:8, he says, “Don’t worry about everything, but in everything by prayer at supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God, and the peace of God will keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Man, rejoice, pray about it. Ask God to do something about it, and while you’re doing it, thank God, and then rejoice some more, hallelujah. Be positive, focus on the positive. Focus on what God’s doing.

 

  Remember that you’re victorious too. A lot of people pray prayers, they’re like victim prayers. They’re beggar kind of prayers. But you’re not a beggar, you’re not a victim. You’re actually a child of God, you’re victorious. I like, in the Old Testament, when one of the redemptive names of God is revealed, it was actually revealed in the very first battle that Israelites had to fight in the wilderness.

 

  In Exodus 17.

 

  And they fought, this is the first time Joshua is mentioned. And you know, Moses commanded Joshua to assemble an army and lead this army into battle against the Amalekites. And when Moses and his hands holding up the rod were up in the air, they would prevail. But if you let down his hands, they would be defeated. So he got so tired from holding up this rod that the symbol of God’s power, of his protection, or the people that Aaron, and Aaron came and helped hold his hands up. And after they had the victory, Moses built an altar there and called it Jehovah Nissi, Yahweh Nissi, which means the Lord is our banner. The Lord is our protector, our victory. And God actually told Moses to write this down as a memorial in a book, and to recount it in the hearing of Joshua. So God was telling–

 

  Amen.

 

  Moses, “Every time that Joshua would have to go out to battle, you’re to remember this victory.”

 

  Amen.

 

  And in the King James, it says, “To rehearse.”

 

  Amen.

 

  So you’re actually to like go back–

 

  Rehearse the victory.

 

  Rehearse the victory, The devil tries to rehearse and play back moments of defeat–

 

  Right.

 

  And get you to–

 

  Absolutely.

 

  To identify with defeat. Like if you get a cough, he tries to make you remember, while your neighbor had this cough and ended up dying, and he’s trying to rehearse the defeat–

 

  Amen.

 

  In your mind. but you need to rehearse the victory. You need to remember the testimonies that you have in your own life, the testimonies that you hear, hopefully from a good church that you go to, or the testimonies you’ve heard here on this television program. You can rehearse the testimonies of Jesus.

 

  You know, one thing, Pastor Max Cornell talks about this, to testify means to say again. And he’s actually been traveling, he was in Brazil recently, he’s in Mexico right now as we’re recording this broadcast. And you know, Max is there, and he’s been seeing thousands and thousands of people healed and set free by the power of God. And Max says, “You know, he goes and he testifies and he tells all these miracles that God has done.” And when he tells those, the people get excited, and God does it again. And you know, we need to do that, praise God. A lot of times while I’m praying for somebody, and they have a situation that’s going on in their body, you know, the Lord will bring up somebody else that was healed of the exact same thing. Recently, I have a man that I’m very close to in the church, and his wife was diagnosed with these tumors. And I was sitting at the kitchen table, and I was thinking, “This is just gonna be like Patty Mitchell.” Patty Mitchell was in our church, and this happened about 25 years ago. She had these huge tumors, and you know what, God, they took them out of her, and she’s never had anything come back. She’s never had a problem again, but you know what? They prayed and they believed God. And while I didn’t say anything, I was sitting there, had my Bible open, meditating early in the morning, mom walked by and said, “This person is gonna be just like Patty Mitchell.” And you know what, I knew in the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established. And I called this couple, and I said, I gave them this testimony and said, “This is what’s gonna happen with your wife. She’s gonna be just like this woman 25 years ago in our church.” And her daughter and her husband, actually her husband is a worship leader for us, Patty’s son-in-law, and I said, “It’s gonna be just exactly like that,” amen. And you know, God will bring up things like that.

 

  So rehearse it.

 

  Rehearse the victory.

 

  Thank God for the victory. Talk about what God’s done. Quit talking all the time about the devil did this, and the devil did that. And some people listen to the devil more than they listen God. And half the time, it’s not even the devil, it’s their imagination.

 

  But when you’re thankful, that actually directs your imagination in a positive way.

 

  Amen.

 

  Yeah, I had a great teaching on this called the Divine Imagination. And God spoke to me from Romans–

 

  It’s a great teaching.

 

  Romans 1:20, I’ll read it really quick. I’ll give you an entire series in one minute, but in Romans 1:20–

 

  Amen, hallelujah.

 

  It says here that, “Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God.” So really they’re not giving God glory, they’re not praising God. “And nor were they thankful.”

 

  Right.

 

  “That became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened.” So it’s saying when you praise God, when you glorify God, when you’re thankful–

 

  Thank God.

 

  It points your imagination. It points your heart, it points your thought life in the right direction.

 

  Right.

 

  If you’re not praising God, if you’re unthankful, your thought life, it’s gonna become futile. It’s gonna be–

 

  Vain.

 

  Become vain.

 

  Empty.

 

  It’s gonna become dark.

 

  Powerless.

 

  It’s actually, your imagination’s gonna work in a destructive way that the enemy wants it.

 

  Right.

 

  The enemy’s a destroyer.

 

  Right.

 

  God is a creator. He makes beautiful things. He brings order to life. He brings order to this universe. The enemy is a destroyer. He is the author of chaos. He’s the author of confusion. And when you praise God, when you’re thankful, praise and thanksgiving, that causes your imagination, your heart to work in a creative way.

 

  Yeah.

 

  The way that God wants it to do. And you’ll imagine yourself living longer, than the doctors say. You’ll imagine yourself doing things that people said would be impossible for you to do.

 

  Amen, praise God. I tell people testimonies. I’ve been around a while and I’ve seen a lot of miracles. And you know, I tell them what God’s done. And we constantly, you know, we see a lot of miracles. We see a lot of people healed, a lot of people filled with the Holy Ghost. We see people saved, we see people prosper. And you know what, we preach it. You know, faith comes by declaration and declaration by the mouth of God. Faith comes by hearing, that’s a literal Greek declaration, and hearing by the mouth of God. When you understand who God is and what He’s done, it causes your faith to come alive. Faith comes alive in the presence of God. We need to talk about Jesus, talk about what He’s done, talk about the finished work of the cross, and lead people so they can begin to receive these things. And when you begin to understand it, you’re not gonna be begging God. You’re gonna be rejoicing and praising and thanking God. And one aspect of faith is thankfulness. You know, another aspect of faith is joy. When you get in the presence of God, there is joy in the presence of God. Man, we need to be rejoice, and we need to be thanking God and praising God. And what’s the worst thing that could happen to us as believers? What’s the worst thing that could happen to us?

 

  You could die and go to heaven.

 

  Yeah, die and go to heaven. Hallelujah, that’s the worst thing that could happen. So when you know that, then that can solve a lot of problems. And you can just look at the good and rejoice and glorify God and move forward. But believe God for His very best. We’re gonna be back right after this break, so stay tuned. They got some good things coming to you. We’ll be back right after this. We’ll have more good things to share in places. Friends, I’ve been teaching with two of my greatest friends, Andrew Wommack and Jesse Duplantis. And we taught with Andrew on the revelation of grace. And then with Jesse, on insights to faith. You don’t want to miss this great teaching, that is the heart of the gospel, grace, what Jesus has done, and faith, our positive response to it, blessed. I want you to know that paradise is not found in the lifestyles of the rich and the famous. Paradise is found through knowing Jesus Christ. And if you don’t know Jesus, you are poor. You are poor spiritually. You may have a lot of money, but spiritually, you are bankrupt if you don’t know Jesus. Praise the Lord, friends, you know, a lot of the challenges that people face, they don’t wanna really praise God, till they see a physical manifestation of the promise. But faith is the substance of things hoped for. It’s the evidence of things not seen. So you need to learn to praise God and glorify God before you see the physical manifestation of the promise. And a great example of this is in Exodus 15, the children of Israel had come across the Red Sea. God used the same thing to destroy their enemies and to bless them and protect them. And Miriam took a tambourine after that happened and went singing and dancing. “I was singing unto the Lord for He is trying gloriously, the horse and the riders been thrown into the sea.” But she had the right song, but it was on the wrong side. And we need to be rejoicing and praising God before we see the answer. You know, your wife, Heather, she helps us with social media and different things. And we had one of our major social media accounts, was just shut down. It was locked up tight. We had spent weeks and hours, and we were getting a new person to help us with some of the things that we do. And we could not, this is like two or three weeks, she’d spent a lot of time working on it. It was broken down. And she was doing her daily Bible reading and reading in Joshua chapter six. And this is the children of Israel talking about before they went into Jericho, and it said, “It was straightly shut up.” Man, this social media account, they were straightly shut up. And God showed her, that God spoke to Joshua and told him, “You go in and go around the city once every day for six days, and then the seventh day, you go around seven times and you shout, and the walls will fall down, and you’ll walk straight up.” They actually fell under themselves, that’s what the literal Hebrew says. And the children of Israel walked right in. And she took about 15 minutes after she read that. And God showed her, because these accounts were straightly shut up. We weren’t getting anywhere, we weren’t getting anything done. And she just began to thank God and praise God. And she said, “She went over there after she praised God for 15 minutes, got on the computer, and in two clicks, had it cured.” God showed her what was going on. If you’ll start praising God, instead of just moping around, you’ll move forward, praise God. There’s another example of this. I wanna turn there. Let’s go to 2 Chronicles chapter 20. This is a great example of praise. But in 2 Chronicles chapter 20, the children of Israel were surrounded by the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Syrians. It looked like they were doomed. And the king of Judah, Jehosaphat, he said himself to pray. We can read about it. Aaron, why don’t you read in verse three, it said, “Jehosaphat feared and sent himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed to fast throughout all Judah.” But read verse four through verse seven, 2 Chronicles 20.

 

  It says, “So Judah gathered together to ask help from the Lord and from all the cities of Judah that came to seek the Lord. Then Jehosaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court, and said, ‘Oh Lord God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? And do you not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations? And in your hand, is there not power and might so that no one is able to withstand you? Are you not our God who drove out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and gave it to the descendants of Abraham, your friend, forever?'”

 

  Man, when you look at this, he just starts glorifying God. He starts magnifying God. He starts talking about who God is. When you’re in a major challenge, you need to start glorifying God. You need to start thanking God. You need to remember what He’s done. You know, one aspect of really walking in victory is remembering what the Lord did the last time. You know, in Romans chapter five, it says this in Romans 5:1, it says, “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with our Lord Jesus Christ.” And he says, “We have access by faith,” in verse two, “Into grace wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” Man, we access the grace of God. We access the goodness of God. We access the provision of God by faith. And when we do that, we rejoice in the hope of God’s goodness. But at the same point, he says this, and not only so, but he says, “We also rejoice in tribulation, knowing that tribulation works patience, patience, experience, experience, hope. And hope makes not a shame because the love of God is shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Ghost that’s given to us.” What that means is we’re always believing God for His best. But even when we have trouble, you know, the Bible says that, “We rejoice in tribulations.” It’s says, “Count it all joy when you fall into different kind of trouble, different tribulations.” In James chapter one, he says, “Knowing that tribulation works patience.” What he’s saying is, when there’s problems, if you will patiently believe God, you will experience the faithfulness of God. Patience works experience and experience works hope. And that doesn’t make us ashamed because the love of God has shed a brought our heart because we know that God is a good God. He has good things for us. In 1998, we lived in Kit Carson, Colorado, and we went through a major blizzard. I had a lot of cattle, I had, you know, I don’t know, a couple of $100,000 of debt, maybe up to $500,000 at that time. And you know what, I lost about $100,000 immediately. But the Lord showed me what to do and I prayed and I believed God, and you know, God turned that situation around. I praised Him in spite of that loss, not for the loss. God did not create the loss. God is not the author of death and destruction and problems, but I believed Him. And with within one year, I got that $100,000 back. And then we moved here to Colorado Springs in 2001. I thought I would close my cattle business down, but I actually expanded at that time. I got up to 3,000 head of cattle that I owned at one time. I had over $3 million of debt between the cattle and the feedlots. And we had the worst winter in history in Lamar, Colorado. I had about 2,500 head of cattle on feed in Lamar, Colorado. They’re making about $50 a head. And we went from making 50 to losing over 200 in one blizzard. It snow, and it’s the blizzard of a century. They don’t have a blizzard that’s ever been. People said, “Why didn’t you get the cattle out there?” You couldn’t even get a truck out there. And we lost about a quarter million dollars. I had friends tell me that, “Lawson, you’re lucky you didn’t go absolutely broke.” But in the middle of that tragedy, God spoke to me and God told me, “You look at what you have, you don’t look at what you lost.” And I started believing God. And you know, the Bible says, “If a thief be found,” in the book of Proverbs, “He has to restore sevenfold.” So I started believing to get that quarter million dollar loss back seven times. And you know, when I lost that 100,000, I got it back in a year, and it took me years to get that quarter million back. But you know what, I’ve got it back now over seven times. And you know what, I never quit believing God. And that’s what I’m talking about in this lifestyle of faith. And when I went through that difficulty, I was teaching on a very regular basis at Charis Bible College. And years after it, I talked about going through this loss and this problem. And there was a businessman there by the name of Steve that was going to Bible school. And he talked about me later. He said, “Lawson, I knew you. You were teaching in Bible school, and you were never depressed for one day. We didn’t know anything that you were going through. We didn’t know any of that difficulty.” He said, “How could you go through that kind of a loss as a businessman and be so happy?” I said, “Because God told me not to look at what I lost, but to look at what I had.” And I laid on my couch in the middle of the night and I thank God for my children, for my wife, for my church. I thank God for every good thing in my life. And God turned that situation around. Now, get me, it took me a few years to get it back, but I got it back. And I didn’t get it back one time, I got it back seven times because if a thief be found, amen, they’ve gotta restore sevenfold. And when you look at this instance in 2 Chronicles chapter 20, not only did they do that, but you know what, they begin to pray. God said, “You won’t have to fight in this battle.” He said, “The Lord is gonna fight for you.” And they set the praisers out. You know, it’s funny, they set a flute player out in front of the army. But you know what, the Syrians, Moabites, the Bible says, “The Lord sent ambushments against them. And the the Syrians, Moabitess and Ammonites, all destroyed each other. And Israel was three days picking up the goods.” Praise God, they not only got back what they lost, they got it back, I bet they got it back seven times more. Praise God, God bless them. God helped them because they believed Him and they made a decision to praise. Praise is actually, and thanksgiving, joy, those are actually fruit of having a lifestyle of faith. And so we’ve been teaching here for these two weeks on faith in God and a lifestyle of faith. We talked about having a bold confession of the word of God, a bold confession of faith, a bold confession of Jesus. We talked about having a lifestyle of faith, living out the faith in Abraham, 50 years of faith in God. We talked about a lifestyle of prayer and a lifestyle of praise, a lifestyle of giving and receiving. And you know what, if you’ve developed these things in your life, a bold confession of Jesus, a bold confession of the word, a bold confession of faith, a bold lifestyle of faith, you just keep living by faith and demonstrating your faith and you keep giving. You’re consistent in giving and receiving, and you’re consistent in prayer and praise, you’re gonna receive a lot of good things. Aaron, go ahead and share something with them.

 

  Yeah, just keep being consistent, I love that word, consistent. You know, when you’re consistent in your walk with the Lord, you’re consistent with your faith, God’s gonna do great things.

 

  Amen.

 

  I love something that you’ve said before, but you’ve said, “Faith is a journey, enjoy the trip.”

 

  Amen, praise God. God spoke that to me when we were here a year. I was walking around in Bear Creek Park praying about where my church would be. God said, “That’s for me to know and you to find that.” He says, “Faith is a journey, enjoy the trip.” And you know, it was eight years before we purchased a piece of ground. And then it was a full nine years, it was actually two buildings that we put together before we moved into that property. And, but God’s brought us a long way since then because faith is a journey. Well, thank you for tuning in. Thanks for being part of the broadcast today and this weekend. Tell your friends about it. We’ve got hundreds of hours of teachings on our website. You can get them free of charge. You can download the audios, download the videos. They’re free of charge. We don’t charge you. This is a gift from our partners, and we wanna say thanks to our partners. There’s a lot of ways you can give. You can get on our website, check it out. God bless you today.

 

  Faith isn’t just a momentary thought or a burst of emotion. It’s a lifestyle of trusting in God and His unfailing word. Take a step of faith, and trust in God’s plan for your life. Faith is a journey, so enjoy the trip. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the Teaching Lifestyle of Faith, a $20 value free of charge. Download it today at charischristiancenter.com.

 

  Friends, the scripture says, “If you will continue in the word of God, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” If you go to our website at carischristiancenter.com, you can get all of our materials there on the website as you watch them, as you listen, absolutely free of charge. And we’ve done that just to be a blessing to you. And I believe that the word that has freed me, will free you, blessings.

 

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