Loving Life – Part 10 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast. I am so glad that you are with us today. We are talking about loving life. And we’ve got some great information. We’ve really been talking about that all of this week, how we can love life. And we’re gonna be sharing more today. Our final message on this, you don’t wanna miss it. We’re gonna talk about the divine imagination and being thankful to God. You don’t want to miss it. Blessings. Friends, it’s a great day, and I’m glad you’re with us and we’re sharing on Loving Life. And we’ve been talking about this actually for two weeks. We talked actually last week about, you know, the foundation for loving life. And that is an understanding that God is always good. That the promise of God, the Word of God, the Bible is always true. Jesus is Lord, and we are blessed, and that’s a foundation for it. But then this week, we’ve been talking about how we walk that out and work that out in life. And we’ve been from first 1 Peter 3:10 11 which is really where this teaching comes from. And you can read verse 8 12, but it says, “He who will love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak no deceit. Let him hate evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it.” He says this in verse 12, “For the eyes of the Lord or over the righteous, his ears are open to their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” And when we looked at it, we said, number one, we’ve got to begin to see good. He who will love life, let him see. good. You’ve gotta see good. How do you see life? How do you approach life? Do you approach from positive or negative from the promise of the problem, from that of a victor or a victim, from that of the, you know, defeat or victory, how do you see life? And you’ve gotta see life from a perspective of faith. Praise God. And then it says, “Let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak no deceit.” You gotta speak life. Death and life are in the power of our tongue. Of your tongue, of my tongue. And those who love it will eat the fruit of it. You can learn the power of your words. Your words are powerful. And that’s a part of a process. As you meditate the word, as you begin to see properly, as you are renew your mind, you begin to speak the word of God. And then you begin to do the right thing. This is exactly what this scripture’s saying. It’s the same thing as Joshua 1:8. “This book of the law, this word of God shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate therein, both day and night. That you may observe to do according to all that’s written therein. For then, you will make your way prosperous and have good success.” That is a scriptural law. What you meditate on is what you speak. What you speak is what you do. What you do is you become. So if you wanna love life, praise God. See good, speak life, do good, seek peace and pursue it. Hate evil. You can’t do that in your own self, in your own strength, that takes a relationship with God. But today we’re gonna talk about another thing, and that’s the imagination and the power of a positive imagination. It kinda ties back into the first one where you see good. But if we turn to Romans 1 and Aaron, you can share in Romans 1:20 21. And just go ahead and share your heart on that. You’ve actually got a great teaching on this called The Divine Imagination. And you can actually go to our website and download all these teachings of errands on the divine imagination. I have something on it called “The Power of a Positive Imagination.” I’m not sure if that’s on the website, but you can get those. They’re absolutely free of charge. You can get them on audio or video downloadable. It’s costing me thousands of dollars to make this available. It’s really the labor that goes into it, but we’ve made that available free of charge. And we’ve got some great things there. We’ve got a brand new children’s curriculum that we’re developing. And by next year, we’ll have a youth curriculum on there also. And we’re developing it, and the results are great. We’re getting great positive response from all around the world, people who are using this. So praise God.

 

  Well talk about just the divine imagination. You know, God has an imagination. He has a thought life, he has plans. Really, the imagination is kinda the creative side, the side of your soul, of your heart, of your mind that creates, and God has an imagination. You know, I believe that, you know, to create something, you have to think about it. You have to dream about it, you have to imagine it. Usually, great creators don’t just create things by accident. You know, someone has built a business, or maybe they’re a great artist. Generally speaking, you don’t just make something by accident. You’ve already imagined it and thought about it and dreamed about it. And I think God’s the same way. I think he dreams about things. I think he dreamed about the entire universe before he spoke it into existence. I think he actually dreamed and imagined you even before he spoke the universe into existence. He knew that you would exist. He knew how many hairs would be on your head. He knew what you would look like. He would know what your heart is like. God already imagined you you know, before he spoke everything into existence. And really, we’re given an imagination as well. And God wants us to use that imagination the way that he does in a positive way, in a creative way. The enemy wants to twist the imagination and to use the imagination in a destructive way. You know, the devil is just a destroyer. He’s not a creator, he’s not a builder, he’s a destroyer. And we see here in Romans 1:20, it says, “For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen.” So this is saying that since whenever you see something that was created, you know that there’s a creator behind it. And the creation will reflect attributes of the creator. If you hear, you know, I like classical music. I have a doctorate in classical music. If I hear a great, you know, symphony on the radio, I know that someone created that. I know it wasn’t just an accident. You know, some people think that everything exists by accident, but chaos does not breed or generate, you know, beauty in order. Chaos never evolves into beauty in order. Chaos is just destructive. The enemy is the author of chaos. God’s the author of beauty in order. Whenever you see beauty in order, you know that there’s a creator. So it says, “For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead so that they are without excuse.” You know, someday, everyone will face God, and you’re not gonna have any excuse.

 

  That’s right. Romans 3 talks about this, and this is why the law was given. It says that every mouth may be stopped. You know, the law couldn’t make us righteous or holy because we couldn’t do it in our own strength. We talked about this yesterday. To overcome evil and do good, you have to have a relationship with God. Jesus said, only God is good. You know, it takes a relationship with God to seek peace and pursue it. It takes a relationship with God. You’ve gotta be at peace with God, then at peace with yourself, then you can be at peace with other people. But when you look at this, he says, you know, this takes God. So go ahead.

 

  All right, so there’re without excuse. Now, I saw an article recently that, you know, there’s this conflict going on right now between Israel and Hamas there in Gaza, but I saw an article recently that there were close to 200 Palestinians that turned to Christianity. And they all around the same time had visions of Jesus coming to them. So God’s heart is to save people. His heart is to reveal Jesus to people. This is there without excuse, verse 21, “Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened.” So here in verse 21, it says that people deep down know that there’s a God, but some people just choose not to glorify him as God. And God’s showing me something very powerful here about this verse. It says, “Your thankfulness will direct your imagination.” You see that they were unthankful and they became futile in their hearts. So when you’re unthankful, you’ll become futile in your hearts. And that’s talking about your soul. You know, your heart, your soul. Your imagination is part of your soul, right? And it’s actually the creative. And God wants to spark your soul. He wants to spark your imagination. But if you’re unthankful, your imagination is gonna work in a negative way. It’s gonna work in a destructive way. When you’re unthankful, you’re actually gonna imagine problems that aren’t really there. When you’re unthankful, you’re gonna imagine solutions that are actually very destructive.

 

  Amen.

 

  You know, some people, if they’re like unthankful for their spouse, they’ll start imagining, “Well, if I could just marry someone younger and someone…” You know, like they start imagining a very destructive 

 

  It’s terrible.

 

  Solution. But if you’re thankful, you’re actually gonna be able to create positive solutions. It’ll affect your… So one way to just shift your imagination is to be thankful.

 

  Right.

 

  Start thanking God.

 

  You look at that in Romans 1:21, it’s a process. We begin to glorify God. So the first thing they did, they did not glorify God for being God. Then they become thankful. Thanksgiving is a result of glorifying God and magnifying God. And then he says, “They became vain. If you become thankful, you begin to use your imagination in a positive way. And light and understanding fill your heart.” So it begins with glorifying God and then becoming thankful. Go ahead.

 

  Anyway, like, a lot of society doesn’t glorify God. They put the glory on their own selves like we are. It’s about our truth,

 

  Right? Well, we’re not God.

 

  It’s what we think. And you just see how quickly you know, that not glorifying God and becoming unthankful just leads to very, very screwed up thinking wherever 

 

  Well, that’s exactly what this scripture says. It goes on and talks about the Gentile problem in the world, and it says, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” That’s exactly what you’re saying, Aaron.

 

  And you see how it’s all tied into creation as well. You know, a lot of people, you know, God created mankind in his image, we’re supposed to be in his likeness, and he created them, male and female, right? And you see how this, you know, not glorifying God, being haters of God, a lot of society, they’re actually haters of God and unthankful, ungrateful. How they start creating false realities. Where there isn’t male and female. And you can imagine, you know that you’re a unicorn and identify as a unicorn or whatever. And you just see how quickly you know, this plays out in the world. But as believers, you need to glorify God and be thankful. And you’ll just see every time you’re thankful and even in the midst of a problem, you just start glorifying God, you start thanking him, you start looking at the good things he’s done in your life. You look at God that he is good, his word is true. You know, Jesus is Lord, we’re blessed. You start focusing on that and you start professing it, you start, you know, thankfulness, it’s best expressed with your words.

 

  Amen.

 

  And if you wanna thank someone, you don’t just do it with your thoughts. If I was to say thank you to my dad, I’d have to verbalize it. Again, we see that faith in your words are directly attached.

 

  And you know what the Bible actually talks about in the end times that people will be unthankful and unholy in two Timothy 3:1. And Aaron, I bet I write bunches and bunches of thank yous. And I tell people thank you a lot, but I’m very thankful to God. You know, for my salvation. I’m very thankful for everything he’s given me, how much he’s blessed me. I’m very thankful for our family. I’m very thankful for the ministry that he’s allowed me to be part of. I’m very thankful when people help us and support this ministry. And you know what? We need to be just grateful people. So many people are ungrateful. Mom and I talk about this, you know, we’re very generous. We give to a lot of people and a lot of things, but some people just don’t say thanks. And you know what? When they don’t say thanks, you’re not really excited about giving them more. But when people are thankful people, you get more excited about helping them.

 

  And I think there’s someone watching right now that you’ve actually struggled with suicidal thoughts and just imagining death. And that’s not from God, that’s from the enemy. And God wants to break that off of you. And this is how it’s gonna be done. You’re gonna start thanking God for every good thing that he’s done in your life. And you’re gonna say it out loud. And I believe that as you start professing God’s goodness and thinking him for it, that imagination of death, it’s gonna be broken off of you. And you’re not gonna have that struggle anymore. glorify God and just be thankful. Just thank him for every good thing that you can possibly thank him for. And that imagination of death, that’s gonna be broken off of you.

 

  Amen. I agree with that, Aaron. God is so good. You know, we’re gonna come back and we’re gonna continue to teach on being thankful, the power of a positive imagination and letting light what happens when you begin to glorify God and become thankful. Your imagination will begin to work in a positive way, and you’ll begin to have light and understanding fill your heart so that you can move in to the things that God has for you. Praise God. During these broadcasts, I mean, during the broadcast today, God’s been speaking to me about my own life and his plans and they’re good and what he has for us and how to continue to move into that. And that’s by saying what God says, praise God and believe in what he says. So we’re gonna come back right after this break. You don’t wanna miss it. And I believe it’ll be powerful and it’ll help you move into God’s divine destiny for your life. Hey, Brenda, I have a question for you. Do you love life? I believe that God wants you as a believer to love life, to enjoy living. And I believe that God has given us the peace in his work so that we can do that. So go to our website at Charis Christian Center and download this teaching absolutely free. Blessings.

 

  We set up the prayer team. This felt weird. I said, “Dennis, pray for me.”

 

  One of the ladies had taken his pulse when he first fell over, but there was no pulse.

 

  Pastor was listening to the Holy Spirit and he spoke with authority.

 

  Then he starts kinda drowsing up. He’s been to his heart doctor, he has been to several other doctors. Nobody, nobody can find anything.

 

  Praise God. Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us. You know, we’ve been talking about here, you know, the way that we can love life all week. And we’ve talked about a number of things. We’ve talked about seeing good, we talked about speaking life from 1 Peter 3:10, we talked about a relationship with God and it’s through a relationship with God that we overcome evil and do good that we walk in peace with God with ourselves and with other people. And then we’ve been talking about, you know, the power of glorifying God, thanking God, thanking God, and not only thanking God, but having a positive imagination. And it says, when we do that in Romans 1:21, that light and understanding will fill our heart. And he was actually using this, talking about unbelievers. They chose not to believe God. They chose not to glorify God. They were unthankful. They became vain or empty in their imaginations and darkness failed their heart. And then he talks about the gentile sin. And the gentile problem of sin. He says it’s philosophy progressing themselves to be wise they became fools. Idolatry. They turned the image of a creator into the image of a forfeited beast and a created thing. You start worshiping the created being or worshiping yourself or worshiping other things more than God. And he says, and lust, they burned in their lust towards one another. And we see this, Aaron, with this messed up gender identity. And you talked about this in, when we glorify God and become thankful, we begin to understand that God made us. You know, the Bible says that God created us in Genesis 1:26 31, male and female. It says that again in Genesis chapter 5:1 2, verse one and verse two. That God made them male and female. That’s how God made us. And you know what? When you deny the creation of God and try to become God in yourself, you are in a dangerous place. And it says, these people denied that and they burned in their lust towards one another, and they received in their selves a just repayment. In other words, some sins, I believe, they are results of what men did. Not all sin, but sometimes, there is a result of just living like the devil. And you know what? God is a gracious God. He’s a forgiving God. We’ve seen numbers of people healed from, you know, diverse lifestyles when they begin to just believe what the scripture says. But you know what? We don’t need to just go the way of the world. We need to go the way of God. So let’s just talk a little bit about being thankful and the power of Thanksgiving in our life. You know, when we begin to have a relationship with God, Thanksgiving, when we begin to glorify God, thanksgiving is a result. You know, earlier in the week, we talked about Philippians 4:6 that says, “In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.” When you pray, thank God, if you will sandwich your supplications, your requests between Thanksgiving, you’ll get a lot more of your prayers answered. You know, some people, they just take God outta the equation and they wonder why life’s not better. Well keep your eyes on God. And you know, the Bible actually says this in first Thessalonians five, if you wanna know the will of God, it says, rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing. In everything. In everything. No matter what you’re going through, you can find something to thank God for. You can find something that is good in everything. Give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. You know, I went through a long experience here at the church where we were not being treated right by an insurance company. And it was very difficult, kinda painful experience in my mind. But at the same point in time, while I was going through that, at the end of it, it looked like the church was gonna get nothing. Ultimately, God took care of the church, took care of us well, and things, we’ve been very blessed on the back end. But at the end of this thing, what I thought as least, we’re not in the Ukraine getting bombed where there’s no resolve. Hallelujah. Praise God. So rejoice evermore, praise God. Pray without ceasing. Always pray in everything, in everything you can see, somebody’s got it worse than you do. Maybe you think that nobody does, but you’re still breathing. If you’re breathing, you got a reason to give thanks. Amen. So give thanks to God. He said in everything, give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus. This is the will of God. It is the will of God for you to give thanks, amen. To rejoice evermore, to pray without easing and give thanks and everything. And if you start that process, it’ll lead to good things. You know, in Psalm 105, the Bible says this, give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name, make known as deeds among the people. You know, we need to constantly be giving thanks. You know, here in America we celebrate thanksgiving. I think this is one of the greatest holidays to celebrate. But I don’t think we should celebrate Thanksgiving just one day a year. I think we ought to celebrate Thanksgiving every day of the year.

 

  People might gain too much weight.

 

  Yeah, they might. But I’m just talking about we just need to be thankful. There’s always things, and you know, mom and I talk about this sometimes, you know, you bless people and they just don’t give thanks. And we talk about, well, we don’t know if we want them to keep blessing people like this. But mom’s like, well, remember the 10 lepers. Jesus healed 10 lepers and only one of them came back and gave thanks. So we thank God for the people that give thanks for that, really appreciate what they’ve been given. And you know, so we need to be people that are thankful people. Man, if you’ll be a thankful person, God will bring good things into your life. But if you are unthankful, it will lead to all kinds of destruction and problems. And so be a thankful person. Praise God. Now let’s go to Psalm 105. Aaron, I’m gonna have you share Psalm 105 as we go through here, verse one through five. I just quoted verse one. So you can go on to verse two through verse five. And we’ll just read Psalm 105:2 5.

 

  Yeah, and I was just thinking too about being thankful. You know, not too long ago, I was ministering to someone and I could just tell 

 

  Oh, this is great.

 

  In his prayer life, he just complained to God a lot. And I said, “For a month, I want you to do this. As you pray, only the only things in English that can come out of your mouth are 

 

  Thanksgiving.

 

  Thanksgiving. And so the only things that come outta your mouth in your prayer life is Thanksgiving and English or just pray in tongues. ‘Cause I could just tell he just kinda complains 

 

  And you told him to do this for 30 days, Aaron. I’ve actually quoted you at least three times while I’ve been preaching because I think that’s some of the best advice that people could get. It’s so practical. Just thank God or pray in tongues. And you told them to do it for 30 days, because it takes 30 days to break a habit. And you need to get in the habit of being thankful. Amen.

 

  And you know, as a pastor, I don’t really like receiving complaint emails. And I think God’s probably the same way. You know, some people, all they do is just send their complaints to God rather than like, “Hey, thank you God, for…”

 

  Here’s a way we can give thanks. I’ll just read these scriptures two to verse five, “Sing to the Lord, sing psalms unto him. Talk of all his wondrous works. Glory in his holy name. Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord, seek the Lord and his strength. Seek his face. Remember his marvelous works that he has done, his wonders in the judgments of his mouth.” You know, we can always be worshiping God and have an attitude of worship. We can continually seek God his strength and seek his face. You know what? If you’ll seek the face of God, you’ll find the hand of God. The presence of God is powerful. Actually, some translations in that verse talk about the presence of God. Seek his presence. We need the presence of Jesus. We need the presence of the Holy Spirit. Then he says, “Remember his marvelous works. Remember his works that he’s done his wonders and the judgments of his mouth.” Remember his word. And when you do that, praise God, good things are gonna happen.

 

  Yeah, I love that. Psalm 105:5, “Remember his marvelous works, which he has done, his wonders and the judgments of his mouth.” When I did this series on the divine imagination, I talked about Joshua, the first battle he fought, right? You know, they were fighting against the Amalekites and it’s the first time Joshua’s mentioned. You know, Moses appointed him to lead the armies. And whenever Moses held the rod up, the Israelites would prevail. But if he, you know, had the rod down, the Amalekite would prevail. So Aaron and her helped him keep his arms up, keep the rod up, and you know, they won. But you know, they realized, they got this redemptive name of God, Jehovah Nissi. The Lord, our victory, the Lord, our banner, our flag.

 

  Out defender.

 

  But God told Moses to rehearse this, the ears of Josh. So every time that Joshua would face a battle, he was to remember, to rehearse it and to rehearse it means to actually go back in your imagination and remember that victory.

 

  Praise God.

 

  Some of you need to rehearse the victory.

 

  Amen.

 

  Remember the marvelous works which he has done. You need to rehearse the victory. You need to go back to those amen moments of victory and rehearse them and realize that’s who you are. That’s what God has done for you. He is the Jehovah Nissi, he’s the Lord your victory. And as you rehearse that, remember those things, it’s gonna play out more and more in your life.

 

  Praise God. I wanna say great big thank you to everyone who’s watching, big thank you to our partners for helping us put on this broadcast and share the gospel around the world. But a couple of things that I wanna remind you. Number one, you can go to our website and we’ve got hundreds of hours of teaching video and audio downloadable. We’ve made it free of charge, praise God. So I want you to make that available to use that. The other thing is if you’re in church in Colorado Springs on Sunday morning, come 8:30 or 10:30, we’d love to have you at the church or you can stream us online. Thank you and blessings. Friends, we don’t want to leave this broadcast without giving you the opportunity to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord. Pray with me right now. Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your son. That he died for my sins, and that you raised him from the dead and made him Lord. And I surrender to you now in Jesus name.

 

  Hi everyone. I am so excited to invite you to join us for our Rejoice Women’s Conference, February 8th through the 10th.

 

  It’s gonna be a great time. It’s gonna be live stream. So if you can’t physically come to Colorado Springs and be here, you can attend online at our website, charischristiancenter.com or YouTube or Facebook. Also, men, you can sit in the back with me. Blessings.

 

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