Loving Life – Part 2 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Welcome, friends of the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in today. I have a question for you today. Is God in control? Does he control everything, or do we have a choice in the matter? I believe that the Bible has the answer. So stay tuned and receive God’s good word today. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us today. It’s great to have Aaron. We’re talking about loving life, and we began yesterday in 1 Peter chapter three, and we, really, were talking about the context of this. It’s really talking about relationships and specifically the marriage relationship. But right in the middle of it, in verse 10, he 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. And so, you know, Aaron, a lot of times we, as believers, we see a lot of that junk in the world. We see a lot of things sometimes politically, sometimes even in the church, we see things, and if we’re not careful, we can become very discouraged, right? But God wants us to love life, and how can we do that? Well, before I get into the, because the Bible’s very clear here in the next few verses. I think it shows us plainly how to love life. And we need to love life. I actually believe the good life is in Christ, and I believe that we can live a good life no matter what’s going down in the world. But the foundation, I believe, for it really is about four things. Why do I, Lawson Perdue, love life? And I identified at this. Number one, because I believe that God is a good God. And I think that has to be a foundation. And you may say, “Well, I believe that God is a good God,” but if you’re accounting evil to God, you really don’t believe that at a heart level. And I’ve heard this, that nearly every person who claims to be an atheist is mad at God for something they think God did. And if you boil it down and really get to the Bible truth about it, it’s probably not what God did. It’s probably the works of the devil. So number one, I believe that God is good. Number two, I believe that the Bible is the word of God. I believe that the word of God is true. And, you know, when I was 14 years old and went to Andrew Wommack’s meetings the very first time, I got this revelation that I’ve got a Bible full of promises that I can believe, and I believe that there is a biblical promise for every problem that we face in life. And if we’ll believe the promises of God, we will win and not lose in life. Praise God, we can love life. We can enjoy a good life. The third thing is I believe that Jesus is Lord. No matter what’s going down in this world, no matter what’s happening politically, no matter what’s happening economically, no matter what’s happening in your business, so on and so forth, I believe that Jesus is Lord. Praise God, and because Jesus is Lord, he’s my personal Lord. He’s not only that; he’s Lord of eternity. Praise God, and he is the coming King. So I’ve put my confidence fully and totally in Jesus. And the fourth thing, you know, I believe is that we as believers are blessed. I’m a blessed person, praise God. Some people don’t see it that way. You know, if you see your cup as half empty instead of half full or running over, David said, you know, my cup is full and running over. My cup runs over, praise God. We need to see the goodness of God and that we are blessed people, praise God. And if you are born again, the Bible truth is that we’re blessed, so we’re gonna go back to this foundation, and we’re gonna talk for a little bit about the goodness of God. Now, Aaron, what are some scriptures that talk about the goodness of God?

 

  There’s a Psalm that says, if I didn’t believe in the goodness of God, I would have fainted.

 

  Yes.

 

  So we actually need to believe in God’s goodness. That’ll actually give strength to your life.

 

  Yes.

 

  You know, I’ve noticed some people, they kinda develop a bad attitude about life. It’s like a jaded type outlook

 

  A perspective.

 

  On life. And it’s actually because they aren’t really looking for God’s goodness.

 

  Right, we need to see. The scripture you’re talking about is Psalm 27:13, and it says, I would’ve fainted unless I believed to see the goodness of the Lord. Again, the goodness of God is foundational. I would have fainted unless I believe to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of living. So, if you’re gonna believe to see the goodness of the Lord, you’ve gotta know, first of all, that God is good. So James chapter one, verse 17 says this, that every good and every perfect gift comes down from above, from the father of lights with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. So what does that mean to you, Aaron?

 

  It means if you have something good in your life, something perfect in your life, it’s from God. He only has good things to give. He doesn’t give anything that’s evil. You know, there’s a lot of people that attribute everything in their life to God,

 

  Right.

 

  Even sickness or death, destruction, loss. A lot of people just attribute everything to God, but God doesn’t control everything.

 

  That’s right.

 

  There is evil in this world, and God is not the author of evil. He doesn’t put evil on people’s lives either. He only has good things to give.

 

  Yeah, and if you’re a believer, and you think that God is just in control of everything and he controls everything, it’s because you’ve just got an Old Testament picture of God. And in the Old Testament, God didn’t talk about the devil a lot. The devil’s only mentioned about a dozen times in the Old Testament. And 10 of those, I believe, are in Job, and one’s in Isaiah 28, and one of ’em is in, or Ezekiel 28, and one’s in Isaiah 14. So it’s because they didn’t really, Jesus had not died and rose again, but the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus actually changed everything. And Jesus, when he came to earth, came and demonstrated the goodness of God. He came to show God to us. In fact, in John chapter 10, verse 10, Jesus said this. I am come that you might have life and life more abundantly. He said, it’s the thief that comes to steal, kill, and destroy. So I have a very simple theology, and it comes right from that verse. And you connect that with James chapter one, verse 17. But it’s this, that God is good, and he only does good. And the devil is the author of evil. And if you read in James chapter one, verse 17, right before that, in verse 16, James says this, do not err, my beloved brethren. Don’t change from this. We should get this down and have it that God is not to blame, that whatever difficulty, whatever problem, whatever, you know, challenge that I’m dealing with, if it is not good, it did not come from God. Period. And it says right before that in James chapter one that God tempts no man with evil. He doesn’t have any evil to give. He’s only good and only does good. And so, the reason in the Old Testament, many times they assigned evil and stuff to God was because they didn’t really know who the devil is. And it’s because they didn’t have authority over the devil like we have authority of the devil. But when you get to the life of Jesus, you get to Matthew four, you get to Luke chapter four, man, Jesus was tempted by the devil. And Jesus overcame the devil every time with the power of the Word of God and the spirit of God. And I believe just that we are made in his image. And Jesus has given us authority, and we can have authority over the devil just like Jesus had authority over the devil. But we gotta learn our authority. And did you know what? There’s a couple things the church doesn’t teach very much. Number one, they don’t teach the authority, the believer, and we have teaching on this. It’s on our website, charischristiancenter.com. You go to the store, and we actually have these teachings available free of charge on the authority of the believer. We’ve got others of the Holy Spirit in Jesus before he left. In John 14, 15, 16, he prepared his disciples for his departure. And he primarily talked about two things: the authority that we have been given in his name, the power of attorney that a believer has in his name; and number two, the power of the Holy Spirit. And when you read the book of Acts, the disciples went forward in the power of the Holy Spirit and the authority of Jesus’ name. And they operated in the victory that Jesus won at the cross. So we gotta teach those things. We have authority over the devil, but don’t just blame God. Number one lesson, do not blame God. God is not the author of your problem. He’s not the author of death, destruction, sickness, disease. He’s not the author of lack. He’s not the author of all these things that people think that, “Oh, well, God did this,” if something bad happened. “Oh, God, that was an act of God.” No, it’s an act of the devil. It’s the thief that comes, and did you know what? Even in the Old Testament, if you go back to the Old Testament, you can begin to look and begin to see in Exodus chapter 33 and chapter 34 when God spoke to Moses, God said, “I am the Lord, “and I am good and I’m merciful,” praise God. And when he revealed himself, this is an Exodus 34, verse six, people need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt from the bottom of their heart, they need to know that God is good. And it says in Exodus 34, verse five and six, the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him or Moses there and proclaimed his name. This is what God said about himself. He said, the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. That is who God said he was, even in the Old Testament. But people just didn’t really know who God was. And the more that they understood their own sin, their consciousness of sin drove them from God. And did you know what? Satan is the author of evil. Satan is the one Jesus said who came to steal, to kill and destroy, but he had come to give life and life abundantly. He came to reveal the goodness of God to us. And when you look in the life of Jesus, Jesus puts God on display. How many people, Aaron, did Jesus make sick when he walked on the earth?

 

  Zero.

 

  Zero. How many people did he heal?

 

  All who came to him.

 

  Everyone who came to him. 14 places in the New Testament. It says everyone who was sick came to him and every one of ’em was healed of every kind of disease. It says it in different ways, but 14 times the New Testament. In fact, it says this. In Acts 10 verse 38, it says how God, Peter was preaching to the Gentiles, how God anointed Jesus with the Holy Ghost and with power who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed to the devil. So it tells us right there that Satan is the author of sickness. In Luke 13 with the woman that was bowed over and had a spirit of infirmity for 18 years, I believe it is, if I’m quoting the right place. Jesus said, this woman whom Satan has bound these 18 years. Satan is the author of sickness. Satan is the author of weakness and poverty. God is not the author of sickness, disease, weakness, or poverty in any shape or any form. Praise God. So we need to quit blaming God. Amen, and we need to know at a heart level that God is good, and he’s good all the time. Now, we’re gonna come back right after a short break, and we’re going to share some more about this and talk about not only this as a foundation for why I believe God is good, but not only is God a good God, but the word of God is true. We have a Bible full of promises that you can believe, and you can have hope even though your situation might in the natural look hopeless. So it’s not hopeless in Jesus. God gives you hope when you trust in his work. We’ll be right back. Blessings. Hey, friend, 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 keys 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.

 

  I began to pray, Lord, I’d really love to meet other people. And God just started opening the door. And it wasn’t very long after that prayer, we got into a community. Being with some other women. One thing I really liked about Flourish, to me, that community is really important. You know, that’s why I liked a small church before. I was a little worried about a big church, but to have that opportunity to sit together then and reconnect, yeah, it’s been really powerful.

 

  Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us. We’ve been talking about a foundation in our life that we need to build so that we can love life. And we said, number one, Aaron, we need to talk about the fact that God is good. But number two, this is the foundation. This is why I’m loving life, praise God. I love life because I’ve got a Bible full of promises that I can believe because I love the word of God. You know, 45 years ago when I got baptized in the Holy Spirit in Andrew Wommack’s meeting, I fell in love with the word of God. You know, there were days, I was 14, 15, 16, I would read most of the New Testament in a day. I just, the word of God, it lights my candle, praise God. It’s still exciting to me. I get up nearly every day, and I read three, four chapters of the Bible. I’ve read the Bible through every year, but I read it much more than that. I just do that for my personal, you know, edification. And, but I’ll read, you know, I just love the word, and we need to love the word of God. You know, David said this in Psalm 119, verse 76. He said, oh, how I love your law. Oh, how I love your word. It is my meditation all the day. You know, and you need to not only love the word, but you need to meditate about it. You need to think about the promises of God. You know, what’s it mean to meditate the word?

 

  To just ponder it and think about it and

 

  Praise God.

 

  Mutter it. Even speak it.

 

  Yeah, dream about it. You know, sometimes people have negative dreams, and they’re almost predestined to failure. But if you understand the Bible, we are predestined to succeed as the children of God. We are destined to win. Praise God, if you understand Ephesians one through, chapter one, verse one through seven, you can understand that God has a good plan for your life. Hallelujah, so don’t believe the lies of the devil.

 

  You know, and just a couple days ago, I shared a word at church for people who had eye conditions that I believe that God wanted to heal them, and he was present to heal people with degenerative eye conditions. And last night, I woke up in the night just having a dream about praying over someone who was completely blind and then being able to see, and I just woke up crying.

 

  Yeah.

 

  And then I got my computer ’cause I wanted to see an actual testimony of someone who was healed of blindness. And I found a testimony from this lady who was at, she went with some friends to the River Church in Tampa, Florida where Rodney Howard Brown

 

  Yes, he’s a great man

 

  Pastors

 

  Of God. and ministers. But she was at a meeting there and she has just has had tremendous health issues throughout her life. She said doctors have wanted to amputate her legs, and she’s missing an eye. She had an eye removed because she had surgery for glaucoma, and it was a botched surgery. And her other eye for 18 years has been just, her glaucoma was so bad, she was completely blind. Like, everything in her house has to talk to her, you know, and but she received prayer and just fell under the power of God is the first time she experienced that,

 

  Amen.

 

  and she got up, and her eye, her one eye that she had, she could completely see. And she was reading

 

  Aaron, I prayed for  

 

  Psalm 103 to the entire church.

 

  Hallelujah.

 

  She was a believer. And the thing that kind of struck me about her, I like seeing people who’ve never really been in a spirit filled charismatic circle before, just seeing how they react

 

  The power of God.

 

  To the power of God, and she was just so excited. She loved Jesus, but she didn’t really know all the promises that are in the Bible.

 

  Amen. We need to meditate on things like that, you know? Talking about miracles like that, I prayed for a young man. He was six or eight years old, and this was in West Texas when I actually held my first meeting in a small church in west Texas when, and I still pastored in Kit Carson in 1998 when I started Charis Ministries, which is now Charis Christian Center. And this man had, this young man, had glasses, and they were probably as thick as a pop bottle bottom. I mean, they were very thick, and they told him he had a degenerative eye disease. They told him that he would eventually go blind. And did you know, and I prayed for him one night, and the next day he went to school, and he did not use his glasses. His eyesight was restored to 20/20 vision. And I’ve prayed for other people when I’ve traveled different places. And I prayed for a woman in another place, and she couldn’t drive at night because she had this degenerative eye disease. And God healed her, and she drove to the meetings that night; she was healed. I believe that was in Jacksonville, Florida, praise God. I’ve prayed for numbers of people with degenerative eye disease that have been healed. In fact, I shared that Sunday after you gave that word. And I had a man come forward and he said, “It’s me, Pastor.” This is what they’ve said over me. This man actually was raised from the dead. He’s Filipino, but a few years ago he was raised from the dead. He had COVID, and God raised, his wife prayed for him, God raised him from the dead. And so, thank God, you know, there are miracles, and they’re available now, praise God. And we don’t have to wait till the sweet by and by. We’ve seen all kinds. We’ve seen deaf ears healed. I had a man that I prayed for in Oklahoma in a church, in southern Oklahoma, and this man had over 98% hearing loss in one of his ears, and he was in a workplace where he’d been for nearly 20 years, and they tested their ears every year. And he went in, like, the week after I prayed for him. And his one ear had been, had 98%, and they had it every year. They showed it; his other year was good. Hearing loss, and it was like between 90 and 100% the next week, working less than 10%, praise God. Miracles. God is a God of miracles. I love miracles. I love the power of God. And you know what, if you’re watching and you need healing, I encourage you to get on our website, charischristiancenter.com. We’ve got hundreds and hundreds of hours of teaching. But get some teaching that I have on Covenant of Healing. We’ve seen so many people healed by the power of God. We have a woman in our church. This year, she was given less than three weeks to live. And they said there’s nothing that they could do. They said we could do surgery or we could do chemotherapy, but it wouldn’t do nothing for you. It’s just so far; she was all blowed up. And, Aaron, this is eight months later, and she’s healed from the top of her head to the sole. She was literally gray. Her stomach has went flat, praise God. She is pink; she runs around like a light bulb, praise God. Judy Paget, Jesus Christ is the healer. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever. We have another woman here, and she was receiving treatment for cancer, but there is something that had been 1700 before she got surgery, and then, she’d had two chemotherapy treatments, and she went in to get tested before her third one, but it had been 1700, then it went down to 570 after the surgery, then to like 510 after the second chemotherapy treatment. But before her chemotherapy treatment, she came to church, and I gave her a word. I spoke to her from the pulpit and mom went over and laid hands on her. And that thing went from 510 or something to 130 the next day. Glory to God. And she was just rejoicing. So we see miracles; sometimes, you know, healing is progressive. Sometimes, people get things progressively, and sometimes, they get it immediately, but we just thank God that God heals however they get it, whether it’s a process of time. But you know, Psalm 107:20, we’re talking about, praise God, why? How can we see good? What’s the foundation for this? Number one, God is good. Number two, the word of God is true. I love this that Psalm 107 verse 20 says, he sent his word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions. Man, thank God for the word of God. You know, Psalm 119 verse 165 says, great peace have they that love thy law. Nothing will offend them or nothing will cause them to stumble. Man, when we love the word of God, we don’t have to get all bent outta shape, upset about everything. I need to listen to this myself. Praise God, it helps me. Praise God. We can trust the promises of God. 2 Corinthians one verse 20 says, all the promises of God, in him, in Christ are yes and in Him, amen to the glory of God by us. Amen, what’s that mean to you, Aaron? All the promises of God in Christ are yes and in Him, amen. What’s that mean to you?

 

  He’s the one that makes it available to us.

 

  Amen.

 

  He’s the promised one, but he’s also the promise giver. He’s the one that gives us the promises of God that makes ’em available to us.

 

  Amen.

 

  And when you believe on it, you’re agreeing with God.

 

  Amen.

 

  Amen means to agree. So he’s yes and amen.

 

  It’s God’s grace, right? That made it available, and it’s our faith that makes it a reality. So go ahead and share. So, praise the Lord. All the promises of God is true. I love this promise. Psalm 103, verse one through five, bless the Lord, oh, my soul and all that’s within me. Bless his holy name, and do not forget his benefits. And he tells us what they are. Who forgives? This is Psalm 103 verse three. He forgives all of our iniquities and who heals all of our diseases. Just like he forgives all iniquities, he heals all diseases. Who, verse four, who redeems our life from destruction? Who crowns us with loving kindness and tender mercies, it says, and then he says this in verse five, who satisfies our mouth with good things so that our youth is renewed like the eagle. Promises of forgiveness, healing, redemption. Praise God, deliverance. Amen? Promises, He gives us loving kindness and tender mercy and promises of provision. They’re all in the word of God. So many promises. What’s one of your favorite promises, Aaron?

 

  I love what Proverbs four verse 20 says. It says, my son, give attention to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes. Keep them in the midst of your heart for they are life to those who find them and health to all their flesh.

 

  Amen.

 

  So we see when you attend to God’s word, when you believe it, and meditate on it, you think about it, you speak it, it actually causes a life, God’s supernatural life, to flow in your body. It’s health to all their flesh.

 

  Amen.

 

  It’s life to those who find them.

 

  Praise God, so we need to meditate the word, praise God. We need to give attention to the word, keep it before our eyes. Keep it in our mind. We need to think about it. We need to speak the word of God. Great things happen when you speak words of life. And we’ll be talking more about that probably in next week’s broadcast as we talk about loving life. So how can we love life? Well, number one, we need to know that God is good. But number two, we need to know that the word of God is always true. Whatever problem we’re facing, there is a promise of God, and we can believe God. And if you need prayer today, I wanna encourage you to call our prayer ministers. We have prayer ministers here. We have people healed. When people call in and, you know, they are healed. They’ve received manifestations of the power of God. You know, there’s no time or distance in the spirit. And I’ve got great ministers of the gospel here. If you’ve never been born again, if you don’t know Jesus, you need to, man, this is the way you get into these promises. You believe God, and then they become yours, right? You believe Jesus. So this isn’t available if you’re an unbeliever, but you can call in and pray and receive Jesus Christ as your Lord. And then, if you haven’t received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, your personal prayer language, you can receive that, praise God. You can get on our website, charishristiancenter.com, and listen to hundreds of hours of teaching free of charge. And if you want to give us a call today, we’d love to hear from you. If you want to partner and help us with these programs, help us get this word out, we have all of this available, just give us a call. 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. I believe that he died on the cross for my sins. And right now, I surrender my life to you. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 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 livestream, 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. Thanks for watching Grace For Today. This broadcast has been made possible by our faithful partners. If you would like to become a partner, need prayer, or have a question, please call us at 719 418 4000 or to partner online, go to charischristiancenter.com/give. You can write us at PO Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on Grace For Today.