The Divine Imagination Part 7 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

The Divine Imagination Part 7 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

The Divine Imagination Part 7 from Pastors Lawson & Aaron Perdue. In this episode of Grace For Today, you can move into the dreams that God has for you by faith and using your divine imagination.

The Divine Imagination Part 7 – Transcript

Welcome friends to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you are connected with us today. We’re gonna be sharing on Dreaming the Dreams of God and how you can move into the dreams that God has for you by using your divine imagination, and ultimately how it takes faith to possess the dream that God has for you. Stay tuned. There’s great things ahead. We appreciate you. Bless you.

Friends, it’s so good to have you with us today. I have my son, Aaron, and we’re sharing on the Divine Imagination. And I love this lesson. We’re gonna be talking about dreaming and dreams that come from God and how to move into those divine things that God has for us.

Yeah, this particular teaching we’re talking about being like those who dream. Man, a lot of believers I think have kind of stopped dreaming, but God wants you to dream. And I believe that God speaks to us through our soul, through our heart, through our dreams, through our imagination, so if you have your Bible, go ahead and turn to Psalm 126. I love this psalm because it kind of talks about restoration and even being like those who dream. So in Psalm 126, it says, “When the Lord brought back the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream.” So he’s kind of talking to people who are coming back to Jerusalem, coming back to where their promised land. Maybe they’ve been taken away for a while. I mean, sometimes when people have been through hard times, they stop, they lose that ability to dream. But God wants to restore even your soul, your heart, your imagination, your dreams. It’s like that, he says, “We were like those who dream.” So here’s some signs of being a person who’s like those who dream, “Our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue was singing.” Have you ever been to a church that’s full of laughter? I remember one time Mark Hankins was here and we were having a holy ghosting and people were laughing, and my wife is over some of our social media. She posted a video of my dad laughing, and it offended religious people. Isn’t that funny?

Yeah, it was amazing And it wasn’t me. I mean, I laughed for a period of time, probably 10 minutes. There had been some things that had hurt, different people do things sometimes, and you give yourself to love people and serve people. And those things had kind of got the best of me, and it’s just like God healed my soul. And it really helped me.

Laughter is a sign of that. Dreaming is a sign of that. So I believe that God wants to heal your soul. He wants to fill your mouth with laughter. And I just kind of find it interesting that sometimes religious people get very offended by laughter in church.

Somebody said that that was a demonic or something online. These people, they get online and say all this crazy stuff. But the Bible says in the book of Psalms that “he that sits in the heavens will laugh.” And I believe that God’s gonna have the last laugh. And for instance, when Abraham and Sarah were, God spoke to them and told ’em they were gonna have a child, and she was 90 and Abraham was 99, almost 100, when Abraham told Sarah, she laughed. And the Lord said, “Well, why’d you laugh?”

She said, “I didn’t.”

Yeah, and so God said, “His name will be Isaac. We’re gonna name him ‘little laughter.'” And about nine months later, here he was born, in about two years after that word, here he was, there goes little laughter running around the tent, praise God and praise God, we can laugh. We can move into things that are impossible for man when we get connected with the dream, the vision that God has for us.

I love that, so we were like those who dream. Psalm 126, verse two says, “Our mouth was filled with laughter. Our tongue was singing. They said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.'” I love that. God wants to make you a testimony to non-believers.

[Lawson] Right.

And He wants to make you an advertisement of His goodness and advertisement for How he treats his kids.

[Lawson] Amen.

You know, recently, I have a background in classical music. I actually have a doctorate from Rice University in Music. And not too long ago, one of the main professors at the music school at Rice passed away. He was a very close mentor of mine, actually. House sat for him for several summers, and he was very famous in the music world. And I kind of reconnected with some of my old friends from school. They’re all doing well. It’s a very top-notch music school, so many of them are playing in top symphonies, professors at great universities. But one of my friends, he’s a fantastic violinist, but he’s a non-believer. I believe he’s open to the gospel, open to Jesus, and I know he’s kind of open because of something he shared with me when I was gonna school with him. when I was going to school at Rice University, there, most of the professors, it is a secular university, so most of the professors aren’t believers, kind of think about things differently than I do. But there’s a very strong Christian professor at Rice. His name is James Tour. If you have the time, do a YouTube search for James Tour and look at his testimony. It’s really neat. It’s J-A-M-E-S, James and Tour, T-O-U-R. He had a powerful, conversion experience when he was in college and he’s just on fire for God. And he brings in Christian speakers and apologist to Rice University, but he, James Tour is very involved at his church. He goes to a Baptist church in Houston and he preaches a Sunday morning class, a bible school, or a bible class. And he invites students to come to this class, and any Rice student, if they come to church with him, he’ll make ’em lunch at his house afterwards. So it was an Easter Sunday, and he told all these, he’ll have 30 or 40 Rice students at his house every Sunday cooking lunch for him, but he told all these students, “Hey, it’s Easter Sunday. Bring your non-believer friends. I want them to get born again.” So my friend who’s this atheist violinist somehow got invited to church with James Tour and to his house afterward. I think there were 80 or 90 students there on Easter Sunday that they fed, but he kind of said, “his heart was opening up.” He still didn’t believe in God, but I could tell his heart was opening up to God. But anyways, I haven’t seen him in six years but we were sharing just different stories about our professor who’d passed away, and he commented on one of my memories that I shared, and he just said, “I’m not in music anymore.” But he just said, “I see that you’re living your best life.” And just from him kind of seeing pictures of what’s happening in my life right now, he can see that there are good things happening. And it kind of reminds me of this scripture that “Even among the nations,” they said, “the Lord has done great things for them.”

And when you get this picture of victory on the inside of you, you begin to dream. We were like those who dreamed, begin to move into the divine purposes and plans of God for your life, then you begin to see the good things. He says, “The Lord has done great things for us, whereof we are glad.” And they were coming out of bondage, they were coming out of this, things the enemy tried to stop them from possessing what God had for them, but ultimately they were moving into it and they were rejoicing in what God has done. And there may be times that we go through difficulty or a problem. The Bible says, “Weeping may endure for a moment,” but he says, “Joy comes in the morning,” and that’s another psalm. And so, there may be some times, but that’s not supposed to stay there forever. We need to move out of that, and we need to move into what God’s done. And the way you do that many times is looking at what God’s promised you and also looking at the good things that God has done. Even in many difficulties, the Lord has used these difficulties ultimately to promote us, and I’ve told your mother, Aaron, that God’s taken care of us in grand style, praise God. And He does, He takes care of us in grand style. And we don’t need to get our eyes so much on those difficulties as keep our eyes on the promises, keep our eyes on what God has done, and move out of this discouragement and move into the things that God has for us.

Probably when Israel is taken away into captivity, it was hard for them to dream. Being taken away from your home, taken away from your livelihood. I think a lot of people are like that. They’ve just been in survival mode. When you’re just constantly trying to survive, it’s really hard to dream beyond that.

[Lawson] Yes.

And God wants to restore you. He wants to bring you back to that promise land. He wants to bring you back to that abundant place.

[Lawson] Amen.

There’s a scripture that says, “He’s brought us through the fire, through the water, and brought us to a wealthy place, a place of divine fulfillment.” And man, you need to come back to that place where you can dream again.

Praise God,

It doesn’t take much imagination just to survive, just to exist. God wants you to do more than to exist. Jesus said that He “came to give you abundant life,” and I believe part of that abundant life is the ability to dream.

Praise God.

To have abundant dreams.

To see what God has done and see what God will do. One time we were going through a really difficult time in business, and I had actually prayed before we made an investment in a lot of cattle and things had turned down and it was very negative. And the Lord gave me a word and said, “If you make it through the feast, you’ll make it to the famine.” And He actually-

If you make it through the famine.

If you make it, yeah. Oh, excuse me. I turned it around. If you make it through the famine, you’ll make it to the feast. And He actually used this scripture in Psalm 112:4, and said, “Unto the upright, there arises a light in the darkness. He is gracious and full of compassion and righteous.” And the Lord just showed me, you just hold on. You believe me. And God turned this situation around. At the end of it, it took about a year, but I ended up with twice of the capital that I had when I began in this situation, when the enemy tried to totally destroy us and wipe us out. But you keep your eyes on the Lord, you keep your eyes on the Word of God, you keep your eyes on the promises, and sometimes some of the difficulties I went through, it took me several years to recover. But I just keep, I never quit believing God. And we just need to keep believing God. The Bible says in James chapter one, “He that waivers is like a wave of the sea that’s driven with the wind and tossed.” But he says, “Don’t be like that.”

“A double minded man,

Yeah don’t be double minded.

Unstable in all his ways.

Let him not think that he shall receive anything from the Lord.”

Right.

So people, they have one day up and one day down and that’s Old Testament. That’s how Israel was in the Old Testament, that is not how God wants us to operate in the new covenant.

So going back to Psalm 126, I just love that, that “They said among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them.” And then the next verse, verse three, it says, “The Lord has done great things for us and we are glad.” You know, I just love that the world kind of noticed, the Lord is doing great things for them, and then the the people of God respond, “Oh yeah, He has done great things for us. We are glad. Bring back our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south, those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.” God has plans of restoration for you. “Though your mourning may be for the night, your joy shall come in the morning, you shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” If you make it through the famine, He’ll bring you to the feast. He’ll bring you to the harvest. That bringing his sheaves with him, that is talking about the feast, that is talking about the harvest. Don’t faint before your harvest.

Amen. And you just need to constantly believe God and Kenneth E. Hagin preached the message on Keep the Switch of Faith Turned On. And part of keeping the switch of faith turned on is seeing from a perspective that God would. We’re gonna take a very short break and we’re gonna be back right after this break and so stay tuned. We’ve got more to share on Dreaming the Dreams of God. Friends, I wanna share with you about our special product that we’re offering. I’m teaching and with my son Aaron, also with Jesse Duplantis on a couple of different things. Number one, “Insights Into Faith.” Jesse Duplantis made a statement years ago in my churches he was ministering, and I just haven’t been able to let go of it. He said, “Most of the time, in the realm of faith, I made a decision and God backed it.” We’re gonna talk about that. We’re also talking about this, my son, Aaron’s, one of his newest series, “The Divine Imagination.” Tremendous, tremendous revelation that I believe will help you move into the plans and the purposes of God. And also my series, “The Power of a Positive Imagination,” one of my most requested series. You want to get this product. If you can’t call in and get it physically, you can watch it online for free, or you can pay a small fee and download this information on our website at CharisChristianCenter.com. Praise the Lord. Friends, I’m glad you stayed with us, and we’re here talking about dreaming God’s dreams and getting a picture on the inside of you that comes from heaven.

That’s awesome. I love from Psalm 126, we’re talking about being like those who dream, when God brought back the captivity of Zion. And then I thought, I just love that He says, “He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sewing shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaths with him.” God has a harvest in your life. He has a harvest for you. So keep trusting Him. Keep sewing, keep believing Him. Don’t faint before your harvest. And I believe this is something that God spoke to me, I believe that a true God-given dream will be followed with the opportunity to take action.

[Lawson] Yes.

Faith takes action. Faith is a very active thing. And I believe that you need to tie your dreams, God-given dreams, to your faith and take action. Dreams that come from the divine imagination will not lead to passivity, just being passive. They will lead to great activity.

Yeah, faith without corresponding action is dead. James chapter two says that in several places. And so you have to have corresponding action. When you look at Hebrews chapter 11, verse one, it says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” and when you go through Hebrews chapter 11, there are a number of things that the writer of Hebrews brings out. But I believe that you can see faith and you can tell that these people were people of faith because of number one, what they did, and number two, what they said. And so faith is again active, and we move in faith when we believe and speak and act on the Word of God. And we can look at all these different examples. By faith Noah built, by faith Abraham obeyed, went out to a land where God that was showing him of, Through faith, Sarah received strength to conceive seed and bore a child when she was past age, and it says, “These died in faith, having believed the promises and possessed, confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on earth.” They embraced Him, they believed Him, they confessed Him, and eventually they walked into those promises. All those were people of faith. By faith. Joseph gave commandment concerning his bone. All these people were people of faith, Joseph blessed his sons. Jacob gave commandment concerning his bones. By faith, Moses chose all these different, these were actions of faith and words of faith.

That’s awesome. I really believe that if God gives someone a divine dream, He’s gonna give them wisdom as well. There needs to be divine wisdom that flows with that dream. Something I’ve heard before is that if you don’t have a vision, go help someone who does have a great vision. Go help someone who does have a vision from God, and is working towards it. But before you go kind of hit your cart up to someone else’s horse and you ask yourself, do they have wisdom as well? Are they just a dreamer or do they have wisdom as well? I’ve seen some people get very attracted to someone who’s maybe a great dreamer, very charismatic. But do they have, is there wisdom?

Do they have a plan that goes with it? Ecclesiastes 5:3 says this, it says, “A dream comes through the multitude of business.” And I talk about this in a business way. I tell people many times, it’s easy to make a million dollars. Now, I’ve not only made a million dollars, I’ve made a number of a millions, not only for us, but for the church. God’s blessed the church. God’s helped the church tremendously. And I believe that’s so that we can walk into His vision, His plan, His dream for our church, and ministry, but at the same point in time, there’s practical ways to do that. So I say the way you make a million dollars is you figure out how to make a thousand and you do it a thousand times over. And then there’s different aspects that can go with that. Not only making it, but keeping some of it, managing well what God has given you. I know I talked to Andrew Wommack about this. You want to talk about an amazing dreamer, amazing visionary person. But Andrew Wommack has said, “When he studies that scripture, a dream comes through the multitude of business, he means that means it’s a lot of hard work.” And if you don’t wanna put some action to what you’re believing, to what you’re speaking, to what you know, then you’re not gonna see these things ultimately come to pass. And so there has to be action with your vision.

And no matter, everyone needs to use their imagination. I think of, I have two kids, a nine year old and a two year old, and I can tell they both have very active imaginations. They both dream a lot. I believe that God wants everyone to dream, everyone to have a divine imagination, that’s not really dependent upon age. You mentioned Andrew Wommack, he’s really dreaming big. He’s probably dreaming bigger than he ever has before. I know right now at his bible school, they’re making plans to build dorms, to build a new performing arts center, a gym, he’s really dreaming big.

Yeah.

And you’re dream, you should keep using your divine imagination even as you grow older. Someone I really love, Mark Hankins, he’s about ready to celebrate his 70th birthday. He’s building a brand new convention center. The walls are going up. The studs, it’s kind of, he’s dreaming probably bigger than he’s ever dreamed. before.

Amen.

Yes, and I’m excited. I partner with Mark Hankins. Mark Hankins is part of our leadership team at Charis Christian Center. Great minister of faith, great minister of righteousness of the gospel. Andrew Wommack is my mentor. I’ve invested a lot of money in Andrew’s ministry over the years. You say, “Well he’s doing well. Why you invested?” Listen, I invest in all kind of places, praise God. I sow seed, praise God, and it’s coming back to me. And I know when Andrew was telling about this dream, he said, “Now, Lawson, you close your ears. He’s giving me a hard time, and he told Billy Epperhart, “Now you just closed down your calculator.” And Billy told him, “This is probably gonna cost over three quarters of a billion dollars.” And I believe he’ll move into those things by the grace of God. And I told Andrew, listen, whoever inherits your place or buys your place in the years to come, they’re gonna have to have faith to turn on the lights. And Andrew said, “That’s true.” He said, “Sometimes faith can take you places that you have to use your faith to maintain what’s there.” And so Andrew is a great person of faith, a great person of vision but I believe that God has, I believe that God wants everyone to use their faith. And I believe that God has a dream and a good plan for every person and I love what you said. I preach that for years. If you don’t have a vision, then marry one. In other words, get connected with somebody who has one. I have vision myself, but I’m connected with people. And I’m invested in people, praise God, that have dreams and visions of their own. Praise God.

That’s awesome. I like what the Bible says in Joel 2:28-29, it says, “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughter shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams.” Is that what we’re kind of talking about? You don’t have to stop dreaming as you get older. It says, “Your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions. And also on my men’s servants and on my maid servant, I will pour out my spirit in those days.”

Amen. I was with Dr. Lester Sumrall and I was with him in Jerusalem in November of 1987. And he had a vision of a river of blood and a tree growing out of this river with three branches. One was talking about feeding the nations, one was talking about preaching the gospel and another aspect that I can’t remember at this point in time, but he began to talk about this and he’s in his upper seventies at this time, and he begins to talk about this, and I’m thinking he begins to talk about buying a military C-130 and flying food around to the nations and preaching the gospel. He talked about buying a giant ship. He bought a ship that would hold 5,000 tons, it’s like a hundred semi loads. And he would go to these third world nations and preach the gospel and they would see thousands of people saved and feed these hungry people and different things. And I thought when he began to talk about this, this is nearly impossible, but if there’s anybody in the world that can do it, Lester Sumrall could do it. And I watched, he came back to the United States of America, the US government told him, “There has never been a civilian organization, owned a military C-130 and there never will be.” And his answers were, he went to the South Bend, Indiana Airport, he bought a big parcel of ground and he built a huge hanger to house a military C-130 and you know what? They changed their stance and he got one. And in the Kurdish problem over there, he worked with ministries in Europe and he flew up that C-130 over to the Kurdish area every day and saved thousands of people from starvation, and they put out gospel tracks. He did these things. It was amazing what he did. But when they told him, we’re not gonna do it, you know how he did that? He got up every morning and he put one foot in front of the other and he just kept going for God. He just kept doing what God told him to do. My granddad asked me when I built my first church, when we started out in Kit Carson, Colorado, I was just there the other day preaching a funeral for a family that I dearly love, but he came there and we built that church in 15 months, had it paid off cash from when we went there. It’s a beautiful building. He said, “You’ve done a lot and you’ve done it quickly.” He said, “How did you do this?” I said, “I get up every day and I put one foot in front of the other and I just keep going.” That’s how faith is. Faith just keeps going. Faith just keeps acting on the Word of God, keeps speaking the Word of God, keeps believing what God said, no matter what anybody else says. Faith is an active force. Praise God. And you can move into the things. You can move into the dreams and the plans that God has for you by faith in God.

Faith doesn’t stop dreaming either. Faith is always dreaming. Faith really taps into

Hallelujah. that divine imagination.

Hallelujah. And I believe that believers need to dream bigger dreams many times. They’ve been captive in their imagination and they knew really needed to let this thing go and begin to dream in new ways so they can begin to move into those things that God has for ’em.

I had a friend that was, they were looking to buy a home and I was sending just deals, I loved to look at homes. I loved to spend time on Zillow looking for good deals. And I sent some homes that were to him to look at, that were probably out of his price range at the time, And he got kind of upset, “There’s no way I can afford that.” I’m like, “Well, I just want you to see what’s out there. There are deals out there. That’s what I was trying to just show him that I’m looking at stuff that I can’t necessarily afford right now, but it’s okay to…

You know what, you have to move there. If we all would just think about where we’re at. I begin to think and dream about having a property like this. When we were in the last property, before that, we didn’t have a property in Colorado Springs, when I was in Kit Carson, we were in this little bitty town where, you could buy land cheap, and we built a beautiful building, God bless us with, but when God began to change the picture on the inside, and I began to dream about having a church of a thousand people and giving away over $500,000 a year. And that happened in, I begin to dream that in 1998 and it came to pass in 2016. And every year since then, we’ve given out over $500,000 or beyond it. And now I’m dreaming far beyond this. And if I share that too much, people kind of get, “Well, how could you do that?” Well, you to be beyond where you’re at in this, in this dream, in this faith realm to begin to move into it. You can’t just look at what you have. You’ll never get anywhere.

Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining us today. We’ll be back tomorrow sharing about the Divine Imagination, talking about those who dream so come back tomorrow, we’d love to see you again. God bless you. If you need anything, you’re free to give us a call here at the church. God loves you.

Bless you.

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 CharisChristianCenter.com, you can get all of our materials there on the website as you watch ’em, 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.

[Narrator] Imagination is a very powerful force that works on the inside of everyone. The thoughts of your imagination create the framework of your life. Get the Imagination Package, which includes insights into faith with Jesse Duplantis, “Divine Imagination” and “Power of a Positive Imagination” CD series all for $49 when you call 719-418-4000 or visit CharisChristianCenter.com. 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, 89062. See you next time on “Grace For Today.”