Folks, I was born in the swinging sixties – and I’m not talking about playground equipment! I’m talking about the decade of change, the hippie era, flower power! I came into this world when tie-dye was trendy and VW vans were the ultimate ride.
The Church forgot something. We forgot that power is our word. Not culture’s. Not Hollywood’s. Not Washington’s. Not Marvel. It started in the upper room, and it belongs to the believer. Romans 8:11 says the same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in YOU.
“Love your enemies” sounds good in Greek… until your enemy has a name. So, let’s not pretend. Loving people … especially broken, abusive, or twisted people—feels impossible. But here’s your freedom: God never asked us to love people with our own strength.
Before we get into the Biblical meaning, let’s clear this up: Joy isn’t shallow. It’s not a personality type. It’s not the result of good vibes or perfect circumstances. Joy is power. Joy is strength. Joy is resistance against the gravity of depression, distraction, and discouragement.
Grace isn’t soft. It’s not passive. It’s not weak. It’s dangerous. It’s disruptive. It’s divine. In a world that cancels people, grace covers them. In a culture that throws people away, grace reaches in and lifts them up.
Let me start with a serious question… has anyone here ever ordered anything from Amazon? I’m the guy that said it would never work! Because I’m a prophet and I know these things. Brick and mortar or nothing for me! But I’ve adapted.
The truth is, we live in a self-centered culture. I researched the idea of selfishness just so I would understand it more so for this message, and I came across an article entitled, “Science Shows Us We Are Selfish.”
What if I told you that right now, in this moment, God is trying to elevate your ability to discern His direction? See, we’ve got this problem – we’re always trying to follow the crowd when God’s calling us to follow the cloud.
What if I told you there are lakes INSIDE the ocean? Not just pools of water, but actual lakes with shores and waves, sitting at the bottom of the sea! Water… inside of water! Sounds impossible, right? But it’s TRUE!
Here’s what hit me in my spirit – you can be surrounded by all these blessings, all these relationships, all this provision, all this goodness, all these opportunities. But if you don’t know how to turn the blessing into gratitude, your life will never be filled…
If you stopped a hundred people on the street today and asked them to define love, you’d get a hundred different answers! There’s a rather famous book edited by John Bartlett and it has around 1300 different definitions of love from all these smart people; And…
There’s something powerful about a person with passion … but there’s a difference between passion that’s just burning hot and passion that’s been elevated by divine purpose. Think about young Moses for a second. His passion? It was raw, it was real, and it was reckless.