Agree in the Heart- Part 1 | Pastor Carline Lorenzo

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you you hi everyone can you guys get closer for what who said that like oh please get closer I'm good how are you good all right are you guys ready to get into the word together you guys got your notebooks pens ready to take notes you can move closer y'all can move to the front come on let's get closer we really have to get into the culture of being together yes ma'am that's for six o'clock yeah in this class sit together I want to see your beautiful faces I'm very small so I don't want to have to go you know I kind of just want everybody to be together so I can focus on like right here perfect all right praise God so let's just pray so father in the name of Jesus Holy Spirit we love you we thank you what an honor it is to just be in your presence this afternoon Lord thank you for your word thank you for always edifying us thank you for always building and rising us up Lord to be just like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Lord I just thank you that every single word that's gonna be spoken out of my mouth is straight from the throne room it's exactly what you want me to say Lord none of me all of you we love you in Jesus name and we say together amen I want to talk today about how our lips can agree but our heart is not agreeing and I want to kind of guide you guys through are we on welcome every single member that's watching from SOR it's a pleasure to have you here as well with us today we're gonna get into this series it's a five-part series and it's about the lips agreeing but the heart did not agree and I'm gonna walk you guys through how the Lord it's it's so simple but a lot of us we forget we forget because of just so many different things that's happening but I walked into Children's Church on Sunday and a lot of the woman of God they were praying all some of the woman a woman of God that were in there were praying and I go in there and I you know the Lord told me to just listen just listen and observe and you know I was just observing

and listening and I was just like Lord what's going on where are you in here right because there was a lot of lips moving amens and agree and prayer and agreement but I just felt like there was no connection in the heart so I said God what's going on and he said well a lot of these women in here that are praying have offense towards women in here that are praying and I was just like really he's like yeah so I waited until the person who was praying finished praying and I asked I said you know if you have any offense towards any any other woman of God whether they're in here or not, stand up. And the majority of them stood up. And I was like, so you're praying together, but yet you're offended in your hearts towards one another. What are you really doing in the spirit? What mountains are you really moving? The enemy is gonna look at you in the spirit and be like, they're not doing anything for real. Because in their hearts, they're divided, they're in competition, they don't like each other, they have offense, but yet, so the person who's praying, that other people who's in the room is offended at the person who's praying and you're saying, amen. What are you really agreeing on? And then I'm like, man, it's not just woman of God that go through this, men go through it too. Or it's in the marriage where the husband and the wife is praying and you're saying amen, but yet you still have offense in your heart for something that happened a week ago. How are you really in agreement, right? Or it's happening where you're in church,

your pastor's praying, you're saying amen, but you have offense in your heart towards your pastor or your leaders. How are you really in agreement? And you would think it's very simple, it's simple things that we're supposed to know, but we forget, we forget because this person did this to me or I discerned this or this is what I hear, the Lord told me that this person doesn't like me. That wasn't the Lord, no, because God is a God of unity. He is not a God who causes division, but the enemy does love division. From the very beginning, the enemy knew that when you come into agreement together for real and something, you can do so many things in the spirit and in the physical. Let's talk about the Tower of Babel, right? They were building the tower, not for God, but for their own gain because they wanted to go all the way up there to see, to reach God. But God literally himself said, look at the people, they're in unity, there's nothing that they cannot do because of this unity. So much so that he had to send so many different languages, which is why it's called the Tower of Babel because they started babbling different languages and they weren't understanding each other. And that's how the tower stopped being built. But had God not really done that and sent so many different languages,

they would have probably really, for real, reached all the way up there because they were in unity, not just with their lips, not just in language, but in their hearts. All of them were in agreement in their hearts, we're gonna do this together. And it got super high to the point where God had to be like, oh, this is bad. So you don't think the enemy knows this? The enemy knows it, which is why he causes division, which is why he causes discord. And if you have trauma and pain from what's happened to you in your life, he's going to use that very trauma to make you feel like this person doesn't like you, that person doesn't like you. Oh, they said this. Oh, they're ignoring you. Oh, they rolled their eyes. Oh, they didn't say hi. And if you don't walk in your identity as a son and as a daughter, and if your validation comes from people, now you're an open lick for the enemy to just use that against you and cause that division. Why? Because when you actually pray, then you're not really coming into agreement, you're not really moving anything. You're not really doing anything, right?

So we're gonna talk about this. Matthew chapter 15, verse eight says, these people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. This is Jesus speaking. Jesus was not talking to atheists here. Who knows who Jesus was talking to? Does anybody know who Jesus was talking to? Who? No. Huh? The Pharisees. He was talking to worshipers, religious people whose lips were moving in the right direction while their hearts were standing somewhere else entirely. Because what were the Pharisees doing? They will be in the synagogues, right? They will be worshiping and praising the Lord, and they'll be fasting, and they want people to see that they're fasting. They'll be in the street corners and just, you know, they wanna be called rabbis and all these things, and they're, Proclaiming that they loved the Lord, worshipers of the Lord, but their heart was far from Jesus. Because you all know what happened with the Pharisees and Jesus, right? So that's how we look like when we're professing that we're in agreement with a brother or a sister or with a pastor or with our spouse in a marriage.

But in our hearts, we are divided from them. We look like a Pharisee. This is the most hidden problem in the body of Christ. The mouth prays agreement while the heart stands far away, still holding an offense, still guarding offense. God is not fooled by the volume of the prayer. He reads the distance between your lips and your heart. And when that distance is wide, the words leave the mouth, but never leave the room. When a distance in your heart is wide with the person, your words can leave your mouth, but it never left the room to do anything. It hit the ceiling. It didn't do nothing. So we're coming together. We're praying together in the church. We're supposed to be in unity, but yet you have offense towards your pastor. You have offense towards your leader because of what? You got corrected with something that you actually needed correction on. But we do this and then we expect God to move. He'll still move because he's Jehovah, but we need to do better. We need to do better. The Greek word here is poro, far off at a distance. The heart is not slightly out of step. It is described as far away while the lips keep working up close. You can be holding someone's hand in prayer and have a heart that is geographically far from them in the spirit. You're holding their hands, praying. Yes. Amen. Hallelujah. But you're still holding something in.

Or better yet for the worshipers in the room, you're holding something against a worshiper in your heart, but you're up here worshiping Jesus with them. Who are you hosting? What God are you hosting with that? Yeah, the Greek word is P as in Peter, O double R as in Robert. Oh, you're, you're welcome. You're not hosting the Lord Jesus Christ when you're doing that. Right? So I want you guys to think about this. Think about this. This, you know, if this is convicting you, praise the Lord. Amazing. This is great. I'm going to give you an example. I did something. I was speaking to somebody about, I was speaking to someone about my husband and I didn't say anything like terribly, but I felt wrong after I said one thing. And I could feel the Lord, like just tugging on me. And I'm just like, ah, but it wasn't that bad. The next morning I go into prayer. I couldn't pray. I just kept feeling the Lord. You're about to pray for your husband when you did that. And I was just like, I can't do this. I took my phone, text my husband what happened and said, I'm sorry. I repent. Please forgive me. Put the phone down and continue praying. Because what do I look like going to God, trying to intercede for some, for the same very person that I probably didn't honor in the way that the Lord wanted me to honor.

And it was, like I said, it wasn't something terrible, but it wasn't pleasing in the eye of God. It wasn't pleasing in his sight. And if you feel that tugging and you disregard it, what do you think is going to happen to your prayers? Right? So when you last, I want you guys to ask, I'm going to ask you this question. I want you guys to think about it. When you last prayed in agreement with someone, were your lips and your heart in the same place? Or was your mouth saying amen over someone your heart had already walked away from? Yes. When you last prayed in agreement with someone, when you last prayed in agreement with someone, whether in the church or outside of church or doing a prayer call, right? Even doing our fast. When we fasted with repentance, a lot of people really did reach out to certain leaders and tell them like, man, I'm sorry, I'm letting go of this offense and bitterness. You know why? Because they felt that conviction. But some of us did feel it and we didn't do it. And we continued fasting and praying. That's scary. To know you're fasting and praying for repentance and then the Lord highlights to you for you to repent and then you still don't repent. That's scary. I wouldn't want to be in that situation. I would have to go to God and be like, why did I just do that? Why didn't I just do that? That's scary. And the thing with me and the Lord, he'll give me an

opportunity to repent. But it will be like a day. The next day I'm getting exposed. My husband is finding out. Things are happening. And I'm like dang it. But I learned quick. You know what, next time I repent. No one is perfect. I'm not up here saying I'm without. No, if you think you're without sin, then you are deceived. But it's the repentance that matters. The Bible talks about woe to that you're going to walk in offenses, right. It says it doesn't matter, you're going to walk and people are going to offend you. Offenses are going to come. It says offenses are going to come but woe to you who cause the offense. But the part I want to focus on is offenses are going to come. What do you do with it? Okay, we're going to talk about that when we keep going. We're going to move on to section 2. Two people can pray the exact same words and not actually be in agreement at all. We're going to go to Amos 3. Can two walk together unless they are agreed? That's the scripture. It's a question. Can two walk together unless they are agreed?

If I'm walking with a friend and I want to go to the left, let's say to Foxtail and they want to go to the right to Dunkin' Donuts. If we don't agree where we're going, are we going to walk together or are we going to split separate ways? I'm going to go to Foxtail, she's going to go to Dunkin' Donuts, right. So you're in the spirit praying the same thing. Your heart is divided against this person. When you say amen, are you walking together in agreement in this prayer? You're interceding for the same thing. Let's say for your parents to get saved. Yes, I come into agreement, Lord. Oh, you think just because you both get along in that category that God is actually going to honor that prayer when you guys are in offense in your hearts? No. That's not the way it works. Right? Let's keep going. We quote this verse about partnership but look at what it really asks. It does not ask whether two people are heading the same direction. It asks whether they have agreed. Whether they have actually met and become one in the heart. That's why I said if we don't agree on where we're going to go, we're going to separate, right. So what we're looking at is the agreement.

You can have two people in the same prayer line facing the same altar speaking the same words who have never once agreed underneath. Not one time. They are side-by-side and divided at the same time. And a divided agreement is not agreement at all. It is two separate monologues happening in the same room and heaven receives it as two, not as one. Right. And when two agree on one thing, what happens? Do we know our Bible? When two agree on one thing. Yes, Chanel. Every word is established in heaven. So if heaven receives two words, because there is no agreement, is it established in heaven? So while we're praying and praying and praying and these things that we're praying for that we're interceding for is not happening. Huh? Because we haven't made it right. We're coming here in the church asking the Lord to show us his glory but yet we have a fence in our heart towards the pastor of the church. What is going on? We have to change. This is a call to change. Right. The Hebrew word here is yaad. I will spell it for you.

Y-A-D. It means to appoint, to meet together by agreement. True agreement is a meeting of two hearts in one place. Not two mouths making the same sound. Because sometimes we get amen, hallelujah. We think if I say it, I am coming into agreement. Sometimes you don't have to say it but if your heart is in agreement, you are in agreement. Your heart can be saying amen. That's all the Lord wants and needs. But saying amen out of your lips and mouth, there is something that happens in the spirit. Because life and death is in the power of the tongue. If the meeting never happened in the heart, the agreement never happened at all. No matter what the lips did. It's just like somebody. I believe Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior but they don't really believe it in their hearts, are they really saved? And what is going to happen in due time? You are going to see that fruit. Because the heart never really received it. The heart never really believed it. God is interested in the heart. What is in your heart? That's why he turns our heart from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. He's interested in our hearts. And I want to ask you this question. Who do you pray beside or serve beside regularly that you have

never truly come into heart agreement with? Only mouth agreement. In children's church. In productions. In front house. In cleaning ministry. In baptisms. You have a leader of a department and you are thinking, oh, they think they are better than me. I will do what they tell me to do so they can see I can do it too. You are not in agreement. Oh, wait until I become a leader. Not in agreement. That's not being in agreement. Because you are already looking at them, you are already in competition. You are already, I can do it too. I can lead too. I can be a leader too. What makes them so special? But then you are like, yes, I can help you. Sure, no problem. You know what that's called? Fake. Can't be like that. Because you know who sees that? Not just God. God sees it. But the enemy is loving it.

That's his language. You are a lie. You are a fraud. You are a lie. That's what that means. And the language of the enemy is lying. He's the father of all lies. He'll tell you a bunch of truths, one little lie. We can't be walking like that. We have to walk like the Lord. We have to be like the Lord. That's why I ask this question every single time I preach. I ask this question for the rest of my life. Why did you get saved? And then sometimes I ask this question and people think I'm asking how. I was going through a lie and God saved me. No, I said why? Why? What's the reason? Why do you go to work? You need money to pay your rent. Why become a believer? What's the difference between me and the world? Why? Because I want to be like him. Not because I just want to be saved and get to heaven. I want to be like the person who saved me. I want to walk like him. I want to act like him.

I want to dress like him. I want to love like him. I want to eat like him. I want to do everything like him. Because he showed me how to be a son. He showed me how to be sacrificial. He showed me how to be loving. He showed me how to forgive. He showed me how to not hold bitterness. And I'm still learning. Every day I'm learning. You know what was one of the best prayers I ever prayed and will forever pray? Reveal more of the cross to me, Jesus. I don't know enough. I want to know what happened on that cross. How did you feel? You know that song, I'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross. It's not just something that sounds good. You will literally never know how much it cost for your sin to be on a cross because he took it. You will literally never know. So why should I be this person? Because of what he did. And if I don't get a revelation, if I don't understand it deeper, Lord, please make me understand it deeper. If I don't have a reverence for God and I'm still watching porn, Lord, please show me what it does to you when I watch porn. Lord, please show me what it does to you when I'm holding

bitterness. Lord, please show me what it does to you when I'm lying about my sister. Or I'm coming to an agreement with my sister and brother but I have offense in my heart towards them. Show me what it's doing to you. I want to be like you. That's why we get saved. Not because we need a saving. Not because we want to go to heaven. That's why we look like Jesus. And that's when being a Christian isn't boring. Because you actually get to know the person that saved you is actually pretty cool. Does that make sense? That's why it becomes easy, you know the scripture before we go to section 3 that says, the joy of the Lord is my strength. We all think the feeling of the joy. That's not what it's really talking about. It's talking about the joy of knowing Jesus gives you strength to live righteous. The joy of knowing my Lord and Savior gives me the strength for me to be righteous, for me not to dress immodest, for me not to speak immodest, for me not to gossip in slander, for me not to hold bitterness, for me to honor, for me to let it go because it's not about me. I know about a person who made it about me. Why would I make it about me too? He already made it about me. Why do I still need to make it about me?

Am I that needy? Is it really about me that much? You're that needy that it needs to be about you. But someone already made it about you, so much so that he died for you. What else are you looking for? What else do you need? Right? Section 3, a divided heart can worship and withhold at the very same time. We're going to go to Psalms chapter 12 verse 2. They speak idly, everyone with his neighbor, with flattering lips and a double heart they speak. When I read this verse, this was like last year, the beginning of this last year, around July, I was reading Psalms and the book of John together. And I got to this verse, I cried so hard. They speak idly, everyone with his neighbor, with flattering lips and a double heart they speak. You go to the person, oh, my goodness, you look so beautiful. And in your heart, who does she think she is? Oh, Pastor Rich, that was such an amazing sermon. But he's so prideful sometimes. Yes. Psalms chapter 12 verse 2. Wow, you're such an amazing leader. Wait until I become like her. Convicting, huh? That thing convicted me so bad I cried. I said, oh, my goodness, if I ever do that, Lord, please

convict me. I don't want to do that no more. I don't want to flatter people and still feel some type of way. Still hold on to things. Oh, my gosh, you're so pretty. I wonder if that hair is hers. It's not. My own hair. But I love it. But do you know what I'm saying? Why do we do that? Why do we do that? That's so bad. We can't do that. And you want God to believe you when you talk to him, but you talk about that, you think like that to a sister or brother you can see, but then you want God to believe you when you can't even see him. You want your words to hold weight in heaven and in the spirit, but yet in the physical you're walking like a fraud. You're a fraud. Right? The promise names the exact condition that ruins agreement. A double heart, one that says one thing on the surface and holds another underneath. The Hebrew literally reads a heart and a heart. Two hearts in one chest. You imagine having two hearts in one chest? You divided. One heart says one thing and the other heart says another thing.

How are you living? Right? Internal split where the face is at peace and the heart is at war. Where the lips bless and the inside withholds. You can sing, pray and serve from the top heart while the bottom heart is keeping an account against the person right beside you. A double heart cannot release two agreement because part of it is always saying no while the other part performs yes. And that's how we start getting into performance mode. You're not really feeling it, but I'm just going to do it. You're not really doing it heartily. That's the whole thing about doing it heartily. Your whole entire heart. Half of your heart is saying yes, the other part of your heart is saying no. That's not doing heartily. The Bible says to do everything heartily unto the Lord. How can you love your sister and your brothers in Christ heartily unto the Lord if you have a fence? How can you take care of your children heartily unto the Lord if you don't really like to be a mom? You didn't take that to the Lord yet. How can you heartily be in a marriage if there's something that you're holding against that person for so long and you don't talk about it? Oh, it's okay, I'm just gonna leave it alone. It's never gonna go away. Everything you do is gonna be half-hearted, right?

In the Hebrew, lev, v'lev, lev, L-E-V, space, v'lev, V-A-L-E-V, literally a heart and a heart, that's what it means, two hearts operating at once, one shown and one hidden. The opposite is lev shalem. Lev shalem means a whole heart. Wholeness is the cure. The double heart is the contrafit. I don't wanna be a contrafit. I don't wanna be a contrafit. Think about it. If you ever had someone in your life who probably was hurt and they were a contrafit friend to you, obviously it's the enemy. They didn't know how to have a whole heart, right? You meet them, then they affect you, and you're like, man, that hurt. I can't trust her. I can't be her friend or I can't trust him. That's not my bro. He's a contrafit. When you are coming into an agreement in prayer with your brother and sister or the church or anybody, and you are having offense in your heart, you're being just like that person to God. You're being a contrafit. And sometimes we're not even doing it consciously. We're just so hurt from the things that's happened in the past that we just walk into it without knowing our nature has been formed into someone

that just agrees out of our lips and really don't agree in our hearts, and that's how we become performance-driven. We're not really doing it for real. Isn't that performance? Like if a rapper is rapping about a life he really didn't live, isn't that performance? So if you're up here worshiping Jesus, proclaiming that you're just like him, because that's what that is, but then in your heart, you're not the same way, isn't that a performance? You're coming in here, you're being all nice to everybody. Hey, how you doing? But in your heart, you feel something about every single person. You say, hi, how you doing too? You're performing. That's how it leads, that's what happens, and it all happened from trauma, from pain. We don't even realize it. We need to ask the Lord, change my nature. Change me, Lord. I don't wanna be the same anymore. I wanna love like you. I was just talking to a woman of God in this church, and I said, one of the things that helped me get delivered from bitterness is that I cried out to Jesus, and I said, Lord, I want to love like you. I wanted to love like Jesus so bad.

Please, Lord, help me love like you. How do you do it? I wanna do it, help me do it, please. I don't wanna hold bitterness anymore. I don't wanna hold offense anymore. I don't want it to be about me anymore. Why is it always about me? I don't want it to be about me, Lord. You didn't make it about you. You made it about all of us. How are you so sacrificial? He can do it if you ask him, and he delivered me from that bitterness, me and him. No one laid hands on me. The Lord did it because I was desperate. I really wanted it. I wanna give you this question for section three. Where have you become double, peaceful on the surface and withholding underneath? And what would a whole heart toward that person look like? It could even be your parents. You're saying I love you with your lips, but your heart is far from really loving them because you haven't really spoken to them about what they did. But then you're praying for them to get saved. Yes. Hold on, there's a microphone there. So, check, my check, you can hear me? I can hear you, but speak a little louder.

All right, so there's two voices that come, I mean, two verses that come to mind. One of them is the verse that it says, if you have an offense or like a problem with your brother and you try to bring a gift to the altar, leave it there and go make it right with your brother. Because that gift is not. null and void of God. And another one is, what was it? You wanna say, go ahead, just put it up. Oh yeah, it says, if you don't love your brother who you see, how can you love God who you don't see? Right, so those verses just keep coming to my mind as you keep speaking. Yeah, exactly. Those are the two things that the Lord was showing me. Literally, we're gonna talk about these two things, these two verses. Yes, there's another hand over there. Drew. So I got a testimony, quick testimony real quick. So when I got to the event, the revival, I got there a little early at like 10 a.m. And then we were waiting for Alex to pull up because I was helping safety team with parking. And we started walking around like praying over the event and over the atmosphere. And then I started praying. And then I literally at that time,

man, I was holding bitterness towards my wife and even bitterness towards my kids. And I was just super angry within that week. And I stopped, I wasn't praying, I wasn't in a secret place, but I came there and I started praying over the event and for people to be saved. And as soon as I started praying, I felt this feeling like, what am I doing, bro? Like Holy Spirit said, you need to make things right and you need to repent and release that from your heart before you decide to pray. And I just started weeping. And I just started like repenting and releasing all of that from my heart. And after that, man, God moved mightily, bro. Yeah. Because I released that before I chose to pray, you know? Yeah. So that just brought me back to that. That was very, that was a big thing. It taught me a lot. That's so good because a lot of us, we forget. Sometimes it's not like sin that's like, you know, like porn or masturbation or like gossiping, right? It's like little like things like holding the offense that we don't realize that we're doing to and that we're doing. And then we go into prayer and we don't say, Lord, I repent, forgive me.

Like we don't repent before we get into praying, right? And I have this, like, it's not a habit, but it's just the way that I am. Like I repent before I actually pray. Like, Lord, please forgive me for any sin known and unknown. Remind me if there's something that I, you know what I'm saying? And it's so easy to forget that you're offended or to forget you're holding bitterness or to forget you're holding the offense because it just, it became a part of you. It became you. And then like, I can only imagine if you're divided, your heart is divided. What does the Bible talks about a man who's divided, unstable in all their ways. So then you're praying, but yet things are not working or you're praying, but you're still falling into sin. You need to go check your heart. You need to figure out what's going on because the Bible says, ask and you shall receive. Like not you maybe will receive. No, you shall receive. It's not a word problem because the word will never return void and do exactly what God sent it to do. It's not a God problem because he's sitting on the throne. Always, will ever be. He's the name above every other name. So whose problem is it?

It's a you problem. You need to figure out what the problem is. Sometimes it's a spirit. Sometimes it's a heart check, repentance, healing. Like we're in the secret place asking God to move on our behalf with something. And he keeps bringing you back to a situation. And you're saying, I already let that go. Clearly there's something else. You need to sit there and say, Lord, what is it? And stop being, stop acting like I already did that. That's just the enemy attacking me in the secret place. God is highlighting this to you. And then he brings people to you to talk to you about it. But I already spoke and you get frustrated. But it's like, no, God is highlighting this to you. You need to deal with it. You can't get frustrated, right? All right, let's keep going. Section four. You cannot love the God you cannot see while resenting the brother you can. This is the verse that you guys were talking about. First John chapter four, verse 20. If someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. I'm gonna say it again. How many of you loves God over here in this church? Everyone should have their hands up.

Praise God. Have you ever hated someone? Raise your hand if you ever hated someone in this church. Well, thank you, Charles, for being honest. Thank you, Alyssa, for being honest. That's why I got my hands up. I'm not trying. I'm not perfect. I need the Lord. If you can't be honest about this, then come on, people, why am I up here preaching? Again, if you ever hated anybody in this church, raise your hand. Okay, a little more hands went up this time, praise God. He is a liar. I do not want to be a liar. For he does not love his brother whom he has seen. How can he love God whom he has not seen? There's another scripture in the book of John that says that when you actually love, that's when you actually are mature. There's another scripture that says when you love, that's when you are a disciple. That made me repent so quick. I said, oh my gosh, you mean to tell me because I'm not loving the right way I'm not a disciple? I repent. Because we think a disciple is somebody who makes disciples. I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ because I'm doing what he did. I'm evangelizing. I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ because I'm worshiping. I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ because I serve in his church. No, you're a disciple when you love. Because what did Jesus do?

He loved. What is a disciple? A follower. What's the best way to follow? Love. Yes, you could be an evangelist and not love, you really didn't do much. You could be a worshiper, you didn't love, you really didn't do much. Serving in productions, you didn't love, you really didn't do much. And I'm not talking about the love from the lips. I'm talking about from the heart. Not the lips. Because the Lord sees the heart. He's more interested in how you're loving someone from the heart. Right. It becomes easier. Your life as a Christian becomes so much easier when you really love. Because there is no like weight on you to try to be someone else. Because when you don't really love, now you're becoming someone else. You're performing like as if you're like this person but you're not. Right. John does not soften it, he calls it a lie. Not a weakness, a lie. That's just my weakness. No, that's a lie. You're a liar. This is not a weakness, you're a liar. Because you can't love God that you cannot see. But then you can't love the person that you can't physically see. The vertical and the horizontal are wired together. You cannot run a clean line up to God while the wire to your brother is cut sideways.

This is why a worship-filled room can feel strangely empty. People are aiming love up to a God they say they love while holding a fence toward a person three chairs down from them. I don't know, the worship was just different today. I don't know, something is going on with the worshipers. Something is going on with your heart. I just don't feel it. Why? Why don't you feel it? It's not conditioned to what they're doing. It's from your own worship. But you can't even get into the posture of worship because something is blocking your heart to receive that posture of worship. Right. Heaven does not separate those two wires the way we try to. The offense going sideways quietly contradicts the love going up. And the whole prayer registers as a contradiction. It contradicts it. Everything you do, if you're not doing it from a place of genuine love, you're contradicting yourself. That's why the word tells us in heaven there's no gifts. There's no I'm a prophet. I'm an evangelist. I'm an apostle. I'm a teacher. I'm a pastor. There's none of that. There's only love. Love is the only thing that stays that lasts in heaven. Nothing else. At that point what really matters? Nothing. And honestly the gifts are without repentance.

When we start doing things, we start operating in gifts and we think, oh, I must be doing something good. This is love because I'm giving them a word of knowledge. But if your heart is not really loving them and not seeing them change and giving them that word of knowledge. They are like, oh, my gosh, you are so prophetic. That's all you receive, just that. You are not going to receive any other reward. You are going to receive just that. Oh, my gosh, you are so prophetic. Right? And so God will reward you. God is trying to show us that everything has to be done out of a genuine place of loving the person and wanting to see good for the person. Does that make sense? So we can't come into agreement together if we're offended. Even with people like they're offended towards God for something that they did. For something that they did. They're offended towards God so now they're not coming to agreement with the spirit of God. You're divided with the spirit of God and now you're being tossed to and fro and you don't know what's going on. Why are you offended towards God? What did he ever do? What? Died on the cross for your sins? Got beaten? Crown of thorns. Stabbed them on his side. All the lashes.

All the persecution. What did he do again? What are you mad at God for? Is it really that much about you? Oh, my goodness, God allowed this to happen. And I'm not preaching something that I didn't feel. Because when I got diagnosed with that cancer, there was a moment where I almost really got offended with God. You mean to say that I'm a pastor and I'm doing all of this for you and you still allow me to get cancer. God didn't sit up there and say, cancer, no. That's not what he did. But bad things happen and we start pointing the finger up instead of going like this. What is going on? What's happening? What's in my heart that's allowing these things to happen. Clean out my heart, God. Great. This. Oh, no, not that. You don't understand what this person did to me. I can't talk to them right now. Maybe if they come to me and ask for forgiveness, maybe I will think about it. And you are on Sunday. Hallelujah. No. It's bouncing off you.

It's not doing anything. Okay. The Greek word is, man, I can't really say this one. Pseustes. Pseustes. It's with a P. Pseustes. P-S-E-U-S-T-E-S. It's the Greek word for a liar. One whose claim does not hold. Not that the person is lying on purpose but that the claim itself collapses. Love upward cannot coexist with offense sideways. The contradiction exposes the counterfeit. It's like someone who says, I love God. But they don't want to change. Right. Someone, an evangelist comes up to them or somebody comes up and tells them, hey, you are probably walking in sin. You are in a fornicating relationship. The Bible says this. You should repent. Oh, no, I'm good. I can't do that. That word of I love God doesn't hold weight. And they probably don't even, they don't know it. They don't realize it. It's because their heart is divided. Top of their heart is saying I love God. The bottom part is saying, but I love this relationship.

I love God but, you know, I love this girl or I love this guy. Or I love God but I love gossiping. I love God but I love this bitterness. I love this offense. I love myself too much. It's divided. Here's a question for you before we go to section teaching 2. For discipleship, I'm actually going to probably stop at this one and start teaching 2 next week. I want you guys to ask any questions and we start talking about it. Is there a relationship where your worship upward and your offense sideways are quietly contradicting each other right now? Ask again. Is there a relationship where your worship upward and your offense sideways are quietly contradicting each other right now? Right. You are worshiping the Lord but there is something going on with your worship upward and your offense and it's contradicting each other. Anybody want to answer that? Because we got 10 minutes. I don't want to go to teaching 2. Does it have to be? Does it have to be somebody in church? No, not necessarily someone in church. Um, so I feel like like with me like, um Like man specifically like put your man like I'm offended to like

when I was like with certain men like sit by my sit by me or just I don't know. They come near me. I just get annoyed because of like the man in my past like they were like Perverted or was less than after me. So like I just hold that offense towards man because of what happened to me Okay, and um, I just feel like God has been bringing that up to me and um Like it's been like affecting like my worship cuz it's like it's been affecting your walk with what my worship your worship yes, and um, I just I haven't been saying God rightly and Okay. Yeah, because there's not God the mother. Yeah the father. He's a man Yeah so that will definitely affect how you receive the love of The father because he's a man you have supposed to receive the love of a man Right, right that you know What have you done about it? So God's bringing it up. What have you done about it? Um, I Mean I confessed it to him Okay confession is good, but you can confess it But what's going on in here, right? So we're talking about right. We don't want to just confess it and just holding on holding it in here. Mm-hmm We have to get to the root of it because let me ask you this question Why is it important for us to release it? Like why like why can't you just live the way that you are? Why can't you just continue being like that no problem what holding bitterness inside? Yeah, like why why is it important? Like why should you? Release this like what's what's the reason to do it? Like why I want I want her to answer Because it's not love cuz what because it's not love what's love God What's love? God is love God. Okay, so So like give me a name Jesus right Oh Jesus love is Jesus. So why would you not want to be like that? Um Cuz you want to be like Jesus, yeah, cuz you want to you want to you want to embody love right and love is God

So you want to embody God and where's God Jesus? Yeah, so you want to be like Jesus? Yeah, right. That's the reason That's literally the reason Why should I let this go this person hurt me so bad. I didn't do anything Why did I have to go through all of this? Because you want to be like Jesus and if you don't have a revelation of Jesus that you got to go back to the cross Show me why I want to be like you You can ask him that Man, I have a testimony of one day. I was in my secret place worshiping and my I was worshiping like a song like holy I forget which exactly song it was some in upper room and My heart my heart like my mind Said what makes you so holy as my lips is saying holy And I stopped Myself because you guys just been like that was just the devil. No, no, no No, I stopped myself and I said, oh my goodness and the Lord said go ahead ask me and I said Lord I can't ask you that question. That's offensive. He goes, but I already know And I said, oh Okay, and I said it out on my lips what makes you so holy not on so what makes you so holy Not on pity. I Genuinely was like what makes you so holy I sing about it at church. I talk about it I preach about it, but what makes you so holy I Had that unction of the Holy Spirit, I don't just let it go I don't just oh lord, I'm sorry that I said that no Why did I just say that? Why did I just think that? What's causing me to feel that and and for like a month I didn't get an answer I kept asking I Want to know I really want to know I really want to get deeper and then he He showed me what makes him so holy as I was talking to Nani about what makes God so holy Like it was like a moment where it was like the Holy Spirit speaking through me and I went oh my gosh, that's my answer And I just caught it

Like wow, and this is what he said. I said Nani. Why do you think Jesus is so holy and she said something, and I said, Nani, do you know anyone in this whole world that they got offended, but not even a second in their whole life? I'm talking about not even like a second that they got angry. Because you could get offended and get angry, and then repent and forgive the person. I'm talking about never, ever, ever, not even a second. You offend them, they get offended right after. Do you know anyone that's done that? There is one. Jesus, I do know someone. His name is Jesus. There is one, and you know him. You have his spirit. He lives inside of you. That revelation had me in tears. That's the revelation of knowing him. That's the joy of knowing him that makes you live righteous, that helps you to be the person that you want to be like him, that there's actually someone who can literally be that good. And his name is Jesus. Not one second, not one moment in his entire life got angry. All 33 years of his life. How do you, how? Because holy means set apart. That's why he's set apart. One day I was here in worship, and I just,

like he gave me a vision of him on the cross as I was worshiping, and I was just like, oh my gosh, Lord. And I was looking in the crowd, and a lot of people were just like, you know. And I'm like, Lord. Like, I don't understand it. He goes, a lot of people can't believe that there is a man that's actually good. It's hard for them to believe that there's a man that walked this earth that actually is good. That actually loves no matter what. That actually embodies agape. It's hard to believe it. But when you actually know it and you believe it, that's the joy. That's like, think about when you first got saved. Real quick, I'll let you ask. When you first got saved, that joy that you felt like, oh my gosh. The veil has been torn. Like, the veil's out of my eyes. You start looking at the veil, and you're like, oh my gosh. The veil has been torn. Like, the veil's out of my eyes. You start looking at the world like, oh, I was tripping. Like, you need Jesus. You remember? You wanted to tell everybody about your Lord and Savior. Can't nobody tell you nothing about your Jesus? You don't even care what people said. Like, no, let me tell you something. I see you all up in your Instagram like, Jesus Christ is Lord.

That's the joy that you are supposed to have every single day. It's never supposed to fade. It's never supposed to go away. It's supposed to be like, yes, I know a man who loves me so much who died for me. Yes, I know it's possible to actually live like that. And then he gave me his spirit. What? Yes! That's how you become radical and in love with Jesus. And then you start walking like Jesus. Just like what we were talking about on Sunday. That type of love that they can't even differentiate between Jesus Christ and you. They can't differentiate it. It's like, whoa. Because it's just too much love. Right? You have a question. We've got two minutes. Hello? Yeah. It's not really a question. It's more like I wanted to share something. Because before I came to church, I was driving. And I was looking behind a car. And the license plate literally said JC Agape. And I was like, that's Jesus Christ is Agape. So when he said that, I was like, God was like everywhere. He was already prepared. So I just wanted to share. Because God is good.

He's so good. He's love. He is love. Love is a person. Love is not a feeling. Because I can right now tell you something that's so bad. And you're like, that wasn't loving. But in my mind, in my heart, that's love to me. And then you're like, that wasn't loving. I'm like, what are you talking about? Yes, it was. Love isn't a feeling. Love isn't what I make you feel. Love is a person. If I present Jesus to you, you can't know. denied that that was Jesus. So if I present that type of love to you, you can't deny that it's love. If I present him to you, you can't deny that that's love. And that's what we need to do before we come into agreement in prayer is actually be like Jesus. Even if the person did do something that was wrong that offended you, what would Jesus do? Forgive, let it go, bring it up, talk about it. Don't just come into agreement with your lips but then your heart is really far from that person. We have to stop doing this in the body of Christ. We can't continue to be like people in the world in the body of Christ.

We're supposed to be different. We're supposed to be set apart. We can't worship on his altar having something against the person that you're worshiping with. What are we really doing? We have to let it go and we don't let it go because we're right, they're wrong, so they're gonna know that they're wrong. That already is wrong. That's not even the right heart. You might as well don't say nothing until you get your heart right. You know what I'm saying? So we're gonna do better, amen? I want you guys to stand up so we can pray. Right now, if you haven't had, if you even while I was teaching, you didn't release any offense, any bitterness or anything from your heart towards someone, I wanna give you an opportunity to do that in your heart and that we're gonna do it outwardly and you should go to the person and have a conversation with them because we are all our family together in this church. Amen? All right, praise the Lord. So just give you just a few seconds, just confess it, repent, let it go. Thank you, Jesus.

Hallelujah. So as a wife, a husband, sister, brother, even your child, things happen, thank you, Lord. All right, say, Lord Jesus, thank you for your spirit. Thank you, Lord, for the example. Thank you, Lord, that we are going to be just like you. Say, Lord, I confess and I repent of being divided in my heart towards a brother or a sister. A roommate, a coworker, a mother, a father, or even my pastors and leaders. Say, Lord, we will not be a people who worship with our lips, but our heart is far from you. Thank you for your spirit and for your grace. In Jesus' name, amen. Hallelujah. Thank you. Okay, next week, we're gonna go to teaching two, amen? Yes. P-S-E-U, T as in Tom, E-S. It means a liar, one whose claim does not hold. You're welcome.