Daily Encounters | Landon Schott | Mercy Culture Church

And finally, if you want my notes this morning, you can text notes to that all-inclusive number, or you can text the word GROW, and a study guide will be sent to you so you can continue to steward this message after today. How many are ready for the Word today? If you have your Bibles, turn with me to the book of Exodus. Exodus, I'm going to beginning in verse 2. It says this, the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the people of Israel said to them, would that we had died in the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the meat posts and ate bread to the full. For you have brought us into the wilderness to kill us, this whole assembly with hunger. Jump down to verse 4. Then the Lord said to Moses, behold, I'm going to bring rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a day's portion. Someone say days. That I may test them, whether they will walk in my way in law or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare, they will bring it in. And then it will be twice as much as they gather daily. Jump down to verse 15. It says, when the people of Israel saw it, the bread, they said to each other, what is this? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, it is the bread of the Lord. He has given it to you to eat. Verse 16. It says, this is what the Lord commanded. Gather, gather of it. Each one of you as much as you can eat. But he who gathered much had nothing left over. And he who gathered little had no luck. Each one of them gathered as much as they could eat. Verse 21. Morning by morning, they gathered at each one as much as they can eat. The sun grew hot and it melted. Verse 23. Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake and boil what you boil. And all that is left over will lay aside and keep it until morning. And finally, verse 31. So the house of Israel called its name manna, for it was a cordoner seed, white, and it had the taste like a waver made of honey. I came to tell you today that daily encounters are the greatest way to spiritually grow as a disciple of Jesus. The title of this message today is daily encounters. Let's pray. So Lord, we declare right now, your word is true. Let every man be a liar. We declare your word is a lamp into our feet and a light into our path. Lord, we hide your word in our hearts so we won't sit against you. I pray right now. Holy spirit, would you breathe upon your written word? I pray that logos would become Reina personal revelation to us today. I pray you'd give us ears to hear hearts to receive minds to understand what your spirit is saying. Now we declare right now, Holy spirit, we don't make room for you, but we give you the entire room. So I declare no spirit, but the Holy spirit is welcome in this place. I say, fear, you have to go. I say, rebellion, you have to go. We

say, Holy spirit, come and have your way. Father, I thank you. No one came to hear me. We all came to hear you. So together we pray, speak Lord, your servants listening and all God's people said, amen and amen. Well, we are stewarding a prophetic word over this year of encounters and visitations. This is an Exodus three, five year. This is a year where we will experience Holy ground. Here's what you need to know. You choose your daily encounter, but God will choose your Holy visitation. Over 15,000 views have been watched of the service last week, but if you did not watch last week, you must watch last week as a member of mercy culture, you need to make sure that you are on the same page and equipped. I'd encourage you even watch it again to steward this word. Uh, I, I preach messages and then I go back and watch them as a member of the church because I have to steward them for my family as well. And so I'd encourage you to do that so that you are locked in for what God is doing insane in our community this year. Amen. Okay. Today we're beginning a new series on connecting with God. I showed you last week, the yearly teaching timeline where we're about to enter this series on teaching the different ways to connect with God. Now, today I'm going to be starting off the series by teaching on daily encounters. Here's what I need you to understand. There is one way to God. It's through Jesus. Are we clear? Okay. But in Jesus, there's many ways to connect with him. So here's the beauty. When you go through connect with God, you will learn how you best connect with God. When you go through our membership, this is what we'll teach you. We will show you the best ways. We're gonna take a few months to do this. This is how important this is for your spiritual growth. Because when, because knowing the best way to connect with God is a game changer for your spiritual growth and your ability to connect with him. Have you ever met before, and you didn't feel like you had anything common with them, and you had awkward conversation, maybe you went on a blind date before, and you're like, that ain't happening again, okay? Because there was no chemistry. When you go through Connect With God, you begin to discover your chemistry with God. You begin to discover the best ways that you connect with Him. And here's the thing, when I grew up, there was one way to encounter God, and they called it quiet time. The problem was, quiet time with God was the same as when I got punished by my parents. And so they would try to make us connect with God the way they punished us, and it doesn't work. And so what I

have found over my last 20 years of ministry, and my last 30 plus years of walking with the Lord, or 20 years of daily encountering, is there's different ways to connect with God. And here's the beauty, I've been doing daily encounters for 20 years, and I am still learning different ways how to connect with God. You know my favorite thing about my relationship with Jesus, my absolute favorite thing, one of my favorite scriptures, is His mercies are new every morning. And here's what it means, it never gets old. It never gets tiring, because you can read a stupid book over and over and over, and when you read Moby Dick for the 10th time, it's still about a dumb whale. But when you're in God's Word, and He breathes on that logos, He breathes on it, you can read it a thousand times. The doctrine doesn't change, but the Holy Spirit breathes on it, it comes alive, and all of a sudden it's showing you new aspects of God. This is the power of our faith, because we have the only faith that's alive. We serve the only God that's alive. Every other God died and stayed dead, because they weren't a God, they were a false God. But we serve the one true living God who wants to meet with us every single day. So real quickly, there are 12 different ways we've identified, and we're going to spend a different Sunday every week for the next few months on these different ways. So people connect with God differently. Adoration is ministering to God through the heart of worship. Conversation is an active two-way relationship, asking, listening, and responding to God. Compassion is connecting with His heart towards His people. Creation is feeling the presence of God, hearing His voice, and being moved to worship by being outside in creation. Expression is when you feel closest to God when you are creating, whether it's through writing, or painting, or playing, or dancing, or whatever it is.

How many enjoyed the little girls dancing today? Isn't that beautiful? I was actually just thinking, I was like, I wonder how many, in all the churches I've ever been to, 10 years evangelism, I don't know if I've ever seen children dance regularly in the main church ever. I just love it, I love it. Can we just thank the worship team and the creative team here that stewards all of this? It's wonderful, thank you. Connecting God with fasting is intentionally denying the flesh so you can hunger for God, hear His voice, and draw closer to Him. Connecting with God through learning is when God teaches you new revelation that you didn't know before. Meditation is focusing on God's Word and stewarding it as He renews your mind and heart. How many know that meditation is God's Word, not the weird New Ager's Word? Movement, when you're experiencing God's presence, why you move your body physically. Reformation is when you partner with God to make the crooked way straight. Remembrance is when you remember what God has done and you feel close to Him. And solitude, one of my favorites, is experiencing intimacy with God by getting alone with Him. I love encountering God with you guys here when there's thousands of people, but I actually like it better when you're not here. I come in here regularly when no one's in here. I love walking this room. Do you know, if you stand right where that little red sticker is on the floor that says encounters, if you stand right there and you sing, it echoes in this whole place. The acoustics hit it when you sing right there. Something beautiful happens in my time with the Lord when I am alone. So here's the cool part, there's these different ways and then you grow in these ways. So Mercy Culture has spent, we're six and a half years old, but we have spent the last seven and a half years developing strategies to help people grow in the way that they connect with God.

So we actually pay people full-time. We pay pastors, intercessors, and leaders to help develop these on a daily basis to continue to spiritually grow. Because here's the problem in Christianity, is people grow for a season and they stop. Now it's bad when people do that, but it's even worse when pastors do that. Because the truth is, is most pastors stop growing at some point in their life. And because they get too busy and they're meeting with everybody. And here's the thing, a little secret, if your pastor is meeting with you all the time, he's not meeting with God. And then the new, the American church, everybody wants your pastor. you're on call like it's like fast food. You know the last time I met with someone in our church? It's been months. It's crazy, we have other pastors that do that. My job is to meet with God. That's where I spend majority of my time doing meeting with God and developing leaders. And you're like, well, I don't know how I think about that. Well, scripture had the same problem because the Apostle Paul, they're like, hey, we want you to be meeting with people and feeding widows and doing all this stuff. He's like, no, no, no. My job is to pray and teach, that's my job. He said, I'm gonna empower other people. Because here's the thing, is everybody loves when we say we're not building it around a man when we're like making me look more humble, but they don't like that

when they don't have their pastor on call. Come on right here. Now, that doesn't mean that you won't get your needs met by pastors in this house. What it means is, is that there's so many pastors in so many different, do we have 52 pastors that are part of Mercy Culture? Come on, that's amazing, isn't it? So when you text connect, throw the picture of that ministry plan. There are personalized ministry plans to help you encounter God on a daily basis for every single different way I just described to you. I promise you, when you get on this journey of daily encounters, it will change your life. Now, regardless how you best connect with him, you must encounter him daily. Someone say daily. Now, this is the vision of Mercy Culture. You've never heard me preach and not tell you the vision. I come up here, I say my name, and I tell you the vision, usually before you're done clapping. I say the vision of Mercy Culture is to take people from corporate encounters with God, those are gathering church services, to daily personal encounters with God. Let me tell you why it's the vision, because we have done a bad job

stewarding church in America. And we've made the purpose of the church to stinking exist. And it's such a bad reason to have a church. I see this all the time. There's all of these church growth experts on Instagram, and how to build your church and grow your church, and all of these strategies. And when I look at all this stupid stuff they say, nothing is spiritual. And I never ever hear him talk about helping people spiritually grow. Do you know how much we've ever spent to try to grow this church? A big fat zero dollars. We feed the poor, we help disciple people, we do ministries, we do missions, we do outreaches. But we don't have to market a church, because here's why. When people grow, everything grows. Everything grows. So, ask me why this is the vision. I gave my life to the Lord at three years old. I have a memory of doing it. They told me what age I was later. I got baptized in the Holy Ghost at 12. I preached my first sermon in India at 16 years old. I started preaching full-time at 16. It's insane, and we won't replicate that, but that's what my journey was. I've been in ministry a long time,

and here's what I've seen. People who have a relationship with Jesus last. Those that have a relationship with anything else, they don't make it. I remember being in high school, I was a sophomore, I was on a fast. When I was learning how to fast. I'm sophomore in high school, and this kid comes to the lunch table, and he's really passionate, he's really loud, slightly obnoxious, and he's just on fire for Jesus. He's preaching on the lunchroom table, and he's letting everybody know, if you're not preaching on the lunchroom table like me, you're not a true Christian. I mean, he was bold. And that was fine. I was like, bro, you just do you, that's great. And then, I remember that was sophomore year. By senior year, he had a boyfriend, and he no longer identified as a heterosexual or a Christian. And I remember thinking, what happened? And then, I remember watching people fall away from the faith when I saw pastors having affairs. I remember people falling away from the faith when pastors stole money or embezzled. I watched people fall away from the faith when pastors went off the rail. And over and over, for decades of ministry,

I watched people's faith connected to stinking people. Versus their faith connected to God. And when God spoke to me to build this church, no part of me wanted to do it. I love God. I just hate church drama. And sheep bite. So finally, I said, Lord, I'll do it. But you have to tell me why, what to do. And he said, just build it around me. So it began this process of what do you want? How does this work? If I'm gonna pastor people and lead people, what substance can I give them that will guarantee to change their life? It's daily encounters. Daily encounters, staying in the presence of God is what kept me when my. had affairs. It's what kept me when my churches fell apart. It's what kept me when people betrayed me. It's what kept me when life's tragedies came against me. It is what has kept me through the course of time. It is why my faith has lasted. Watch this, let me show you this. Without daily encounters, church, your faith will not last. I am warning you, this is a prophetic warning. Your faith won't last and your children's faith won't last if it's not rooted in a daily relationship with God. Let me show you in the word, Matthew 7 24. Jesus is warning people. He says, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who builds his house on the rock. When the rain fell and the floods came, or the weight of life, the trials of life, the wind blew, beat on the house, but it did not fall because he had been founded on the rock. Someone say rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them is like a

foolish man who builds his house on the sand. Someone say sand. When the rain fell and the floods came, when the winds blew and beat against the house, it fell and great was the fall. So what is building your life on the rock mean? It means Jesus. A daily relationship with Jesus. What is building your life on the sand like? Anything but Jesus. It's when the foundation of your life is anything. It's your retirement, it's your job, it's your security, it's your friends, it's your status, it's your church, it's anything but Jesus. Today I'm gonna teach you the vision of our church. Today I'm gonna teach you the substance of my relationship with the Lord. Today I'm gonna teach you why I have lasted 40 years in serving the Lord, why my faith has lasted, why I'm more on fire for God at 42 years old than I was at 18 years old. I wasn't a fly-by-night ministry. It wasn't just this little speck of excitement and passion. Oh he served the Lord in his teens, he served the Lord in his 20s, he served the Lord in his 30s. No, I died in my 20s. I barely survived in my 30s, but my faith got stronger and stronger every decade. I'm gonna show you how. John Maxwell says, show me your daily routine and I will show you your future. Today I want you to focus on two words. Daily. Someone say daily. Someone say encounter. Jesus taught to come to God daily. Matthew 6 11. Give us this day our daily bread. He's teaching about prayer. Jesus called it daily bread. Matthew 4 4. Jesus is confronting Satan. He says, it is written, man should not live by bread alone, but every word that comes out of the mouth of God. The psalmist declared God's praises to be daily. Psalms 145. Every day I will bless your name. I will praise your name forever and ever. The Word of God was meant to be encountered daily. Joshua 1 8. The book of the law or God's Word shall not depart from your mouth, but meditated on it day and night. Church, just like daily habits shape your life, spiritual discipline shape your future. Moses measured time in days, not years. Psalm 90 12 says, so teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. So let me give you practical advice. Have an appointment for your daily encounter. If it is not an appointment in your appointment book, on your calendar, in your reminders, it won't happen or it will happen seldomly. My son and I have

an appointment in the morning at 6 a.m. I get up before that and I have my daily encounter. At 6 a.m. his alarm comes off. He comes down and him and I do his daily encounter with him every morning by the fireplace. So he reads a verse in Psalms. I read a verse in Psalms. We go back and forth. This should be Proverbs. We're doing wisdom right now. And so we're going back and forth, reading the verses back and forth. When we get done, he tells me what verse stands out the most to him. He highlights it with this highlighter. Then we get on our knees by the fire and we begin to pray together over the verse that God highlighted to him. That's ours. Then around 630, Porter comes down because Preston doesn't want to have his encounter with Porter there. But around 630, Porter comes down. He starts snuggling and then we go through his and he has a Minecraft Bible that he really likes. So we start reading in the Minecraft Bible and I'll read a part and then he'll read a part. And so just step by step, age by age, we are processing this together. But we have appointments. Preston's appointment, my appointment's around 5. Preston's appointment's at 6. Porter's appointment's at 630. But here's the thing. If you do not have appointments, they don't happen. You don't have an appointment with your doctor, they tend to not happen. You don't have an appointment with friends. You ever have a friend like, oh, we should get together and it's this like ambiguous thing. I said it to Jay this morning. Jay leads worship at the East Campus. We love you, Jaylen. We appreciate you. Appreciate your ministry. And he's not here that much because he's over at the East Campus. He's got a Sunday off. And I said, hey, I want you to come on a trip with me this year. Now I know that will never happen unless I tell Grant, hey, let's get that on the calendar on one of my upcoming trips this year. Because watch, if I don't make it happen, if I don't have an assigned date to it, a time to it, then it'll get lost in the hustle and the bustle and the busyness of life. Are you with me? So practical advice, make an appointment. Let me give you a warning. There's always going to be resistance to the things of the Spirit.

So when I give you these things, despite how easy they are, it is wild that it is so difficult to read Proverbs every day, but you can watch a streaming series with 12 episodes in a weekend. And you just found a way to do it. You persevered. You pushed through. We're proud of you. How wild is it that mundane things are easy to do, but spiritual things, there's resistance because there's spiritual resistance. I want to share a philosophical strategy that really impacted me when I was in Bible college. There was a French mathematician and philosopher named Blaise Pascal who came up with an argument for God called Pascal's Wager. In the 17th century, he argued God, choosing God would be the wisest bet based on math alone. So Pascal basically said this, if you just looked at God as a 50-50 option, where maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, but if you are wrong, you go to hell. If you are wrong and there isn't a God, it doesn't matter. But if there is a God and you didn't choose right, you're in trouble. He said it's a bad mathematical decision. And so this really impacted me when I was a young man learning doctrine and theology. And I continue to think about this and I wanted to present Pascal's Wager to you on the daily encounter scale with this. This is how I want you to think about this. A lot of people don't understand the impact of daily encounters. See, when you daily encounter, you create opportunities for holy visitations. So I want you to hear this today. See, a life lived in daily relationship with God leads to thousands of God encounters and holy visitations, where a life lived without daily encounters become empty of God's voice and his presence. So I told you I've been doing this for about 20 years and I would say there's an approximate where I would encounter God after I do a daily encounter, I encounter God probably once every two weeks where I clearly hear his voice, I have some sort of encounter, visitation

from God. So I wanted to take this and put it into a context that we could all understand. So I want to put it in three contexts. One is a daily encounter, people that encounter God every day. The second is the average Christian. Now the average Christian goes to church once a month. That's the average Christian, about once a month. Then you have the lukewarm Christian. What's the lukewarm? They go to church twice a year on Christmas and Easter. So if you put this into the everyday 365, if you put it into average Christian 12 times a year, or you put this into the lukewarm twice a year, how many times in your months or your years or your lifetime would you really encounter God or have a holy visitation? So watch this. The lukewarm will never encounter God in a month. The average won't encounter God in a month. And those that daily encounter, you'll have at least two God encounters or visitations a month. Let's put this in a one year setting. The lukewarm will not encounter God in a year. The average will encounter God maybe one time in a year. And those that daily encounter 26 times in a year, if you use this math. Now a lot of times it happens way more than just twice a month, but I'm using this on an average. So if you multiply this out for your lifetimes, let's just say 50 years, what does 50 years of God encounters look like? Well, the lukewarm may encounter God up to seven times in their life. Maybe the average Christian, maybe 40 some times in their life. But those that daily encounter, you're over a thousand God encounters that build up this history and this trajectory of your spiritual journey in life.

You choose your daily encounters and God chooses your holy visitation. Daily is so important to your spiritual growth. The second thing we're talking about is encounters. Daily encounters are not about doing it right. Let me say that again. It's not about doing it right. You don't have to get rocked by God every day. We're spending time with God. Your goal is not hearing God, it's God hearing you. Your goal is not feeling God, it's God feeling you. And the goal needs to just not stop. I want you to think about some of your best friends that you have. Not all conversations are you talking on the phone for two hours. Your best, I'm talking about your deepest conversations. Some of your best friends, Pastor Steve and I, have traveled the world together. I don't remember how many Indian reservations we went to in the traveling days of our ministry, how many hours we were in the car together. And I remember hours where we didn't say a word to each other, and I loved it. I am so good being with my friend, not talking to him. But I can't remember, it would take all day to put all the God encounters we had together, of all the trips, the conversations, the moments, the prayer times, the special things. But they're built up over years of friendship. That's how your relationship with God is.

You build it up over the course of time. Now I wanna bring real clarity to this, because there's some rebellious people, and there's a prophetic word about rebellion, we'll get that out later, but there's some people that are like, I don't know about daily encounter. And then you have pastors, we don't need encounter, we need inhabitation. Like everyone has different terminologies on different stuff, and here's what I'm talking about. When I say daily encounter, what I really, really mean when I say daily encounter is discipleship. That's what I mean. Even when I talk about membership every week, I say our membership is really discipleship. I'm talking about discipleship because the daily disciple is the one who spiritually grows. Matthew 28, 18, this is important for you to know. And Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded. And behold, I will be with you to the end of the age. This is what is known as the Great Commission. The Great Commission was not to go out and build megachurches. The Great Commission was not to do stadium events. The Great Commission was not to hold crusades

for people to make decisions. I'm not opposed to any of those things if they are making disciples. But every person that invites me to be a part of some crusade, the first question I ask is, how are we making disciples? What does it matter if we have millions of people, hundreds of thousands, photo ops, and they're not discipled afterwards? It doesn't matter. So when I say daily encounters, what I am stressing is a life of discipleship. What is discipleship? It's God's process of forming believers through encounters with him, daily encounters with him, where obedience, intimacy, trust are cultivated through prayer, the word, worship, and producing a life that follows him faithfully. There's over 250 occurrences of the concept disciple in the Bible. The word discipleship does not appear explicitly, but the concept is expressed through following, walking, learning, teaching, and obeying. The Hebrew word is the word lemad. It's to learn by practice, to be trained. It implies learning through repetition and obedience, not just information. The Greek word is the word metetes. It means apprentice. A disciple is one who his entire life

is shaped by the teacher, not just a listener, but a participant. They participate in the master's way of life. It's someone who orders their entire life around Jesus. Matthew 16, 24, then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me. I gave you a lot of information. Let me give you a simplified definition. A disciple is someone who follows Jesus, obeys him, and builds their life around following him every single day. Church, daily encounters are the greatest way to spiritually grow as a disciple of Jesus. I cannot find, now, there's other ways to grow. There's other great things to do, and there's outreach and evangelism and tons of different things you can do. Yes, being in community, growing, corporate encounters. Yes, these are great things, but I'm telling you, this is the greatest way to grow as a disciple of Jesus. So I'm gonna break it down. Every daily encounter needs three elements. Very simple. Doesn't matter how you do it, it doesn't matter what way, and we're gonna give months to learning these different ways and understanding how to connect. with God. But no matter how you connect with God, they must have these three elements to spiritually grow as a disciple. Number one is daily prayer.

Someone say prayer. What is prayer? Prayer is a conversation with God. We're going to designate an entire summer this year to help you grow in your prayer life. Biblically, theologically, practically how to grow in your prayer life. I promise you if you lock in and you're all in someone who's all in say I'm all in. If you're all in this year you're gonna grow in your prayer life and when you grow in your prayer life you will spiritually grow. So Jeremiah 33, I love this, this is the one of the main scriptures when I started the fast, my first 40-day fast in Immersive Culture. It says call to me and I will answer you and I will tell you great hidden things that you have not known. So even though we're doing an entire series on this, I wanted to give you a few things on prayer this morning. So I'm gonna put it in four pieces of practical advice. Okay, how to grow in your prayer life. Pray the Lord's Prayer. You find this in Matthew 6. Now I encourage you do not repeat the Lord's Prayer like just memorize it, but pray through it. So the elements of the Lord's Prayer. Now you'll see the elements of the Lord's Prayer all throughout things that we do. It is in the prayer of encounters. It was in many of the prayers that we've done over the years. Elements of it. The first part of the Lord's Prayer is declaring God's holiness. It's such an important part of your prayer life. Number two, make prayer lists or prayer targets. Mark Batterson has a book called The Circle Maker that that has been impactful in so many people's lives about prayer targeting or prayer walking, but make lists on it. The reason why I like doing that is because you could document the things that you're spiritually leaning into and the things that God is speaking to you. Already on my fast list this year there's multiple things I've been asking God for that God is already speaking or checking off the list already just one week into the fast. Number three, I love this one. This one's really important and this is a mature concept that if you're doing this you're already maturing. And that's this, pray the perfect will of the Lord. As an evangelist for years I would travel and you pray for people at the altar. I'd come down, what do you want prayer for? And my favorite thing to pray for people was when they would come up and say I

just want to be in the perfect will of the Lord. Like how amazing is that? It is one of the greatest things that you can pray. So Matthew 6 10 says pray thy kingdom come and thy will be done. I was actually praying this this week at my fire with my son and I was he actually came down early and I was doing my prayer time and my my youngest got up early and jumped in front of line and his brother. And so I'm in the middle going through my fasting prayer list and I start praying for something and then a bit of my prayer he stops he goes dad dad dad let me ask you a question. This is why I try to get up before they get up. I'm like what's up bud? And he's like okay so let me get this straight when you're praying even though you want something you want to make sure that God wants it because if he wants it that's when you really want it. I'm like nailed it bro. I'm like would you tell the church that? So watch it's okay to want something but you better make sure God wants it. Well I just did perfect will the Lord and everything's just you know happenstance everything's just random. Wow you're gonna live your life for the random? I think it's just fate. It's fate for you to go to hell. I'm not living by fate. Scripture says my steps are ordered. Listen you want to spiritually grow be intentional. Pray the perfect will of the Lord. Follow Jesus example. You can have dreams and desires in your heart but the best thing that you could do is take those dreams and desires and put them back in the hands of God and say Lord if you gave me these dreams if you gave these desires I trust you with them. Learn how to pray the perfect will of the Lord. Okay I'm gonna give you three of my favorite prayers because I couldn't wait for someone to give you these. I'm gonna give you three prayers that I pray all the time that I stinking love that have changed my life. Okay number one prayer. I thought they'd be on the screen. They're on the screen. Okay I pray this all the time. I want what you want. Show me what you want. This will help me stop praying stupid stuff that will waste years of my life and pain and anguish. I pray I want what you want. Show me what you want. This is the Landon version of praying the will of the Lord because I don't want to waste time running months and weeks in

years after things that you don't want from me. So show me what you want. I'm aligning myself with what he wants, okay? Number two, I love this one. Lord, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. Give me your heart and give me your mind. I pray this probably every week. I was meeting with one of the SLS students. He's like, God spoke to me and I didn't know what to do with this. I was like, bro, you're almost ready to pastor because that's how I feel on a weekly basis. I don't know what to do. And the scary thing is when pastors pretend like they know what to do. I would rather know I don't know what to do and then ask the Lord what to do. And if I screw up, I screwed up trying to do what he told me to do. It's a beautiful prayer to pray. And then three, this might be my favorite is Holy Spirit teach me. Holy Spirit teach me. Teach me how to parent. Teach me how to be a husband. Teach me how to be a leader. Teach me how to do this. I don't know what to do. He is a helper.

He is a teacher. He loves to teach. Let's go back to the practical advice. Last part of practical advice is to pray in the Holy Spirit or pray in tongues. Use your personal prayer language. Do it more. I was talking with this guy that's not from a charismatic background, but he's really encountering God, having dreams like Holy Spirit's rocking him. You know, I love it when my Reformed friends start encountering Holy Spirit and they're like putting their toe in it and not to know what to do with it. Like, you know, it's just fun. I love it. And so we're talking about tongues and as he was talking about it, I just said to him, I was like, bro, speaking in tongues is not the epitome of your Christianity. It's not. Like they act like the moment you speak in tongues, you've arised. No, speak in tongues and then speak in tongues every day. It's how Jude 1 20, you build yourself up in the most holy of faith. See, speaking in tongues will help your prayer life because you run out of stuff to pray,

but the Spirit does it. So when you begin to pray with the Spirit, not only do you pray the perfect will of the Lord, not only are you in unity praying the will of the Father, but you're spiritually growing as you pray. I would encourage you to pray in the Holy Spirit more. Now, if you don't speak in tongues yet, someone say yet, then continue to ask the Lord to give you the gift. If this is something you want more information about, I did an entire podcast on speaking in tongues where I go over a lot of information and a lot of the theology behind it that people mess up and mix up all the time. So if you want that, you can go watch that, okay? Number one is prayer daily. Number two, daily Bible reading. Psalms 119 11, I've hidden your word in my heart that I will not sin against you. Matthew 4 4, again, I already referenced this. This is where Jesus is responding to Satan in the wilderness. Do you know what he's responding to Satan with? The word. He's quoting Deuteronomy 8 3 to Satan. The strongest spiritual people are people who know God because they know God's word. I wanna caution you young people, you can be swirly, but you have to be biblically grounded. I'm okay with your swirls.

I'm okay with your lingering. I'm okay with a moderate degree of your weirdness, okay? We can handle it, okay? We'll roll for a little bit. But what we're not gonna do is when you are more spiritual than you are biblically grounded. Because you become one of the first ones that the enemy can take out through spirituality that's not grounded in Jesus. I really don't care what you hear from God if you don't know what Jesus already said. It's quiet in this charismatic church. Y'all need to read your Bible more. Rebuke your neighbor for me, would you do that? Okay, speaking of swirly young adults, we're starting a young adult ministry. We have a gathering coming up this next week. So go swirl and get grounded in God's word, amen? Okay, so let's understanding when we're reading the Bible, I wanted to make this really practical for you today because I'm telling you to pray. I'm telling you to read your Bible. But then a lot of people will get stuck because they don't know what to read. They don't know why they're reading. They grew up on a different version and you've heard King James only your whole life and you're like, it's the only version I can read even though the Bible is written in Hebrew,

American, Hebrew, Greek, and a little bit of Aramaic. Was it written in King James language? So you don't need to be married to it, we appreciate it. Thank you, King James. But it's not the only or the best, in my opinion, translation. So I'm gonna help you understand the different Bible translations today. There's four primary categories. The first is what we call a word-for-word or exact category. The second is a thought-for-thought translation. The third is a paraphrase version. And the fourth I would call corrupt or apostate translations. The first two types, translations overlap because no translation can be perfectly word-for-word in another language. and sometimes a thought-for-thought version actually captures the original meaning better. They aren't completely separate categories, but I'm doing this for you to understand. So let's ask this question, what Bible should I read? When you're growing in your daily encounter, when you're reading the Bible every day, what Bible should you read, okay? So let's go through these. You should use thought-for-thought translation for daily Bible reading. You should use word-for-word,

literal translation for deep Bible study, and you should use paraphrase for fresh perspective of different vantage point, and you should never read an apostate Bible. So let's look at these different categories. I'll give you a little bit more information to help you make your decision. Number one, word-for-word or literal translations. These are, translates the original word as closely as possible. Now, every week I give you Hebrew and Greek, and I show you all these deep meanings of Hebrew and Greek so they will never be perfect because we're doing English. At the same time, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that you can translate something and have the general meaning in it. The English language is just a lame language compared to Hebrew and Greek. And so we're still getting the meaning of it, we're getting clarity on it, even though it's not in Hebrew or Greek. So the word-for-word is best for legal text, doctrinal clarity, and expository study. For theological study, and it seeks to render the original Hebrew and Greek words with more consistency. Give you some examples of these Bibles, the ESV, this is why I use it on Sunday morning. The NSAB, New American Standard Bible,

and the New King James Bible are in those categories. Now, thought-for-thought translations, this is the second one. These seek to convey overall meaning of the original text into target languages. They preserve more emotional, poetic, or contextual meaning. Useful for reading narratives, parables, and poetry. It seeks to convey the overall meaning of the original text in the target languages. Let me give you some examples of this. The NLT, New Living Translation, NIV. Now, this one, let's talk about NLT for a second. This one sometimes is considered to be thought-for-thought and sometimes word-for-word because it is on the spectrum of both of those. It's a great translation. The NIV is the one I grew up on. So when I think of the Bible, the first thing that was in my mind is NIV language. It leans in the direction of thought-for-thought but also has overlap between word-for-word. This is also true with the BSB. Heather loves this version. It's generally considered thought-for-thought translation with some leaning towards literal in many places. So there's not one perfect version. There's not one right or wrong version. It's what version that you connect best with. Let's talk about paraphrases. Paraphrases are focused more on the big idea

of the readability. It's not intended to be precise but more like commentary. It can be helpful for devotion, reading, but not teaching or biblical doctrine. So examples of these Bibles would be the Message Bible, the Passion Translation, or the Living Bible. Now, I will put a little caveat with the Passion Translation that the author of the Passion has really pushed that it was more of a word-for-word Bible. And when he did this, there was great criticism amongst Bible scholars because it's not. And if he would have just originally said, hey, it's more like the message, it's more of a paraphrase, it would have been way more widely accepted in mainstream Christianity. But I tell you, as your pastor, it is not a word-for-word. It is not a thought-for-thought. It is a paraphrase. So let me give you a caution. Treat paraphrases like commentaries, not authoritative translation. So if you went to a church and they only used the Message Bible, probably weirdness under the hood. Okay, probably don't wanna hang out there too long. I probably read the Message Bible maybe 12 times a year. Then I'll look at it, I wonder how it says it. I wonder what thoughts. So use it like you would do a commentary.

Okay, fourth category. Let's talk about corrupt or apostate translations. These twist or misrepresent the original text. Sometimes they remove text. Produced by cults and ideological biased groups or liberal, soft, woke agendas. Can openly deny or distort clear biblical teachings. Corruption is an abomination. So it's a twisting of what was originally intended. You will mislead yourself or people if you read these. So let me give you a warning of examples to avoid. Jehovah Witness. Now, it says up there, it might say Bibles up there, translations, okay. I don't even like that word. These are not Bibles and these are not real translations, okay. So Jehovah Witness, New World Translation, okay. The LDS or the Mormon Bible, it's not a Bible. Okay, here's a good one that makes its way to church a lot actually in the early days It made its way to mercy culture till we exposed it and that's the mirror Bible Now if you got a swirly friend that's not grounded in the word that gave you a mirror Bible Okay, use it for your s'more bonfire This is a segue to the heresy of universalism the purpose of this is to Trick to trap into to train wreck your faith, okay Then there's also the Queen James Bible that one's a given, right? Queen James Bible removed every verse that condemns homosexual practice in their Bible because they didn't want to be judgmental Okay, or any modern new revision that I didn't name that changes or softens clear biblical doctrine Okay, so here's the question what plan should you read

You should choose any Bible That you can commit to daily and connect with God and form a habit of daily encountering God. Amen So once you chose a Bible, so me personally I read I typically read ESV every day and then with my boys I read NIV I already mentioned Heather reads BSB a lot. I think I don't know if dr. Brown put you on dr Brown loves BSB as well. And so there's many different ones So when you're at Mercy Culture every verse up there typically is ESV unless I throw a few different ones here and there because I like The verbiage of it to help explain a text. So if you text daily to our 590 90 We can send you the Mercy Culture reading plans. Once you find a Bible, then you need to find a reading plan So the Mercy Culture I read the 30-minute Mercy Culture reading plan. Here's what it is. It is one Psalm It's one proverb. It's one New Testament. It's one gospel. It's one Old Testament in the book of Revelation So you have worship you have wisdom you have Old Testament of New Testament You have Paul's writings you have the epistles and then you have revelation because it's confusing you need to read a lot So you begin to get it in you? Okay, so this six verses takes depending on how long the chapter is between 20 to 30 minutes to read this every day. So this is what I do every single day I've done this for years every day and I recommend this because you're getting the full Bible in you But you don't have to do this pastor Steve's doing a different one on the the one-year Bible, right? I did and he's been posted on his social media. So it's not like oh if you do Steve's plan, you're not doing Landon's plan. I Don't care what plan you do. You know the plan I care about the daily counter plan Where you're getting it every day in you so find one that you connect with and stick to it. Amen Number three daily worship someone say worship Psalms 104 enters gates his presence with Thanksgiving his courts with praise give him Thanks and bless his holy name I would encourage you to go to the mercy culture worship Encounters podcast where we trim out the sermon and just have the worship every single week They put new songs on there or whatever music source that you like It doesn't matter what it is what matters is that you're connecting with God Heather's grandma loves hymns and we put on whenever she comes over. We just play old hymns We find country Google country singer hymns, you know, and and we just play she loves Elvis Helms for some reason Elvis I don't know if you can connect with God with that wolf I don't know. So we'll figure that out later. But this is what she likes

So it's whatever you best connect with do that Okay, so I want to remind you there are many ways that you can connect with God in your daily encounter But when you connect with God pray read your Bible and worship and when you go through connect with God We will help you Formulate this into the different ways you connect with God. So I want to be really clear. It doesn't matter the order Do the order you like best it doesn't matter where do it where you like doing it It doesn't matter how it just matters that you do it daily someone say daily have I said daily enough today Okay, I'm getting close to getting over on my time, but I got three more things for you real quick When you're encountering God You will have three different types of encounters when you begin to have encounter spiritual encounters The I want you to be aware of these the first is When you encounter God you are encountering the Holy Spirit You need to be aware of this You are encountering the person of the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Jesus the third person of the Trinity It's important that you understand this because a lot of people have created doctrines that it's the father the son in the Bible and I don't say that condescendingly But Jesus is the Word, according to John 1. So if that's your doctrine, then it's the Father, the Son, and the Son again. Versus the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Okay? So, in Acts chapter 2, the disciples, or right before the day of Pentecost, okay? When they received the Holy Spirit, they received the Spirit of Jesus. This is in John chapter 16, where Jesus said, It's better that I go, because when I go, I'm going to leave you my Spirit. So according to the Word of God, in Acts chapter 1, Jesus ascended up to heaven. So right now, where is Jesus located according to Scripture? The right hand of God.

So even when people say, Jesus is in the room, it's not theologically accurate. Now, I'm not saying, Jesus cannot appear, he's God, he can do whatever he wants. You know what? He does what he wants. And he can't show up in Iran and walk into someone's room. Okay? That's possible. But, what I would think in that case, I don't think it would be Jesus, because Jesus is waiting to return one time. There's not multiple second comings, third comings, fourth comings. He is waiting to return. So, he already sent, watch, his Spirit, which is the Spirit of Jesus. So if you want to say the Spirit of Jesus is in the room, then I agree with that theologically. Here's the problem, is most people have not had a relationship with the Holy Spirit, so their God encounters stink because they don't have intimacy with the Spirit of God. Church, I want you to understand this, the same way the disciples walked and talked and encountered Jesus, is the same way we can walk, talk, and encounter the Holy Spirit. So when you encounter God, when you get the goosebumps, when you feel him, when you hear him, you're hearing the Holy Spirit talk. And the more you can build relationship with the Spirit of God, the more you will grow in your God encounters. Number two is angels.

Now, when we're talking about angels, it's important to have a good theological understanding of this. Angels are created spiritual beings sent by God, ministering spirits to carry out his will. They deliver his message. They assist with redemptive purposes. They are neither divine, nor do they ever focus on their worship. Angels serve God. Angels never receive worship, according to Revelation 22. They always point people back to God. And angels do not draw attention to themselves, but give attention to God. I want to remind you of the prophetic word that you will entertain angels this year. Most of these angelic encounters will be unaware, but some of them you will be aware, according to Hebrews 13 too. They will start with your children, go from your children to the youth, and the youth to the adults. So there's a prophetic word this year that we would entertain angels. I believe it's going to happen more and more and more. I actually got a text about it this morning. Now, me personally, I want to be very clear with this. I have never, to my knowledge, seen an angel. I have been in the situations where I have sensed angelic presence, but more times than not, I've been in situations

where I would say an angel was involved because it's impossible outside without some sort of angelic intervention. I'll give you an example. Last year, we were in Orange County. We went to an event called Baptize America. I brought my boys with me, and I was like, I'm going to win the greatest dad of the year award. We are going to take our kids surfing. So the morning of Baptize America didn't start until later in the afternoon, and so I get up, and I get the boys surf lessons. And so they both got their instructors, and they start going out. In retrospect, I learned a lot in this. One of the lessons would be don't let a 17-year-old surf instructor take your five-year-old out. And so we're heading out to go and surf, and Preston goes out, and his surf instructor is a little more mature. He's in his probably 30s, and they're at these mid-level breaks. And it's all good, and then Porter's going out, and he's going far. Now, Porter's, at the time, he's in kindergarten, and Porter's a great swimmer. We've taught our kids to swim when they're three years old. All of our kids can swim really, really good. Swims like a fish.

But it didn't matter how good you swim when you start getting out in some of those waves. And this instructor starts taking them out past the first and second break to the third break. And all of a sudden, I notice there are some big swells coming through. If you have that picture, you can throw that picture out. There's some pretty big swells coming through. And these pictures don't even do it justice because when the big swells came, I had to put down my phone. And all of a sudden, these pretty gnarly swells come, and all of a sudden, I can't find Porter. And I'm looking for him out there, and I don't see him. And I start yelling for the other instructor to get to him, and all of a sudden, I'm having a full panic. I'm going back and forth between, where's my son? And then if something happens to him, Heather will kill me. And it was that, you know that panic feeling, Steve was right next to me, that panic feeling where all of a sudden, like, you don't know what to do. And I'm thinking, if I go out there, can I even find them if I start running? Is it better if I'm telling these other instructors who are in the water where there are, and I'm looking for them, and there's about a 60 second period of time I cannot find my son. And that's where, you don't have a prayer language yet, you get one right there. And all of a sudden, Porter's just back on his board.

And the second I saw him, you know that panic relief that comes to you? The second he was on his board, the first thing that went through my mind was an angel had to help him. Because those waves were pounding that little boy. See, I think there's a lot of times that we encounter angels, that they're involved, protecting, leading, guiding, that we may not be aware. But I want you to be aware, you are going to encounter angels this year. The third one is demonic activity. I don't have time today to go over all of my notes of this, I'm gonna go very, very briefly. But I would warn you, I'd caution you, that there is always a demonic resistance or a counterfeit to the prophetic word. So if there's a prophetic word this year of encounters and visitation, there's a good chance the enemy might try to hijack or counterfeit that with a demonic encounter. I do not want you to be nervous about this, because part of the other prophetic word was we would break the back of fear. Demons are widely believed to be a form of fallen angels that rebelled against God. They oppose God and oppose God's purposes. They are created beings, not divine. Demons work to deceive, accuse, and oppress. They imitate spiritual activity, but never produce righteousness, holiness, or freedom. They attempt to counterfeit what God is doing. Demons are defeated and limited under Christ's authority. And believers are called to resist, to stand firm, and walk in Christ's authority. So here's what I would tell you. The purpose of demonic encounters is to keep you from a daily encounter. Let's go back to our story to finish out the day. We're in Exodus chapter 16. This is a story about God, the children of Israel, and daily reliance on God. This is a story God is teaching his people in the ways of dependence, trust, and obedience.

Moses is authoring this. He's a servant of God. And this is the book of Exodus written around 1400 BC. It's in the location of the wilderness. This is right between Egypt and the promised land. We call this story the story of daily bread, but it's really a story of daily encounters. Israel had been delivered from Egypt, but yet not ready yet in the promised land. Slavery shaped their dependence on systems, not on God. The wilderness reshaped them through daily dependence on him. This is really important because I do not believe that God calls people to remain in wilderness seasons. I believe there's processes to reshape you, to renew you into the plan and the purposes of God, to get you out of old ways of bondage into new ways of freedom. How long that takes is up to you. The children of Israel, watch this, have been delivered out of 430 years of slavery. So they're coming out of the Red Sea. They just had the 12 plagues that crossed the Red Sea, and now they're in Exodus 16. It's literally six weeks or 45 days into their journey. This is really important because Exodus 2 verse 3 says the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses in the wilderness. Watch this. They start grumbling and complaining 45 days into the journey. Put this slide up. I want you to see this. 430 years of abusive slavery. They're walking with God for 45 days, and they've lost their gratitude. See, sometimes we read the Bible and we're thinking chapters like their years. This is 45 days. 45 days. They're no longer thankful.

They're not getting beat. They're not getting murdered. They're not subjective to Pharaoh's abuse. They're free. They have their possessions. They saw God move. Watch. 45 days ago, they saw a sea open up. 45 days ago, they watched plagues and locusts and hail and blood in the water. They saw the power of God in 45 days. They forget his goodness. They forget his power. So God said, okay, I'm gonna have to help you. And I love this. God's response to their grumbling and complaining, this would not be mine, was I'm gonna cause you to come to me daily. I don't like complainers. I don't like grumblers. I don't think I would bring them closer. But Jesus said, the only way I can get this out of you is to get close to you. So here's what he did. Exodus 14, five, he said, behold, I'm about to rain down bread from heaven that you would have to come and gather daily. Someone say daily. Now, manna was a kind of bread. It came only from heaven and watch this. It was used to be meant, it was designed to be used daily. So God created the concept of a daily encounter through his daily provision. Where he said, I got to get, watch this, Egypt out of my people. I have to get a slavery mindset out of my people.

I have to get the world out of my people. Watch this. I have to help my people spiritually grow. So the way I'm going to help them spiritually grow is to come to me every day through a holy bread. The Bible says when they tasted, it tasted sweet like honey. Because daily encounters are sweet for your soul. The daily encounter, honey reflected the honey of the promised land for the Holy ghost. In your daily encounters, he gives you tastes of what he's going to give you. He shows you in the spirit, visions, dreams. He whispers it to you before you ever obtain it and possess it. But watch, you'll never possess it if you don't pass the daily test. Daily encounters are how God designed his people to grow with him. So then it goes from the daily encounter in the old Testament to the new Testament where Jesus said, I've already read this a few times where he said, I am your daily bread. We go from daily encounters in the old Testament to daily encounters in the new Testament. It doesn't stop because now it's daily encounters with the Holy spirit. And here's what it said. You can come to me and get as much as you want. Whatever your appetite is, whatever your hunger is, I'm going to provide every day for a sweet encounter with me. Church, I came to tell you, God is waiting to meet you in your daily encounters. Your encounter of yesterday will not provide for your hunger of today. He designed you to need him, to meet with him. Your physical body was created in reflection of your spiritual body. We need him every day. Church daily encounters are the greatest way to spiritually grow as a disciple of Jesus. Here's what we're going to do to close the service felt the Lord say, close the service with an encounter. So we're going to take a few minutes.

My definition of a few is probably five to 10 minutes and you can posture your heart to just focus on the Lord. So if you are more comfortable not sitting where you're sitting, then get where you want to be comfortable. If you want to come down the front, you can do that. If you want to stand, you can stand, you can kneel, you can kneel, do whatever you want to do, but just take about 45 seconds to just get comfortable. You play the chorus of the encounter song, please. And what we're going to do is we're just going to lean into God for a few moments. I would encourage you if you start encountering God in a holy way, take off your shoes, respond. Remember these moments. The best thing you can do is give attention to God. The worst thing you can do is bring any attention on yourself. Can you put the prayer of encounters on the screen, please? I'm going to ask just you musicians to play for a moment. Right now. Begin to lock in on the Lord. Don't worry what anyone else is doing. Focus your mind on the Lord. Even right now, just go ahead and just breathe in the presence of God. Come on, take a deep breath in the presence of God. As you breathe out, just tell him, I love you right now. Just tell them, Lord, this is where we tell you, we love you father. Come on. Just love on the father for a second. Come on. Love on the father. Come on. Let's love on the trinity right now. Love on the father.

We love you. We love you. We love you God. There's no one like just love on him for a second. There's no one will. There's one God. You're it. Oh, we love you. Come on now, just love on Jesus right now. We love you, Jesus. We love you, Jesus. We love you, Jesus. We love you, Jesus. We love you, Jesus. We love you, Jesus. Come on. This might be new for some of you, man, but just love on the Holy Spirit. Oh, we love you, spirit of the living God. We love you, Holy Spirit. We love you. Come on now. This is where the atmosphere shifts. Just be good to tell him he's holy all over this place. Come on, this is where we tell you you're Holy, you're Holy, you're Holy. Father. You're Holy. You're Holy, you're Holy Jesus. You're Holy. You're Holy.

You're Holy spirit of the living God. You're Holy. You're Holy. You're Holy. This is what the Angels pray. You're holy. You're holy. You're holy. It's who you are. It's your attributes that's your nature. It's your character. We thank you for your Holy presence. We thank you for your Holy nature. We thank you for your Holy word. We thank you that you are holy. You are set apart. You are the other. There's no one like you. None beside you. No one who comes near you. You are the one true living God. There's no one like you. Every other God is a liar. Every other God is an idol. Every other God is false. There's one true and you're holy. Come on, this is where we enter into his praise with thanksgiving. Now just thank him. This is where we tell you thank you. Come on.

Thank him for your children. Thank him for your grandchildren. Thank him for saving you. Thank him for delivering you. Come on. Don't lose your gratitude. Children of Israel. Don't lose your gratitude. People of God. Come on. Thank him. Anything that comes to your mind. Come on. You're struggling in your body. Thank him for healing you. Thank him for the health you do have. Come on. Are you worried about money right now? Thank him for the provision you do have right now. Thank him. Thank him. Thank him. Come on. Whatever the enemy is attacking you in your mind with. Thank him on the other side of it. Thank him in reverse. Come on. Do spiritual warfare. We thank you God. We thank you that you are restoring our marriages.

We thank you for saving. Come on. You're battling perversion. Thank him for holiness. Thank him for righteousness. Thank him for deliverance right now. Whatever it is thank him right now. Come on. Now do what Pastor Sean was doing earlier. Now just tell him how much you need him right now. Come on. Tell him how much you need him right now. Come on. Tell him. Let him know how much you need him. Come on. I need you more today than I needed you yesterday. Oh, tomorrow's bread's not good enough. I need you today. Tomorrow's passion's not good enough. I need you today. Come on. Let them know how much you need them. Let them know how much you need them in this place. Come on. Let your desire provoke heaven right now. Let your desire provoke heaven right now. I need you more. I need you more. I need you more.

Just stay with your eyes closed, but let me pastor you in this moment. Do not let your hunger be dictated by a room. This is why I love connecting with God in solitude because my hunger sets the stage. Nobody helps me. No one lifts with me. It's my passion. It's my cry. I'm walking trails all alone, dancing and shouting and yelling and praying in the Holy Ghost. It's me and my God. So I know you're in a room full of thousands of people, but I want you to forget that you're with other people. And I want you to tell the Lord with your heart, with your passion, from your heart, how much you need Him in this. And do not let a room or a band or a drum or a musician lead the way for you right now Just you and your God tell him how much you need him right now for the next few moments Come on now start praying in your holy language all over this place Start praying in the Holy Ghost all over this place Nobody's prophesying in tongues Just begin to pray in your prayer language right now This is not out of biblical order This is Jude 1 20 right now Pray in the most holy of faith If you haven't gotten this prayer language yet just go ahead just tell him he's holy Just love on him then Come on come on raise your voice right now Pray in the Holy Ghost right now Pray in the Holy Ghost Pray in the Holy Ghost Pastor Jasmine Something's happening in the Spirit right now Come on pray church pray pray Come on pray from your spirit right now Let your spirit make intercession Come on pray perfect prayers Come on pray the will of the Lord right now over your family If you want your prayer language stand to your feet and lift your hands right now and somebody just lay hands on them

If you want a prayer language lay hands on them Come on just somebody lay hands on them Don't start praying in the Holy Ghost If someone's got their hands laid on or hands lifted someone pray over them Pray Pastor Jasmine Father I thank you you're no respecter of persons I thank you I pray you would release heavenly languages Release holy visitations right now Release holy visitations right now Just tell him say receive the gift Receive the Holy Spirit Receive the Holy Spirit Ma'am receive the Holy Spirit Sir receive the Holy Spirit Now if your hands are lifted lift your hands high You just begin to love on the Lord Just open your mouth Okay right now whatever you named your fast I want you to for the next just few moments begin to pray over the things on your fasting list right now whatever they are begin to pray over them whatever they are begin to pray over them bring them to the Lord every single person start with the most important priority begin to pray over them right now Just take a moment right now Play those a little louder Hit the keys harder Hit them harder Come on girls, bring the flags, just begin to dance across the stage with those flags and movement. David, begin to play with her. Play the bass louder. David, begin to play with her. Play the bass louder. Kick the drum, we will go. David, begin to dance. Kick the drum with the piano notes.

Kick the kick. Come on now, just for the next few moments, just begin to worship the Lord in this place. Come on, just begin to worship the Lord right now. Kick the kick harder. Kick the bass, David. Come on church, now open your mouth and begin to glorify Him. Come on, church, begin to glorify Him. Open your mouth and give Him glory. Open your mouth and give Him glory. Lift your mouth, lift your hands and begin to give your King His glory. Now with all of your heart someone just shout, Glory to God! One more time someone shout, Glory to God! Now breathe in the presence of God all over this place. Annie, lift your hands. There's a spiritual promotion that's going to come to you. When I prophesy or minister, you don't need to clap, just let it be between her and God. I saw you as that persistent woman, persisting, petitioning the king. There's a prophetic word released this year that you would have the attention of your king like a persistent woman. Your petitioning heaven prayers have reached the Lord. But when we were praying in the Holy Ghost, I heard the centurion's faith. And when the centurion said to Jesus, I'm under authority. He said, don't come to my house. I want to go to your house. I don't want you under my authority. I want to come under your authority. You're at least the authority of heaven. Your ability, well, this is awesome. Your ability to be under authority, another beautiful word that's biblical. People make dirty as submission, your ability to submit your ability to be under spiritual

authority will determine the authority that you walk in. I saw the Lord giving you an opportunity, just like the woman who went and gathered the vessels where he said, don't gather just a few. I declare over you, Annie, don't just gather a few. It was the same invitation the prophet gave to this woman. How much will you obey the word? When she put herself under authority, the miracles flow. I saw this beautiful journey and adventure of spiritual authority. So Lord, I pray right now that you would give her your mind, your heart, and your words. Nothing else. I pray that you would teach her like Moses had to reflect your glory, not be your glory. I pray this over her right now in Jesus' name. Is Charlie still in the room? Charlie, I want to pray over you. Would you just come stand right here, darling? Would you lift your hands? Even though you're a little girl, you are a woman of faith. Hear this. You are a warrior woman. And on these fasts and in these times with the Lord, the Lord sees how serious you take it. Even when others don't understand how serious it is, God sees. And he is meeting you in the place of faith. So now come the dreams and now come the visions. For you will know it's God because you can't give the dreams and you can't give the daydreams to yourself. But he's going to begin to show you his heart. For people, for your school, for cities, and for nations. After he teaches you with dreams and visions, his voice is going to get stronger. Adults aren't going to listen so much without the dreams and visions because they'll think it's a kid making it up. The dreams and the visions, like God spoke to Moses, tell him in the burning bush, I am that I am since you. The Lord is going to teach you his name.

He's going to show you who he is. There was a prophetic word released this year that the Holy Spirit becomes your best friend. Charlie, that's your word this year. It's your personal word. The Holy Spirit becomes your best friend in the world. Invite him to your birthday party. Get him gifts this year. Treat him like you would a best friend. Where other kids have imaginary friends, you have a best friend. His name is the Holy Spirit. And this year, he becomes real to you this year. And he's going to begin to speak to you. And then you're going to tell other people what he said. You don't have to worry about people believing you. You don't have to worry about people understanding it. Hear me, Charlie. Don't try to convince anyone. Your job is not to convince. Your job is like your daddy and your uncle Chris to sow seeds and water seeds. Let God do the rest. Your job is to be a woman on assignment. Assignment is your school, and then you'll graduate from the assignment of your school before you graduate school. And then he's going to give you assignments that are admissions trips. I submit this to your dad. She's one to take with you. And I saw you getting assignments, even in dreams. God's going to show you things and then he'll tell your dad what to do with the things that he showed you.

And then I saw you as a grown adult, and I saw you doing what your daddy does. I saw you in dangerous places, and I saw that you had no fear because the Lord showed you where to go. He showed you what car not to get into. He showed you what direction to go. You showed up in cities not having a plan, but having a vision from the Lord. The Lord showed you which alleyways to walk down and what doors to knock on. And when you walked in the doors, just like the day of Acts, just like the New Testament disciples, there were people waiting on you. That's the kind of faith that you're going to remember when you were a child, and the Lord began to develop in you right now. So I declare, do not despise the day of your youth, but right now you are being formed. You are being forged. You are being prepared. So I declare right now, I want the entire church to begin to wave towards her right now. Every flag, every flag begin to wave at her right now. So we declare, begin to fan and to flame the gift of God that was inside of you. It was on your dad. It was on your grandparents. It's been in the genealogy of your family. It was on your grandpa, your great-grandpa, and now it's coming to you. I declare, let the hand of God come upon you. Let the favor of God come upon you. Let the protection of God come upon you. I pray right now, let that hedge of protection come around you, daughter. It's going to protect you all the days of your life. I declare, you will be one of the ones to break the back of fear over your generation. I pray this now in Jesus' name, just begin to worship the Lord all over this place. Just begin to worship the Lord.

Just begin to love on the Lord. Come on. Don't let the van lead you. Just you and your God. Just begin to love on the Lord. Love on the Lord. Love on the Lord. Love on the Lord. Love on the Lord. Love on the Lord. So I just asked the Lord, do you have anything else, basically from me, any other assignments that I had? And I felt the Lord say, you're done. And then I had a quick picture go through my mind of you asking the Lord the same thing before we closed. So would you just one more time, would you just close your eyes and would you just ask the Lord, do you have anything else from me? And could you just softly tell him, thank you for speaking. Thank you for coming. Just tell him, Jesus, we thank you that you're here. Spirit of God, we thank you that you're here. Thank you that you speak. Just say one more time, speak Lord, your servant is listening. Now just begin to say thank you God right now. Just give him praise. Give him honor for coming. Say thank you Lord. Thank you Jesus. Come on, thank you Jesus. What a beautiful time in the presence of God.

Love encountering God with you. Nor usually do our vision at the beginning, but the vision is a corporate encounters to daily encounters. And this is our corporate encounters. Now take this into your daily encounter. Amen. Amen.