Priscilla Shirer | God Can Restore Your Circumstances

Help. God, would you do business with this? I'm tired of this anger. I'm ready to let it go. I'm tired of this pride. I want to humble myself under the mighty hand of God so that he can exalt me. I'm tired of living in a stale, passionless marriage.

Lord, take it and do with it what you will. Lord, I'm tired of being as I was. I want to be as you can make me to become. 
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 I love you, too. And I'm so thrilled to be with you because I'm excited. I'm sitting on the edge of my seat to see what God wants to say to us tonight.

I love how he prepares one message, but he by his spirit divides it up 3,000 ways >> so that every person under the sound of my voice tonight will hear a word that has been handcrafted from heaven for you. >> I believe that. I believe that for myself as well.

So, I'm going to pray for us. But before I do, while you are standing, I just want to read God's word to you. If you actually still, you know, use a Bible with paper pages, grab it. Old school or your iPhone, your iPad, any manner of eye, just feel free to grab that or I think they're going to put it up on the screen.

I want to read God's word to you while you were standing because we are in a house of God where I know the leadership at this church treasures the word of God. I pray that if this is not your home church, you go to a church where the leadership, the congregation treasures the word of God, that it is God speaking to us, that y'all, every single time we open up the scriptures, we ought to expect to feel the warm breath of God brushing across our cheeks as he speaks a present word over our lives.

It's God talking to us. And every now and then, you ought to, even when you're by yourself, you ought to make yourself stand up. >> Because if kings and queens, if presidents walked into the room, we wouldn't keep our seat. We would stand up out of respect. How much more if God is going to speak?

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 Should we stand in anticipation of what he might say to us? So, I'm going to read God's word to you. I'm going to read one verse from Luke chapter 4. And then we're going to hop back to the Old Testament where we're going to camp out in 2 Kings chapter 5 for the rest of the evening.

Is that all right? >> Luke chapter 4 verse 27 says this. Jesus is speaking. He says, "There were many lepers in Israel in the time when Elijah the prophet lived, but none of them were cleansed. Only non the Syrian." Listen to that again. There were a whole lot of people who had issues in Israel in the church in the time of Elijah the prophet, but none of them was cleansed.

Only non. And he wasn't even in the church. He was a Syrian. Second Kings chapter 5, I'm going to read verse 1 through3. Then I'm going to read verse 10 and 14. And then I'll pray over us and then you can sit down. Verse one says, "Now non, here's the guy.

He's captain of the king of Aram. He's captain, captain of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man with his master, highly respected because by him, the Lord had given victory to Aram. And by the way, Aram is Syria. The man was also a very valiant warrior.

But dog gone it, he was a leper." Now the Syrians, the Arameans had gone out in bands at one point. They had taken captive this little girl from the land of Israel and she came back as a captive to Syria and she was the maid servant. She waited on Non's wife.

Verse three says, "She said to her mistress one day as she watched her lepous master walking around the house. I'm sure she said to her mistress, you know, I wish that my master were with the prophet. I know this guy who's in Samaria. His name is Elijah. Man, I wish he were with him because then he would be cured of his leprosy.

Verse 10. So Elijah sends out a messenger to non when non finally goes to see him and he says, "Go and wash in the Jordan seven times. Your flesh will be restored to you and you shall be clean." Verse 14. So non after some poking and proddding, he goes down.

He dips himself seven times in the Jordan according to the word of the man of God. And his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child. And he was made whole. Lord Jesus, I thank you for your word. I thank you, Father, that it is living and that it is active and that it is sharper than any two-edged sword.

Lord, I pray that in these few moments that we will spend together over your word, that the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart will be acceptable to you. Father, I pray that any assignment that the enemy may have tonight, either to keep me from having clarity of thought and clarity of words, Father, or to keep ears veiled so that they cannot hear what the spirit would say.

I pray that any assignment would be cancelled in Jesus' name and by his blood that has been shed on Calvary. Speak, Lord. We came for a word tonight. We're glad each other is here, but we didn't come to see each other. We came to see you. And so, Father, we're on the edge of our seat. speak.

Your daughters are listening >> in Jesus name. All God's women said, "Amen." >> Amen. >> Amen. Amen. You may take your seat. Sounds like a herd of buffalo sitting down. There's a girl named Rashida. Rashida is has been a member of our church for a very very long time, but I don't really know her as much from church as I do from different families that she would babysit for.

She was a beautiful 35year-old um woman in her mid30s, a beautiful woman, vivaceious in personality, engaged as much as she could be in church life and single woman who had a lot of time on her hands and she loved investing that time into young people. She enjoyed babysitting.

That's really where I got to know her. She babysat for several members of my family. My sister, who has five children, would often call on Rashida to come over and help with the kids. My cousin, who's like another sister to us, her name is Winter. Winter has four uh little girls and her little girl girls often when they were in need of a sitter sitter, Winter would call Rashidita and ask Rashidita to come over and babysit for the f four girls.

That's how I got to know Rashidita because all of the cousins, my kids, my sister's kids, my cousins kids, all of them are very close to each other. So, we would often connect the dots and have playdates. So, I would often end up in the same place with Rashida, who might be watching one of the pockets of the kids as all the kids were getting together.

It gave us an opportunity, Rashidita and I, to spend a little time together. Not much, but little pockets of time, little disjointed pieces of conversation as we were rallying kids from one place to the other. I got to talk to her and get to know her just a little bit.

That's when I found out a little bit about Rashidita's story. I discovered that in her 20s and her early 30s, she was on an upwardly mobile track in the company that she worked for. Very, very successful and headed to the pinnacle at the company. I mean, she was doing well.

She was making a lot of money. She had a lot of ambition and dreams in terms of her um her uh position in this particular company. And she was doing well. She was excited about it. when she began to feel the poking and the proddding of the Lord.

She wasn't sure at first. It just felt like unrest. Just she wasn't supposed to be there anymore. And it didn't make sense because, you know, her paycheck was what her paycheck was. And people looked at her with approval. They respected her. She had already been told that she was on the upward track.

She knew she was destined for great things there, but there was unrest. And so, she sought the Lord about that unrest. a woman who wants to follow God, wants to do what he has asked her to do, wants to be in his will. And so, she kind of talked to the Lord a little bit about that unrest that she was feeling, why she didn't feel cozy and comfortable here anymore.

She didn't quite get it, but she just wanted to ask God what his will was. and through the confirmation that she received from the messages taught on Sunday at our local church and then her own personal Bible study and then wise mentors and friends who helped to sort of confirm that yeah over time it was confirmed that yeah this this seems to be the leading of the Lord.

The only thing was is that she didn't know what she was headed to. Has that ever happened to you where you kind of feel an unrest in one place like the Lord is pointing you in a direct in but direction but he hasn't g you given you specific GPS coordinates you don't know where you're going you don't know what the end result is going to be but Rashidita just felt like well if God is leading me elsewhere then where I'm going is going to be better than where I am now so she just stepped out in faith she left her job waiting for God's assignment which This is why she was babysitting when I met her.

Because in the inner room, she decided to do what she loved. Just kind of hang out with pockets of kids and relieve some parents to go on some dates every now and then. She just thought, "I'll do what I love." And she was fully invested in the task.

By the way, she would always come over with a casserole of some sort made for the family so that mom didn't have to worry about it. She always came over with a Bible story in tow with all of the illustrations necessary to engage the kids that she was going to be um that she was going to be babysitting.

She wanted to make sure they knew some verses before she left that she would put to songs on occasion so that they would have it ringing in her head in their heads. And so two months went by, she enjoyed it. But the two months dovetailed into six months.

Then the six six months dovetailed into a year. still she's waiting on God's assignment and here she is babysitting and then that year became a year and a half and about the time I last talked to her in this interim in her life um it had been about the 2year mark and about two years in she still loves the kids but she's really trying to figure out where God is and why his next assignment for her has not materialized yet and at this point she's a little bit frustrated She's a little bit evangelically ticked off cuz God's taking his time.

Anybody know what I'm talking about? She's frustrated. And honestly, she said, "I feel like I've been cheated because I've done what I felt like was obey God. I I felt like he pointed me in this direction and that I was trusting him to take me to the next phase, the next step, the next uh portion of my journey.

But here I am stuck in this little interim space and I can't figure out why I why I'm here. And she said, I just became very authentic with God in prayer. I was like, God, are you serious right now? Lord, I've been babysitting for two years. Surely you have something more for me.

Lord, I I got to be honest with you and tell you that I feel cheated. I was on the upwardly mobile path. My ambitions and dreams, I can see them back there, but you've steered me in a different direction. and this is not making sense. God, I'm frustrated and irritated and I feel cheated.

So, she said, "Lord, I'm going to ask you to give me some clarity. I don't know what's going on, but I need you to either change my circumstances or change my heart because this doesn't look like the what I thought it would." She said that just a couple of days later, she had another babysitting assignment.

That babysitting assignment that had already been planned was with my my cousin Winter and her four girls. She walked up to their front door. The front door is a wood door, but it has glass panels in it. And so you can kind of see a blurred glass panel.

So you can kind of see into the house. And she said when she walked up to the door, casserole dish in hand. And she rang the doorbell, she could already see the four little girls racing toward the door, smiles on their faces, enthusiastic because Miss Rashidita was coming tonight.

And she said that happened almost every time that she came. But on this day, she saw those smiles differently. That they were eager to be in her presence. She saw that that there was so much meaning behind the fact that these four girls actually wanted to be with her that they were expecting and anticipating whatever she was going to bring through the door.

And when the door opened, she said they immediately burst into one of the songs that she had taught them on one previous time when she was there. the verses from scripture through those songs, spilling out of these little girls' mouths as they quoted and sung one after the other, rehearsing back to her everything she had poured into them during the time that she had spent with them.

And she said it was while they were singing and giggling and jumping all around her, casserole dish still in hand, when she first walked through the door, she said that the Holy Spirit whispered to her and said, "You're not just babysitting. You get the privilege to help shape the souls of little human beings so that these women grow up to be mighty women of God.

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 She said just about that time as she's standing there with the casserole dish in hand, uh the mom, Winter, uh had just gotten dressed up for the date that she was going to have uh with her husband and she came racing through the living room at the last moment to grab a few things before her husband pulled up to pick her up and to take her pulled up from work to take her out.

And she said that as Winter raced through the house, she saw the casserole dish that was in Rashidita's hand. And Rashidita said for the first time she actually noticed the look of relief on that mom's face that she had provided through this little casserole dish a bit of solace and peace in the life of another woman that she'd taken a little bit of the load off of her plate.

And the Holy Spirit whispered to her, "You didn't just bake a casserole. You helped to invest in the life of a woman that needs to know that I see her >> and I've got her back. And then she said that when her husband walked through the door and the two of them kissed their girls and left and went out on a date, a date they hadn't been on in a very long time, she said the Holy Spirit whispered to her and said, "You're not just babysitting.

You're making sure that a marriage stays intact and has strength and passion and love." She said it was a sweet evening with those girls. And then she got back in the car to leave when the night was over. And she said one final time, the Holy Spirit whispered to her and said something she will never forget.

He said, "You have not been cheated. You have been chosen." Second Kings chapter 5 has a word for anybody in the house tonight who feels cheated. Because when you signed up for this job, it wasn't supposed to be this hard. When you walked down the aisle and said, "I do." to that guy, it wasn't supposed to be this hard.

When you first gave birth to that baby, you didn't know that 10 years, 15 years, 21 years later, this would be the drama that you'd be going through in your relationship with that child. You did not know that you would be on this job for this long. It wasn't supposed to be your assignment over this much of your life.

You didn't know that you would be walking in this season of singleness for this long. You didn't know. And you feel cheated because you've said yes to God. You've obeyed him to the best of your abilities, not perfectly, but at least perfect purposefully. And you, like Rashida, feel like you've been cheated, irritated, a little bit frustrated if you're to be honest with God because you've said yes, but this is not what you thought a yes would mean.

There's encouragement for you in Second Kings. Second Kings chapter 5 starts by telling us about a captain in the army of Syria. He worked closely with the king. His name was Non. I love verse one of chapter 5 because it's basically a resume. In big, bold, bright, highlighted letters, we see his resume clearly spelled out.

There are accolades and things he's appreciated for. We learn that he is a notable man who has a lot of people who admire him. This first verse reads like we would like any of our resumes to. Just in this one little simple verse, verse one of chapter 5, we find out that he's successful.

He's the captain of the army. He leads troops into battles and they emerge victorious. But not only is he successful, he's also well respected because he doesn't just lead his subordinates, he's respected by them. They honor him. They esteem him. They find joy in following his leadership. Not only is he successful and respected, he's also celebrated.

Those around him highly regard him. His name is known. His level of favor with those around him, those under him, and those that work side by side with him is at full capacity. In fact, he is so celebrated and so adored that even the king praises him for his work and for his worth.

Not only is he successful and not only is he respected, not only is he celebrated, he's also feared because enemies and foes, they shake in their boots when they hear his name. He's a mighty man of valor. The text says he knows how to make sure that his adversaries are taken down.

This man has accolades. He has appreciation. He has notoriety. He has won the affection of all who know him. His biography reads like the finest of resumes. But downplayed amongst all those accolades, there's fine print in the resume. Down below all of the bold font that is headlining his life, there are five little words that changed the trajectory of the entire story.

But he was a leper. Don't let those five little small worlds words fool you. Just because they're minimal, just because they come at the tail end of that verse, just because they're like a little tagline that's stuck onto this incredibly immaculate resume, don't let them seem insignificant to you.

He is a leper and in that age leprosy was a devastating diagnosis. There was no cure and it would so incapacitate you over time. It would incapacitate you causing the nerve endings particularly in your extremities to become numb so that they could not feel pain and damaged again and again and again.

Fingers and toes would need to be amputated or they would become dislodged. You would lose your extremities. your skin would become uh filled with boils and soores and eventually the fact that you would have leprosy would completely incapacitate you and potentially kill you. The thing is this leprosy even though it is the most distinguishing characteristic really of his life it means life or death that leprosy is not highlighted.

It is not bold bolded. It's just tucked away and saved for the last little line. And yet this leprosy could actually be the death of him. He fights it at home trying to figure out a way to keep proof of it covered so that no one knows. It plagues his thoughts during the day wondering if if anybody realizes how far gone he actually is.

He is a leper and it's downplayed amongst his accolades and amongst all his notoriety. And yet it is the thing that could be the death of him. And in a groom this size, the tragedy is that you and I have learned how to highlight and accentuate all of our accolades and all of the things we want people to see and read and hear about us.

But in the fine print of our lives, non is not the only leper who is in the room. >> That there are little ailments. There are hidden diseases of the heart and of our mind emotionally and spiritually and they are sucking the lifeblood out of us. There is anger that is so festering on the inside of you because of what was done to you or the betrayal that you face that that anger is now creating a bitterness that is making you hardened and numb so that you can't have any healthy relationships in your life any longer.

There is pride that is keeping you from humbling yourself under the mighty hand of God. Maybe there is a passionless marriage that is inside the four walls of your home. Nobody's at church knows because you've both learned how to put on the smile and to hold hands for the two hours that you're in church.

But when you go home, there's no passion. There's no peace. There's no intimacy. Or maybe it is fear that is crippling you in your heart or a lack of peace or financial instability or an addiction, a habit of your life that that nobody else knows because you've learned how to conceal it and cover it up when you're outside the four walls of your home.

But when you're at home, there's a lapse in your integrity that nobody knows about. The thing about leprosy is that you can only hide it for so long. You can only leave it as the small print, the fine print of your life for so long because eventually leprosy always leaks out.

And here's the thing, our social media outlets don't talk about our leprosy. We don't highlight that cuz you know, let Instagram tell it, the meals we cook, all of the meals we cook are gourmet masterpieces. Let Instagram tell it. All the children that we have raised, they are splendid little angels.

Let our social media presence tell it. And the houses we live in, they're all pristine castles. And the man we married, he's a night in shining armor. And the business we started, it's flourishing in every way. And the smile on our glowing, perfectly lit faces in our selfies relay a story of ease and peace and wellness.

But I'm afraid y'all that underneath it all, there are some lepers in the room tonight. That there's an ailment in your heart and you've just not let anybody in. Nobody knows the thing that you're really struggling with. And listen, I find it interesting that non even as a leper is still working.

Okay? Not only is he still working captain of the army, but he's still working in close proximity to the king. That means not only that he is a leper, but that he is a functional leper. And the only thing worse than being a leper is being a functional leper.

You've learned so cleverly how to fool the people around you that you're able to still function on your 8 toive job. You're able to still get yourself out of bed and function as a mom to these three children or four children or two children that you have. You're able to still function as the wife to your husband.

You're able to still hang out with your girlfriend, single woman, and plaster a smile on, to act like you're content in this season of your life. You're you've learned how to how to be a functional leper so you don't have to deal with the real stuff that's going on in your heart and in your mind.

The stuff, y'all, that makes all of the tears fall down from our eyes late at night when nobody knows that we're crying those tears or that we're staying up extra minutes, extra hours as we wrestle with the leprosy that we know is there. The tragedy is that we've not only gotten good at fooling everybody else, we've begun to fool ourselves into thinking we're healthy healthier than we actually are.

But that leprosy, it really is the defining thing that could be the death of us, just like it could for non. In the end, his chapter, his story, his name is known, not so much for his accolades, not so much for what he's appreciated, not so much for the successes he's achieved, the diplomas on his wall, the people who applaud and appreciate him.

It's what he does or does not do with this leprosy that really matters in the end. I remember many, many years ago watching an episode of ER. You remember ER? Anybody in the room old enough to remember ER? Who does not remember ER? You know what? We don't even want to talk to you. >> Grey's Anatomy.

Well, ER started it all. ER started all of the medical dramas. It was the one that kind of was the the one that just kind of thrust that whole genre of television shows. And I I didn't watch all of ER, honestly, but I caught an episode here and there.

And there's one episode that I will never forget. There had been a horrible um wreck and there were a lot of people involved in the in the wreck. I don't believe it was a car wreck. It may have been a bus or a train, but there were many many people who were very very tragically hurt.

They all came into the ER almost at the same time, one after the other needing medical attention. And I remember that there was one particular young woman who was bloodied and bruised. She was unconscious. They were trying their best to save her life. She was wheeled in on a gurnie from the ambulance.

Everybody was racing in around her. doctors and nurses trying to do what they could to tend to her. Right beside her was her best friend. The two of them had been on a trip together and her best friend ran right beside her. Her best friend only had one little scratch that she was able to show a nurse on her shoulder.

She could not believe that she had gotten out with so many people who had been so hurt and so damaged. She couldn't believe that this is all that had happened to her. And so she's running beside her best friend and and she's trying to get her tended to.

And every now and then throughout the episode, someone comes over to the to the healthy friend and basically says to her, "Is there anything we can do for you? Can we check on you?" And she says, "No, please don't divert any of your attention away from my best friend because she's going to die if y'all don't tend to her and all the other people that are here in the ER.

Please divert your attention to them again." Several moments later, someone comes back and says, "Can I take a look at you?" And she says, "No, don't you see? I'm fine. I don't I don't need any help. please put all of your energy elsewhere. And the episode builds until at the very very end, in the last couple moments, this friend is standing over the bedside of her best friend who has now just come out of surgery and is recovering and is going to be able to be well.

She's standing beside her friend. And in a moment's notice, this friend who has been healthy for the entire day collapses to the floor. Her eyes glaze over as nurses and doctors run in. They check her pulse and they realize they cannot find a pulse and her heart has stopped beating because the entire time she had internal damage that was bleeding out.

And because she did not let anybody attend to her because she didn't attend to herself, she lost her life. Listen, I flew over from Dallas, Texas in the cold and the rain and the fog because I came to attend to you sisters. I came to ask you if you've checked on yourself recently.

I know you're worried about her and him and the people in your house and the kids and the folks at Sunday school and everybody else who's got stuff that they need you to invest in them regarding. I came to ask you tonight, is there a leprosy that's bleeding you out from the inside?

Is there something that you need to contend with? An addiction that you need to deal with? Strongholds that need to be broken? fear that needs to be stepped away from hatred that needs to be dissolved. Do you need the healing power of Jesus Christ? Tonight is the night to deal with yourself before time runs out.

Non was completely successful while being completely sick. He was outwardly victorious while suffering from the most tragic of vices. He was publicly applauded while being privately agonized over this leprosy. Luke chapter 7, Jesus said about the Pharisees, he said, "Woe to you. You are clean on the outside, but you're full of filth on the inside."

He said, "You're like whitewashed tombs. You look all pristine and whitewashed on the outside, but you're still tombs. Inside, you're full of dead men's bones." Today is the day for us to look inward and not leave in the fine small print of our resumes the thing that really matters.

Because listen, everything hinges on what non will choose to do with this leprosy. The remainder of this narrative hinges on the outcome of this ailment. Either it will consume him and be the death of him or it will he will bring it out into the open and give it to God through the prophet Elijah so that it can be a demonstration of the power of God in his life.

The trajectory of this portion of scripture. The part that will go down in the annals of history is that a man with an unccurable disease either gets healed by God or he does not. The chapter could end by saying there was a man named non who had a problem and kept his problem.

There was a man named non who had an issue, an ailment and still in the end had that same issue, that same ailment. Or the chapter could end as it does in verse 15 by saying, "And he was made clean. What we know about Na non is based solely on what he did with his leprosy.

Do you understand that for generations to come the story will be told about you from your daughters and your sons, your grandchildren, your great grandchildren. And they will talk about yes the things you accomplished and the things you achieved but the most stunning things the most uh important things the most memorable things that people who come after you whether they are nieces and nephews or your own children or just people in the Sunday school class young people that you're mentoring or folks in the youth group of which you serve or people on that college campus where you're mentoring and touching the lives of other people folks who come after us.

The story they will tell is about the fact that they remember when we were once lost and now we are found. That we were once blind but they watch us be able to see. They will take and tell the stories about how there were ashes in our life and our God made beautiful thing out of those messy places.

That's the story that people will tell. That's what leaves the mark. It's what we do with our leprosy. It's whether we leave it hidden and concealed behind the veneers that we so perfectly put up on our social media profiles or whether we'll just bring it out to the open and say, "Here it is.

Here's the real deal. God, would you do business with this? I'm tired of this anger. I'm ready to let it go. I'm tired of this pride. I want to humble myself under the mighty hand of God so that he can exalt me. I'm tired of living in a stale, passionless marriage.

Lord, take it and do with it what you will." Lord, I'm tired of being as I was. I want to be as you can make me to become. Y'all, this is this is the story of my life on both sides of my family. My grandfather on my father's side or his dad, my mother's dad, both of them changed the trajectory of our lives. particularly my dad's dad, his father was an alcoholic.

He was not raised, my grandfather was not raised in a Christian home. They were quite antagonistic to the things of God. And my grandfather as a long shoreman, as he was raising my father and his three siblings, as a long shoreman on the shores of Baltimore in Maryland, u he made money for his family as best he could, hauling in fish every day, but on the side he literally made liquor in the basement.

That's what he did. Perpetuating the society of addiction in which he lived there in the urban center of Baltimore. But that's way that's the way he put food on the table by selling liquor out of his basement. In the meantime, his own family was crumbling. My grandfather and grandmother's marriage was crumbling.

And he was doing the best he could, but he had to work so hard he couldn't really tend to uh the the the family as he wanted to tend to his family. So everything was crumbling apart until one day on the docks on the shores there right there uh at the Baltimore Harbor there was a man he worked with and who told him about a man named Jesus who could change his entire life and that day kneeling down right there at the harbor in Baltimore.

My grandfather came to know Jesus Christ as Lord. He brought all his leprosy out of the open. He told the guy about his marriage that looked so perfect on the outside with these four little cute kids, but really it was crumbling from the inside out. He told him about his father who had been addicted to liquor and how he, my grandfather, was well on his way to perpetuating that same cycle.

He opened up and came clean about his leprosy and gave his life to Jesus Christ. And he went home a different man. He came home to 1110 Papa Grove Street, the exact same house that he still lives in to this day. And he came into this home and for the next two, three years, every morning at 3:00 in the morning, he would get up.

He says before my grandmother would get up and give him, this is what he said, give him hell for the rest of the day. before she started wagging her mouth about all the things she wanted him to change. Before the day got hectic and started started, he said he would come downstairs and fall to his knees and he would pray to this new God that he didn't know well.

He would open up his the scriptures and he would read the scriptures. Oh my gosh, y'all. I just called my grandfather yesterday and I talked to him on the phone. I said, "To daddy," we called him two daddy. I said, "To daddy, what are you doing?" He said, 'Oh, I'm just reading the scriptures.

You know Jesus is coming soon. He's been doing it since he was in his early 20s. He's 89 now. Reading the scriptures and he prayed. He prayed on his knees that the Lord would save his family until one morning three years in my grandmother having given him a hard time for three years.

One of those early mornings, she came and crept down those little creaky stairs and she knelt beside him and she said, "Whatever has happened to you to change you from who you were to who you are now, I want that kind of change in my life." And so my grandfather 
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 led my grandmother to Jesus.

And then those two sat around the table with their four children, one of whom was Tony Evans, and shared the gospel with their four kids, and gave to them the gift that had been given to my father, uh, my grandfather, right there on the shores of Baltimore. The entire family that day accepted Jesus Christ as savior.

And I'm standing before you as one of his many dozens of grandchildren and now great-grandchildren. And my father, the grandfather, the story that we tell of him, what we know about him, most of what we appreciate about him is not just the achievements and the accolades, not the things he's accomplished or the successes that he has.

It's that one day he met a man named Jesus >> and he changed the trajectory of our entire lives because he took a stand. 
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 They started playing, which means I have to hurry up. But I have more to say. Listen, if you don't have a legacy like I have, if you don't have grandfathers, grandmothers that have done that in your life, listen, don't get discouraged by that.

Get excited because you get to be the one. 
((applause))
 You get to be the one to change the trajectory of your entire life till one day your sons and daughters and grandchildren and great grandchildren tell the story of a woman that came to Radiant in 2017 gave her leprosy to God and changed the course of their entire lives.

But y'all, that's not even the best part of the story. The best part of the story is that in verse three, we find out there's a little captive girl. A girl who has been displaced from her ambitions, her goals, her dreams, the comfort of her home. She has been set in a place where she feels uncomfortable, where she doesn't want to be.

It is not the plan that she had for her life. And in that place, she becomes the instrument that God uses to point somebody to the one true God. I came to tell somebody who feels cheated because you're trying to figure out how your trajectory in life that you had planned this way because the the the the career path that you had planned was pointed in this direction.

How did you end up on this job? The marriage that you had planned in your mind, how did you end up in this sort of a union? The the the the relationship with your child that you first envisioned, it doesn't look anything like that. your financial situation. It was supposed to look like this, but some way the Lord has allowed it to look like this and you feel like you've been cheated.

I came to tell you that most often when we are displaced from our dreams to his. Often times it looks like captivity. Often times it doesn't look like anything you planned, you feel uncomfortable and you wish you were back home. And you may not know until centuries later in Luke chapter 4 when Jesus is telling the story when Jesus wants to make sure Jesus has shown up on the scenes and in his own words he wants to authenticate his deity and he reaches back to a story from the Old Testament to make sure all the people in the New Testament know that he is who he says he is and he has come to do exactly what he says to that he's going to do.

The little captive girl could never have known that she was the key to the story. And I'm here to tell you that you displaced captive girl. You're the key to the story. If he has not released you from that job, then you stay on that job and be the light in the midst of the darkness.

If you are still in that neighborhood and you've been trying to move, but you can't find the right place anywhere else. And so there you are in that apartment, in that home that you can't wait to break free from. The reason you are still there is because there you are going to be the light in the midst of the darkness.

You are the key to the people in your sphere of influence, knowing that there is a God in Israel. That there is a God who is able to perform healing in their lives. If the Lord hasn't let you switch churches, that means you're not supposed to switch churches.

You're supposed to be planted in the house of God where he has put you so that you can be his key in the midst of that unity of believers that are serving him. Wherever God has planted you, he intends for you to be. Even if you feel cheated, would you know you've not been cheated.

You've been chosen. You're the one, little captive girl. You're the one. You've been chosen by God to be exactly where you are. University student, you're the one. High school student, you're the one. You are the one you've been waiting for. 
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 Stay where you are, not cheated with your chin raised, knowing actually I've been chosen.

I want you to know that Rashida was driving from Dallas Fort Worth to Waco, Texas for a conference. Nobody really knows exactly what happened, but about 3:00 in the morning or so, our phone started buzzing as we got news that Rashidita was on a head in a head-on collision.

In the hour and 15 minutes it took her to get from Dallas to Waco, she was in a head-on collision and in an instant, she went to see Jesus. 36 years old. And when I heard the news, the only thing I could think was, I am so glad that before she saw him face to face, she knew that he had not cheated her, but that he had chosen.

You know, I want to pray for you if you were in this room and either one of two things describes you in this story. Either you have leprosy that you have not been dealing with. You've been here all conference long and you have enjoyed yourself, but you know there is a thread of sickness.

There is an ailment in your heart or in your mind or in your marriage. In your integrity, there is a lapse of integrity. There is something that is offkilter and you've gotten so good at covering it up. But you want to come clean tonight so that you can be known not as the woman who carried this ailment her whole life, but as the woman who handed that ailment over to Jesus and watched him do something with it, make beautiful things out of those ashes.

I want to pray for you if that's you tonight. I'm going to ask you to stand in just a moment. But there's another group of you that I want to pray for. It's any of you who are in the room and you feel cheated. I mean, you feel cheated.

This is not what you signed up for. I want to pray that the Lord by his spirit will help you tonight to see things from his perspective when you go back to that home, to that job, to that neighborhood, to that university campus, to go back with his perspective on why he has planted you there. so that you will know you've not been cheated but that you've been chosen.

So if you fall into either of those categories, there's a leprosy that needs healing in your life or there's a change of perspective that you want to leave here with at the end of radiant conference this week, would you please stand to your feet? It would be my privilege to take us all between the throne to the throne of God in prayer.

So Lord Jesus, I bring those of us starting with me who are standing to our feet. Father, I pray right now in the matchless name of Jesus Christ for leprosy that is eating away at us, numbing us, desensitizing us, Lord, keeping us from living to our full potential.

Father, I pray right now in Jesus name that you would by your healing bomb pour out your grace and your mercy upon every single heart. I pray that marriages would be restored. I pray that strongholds would be broken. I pray that fear would dissipate. I pray that hate would be softened.

Lord, I pray that hardened hearts would be mended. Lord, I pray that brokenness would be salvaged. I pray that fissures would be restored. I pray that you would resuscitate and breathe life back into your daughters. Lord, I pray that we would never we would no longer cover up that which we need to expose to the healing power of our great God.

And we thank you, Father, that you not only sympathize with us in your humanity, but that you can turn around in your power and actually perform a healing miracle in our lives. So, I pray for health in Jesus' name. Health in Jesus' name. I pray for restoration, resurrection, resuscitation, renewal in Jesus' name.

And then, Father, I pray for those who are discouraged because they feel cheated. They're honest with you right now. Father, they feel irritated and frustrated because life as it is going is not how they had it planned. So, I pray right now that you would displace discouragement off of their lives.

Would you replace it with a cloak of encouragement in Jesus name? Send them out of here with a holy contentment, Father, remembering that you are who you say you are and that you will accomplish through their lives exactly what you have said that you will accomplish. Lord, fit us with your glasses to see our situations through your perspectives.

And we will give you all the praise and all the glory and all the honor in Jesus name. Everybody agreed when they said amen. >> Amen. Hey there. Thanks so much for watching. I hope that you were blessed, that you were encouraged, and that you feel like you are strengthened for the journey ahead.

I invite you to subscribe to our channel and also to hit that little bell icon. That way, you'll be notified when we have content in the future. And praying for you that you stay encouraged, keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, and be encouraged as you live for Christ in everything that you do.

God bless you.