Priscilla Shirer: Girded in Truth

their truth but there is a standard an objective standard that has to be the guideline for our lives and here's the thing y'all you can be in church every Sunday and still not be a person who is girded in truth you can see a Bible study every Tuesday a Wednesday but but never be a person that is guarded and true you can happen at all of see about 14 hours of revival we've had over the past few days and have celebrated all the messages and all that good singing and still not be somebody who is girded in truth there will be somebody that the enemy can just run roughshod over your life because you have not made a choice and here's what it means to be guarded in truth to make sure that God's standard is the compass for your life that no matter what politics says and no matter what it's politically correct or not no matter what the other ideals and values and moral whether than everybody else in your office or in your university have you have decided like Joshua as for me in my house what we don't do is we go serve the Lord we're going to follow God when you make that choice which is only a choice you know whether or not you have made in your heart in your mind it does not matter how I feel it doesn't matter what sounds rational to me it doesn't matter what my friends think it doesn't matter I'm going to always have my god what is your opinion and then I'm going to align my behavior to that opinion that means you're girded in truth yo let me tell you why this is critical and that that is the first the first stop for the enemy in your life because his MO the enemy's MO is deception that's their mouth okay and here's the tragedy and the hard thing about deception y'all embedded and embedded within deception is a blinding agent so that the person being deceived doesn't know it see that's what's so hard about the session you're on the edge of the cliff but you don't know you on the edge of cliff you think you can take another step now the people around you they can tell you're on the edge they can tell you're about the fall also when they can tell that relationship is no good for you they can tell that's not the job you're supposed to take they can tell you don't even level on that side of town in the house they can tell the contract you're about to fine have some fine points that you have not quite ready yet everybody else can see it clearly except the one being deceived who y'all the enemy is a master illusionist he causes you to think things are there that are not he causes you to hear things that are not as they really are he causes your perceptions to be misaligned so that they are few just enough to take you off to the left or to the right of what is God's will and his standard for you he is counting on you trusting in your own feelings leading to your own understanding confetti know he can take you on a ride but for a person that is girded in truth that always check back with the compass of God's Word he knows he's been blocked before he's even really begun ((applause)) so there's this movie names called inception do you remember that from several years ago Leo DiCaprio is the star in Inception I will tell you that I have not seen that movie because I go to the movies I want to see something that requires no brain capability at all that's the kind of movies I like anybody knows I'm s I want some hot salty buttery popcorn I want a good coke and a smile I want to enjoy myself and relax I ain't trying to think and have to figure stuff out so dad told me about about Inception he said Priscilla Leo DiCaprio character is in reality but often when he's asleep he'll have a dream that takes into an altered state of reality he's in a dream but everything is so real in his dream that he thinks he's in reality he has no way of knowing whether or not where he is is real or if it's a dream he's absolutely if that's not confusing enough sometimes he's in a dream and has another level of dreaming so now he's not just in a dream he's in a dream that is within a dream that was within his reality but in the dream everything looks like it's real so he's making choices and decisions as if he's in the real world with actuality he's not in the real world so there's those choices are getting him in trouble he said but Priscilla if that's not confusing enough sometimes when he's in that second layer of dreaming he has another dream so now he's three layers deep in dreaming and he cannot tell what is real and what is not and he's trusted in his own understanding he has trust in what he can see and what he can hear and what he can feel and it has gotten him into trouble I just wonder if anybody's feelings have ever gotten them into some trouble I mean you thought it was real when you said yes but it ended up being being not what you thought it was but it felt good to you and your feelings said go and your feelings said yes your understanding your perceptions to you made you think you were in walking in the truth when actuality there was fine print on that contract you signed it you didn't know it until it was too late so Leo character has this spinning top he takes it with him wherever he goes and he spins the top on the table top and he watches it if it spins and endlessly and never responds to gravity it never slows it never topple over topples over he knows he's in a dream because they can't do that in real life he knows if he spins it and it ends up stalling okay I'm home I'm in the real world what he does not do is just in his own perception he has something outside of himself that he can look to to determine whether or not where he is is real or not oh the enemy hopes that you will not have an objective sander something that you go to and say wait a minute this looks like a good opportunity this looks like a good relationship this looks like where I should go and what I should do and how I should be feeling but before I make a decision as to whether this is a dream or reality I'm going to pass it through the objective standard of God's Word that's how you gird yourself in truth you make a choice not just to be in church on Sunday I hope you are not just to be in Bible study on Wednesday I hope you are not just to be it's a New Year's revival I hope you will be next year but I'm so praying that in your life on Monday through Friday you've made it made a decision that for me in my house this is the compass Paul says after you gird yourself with truth verse 14 he says you need a breastplate and your breastplate is called righteousness Jerry and I live with live in a fairly rural part of dallas-fort worth we like it that way kind of out in the country it's close enough to the city ten fifteen minutes we can get to everything we need really easily the Barnes and Noble and the Starbucks and the Super Target and all the stuff it's it's all right there but we feel like we're word worlds away we just kind of drive back on this little q lane road we live on a little quiet two-lane road and somebody got horses over there and there's some cows over there and I have a neighbor across the street who is one of my closest friends and she has a pond on her property I think the last time I was here I told you guys that I'd like to go fishing with my boys on this pond we have a couple of fishing poles that we bought on sale at the local Super Walmart have a tackle box I also found on sale one day there's some extra hooks in there because we always seem to need extra hooks and we have extra bobber things because we always lose those whole bobbers and we need more I also have gloves in that box because y'all know I don't mind going fishing but I ain't gonna touch no fish so we take all of that I send one of the boys over to the refrigerator to get whatever leftover hotdog meat there is from the week that's our bait and we go and we stand on the edge of the shore most of the time of the pond and we put the line in and fish but beside us on the pond my neighbor's also has a little rowboat it's a metal old boat they found on Craigslist no big deal it's just a shell really just sit inside and push out when you want to and fish from the middle of fun every now and then when I'm feeling particularly adventurous that is what we will do I will see that boat there and I'll say boys let's get in the boat today and go fish in the middle of the pond the boat has always turned upside down the owners leave it that way and it makes sense because if there is water that has collected during the last time it was out it needs to be drained and also if they left it upright and it rained it would just fill up so it makes sense they leave it up ended that poses a problem for me because in order to get in it I've got to turn it over I know that since the environment created underneath that up turned boat is damp and moist and cool and shady I know that when I trade over there on the edge of a pond something is either going to hop out from underneath it so is going to waddle out from underneath it or worst of all something's gonna y'all know so I scoot to the very very back of the boat I miss the boys get the sides I said we're back on the edge of the boat we flip it over and inevitably something comes out from underneath the boat I'm always amazed that I have never once had to send out a clarion call into the brush nearby to tell the critters we have arrived and that they are welcome to join us I have never had to write out on the invitation a golden sealed invitation and send it into the woods so that they know that they can come and join us on our fishing trip I've never had to do it all there has to happen is the environment has to be created and the environment is invitation enough righteousness is right side up living that invites the favor and the peace and the presence of God unrighteousness is upside down behavior that creates an environment that invites demonic activity into your life lesson you don't have to invite Satan into your mind and your heart in your marriage you don't have to send a clarion call or golden field invitation to the demons to come and make themselves at home you just have to choose unholiness you have to decide that you are not going to align your behavior with the truth of God when you walked in unrighteousness you have creating an environment that not only invites the demon but tells them to stay and make themselves at home which me y'all this means we can be praying and rebuking the devil and casting out demons and all that from one side of our mouth but if in the other side of our life we are living in unholiness we have wasted our time in prayer righteousness is your breastplate when you make a choice in your attitudes and your actions to just live in a way that honors God not to gain his approval you already have that it's because you want to invite his favor and because you don't want to make a place for the demons to fester in your life so righteousness becomes a breastplate the Roman soldier no matter how strong he was no matter how much training he had no matter how smart and wise he was regarding the tactics that they had planned against the enemy no matter any of that one blow to the heart and he'd be taken out didn't matter how smart he was how well-trained he was didn't matter how many classes he'd been to on being a soldier none of that matters one blow to the heart and he'd be out what the physical heart is to the physical body y'all with me the spiritual heart is to your spiritual body your spiritual life all of the vitality that you need to function victoriously in your spiritual life is connected to your heart which is why the writer of the proverb said in proverbs 4:23 guard your heart for from it flows the Wellsprings of your life I have often always wonder what in the world does the proverb rider mean gars or how do I do that the Apostle Paul comes along and he seizes and he tells you how he says you live right you turn that vote over you live in a way that aligns with the truth of God and you have put a breastplate over your heart so that the enemy does not have access to a full to attack in your life listen it's a 12 o'clock service so I have a few more minutes y'all alright listen hang with me hang with me listen your heart is the centerpiece of your soul so since it's the hub of your soul listen your soul you know this in this Bible teaching Church I know your pastor has taught you this we were just talking about it last night your soul is comprised of your mind how you think your will what's your purpose to do your emotions how you feel and also your conscience your conscience is that thing when your momma told you growing up if you get somewhere with your friends and you just don't feel good about being there you don't have to be able to explain it it's just something you go my mama would say girl you don't have to play just call me I'll come get you from wherever you are she was saying you have a conscience right your conscience is not the voice of God your conscience though is the microphone that the Holy Spirit uses to help you hear the voice of God okay which is why if I were your enemy more than anything I would be after your heart because if I get your heart that means I have already crippled your ability to think clearly I have already tampered with your ability to function in emotional health I have already stripped from you the opportunity to walk in the will and the purposes of God and more importantly I have short-circuited the wires that allow the Holy Spirit to be able to speak to you clearly so that you can hear the voice of God so now not only can you not think clearly and not only so you don't have emotional health you also can't even hear a word from the mouth of God so now you're in your quiet time and you're sitting there trying to read you're wondering if God ever has anything to say to you at all it is to you is ink on a page that's because the enemy has short-circuited the wire so now you can't hear God all the enemies don't what you hear in God he wants your spiritual leader to be so dull but you can't hear when God says go that you can't hear him when God prompts you to say to forgive that person or to give that gift or to offer yourself or to stop doing something to separate yourself he wants it so that we can't hear God so he poses a full-frontal attack against your heart because when he's got your heart you've got everything else connected to it so Paul says you want a line of defense against the enemy you gird yourself with truth but then if you do the affirm the truth of God that's guarding yourself with your firming the truth of God the breastplate then is aligning your behavior to the truth that you say you affirm it's straight-up old-school holiness that's what it is except what all preachers used to say y'all they just talked about being holy just living right just making choices that honor God the armor y'all it was heavy 70 pounds about can you imagine trying to be nimble and quick in warfare and you got 70 extra pounds on you that was a lot of weight most of the weight that they carried was in that breastplate all of that weight on their shoulders dragging them down not allowing them to be as nimble and quick and effective as they needed to be tired before they've even really begun the weight of the breastplate the good thing about the belts is not only did it stabilize their core but it also helped to take some of the weight of the breastplate off their shoulders it bores away so that they didn't have to carry it on their own the truth took some of the weight of righteousness off of their own shoulders listen if you're trying to be righteous and your own standing your own power and in your own strength that thing is gonna weigh you down so that you cannot function on a daily basis the enemy will even use righteousness on your own shoulder to you with perfectionism so that you're trying to be the perfect one he doesn't want you to remember that the perfect one have already come we don't need another perfect one but listen y'all the truth of our great God takes that weight off of your shoulder and the truth is that when you place faith in Jesus Christ you already are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus that the Holy Spirit lives on the inside of you and he is doing the work of righteousness in you did you realize that 2nd Thessalonians 2:13 says he is sanctifying you that means he's molding you into the image of Jesus Christ so that you can think like Jesus and talk like Jesus and walk like Jesus that means you don't have to do the work yourself you just have to cooperate with him cuz he's doing it for you so as you cooperate with him it takes the weight off so that you can be free ((music playing)) perfectionism is too heavy away to bear Paul says you need a breastplate call righteousness and he says shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace he says you need peace and they're like shoes for your feet the Roman soldiers shoes had many distinguishing characteristics but most notably there were prongs steel prongs at the bottom of the booth so that if they were on slick terrain or walking rocky ground and they were trying to endure over a long march they had something they could dig into the ground so that they would not be able to slip and and be able to fall and trip easily they were able to dig themselves in and stand up no matter what kind of terrain they were traversing in this world Jesus said you will have trouble you don't have to go looking for trouble just keep living troubles go communists go find you and on slick and rocky terrain like that unless you have an anchor that holds you steady you will be so easily felled over and push down and tripped up the enemy wants you without peace but it's the gospel Paul says that gives you an anchor in your soul ((applause)) in September my grandmother on my mother's side went home to be with Jesus we knew it was going to happen she was very very healthy and then she had a little minor stroke that just started a very quick decline the nurses let us know that was what was going to happen she was 97 years old had lived a beautiful healthy life the day before it happened she had been holding her great grandkids and playing with them healthy woman so we were shocked what had happened I found out on a text message while sitting on an airplane just about to take off to st.

Louis the kind agents let me get off the plane so that I could rush to my grandmother's house and I went there I walked in and when I saw her I realized everything had changed she couldn't smile at me anymore she had the day before her eyes could not really find me I had to bring my head to her or my face to her so she could see me she couldn't speak what a difference a day makes so we put her in her bed and for the next four days her children eight of them her grandchildren no telling how many of us her great-grandchildren no telling how many crowded into this little 3-bedroom 2bath house we snuggled up with her we had slumber parties we were all in our pajamas sleeping on the floor singing to her talking to her and I watched her as she could barely make any sounds but I watched her smile just a bit just curl up one side of her mouth let us know but she knew we were there she we lifted up great grandchildren's hands a little little newborn so that they could touch her cheek and she could feel it and I watched my grandmama for days I watched my grandmother slip away and as I watched her and just sat in the pool of my people my people all around me for four days and the grandkids when they get restless the great grandkids they were out in her backyard and of all the games they decided to play y'all they played lots of things tagged and stuff but they spent a lot of time playing Church they appointed a pastor they appointed a praise and worship leader so while their great-grandmother was on her way to meet Jesus the great-grandchildren were outside celebrating Jesus and I watched her cheek curl up even knowing she was on her deathbed I watched the side of her cheek curl up in the knowledge that even though things aren't so great right now there is a piece in muscle a piece that has enabled me to live so well through trials and tribulations over the past nine decades that I've been able to so good fruit into my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren so much so that now they're all surrounding me and my great-grandchildren are singing the praises of God in my hearing so that I can hear them and I know I'm on my way to meet it but this is good this is good and when I watch that y'all when I watch that I said to myself now that's peace right there ((applause)) and I said Lord would you give me a piece like a piece that the world can't take away a piece that death can't take away a piece so that when I'm on my dying set even if I can no longer talk there is a smile that can curl itself onto my lips in the knowledge that I've got an anchor in my soul that makes all of this okay the Holy Spirit would offer anybody in this room today I'm saying to the person that has not slept well and as long as you can remember to the person whose mind is so tormented whose heart is so broken there is an anchor that can keep you smiling even when things are bad ((applause)) if there is anybody in this room and you don't have a piece like that if there's anybody in this room you do not know what it is to go through stuff but still be able to give even the hints of a smurf because you know God got this if the enemy has been running roughshod over you and you want victory and freedom once and for all I cannot wait to invite you to come to Jesus and so ESS you under the sound of my voice and you want to meet Jesus today and have the opportunity to walk and freedom and walk in victory this is your day would you please not walk run down to this altar so that together we can pray for salvation in the name of Jesus anybody come on you can have peace like a river today anybody need to play faith in Jesus today this is your day this is your opportunity come on I know there's someone who needs to even if it's just one we will wait for you yes sir come on come on the enemy doesn't have a chance he's made a choice ((applause)) yes sir a couple coming good come on even from the balcony y'all come on if you need to meet Jesus anybody in the balcony will wait for you just come on down come on sis ((music playing)) come on y'all ((applause)) come on sis I see you come on the good day for freedom the good day for victory there's so much power in Jesus name ((applause)) anybody else ((applause)) ((music playing)) ((applause)) I just feel a little unsettled about stopping we will but I just wonder if you all would help me but just look at the person next to you say do you need to go I'll go with you just ask them do you have peace do you need it I will go with you if you need me to go with you tell them you'll come ((applause)) ((music playing)) ((applause)) ((music playing)) ((applause)) ((music playing)) ((applause)) ((music playing)) ((applause)) ((applause)) ((music playing)) ((music playing)) you