Transcription
Tell a joke or something. So let's see if I can think of one. Sometimes people tell me, "Tell a joke," and I'm like, "I can't think of no joke at all." But I do love to laugh. I love to laugh, and I love the happy song, right? Hahaha. Let's see if I can think of a good joke for you real quickly here. What's that? Oh, okay. This is kind of, this is kind of a newer joke because we're preaching in Las Vegas for Pastor David and Sharon, David and Vicki. And, um, uh, there's a man in their church, a Hispanic man, that raises these horses. Well, they call them, um, illusion horses, really, really fancy horses. So, so, uh, he trains them. So he gave Pastor Vicki one of those horses. So I went to visit him, a Hispanic guy. So he wanted to tell me this joke. All right. So he told me there was this Mexican man that had a beautiful white horse, beautiful white horse. And, uh, as a, a couple, white couple, Caucasian couple, drove by, one day saw that beautiful white horse. They said, "We want to buy that horse." Mexican man said, "No, no, you can't buy that horse." He said, "He know lookie too good." They said, "Well, we think he looks beautiful, and so, uh, we want to buy." "No, no, no, you know, looking too good." They said, "No, you, we want to buy, and we'll give you five thousand dollars for that horse." So he said, "Okay." So they bought the horse. And a couple days later, they came back mad, so angry, and they just hollering at this man. They said, "What's the matter with that horse? You know, I got him home, he ran through the pasture, ran through the fence, around the highway, and got run over by a 18-wheeler truck." And the Mexican man said, "I told you he know look it's too good." For those of you who don't understand that, he was a blind horse. All right. You know, looking too good. All right, all right, all right.
Then there was this, this man, kind of had a bossy, a bossy wife. He kind of had a bossy wife, kind of bossy, kind of bossy. Very rare situation. But this man had kind of a bossy wife. So he got tired of it. So he finally just told her off, man. They said, "Well, what happened?" He said, "Well, I did not see her for three days." He said, "The third day, my left eye started to open up just a little bit." Uh, the joke kind of goes like this also. The third day, she said, "Come out from underneath that bed." Sorry.
But now, this is one of my favorite jokes, and I may have told you before, but you know, I still laugh at it. It's about the Cajun guy that lived down in the swamp. A Cajun guy lived down in the swamp. His wife was pregnant, about ready to have a baby. Sure enough, one day, oh, here come the pains. And so the Cajun guy called the doctor. Said, "Doctor, doctor, the baby's coming, the baby's coming." And the doctor said, "Well, is this her first child?" He said, "No, you idiot, this is her husband." Oh, that's my Cajun. All right.
Uh, well, I want you to get happy. Praise the Lord. First of all, we'd like to thank Pastor Jesse and Kathy. Thank them for inviting us to come here and, uh, preach, be a part of this great ministry. And, uh, they're like, like, uh, family, closer than our natural family. Thank them so much for being great friends for so many years. And, and we've been through thick and thin, hallelujah. And they just stick with us. And we're glad to be a part of this ministry. And, um, I tell you, uh, people talk about Jess and Kathy, their blessing. But sometimes you don't see all of their giving, right? And, uh, so, uh, they were the first guest ministers that came into our church years ago. And, uh, we were fixing to buy a 421 airplane. And, uh, I'd been telling the church for weeks or months, "Somebody is going to give us a hundred thousand dollars." I'd been telling that. And most of them looked at me like, "Don't look at me." And I was saying, "Pretty much, I'm not looking at you, but my expectations on God." So God will arrange it. So I'd say, "Somebody's gonna give us a hundred thousand dollars." So a few weeks later, Brother Jesse comes in, Kathy, and he stands up and says, "You know, the Lord just told me to give you a hundred thousand dollars." And about half of our church kind of fell out there, like, "My God, it happened." So let me believe some of the things you're saying shall come to pass, what you're saying, what you've been saying. And, uh, you never know exactly how, but God will always perform. Amen. Praise the Lord.
So thank you very much. Now, I want you open your Bible, Second Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17. And we're going to talk about who you are in Christ. And I just did five hours of television recording on your identification with Christ and who you are in Christ. So you know, I'm not going to be able to do all that unless y'all want to stay awhile. So we just want to look at several parts of your identification with Christ, who you are in Christ. And let me give you a working definition of identification. Identification. The word identification means to make identical. To make identical. It means to consider or treat as one and the same. To consider or treat as one and the same. Actually, one dictionary said sameness. The same identical condition, same identical life. So it says sameness or the fact of being the same in all qualities under consideration. The other words would be your identity, your identity, or who you are. Or to identify, to put oneself in another's place, to share feelings or problems. Identify. Or the next word would be identical, as in identical twins. And so one translation says, "You were twinned with Christ." Twinned with Christ. Or you could say, "God did in Christ what He wanted to do in every person." All right, let's try that one more time. God did in Christ what He wanted to do in every man, or in every person, or in every human. A new kind of human. Or you could say it this way, "God put into Christ what He wanted to put in every man, in every person." This is your identification with Christ.
So look at Second Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17. And the Apostle Paul, this is primarily what we call Paul's revelation. Second Corinthians 5:17. It says, "Therefore, if any any man or anyone, if anyone is in Christ, if anyone is in Christ." So we're not just talking about attending church. We're not talking about just being in church. We're talking about you being in Christ. "If anyone, any person, is in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, everything has become new." In other words, he describes what happened when you and I made Him are in whom. Scriptures, a hundred and thirty. So I had a really good friend, and we spent all of our spare time studying "in Christ," "in Him," "in whom" scriptures when I was just a teenager. So we'd write it down, the King James Version, and then we would compare different translations to see what they had to say about it. And so when he says, "If anyone's in Christ, they're a new creature." The word "new" means new in kind, or new in quality. It actually means unheard of before. Unheard of before. Our summit said it means a new breed, or new species of being that never existed before. Hallelujah. And so God did something in Christ that had never happened before. He decided to make a new kind of human, a new kind of mankind. And He made Christ the prototype of a new creation and a new kind of human that never existed before.
When you read the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they tell you what happened to Christ. But Paul's letters, Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, Paul's letters tell you what happened *in* Christ. All right, let's try it one more time. When you read the four Gospels, they tell you what happened *to* Christ, or they'll tell you what man saw. When you read Paul's letters, he tells you what happened *in* Christ, and he tells you what God saw. Hallelujah. Amen. So when you understand what happened when you made Jesus the Lord of your life, then that becomes the foundation of your faith. And that is your identification, or your identity, or that's who you are in Christ. You're not struggling to make it so. You're not trying to make it so. It's not someday gonna be so. It's happened. Amen. Because God's grace produced that for you, and all you did is believe it and receive it. Amen. So He says, "You're a new creature in Christ." So those two words are key words in Paul's letters, or Paul's revelation. I like what James Stalker, P.C. Nelson said things about Paul's letters. He said, "Paul's letters contain the thoughts that Jesus carried away from this world unuttered. They are the advanced teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ." Or if you want to see the advanced teachings of Jesus, then you read Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians. In other words, Paul tells you the gospel post-resurrection, which means something happened on the cross, something happened because of the blood of Jesus, something happened in His death, something happened in His burial, something happened in His resurrection that changes everything in your life. Your whole identity is changed. You no longer have to go to Ancestry.com. Come on. You no longer have to let somebody tell you who you are. You just go to the Word of God, and you find yourself in Christ. Everything God did in Christ, He did it for you, and it's set to the credit of your account, just like you were there. Amen. Amen.
So I'm going to show you, uh, several identification with Christ scriptures, uh, and look at these real quickly. Galatians 2:20. And then we'll look at, um, this verse in the King James Version. We'll look at a few different translations. This is where Paul says, by the way, Paul calls himself in Second Corinthians 12 verse 2, "a man in Christ." Second Corinthians 12:2, if you want to write that down. Paul said, "I knew a man in Christ, whether in the body, I could not tell; such a man was caught up to the third heaven." So we know Paul's talking about himself, a man in Christ. But notice in Corinthians 5:17, Paul says what's true of a man in Christ is true of *any* man in Christ. Y'all still here? So it's not just Paul's testimony, but this is the testimony of every believer. All right, you've got Galatians 2:20. Here's what it says in the King James: "I am." All right, we just, we just got hung up on the first two words. He said, "I am." In other words, Paul says, "Let me tell you what has determined my identity. This is who I am. I am." And then he says, "Crucified with Christ." He said, "Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Oh, a lot of good stuff in Galatians 2:20. It actually is the confession of faith for every believer. That means your faith must have an "in Christ" factor. In other words, you're going to learn about faith. And I heard Dad Hagin teach on faith, and as soon as I heard him, I thought, "Man, the authority of the believer is phenomenal." Come on. "Whosoever shall say he'll have whatsoever he saith." I thought, "That is amazing." So in understanding how faith works, then Dad Hagin came along and said, "There are several steps to the highest kind of faith." In other words, if you want to take your faith to a higher level, he said, "The first thing you do is study who you are in Christ." So I just decided that's what I'm going to do first. In other words, I call this resurrection faith, or identification faith in Christ faith. So it's not just kind of trying to have faith. Paul says, "My faith has been totally influenced by my identification with Christ, that I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me." Amen. The life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Paul said, "I live by this identification faith, my identity and who I am in Christ." That you're not what your mama made you. You're not what your daddy made you. You're not what your mistakes made you. You're not what environment made you. You are the workmanship of God, and you've been recreated in Christ Jesus. Sometimes people say, "Well, if you knew what happened to me, you'd know why I'm the way I am." Listen close. A lot of difficult things can happen to people, but what happened to Jesus is greater than anything that has ever happened to you. [Applause] Instead of looking at what happened to you, look to what happened to Jesus. Amen.
In Romans 5:20, in Lovett's translation, says, King James says, "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." Lovett's translation says, "God's work in Christ far exceeds any damage done to us by Adam's fault." [Applause] All right, I better say that one more time. God's work in Christ far exceeds any damage done to us by Adam's fall. And listen, I know that Adam's sin did a lot of damage, but God's work in Christ far exceeds any damage done to us by Adam's fall. The power of the blood of Jesus and the power of the Word of God. So in studying your identification with Christ, let me give you a couple of other translations real quickly. One translation says, "I consider myself as having died and now I'm enjoying a second existence, which is simply Jesus using my body." All right, we'll try that one more time. "I consider myself as having died." I was crucified with Christ. Amen. Your identification with Christ, amen, will bring an end to certain things in your life. And so Paul says that in Romans 6:6, he says, "Knowing this, our old man, our old man, the old person we used to be, our old man was crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." So he says, "You reckon yourself to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God." And then he says, "For sin shall not have dominion over you." When he says, "Knowing this, our old man," other translations say, "our old sinful self," "our old sinful self," the old person we used to be. One translator says, "My former evil identity was crucified with Christ." One translation says, "My old rebel self." I don't want y'all to look at that. "My old rebel self was crucified with Christ." How many believe that death can bring an end to a lot of bad behavior? Amen. And so he says that happened in Christ. And if you want to go ahead and end it with your own death, as far as some people want to end it and they commit suicide, the problem is that you cannot pull off a resurrection. But if you're crucified with Christ, He has the power to produce a resurrection. And it don't even take three days anymore. In other words, you're identified with His death. What happened to Jesus in our behalf. Your identification with Christ. Other translations say it this way: "I identified myself completely with Christ." Come on now. People got a lot of different identities and stuff like that, but He just says, "My identification with Christ supersedes every other identity people try to give me." Amen. And so you see your identification with Christ in His death, in His burial, and we'll show you this in His resurrection.
Now, there's two ordinances in the church. Two ordinances that you and I practice as believers. And number one is water baptism. Water baptism shows your identification with Christ. And you actually act it out in water baptism publicly, which shows your identification of Christ, that you are buried together with Him, raised up together with Him. So you walk in newness of life. And so that's your identification in water baptism. The next one ought to blow your mind. The next one is what we call communion, or the Lord's Supper, where you take the bread, which is His body, you take the cup, which is His blood, and now you are now in union with Christ. His blood, His body, in you. [Applause] And He said, "And when you do that, you do sho, you do show the Lord's death until He comes again." That's right. Did you know the word "show" there is the word "promulgate"? The word "promulgate" means to put a law or decree into operation by an official declaration. So every time, every time you receive communion, you are saying, "Devil, it is illegal for you to put anything on me that Jesus already took in my behalf, because I'm identified with Christ." Hallelujah. [Music] So when sickness comes, you go, "Hold it, that's illegal. I'm identified with Christ." When depression tries to come, you say, "Hold it, that's illegal. I'm identified with Christ." When poverty tries to come, you say, "Hold it, ah, that's illegal, because I'm redeemed from the curse of the law, and I'm blessed coming in and blessed going out." That's my identification with Christ. Hallelujah. So you do show, show who? You're showing everybody that's watching. It's a public declaration. So I was preaching in Mexico City a few, a couple of years ago, and when I use this illustration where Paul talks about communion, then my interpreter interrupts me. And he says, "We know the word 'promulgate,' 'show.' We know that word. He said, 'That's the word we use in a wedding.'" The final pronouncement in the wedding is, "I now pronounce you husband and wife." And these two are now one. Come on. When you take communion, you say, "I now pronounce that I'm in union with Christ, and the same life that's in Him, and the same righteousness that is in Him, is in me." And that shows your identification with Christ. To who? To every devil that's watching. Are y'all still here? You say, "Why?" Because I want to make sure that I'm registered in hell. You say, "What do you mean?" Well, every angel that's watching, but also every devil that's watching. Acts chapter 19. Come on. Seven sons of Sceva, they tried to cast out devils, and they were religious people, and they tried to cast out devils in the name of Jesus, who Paul preaches. And the devil said, "I know Jesus, and I know Paul, but who are you?" I want to know who you are. And the devil jumped on them, beat them up. And it says, "And they ran out naked and wounded." [Applause] You ain't supposed to be running from the devil. Come on now. He's supposed to be running from you. So these guys were religious, but they had no personal identification with Christ. All right, let's try this again. I said these people are religious, but the moment you make Jesus the Lord of your life, the devil knows when you get up in the morning. He knows where you're at right now. He knows when you come into town. He knows what street you came in on, because you are the one that has the same life, same authority that's in Christ Himself. What does that mean? I'm not trying to get it. I don't have to produce it. Jesus got it for me. It's the grace of God. That's who you are. And I know some people think they know this subject pretty well, but I talked to a pastor not too long ago. He heard this teaching for at least 20 years, because I know he was on my staff, and we're riding around in a truck so we can be private. And this pastor, he says to me, "I," and then he started telling me all of his problems associated with "I." And he said, "I'm like this, and I don't have it, and I need it, and I got this problem, and I got that problem." After a while, I said, "All right, let's stop this for a second. The problem we have is with your 'I'." Come on. Come on. Because once you let your problem become your identity, then I can't do nothing about that. But the moment you understand your identification with Christ, you never let your struggle become your identity. You say, "I might have this problem, but that's not who I am. I'm a new creature in Christ." Your identification with Christ and your confession of that, and the power of the Holy Spirit, that makes it a reality to you. Oh, my.
All right, go to Ephesians chapter 2, verse 4 through 6. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 4 through 6. This will have you laughing at the devil, and it'll have him running from you. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 4 through 6. Identification with Christ. What does that mean? To consider or treat as one and the same. Identical. Identical. All right, Ephesians 2:4 through 6. This is one of my favorites. So we're not going to get in a hurry on this one. Ephesians 2:4, "But God, who is rich in mercy." How many know it would not matter how rich He is in anything else if He was not rich in mercy. "God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us." That's amazing, isn't it? "Even when we were dead in trespasses and sin." Even when we were dead, that was our condition. "Even when we were dead in sin, the King James says, He hath quickened." The word "quicken" means made alive. "He quickened us together with Christ." All right, here's the Amplified, the Women's Bible, because it has more words. Right here's the Amplified Bible. Women got to love this. "Quicken" is the short edition. Here's the Amplified: "He made us alive together with Christ." "He gave us the very same life that He gave to Christ." All right, let's try this out of it. He gave us identical, same, the very same life that He gave to Christ. He gave us the same life. What is this life? This is the life. Come on. That Jesus said in John 5:24-26. It says, "As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself." Come on. In other words, what God has in Him is this life. This life is a spiritual substance. It's the same life that's in God. It is the crowning achievement of the plan of redemption is to take a dead human and give him the life of God, spiritual life. "He made us alive together with Christ." Or "He gave us the very same life." You said, "What will it do in you?" It'll do the same thing that it did in Christ. He gave us the same life. What kind of life is this? Resurrection life, overcoming life, heaven's life, the God kind of life. It is healing life. It is blessing life. It's the very life of God. He gave us the same life. What will that life do in you? It'll develop your spirit. It will increase your intellect. It will enhance your personality. It will bring healing into your body. All right, y'all see with me? "He made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up together." You can't fight the fight of faith down here. You got to fight faith up here. A lot of people down here, they said, "Oh, Lord, heaven down here." But you know, God sees you in Christ, made alive, raised up together with Him, and seated together with Him in heavenly places. [Applause] Blessed with Him, an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ. [Music] [Applause] You must be something. You ought to look at somebody. Said, "You must be something." Come on. You got the same life, same inheritance, same authority, same blessing. You can never be a victim again. The moment you understand who you are in Christ. Come on. The devil can't dominate you. People cannot dominate you. Jesus is my Lord. I think you ought to practice laughing for a minute. What does that mean? I'm not trying to get it. Jesus got it for me 2,000 years ago. Now, I was preaching down in Bogota, Colombia, but actually Cartagena. A Rhema graduate down there has a church of about, you know, I talked to you about that church, probably about 30,000 people in that church. And so, big auditorium, and it's a big, beautiful place. So he hired a company to come and redecorate his platform, everything up front. So he hired this company. And so this company said, "We have one philosophy, and we're going to design a platform for your church, but we will not build it until the first word out of your mouth when you see that design is 'Wow.'" Come on. All right. They call it the "wow factor." So they designed a real pretty platform. They said, "Now, here's the design." And, uh, his first words out of his mouth was, "Very nice." They said, "That's not it." They went back to the drawing boards and drew up another plan. Showed it to me. Said, "Now, that looks great." And they go, "That's not it." They went back and did another design. Finally got another design out and showed it to him, and his wife, and he said, "We went, 'Wow!'" They said, "That's it right there." [Music] Come on. You got more than just forgiveness of sins. That's really great. Come on. You got more than just one day you can go to heaven. That's really great. But God designed a plan, and when you look at it, you go, "Wow! Look what God did for me in Christ." [Applause] If you're not impressed with who you are in Christ, you just hadn't seen Him lately, baby. He is something. And the same life that's in Christ, the same anointing that's in Christ, yes, is in you as a believer. And the devil is scared you're going to find out about it. Wow factor. Matter of fact, this year, God don't want to do anything for you unless when it happens, you go, "Wow!" [Applause] I don't know about you. I had some stuff happened last year. I went, "Wow! Wow! Look, look what the Lord has done." Wow. Come on. It was more than I could ask, more than I could think. Wow. That's the way God does this. [Applause] Go ahead and praise Him for a while. Hallelujah. Wow. Wow. Wow. Matter of fact, Jesse, talk about going to heaven, and you'll see what's going to happen. The angels go around to go, "Holy, holy, holy." How many know when you walk in heaven, you're gonna go, "Wow!" [Applause] How many know God don't want to wait till you get to heaven for you to go, "Wow!" His goodness is more than you can ask. I think. [Music] His grace is more. [Applause] The English word is "wow." The Bible word is "glory." Come on. Because God can walk and chew gum at the same time. Let me tell you this. When God's doing two or three things at the same time, you're like, "Wow." God goes, "Glory." That's glory right there. Oh, glory. That's the goodness of God. Hallelujah. One more. One more. Romans 8:11. Let me give you this one. Come on. I'm not trying to get it. You're not trying to get it. You're not someday gonna get it. Never let your struggle become your identity. I'm not saying I didn't have a struggle, but that's not who I am. [Applause] [Music] Can you find Romans 8:11? Whoo. Oh, you ought to get happy about this one here, man. I'm telling you, you better get happy about this. Romans 11. Found out the same, same, identical, the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead [Applause] lives on the inside of you. [Applause] For how long? Jesus said, "Forever." The same identical Spirit that raised Christ from the dead. [Music] This is the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead. He has "pit experience." That means no matter how bad things may get in your life, the Holy Spirit says, "I can get you out of there. I'll tell you, if I raised Jesus from the dead, I can get you out of that situation." [Applause] Well, come on. He lives in you. He dwells on the inside of you. [Applause] The same Spirit. This must be a part of your confession of faith. Let's try this out. I said, "This must be a part of your confession of faith." The same identical Spirit that raised Christ from the lowest place and took Him to the highest place is the same Spirit. How many do you like to let Him loose? Say, "Come on, Holy Ghost, I'm going to let you loose right now." How about, "I have you boxed up too long. I'm going to let you loose right now." And Wigglesworth said, "The Holy Spirit." Thank God for the Holy Ghost. [Applause] The Holy Spirit. His assignment. Jesus tells you what His assignment is. John 14, 15, 16. The Holy Spirit. His job. I like to say it this way. Let me throw this in real quickly. The Holy Spirit has a reputation for working with some real losers. [Applause] And making them champions. I said, "The Holy Spirit has a reputation of working with some real losers and making them champions." Don't look around any right now, but there's been some real losers that, come on now, that God said, "I believe I can work on this situation here." [Applause] I said, "Don't look around right now, but that's a real loser." [Applause] But when you made Jesus the Lord of your life, He made you a new creature in Christ. Old things passed away. Everything became new. He put a new heart in you, a new spirit in you. [Applause] Hallelujah. Hallelujah. My God. My God. The Holy Spirit's job. Thank God for the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit's job is to take everything Christ has done for us and translate that into personal victory. Without the help of the Holy Spirit, you can have a lot of theology and no personal victory. All right, let's try that again. I said, "Without the help of the Holy Spirit, you have a lot of theology." Come on. They're quoting the Bible all over Bourbon Street. Come on. Every bar you go into, they're quoting the Bible. Come on. Defeated in their life, controlled by sin and by Satan. But the moment the Holy Spirit gets involved, [Applause] you ain't gonna recognize yourself after you get filled with the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost. Come on. One of my favorite testimonies is Cassie Duplantis' sister, or it's one of my favorite testimonials. That's one of my favorite testimonies. She is something. She said she went to church to get filled with the Holy Ghost. Y'all heard her testimony. It's hilarious. So I know because I was raised in one of them kind of churches. So she went to church, she'd gotten saved. Jesse, I think, got saved. And so anyway, she went down to be filled with the Holy Ghost. She said, "I want everything. I want everything in the package Jesus paid for. I want all of it." So she went down there to get filled with the Holy Ghost. So they're fixing to pray for her, lay hands on her. She's down there. She said, "And people singing and praising." And she said, "Then I heard somebody screaming." And they're screaming, screaming, screaming. She went, "What is that?" She said, "Then I realized that was me." When you get filled with the Holy Ghost, you go, "Wow!" Come on. You might act in a way that people are not used to you acting. When you get filled with the Holy Ghost, you go, "Wow!" So the Holy Spirit's job is to take what Jesus has done for you and what He is doing for you and translate that into personal victory. Amen. Without the help of the Holy Spirit, something is lost in translation. My example is always this way. Did you hear about the, the priest? The priest that was living in a monastery, a monk, you know, trying to be holy. He's trying so hard to be holy and to please God. And one day he went down the basement and read the original manuscripts down in the archives. Got the original manuscripts. And they heard him scream out of the basement. He screamed, "Celibate!" All those years they've been living celibate. And the original translation says, "Celebrate." He was like, "I cannot believe it!" [Applause] "I've been living like this for 30 years!" [Applause] And the original manuscript said, "Celebrate." [Music] Come on. I look at a lot of believers and I'm like, "Something has been lost in translation here." But when you get filled with the Holy Ghost, come on. Thank you, Jesus. When you get filled with the Holy Ghost, come on. He's in you. The moment you confess Jesus as your Lord. But when you yield to Him, Smith Wigglesworth said, "He will think through your mind. He will speak through your lips, and He will magnify Jesus in a way that you never could without His help." Oh, that's the Holy Ghost. [Applause] [Music] Glory to God. So Colossians 3:10 says it this way: "Put on the new man." Put on the new man. He didn't tell you to make him. You're already a new creature in Christ. He just said, "Dress yourself up." That means change the way you think. "Put on the new man, who is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created him." You see that image in Christ. So He says, "Put on the new man, who's renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created it." In other words, when you take these scriptures on who you are in Christ, go over the scriptures and feed your faith. Meditate on them. Amen. I call this having a wasabi moment. How many all can remember the first time you had wasabi? All right. I remember because I'm from Texas. So they warned me about the wasabi. They said, "The green stuff, I'm warning you, don't get too much of that." I'm from Texas. I said, "I'm not scared of the green stuff. I eat jalapeno peppers, so I'm not afraid of some green stuff." So they brought me my sushi and stuff like that, and then I had a little thing with a little bit of green stuff, a little soy sauce in there. They said, "I'm telling you, watch out for that." And I said, "No, I'm getting a double dose just because you said that." I put that in my mouth, and in about three seconds, [Music] wasabi went to my brain. I don't know how it knows where to go, but it went straight to my brain. When it went to my brain, I thought my head was going to blow up. I mean, I just felt like, I'm like, "Call 9-1-1. Something, somebody help me. My head's exploding here." Wasabi. All right, now listen. As a young man, we were studying Ephesians 2:4 through 6, "But God, rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ, raised us up with Christ." I was meditating on that, and I, I saw it. I mean, oh, and I had a wasabi moment. Whoa! Whoa! You know what I mean? In other words, I wasn't just getting information, I was getting revelation. I'm like, "Well, I was made alive together with Christ, seated with Him." Wasabi, man. That's what hit me in the head. How many know revelation knowledge will hit you in the head, change the way you think, change your attitude? [Applause] The word is alive, made alive. I was probably 17 years old when that happened. Anybody want to tell me the first thing I did? I went, I started laughing. And today, when I let people say, "You laughing at me?" No, no. I'm laughing at that right there, because that's a spiritual reality, not just theology. So now you see, and as you get this knowledge and feed on the Word, the Word has this power.
Last thing. Hebrews 4:14. Now hold fast. All right, all right. Hold fast to your confession of faith. Hebrews 4:14. Hold fast. Don't turn loose of it. Actually, it means to fasten yourself. Come on. Fasten. You got like a snap, or you got a button. But if you got a jet, you have rivets. The rivets become very important because they keep that fastened together. [Applause] So your confession of faith fastens you to your identification with Christ. In other words, your identification with Christ requires you and I to say the same identical thing. In other words, confession means to say the same thing, or to agree with. So what's your confession of faith? Your initial confession of faith is that Jesus is Lord. He is Lord. When you say that, let's try that again. I said, "When you say that, that registers in three places." Number one, it registers on your heart. What you say affects you. It registers on your heart. Jesus is my Lord, my Savior. You're saying sin cannot dominate me. Old habits cannot dominate me. Now listen close. This sounds unusual, but I'll listen to one of Dad Hagin's old messages on confession, and here's what he said. He said, "I love him." He said, "Even if failure is walking naked in front of you, you hold fast to your confession of faith." Now, that's got to be something ugly. So if ugly failure is walking naked in front of you, instead of you saying, "I'm just a failure. I can't do anything right," you go, "Hold it. I'm going to say, 'I'm a new creature in Christ. Jesus is my Lord. I'm washed in the blood.'" In other words, I fasten myself to Christ with my confession. I don't want to keep agreeing with what's happening on the outside. So when Paul says, "Hold fast," it says "profession," same word as "confession." My confession of faith, Jesus is Lord. It is this confession that brings you personally into agreement. Or you can say it this way: "Jesus did that for every man 2,000 years ago, but it became a reality in your life." Come on. Let's try this out. I said, "Jesus did that for everybody 2,000 years ago, yes, but it became a reality at your house and in your life the moment you agreed with it and confessed Jesus is my Lord." I believe in my heart God raised Him from the dead. And He says, "That confession precedes the experience of salvation." So no matter how you're feeling or how things look, instead of asking people how they're feeling, ask them, "What's your confession?" All right, let's try it again. Come on. We ask people how they're feeling all the time. Now, I'm feeling well. You don't even have to ask some people. Just look at them. You know it ain't good. So, so instead of asking people how they're feeling all the time, you don't need a word of knowledge just to tell somehow people. But in, instead of asking people that, Christianity is called the great confession, and faith confessions create reality. Amen. Amen. That's right. All right, let's try it again. It's the confession that precedes the possession. Boy, I said, "It's a confession that precedes the possession of it." So he said, "Well, as soon as I feel saved, I'm going to say I'm saved." Well, you never get saved. In other words, you've got to confess Jesus is my Lord, and I am saved, and that precedes the possession. All right, listen close. Somebody said, "Well, I see that in the scripture that I'm identified with Christ, but it doesn't seem real to me." Listen, growth. It is faith confession that makes it real to you with the help of the Holy Spirit. Yes, sir. The indwelling Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of reality, producing in your experience everything God did for you in Christ. One time, years ago, Trent and I practiced, you know, a lot of a lot of giving because we believe the Bible's true about that, and we've proven it. It's, it's doing really good. The Word actually works. So the devil said to me one time, he said, "What are you going to do if all that giving don't work?" I was like, "Ain't going to be pretty. I can tell you that." How many you ever had a little doubt? I may have had a little fear. I went in the superchurch here. So let me have a little doubt come to your mind. All right. Uh, "What you gonna do if all that tithe and stuff don't work for you?" Come on. "What are you gonna do about that giving don't work for you?" Then I'm like, "Ah." And the Lord said to me, "Ask the devil what he's gonna do when it *does* work for you." Are y'all still here? Instead of him asking you what you're gonna do, you ask him, "What you gonna do, devil, when you see the result of the Word working mightily?" Stand up on your feet. Praise the Lord. Come on. Lift your voice and thank God. Thank You, Father God. Thank You for the blood of Jesus. [Applause] The blood of Jesus. Everybody say this right now: "I boldly confess, Jesus is my Lord. I'm washed in His blood. I'm a new creature in Christ. I have a new identity." [Applause] "I was crucified with Christ. I died with Him. I was buried with Him. I've been made alive with Him. The same life, the very same life that's in Christ, is in me now. The same anointing, the same righteousness, the same authority, the same blessing. I'm a new creature in Christ Jesus. All things have passed away. Everything is new. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, He lives in me. He is the greater One. Greater is He that's in me than he that's in the world." Come on. Lift your hands and give the Lord a shout.