Transcription
[Music] Turn to your neighbor and ask what you have been thinking about lately. I knew you would laugh. This is the topic of our sermon today: what are you thinking about? Thank you. I will read you a story. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word and we approach it with reverence. We know that it will produce good fruit in our lives. This testimony was sent to our office by a woman before Christmas. I moved the potted fig tree upstairs to make room for the Christmas tree. On this little tree, at the very bottom, there was a small branch with a dozen leaves. It was not beautiful, in my opinion. This branch spoiled the whole look. In the morning, I woke up, looked at this little tree, and thought, "I need to cut off this bottom branch." Every time I walked past it, I thought, "This branch spoils the whole look, it needs to be trimmed." Then we moved this little tree back into the living room, and every time I walked past, similar thoughts came to me. This lasted for a month and a half. One morning, I walked past and noticed that all the leaves on the bottom branch had turned yellow. On the other branches, all the leaves were green. This struck me, and I told my husband about it. He looked at me and said, "I am very glad that you are thinking about me." That same day, I cut off that branch. I had a difficult relationship with my mother-in-law, and of course, I did not consider it my duty to treat her kindly and friendly. Nevertheless, I decided to conduct an experiment. Every time I thought about my mother-in-law, I decided to bless her. I decided not to think about her as before, but to bless her. She rarely called me and spoke to me reluctantly. In those five days, she called me three times. They were not long, but sufficiently warm conversations, a sign. Last year, she called me six times. Joyce, I ordered your sermon on the power of words, and now I pay close attention to what I think about people. This story wonderfully confirms that thoughts operate in the spiritual realm. You cannot see a thought, but I believe people can be influenced by our thoughts, just as we are influenced by our own thoughts. In this example, I agree with this woman. She believes, and I see no other explanation for what is happening, that she, with her negative thoughts, caused the leaves to turn yellow and fall off. Can this be proven scientifically or not, I don't know, but I know that with God, all things are possible. I think God visually showed her that she needs to overcome her negative thoughts. Often we think that our thoughts don't matter much; they are just thoughts, and no one knows what we are thinking. But first, God knows everything we think, and our thoughts affect us more than anything else. You have probably read Proverbs 23:7, "As he thinks in his heart, so is he." I have my own interpretation of this verse: a person goes where his thoughts lead him. It is very important what we think. But here's another problem: we think we can't do anything about our thoughts. "I can't do anything about my thoughts." I used to think, "I can't do anything about my thoughts." In the mornings, I would wake up, and my head would be full of all sorts of garbage and pessimistic thoughts. If I woke up thinking, "I am completely depressed," then for the rest of the day, depression tormented me. If I woke up and thought, "I am in a bad mood today," then the whole day I was in a bad mood. And I thought that I couldn't change anything. You all probably want to overcome your problems. By the way, this is exactly why Jesus died for you. Yes, so that you could go to heaven, so that your sins could be forgiven, so that you could have a good relationship with God, but also so that you could have a joyful life, a life of abundance. It is impossible to have a bunch of unwanted thoughts in your head and still rejoice in life, because our thoughts affect our attitude towards everything. And your relationships, and mine too, they affect our work, whether we will be promoted or not. They affect whether you have friends and whether they will stay with you. Your relationships affect your joy and your peace. So, you can help yourself with your thoughts or harm yourself. You need to pay close attention to what you think, and also learn to filter your thoughts. I often tell people to intentionally think about something from time to time. For example, intentionally meditate on what will bring you blessings. You can think, "I am a creative person, I bring blessings wherever I go. God transforms me day by day. My past cannot harm me. God's mercy to me is renewed every day. I am not obligated to live with guilt." You must take God's word and use it as a weapon. Let's open 2 Corinthians, chapter ten, verses four and five. We will start here. I will read several scriptures today and I want you to read them with me. I am sure much of what you will see will change your life. 2 Corinthians ten, 4-5: "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds." Let's stop here. I will explain something to you. From this, it is clear that we are at war. We have weapons. Who understands that it is good to have weapons in war? So, we are at war. We are at war against evil, against the devil and evil spirits. The battlefield, as you will learn from the following verses, is our mind. But if the devil can occupy your thoughts, he can control your life. So, the mind is the battlefield. We are at war, but thank God, we have weapons. The devil builds strongholds in our minds. Strongholds in war are like fortresses where the enemy is entrenched. You may have good thoughts prevailing, but imagine you have, for example, a dozen strongholds. Let's say one of these strongholds, I'll take my case, because my father molested me as a child, the devil managed to build a stronghold in me that I am a second-class person. So, no matter how good a plan God prepared for me, it could not be realized in my life, because I considered myself a second-class person. But when I learned from God's word that this was a lie, then I began to meditate a lot on the true state of affairs. After some time, my thinking began to change. I started to think, "I am not obligated to be a second-class person. I am a new creation in Christ, and what was before Christ cannot affect my life. I can be happy. God gives me grace to do many good things." But as long as I had this stronghold, as long as the devil managed to control my thoughts in this area, I was deceived. Because if you believe a lie, you are deceived. If you believe a lie, it becomes reality for you. I will even venture to say, I don't want to accuse anyone, but there are few people among you, if any, who do not believe the devil's lies, even in one or two areas. "It's too late for me. No one will love me. I will never have my own home. I will never have a new car. I will always have to drive a used one. I will probably have the same illness as my mother," and so on. We process hundreds of thousands of thoughts daily. Verse 5: "Through him, that is, through these weapons that we have, we say, we..." God has given us work. Through them, we overthrow arguments, assumptions, proofs. The devil throws his arguments at your mind and argues with you. Assumptions, attempts to figure everything out, conclusions, attempts to deduce everything, and every pride and high-mindedness that rises against the true knowledge of God. And we say, "We capture every thought, every scheme, in obedience to Christ." In general, this says that we must learn to think as God thinks. Everything that is consistent with God's thoughts, we say, "We must reject." Say, "I will not think about this nonsense." Start thinking about what is consistent with God's word. Give glory to God. I will tell you directly, if your thoughts are like wild animals that cannot be held in place, and for many years you have had wrong thoughts, then it will take time, God's help, and persistence. But if you do not do this, you will not enter the life that Jesus has prepared for you. You can think about all sorts of nonsense, and it won't prevent you from going to heaven, but in that case, you will never be able to enjoy life, and you will never have true success in anything. I think you want to live joyfully, have peace in your heart, want to prosper, want success, want good friends, want to have good relationships with God. But if you don't know how to think about yourself and your relationship with God, and if you have a wrong view of your relationship with God, then you will not be able to rejoice in God. You will constantly fear him. You will live with constant guilt because you do not understand the good that God has done for you. I will tell you honestly, it is vitally important for us to study God's word, to study it, not just to hear sermons from time to time. We need to study God's word, read God's word, hear God's word, read books with God's word, meditate on God's word, sing songs with lyrics from God's word. This is vitally important for us. But the devil diligently tries to destroy your destiny, convincing you that by listening to a 45-minute sermon on Sundays, you will be victorious. But this is not so. I can tell you with all certainty, and may this not offend you, you now have the opportunity to read and listen to God's word, and nothing is stopping you from achieving victory over the devil sooner or later. So, do not make excuses. Yes, it takes time, but Christians should not remain in slavery, except perhaps out of ignorance. You can get out of this slavery. You can achieve victory. You are not obligated to think. You have no idea what happened to me. If you knew what happened to me, you would understand why I cannot overcome it. It is too difficult. First of all, you need to stop thinking and speaking like that. The most terrible thing we can think is, "It's too hard." "It's too difficult." You know, we are given an anointing precisely for difficulties. God has anointed us for difficulties. We don't need God's strength to do something easy. We can do what other people cannot do, because we have a wonderful helper. But we could not do anything, we could not do anything if we did not believe that it was possible. The devil tirelessly seeks ways to build strongholds in our minds. To do this, he tells us lies day after day, again and again. If we start to believe these lies and meditate on them, they take root deeper and deeper. The devil is a liar, but he is very cunning. He doesn't just tell lies; he mixes a little truth with them, and then everything he says becomes a lie. He deceives us. We are deceived if we believe falsehood. We must act. It's amazing how many times I have found the word "act" in the Bible. Act this way, and you will more surely achieve truth than if you sit on a church pew and wait for someone to fulfill all your needs. I would like to achieve the victory that my pastor achieved, but the pastor did not limit himself to just wishing, and you will not get it just by wishing. So, it is time for us to wake up and accept that victory requires effort. God will help you, but he will not do everything for you. You can do nothing without him, and he will do nothing without you. Amen. So, we have weapons, which we have already talked about. With them, we can defeat the enemy. For example, if my house is full of weapons, and someone tries to break into my house, will I lie on the couch and think, "Oh, someone is making noise in the hallway, who could it be?" It would be very foolish not to take any action. If there was a baseball bat lying next to me, and some robber tried to break in, I would at least pick it up and swing it like crazy, trying to scare the enemy to death. Believe me, the devil is a robber, a thief, and a liar. He tries to kill everything good. He wants nothing more than to take away what Jesus gave us at the cost of his death. But I want you to leave here with a firm resolve to take what Jesus gave you, to die for you, and not to settle for the minimum, but to aim to receive the fullness of blessings that God has prepared for you. Do not stop halfway; go the whole way with God. I like what the Apostle Paul said: "I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has called me heavenward." I like that. He says, "I am determined to know him, to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has called me heavenward." We cannot kill the devil, choke him, tie him with a rope, put him in prison, but we can achieve victory over him. We have spiritual weapons for this. There is another realm, not the one we see, but just as real. It is a spiritual reality. As I said, our thoughts and our words influence this reality, and we must understand that we have spiritual weapons to fight our spiritual enemy. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. The enemy also acts through people who greatly irritate us. Have you noticed that sometimes you just can't avoid people who get on your nerves? If you avoid one, then two appear with you. Yes, it's better to put up with the first one. That's the point. I'll tell you a secret: perhaps the devil acts through their weaknesses, but God often does not remove them from the path because he uses these weaknesses to remove yours. How will we learn to love our enemies if we avoid them? How will we learn to forgive? And if no one has offended us? But that's a separate topic, we don't have time for it now. Let's talk about our weapons. Our first weapon is God's word, and you need to understand that there is nothing stronger on earth than God's word, proclaimed by the lips of Christians. God's word is not just words; it is a sword, a double-edged sword. The devil fears it greatly. I will prove this to you. John 8:31-32: "If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." To abide in the word does not mean just attending church on Sundays and listening to sermons. To abide means to think about the word after church, to meditate on it, and to apply it in your life. Perhaps you will deepen your knowledge in this area, especially if you have problems there. You need to make sure that you have not only heard the word but have also begun to apply it in your life. This is what it means to abide. You don't need to tear up the scriptures. "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." We like this part, "Indeed, the truth shall make you free, and the truth shall make you free." Look, if you abide in my word, then you are my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. We need to align our words with our actions, that is, we need to believe, speak, and do. If we listen to the word but do not do it, there is no benefit in it. I think you won't always succeed, but you must strive for it and say every morning: "God, I love you with all my heart. I spend time with God. I am here to serve you. You sit on the throne of my heart, and I cannot do your will in my life without you, so that I may glorify your name." If you live a very long life, and you are the oldest person on earth, if you are 100 years old or more, it is still nothing compared to eternity. We must think more about eternity. And when we complete our earthly journey, we will go to live in another place. When I get to heaven, I don't want to start in the sandbox. I want to have at least a higher education. I don't want to be in kindergarten in the kingdom of heaven. I want to preach with Moses, or Abraham, and Jesus. I want to attend an amazing conference there. Hebrews 4:12 says, "For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." God's word will operate on you. You know that there is a war now, operations. I use God's word to cut something out of you. It is a powerful tool; it is sharp and can cut well. It divides spirit and soul. It's like separating bone marrow from bone. Where am I? Where is God? Where is the devil? Where is my flesh? Where is my spirit? God's word can divide all this. I am so grateful for all the years God has taught me this, and I do not regret the time I have dedicated to studying God's word. It is so hard to wake up in the mornings. I get up, still half asleep. Then go to bed earlier, but I had to finish my soap opera, finish something else, I don't know, all these programs, news, and facts. I'm tired of news and facts. I want fairy tales. I would like more Cinderella stories and the like. News, facts, comments, shows. I don't care who is arguing at home and why. What difference does it make? So, in chapter 4 of the Gospel of Luke, I want to go through the first 14 verses. So, you need to concentrate. "And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil." So, the devil prepared to attack Jesus. Here's the first thing I want to draw your attention to: Jesus followed the Holy Spirit before the devil began to attack him. The Holy Spirit did not help Jesus avoid this trial, but helped him to face it head-on. And I thought God loved me. Look further: Jesus began his public ministry only after he had gone through all these trials. Remember King David. He was anointed king 20 years before he was crowned. And you know, he would not have been crowned if he had not entered into a duel with Goliath. Most people do not fight their Goliaths. Thanks to the difficulties that God allows in our lives and through which we pass, we grow strong spiritual muscles of faith, so that we gain experience, know God, and that God saves, so that we reach a level where we no longer have anything to fear, because we have already gone through enough with God. And before the battle begins, we know that we will emerge victorious. God gives us strength and help so that we can train our minds, that is, renew our minds according to God's word. By doing this, we can rejoice in every day of our lives. We must learn to think as God thinks. [Music] The Bible says that we are more than conquerors. I think this means that we have already received victory even before we fought. So, you don't need to be afraid anymore. But we are afraid. We are afraid of everything. We are afraid that God will not answer our prayers. We are afraid of this, afraid of that, afraid, afraid. But the deeper your relationship with God, the less fear you experience. 1 John chapter 4 says that perfect love from God, which we know, casts out fear, because in fear there is torment, and God does not want us to be tormented. So, Jesus followed the Holy Spirit when the devil confronted him. And I always say that the devil will attack you in two cases: if you are doing something right, and if you are doing something wrong. And do not try to find the roots of the devil's attacks. It is better to aim to pass the trial. "He ate nothing in those days, and when they were ended, he was hungry." Before we go further, I ask you to note that the devil did not begin his attacks until Jesus wanted to eat. Jesus was very tired and weak. That's why for the last few years I have been trying to convince people of the need to take care of their bodies. Sometimes we think that only the spiritual is important, and the rest is not. But this is not so. God gave us a body and a soul. We have a mind, we have emotions. We must take care of ourselves, because if we are weak in one area, then that is where the devil's attacks will begin. If you are constantly tired, it will be very difficult for you to show love. If you are constantly weary, weak, exhausted, and want to sleep, then you will not want to pray. It will be difficult for you to hear God. And when the devil confronts you, you will not be able to resist him in your thoughts, because due to extreme fatigue, you will not have the energy for it. So, some of you may do yourselves a great service. Seriously, you have no idea how your life can change if you dedicate just one year to restoring your health. Get enough sleep, drink water, exercise, acquire good healthy habits. "The devil is already tormenting me, don't tell me about it." Who among you understands that it is all interconnected? I will tell you honestly, when I decided to follow this, I felt so bad that I could barely move my legs. I lived in constant stress from overwork and lack of sleep, and I thought I was doing it all in Jesus' name. I will tell you that you cannot break his rule in Jesus' name. Even if you think you are doing it for God, you will still get the same results. I will be 69 in June. I feel better than I have in my entire life. I travel better and handle trips better than many of my younger employees. I will tell you honestly, if you want God to act through you and in you, then you must put an end to feeling unwell and tired, because the devil is just waiting for that. I'm right, when you're tired, it becomes harder to pray or do anything else. And what is our only desire? "Oh God, heal me." And God thinks, "Yes, you need to go and get some sleep." [Applause] "You need to stop eating a pound and a half of sugar a week." You might think, "I didn't come here for this. I have real problems." And sister, I have more significant problems. I want to say that it is all interconnected, it is all inseparable. I can even say that God is global. This word is often used now. God is all-encompassing. He wants us to be well in health, soul, and spirit. He wants your will and emotions to be in order. He wants you to have good relationships with people, abundant finances, reliable friends, and excellent well-being. Of course, God does not want you to just barely survive day by day, from morning to night, saying, "Oh God, I am so tired of everything, so exhausted, so exhausted, it's so hard for me, I can't wait for you, Jesus, to come and take me to heaven." [Music] I think he was tired. He fasted for 40 days and was in the wilderness. Everything was different there. You said to him, the devil, verse 3. You need to understand that he was waiting for this. I will say honestly, I had to learn to rest properly after conferences, because have you thought about it or not, but it is hard work, and it is not just travel, changing places and time zones. There is a 2-hour difference between us, so when it is nine o'clock for you, my body thinks it is already eleven o'clock. I go to bed around half past eight, so I have already missed my bedtime. I will say that this happens very often. I get tired emotionally too, but I have learned to control myself. I no longer give myself slack in this. Before, it often happened that after returning from a conference, I would get angry at Dave because he wanted to play golf, while I stayed home after such sermons, feeling sorry for myself. "He doesn't care about me, he went to play golf." I no longer do such foolish things. I don't give the devil an ounce of my time and strength. [Applause] You know what I had to learn. I wouldn't say I like doing it very much. After a busy weekend, I want to go somewhere, but often I have to stay home on Sunday, even if Dave goes somewhere. Which is very good. I stay home, resting in silence, playing with my dog, and by Monday morning I am ready for battle again. If I don't take care of myself, the devil will win, and I don't want that. Look, at the most difficult time for Jesus, in the wilderness, at the end of the fast, the devil said to him, "I like this. If you are the Son of God, first of all, question his identity. Who do you think you are? If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. Just prove who you are." You know that you will not be free as long as you are proving who you are. We are not free as long as...
We need to prove something. Jesus said to him in response, "It is written." In every case, Jesus answers with the word of God. "It is written that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." That is, Jesus was saying, "Yes, I am hungry, but I can do without bread if necessary. But I cannot do without the word of God." And taking him up to a high mountain, the devil showed him all the kingdoms of the universe. "Do not believe me for years," he said to him. And the devil said to him, "To you I will give authority over all seven kingdoms and their glory, magnificence, luxury, superiority, beauty, for it has been handed over to us, and who gave it to the devil? Adam. Read the first chapters of Genesis and you will see that God gave Adam authority over everything, and he transferred this authority to the devil when he disobeyed God. But Jesus came, took this authority from the devil, and wants to give it to us. God wants to give it to us, but we will not take it if we lie on the couch all day, eat donuts, and watch soap operas. We are at war. It's time to get our weapons. Get up in the morning and proclaim, even if you are in pajamas, but say aloud: "I am righteous in God in Christ. I have authority over the enemy, and he cannot spoil this day for me." And so the devil showed Jesus all this: "Look at all this. I can give it to you. It's all mine. I can give it all to you. Verse 7: So if you bow down to me just once, never believe the words, just once. It's a lie. What the devil wanted was if you allowed just one compromise, if you didn't wait for it from God, then I can give it to you right now." The devil told Jesus that he would give him power. He had power over people. "I will give you power." You know, a thought came to me: Jesus could have taken the natural power that the devil offered him then, but by doing so, he would have lost power over the devil himself. It's amazing how often we compromise to get what God can't yet give us. Understand this, but do not be tempted by what the time has not yet come for. Wait until God gives it to you. If you have to sin to get it, then you don't need it. We should not compromise for it. It is better for you to give something up immediately than to consciously yield to the devil and lose everything. Jesus said to him in response, "Away from me, Satan." We also need to say this sometimes. If you feel devilish attacks on your mind, say: "Be silent! Be silent! You are lying! Away from me! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'" And he led him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, "If you are the Son of God..." Think about how hard it was for him, because Jesus was fully God, but also fully human. As a human, he experienced everything we experience. And so Jesus was tired and hungry. The devil cornered him and threw all these thoughts into his head. Of God's nature, Jesus could easily have performed the miracle he wanted, and the devil tried to force him to get what was not God's will. God wanted to lead him through temptation as a simple human and prove to us that we too can stand in temptation if we say, "It is written, it is written." We must believe God's word more than anything else. Let this be your new reality. Now I want to talk about this verse where the devil says to Jesus, "I will give you all this. I will give you money. I will give you strength, and I will give you power. I will give you all the kingdoms of the world." I think it's good to stop here and say that we need to be very careful with such promises. Today, we have more opportunities than ever before in history. It's incredible what we have. You might think that you have very little, but here's what I'll tell you: I once remembered when I was a teenager, my closet was the size of this podium, maybe like this and like this. I had seven outfits. I wore blue on Monday, yellow on Tuesday, and green on Wednesday. As I recall, I had two pairs of shoes, one handbag, and it's just ridiculous compared to what I have now. Sometimes I don't even know what to wear because I have quite a large selection. This evening I changed clothes twice. I think God wants to bless us with what I'm talking about now. Surely he wants you to have good things, yes, he wants that. But we need to be very careful not to compromise our honor for the sake of things. If you have to cheat to keep a job where there's an opportunity to earn well, then you don't need such a job. It's better to earn less but remain righteous before God. I will tell you that there are many wonderful passages that speak about being wary of greed and not clinging to money. I'll tell you what happened to me last week. It's not about things, but sometimes we want something very much, and when we see that someone else has it, it becomes especially difficult for us. But we must trust God. If he wants to give it to us, then of course he will. And you also need to rejoice for the person who has it. Last week I received a magazine, on the cover of which was a photo of a preacher whom I know and respect very much. But this same magazine refused to write an article about me. When I saw this, the devil immediately began to tempt me to envy. But immediately I said, "No, I am happy for this preacher." I said it aloud, and at that moment I was in the kitchen and said aloud: "God, if you wanted to put an article about me in this magazine, you would have put it. If you don't want this, then I don't want it either." You can answer the devil like this. I'm telling you this because the devil attacks all people, absolutely everyone. You will never be so spiritual that the devil doesn't try to deceive you. You can't be so spiritual that the enemy doesn't try to hurt your feelings. A couple of weeks ago, a curious story happened to me, and now I'm writing a book that will be released next fall. I won't talk about it now, but as always, I'm getting ahead of myself. Are you excited about my new book? So, I was working on the chapter about the root of rejection and how we can be freed from the pain of rejection. I went into a store, and a woman recognized me there. She ran out from behind the counter and said, "I can't believe you came into this store. Can I hug you?" She almost suffocated me in her embrace. So we hugged. Remember, I'm working on a book about rejection, and she said to me, "I don't care what others say, I think you are wonderful." And here's what happens: if you are a spiritually mature person, twenty years ago I would have listened carefully to who said what about me, what they said about me, then I would have tried hard to justify myself. I think it's just ridiculous because now I already know who I am in Christ. Of course, I want everyone to love me. Don't you know why I'm not worried about it? I know that won't happen, and that's not my problem. If you don't like me, that's your problem, not mine. God created me. That's why I say that everyone has a chance. Each of us has strongholds in our heads with some nonsense, and it's not just you, but everyone. And each of you has a weapon, and you can destroy those strongholds that the devil tries to build in your mind. The first weapon you should constantly use is God's word. Well, let's read the passage from the Gospel of Luke to the end, because it's important. Verse 12: Jesus answered him, "It is written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" And when the devil had finished all the temptation, it's interesting. Sometimes temptation comes in portions. For example, you are going through difficult times now and think, "When will this finally end?" Sometimes it's in portions. And you know what you need to say to yourself when it ends? "But this must also end. It won't be like this forever." Then the devil left him for a while, waiting for a more favorable time. And despite the fact that Jesus went through all these trials, the devil said, "Okay, I'm tired, but I'll watch you and wait for the right moment." The Bible says, "Be watchful, keep alert, and pray." This doesn't mean watch other people and judge their actions. You watch yourself and your weaknesses. See what the enemy is about to do, and pray. The second weapon, on the one hand, also concerns God's word, but in a slightly different way. It is praise and worship. When I say this, I don't mean the praise that we had today, although it was just wonderful, just beautiful. I am grateful that we have such wonderful singers and musicians whom God has given the opportunity to travel with us to conferences. It raises praise to a higher level. But I am sure that we need to praise and worship God even when no one may see us. God is not looking for people who can sing a few songs on Sunday morning. God is looking for worshippers who will worship him. Worship is a lifestyle. It is expressed in actions, in reflecting on what God has done, in praising his goodness, mercy, and power. Talk more and more about what he has done in your life, not about what the devil has done. This means talking to God and about God. It can be expressed through our bodies in clapping, jumping, dancing, raising hands, bowing, in reverence. Some people will find it easier and freer, and if their worship is more, then I don't want that. Go to bed earlier. I will read you a passage. I read these verses last week, I had them written down, but I skipped them. It's Deuteronomy, chapter 28, verses 47 and 48. I will show you the power of joy. Yes, you will say, "But I don't feel joy." Experience it. Make a decision to rejoice. Deuteronomy 28:47-48: "Because you did not serve the Lord your God with gladness and joy of heart, in thankfulness for the abundance of all that God has blessed you with, you will serve your enemy." And yes, because you did not serve the Lord your God with gladness and joy of heart. We must maintain joy in our minds. We must have joyful thoughts. Think about your blessings and how to bless someone, how good God is, and what it means to be his child. We need to think and talk about this more often than we do. It is said that if you do not do this, you will serve your enemy. Many say, "I don't know what God wants from me. I don't know God's will or calling in my life. I don't know what to do." Psalm 99 says, "Serve the Lord with gladness." If you just rejoice, then God will rejoice. If you smile, then God will smile. You don't have to do anything grand, just be a happy person, a happy Christian. The light within you shines so brightly, and you will constantly be a blessing to someone. You could react to this better. God gives us strength and help so that we can train our minds, that is, renew our thinking in accordance with God's word, and by doing so, we can rejoice in every day of our lives. We must learn to think as God thinks.