Awakened Conference 2023: Friday Morning

As the worship started, as I don't know your name but you put your hands on the keys, I just wept. Because all I have is a hallelujah. And you know, I was saved in 1975, going to be 48 years in September. And I feel like every time I come into the presence of the Lord, I feel like a virgin. I feel like it's my first time.

I don't understand when people come into God's presence and it's just another meeting. I don't get it. I don't get it. I don't get it. When the hands are in the pocket, when they should be lifted up.

I don't get it. When the mouth is silent and you're worrying about what you're going to make for dinner. I don't get it. I don't get it. The honor that the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords would want to have fellowship with you and me, you know, he invaded my life.

I was in a hotel room living with my boyfriend, stoned out of my mind. Smuggled in $3,000 worth of coke into Mexico. And as I was cursing God out in my drug filled rage, this holy God knew my name.

And it wasn't external, it was internal. He said, maria, give me your life before it's too late. And I believe that every day the Holy Spirit challenges us. Give him your life. Give him your life.

Because there's always an opportunity for the enemy to want to take the life, even the life that Christ has given us. And he wants to lead us down a dark path. But we thank God for the blood of Jesus as it was sung today. That keeps us on the right road, that keeps us walking with him. I was thinking the other day, really two weeks ago, I had like a ton of notes on my, on my desk.

And I was like, God, you have to help me. And whatever God ends up giving me, those notes are basically rewritten because they are to fit that particular, you know, time and for the people. Because God loves you. And so I see a ton of notes and I happen to glance in the office, in my house, and I felt the Holy Spirit say, maria, those notes. Don't ever be proud of those notes.

Don't ever think those notes are anything. Don't ever think that those notes are there so you could show off how much you know. He says those notes were given to you so that you could translate into the people a message that could change their lives. And that's all I want. So, Father, I come before you, Lord, and I declare before heaven and earth.

I'm nothing. I'm dust, Lord. But you are everything. You are everything, Lord. And I pray you, speak to me and through me and to your precious people.

None of them are in this room this morning by accident. Our steps are ordered by God. Open the ears of our spirit that we might hear what the Spirit is saying. What the Spirit is saying. Not a mere mortal.

What the Spirit is saying. And we give you and only you a hallelujah. Amen. Amen. I entitled this ignite.

Or are you ignitable? However you want to take it. But Matthew 3:11b says this. He. He will.

This is a promise. He will baptize you and me with the Holy Spirit and fire. The Holy Spirit and fire. He will baptize. He will immerse, he will submerge.

He will saturate you and me with the Holy Spirit and fire. And that's the Dynamic Duo. It is better than Batman and Robin. That is the two trademarks of every single believer. It's.

It's the Holy Spirit, which equals the power and the fire, which equals the passion to use the power. Right? The manifestations might be different. Some of you speak in tongues. Some of you don't.

Some prophesy, some don't. Some have the gift of discernment, some don't. Some have the gift of administration. Some. Some don't.

Some have the gift of hospitality, some don't. Some have the gift to teach the word, some don't. But you and I will be baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire. However that looks like in our lives. And the.

The passion is just as important as the power. Because the Holy Spirit without the fire is like having a marriage without a spark. Right? It's dull and dutiful and it's going through the motions. There's no spontaneity.

Remember when you first got saved? What did people say about you? She's on fire. He's on fire. I mean, you witnessed to everyone something ignited in your life.

The Holy Spirit. When you receive Christ in your life, you are immersed with him. He comes to live inside of you. And then there's this. This igniting of this fire.

And you can't help yourself. I remember one time I was in a supermarket, I was shopping and somebody asked me, where was the ketchup? I said, the ketchup. Do you know what color the ketchup is? The ketchup is red.

You know what else is red? The blood of Jesus is red. Red. And the woman is just, you know, we are out of control. Listen, I was in the.

In my OB gyn. I was on that table.

And she asked me, how many partners have I had? And I said, one. And she went, really?

I said, yes. She said, how did you do that? I gave her my whole testimony. She kept saying. I mean, behind the veil, you know, there was just, you know, there is that fire of God.

But something happens to many of us. We cool off. We're not as demonstrative as we used to be. We become a little more deep, dignified. We become a little more, you know, reserved.

We're not backslidden. We still love the Lord. But somehow devotion turns to duty and passion turns into passivity. What happened to you? You didn't lose the power.

The Holy Spirit is in you. He says, I'll never leave you, never forsake you. But we lose our passion to use the power. Somehow your fire died down. And there's a lot of reasons why our fire dies down.

Number one is disappointment. We walk with the Lord and we have these expectations, and they're not fulfilled. So life happens. Heartache happens, right? In this world, you will have trouble.

Don't lose heart. Don't lose your passion. For I've overcome the world. Listen, John the Baptist, who was in prison, who was at the scene when he baptized Jesus. He saw the dove descend upon his head.

He heard the voice that said, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. But John the Baptist knew the Scriptures. Now he's arrested. Now he's in jail. And he knows about the Messiah who has come to set the captive free.

So John the Baptist is a little confused. Now disappointment has happened. His fire has died down. So he sends his disciples to go and ask Jesus, are you really the one, or should we look for another? See, when disappointment happens in our life, we start to question.

We start to question God. And our fire seems to go down. Discouragement, right? There are people in the body of Christ. They think that God called them to be fire extinguishers.

And they kind of tell you to, you know. You're a little too excited. No, no. We were called to be spiritual pyromaniacs. How about disobedience?

Known sin? In our life, we have sin. We're all sinners. We all fall short of the glory of God. But I am talking about repeated known sin.

And the Holy Spirit is putting his finger on something in our life. Maybe some habit, maybe some addiction, maybe some attitude he's putting his finger on. And what happens is when we don't obey, our fire starts to Go down. How about this? All work, no worship.

Being overwhelmed with the work of the Lord and we lose sight of the. Of the Lord, of the house, right? But the most common reason why our fire goes out is plain old neglect, right? William Booth said the nature of a fire is to go out, feed the fire, the fire has to be fed, right? We hear things like, spend time with the Lord, read your word, put on worship music, you know, make that extra time.

But somehow that sounds like white noise to us. It sounds like just like a bunch of rules and regulations. Nobody said no. You have to spend time with the Lord. You have to open your word every single day.

Not a little dab will do you. You know, a little devotional. I hate when ministers get up and say, you know, give him two minutes. What? Give him two minutes.

He owns you. He doesn't rent from you. Give him your life. Give him your life. Every moment we should be in tune with the Holy Spirit.

Every moment we should be on fire. Every moment we should say, we what? Say it. The Lord, what do you want from my life? In 60 AD, just 27 years after Pentecost, Paul has to send a wake up call to the church in Ephesus.

And he says this very familiar Wake up, O sleeper, and rise from the dead. Wake up, O sleeper. Thank God, a sleeper can wake up. We can wake up. Wake up, O sleeper.

Rise from your comatose state and God will shine on you. Be very careful how you live. Not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. So Paul here is speaking to believers and not non believers.

And he's saying, you could be a Christian and be asleep, you could be spiritually comatose. You could be a Christian and be unwise and not know what the Lord's will is. And then he goes on to say, do not get drunk on wine, which will ruin you. He's basically saying, stop getting drunk on earthly substitutes. Stop going to the world to, to get your high on.

Don't get drunk on wine. He says, instead, there's a choice. Be filled with the spirit. And that word means be continually filled. Keep on being filled.

Now what does that mean? What does being filled with the Holy Spirit mean? It means that you have the Holy Spirit and the fire of God inside of you. The word filled literally means be empowered by, be dominated by, be controlled by, be under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Remain spiritually intoxicated.

A drunk doesn't get Drunk by reading an advertisement for liquor, does he? A drunk gets drunk by drinking. And when a drunk is drunk, what happens? They walk different, they talk different, they see things differently, they think differently. So we need to be spiritually intoxicated all the time.

I don't need to explain to somebody. When people try to tell me you're a little od, I need to say to them, you need to be a little od. Don't try to put my fire out. I need you to be set on fire. Because believe me, we have an enemy that wants to come and try to just pour the water of life upon you that you would start to retreat where you would start to listen.

You can have the most beautiful car in the world, but if it's not filled with gas, that car is your useless right. You have to keep on filling up the tank with glass, with glass, with gas. D.L. moody, they asked him, why do you always speak about being filled with the Holy Spirit? He said, because we leak.

We leak. We leak from leaving church on Sunday to our car because our kids are annoying the life out of us. We leak. We have to keep on putting ourselves under the empowerment and submitting ourselves under the Holy Spirit. So fast forward 30 years.

This is in Ephesus. This is Revelation 2. 4. God speaking to the church at Ephesus. He says, you don't love me or each other as you did at first.

And then he says, you left your first love. Now, notice we usually say, you lost your first love, but it doesn't say you lost your first love. It says, you left your first love. You didn't lose it. The Holy Spirit still inside of you, but you neglected it.

Revelation 2. 4. In the passion translation, it says, I have this against you. You have abandoned the passionate love you had for me at the beginning. Your fire.

Right? When we see Valentine's Day, what do they have? Like little cupids and a bow. And fire. Because fire signifies love and passion.

I don't know if I told this story when I was here last year, but I was invited to a conference in Hawaii. Wonderful church. And what they do is because they have so many people, they have to do the conference Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, then they repeat the same conference Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Massive. Massive place.

So I was invited there a number of years ago. It was amazing. Great. The other speaker was amazing. And by all accounts, you would look at their worship sets.

I mean, it's just unbelievable. It's like going to Cirque du Soleil. It's just. It's just incredible. If.

If Another pastor visited from another church, they would think, wow, I really wish we could do something like that. So I'm invited back two years later and with another big name speaker. Believe me, I'm always like the smallest nobody. But the woman, Lisa Kai, the pastor at Inspire Church, she says to me, you know why I always have you back? You know why I do podcasts with you?

Because there's something about you that makes me want the Holy Spirit. She said, it makes me want to be on fire. So she. So the first night begins and it's just unbelievable. They had to extend the stage.

They had so many singers and they had, in the middle of the room, they had these ropes and they had like a swing. And one singer was singing to one end and one singer was singing to another. I'm telling you, it was just like incredible. This is Broadway on steroids. So Lisa Kai gets up and she's usually the first speaker and she says, I'm not speaking this week.

She said, the Holy Spirit has convicted me. She said, you know, in the beginning, when I started to do this 14 years ago, I was desperate for God, she said, and God came in just a beautiful way. And then she said, the second year, the same thing. She says, but then we learned how to do it. We don't ever want to learn how to do it.

Wouldn't you just rather have worship like this than a whole production, this over produced sermon or, or, or worship where you're restricted and the clock is going down because you know, the people, they, they, they have to get home or they might have to watch the football game or they might, that kind of thing. And she gets up and she says, the Holy Spirit showed me that. The last 12 years I left him dancing in the corner. She said, in the beginning I was dancing with the Holy Spirit. It was, he was my everything, she says, but I've left him, she says, and I am asking that the Holy Spirit would come back in this place.

I am telling you, the church, because people are desperate for the genuine. If they want Broadway, they can go to Broadway. What could compare to a moment in the presence of God? Honey, there's no store, there's no sale. There's no pair of shoes.

There's no compliment. There is nothing to be in his presence. In Romans 12:1, Paul, he paints a clear picture of what a life on fire looks like. And he says, I urge you, this is a 91 1. In the spirit, in view of God's mercy, in view of the fact you have been given what you don't deserve.

Offer your bodies. And anytime we see the word bodies in the Bible, it means body, soul and spirit. Offer your whole being, your entire life as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing. He says, this is your reasonable act of worship. Total commitment is our reasonable act.

So stop thinking you're all that with a bag of chips. You're not right. And then it's basically saying, a life for a life. A living sacrifice is simply a life on fire. It's a life that's totally dependent on him.

And now we know the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. So Paul, who's an expert in the law, he's speaking to these Jews that live in Rome and he starts talking about a living sacrifice. And every Jew worth his salt knew what a living sacrifice was. We as Gentiles might read that and think a living sacrifice is somebody that walks around with their head down, hunched over, beating ourselves, making ourselves less than. No, they automatically go to the book of Leviticus, which was written to, to the priest.

Now we are the priest. So symbolically, he's taking those words and he's turning them now into New Testament language and they go to the book of Leviticus. The book of Leviticus is the code for holiness. It is the sacred recipe book for how to worship. Right?

And, and, and he goes on to say in the Old. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm going to skip all of this. In the Old Testament, the living sacrifice was called the consumed or the burnt offering. So when you read about the burnt offering in Leviticus 5, it's speaking about us in terms, because now we're the sacrifice. See, it was easier in the Old Testament.

In the Old Testament, they brought a spotless animal. They, the priest came, they laid his hands on it, the animal took its guilt and it was led outside. But now we are the living sacrifice. Right? And let me just explain.

It was the oldest offering. The living sacrifice was the oldest offering, the burnt offering, the oldest offering. It was the most basic. It was a free will offering. It required fire.

It wasn't convenient, it was time consuming, and it had to be cooked through and through. You couldn't offer part of the offering. It had to be offered in its entirety from head to toe. Toe. So nothing we do in life should ever be half baked for God.

He says, in Hosea, Israel, my people, they're like a cake, half baked. Baked, not turned over. I had pancakes this morning. I can't imagine eating a pancake half baked. It would be useless.

So he's saying you need to be a living sacrifice. You are now the burnt offering. It's the most basic offering, head to toe, through and through, cooked all the way, in no place. That you have been redeemed by me is off limits to me. And Leviticus 6, it says this, the burnt offering.

So I want you to put your life as, as this offering. The burnt offering is to remain on the altar hearth throughout the night till morning of. And the fire must be kept burning. The fire must be kept burning. The fire on the altar must not go out.

Each morning the priest, you're the priest, are to add fire, firewood or fresh fire to the fire and arrange the burnt offering on it. The fire must be kept burning on the altar. It must not go out. Now in the Old Testament the altar was visible, it was external. But in the New Testament the altar is the altar of our hearts.

It's internal, it's in visible. But all God is asking for is a heart that would give him permission to consume us through and through. He's looking for a ready made furnace. He's not looking for perfection, he's looking for permission. Daily permission.

Can I come in and take away any of those things that don't belong in there? And the sacrifice had to be arranged in the line of fire. How many times we come to church and we are not arranged in the line of fire? Position matters. You don't want to be outside of the fire of God, right?

On the day of Pentecost, they were in one mind, one accord, in one place, right? And because they were in that place, they were in position. The Holy Spirit fell. And the Bible tells us in Leviticus that this burnt offering, it was an aroma pleasing to the Lord. And of course in second Corinthians it tells us we are the aroma of Christ.

So when the priest offered this sacrifice, this free will sacrifice morning and evening, it was like an SOS to God. It was like God, the, the nostrils of heaven opened up and God was, was hearing, you know they love me, they need me morning and evening. Every other offering the priest did was on behalf of someone else. But this burnt offering, this living sacrifice, it was for God and God alone. And it was the priest's time to commune with God where they would pour out all their affection on him.

They would pour out all their fears, all their failures, all their grievances, all their sin. And, and, and this private, intimate time stated that there had to be private conversation, private, private consecration before there could be public declaration. God wanted relationship, not duty. He didn't want me to get up and say, okay, Maria, now you have to go to church and now you have to meet with this one and that one. But see, in Israel's time, the very first thing to go was the burnt offering.

They kept their rules and regulations. And just like us, when we stop spending time with the Lord, when we stop having that intimate time with the Lord, we still perform our duties in church, we still show up, but we come like the, the bride that cooks and cleans, but never goes into the bedroom. I don't know about you, but for me, when I miss reading my Bible and I've done it, when you read a devotion and you're on the go, when I have to say something, I'm empty. Because there's something about reading the Word because the Word is living and active and it's sharper than any double edged sword. It's alive, it has energy.

And even if I read a chapter and just meditate on it, even though I may never speak about Hosea, there's something that's adding the fresh firewood to the altar of my heart and it burns and then other things just start to come to fruition. But when we don't add the fire firewood to the fire were empty.

I read this scripture, it's Genesis 29:20 new King James. It says so Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seem like only a few days to him because of the love he had for her. And this speaks about Christ and the bride, you know, the bride and the bridegroom. Love should be the foundation of everything we do. When love is the foundation, the task at hand is not too difficult.

But when our fire goes out, everything becomes drudgery, it becomes hard. Remember when Jacob met Rachel, when he, when he saw her, it was love at first sight. He gets the strength of 10 men and he removes that heavy stone that was blocking the well. Shepherds, if you're in this room and you're a shepherd or a leader, you cannot water your flocks without the stone being removed. Love drove him to remove the barrier so that the sheep could drink.

We must remove the stony places in our heart that keep the lid of our hearts covered and, and that prevents the waters, living waters, from coming forth. And Jacob's passion never died, even though he was under, under Laban, even though he suffered so many disappointments, even though he was in the school of hard knocks. It didn't matter. Why didn't it die? Because he never took his eyes off of Rachel.

We cannot take our eyes off of Jesus, no matter what comes our way. The because Jesus gives us when we are in love with him, we have all the strength in the world to go beyond our natural capacity. Tommy Tenney said, if you want the fire of God, we must become the fuel of God. Samuel Chadwick said, the soul's safety is in the heat. Destitute of the fire of God, nothing else counts.

Possessing the fire of God, nothing else matters. John Wesley, he's the founder of the Methodist Church. He says, my fear is not that our great movement will eventually cease to exist or one day die from the earth. My fear is that people will become content to live without the fire, the power, the supernatural element that makes us great. Using the symbolism of fire and this burnt offering, there were regulations.

So this is what our life of worship should look like. They had to take a live lamb. There were no dead sacrifice. It had to be unblemished outwardly. Now, I know we're all blemished, but this is saying that your public life matters.

How you act with your neighbors matter. I've given that tree testimony. I don't know if you've ever heard it. Years ago, I was with my granddaughter. She's 22 now, but she was 11.

And I went around the corner to mail a letter with her. And I said hi to the new neighbor. And he said, I said, hi, I'm your neighbor. And I pointed, I'm like diagonally across from him. And he says, oh, you're the one with the tree.

I said, oh, yes. I said, I had a huge pine tree. It was like 60ft high. High. And the arms of this tree was not only in my yard, it was in my neighbor's yard, in the diagonal neighbor's yard and the backyard right in back of mine.

So he says, yes, he's. I says, is my tree bothering you? He says, well, yes. He said, all those pine needles. He said, I spoke to your neighbor next door.

Now, my neighbor next door has been my neighbor for 30 something years. He never said a word to me. He, he said, but we said, if you ever take. Need to take it down, which we would appreciate, would you, we would help pay for it. And I said, no, no, it's my, it's my tree, it's my problem.

So I said, well, Marissa, we're going to have to take that tree down. He was like, nana, who does he think he is, you know, like he just moved into the neighborhood, like you've been there for 30 something years. That is your tree, Nana. And I said, no, Romans 12:18 says, as long as it's possible with you, we're to live at peace with all men. So I go home and I tell my husband, listen, we have to take our tree down.

And he said, agreed. So we call the tree guy the next day. And you know, I'm really praying that the guy's not available because I don't really want to take the tree down. I just want to, you know, God, you, you know, as long it's possible. I don't know if it's possible, you know.

And of course, as luck would have it, the guy says, oh yeah, we're in the neighborhood, we'll come right now.

So, you know, we have little backyards in New York. And I'm on my second floor and I'm watching him take the tree down. He's taking the tree down. And I am telling you, my backyard looked like a little girl that had no clothes on. It was just a naked, pathetic.

Now I'm seeing everything I've never seen. We have a park diagonally across. I see the kid in the corner picking his nose. I'm like, we're just totally exposed. So I'm just dying.

And I just kept saying, God, I'm doing this for you. I'm doing this for you. The next day was church. And then Monday, Penny and I, we leave to go to Texas. And I'm taking pictures of trees.

And the, you know, pastor said to me, what are you doing? And I said, well. And I give him my whole story of woe. And you know, look at me, I'm such a great Christian. So Thursday comes and I have a voicemail from my daughter in law and she says, mom, you have to call me.

It's an emergency. Well, New York had a tornado, and New York does not ever get tornadoes. And the trees were literally ripped out of the ground and they were everywhere. And the gardener said to us, had you not taken that tree down, you wouldn't have a house here. I'm thinking, I'm doing something for God, but God was doing something for me.

And listen, delayed obedience is disobedience. As long as it's possible with you, you are to obey it. Stop fighting your neighbor. I don't know who's here. You're fighting your neighbor.

You're looking at the lines of demarcation. God will use you to win your neighbor to Christ. What's better than that than a few feet of property or a tree? The next year, I walk around the corner to mail a letter and I see the guy and I said, hi, remember me? The one with the tree?

He said, oh, yes, thank you. I said, well, let me tell you why I took it down. I says, the Bible says I was able to witness to him. All of a sudden, his wife comes out and she says, now I know who you are. Because we all have, like, little balconies, like, on the second floor.

Tiny little thing. So of course, now she goes out on the balcony. She could look out and see us. And she says, I kept thinking, who are these people? Because my husband isn't out there with the shirt and tie.

In those days, you had to wear a shirt and tie. She says, I've been visiting your church. Could you imagine if I would have said, that's my tree? I thought of another example. My kids, we have a park, like I said, but all the big kids used to play in it.

So our kids wanted a basketball hoop. So we asked our neighbor to the right and the left, and they were fine with it. And we get the gardener, who comes and digs up in front and puts cement down. But the woman across the street, Mrs. Hanley, she comes across the street and the cement is drying, and she said, no, there's no way you can have that basketball hoop there. She says, I am a very sick woman, and if I cannot stand to hear a basketball bouncing all day.

Well, my kids, they wanted their dad, you know, to be Superman and say, who do you think you are? This is my kid's basketball hoop. But as long as it's possible. So we had to call the gardener back. They didn't even have it a day, and they pulled it out of the ground, and he had to put down some dirt and sod.

Well, years later, guess what? I had the opportunity of bringing Mrs. Hanley to Christ. See, we don't live for temporal things. We live for the external things. So your public life life matters, right?

Your private life matters. When they took that burnt offering, that animal, they had to slit its neck. They had to skin it, and they had to take out every organ, all the organs. And the organs had to be washed before it was put on the altar. So what does that say to me every day when I go before the Lord?

I need to pull back that flesh. I need to take the inner right. He desires truth in the inward parts. We can't be afraid to tell God how we feel, how miserable we are, how we want to kill that person and run them over with our car. You know, we don't need to be afraid of that, because as we give it to God, God takes it and he cleanses every crack and every crevice.

They had to take off the head and that. What was that? They were dedicating the eyes, the ears, the mouth, the. The mind every day. Dedicating it to the Lord.

They had to cut off the legs, they had to wash them and then place them on the altar. What does that mean? I'm dedicating my steps to the Lord. God lead me and guide me. And then there was.

They had to trim the fat. We need to stop living on our testimony from 1975. Surely God has done something new for you, right? In the future, maybe someone can just help me to play, if you're available, but this is as important. So they had to put this animal, you know, head, toe in, out, all of it skinned.

And then there were ashes. There were ashes left on the altar. And the priest had to take the ashes, take them off the altar, and he had to go outside of this place called the ash heap and put the ashes on top of the ash heap and then go and start a new fire. Had to add firewood to the fire. So what were the ashes?

The ashes were a byproduct of an accepted sacrifice. Something that was now, once alive, is now consumed. And every. All our ashes, they have an expiration date. And God knew nothing will suffocate or smother or snuff out our fire.

We're carrying yesterday's ashes, Yesterday's guilt, yesterday's shame, yesterday's failures on a fresh area of worship, you know, in the morning, it wouldn't matter if the next sacrifice was unblemished. It would be unacceptable because those ashes, they were contaminated. Ashes can ascend in the fire. Who would be trying to cook a beautiful filet mignon in a. In a pan that had old soot or something else was cooked on it the day before?

No, that pan has to be cleaned so that. That steak could be, you know, amazing. We can't have fiery faith with yesterday's ashes. It would be like starting a new relationship with your deceased spouse's ashes on the mantle, front and center, like the altar of our heart. Because ashes have a voice, right?

Some of us are worshiping with yesterday's ashes. From the guy that walked out on us, to the kid that ended up in jail, to the people that left our church for no reason. You poor poured your life into it. It's a new day. And what happens is the urn on the altar replaces the fire in the fireplace.

You ever think about what an urn is? Urn is. An urn is fireproof. It can't penetrate the fire of God can't penetrate. It's waterproof.

The water of the word can penetrate. And it's airtight. This, this God's word can breathe. And ash and urns are extremely weighty. They're extremely weighty to carry around.

And what happens is we become nothing more than decorated religious jars. That's who we are. And God wants those ashes out of the camp. He wants fresh fire in our life. Jim Elliot, he was the missionary who was martyred in ecuador.

He was 29 years old. They found what he wrote in his journal. He said, am I ignitable? Let's ask ourselves, am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of other things.

And you know that asbestos is fireproof. It's fire resistant. It's. It's an insulating material. He says, saturate me with the oil of the spirit that I may be aflame.

Make me thy fuel, O flame of God. You know, when a fireman wants to put out a fire, he places ashes around the perimeter of the fire so the fire can spread. And that's what the enemy tries to do to us. He keeps putting the ashes on of our past, around the perimeter of our life so the fire of God in us can not spread.

He says. Jim Elliott says I have to bring every thought, everything I do, everyone I have fellowship with, I have to put it under the eye of the Holy Spirit. He says to this one standard, are any of these things in my life fire resistant? Why does God use the symbolism of fire? Because fire illuminates.

When you're on fire, fire exposes hidden traps. Vision is imparted in the fire. What does fire do? It. When you stare at a fire, it blinds you.

When we're on fire, we're blinded from seeing other people's imperfections. Imperfections. It burns up a critical spirit. Fire melts any hardened surface. We're not naturally pliable.

Our hearts get stiff. That's why every day we have to be in the fire of the presence of God. And as the fire of God's presence comes, it makes. It melts our hearts. And now we're able to be stretched, be beyond our capacity.

But when we're not on fire, we are tight. And we're like, I can't do that. Why is that church asking me to do that? Why are they asking me to? You know, it's my time.

It's. It's my life. Fire sterilizes things that live in the Smoke can't live in the fire. Fire radiates. It sets the temperature.

The cold never affects the fire. The fire affects the cold. Fire is coming, contagious. It burns everything in its trap. God created us to be spiritually combustible human torches because he doesn't only judge faithfulness, he judges temperature.

He says, you're neither hot nor cold.

Temperature matters. He wants us packing heat. He also says, fan into flame the gifts of God. God that arm and within you. God's not giving you a spirit of fear, power, love, and a sound mind.

Fan into flame the gifts of God that are in you. The implication is, the gifts of God in you could be covered and not in use. There are some of you that you have ashes on the altar of your heart. You don't want them there.

But God is saying, I want to clean that altar off. I want those ashes outside of the camp because it's a new day.

I looked up this scripture. I felt to add it. It's not. A lot of it hasn't been on the. On the screen, it says, break up your fallow ground, Maria.

Break up your fallow ground, for it's time to seek the Lord. That's Hosea, chapter 1012. Now, if you don't know what fallow ground is, it's ground that was once productive, but it was left unattended. And because it was left unattended, it becomes very hard and no oxygen could penetrate. And because it's hard, this hard crust forms on the top and.

And it becomes. It becomes like barbed wire. You can't touch it. It's so hard. It's.

It's been ignored. It's. It's really undisturbed ground. And the only ground that should be undisturbed is a burial ground. But we are not made for burial.

We are made for resurrection. And nothing disturbs the Holy Spirit more than He. When he can't disturb us, he owns us. Like I said, he bought us with the price. We have come.

Christianity has become. It's my time. Is it convenient for me? Does it fit my schedule?

God wants all of us. Guys, I don't know if you notice, but it's like two minutes to 12 on the clock, on the spiritual clock. He's coming back. And do you think that we're going to resist falling for the world's nonsense if we don't give him total, Total access to our life?

Fallow ground is undisturbed ground. And I don't know about you, but I want to take off every sign that I have up that says do not disturb. I want to be disturbed. I need to be disturbed. And guess what?

God needs to disturb you because he hasn't. He has need of you. He has need of you. He loves you. He loves us.

Where his where his hands extended? Where his mouthpiece. God wants to disturb our lives so that we could get off our schedule that is so tight, so over produced so that he could come and and just have his way. If you are in the room like me, maybe you have ashes on the altar of your heart. Maybe something happened where you're limited.

Now the enemy lies to you and says God's left you this disappointment.

The best thing about fallow ground it can be plowable once again. It can live again. I love that there's not one of us here that God is done with, right? If you are not dead, he's not done. Haha.

He's not done with us. I don't care if you're in your 80s, I'm in my 70s. He's not done. And if you would say God, I want to live a life abandoned. Abandoned.

I don't want anything holding me back. I don't want the enemy telling me that I can't. Or I can. Or maybe you're tired. You know it's working for the Lord.

You get tired. We need to go back to that Jacob. Rachel.

We need those seven years to be us a few hours because we're in love with him. And if that's you without any shame, I want you to stand to your feet. They're going to minister to us and we're going to say God I want. I want you to have access to every single part of my life. Amen.

Amen.