Breaking Down Walls | Wednesday Night Service

They grabbed something. They grabbed fig leaves. Oh, gosh. We gotta cover this up. We can't let God see us like we really are.

And out of fear, they grabbed fig leaves to cover their shame. We do the same thing. We have shame. So we grab a defense mechanism in an attempt to control what God sees and what others see about us. Just as the fig leaves didn't work for Adam and Eve, our walls of protection that we grab are ineffected and will keep us in an immature state.

And one of the things that Pastor Terry pointed out in her message April 2, go back and listen to it if you weren't here, is that God wants us to mature. We need to become oaks of righteousness. And also for the sake of revival. We're all praying for revival. As a matter of fact, Mel and I just took a trip to Texas and we stopped and.

Sorry, Pastor Jay, close your ears. We stopped in Auburn, Alabama.

Sorry.

And we enjoyed it so much. Found a great little Mediterranean restaurant there, and we enjoyed it so much. On the way back, we went to the same motel and stopped at the same restaurant, had this marvelous Mediterranean salad. I could go back there tomorrow if it weren't such a long trip. But anyway, so we went back to the motel.

Mel was taking the stuff to the car, and I was looking around the motel. And all of a sudden. All of a sudden I felt it.

And I remembered. I felt a cloud of revival. And I must have been five miles from the campus, but they had a revival down there. When was it? A year, something like that ago?

It was when. Yes, than that. And thousands of students were baptized and the presence of revival was still lingering. I shared this, but Pastor Jay might not remember this, but about a year ago, I was driving by the refuge and the same thing hit me. I saw a cloud of a revival over this place.

And I got so excited. Yes, yes, Lord. We're all praying for it. We're all believing for it. And it's coming.

Amen. It's here, it's here, and it's still coming. There's always more in Jesus. Right. And what is the purpose of revival?

Well, one purpose of revival is going to be for the Jewish people. Romans 11:11 says that when they are grafted in, when they are grafted back in, it's going to be like what? Life from the dead. That sounds like revival. Do you think if we had a funeral in here and a body got up out of, you think we'd have a little bit of revival?

I think we might. So life from the Dead. So that same chapter says, it is the job of the Gentile to provoke the Jew to what? To jealousy. So the question is, do we have enough fruit?

Do we have enough maturity? Does the body of Christ have enough maturity at this point in time to provoke the Jew to jealousy? When I think of the Jews, I think the fruit of the spirit that hits me is joy. I mean, they're the most oppressed people in history, but their music, oh, my goodness.

Yeah. No, that's not it. That's a ball game. What was the one? I'm trying?

La la la la la la la la la, la. All right. Got the right one. It's happy, right? You see the weddings, dancing and joy.

So I want that. I want my life to be so full of joy. But if the church has all these walls in place that we're going to talk about, they may not see as much fruit as the Lord wants them to see. But God is going to have his bride without spot or wrinkles. Sometimes I say, lord, I don't know how in the world you're going to do that.

Well, of course I don't. I'm just a little old me, you know? But he says in his word he's coming for a mature bride, one without spot, one without wrinkle. So I'm going to believe that that is what's going to happen. So back to the inner healing part in getting rid of our walls.

Let me make sure I didn't leave anything out.

All right. As children, our brains are not fully developed to process things like an adult's brain. When situations happen, a child doesn't fully understand what's going on. So children are vulnerable to the enemy, who is there to plant false perceptions about life, about God, about themselves, and about other people. False judgments are formed, vows are made, and lies of the enemy are believed.

And children can't always go to mom and dad and say, when you yell at me, it makes me feel. Blah, blah, blah. That's kind of an adult way of communicating. Isn't all internalizes, and the enemy is right there to turn it into a lie or a wound. We had a lady in an inner healing session recently that was told constantly As a child, you're a nuisance and a crybaby.

And to make it more difficult, she had a twin brother who had a totally different personality from her. He was Mr. Joy Boy and everybody loved him. He could do no wrong. So she developed this lie about herself, and she came to us as an adult feeling devalued, feeling that others Were preferred over her. And she was stuck in a very dark place.

As a matter of fact, she had had a dream about being in a basement.

She could see the door to the main level with a light behind the door. There was a shadow on the stairs that she perceived to be Jesus, and he was inviting her to come up the stairs and go to the main level of the floor. But fear gripped her, and she felt unworthy to climb the stairs. The defense mechanism that she grabbed to make herself feel safe was isolation. It's safer behind a wall of isolation because I don't have to connect with people.

There was light upstairs, but she was stuck in a dark basement. Although she goes to church and at one time she was involved in ministry, inner healing ministry, she withdrew from that, and she basically was a pew sitter for the last few years. But she was tormented in her heart because she knew God was calling her to ministry. She just didn't know how to get there. Her cellular memory was riddled with the message that she's unworthy and others were better than she and preferred over her.

So we prayed our trauma prayer over her. Oh, thank you, Lord. I told you. Trauma B, right? Bad things.

There's trauma A. Everybody say absent, absent trauma A we're not often aware of because that's growing up in a household where there was an absence of your needs being met. There was an absence of being taught, being nurtured, being connected with the parents helping you process things in a healthy way. And basically, some people just were left to figure it all out on their own. There was no bad trauma, but there was an absence of the needs of their soul being met, Needs for identity and communication and nurturing and comfort, and they're left to figure all this out on their own.

And sometimes that trauma, honestly, is harder to heal than the bad stuff, because the bad stuff is obvious, and we know what we have to forgive. But if the absence of our needs being met, people aren't always in touch with, oh, I need to forgive mom and dad for not emotionally connecting with me. I need to forgive dad for not showing me what the compassionate heart of a father looked like for not holding me. And your love language comes into play there, too. What is your love language?

What fills your love tank? They maybe gave you gifts and thought that was their way of showing love, but that wasn't your way of receiving love. Often we don't take time to get to know the personalities of our children and say, how? What is their love language? How can I make them know that I love Them.

So we led this lady through the trauma prayer, and she had a lot of emotional response to it. Oh, well, I remember the third type of trauma. There's a test at the end, so make sure you take notes. The third type of trauma is secondary trauma, where you maybe were not the one that the trauma to whom the trauma was directed. But you witness someone you love being traumatized.

If dad hurt mom, well, I'm a woman like Mom. Maybe dad feels that way about me. You know, the enemy's right there to plant those wounds and those vows and those judgments in our heart. So we began to pray for her, and she began to get lighter and freer, and it was amazing. We commanded her wall of isolation to come down.

She also had a wall of fear, of rejection, and we commanded that to come down. And then we began to deal with her childish thinking. We don't always interpret this scripture this way, but I see this scripture as an inner healing scripture. Paul said, when I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things.

So we asked her, she could still see herself as that little girl sitting alone and rejected, feeling that others were preferred over her. So ask her, would you like to release this part of your reasoning, this part of your thinking about yourself? Would you like to release that to Jesus? And honestly, she began to cry. And she said, but she's been with me so long, it's hard to let her go.

So then, of course, we asked Jesus, if she let her go and come to him, would he receive her and take care of her? It's crazy how this stuff works, but it's beautiful. And of course, Jesus said yes, he would take care of her. So we began to pray that prayer to release this part of her thinking and reasoning about her childish concepts of herself, her childish view, her childish judgments that she had made. And then she just started saying, oh, and this happened when I was 8.

And that made me feel like I was this. Oh, and then when I was 12, this happened. And 15, this happened. And. And shame.

I was so shamed. And. And she said, they're all just lining up. They're all just lining up, marching to be with Jesus. And we just sat there and looked at each other like, wow, this is one of the easiest sessions we ever had.

This is just happening. And she got a lot of breakthrough.

Her wall was isolation. Isolation was keeping her from the fruit of faithfulness. She was no longer being faithful to the call of God on Her life because she was hiding behind this wall of isolation.

After we prayed for her, she started climbing the stairs, started up the stairs. She didn't get all the way there. And actually she was carrying her brother up the stairs because it felt like he should be the one going up the stairs, not her, but she was taking him. So there's more healing that needs to take place and she will come back for another session and get her full healing until that wall is totally down and she is back in ministry and faithful to the call of God on her life. Amen.

Amen. Proverbs 14:4 says, where no oxen are, the crib is clean. But much increases by the strength of the ox. So if you have an ox, it's going to get a little messy, right? Little dung in the stable.

But the harvest will not come as long as the stall is clean, as long as we aren't willing to come out from behind that wall. Wall of isolation. The harvest God has intended for us to be a part of will not come. In Luke 13, Jesus told this parable. A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.

And he said to the vinedresser, look, for three years now I've come seeking fruit on this fig tree and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground? And he, the vine dresser, answered, sir, let alone this year also, until I dig around it and put fertilizer on it, then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good. But if not, then you can cut it down.

I see. This is a so so scripture. God is digging around our roots. He's digging up the rocks, he's digging up the hard places. Have you ever tried to plant something it just wouldn't grow and then you dug it up and the more you dug, all you found in the ground was hard rocks or that North Carolina red clay.

So God tills our soil and removes those stony places from our heart that hinder our maturity and our fruit. Fruit and our God given identity. Another defense mechanism that we can grab when we feel inadequate is pride. Everybody just take a deep breath. We're all guilty, right?

We're all guilty.

I mean, the middle letter of pride is what P, R, I V. So it's all about me sometimes, you know, we all fall prey to that. That's not the fruit that God wants to see on the tree when he comes and inspects. Right that. Now which one was that? That was clay, I believe, that preached that about Jesus coming to the Fig tree.

And then the leaves looked mature, but then there was no fruit there. So that's the way pride is. We look all good and all spiritual and all together, but when you start to look for the fruit that produces the harvest, it's hard to find. So pride causes us to intimidate people with our abilities so they won't criticize us or challenge us. Pride likes to be right.

It doesn't like to be questioned or criticized. It likes to show off its success, its position, its possessions, its popularity to cover feelings of inadequacy. And pride in the church creates a hierarchy in the church where we compare ourselves and we measure our spiritual state by one another.

And Paul tells us in Corinthians that we are not wise. We lack understanding when we compare ourselves one with another.

Paul himself battled pride. He said God had to give him a thorn in the flesh. We could debate that all night, what that really was. But he had a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble and keep him from being prideful. Pride puffs up, seek self promotion and makes our hearts hard.

Like the Pharisees standing on the street corner, oh, thank you, God, that I'm not like that poor sinner over there. And God's saying, I wish you were, because that poor sinner sees his sin and he's crying out to me for forgiveness. But. But pride can't. Pride is blind to its sin.

And God has to open our eyes to see when we are being prideful. Pride makes it hard to admit when we're wrong. It also makes it hard to admit when we need help. So we try to figure it all out on our own and heal ourselves or if we're spiritual. Me and God got this together, right?

Me and God can handle this. And you don't need to know any of my stuff. The only problem with that, it's not real scriptural. Because we're instructed in the Word to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

We are also told to confess our faults and pray for one another that we may be healed. Now, I'm not mean that you have to go around telling everybody your stuff. Please don't.

If we have to keep telling it over and over and over and over, that's a sign really, that we're not yet healed. But get you some good prayer warriors. Get you some good friends, like my good friend back here, Susan Trexel, my prayer warrior for 30 some years now.

She was. I was walking through a difficult place one time she was on vacation at the Beach. Holy Spirit spoke to her and said, call. Call Gracie. And we prayed about something that God had promised that looked like it was going another direction.

But we prayed about it and we claimed that which God said was going to. And the next day it came. Get you some prayer warriors that will stand with you and support you. You don't have to do this alone. God didn't call us to do this alone.

Pride makes it hard to forgive.

It makes it hard to bless our enemies. Pride can cause us to see ourselves as more righteous than our enemies. It can cause us to hold onto our pain out of a false sense of righteousness. You know, we all grow up pulling for the good guy, right? There's the good guy and there's the bad guy.

And the good guy's good, and the bad guy is bad. And we want the good guy to win. But in the kingdom, we're all broken at the foot of the cross. We're all sinners. So how do I compare my righteousness to someone else?

Most likely I would not do to people what they did to me. Most likely I would not treat a child the way I was treated. But that doesn't mean I have no sin. It just means that I sin in a different way. What makes me righteous is he who knew no sin became sin for me, that I might become the righteousness of Christ.

So deliverance from sin is a gift. It's not something we earn. Righteousness doesn't increase in me because someone harmed me. What they did to me is not greater than. Than what he did for me.

Let me say that again. What they did to me is not greater than what he did for me. There is a healer in the house. I have a scripture somewhere that says that out of Jeremiah. I'm going to find it right here in front of God and everybody.

Because y' all are sweet and you're precious and you're patient. And here it is.

The harvest is past, the summer is ended. And we are not saved for the hurt of the daughter of my people. Am I hurt? I mourn. Dismay has taken hold of me.

Is there no bomb in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is the health of the daughter my people? And why then is not the health of the daughter my people recovered? That's a rhetorical question.

The answer is yes. There is a balm in Gilead. It's the oil and the wine of the Holy Ghost. There's an old song. He found me bleeding and dying on the Jericho road.

Anybody know that one? No. And he poured in the oil and the wine. It's the oil and the wine of the Holy Spirit that massages our hearts and covers our wounds and makes us whole. Aren't you glad?

Aren't you glad? There's healer in the house. There is a physician in the house. There is a healer in the house. What he did for us is greater than what was done to us.

So can I forgive? Yes. Must I forgive? Yes. Paul said, I have to walk in these things lest I become unqualified.

That was Paul. We have to guard our hearts. We have to guard our hearts. We have to inspect our fruit is our fruit. There is our love.

There is our joy there. Can we bless our enemies? Can we forgive people, those that persecute us? Is my peace there? Does my anger disturb my peace sometimes?

He's given us everything we need for life and godliness. Everything, everything. And he's able to restore everything, everything, everything. And give us better than what we had. That's the kind of God he is.

He promises sevenfold what the enemy stolen. So let's receive it. Let's receive it. Let's agree with it. Let's let these walls come down in our lives.

So we've looked at isolation. Now we're looking at pride. I'll share one more quote from Mark Rutland's book. He was here recently, and I bought his book Courage to Be Healed. Imagine that I would buy that book.

But anyway, one statement in there that has stuck with me, mercy wants people healed, not punished. Even God himself in the Old Testament says, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He takes no pleasure in people being punished for their sins. That's not his heart. Pride says, give them what they deserve.

And if you don't know what that is, by golly, I can help you out with that. Right?

The goodness of the Lord wants him free. The kindness of the Lord wants them to repent. Pride hinders his goodness in our heart and prevents his kindness from operating in us when we're praying for them. God wants them healed, and we must want them healed as well.

It's tough. Pastor Jay shared Sunday morning about a church that he was in. And we were in that same church where some things happened that were difficult for their family to walk through and difficult for a lot of us there to walk through. And I have to say that when we first came to this church, I was looking, I was on the lookout for those people that were going to come in and say, and why did you leave? Blah, blah, blah.

I left because of blah, blah, blah. Why did you leave? Have you ever been in a church where that happened? I have. But you know what?

It didn't happen here. It didn't happen here because the Lord instructed him to honor the man of God, and he did that. And because he was obedient. And he did that from his heart. We have what we have today, a culture of honor.

A culture where people walk in and they feel the presence of God and they want more and they want to learn and they want to grow, and they see what we have and they want it. That's what we're to do. We're to provoke people to jealousy with our fruit. Amen. So, Lord, we want to be fruity, Fruity tooty.

I don't know who that came from, but anyway. So isolation prevents our faithfulness. Pride prevents our meekness, our gentleness, Meekness and gentleness. Sometimes that fruit is meek, and sometimes it's gentleness, goodness, and kindness. The third mechanism that we can grab is anger.

It's a defense mechanism we grab when we feel threatened. Anger will cause people to back away from us. It'll put them at bay for sure. It can clear out a room in a hurry and send people running away from us. But it falls far short of producing healthy relationships with people.

It's also damaging to our Christian witness. Anger from our caregivers when we were young causes us to fear authority. It robs us of our voice, makes us afraid to say what we really think or feel. It creates in us the inability to trust, especially those in authority and even God himself. Jack Frost, who authored a book entitled Experiencing Father's Embrace.

I know some of you've read that. We used to have that. Pastor Abe, didn't you read that book one time? Experiencing Fathers. Is that Pastor Abe back there?

Yeah. Did you read that book? Do you remember? I thought you were reading that. It's been about five years.

He's not as old as I am. I remember. And he doesn't. I don't know what that says.

But he tells the story in there of his life with an angry, abusive father as a child. It caused him to make a vow. If this is what a father is, then I don't need one.

We actually ministered to in a session this morning of a young lady who had said, if that's what a mother is, I don't want one. And you have to come out of agreement with those vows, because what happened to Jack Frost when he became an adult and he was a Christian? He. He had difficulty connecting with Father God. He just could not see him as a good father.

And a friend said to him one day, did you ever make a vow not to be fathered? And he said, yeah, you know, I did. I did make a vow like that. And so he repented for agreeing with that vow. And what we do in Sozos, we say, father, forgive me for partnering with this vow not to be fathered, not to be mothered.

And I command every demonic spirit attached to it to leave me now in Jesus name. Because guess what? Demonic spirits attach to lies, wounds, judgments. Jesus said, the enemy's come to me and he's found nothing in me. Nothing.

Nothing that the enemy could attach to. There was no space in Jesus that had been created for the enemy to have any kind of influence on him. Amen. That's where we're headed. That's where the bride of Christ is headed.

He's not going to be able to get our goat. Jerry Savelle, you say the devil can't get your goat if you don't let him know where it's tied. But when we, when we have these automatic reactions that come out of us of anger, that just ticks me off, you know, then the devil, oh, I got a clue what gets her goat. I know where it's tied.

So we give. We give ourselves away. James 1:20 says, the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Using anger may get the kids to do what we want them to do, but the Bible tells us not to provoke our children to anger, but raise them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. So we as parents and I love, we have some of the greatest young families here that presented a couple of weeks ago. And I love to see their interactions with their kids. And some of them have almost as many kids as. As my son.

My youngest son has nine and two dogs. The dogs can get my goat easier than the kids because, you know, they might bark at 4am if they hear something. But we as parents are setting the grid for how our children relate to the Godhead. The father, of course, sets the grid for how we relate to Father God. The siblings and our friends set the grid for how we relate to Jesus.

And the mother, who's the comforter, the nurturer, the teacher, she puts your band aids on and she kisses your boo boos away. That's the role of the Holy Spirit. Isn't he a comforter? We're not saying he's female, but God is that he would be a father and a mother to him who had no mother and Father. Matter of fact, Nicodemus came to Jesus one night, and he said, what must I do to be saved?

He says, you've got to be born again. He's like, whoa, how does that work? Can I get back inside my mother's womb, be born all over again? Jesus said, it's by the spirit. By the spirit.

Do you know who was there when you were created in your mother's womb? Holy Spirit? Drawing from your mother's bloodline, Drawing from your father's bloodline, creating you to be exactly the way God wanted you to be. Guess who was there when you were born. Guess who received you into the world.

Your father. God was there receiving you. This is my girl. This is my son. This is my daughter.

Guess who knows every moment of your life and everything that ever happened? God does. Holy Spirit does. So Jesus said, no, Nicodemus, you can't do all that all over again. But the Holy Spirit is like the wind.

He can blow wherever he wants. He can blow into your past. He can walk into your pain. And one of my favorite tools in SOZO is presenting Jesus when you're in a bad memory. And I had a few of those.

First time I was ever exposed to sozo. One of those traumatic things that was in level one all of a sudden, sudden made its way through. And I remember they were talking about trauma. And I said, oh, my goodness. I remember that night when my inebriated relatives decided to argue with each other.

And two people that were inebriated going at each other was not a fun sight to see. And one got really angry and proceeded to physically abuse the other. And I was like nine years old, standing there, watching the scene, and it comes out, and all of a sudden the lady says to me, is Jesus there?

And I looked, and Jesus, he was standing in front of me and he spoke to me, and he said, the enemy is trying to prevent your destiny, but he's not going to be successful. Holy Spirit can go anywhere you need him to go in the caverns of your soul and blow through and bring freedom to your heart. Amen. So I've gotten through three of them. Well, the next one was my real stronghold.

Fear of rejection is another wall we can build around our heart. I know you're only supposed to have three, but I didn't go to Bible school, so I can have five. Okay.

Fear of rejection is another wall we can build around our hearts. It makes us believe people are going to reject us. They're not going to like us, so we can go ahead and reject them. Before they reject us. About a month ago, we had a lady walk in Monday morning prayer.

She got so intimidated. She said, nobody's gonna like me. She turned around and walked out. She's since been to Sozo and she's since been back to Monday morning prayer. But that's what it can do to you.

If you have fear of rejection. You're convinced that someone walked by you and didn't say hello, you are going to assume they ignored you on purpose or they don't like you, especially the pastor.

If you. Pastor Jay, if you say hello to them, but you don't smile at them, but you smile at the person next to them. Did you know that you like that person you smiled at more than you like them? Have you ever run into those folks? Yes, I think he might have a few times.

God bless our pastors.

This mechanism makes us more susceptible to taking up offense, both our own offense and others offense. And it's difficult to discipline someone who carries fear of rejection because they take correction as rejection. It's hard to be honest with them because you might hurt their feelings.

These aren't bad people. I was one.

People in your life may find it difficult to be honest, so they back off. If they hurt you, you just might hurt them back by giving them the silent treatment. Ladies, any of you ever done that? No, don't answer. That kind of relationship, whether it's a marriage or a friendship or a work relationship, can become one of endurance rather than one of if you can't have honest conversations where both are free to share their hearts and their honest feelings and work through stuff.

When I first got saved, God was so gentle with me. He seldom rebuked me because he knew my story and he knew I took correction as rejection.

He was so tender. But I remember the day that my wall of rejection came down. My wall of rejection. What we do with the wall? We say, God, what does my wall of rejection look like in the Spirit?

Mine was the Incredible Hulk.

Can't imagine that, can you, Giselle? Oh, yeah, just ask my husband, but not in front of God and everybody.

And when my wall of rejection came down, we commanded it down. And I saw God just take a pen and stick a pen in and it went. It was all just a bunch of hot air. And so then we asked God, always ask God, since I've given you my wall that was protecting me, what are you going to give me in return? And what I saw was a little bunny rabbit hopping across the grass.

So when I shared that with a friend of mine, she said, wow, you know, little bunny rabbits, they're a lot more approachable than the Incredible Hulk. Yes, they are. But I'm telling you, I got free that day. Just by visualizing that and asking God what He's going to give me in return. I got free.

And then God began to be more direct with me. He began to shoot it straight with me. And I love that. I love it. I love that he can be honest with me because he disciplines those whom he loves.

And if you feel rejected when you're corrected, you'll never, never know what real love is.

This wall needs to come down because it hinders the most important fruit of all. It hinders our love walk. I cannot love unconditionally if I'm always on guard about who's going to like me and who's not going to like me and who's going to accept me and who's not going to accept me. You know what? I've to.

If God likes me and I like me and you don't. I love you. But guess who has the problem?

I'm just okay if I know I'm walking in the fruit of the Spirit and I'm good, I'm good. All I need is his approval. That doesn't mean I don't listen to authority and I don't take wisdom. But when it comes to needing the fear of fearing man and fearing man's opinion, the only opinion I want to value is God's opinion of what I'm saying, what I'm doing. That's one of the reasons I like to get up here.

Because there's a. There's a weight to this. There's a responsibility to this. Because I don't, as I said earlier, I don't want to misrepresent truth.

The final wall we will address is hopelessness. And I've got about two minutes. If I don't hope, it doesn't hurt as much when you let me down. I don't want to be disappointed. So I'm not going to hope.

First Peter 1:3 says we're born again to a living hope. So we've let the devil kill our hope. We're not even acting like we're born again. We're not acting like there's a healer in the house. We're not acting like there's a redeemer of our history.

There's a redeemer of our story. There's one who's rewriting the history, rewriting the story. So faith is also the substance of things hoped for so if hopelessness becomes our wall, it keeps us from faith and lack of faith is displeasing to God. It's an attack on his character. It's saying, I don't believe you are who you say you are.

We must believe that he is and that he is a reward of them that diligently seek him. So hopelessness keeps us from seeking because we believe that seeking him will not produce results. This wall causes us to view life through negative, pessimistic, victim minded lenses. Why does everything always happen to me?

So if the enemy steals our joy, the joy of the Lord is our strength. He robs us of our strength and Bible says we will reap if we don't grow weary in well doing. Perhaps we prayed about something for years and it has yet to happen. We can never surrender our hope. Never.

Maybe God doesn't give us what we thought we wanted. I always wanted a girl. I had three boys. But you know what? God knows best and I trust him.

I have some beautiful daughters. Where's my girls? Where's Sarah? Where's Elizabeth? Where's Stephanie?

Where's, is Erica here? The girls that are on this sozo team, I tell you, I just feel like they're mine. God has given me spiritual young ladies to relate to and I rejoice in that. I enjoy them. And you know, if he'd given me a daughter, she might not have been quite as nice.

Is there. I don't know. We don't know. It boils down to, I just have to trust God. I just have to trust God.

Father knows best. I grew up with that show. It's a great show. Perhaps he has something greater, of more eternal value to give us than the things we thought we couldn't live without. He's a good father.

Father, we come to you tonight, Lord. You see our walls. You know all of our walls. God. And we ask you, Lord, for forgiveness for partnering with the walls that keep us from manifesting the fruit of your spirit.

Lord, would you bring these walls down? We give you permission to bring these walls down because you are our glory and you are a shield about us. What kind of wall of protection do we need when we have the glory of the Lord and the Lord as a shield about us? You're our glory and you're the lifter of our heads. I know we're two minutes past.

If you have to go get children, I get that. But if God has shown you a wall, you go, oh yeah, I agree. I see that wall, I grab that wall every now and then when I get threatened or I feel inadequate that I can grab that wall, ask God what that wall looks like and then we're gonna help each other.

In sozo sessions we say we command these walls down now. And we clap when we say the word now. There are three Hebrew words for the word clapt, for the English word clap. One of us is clapping in praise to the Lord. Clap your hands, all you people.

One of us clapping when you win over the enemy and you clap. The third clap is a clap of judgment where God says in Nahum 3:19, all who hear about you. This is talking to Assyria. God's addressing Assyrians. Syria.

Syria is the enemy of Israel. So we can see this as the enemy of our souls. All who hear about you will clap their hands over you. And that is a judgment against the enemy because your evil has not ceased to pass continually over my people.