Bishop Noel Jones: Praise you together; we will worship you together
we will lift you up together. I don't see
my brother as a rival; I don't see my sister as
competition, we are all one
in the name of Jesus, and I
claim the victory now in the name of
Jesus and when we loose these hands
we loose these hands to give God the glory together
to lift him up together; to praise
his name
together. We will have the victory
we will have the power; we will overcome
Grace Jones: Amazing
grace - World Changers International Church
how sweet the sound That saved a
wretch like me
I once
was lost but
now I'm found was blind
but now I see. St. Martins Episcopal Church:
'Twas grace that taught
my heart to fear
and grace my fears relieved
How precious
did that grace
appear
The hour I first
believed
City Of Refuge LA: Praise God
Praise God
Praise God
Praise God
Praise God
Praise God
Praise God
Alfred Street Baptist Church:
When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining
as the glorious sun. We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than since the day we first begun
Than since the
day
we first begun
God's amazing
Grace
[applause]
[applause]
[applause]
Bishop Jones: And verse 4 says, "And being assembled together with them
commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem,
but wait for the promise of the Father
which, saith he, ye have heard of me.
5 For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized
with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord,
wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel?
7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know
the times or seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
8 But ye shall receive
power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon
you: and ye shall be witnesses
unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea,
and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost
part of the earth."
Look at somebody beside you and say, "You have the power. [you have the power]
Look at the other person and say, "I am
empowered." [I am empowered]
It is difficult
to grasp and to understand
in many instances and then, maybe it's not
so difficult, yeah, maybe it's
not so difficult when I consider my own
misunderstandings as it relates to the things of God,
but sometimes we don't know the questions
to ask even when we're in the
presence of the Lord. It's
incredible how oftentimes we can miss
the mind of God
in the presence of God. [yes]
I think that's why Paul says that
we know not what we should pray for as we ought,
[yes] but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for
us. [amen] I don't want to act as if I'm
any way superior to the disciples,
and I don't think that we have
gone too far from biblical characters.
Any one of us who thinks
we are superior to the biblical characters,
I think we have totally missed the point
because you and I
might argue, how could be around Jesus for so long,
and still not know
his mission and his intention for your life?
And we may argue how could the disciples be
so daft, how could they be so
so totally out
of the theological ramificaitons
that have been presented by Jesus throughout his ministry.
Admittedly, we
have to declare that they have asked questions
throughout his ministry and they received answers
which enhanced their spiritual growth,
but at the very end he's about to
send, and they're asking him
a question that has actually nothing to do with
what the mission is. I think
somehow, we have been biased in many instances
by our traditional, nationalistic
tendencies for political and social
superiority - I think that's what blinded them.
They were asking out of the historicity
of the Old Testament and they were
asking out of their
declaration of what should be in their lives
and consequently, they missed the point of
servitude and they were concerned more about
superiority and political power.
Many times our requests
are selfishly prompted
and they're selfishly prompted because we failed to
understand what the will of God is for our
lives. Let me not be so verbose.
In order for us to operate within the parameters of the will of God
we have to have a changed mind
and that's why he declares that we shouldn't be conformed
to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of the
mind and
once the mind is renewed now we can operate in that good,
acceptable and perfect will
of God. The difficulty
is that when we approach him
with the mind of the world,
we miss the right questions
because James puts it another
way, he says, "If you're going to heap it upon yourself, if you're going to be self-aggrandizing,
if you're asking out of your need
superior to somebody or more important than the next person,
then you're going to ask amiss"
and one of the great disappointments in prayer is when the prayer
isn't answered in the way we wanted
and we never, ever question whether or not
we asked within the will of God,
but the only way to ask within the will of God is to
have a transformed mind that is not controlled
by worldly thinking. [come on]
The question they're asking is a question now of,
"When are you going to give us rulership? When are you
going to give us leadership in the world?
Three years under the greatest teacher
that the world has and will ever see and they
still were not able to graduate when he was about to
leave because they were primarily concerned
about personal superiority and aggrandizement.
Personal when political philosophies, social attitudes,
they were concerned about earthly things
when he had long told them, "My
kingdom is not of this world."
I think it becomes a little bit difficult, if I may take a few minutes, I won't keep you all
day, I don't have the strength. But it becomes a
little difficult, when we're trying to balance
living in this world with being spiritual
[yes] and it gets a little difficult sometimes to
be spiritual when we're so concerned
about worldly things and it gets
even more intense when the
church promulgates health, wealth and
prosperity above being spiritual and
being powerful in God.
Can I take my time with it? [yes] If I'm committed
to his will, then I
have to be willing to give up some things of this world.
If I'm committed to his will, then
I have to give up my life,
in order to gain a life.
He says, "He that seeketh to save his life, shall lose
it, but he that loseth his life
for my sake, shall find it."
The question then surrounds the fact
that they're only concerned with nationalistic, political
and social superiority and many times
people get caught in trying to feel
significantly more important than the next person simply because of what they had,
but Jesus isn't going to
hang on a cross so that we might have more
financial power. His deal
is that we have spiritual power, which
supersedes any kind of financial power because
spiritual power will go into perpetuity when
financial power is going to end with your life.
It becomes, it becomes, it becomes
ridiculous then, to feel like you're going to
harness God simply to take care of what
you and I can take care of ourselves, and that
is if we operate within the parameters of his principles,
then we certainly can take care of ourselves,
but he didn't die on calvary's cross so that we would have
caviar, he died on the cross
so that you and I might have spiritual power
which supersedes any other kind of power that any
body in the world can have because once I'm
spiritual, I'm moving in another plane; I'm living
in another world; I'm living in a place where
impossibilities become possible. I'm living
in a place where satan has to back up; I'm living in
a place where spiritual wickedness in high
places has to give way to the
individual who has been fortified by God.
And so, they're seeking
their own success and they're seeking
their own self-aggrandizement and what he's saying
is, if you're seeking the life on a mundane
level, you're going to lose the life on a
spiritual level, but if you're willing to give up your life
on a mundane, earthly level, then I can fortify you
with power that will turn the world
upside down. So self-centered
instead of Christ-centered what it does is
it misses Christ's intention of spirituality and
it breeds division for those
who should have a common denominator and that is simply,
when we come into the kingdom, we come into a place
where we're searching for the power of
the Spirit of God and when you're spiritual,
you're going to send waves through whatever is earthly
and worldly because the world does
not want to deal with spiritual power.
God is trying to take us to another
level and this is why he operates in our
lives to bring us to the place where we finally ask the
right questions, and the right question is not "Lord,
what is there for me in this life?" But the
question is, "What am I suppose to do
in this life?" O God, I feel something already,
I'm almost finished. He says to us, "I go to
prepare a place for you." He didn't say, "I
come to prepare," he says, "I go to prepare."
So he's saying essentially, "Now you got to think
Holy Ghost power, you've got to think kingdom
power" because he says, "But ye shall receive
power when the Holy Ghost comes upon
you" and "If you receive this power, then ye shall
be witnesses unto me" because now you have
dunamis, you have inherent power."
He is speaking then to a group of people who never
existed before because the Old Testament
saints, they did not have inherent power.
Inherent is defined one writer says,
"Existing in someone as a natural and
inseparable quality or right, inborn."
The Old Testament saint did not have
that kind of relationship with God even though the Holy
Spirit operated in their time. We
find in the very beginning, the Holy Spirit
operated when the earth was without form
and void, and the Spirit moved
upon the face of the deep. Anytime the
Spirit moves, something is going to be formed;
anytime the Spirit moves something is going to be shaped;
something is going to be revitalized;
something is going to be renewed; and something is going to be
beautified. Anytime the Spirit moves, you see
you can come to the house of God and enjoy the
emotion that goes with being in the house,
but emotion doesn't necessarily say that the Spirit
of God is moving because after
the emotion wears off, mm-mh,
we can quickly go back to being what we used
to be before we had an emotional moment,
but when the Spirit moves
something has got to change. O yes,
O God I feel it already. You can't have the
same attitude after the Spirit moves.
You can't have the same disposition towards
others after the Spirit moves; you can't
be in a divisive attitude and you can't have a
funny attitude about others because you're constantly
thinking about yourself, when the Spirit moves.
When the Spirit moves, it does not bring, he does not bring division.
The Spirit brings cooperation and
cohesiveness. You can't have a
negative attitude towards anybody after the
Spirit moves because the Spirit is going to bring us
together and not separate us and send us
apart. [applause] It's critical because
there's a reshaping when the Spirit moves upon the face
of the deep. The psalmist says,
"When you send your Spirit, they are created
and you renew the face of the earth."
In Exodus, the Spirit gave special gifts,
in Exodus to the craftsman, who built the temple
and who built rather, the tabernacle, the Spirit
traced to the Spirit they recognized that the Spirit operated
on them and in Judges when men were in
crisis, the Spirit would come and he came
on them in power. In Ezekiel he
entered into them temporarily, in Isaiah
he rested on them. In Judges
he stirred them. The Spirit
then, operated in man to bring deeds and
where God would act upon them in a very special way,
but they didn't have the abiding presence
of the Holy Ghost. He would lead
by a pillar of cloud, he would lead by a pillar of
fire. He would influence men strongly through
the Spirit, but they had no dunamis for
they had no natural and inseparable
power. You are in a different
place; you are in a different time; you are
in a different move of God. I'm not
endowed with flashes of power, but I
have power that God has given me through
the Holy Spirit. I'm not going to get power,
it's not going to come and go. Once
I'm filled with the Spirit, I'm filled with the
Spirit, and you can't be unfilled with the
Spirit after God has filled you with the power
of the Holy Ghost. [applause] Like the prophets
and the mighty men without the Spirit, they could not
achieve God's mission in their world. If
you check the history of Israel, you will find that they
failed to achieve the land of Canaan though
led by the great power of Moses.
Only two entered in and
everybody else was scared and afraid. They were
miserable failures, they were professional complainers,
they were defeatist thinkers, they were
constant doubters, they were selfish quitters,
and they just frowned all the time.
Anybody that's filled with the Spirit
is a giant in and of themselves.
You don't look outside of yourself and get nervous because
you have to face an enormous
difficulty because greater is he
that's in you than he that's in the world.
Can I preach like I feel it? The power
of that song awhile ago is
indicative of the empowerment that comes through anointing.
The song would just be a series
of words, if it were not anointed.
Now, the anointing is not coming from outside
the singers, the anointing is coming from within
the singers which means, then that God
anoints and mixes his anointing into the
song as it comes through the mind of the singer.
You cannot sing with anointing,
if you don't have the Spirit. [applause] I wish somebody would understand
me. You can't preach with anointing, if
you don't have the Spirit; you cannot talk
with anointing, if you don't have the Spirit. It
can sound good, it can bring us to an emotional
high, but it can't get into the heart
unless it's through the power of the Holy
Ghost.
You see, no wonder the prophets looked to a better day,
when they understood how much of a failure they were,
they looked to a better day and they prophesied
about a better people. Moses, when
he was questioned by those who said that
two men were anointed in the camp and
they wanted Moses to do something about it because
they were speaking prophetically in the camp.
And Moses said to them a very, very profound
word, he said, "Would that all
God's people would prophesy."
Zachariah shouted, "Not by power, it's
not by might, but it's by my Spirit,
saith the Lord." The power of the child
of God is what God has planted in the dunamis
and the dunamis needs the word of God
to operate within the child of God.
You feed the spirit with the word and when
the Spirit and the Word come together, then all
you need now is the blood. Can I take it
further? The word and the Spirit and the
blood agree in one. When I have the
blood of Jesus and I have the word of God
and I mix it with the Holy Spirit,
then power is going to be released.
That's why Joel heralded power for everybody
and said, "In the last day saith the Lord, I
shall pour out my Spirit on all flesh.
Your sons and your daughters will prophesy,"
he didn't say the preacher, he says, "The old men shall
dream dreams and the young men shall see
visions." If I'm seeing vision,
it's motivated by the power of the Spirit of God
and when God gives vision, he automatically
giving provision. If he's giving you a
vision, he has already given you the power to bring
the vision to past. [applause] O God, I feel
it here. Give somebody a high-five and tell them, "I'm not a dreamer,
I'm too young for that. I'm a visionary."
And it's the hope then for God's
people because he wants everybody in this
house to think power. You don't have to have a title;
you don't have to have your name on the marquee; you
don't have to be anything, but a Holy Ghost filled
child of God and the victory
is guaranteed by the power of the Spirit of
God. Can't any devil defeat you, when you're
filled with the Spirit of God. Can't any
situation break you, when you're filled with the Spirit of
God. Can't any devil deceive you,
if you operate within the power of the Spirit of
God. I didn't come over to leave without the
Spirit of God because without the Spirit of
God, I am none of his, but when he
fills me with the Spirit, I know I'm a child
of God and victory shall be mine.
O I feel like preaching. Give somebody a high-five
tell them, "I'm filled with the Spirit of God." And
this is what Jesus comes with to deliver the package and
the package is the natural and inseparable
quality of God. It is the word, it is the blood
agreeing in one. It is the Spirit, this is now
the dynamic Christ, which is power in motion.
He describes his natural and inseparable
quality as the Messiah and when he
comes, he announces his mission and here's what he says,
he says, "You have got to understand that you have
a think power package." He says, "The Spirit
of the Lord is upon me because he hath
anointed me to preach, to heal, to deliver,
to recover, to set at liberty" and
the demonstration that he gives is this, if you're
filled with the Spirit, you have power to preach
to the poor; if you're filled with the Spirit, you have power
to heal the broken-hearted; if you're filled
with the Spirit, you have power to release the captives; if
you're filled with the Spirit, you have power to give sight to the blind;
if you're filled with the Spirit, you have power to set
at liberty, the bruised. Now here is
Jesus filled with the Spirit, yet he says,
"Foxes have holes, the birds of the air have
nests, but the Son of man hath nowhere to lay
his head." We get caught up in a gospel
that only deals with money, but Jesus
said the foxes have holes, they have somewhere
to stay. The birds of the air have nests,
they have somewhere to stay, but the Son of man hath no
where to lay his head. Now if you have
nowhere to lay your head, you homeless. [all right Bishop]
O yes, but the homeless Jesus walked on
water; the homeless Jesus fed 5,000;
the homeless Jesus fed 4,000;
the homeless Jesus hung on the cross
and endured the cross with joy; the
homeless Jesus walked through the doors of death, hell and the grave,
snatched the keys, ascended up into glory
and set captivity, captive. [yeah, applause]
O God, it ain't about what you drive,
it's not about where you live, it's not about
what you wear. The question is if we push a
fork through you, will we somehow reach the Holy
Ghost because if you have the power of the Holy
Spirit you can tell the devil where to get off; you
can tell situations how to change; you can tell
powers how to operate because
the anointing destroys [the yoke, applause]
I wish somebody would understand me. O I feel like lifting
him up. He declares now that the Spirit then
becomes our link to God. That's why
when you see me, you see the Father and you can ask in
my name. The Spirit then becomes my teacher,
she gives us recognition and awareness of his
truth. They will give specific application to
every situation in our lives, that's what the Spirit does.
The Spirit is a companion in a world of
hate and persecution. The Spirit is a
constant, contemporary voice because the Spirit is
always moving on every situation. That's why
we're not caught in the tradition of yesterday,
but the Spirit of God is moving right now.
The Spirit of God is moving in whatever condition
you face and if the Spirit is moving,
then the Spirit is changing things that you're not
even aware of. God is already
fixing something in your life that you don't even know
is broken because the Spirit does not follow
the curve, the Spirit is always before the
curve. I wish you'd understand me. The Spirit doesn't
push and guide, the Spirit leads and guides.
If the Spirit is leading, then the Spirit is in front
of you and the Spirit is drawing you into the power
of the living God. I wish I understood
better, but give somebody a high-five and say, "He leads
and he guides." He does not drive
and push, but he leads and he guides.
Then he says to me, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit,"
wherever the Spirit is leading you, go
because even though he might lead you into the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil because the Spirit
of God is with me and if the Spirit of God
is with me, the victory shall be mine. That's
why no matter how people treat you, they can't destroy
your spirit because I'm not built
to break. Ah, I feel like preaching now,
might as well have a little church. Pull on your neighbor and
say, "I'm still here because of the power of the
Spirit of God." He demonstrated
him for them, he described him
to them, then he declared with
those who believe him and he said, "Now you tarry
in Jerusalem." Don't you leave here until
get the power of God. Can I speak to somebody here?
If it hadn't been for the Holy Ghost,
many of us would have been broken a long time ago,
but it was the Spirit of God that held us
up and kept us from losing our minds,
this is why he said he guards our minds.
It is the Spirit of God that does a sentry around
your mind, when the trials of life are upon you and
they were on me last year. If it had not been for the power
of the Spirit of God because when folk cannot
comfort you, and when folk cannot help you through
your trial, when folk aren't there for
you, he said, "I'll never leave you nor
forsake you" because the Spirit of God
is inherent and once he comes into
your life, there is no devil that can come in
you while the Spirit of God is with you.
Satan might try to oppress; he might try to
suppress, but he cannot possess while
the Spirit of God is in you. I feel a little
church coming on. Pull on your neighbor and say, "No matter what
people say, no matter how they rebuke,
once you're filled with the anointing of God, there is no
body who can take his anointing off your life.
Once he has filled you with the Holy Ghost,
the victory is guaranteed.
I feel a breakthrough coming, I feel somebody here
understands what God is saying. He says now I want
you to stay in Jerusalem. When they stayed in
Jerusalem, the scripture says, "When the day of Pentecost
was fully come," he gave them to think power,
he showed them what he was about, he described
what he would do, they begin to think power
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