Part of Weekend series

April 12, 2020

April 2020 Sunday Series
Don’t Stop Living

Part 2: Living My Best Life

Bishop Joseph W. Walker, III, D.Min.

John 10:10 NIV – “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

I.         INTRODUCTION

1. What God has for your life, is further than you can comprehend. God didn’t’ want us to live average lives.
2. Many of us wake up to redundancy every day. In other words, we have no idea of our purpose. This makes you except things beneath you, because you don’t understand your value.
3. The devil throws things in your life to entice you, because he is a robber and a thief.
4. How we view life now, has taken on a different meaning. In this season, we have been forced into thinking about what life really looks like. Nobody is bragging about what money can buy, instead we are thankful for what money can’t buy. You have stopped being so wasteful now, because life takes on a different meaning.
5. Now we are readjusting. Now we have to live our best life with new perspective. You’ve got to come to place of being tired of being discouraged. You’ve got to get ready to live your best life.
6. Jesus came so that we could live our best life and as a result, Satan is trying to derail this.

II.         THE GREATNESS ON YOUR LIFE ATTRACTS DEMONIC ATTACK

1. The Enemy Heard About You Before You Got Here
2. If you are not being attacked, you ought to be worried. This means you don’t have any value.
3. Realize that attacks signify that your life has value.

Jeremiah 1:5  (NKJV) ⁵ “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified^[a] you; I ^[b]ordained you a prophet to the nations.” – Before you were formed, God had placed greatness on you.

1. There were forces at work trying to destroy you, before you were even formed.

1. In fact, the enemy is still struggling over the fact that you got here.

1. The Greater the Assignment The Greater The Attack

People with greatness is susceptible to greater attacks. The devil sets back and studies you. Why do you think Jesus says to Peter, “The devil desires to sift you like wheat?”

1. Why do I have to go through attacks?
2. Your Presence Is Threatening – Just by showing up, your presence is a threat to people.
3. You Possess Territory – The Pharisees were threatened, because they thought Jesus was trying to establish a kingdom on the earth. He wasn’t trying to establish a kingdom, because he already had one. He was trying to bring his kingdom down to earth.
   1. The enemy is after you, because you are a possessor of territory.
4. You Are On A Powerful Trajectory – The enemy is attacking you. Know however, he ain’t after your right now, he’s after your not yet.
   1. The intensity of your attack is an indication of the trajectory God has placed over your life.

III.         THE ENEMY’S PLOT IS STRATEGIC

1. Your Enemy Is Not A Giver, He Is A Taker

1. When the enemy comes in your life, it is never for edification. No matter how good it looks or how fine he or she is, if the devil sent it, then it’s designed to be a taker. The enemy took David’s first son. The enemy took Adam and Eve’s destiny, he took the destiny of Lot’s wife, he took the husband of the Widow, he took jobs from families, he took wages from the working class, he took funding from schools, and he will try and take your marriage.
2. God says everything the enemy took, He is going to give it back! Even though the enemy took it, you’re getting it back.
3. The Plot Is To Kill You On The Installment Plan
4. 3 Areas Satan Uses to Try and Kill You
   1. Steal – To take another person’s property without permission or legal right and without intending to return it.
   2. Kill – To cause death or put an end to or cause the failure or defeat of something. Satan tries to kill you by sin. The wages of sin is death.
   3. Destroy= to put to an end to the existence of something by damaging or attacking it. Satan wants to erase you from history.
5. Know that the greater the assignment, the greater the attack.
6. God’s purpose is greater than the enemy’s plot.

IV.         JESUS CAME TO CONQUER DEATH SO YOU COULD LIVE

God has more for you than what you have been dealing with.

1. Jesus Disrupted The Plan Of The Enemy
2. Jesus took all of the schemes and the plans of the enemy and nailed it to the cross. The enemy can’t kill you, because Jesus has already taken authority over it.

Romans 5:12-15 NIV – “12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned — 13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come. 15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!”- Sin came into the world by one man, but grace came in to abound by Jesus Christ.

2. We have victory over death and victory over the grave, because of Jesus.

1 Corinthians 15:50-58 NIV – “50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”.

1. He Died So I Could Live
2. It doesn’t matter what you did, whosoever will, let them come. By the grace of God, we are what we are today. Jesus died so we could live.
3. Jesus came to settle the debt that we could not pay.

John 3:16 NIV – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” – Whosoever in the scripture is those who have done whatsoever.

V.         LIVE UNAPOLOGETICALLY THE GOD KIND OF LIFE

1. Walk In Resurrection And Ascension
2. The God kind of life is not just getting up. You live every Easter, but a few days later, you are back down again.
3. Resurrection is just the beginning. God not only wants us to get up, he wants us to go up. We are ascending.
4. I Will Not Be Ashamed Of What He’s Done For Me
5. Where I’ve Been – Don’t be ashamed of what you used to be. Don’t let people hold you hostage to what you used to be.
6. Who Brought Me Out – I know it wasn’t my money or family that brought me out. It was God that brought me out.
7. What I Have – What we have, He gave me, what I am He made me, where I am, He brought me.
8. Where I’m Going – You won’t just get up, because there is ascension in your future. Begin to give God glory that we serve a risen savior. He lives and now you can live too!

God Speaks to the Nation Prophetically:

God says, “I finally have your attention. Finally, in the hustle and bustle of life, you know now what it means to be still. All your distractions are fading and your focus in 2020 is the year of clarity. Clarity! You are seeing clearer now than ever before.

Be still and know that I am the Lord. What has happened to the world, I have the power to stop, but I allowed it, so the world could reset. It will be no respecter of persons or culture or economic status. It will be indiscriminate to help you reset. I have shut it all down.

I am the Lord that still stops the rain. All of it has shut down, so that you might reset. He that has an ear, let him hear. This is a time that everything must reset. I have put you on pause, so that the earth can heal. You have damaged earth. The earth is the Lord’s and fullness thereof and all that dwells therein. You have brought trauma to the earth through global warming, through emissions, but now your cars are in garages. You can no longer can start random fires in rain forests, the earth is healing and resetting.

I am the Lord thou God who resets your family. You have taken so much for granted. You have been running and you have been moving and you have been going like ships in the night. I have created an opportunity for you to be home longer than you have before, to be still that you don’t lose your children and that you don’t lose your marriage. That you might have the tough conversations that you wouldn’t have had if you were constantly running, trying escape.

I am healing the family. I am allowing you time to reach out to family, cousins, and relatives you have not spoken to.  Now relationships are going to matter and now you are going to have to heal broken relationships. The things that were so petty, no longer matters. I am the Lord thou God that heals the family.

I am healing my church. The church was hemorrhaging, intoxicating herself with brands and personality driven platforms and now hurting with platforms, I put you all are on equal playing fields. Now you will have to preach for Me and not the applause of people.

I the Lord thou God, comes to humble every leader and to tell you that you must now reset how you have done church. And the church itself has to learn how to get beyond petty fights and theology and denominationalism.

I have reset community and what it looks like. Now you cannot strut in God’s house to be seen. Now you must sit and receive the pure word of God, without drawing attention to yourself.

I am healing the church. I am making division go away that when you return you shall be a healed body and you will worship Me the way that I intended. There is a generation of those, that seek My face and they will come running, not for positions and not for titles. There won’t be cat fights and position fights and there won’t be territorialism.

When this is over, my people will come with a pure heart. There are people that gave up on the church that will come running back, because now we realize that if my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, I will heal thee.

I am healing community. I am showing you the economic injustice. I’m showing you how in certain neighborhoods, how things have disproportionately affected certain people. I am showing you now. I am shining a spotlight on it, that now it is time for us as a community, to move out of our pomp and circumstance and to roll up our sleeves and be who God called us to be.  I easy to sit back and type and critique. It’s easy to talk, but now it is time for everybody to come together, because we are better together. Unless the Lord builds an house, they that build, build in vain. Our community, our schools, what we put into our bodies, what we put into our mind, the things we tolerate in our communities, and our neighborhoods now will shift, because God is going to heal our community.

The revival is still coming. What I promised you in 2020, is still in play. Do not cancel 2020. It may look like its over, but this word shall be confirmed in the 7^th month of 2020, your turn around will begin. Your second half will be the awakening and if you go in the second half and Corona couldn’t get you right, if Corona couldn’t get you back to church, if Corona couldn’t make you love your children, if Corona couldn’t make you pray, if Corona couldn’t make you take life serious, if Corona couldn’t make you put things in to perspective, then nothing else will.

I declare and decree that the second half, your turn around will begin. Everything I promised you, will still come to pass”.