Beth Moore — The Magnificent Miracle of Freedom
Here's what I want you to do. I'm going to ask you to go ahead with me and turn in your Bibles, if you have them. Listen. If you don't have a Bible you just listen in. If you think, I have no idea what I have even gotten on here. Would you leave it for just a few minutes? Because I think you're going to get what we're talking about. But if you do have access to one, we're going to the gospel of Luke chapter four. I'm just about to pray with you.
I've got to tell you something. We've just been praising God in here before you joined us. I just love music so much. I don't know what your background is like -- you may be really new to Jesus but I'm a demonstrative person; perhaps you can tell. And so during praise and worship, there is no telling how high my hands might go. I really wasn't raised that way. When I was growing up and even as a young woman I'd never even walked in church where they raised their hands. But something happened when God began bringing me a little bit of freedom. It sort of hit my ankles, and then it sort of hit my knees, and it just kind of kept going until my arms just flew up. And I do, like pick the place I'm in, is it appropriate in that place or not?
But I just had to tell you here recently, a couple weeks ago, at church I was just praising -- I was just in the throes of prayer and I thought, oh! Someone did not put on their deodorant! I looked around me like... And there really were no good people for it to be because I was surrounded by my family and people I loved very much. I thought girls! And then I thought I think it's me! I think it's me! And I thought, for the life of me, I'd showered, I was ready to go. But I thought, I was kind of in the throes of it and I thought, I think I forgot my deodorant!
You know how there is all manner of way you try to check. There wasn't any great way to do it. So for the rest of the service I just kept my arms just like this. And you know I am a hugger. I'm really a hugger. And after the service I just went to people and went, "Come here. Get in my arms right now right now."
It was just the wildest morning.
I thought to myself. Every now and then we're going like something smells and I don't know what it is.
And every now and then maybe the best thing we could figure out is it is me! If something is really stinking in your life right now and you keep thinking it is somebody else in your house, somebody near you, it's somebody at church -- anybody know what I'm talking about? It's somebody that works at the school with you. Somebody really stinks around here. And then you figure out, you know what? It may be me. And there's going to be something we can do about that. If life really stinks for you right now, I'm just going to tell you, you're going to want to stick around because we have got some kind of series in front of us for the next couple of weeks.
You guys stand. I want to pray with you. Let me tell you why it is so important that we pray, in case you are new and I so hope you are. Listen. We're here because we believe God is doing something with us. We believe he's among us. I believe even right now he's right there in that place with you. We know he is present everywhere but I am asking that he would somehow make himself known to you; that he would just somehow manifest the thickness of his presence. I've never seen him with my bare eyes before. He's never just appeared to me but I pray somehow you would know that he has come for you because he loves you so much and wants to speak a word into your life.
So here's what we want him to do. There's nothing -- I'd give you anything I have but there is nothing I can give you that would stick. But there's everything God could give us that would be completely life transforming; that's what we're praying for.
Father, we do praise you with all of our hearts. God, I just want to thank you in advance because I am thrilled to be part of this series. Father, I'm so thankful for the very real power that you are willing to demonstrate in the lives and the hearts and the minds of people, Father, no matter what kind of condition we're in. Lord, I pray you would just free somebody on the other side of that screen if she or if he has been through so much and done so much and gone so far he can't imagine what you would want to do with him.
God, you love us so much. And you have sought us out and God, you want to set us free. God, please come. And I pray without hindrance you would be freed up to work in us in such a way that we never get over it. God, God! Do it! Do it, Lord! Bind everything about me that is just fleshly and selfish and let your spirit be released in this place, God.
How I thank you for pulling my life out the deepest pit, Father. I joyfully credit you with every good thing in me. Lord, whatever I have to offer it is truly your grace and your power; in Jesus' name. Amen!