Creflo Dollar - Understanding the Trials of Faith - Part 2
When you have faith in the faith of Jesus, you have now entered into rest, and rest is the highest kind of faith. There is no degree of faith that is ever gonna be greater in your life when you find that you have ceased from your labors, ceased from your performance, and you are now resting in what Jesus has finished. Something happens when you go home and you say, "I'm hungry, I gotta eat, I only have 15 minutes". And you find out your wife says, "I prepared that meal this morning, it's all ready". You rest cause it's finished work, it's done. That's what God's calling you to do. I can tell when you are operating in your faith versus the faith of Jesus Christ, all I gotta do is see the stress on your face and I'll say you don't believe what Jesus believes do you? 'Cause if you believe what Jesus believed, you would enter into rest.
If you believe that Jesus protects you, and he loves you, and he's healed you and if you believe what Jesus believes, you will be resting, and that's going on right now. People are saying they have faith and they do, they have faith in their faith. I don't want you to have faith in your faith. Here's the problem, you having faith in your faith almost declares your independence from God. I got faith in my faith. Well, I have faith in the faith of Jesus that means I am totally dependent on him. The entire message of grace I'll teach this year is gonna be based on these one or two things: your declaration of independence from God versus your dependence on God. That's what it all comes down to.
Satan declared his independence from God by two words, I will and when he did that, he deceived a third of the angels and now his job is to try to trick everybody on the planet, "Don't depend on God, you can be independent. Don't depend on God, you're rich. Don't depend on God, you got education. Don't depend on God, you got good friends. Don't depend on God, you know how to pray for two hours". Satan's objective, the bottom line objective, is to get you to declare your independence from God. God's bottom line objective, is to get you to a place where you declare your dependence on God. That's going to require for the goal to be put in the fire, because you don't think for somehow you have, some of you have declared independence from God and don't even know it, but when there's yourself still involved, you need to stay in the fire a little longer 'cause you still think you can do something without God.
You're not ready yet because you keep referring back to what you can do, you're not ready yet and now your faith has gotta be put on trial so that God can perfect it for what he's trying to use you to do but he can't use you to do nothing because too much of yourself is involved, too much confidence in self is involved and he needs to get you like he got Jesus. He's like listen, Jesus says "I do nothing except the Father is with me". And Jesus is declaring all the time. "I can't do nothing unless the Father". Jesus declared totally dependent upon God and we are still thinking that we can live this life without him and somehow we depend on our religiosity, depend on the number of scriptures we memorized, depend on that I know God and no, no, no, I can't do nothing without him, I don't wanna do nothing without him.
Listen there's some things that happen in your life, I really don't wanna happen. The Bible says, if need be, some of these things gotta happen. And I ask the Lord, show me any area of my life, where I have declared independence from you. The attitude towards God, when it comes to understanding grace, here's our attitude: it should be complete dependence upon God. Here's the attitude of the New Testament saint. Complete dependence upon God. The whole battle now is declaration of independence from God, which is what he did in the garden of Eden, right? In the garden of Eden he declared independence from God, failed to the garden so started working on Adam and Eve. You don't need God, go ahead, you can do this, you can do that. Go ahead and eat of that fruit and when they did that, they declared their independence from God.
Satan says, "look, how easy that was, I'm gonna get the entire planet, I'm gonna convince them they don't need God". And there are a lot of people in the world today, famous and rich, they think they don't think they need God. They're miserable because they think they have the tools to be like God without God. And this year there's gonna be a burning away of self so that you can declare your total dependence on God. How simple is that and yet it's the challenge? Complete dependence upon God is the objective of trials and sufferings. So how does God plan on perfecting and purifying this dependence on him? How do you perfect and clarify that? I learned that lesson in the year 24, when I got sick and thought that's it, I'm gonna die, I still hadn't gotten all the words to articulate to you, but I'm thinking I'm getting ready to die and I'm like, Lord have mercy. And I realized something happened, something got burned away.
I realized the only person that can get me out of this is the one I can't see with my physical eyes. I totally depend on him, I totally depend on him. I depend on him, I get up in the morning, depend on him show me what to put on today. I don't wanna be doing nothing, I don't wanna be caught in any area of my life where I've declared independence from God and somehow I think something that I've obtained from him or by him causing me to say, "I don't need you no more". In that whenever you find yourself getting up in the mornings and you look at your days and you become less and less vocal about God blessing something about your day, watch out 'cause I need God to bless every walk I take, I need God to bless everywhere I go out, I need God to bless me when in my car.
See, you ought to be talking to God about depending on him, to help you today, to take care of you today, to bless you today and when you get to the point where that's no longer important, and that's no longer being vocalized, then somehow some way, maybe you're not aware of it, but somehow, internally you have declared independence from needing God. I believe that this provision is found in suffering. This complete dependence upon God, I believe that I believe it's found in suffering. This might be the greatest explanation for sufferings by God's people. Why did God let that happen? Why did God let this happen? How come I found myself here? I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying. I've tried and I've tried I prayed all night long, I prayed and I prayed until I found the Lord.
Well, the Lord wasn't lost, that was a lot of effort you lost. I tried all night long, I prayed all night long, I fasted for 30 days, I did all I know to do watch this, I did all I know to do and still ain't nothing happened, I'm just gonna believe God, you finally reached the right place. What if you would've started off there? What if you would've have started off in that place? I don't know what it is about us, we're saved for like, you know, we just we just came out the baptism in full, we ain't even dry yet and think that we can do things without God, and the church became this gigantic institution of a bunch of arrogant Christians thinking that their Bible knowledge substituted for be dependent on God.
I don't care how much you know, when it's time to move, you need him to move ahead of you. You need him to walk with you, you need him to walk behind you, you need him to cover you, you need him to have your front part and your back part. Since when did you think you could live your life without God? I gotta have him, I gotta have him. There's a lot of things that I can do without, but I cannot live this life without him. And it's not about how much I know, it's not about, you know, how big the church is, it's not about nothing none of that stuff, it's not about who I know, it's not about none of that, none of your fame it ain't nothing about, none, none of that, I need him, I need him. I need him when I get in my bed at night, help me go to sleep Lord, help me to sleep deep. I'm talking to him about my sleep every night. He's like my new melatonin you understand? I gotta have him. Then I need him to wake me up on time.
Hey, glory to God. And I need him to speak to me and help me to stay away from myself because every day there's this temptation to wanna turn everything towards yourself, deliver me for myself. I need you God, I'm get ready to drive, I don't know what kind of crazy is on the highway. Lord, help me protect me, I need you to bless my driving today, glory be to God and Lord when I get to the office and I meet with my staff, Lord help me, I don't know, I don't wanna go by what I did before and what I thought I knew, show us something, let us see something we never seen before, hallelujah, God I need you and I take delight and going to you every day saying I need you. God is not gonna be impressed with you coming to him one day and saying, "Alright, Lord, I don't need you no more".
Jesus never got to the point of saying, "Lord, I don't need you no more". He said, "I don't do nothing without him". I believe that his provision is found in suffering. For 40 years, I remember after 15 years, I started writing a book on the glory of suffering and I finished it and then I'm like, "Lord, what you think"? He said, "Throw it away". I was like, "Well, yeah you know it's very, very good". But he said, "Throw it away". I said, "God it's so good". "Throw it away". That's stuff I didn't understand. I was trying to avoid suffering. I was trying to avoid trouble. I didn't want Christian people to think that somehow, some way, you know, all suffering was of the devil. Any of you thought that before? All suffering is of the devil.
What was the scripture we we're looking at this morning? It was John 9:1. Turn there. John 9:1. We associate tribulation, trouble and suffering with sin. Anytime we see something that's not healing, that's not prosperity, that's not deliverance, we say, "Oh my God, they sinned and so now this is why they gonna suffer," amen. Yeah, we do that, we look at people's lives, we check people out and we judge people's lives based on you going through something, you're suffering something up, something must be wrong with your relationship with God. What if something's right with it? What if they're gold being tried by fire? Y'all ain't gonna like me here. I'm good though, I'm ready to teach this thing all the way. See, there was a blessing in the pandemic for me. I had to preach a year to empty chairs. I used to be afraid of that and then the anointing came on me with empty chairs.
So if y'all got to go, I done been there. I ain't scared no more so I can preach the gospel truth without being afraid you gonna leave, you may leave and I'm gonna still be preaching 'cause I'm not preaching so I can entice you to want to be a part of the church, I ain't planning preaching games no more. Oh, come on and I'll buy you some gas, I ain't doing none of that. You better make sure you're here because God told you to be here. 'Cause I've never felt as bold as I feel now, why? Because it's him I'm depending on, I depend on him to help me to say what I need to say. But I started noticing that, you know, when things were going in people's lives and I myself did it a couple times. Some ain't right there 'cause this happened and this happened, this happened, 'cause I kept trying to preserve suffering as a devil thing and not maybe God uses that to perfect your faith and that perfecting of faith, I call it total dependence on him.
I'm not talking about perfecting your faith in faith, I'm talking about perfecting your faith by being totally dependent on him. What's got to happen in your life in order for you to totally depend on him. After being in the ministry for 40 something years, it's really tempting. Did that before, did that before, did that before, and I found that certain things had to happen in my life to remind me, uh uh, I don't care how many times you did it, you still gotta totally depend on me. Oh, that's why I went through that. And then there's certain things God will keep on you to keep you humble. Certain stuff that just will stay there. You're like, "When are you gonna move this"? Can I get a witness? "When are you gonna move this? God no, when is this thing gonna be gone"? And God like, "No see, I blessed you so much, like I did Paul, I'm gonna let that thing buffet you until you can understand that my grace is sufficient".
So we gotta stop doing that, cause we keep, we continue to want to judge people based on where they were when we last saw them and a lot of people are not where you were, like, they grew some. Hell has trained them, you ain't seen them in a while, but they've earned a degree since the last time you saw them, a degree born in a fiery furnace. Alright, watch this, "And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth". And watch this strange question, it wasn't strange before, but now it is and this, "And his disciples asked him saying, Master, who did sin," Did this man sin?
Now how did man sin, he was born blind. So what did he do? Sin when he was in his mama's womb? Googoo gaga cussed when he was in his mom, what did he do when he was in there? So "Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind"? What was it? Then immediately they said, he's born blind must be sin. We gotta stop that. We look at people going through things and it never dawns on us. Boy, they must be getting ready to do something mighty for God, why? Look at what they're going through, they must be getting ready to do something mighty for God. We're so entangled in this world's way of how they decide to lift somebody up, fed two people and they got them all over the news and give them award for anyway, "Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents".
He said, so sin is not the cause. Sin is not the reason for this guy being blind. He's suffering blindness, but it wasn't 'cause he's sinned. A lot of stuff will suffer, but it won't be because we sinned. I used to think that. When things were going bad, I'm like, "Oh Lord what have I done"? And then immediately see the devil will use this condemn you, if you did do something crazy and then something happened, you know, sometimes we self-inflict stuff on us. Okay, but God will even use that to bring you to a point where you say you need him because if it was self-inflicted, self was involved, which means we got to burn this thing off. Because at the same time you might do something stupid and the mercy of God comes in and the bad you deserve you don't get. So how you, so you can't say it was 'cause of sin.
Alright, look what he said. "Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him". God is trying to get his works to be manifested in your life, manifested in this earth, God wants his glory to be seen, he wants his work to be seen and some of us are not ready yet because we have too much confidence in our self-ability. Or we have too much confidence in our religious ability and God is like, "I got to burn that off until you are completely dependent upon me, so when the manifestation comes, you don't give yourself the glory".
And let me make it clear, the manifestations are at hand in your life. God is getting ready to do some major things in your life, but it won't be because of you having faith in your faith, it'll be because you're living by the faith of Jesus Christ. So right now, you ought to be getting yourself ready and say, take a deep breath alright I'm ready, I'm ready, Lord, bring it on, bring it on. Well I ain't, I ain't kinda like bringing on, I'm like Lord just deliver me from self-dependence. Deliver me from self-dependence. And then God will allow some stuff to happen just to keep you humble.
Alright now watch this now. Let's go to 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 12. Alright so let's deal with this issue of, well, did God make that happen? A lot of things God's not responsible for. You might be responsible for it or the enemy might responsible for it but what God does is he says I'm gonna allow certain things to happen. I'm gonna let certain stuff happen. You ain't listening to me, every time something stupid happened in my life, I could back up what God spoke to me before it happened and I act like he ain't saying nothing. Yeah, but when that trial came, that butt whooping came, I'm like, "Oh, oh, okay, Lord, I got you".