Creflo Dollar - Grace Teaches Us Godliness - Part 2
Now, it's so important to recognize that godly living includes this unfailing dependence upon the grace of God. The believer in Christ cannot be said to be living a truly godly life until he is brought to the bowing of his head and his heart to grace. You can't really say you're living in a godly life until you're living this life where you've bowed everything to him and you're saying, "I depend on God". And from this, I realize what this humble attitude is. This humble attitude is the attitude of complete dependence upon God. It expresses itself in voluntary submission to God's will and do all to the glory of God becomes the new rule of life.
1 Corinthians chapter 10:31, this humble attitude of complete dependence upon God, think about humility, submitting yourself on it. That's what dependence upon God is. I'm dependent upon God. It's expressed in my voluntary submission to God's will, and when I depend upon God and I express it through this submission to God's will, then I got a new rule for my life. 1 Corinthians 10:13, he says, "Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God". And you have to ask yourself this question, am I doing all to the glory of God, or am I doing it so I can get the validation of men? I thought about that, to do all to the glory of God. When you're real serious about this, you're gonna be honest with yourself. Am I doing all to the glory of God? This three-letter word, "all," excludes from godly living even the least thing done to satisfy a desire for personal honor and glory.
So, I've got to deal with those things that I'm trying to satisfy for personal honor and glory. People workin' real hard to try to be important, and God says I'll lift you up, but you keep trying to lift yourself up. Do all to the glory of God. So, the littlest, smallest thing to satisfy a desire of personal honor and glory, how often are we trying to satisfy the desire for personal honor and personal glory? I remember it hitting me like a ton of bricks. Your attempt to be important is pride, because you're trying to do it depending on you and not me. It's gonna happen one day. All this stuff's gonna be over with. Everything is gonna get crazy.
You know, everything's set up real pretty. We needed a worldwide communication so that this prophecy in the Bible about the two witnesses and that they were gonna be raised and every eye would see, now we can see it. We can see it before the news takes it and twists it. The financial situation is getting a little crazy, we're close to a bear market, wars, rumors of wars, plagues, disease, it's crazy. People are demonically influenced, killing themselves, don't know why they hear these voices say, "Kill yourself, kill yourself". We've replaced from talking to God to try to talk to your ancestors. They're gonna tell you the same thing Samuel said, "Leave me alone. Why you messin' with me? You gonna die just like I told you you was gonna die before I died. Leave me alone".
All kinds of weird stuff going on. We don't trust Bible, we trust beads and crystals. See what you're gonna do? You're gonna call in something you don't understand and it's gonna do some stuff to you and you're gonna be runnin' trying to figure out what is this? And that little spirit gonna enter on inside of you, and all day long you're gonna be saying, "Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself," and you won't even know why you wanna kill yourself. You don't even understand demonic influence. You keep thinking you gonna see some kind of Freddie Kreuger or some kind of monster, but they're invisible beings that focus in on your thinking to try to suggest something to you until you think it's real enough to do it, because we've forgotten God and we believe a fool.
A fool says in his heart there is no God, and that fool is preaching gospel, and you don't even, today people don't know what the truth is, because they substituted the truth with my truth, and my truth is just a lie that I call it my truth because I done decided to line up with it. You should be saying that's your lie, but now you call it your truth so you can feel better about the deception that you're in. We don't have a clue. God is raising up a mighty force. There's a move of God that's about to hit this planet, healing like you've never seen it before. God said you want a miracle? Miracles like you've never seen it before, but it's gonna come though your hands, so don't be afraid to speak to demons, and to cast out devils, and to lay hands on the sick, and to raise the dead. He wants to use you.
Remember, this unrestricted love is available, especially for those who depend on him. Are you listening to me? As God's purpose in saving man is to the praise of the glory of his grace, so the object of all godly living must also be to the praise of the glory of his grace. The objective of all godly living is not so you can go around and say, "Look how godly I am," the objective is so that God can be praised and be given the glory. Now, listen to this very carefully. I kinda thought this through. The Creator should be glorified by his creation, and he is by everything he's created except the issues with mankind who as a free moral agent, who gets to decide whether or not he wants to depend on God. Man has to decide whether or not he depends on God, the other creations, they depend on him. The earth depends on him. The moon and stars depend on him. The animal kingdom depends on him. Vegetation depends on him.
So, much more, when the Creator left his place in glory and died to save the creature from everlasting condemnation, that would be us, he should be glorified by those who are saved. We were on our way to hell. We didn't have no God on our side. The wages of sin is death. That was justification under the law. You sin, you die. But Jesus died, took upon all our sins, and because he perfectly kept all the law, he became the sin offering. He paid the ransom so you and I could go away from that and somehow, some way, we should be praising and giving him glory just 'cause we saved. But for some, it's not enough to be saved, you just don't understand what he's done.
If it were not for Jesus, we would all look forward to a burning hell. He died the death we should have died, went to the hell that we were destined to go to, but he shed his blood, rescued us, paid the ransom, delivered us from sin, delivered us from hell, and with one simple confession, "Lord Jesus, come into my life," he saved us. That should be enough for daily praise and glory that's due to him. You ought not need a new car to praise him. You ought not need a promotion on the job to shout and praise him. I can't get some of y'all to have church unless I do something extra for you and now you're ready to praise him, but when you think about what could have happened to me, what should have happened to me, and now look at what's available to me, that's enough for me to tear something up right now all by itself. I gotta give him the glory. I gotta give him the praise. Look at what God has done for me. Glory to God.
I am saved. I am sanctified. I'm filled with the Holy Ghost. It doesn't take extra for me. If he don't do nothing else, oh my god. If he don't do nothing else, he's already done enough, and every time I think about he's already done enough, he keeps doing something else. Every time I turn around, he's doing something else. I'm to a point where I don't ask for nothing no more because he's gone ahead of me right now. Before I can ask, he's already done it. Before I can pray about it, he's already answered it. I don't need nothing extra to praise him, hallelujah. Some of you need to count your blessings. Some of you need to have a flashback. Look at what you used to be like. Look at what you used to be addicted to. Look at how you used to talk. Look at where you used to go. Look at how you used to act and look at what God has done, hallelujah. He moved on the inside of you. But I guess that's just not enough for some people.
If he ain't giving me promotions, isn't it something how we keep having a craving for the stuff that will never fulfill? I don't care how much more money you get, it ain't never gonna fulfill. I don't care how many promotions you get, it ain't gonna never be fulfilling. I don't care how bit a house you get, it ain't gonna never be fulfilling. We keep craving for the thing that's not fulfilling, because nothing can fulfill like him, Jesus satisfies. It's a simple gospel, but before I got in this teaching, I wanted to have a day of foundation just to kind of remind you why you ought to depend on God. Church attendance is not let me appear and make everybody's day. Can't everybody know you. It's a hospital, churches, I can't say other churches, this church is not just for good people, this is a hospital.
It's for people who need help, people who have missed it, people who are trying to get it and they still ain't got it, people who feel good one day and they condemned now, and people who woke up this morning praying, and crying, and cussing all at the same time. It's come on in. Jesus will never change what he did for you. Trust him. He saved you, and nobody can take that away. Nobody can take that away. We even do the church the same way. We got this thing about church, like you picking out a hotel somewhere to go stay. Let me see, I'm gonna try this church, try that church, try that church, try that church, try this church. Well, I don't like that church because they sang too long. I don't like that church because the pastor don't wear no collar. I don't like that church because, I mean, for real?
Whatever happened to, "Lord, I depend on you, show me where I'm supposed to be"? Because if you're looking for a perfect church, ain't no such. There ain't no such thing as no perfect church. As soon as you think you found one, you gonna see something that, "Oh, I want me a perfect pastor". It sure ain't no perfect pastor. You just got all the wrong stuff. We love to shoot our own wounded and walk in self-righteousness. "Oh, y'all see what they did? At least I didn't do it. I mean, you know, you 10 feet away from the shore, I'm 100 feet away from the shore, and you got enough nerve to judge me because I'm 100 feet from the shore and you 10 feet from the shore, and if you don't watch out, you gonna get stuck there at 10 feet and I'm gonna pass you".
That's not what that's for, looking at people and rejoicing over their fall. Who does that? It's supposed to...the answer should be the devil, but it must be the devil in a lot of Christians. I've seen ministries destroyed and don't exist no more, and I'm asking myself where are the people that believed in that man of God and that ministry? Why are they not standing up for him? But that's what folks do. When you're up high they're with you, when you're down low, I don't know him, that's wrong. The one thing that concerns God more than anything, even your sin, is how you treat one another. It's how you treat one another. "Well, I don't understand how come there ain't no men in the church". Because when they come to church, the preacher be doggin' 'em out.
I remember when I was trying to come to church and everything was my fault because I was a man. "Oh, you a man, you need to do this. You a man, you need to", I'm like, man, I ain't goin' to that church no more, I'm gonna jack that joker up when I see him outside. We gotta get this thing right outside the building. We gotta learn how to do God and not just learn how to do church. We gotta learn how to do life, right? And see, we've been doing church so long, we don't know how to do life. You don't know how to enjoy nothing. You wanna go bowling? No, that's the devil's bowling ball. Oh, Lord have mercy. Stop it, stop.
One more thing here and I'm done. The Creator should be glorified by his creation, and much more, when the Creator left his place in glory and did what he did for us and saved us, he should be glorified. And so, I said, "Well, Lord, what does it mean to glorify God"? Write this down, study it, we'll pick up with this next week. Glorifying God means to acknowledge his greatness and give him honor by praising and worshiping him. Acknowledging his greatness and giving him honor by praising and worshiping him, primarily because he and he alone deserves to be praised, honored, and worshiped. So, God's glory is the essence of his nature. We give him glory by recognizing that essence.
I want you this week to acknowledge his greatness and to give him glory for the things he has done that you know he's responsible for. I want you to intentionally and on purpose practice praising and giving him glory, and giving him honor, and priority, and value in your life for what he's done. "Well, what do you do, Pastor"? He saved you. Somebody said, "Well, I'm not saved yet, I'm gonna get saved in a minute". Well, he allowed you to stay alive long enough to get saved in a minute. Praise him, honor him, give him glory, and no matter where you are in life, "I need you". That's a godly life, a life that depends on him.
Devout, pious living doesn't necessarily mean you're godly. Neighborlyness, to do all the great and wonderful things for your neighborhood doesn't necessarily mean you're godly, because if you did all of that not depending on God, you're not godly. All the goody-goody things you do, but it's done without depending on God, wearing the collar, wearing the long dress, keeping all of the religious dictates and rules of that religion, that doesn't make you godly if you didn't depend on God.
So, before you go and pat yourself on the back for all of your goody-goody works, works that are done without depending on God is not godly, and we'll dig into the Scriptures deep to show you that, and then I'm gonna show you how does faith relate to this. You're gonna find out that faith has got to be defined in context. Faith is depending on God. The just shall live by depending on God. It is impossible to please God without depending on God, and we're gonna dig into that and define the word of faith. Abraham trusted and believed in God that everything God promised he would bring to pass, and Abraham depended on God to do what he promised. That's what faith is. It's not this mystical energy on the inside of you that you can make something happen, it's your total dependence upon God, even when it doesn't happen right away. That you trust God's wisdom as much as you trust his power.