Creflo Dollar - Living Life On A Divine Plane - Part 1
Today, may be one of the not greatest challenges because of the level of difficulty, but today may be the reason why Satan hates me so much is because of what we're gonna share. It's like if God doesn't give me the utterance for this, I don't know how to say it. And that's why I say that challenging, in no other aspect except to just rest in confidence that I'll have the utterance to say this to you. And so, you know, I got up this morning and he says "You're not gonna say what you hadn't said already". I said, "Lord, I don't recall saying this". He said, "Go get your notebook. Look at the first and second message in the series from 2022". And I did and I'm like, oh my goodness, there it is. I said, "Did I say it"? He said, "Yeah, you said it, and they heard what you said, but it wasn't time for them to get the revelation of it". I said, "Okay".
So today, here's what we're gonna be talking about. I don't even know what to call it, but we're gonna talk about living life on a divine plane. There is a divine level of life that only comes through the discipline of grace. There is a level where religion exists, there's a level where good morals exist, but you can't spend all of this time, I mean, a whole year teaching on the gospel of grace, and then we're in a new year and we're still teaching on the gospel of grace, not even talking about the last ten or twelve years on the gospel of grace, but I'm talking about consistently. And so God sees fit to reveal this divine level of existence while you're in your physical body. A divine plane, if you will. Glory to God.
There are some things the Christian Bible talks about that are not humanly possible without the Holy Spirit. Things like, "In everything give thanks and rejoice for everything". Someone says you know that scripture, but that's more than human ability. So I'm gonna get started with what I feel like I need to start with. Go to Philippines chapter 1 and 6. This teaching is gonna dive into moral conditions based on the human level versus moral conditions under the grace of God. There's a divine level, and then there's a human level. I'm in this because I want that divine level, so there's an obvious difference between those who exist on that divine level and those who are moral, but it's on a human level.
See you don't necessarily, you don't have to have the Holy Ghost to attempt to live a moral life. You can try to achieve that through disciplines and determination and willpower but it's not the same as what comes from the discipline or the life of grace. Now, Philippians chapter 1 and 6, and basically today I'm just gonna depend on you. If I feel like I'm getting too far out, I'll just kind of pause and say, "Are you with me"? And you're gonna say, "Yes". Or don't say nothing at all and I'm like, okay, I left 'em. Let me back up and and make sure I can keep you on the bus, all right? Ain't no use in you getting on the bus if I'm gonna take you somewhere, you don't know where you're going. All right? And I don't need to be on the bus by myself leaving you at the bus stop. Yeah, you've been in some of them churches before. They left you at the bus stop. You're like, "What they preach today? I have no idea".
All right. So this is gonna go against religion, Satan hates me for this, he's about to hate you more for knowing it. And if you understand it, hate you aggressively, cause this, the devil does not want taught, okay? Verse 6, let's read it out loud together in the King James. He says, "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ". He which has begun a good work with you, in you, will perform it. So who began the good work in you? Who? Jesus. Al right, so who's supposed to finish the good work in you? Jesus. All right, now let's go to, in the NLT real quick, the NLT. He says, "And I am certain," wow. "That God, who began the work within you," this work is taking place within you, "will continue his work".
So God started the work in you, what is that work he started in you? Ephesians chapter 2 and 8, your salvation. Flip over there real quick. I want to see that in the NLT. Ephesians 2 and 8. He started a work in you. He said, "God saved you by his grace when you believed". So, you were saved when you believed, but it was a gift. He started, he saved you by his grace and you can't take credit for this. You being saved, you can't take credit for. I know it looks like you can. It looks like you can say, "Well, I'm the one that decided to get saved," and you're right, you made a decision to get saved. You made a decision to believe, but you didn't save yourself, did you? You didn't save yourself. You believed and that's the only thing that's required to access the work of grace. To access the Spirit of grace, the Holy Spirit and the work of grace. You believed, so God could work.
Ah, gosh. You believed, so God could work. I'm gonna say it one more time. You believed, so God could work and it's the first, the beginning of his work because you believed was he saved you, hallelujah. He saved you, you can't take credit for it, and notice what it says. Him saving you was a gift to further emphasize that if you did anything to deserve it, it would not be a gift. You believe, he went to work on giving you and starting a gift. The start of the work was getting you saved, and that was a gift. We were too ignorant and too dumbfounded to even know. We couldn't, honey, if I could save myself, I'd have saved myself before I got the gift to save myself, okay?
Now, so Philippians chapter 1, go back to 1 and 6 in the NLT. "So he that began a good work, I am certain that that God who began the good work within you". That good work that was started in you was, it started off with you being saved, all right? Right, now watch this. The beginning of the work was saved by grace. The performance of the work, all right, so God is not only committed to the beginning of what started in you, he will also continue that work, he will perform that work. I'm listening to this, I'm like, what, you doing all of this? I thought I was supposed to be doing all this. And he says, "No, I started it, I'm performing it".
So though, the beginning of the work was saved by grace, the performance of the work is disciplined by grace. So what God is gonna do, he started the work, saved, and he's gonna perform the work disciplining you, disciplining your life, getting you to a point where you're disciplined in doing what's right by the grace of God. You go to bed with one desire, you wake up a week later, and you don't want that no more. Or you went to bed, woke up, you kept doing something, but now, check this out, now you're doing something that didn't used to bother you. But now that he started a work, it's now all of a sudden convicting you. Anybody know what I'm talking about? There was a time having sex outside the marriage didn't convict you. It just, you know, "Hey, hey hey, what can I say"?
Smoking weed and doing stuff, it didn't bother you at all, like, oh that was a great high. And then you messed around and believed, and he started a work in you. Now all of those things that you had a desire to do and that didn't bother you at all, and it was labeled as a good time, for some reason all of a sudden, now you're feeling bad about it. Now you're feeling guilty. Now you feeling convicted. Or I like this word better, you're feeling convinced. What are you being convinced about? That, I'm convinced that I don't need to do this. That's why you need to leave everybody alone, cause until they get convinced, you sure ain't gonna convince 'em. But I know somebody who moved on the inside, who got a hold of a way to be able to convince 'em, and he's working in there.
And so my challenge today is, how can I break what he's doing down to a level of where you can understand what he's already doing in you? You remember that? You used to cuss and didn't bother you at all. Now you cuss, you're like, nah, I know better than that. I feel bad for cussing her out like that. Let me call and ask her to forgive me. You weren't thinking about that, until the work was continuing in you. My God, you had a conscience, but you didn't have the Holy Ghost governing and disciplining and training that conscience. And so what you start doing is you think, well, I don't know why it's bothering me now. I don't care if it's bothering me, I don't know why, but I'm gonna do it again. And the conviction won't go away.
And then you start feeling like, everybody know what I did. He's working. He's working. He started it, he's gonna perform it. And it's gonna be by the discipline, by grace. The discipline by grace. Now listen to this statement. God never, never, never, ever saves a person and then leaves him to himself to finish the good work. God never saves a person, you didn't save yourself, he never saves a person and then leaves them to them, leaves them to themselves, or leads him to himself to finish the work. And I promise that ain't what I understood when I first got saved, what I understood was, now that you saved, you gotta work it out now. You got to discipline yourself and you got to make yourself and we really harped on human discipline to be able to accomplish the performing of work we didn't even start.
How many have ever had somebody to start something in the natural that you didn't understand how to do it, and you had to call 'em up and say, "Well, you started this, I have no idea what to do"? So I need to call you back. I call the person back that started this thing. You know, you wired my house. I don't know where you started it. I need to call you back 'cause you started it. I need you to continue it. Well, the Holy Ghost, God started the work in you, what he looked like, saving you, starting the work and then bowing out and pouring all the responsibility on you to continue it. That's what I was taught, that's what I understood. I don't know if I'd talk it or I just thought that's what I was supposed to do. Not that I'm saved, here's what I did, now that I'm saved. Can't do this, can't do this, can't do that, can't do this, can't do that, sure can't do that no more.
Oh, absolutely can't do that no more. Okay? As if by me making a list, that that was gonna be worked out of me. It didn't work out. I made at list one time, I made a list of ten things one time, broke all ten before the weekend. And then I'm like, who can do this? Who can do this? I didn't start it, he started it, he needed to finish it, so what I've come to realize over the years is this, I am obviously in his way. I still think in my head, that I can finish this and I can continue something I didn't, I can't even start. I don't even understand all this.
All right, now, watch this carefully. Look at Psalms 138 and 8, look at it in the King James and in the NLT. All right, now I'm taking my time on this. Right now, I've been stuck on one line. I am not rushing this at all, but are you on the bus? Okay. That's all that matters, is you're on the bus. If I ask that question one time, are you on the bus? And it's quiet, I say, uh-oh, I'm gonna have to do a Purina Cat Chow and back up. Check this out, "The Lord will perfect, or bring to maturity that which concerneth me". We say that scripture all the time. but didn't know the context of it. "Thy mercy, O Lord endureth, forever, forsake not the works of your hands". Wow.
Now look at this in the NLT. "Don't forsake the work of your hands". They knew something we didn't know. "The Lord will work out his plans for my life". The plan that God has for your life, he not dependent on you to work it out. You don't even know where to go, but through the course of living, hallelujah, it's gonna be through the course of living that God's going to begin to perform and work in you. While you're living, because while you're living, you give him access to all the stuff that comes through life, and he now can use all of the stuff that comes through your living as a equipment to be used, as courses to take you through to either work something in you, or work something out of you. That's why it's important for you to live.
That's why it's not important for you to go in a cave somewhere, talking about, "I'm saved, and I'm gonna just disconnect from everybody". No, you need everybody, everybody that he put you with to... so that God can use all them people to work stuff and to perform stuff in your life. You're not gonna accomplish nothing by just becoming this little hermit and just idle, and, "I ain't doing nothing. I ain't staying around this, and I ain't doing that, and I'm gonna quit that job because all 'em unsaved people there". Honey, there unsaved people everywhere, and God will use every last one of them demon possessed people, to bring you to a place. I don't know what it is about Christians, but we're always trying to run away with something, run away from something, so we can get around, I wanna get around some Christians every day. You can't grow if you're around... well, yes, you can, some of these Christians.
See some, yeah, sometimes I rather be around some sinners, so yeah, you can grow. So he'll put you around all kinds of folks. He'll put you out, he'll put you around Christians and you know, he puts you around all kinds of folks, amen? But you don't stop living while you're waiting on God to finish the work. Okay? You don't just stay away from everybody and pray. You pray while you're living. You pray while you're in hell. Your praise when you're not so much in hell. You thank him while you got a break. And then when some mo' hell come, this is course 102, and then you take a break, graduate, celebrate and then course 103 coming. And so you finish with that level and now you're ready for course 200. They talking about you now. They slandering, how they used to say it? Scandalizing your name. All of that, that's course 200, all right?
Course 201 is when Freddie said he loved ya and Freddie used ya and left ya alone and broke your heart. That's course 201. That's course 201, and he's content, he's using all the stuff. Now you're broke, busted and disgusted, course 203, because ain't no use to you having these courses, hallelujah, if you... Listen, God wanna show you how to work out each course. He wants to, "And now I can build you, now I can teach you, now I can mature you, now I can", you see, by yourself in a cave, you don't think nothing wrong with you. By yourself in a cave, you know you're going to heaven, you're away from nobody, you're away from everybody and you know, you go home, ain't nobody there. And it's dangerous. Go home, ain't nobody there, so, ain't nobody to challenge you. Ain't nobody challenge you.
When the door bell ringing and I look at Taffi, I'm like, "Door bell ringing," she said, "Well, go get it. I got it the last time". "Well you can get it this time too can't ya"? You got to have something to bring out of you the authenticity of who you are, and the miles you got to travel to get to a place, and the Spirit of God says, "I'm gonna help you do that," because when you go around talking about how awesome you are, then the Holy Ghost whispers, "You are so selfish". And refer to a situation in one of the courses and say, "See what you did here? See what you did there? Look at there. They told you you couldn't sing, and you quit the church. You ain't ready. You ain't ready. You brag about how disciplined you are, and you can't even keep the commitment you made out of your own mouth".
But he says, "That's all right. I'm ready for course 301, 'cause in course 301, you gonna get fired for not being able to do what you need to do. And in course 301, they're gonna repossess your car, and you're gonna lose your house in course 301. And I'm doing all of that, so you'll learn that my grace is sufficient and that I had left you, and you still believe in me and you're not just gonna tell me bye-bye 'cause things ain't going your way. You know I got you sevenfold, I got your recompense, I got all of that there, but I need to see how you're doing. So I need to allow some stuff to shake you up a little bit, so that we can continue on course".