Creflo Dollar - How To Maintain Your Righteous Stance - Part 1
If you have your Bibles, go with me to the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17 through 21 in the NLT. We're gonna continue with maintaining your righteous stance. I'm seeing it already how, yes there are prophetic things that are gonna take place. You can cast out devils, but you can't cast that prophecy. I understand that we can have 24 hour prayer. But when God says something is gonna happen, it's gonna happen, doesn't mean cancel prayer because prayer can still show up and do some amazing things when people are going through stuff. However, as the Christian, we must understand that your mind is the battleground. Your mind is the arena of faith. You will lose it or you will win it in the battleground of your mind. You have to understand that Satan's most powerful weapon is the power of suggestion.
What can he suggest to you? What can he say to you through vehicles in this world? And if a person doesn't know his God, and if a person doesn't know the Word of God, then you're easy prey for deception. And yet, I am concerned about the Christian who's been saved for some time. I'm also concerned about the prophecy that love will grow and wax cold and wondering how many of you will be here by the end of the year, that attack that will show up to try to convince you that it just doesn't matter. And all of a sudden, I don't care about the Bible and I'm not concerned about God. And I'm sure right now you can't see yourself there, which is why you have to make your mind up right now. God, I'm in it. I'm not going nowhere come hell or high water. I will never let you go. I will never let you go. And the way to do that is to keep him on your mind.
There's the battle of the mind, and with Satan's M.O, it is always to attack you where your identity is concerned. And there are lots of people who just don't know who they are. Maybe the issue was being raised by a single mother or the issue, maybe you went into foster care, or all of those are sad. But once you get born again, Jesus now is responsible for your identity. You are the righteousness of God. He released that attack in the garden of Eden, and that's why we are where we are today. Jesus showed up to reconcile everything, and the first thing he did is he attacks, he attacks the Lord's identity. "If thou be the Son of God".
So the thing we have to be aware of this year, we really gotta guard our heart and guard our ears and guard our eyes and we got to be careful, because, I mean, we're living in the age of social media. You got to be careful not to allow that to become your new pastor. And it starts ministering all kinds of things to you that you think are true. But social media is driven by the spirit of Mammon. Mammon is not money. Mammon is the spirit behind money. Mammon says, you don't need God, you need money. Mammon says, you know, you cheat to get it. Mammon is looking for church people, and you've got to understand the motivation behind social media and podcast is, I can make money if the clickbait is right.
I remember one time I went in trying to show our podcast and found out three different times I was dead. According to social media, I was gone. You have got to guard your ears and you have got to guard your heart and you have got to guard your mind because those are the entrances into a man's heart. And Satan knows it. And he wants to do everything he can to take the church down. He will fail. He tried before. I don't know why I keep trying to do it. The church keep rising up, no matter how bad it's hit. It just keeps getting back up, it keeps getting back up. Praise God. Which is why it is vital that you know and understand that you are the righteousness of God, not by your works. You are righteous because of your faith and your belief in Jesus Christ. And you cannot allow him to take that from you.
2 Corinthians chapter 5, and verse 21. We'll begin this morning. He says, "This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person". So everybody in here who has made Jesus the Lord of your life, and you have had the experience of being born again. This scripture says that you are a new person. He's describing the fact that when you got born again, the old man left and the new creation came in. The old man parted and the new creation came in, and you have now become a new person based on that new creation that showed up when you got born again. He said, "The old life is gone". Say that out loud, "the old life is gone". He says, "a new life has begun"! The day you got born again and receive that new creation, "a new life has begun". And all of this is a gift from God.
That's what I need to get you to see. It's all a gift from God. Religion loves for us to try to take credit for what has happened to us. It is all a gift from God, "who brought us back to himself through Christ". Now, at one time, there was enmity between God and mankind, sin, because of what happened in the garden, there was enmity between God and mankind. But because of Jesus and his shed blood, and you receiving Jesus, we have been bought back to God. There has been reconciliation between God and man. We've been bought back through to God through Christ Jesus before Christ Jesus. And I don't think people realize that enmity was between God and man. "And God has given us this task of reconciling people".
So he says, now that you who are born again, you have experienced reconciliation between your God and yourself. He says, now I give you the ministry to go out and tell people to come back, come to God, come to God. It's not just about our church. It's not just about what you do. We have been given the ministry of reconciliation. When was the last time you shared with someone who's not born again? When was the last time you gave witness to Jesus to someone that's not born again? Think about, somebody had to tell you. Who was the person that told you? Who was the person? I remember. I remember, I mean, had no sense at all as far as what God was, who he was and didn't know nothing. I'm praying this year that we will become World Changers.
When people see World Changers, they're thinking whole world. We're not talking about whole world. You can't change the whole world until you've changed, until your world has been changed. And when your world has been changed, then you can reach out and begin to change somebody else's world. Think about that. How many people will you encounter this year that don't know Jesus? And maybe, just maybe you're at that place just to share witness of Jesus. Last week I ran out to get some, what was that I went out to get? I got something that had something to do with my pancakes that night. And I ran to the store and get it, and Taffi said I'll go get it for you. I said, no, I don't want you to go get it for me. I know exactly what I need. I'll go in there and get it. And then it was a long line and, you know, people were, you know, getting their liquor and all that stuff.
And I was standing behind a guy, and he turned to me and he said "It just irks me, just bothers me all kinds of things when people don't have their money ready when they get up to the cash register". I say, "Yeah, but you just probably need to get over all those little things that irk you". He said, "Well, well, yeah. Yeah, you're right, you're right. Just because the other day when I was, you know, I was riding around with my son and this guy just pulled out in front of me and I said, 'Well, look at this guy right here pulling out in front of me,' and I was about ready to go off on him because, you know, I had my gun with me," and I told him, I said, "Yeah, I got a 'peace, be still' too".
I said, "Sometimes it's the small foxes. So don't let that bother you, because there'll be a lot of those irritants that'll be released to see if it can get your emotions to control your life and your emotions versus God controlling". He said, "Yeah, yeah, you're right". He said, "I surely enjoyed talking to you. It's a blessing". I'm like, uh-huh, yeah, wasn't a blessing five minutes ago, but it's a blessing now. It doesn't take much if you just water the seed. If you would just water and plant, God'll give the increase. You don't have to just beat somebody up. You need to get saved right now. No, no, no, I might just be God's plan for watering, and then they'll send somebody else that might be God's plan for planting, but he will always give the increase.
And so let's make up in our mind that we're gonna be witnesses for Jesus this year. We're gonna take advantage of being an example, sharing some light, sharing some words, sharing some love, and allowing God to have the opportunity to increase. I'm believing that we're gonna see more people saved this year than we have ever seen in the last 38 years. And it's because you are reaching out to make a mark that can't be erased. He says, and so God has given us this task of reconciling people to Him. "For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself," whoa, "no longer counting people's sins against them".
That's strong, that's strong. That's an argument amongst the clergy. He said God was reconciling the world, the whole world. He was doing something so that the whole world could take advantage of something. And what he was saying is I'm going to give my Son, Jesus Christ, and I'mma put the whole world sin on him. So when you're ready to receive him, I want you to know that he's already taking care of all of your sins. You just need to sign for the package. What would happen if some sinner would hear that? What would happen if some sinner would hear God... God has already taken care of your sins through Jesus Christ and has decided to forgive you of all of your sins, and that guy ends up going to hell, and he said, "What was the bad thing that actually sent me here"? He said, "It wasn't your behavior. It was because you didn't sign for the salvation package".
Now, how tormenting is that? Ending up in hell because everything was done. All you had to do is sign the receipt. Phew. "And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation". Verse 20, "So we are Christ's ambassadors;" we are Christ's ambassadors. We're representative of Christ. We are ambassadors. You know, we're an ambassador for Christ because our citizenship is in heaven. Well, okay, I'll speak for myself. My citizenship is in heaven. You waiting on the government to tell you about aliens? I am one. You are aliens, praise God. My God, y'all don't hear me. Somebody, "What, what"? "God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, 'Come back to God!' For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering," or the propitiation or the sacrifice for mankind, "to be the offering for our sins, so that we could be made right with God through Christ" Jesus. Mmm-mm-mm.
Christ who never sinned became sin but he never sinned. He was a serpent on the cross. He became sin, but he never sinned. He became sin so he could be the offering, the propitiation, the ransom. He was the ransom. He paid the ransom price, glory to God, "so that we could be made right with God through Christ Jesus". So he who had never sinned was made sin so that we who had never been righteous could be made righteous without doing right, because he was made a sinner without ever sinning, you can be made righteous without ever doing right. He said, so "I'm not looking at what you have done when I made you righteous. I'm looking at what Jesus has done, and if you believe that you are the righteousness of God, you'll do right once you believe you're the righteousness of God". But you keep trying to do right to qualify your status.
Look at John 1:29. I asked the question last week, why are we righteous in God's eyes? Is it because we do right? No, it's because of Jesus. Why am I righteous in God's eyes? Because I do right? No, it's because of Jesus. It's gotta be humbling to a religious person who all of his life has worked on doing right so he can be right with God. But I'm not right with God because I do right. I'm right with God because I believe in Jesus. And what Jesus has done has made me the righteousness of God. And the day you believe you're righteous, your behavior is gonna line up with that. But as long as you allow your bad behavior to tell you that's who you are. You keep going back to, what I can do to be made righteous versus believing in Jesus and what he has already done to make it righteous.
Verse 29 says, "The next day, John," now John here is talking about John the Baptist, not the Apostle John, but he says, "The next day, John", the Baptist, he "saw Jesus coming towards him and he said, 'Look! The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!'" That is so hard for people to get, especially church people because we're so sin conscious. There are people that get up in the morning before they even go outside and they say they're grace. So Lord forgive me for the sin that I hadn't done yet because that sin consciousness, we're more conscious of sin than we are of the fact that we've been made righteous. Well, where'd you get that sin consciousness from? Church. You got it from church. You came to church all your life and that's all was preached on, sin. God don't like ugly. You need to do this or you're gonna go to hell.
If you don't do that, then God ain't gonna do that. You better be careful 'cause you're gonna be cursed if you do that. Uh-huh, that's the reason why she died early. Uh-huh, that's the reason why that happened. That's why you lost your Job. That's why you... like God's the punisher. God's not the punisher. And besides, who wants to develop in a forced relationship? I'm not interested in a forced relationship. I don't wanna marry somebody that somebody forced me to marry. And say if you don't marry, you ain't gonna get the money. And if you don't marry, then we gonna not let you have this. And if you don't marry, no, no, no. I wanna marry somebody 'cause, I mean, I can't live without you. You made me do that. That's why I was like, I wanna marry somebody because I'm like, well, what I get silly when I'm around, hey!
I remember when I, first...well, the second time I met Taffi, she had transferred to the college I was in and there was this big walkway where everybody would pass by and it was a spring time. And whoo! It was the spring time. You know what I'm talking? Whoo! It was a spring, had love valley down. You remember? Whoo! It was a spring. And Taffi had on this sun dress with all kind of colors. And she had a tan on her skin, and I just love beautiful skin and whoo! And she walked past me and I walked past her, and we had been introduced and I said, oh, and I got sick. I can't believe I said, I wanted to slap myself. I said, "Oh, look at the little girl with the pretty little dress on". She said, "I ain't no little girl, I'm a grown woman".
I'm like goddang. I was like godoggit. Oh Lord. Oh, I didn't mean that. I just, I got silly. I want a relationship that when I get before his presence he, I, oh glory to God. I lift my hands up and I don't mean to. I jerk and I don't mean to, but something happens in the presence of the Lord because I want that relationship. Nobody's making me, nobody's threatening me into the relationship. Nobody's putting fear on me in the relationship. That's the same way in my giving. I give 'cause I want to. I adore him. I want to give. Nobody's gonna tell me you cursed with a curse if you don't give a certain percentage.
Wait a minute, now you're putting fear on me, and so the only reason I'm giving it because I'm scared? No, I give because I delight in him and I love him and I, oh, I wanna please him, and I want him happy. I want him to find joy in my relationship. I asked God this morning when I was praying. I said, "Now Lord, I think I know but I still wanna ask you this. What did Enoch and Elijah do to make you just take them"? I said, I said, "Well, did you just take them because that was part of the plan and you had already planned or did they do something? Did they do something that you found great delight in"? And he quickly answered me. He says, I am not a respecter of person. He says, I find as much delight in you as I find in them. Because in them I couldn't live in, but I'm living in you.