Michael Todd - Increasing the Window of Tolerance
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Would you get your Bibles out and go with me to Ephesians chapter 4? We’re going to start today, I believe, at verse one. This is the start of week three of a series we’re calling «Triggered.» Has anybody been blessed by this series so far? All right, so in a world where everyone seems on edge, triggered, about to crash out, I felt like we needed to, as a church, figure out what Christ has to say about our crash. Where is Christ in the middle of all the crises that are going on? God has taken me on a unique journey to lead us as a church, not into them discovering, but into self-discovery.
Did you hear what I just said? Because everybody is trying to figure out how to change someone outside of themselves. If those people would just—if my family would just—if my husband would just—and let me just tell you something, you can’t change them! Right? The only person that you can control is you. Until we stop putting the magnifying glass on everybody else’s issues, we will miss the transformation that God is inviting us all into if we would just look in the mirror. So this entire series is not about changing them. I’m so sorry. People have been having the same complaints since Jesus left the earth. Y’all know there’s nothing new under the sun. The disciples argued with each other, the governments argued—all of this is the same. It’s just the first time you’re feeling it like this in your lifetime. But this is the same rerun that God is saying, «I’m giving my people a way to manage their minds, emotions, and wills in the middle of this.» And this is what I want us to progress through today. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1: «Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord…» Think about that phrase. Literally, he’s saying, «I’m going to serve the Lord no matter what. I’m chained to this.» Most of us don’t want to be chained to anything. But if you’re going to be chained to something, be connected to something eternal.
Okay, he says, «I beg of you to lead a life worthy of your calling.» Last week we talked about our capacity—our calling. God wants us to expand. He said, «For you have been called by God.» Always be—watch this—humble. Underline it. And gentle. Be patient with each other. Watch this. This is some heavy scripture. Making allowances for each other’s—not gifts—not talents. We always make room for people’s gifts and talent. «Oh you know little big bake, she is so good at singing!» Have you made an allowance for their faults? Okay, this is you. He said, «Make allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourself united in the Spirit, binding yourself together with peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.»
I started to look at Ephesians 4, and I was like, «Yo, this could be a checklist for our everyday—like how we leave the house. We could have an Ephesians 4 checklist.» So I want you to write this down: The Ephesians 4 checklist. This is in order. Number one, you’ve got to answer your call. Every day you wake up, answer the call that God has put on your life. If he told you to go and be the light in an area and you’re like, «But I’m sick of this job,» answer the call still. Okay? If he told you to go into that school and actually show love to people that other people have forgotten about, do not hang up on God because you’re uncomfortable. Somebody say, «Answer the call.» Answer the call.
The second thing: walk humble. I think it was prophet Kendrick Lamar who said, «Hold up, sit down, be humble.» Then it says, «Live gentle.» How do you live, and would it be described as gentle? I’m not going to preach through all these points, but I just want you to know that when I wake up, do I answer the call, walk humble, live gentle? Watch this: and be patient. Some of us have such a short fuse that as soon as anything or anybody does anything—y’all know what I’m talking about. And God’s saying, «Hey, it’s a characteristic of mine that you be patient.»
Then it says, «Give love, fight for unity, find peace, and think of eternity.» Every day, you could give yourself a little checklist. Put it somewhere on your phone. Today I’mma answer the call, walk humble, live gentle, be patient, give love, fight for unity, find peace, and think of eternity. And if you would just set that framework for your everyday life, a lot of the craziness that you go through would be eliminated immediately. You don’t need no more Bible. Do this for the rest of the year! «No, I need a fresh word!» You haven’t done the old one; it’s stale. And I think some of us have become so intoxicated by consumerism that we don’t put anything into implementation.
We could just do Ephesians 4. Today I’m going to answer my call, and today when I know I’m right and they’re talking crazy, I’mma sit there and I’m like, «That’s good, that’s good.» And I’mma walk humble. And then instead of walking into every room and telling you I’m the man or I’m the woman, I’mma live gentle. Yes sir! And I hear the men, «I ain’t no…» I’m a man’s man. The greatest thing about a man, especially when you start to walk into who God’s created you to be, is that people rely on you because they can come to you at any moment. Our father God is the one that says, «Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-burdened.» He said, «I’m the God that can, with my mighty hands—who created the entire universe—still hold you and bottle every tear.» Look at that dynamic! Yeah, look at the dynamic of our God who can call mountains out of dust but still carve you in the palm of his hand. Live gentle. Be patient.
This is going to keep us from many of the crashes that are right around the corner. Pastor Mike, what are you saying? Tomorrow, someone is going to do something. I just want to prophesy tomorrow. Somebody’s going to do—hold on, I feel the—uhhhh. Today, after this service, somebody you love is potentially—what just happened? I went underwater. Did something happen? Yeah, just give it to me. I’m going—to check, check, check, check, check, check, check. Can y’all hear me today? That could have taken me out. Did you hear me? The enemy was like, «Uh-uh.» But today—today, how we live determines—watch this—if we actually know him. Don’t tell me you’re a Christian; show me you’re a Christian. Don’t post that you’re a Christian; live!
Okay, I already offended some people. So help me by writing this down: This series is to encourage—watch this—mental health through spiritual help. The reason I have to talk about you being triggered is that I think your mental health is suffering because of your spiritual immaturity. I have to challenge you to grow up, or you will always be fighting with the same cycles. This is not the enemy trying new things on you. This is the same cycle since high school. This has been the same cycle he’s been running on you since middle school. You’ve got more money, more gray hairs, you’ve got more investments—same cycle. And it’s because you can mature numerically and not mature spiritually.
How old are you spiritually? I didn’t say, «I’m a grown man.» No, no, no, no! I know! But I’m saying in maturity spiritually, do people know you as someone who still pops off at the moment? Or maybe you don’t pop off because not all the crash outs are explosive. Some of them are implosive. Do you shut down? I think shutting down is even worse sometimes than exploding because nobody knows where you’re at. And some of us don’t even realize it: we are walking around with people, and we don’t even know what triggered them. We don’t even know what changed, but literally, emotions and words and isolation—and what ends up happening is that still exposes our lack of maturity.
What you cannot communicate with your words will come out of you with your actions. Oh, you missed it. So, Pastor Mike, what are you saying? This is all introduction—get ready. Unaddressed triggers usually lead to a crash out. Everything you’re avoiding right now is a ticking time bomb. Everything that you don’t bring to God and say, «Here I am, still struggling with comparison. I know at my big age I should be over this, but I don’t like that my sister keeps getting these promotions, and it seems like I’m stuck in the same place,» God is fine with the truth of where you live. And until you can be honest and acknowledge that, many of us are literally setting ourselves up for something that God wants to protect us from.
So, so, so, put the definition of crash out on the screen real quick. This is some new vocabulary that has come to us in the last few years. And I know some of my older saints think crash out and they think go to sleep, but this is a new dispensation, as the youth would term it. A crash out is when a person can be suddenly uncontrollably angry or act impulsively, potentially leading to negative consequences. This many times shows up as emotional or physical shutdown, usually from burnout or overstimulation, or being overwhelmed. Has anybody been overwhelmed at any time in the last six months? Okay, let’s be honest. Somebody’s like, «Six months? I thought you meant six minutes.»
The act of surrendering, watch this, all reasonable control of your emotions and response in order to react to how you are currently feeling could be a strong indicator that they are struggling with their mental health. Watch this; they need support. Today, Pastor Mike is just trying to be support to you. All I’m trying to do as a pastor is provide support. Why? Because the church usually doesn’t talk about this. What we do is we pray for the symptoms of people and we hope they don’t come back and ask for prayer next week. «Okay, I’m going to tell you the real deal; hopefully, the symptom of that situation I don’t ever have to deal with again, and hopefully your faith is encouraged.» But some of these people don’t just need prayer; they need therapy. We believe in theology and therapy. Some of y’all think people need to unpack the trauma—watch this—with somebody who has tools you didn’t get. And you’re sitting up there bound right now, sounding like this is for somebody else.
Hear me when I tell you that the impact—do y’all know the word trauma is also used not just in the mental health field? It’s used when somebody has taken blows, like in a car crash. A boxer, when he gets hit in the head, they call that trauma. Yeah, it’s the impact of something, watch this, that many times you had nothing to do with. It just happened to you. And my desire is that you wouldn’t be stuck in the fact that it happened; that you would honestly become one of those that says, «Because this happened, now I’m going to let God use it to transform me into another version of who I was created to be.» Right? And I just see too many people in the body of Christ, under the sound of my voice right now, who are stuck.
And today, I feel an assignment to get you unstuck from what has been keeping you in a cycle. Somebody shout at me, «Amen!» So this is how it happened for me last week. I preached to you about your capacity being expanded and how God, if he’s calling you to great things, that means you’ve got to expand your capacity. Well, I have a beautiful sister-in-law who is a counselor and a therapist, and she said, «Mike, I was screaming inside while you were preaching because what you were talking about was the window of tolerance.» And she sent me a graph with all of these words around it. Y’all, I’ve been—the reason I look like a college professor at an HBCU today is because I’ve been studying this week. I went down this rabbit hole of figuring out the window of tolerance.
And I started studying, and as I was studying and reading stuff and listening to the guys whose names I couldn’t pronounce half the words of, when they were doing their TED talks and everything, the Holy Spirit tapped me on the shoulder. He said, «Michael, I have windows too.» And I was like, «What do you mean?» He said, «Look up Malachi and see when I talk about a window.» And watch this, y’all, I got some revelation for you. Okay, Malachi 3:10. Now warning: this is a scripture that is usually used to teach people about tithing and offering. Today we are not taking any second offerings. We don’t ever take second offerings. If people want to give, they give. This is not—I want you to catch the principle that’s buried in this scripture, okay?
So don’t think money yet; it applies to that. It has so many facets to this scripture. But I saw the principle; I’m getting excited. Like I never saw it before. Watch this. It says, «Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so that there will be enough food in my temple. If you do, ” somebody say, „If you do,"—that’s a condition—says the Lord of Heaven’s armies. Just in case you forgot who I was, I’m about that life. I’m him. That’s what he said right there. He said, «I will open the windows…» Didn’t know Heaven had windows? But right here it says it. «I will open the windows of Heaven for you, and I will pour you out a blessing so great you will not have enough room to take it in.» Somebody should just thank God right there that that’s even in the Bible! And then he gets gangster with it and says, «Put it to the test.»
I dare you to do it! I dare you to tithe! And what I saw here is I’ve only seen this scripture as a tithing scripture, but God said, «Look deeper, Michael.» And so I just read it over and over and over again, and what I found out, watch this, is the window of blessing is opened by obedience. God could have said anything before that. But this particular time, he says, «Tithe, and if you do that, I’mma do this.» He said, «I bless when people obey.» Okay, stay with me. The window of Heaven is opened every time we do what God says for us to do. «Love your enemy.» If you do that, God says, «Time to open windows!»
God says, «Hey, take a day off. Rest on the Sabbath.» Some of y’all haven’t rested in 69 years. Did you know you were sinning? It’s the longest commandment with an explanation. And he says, «I can do more with six of your days than you can do with seven.» But when we obey what he says, windows open. Blessings come through. I started looking through the scripture. Y’all, I don’t have time to go through all of it—all of the places where God gives a command, a condition, and a consequence. Write that down: A command, a condition, consequence. He says something, says a condition, «If you do this, I’ll do this.»
And then whether we do it or not is our choice. But if we do, we get the consequence of our choice in what he commanded. Okay? A command, a condition, our choice, a consequence. Let me help you understand because some of us were bad—us, me—some of us were bad when we were little. And anytime we heard the word consequence, it meant bad. But when I looked up the word consequence, it actually only means it is the response to what has happened. So you can have a good consequence! If you invested your money in Apple in 1978, the consequence of that is «Bling!» Like, do you understand what I’m saying? You paid right now!
So, I don’t want you to think consequence is bad; I want you to think consequence is outcome. So in Malachi 3, God says the window of blessing is opened by your obedience. You can use that anywhere! So if God says anything in his word, when you obey that, imagine God going to a window with your name on it and saying, «Yep, I can bless them now.» There’s more I can—actually, I can do what I promised them I can do because they, watch this, weren’t just a good person, didn’t just go to church—watch this—they obeyed what I said to do. This is a message of maturity. It doesn’t do anything to just be a hearer of the word; you must be a doer. Yes, sir!
Okay, so this is what I want to help everybody understand is that, as I was studying through this, and I thought about it and was talking to some of my brothers about it, every window that can be opened also can be closed. And I started to think about how many times I did what God said to do, but I didn’t see the blessing. How many times did God tell me to do something? I did what he said to do, but there didn’t seem to be any blessing on the other side of what he said to do. And God was continuing to challenge me that maybe it wasn’t him who stopped the blessings from coming, because each window has two sides. The same way that God could open it from this side is the same way that I could close it from this side. Okay?
Two sides of the same window. I obey God; he opens the window. I don’t see the blessing because I closed the window. «God, I did what you said!» «Yeah, about to bless you, but I don’t like the people you said you were going to do it with, so I’mma close the window.»
«Watch God! Thank you for blessing me with these kids! I thank you, but I don’t have the emotional capacity to talk to them. You want to use me in mighty ways for your kingdom! He—He starts to open up the windows. But because our, watch this, window of tolerance is so low, we start to close the very place that God wants to provide a blessing for us.
So walk with me for a second. The window of blessing is opened by obedience. The window of tolerance is expanded by opposition or opportunity. Okay, Pastor Mike, what are you talking about? You’re using a lot of heavy language. I know we don’t use this all the time, but hear what I’m saying. Your window of being able to tolerate things that are not favorable has to grow, or you will not be able to live a full Christian life. I don’t know if I can say it any plainer than that: you will not be able to help who you need to help if you can’t get over petty stuff. You will not be able to speak a word with a pure heart if you do not mature and be like, „I already got grace for that.“ Remember the scripture said, „Make allowances for each other’s faults?“
Yes, sir! I know this is tough for you to hear right now, but God is not going to put you in a utopia to be a Christian. Right? He’s not going to take all the bad people, crazy people, messy people, sloppy people away to then be like, „Now you have a perfect environment to serve me.“ Yes, sir! He said, „I need you to mature so that you have an increased window of tolerance.“ Because when I get ready to open up the windows and bless you, if you do not have a wide window, you will shut the blessing down that I was trying to provide for you.
Okay, I’m gonna have to walk them all the way through this. So how God expands the window of tolerance is by sending somebody annoying. Yes, sir! You’re praying for peace; he’s going to send a storm. God, why does this feel like a „Ah-ha“ moment? You want joy in your life? Grief usually comes because you have nothing to authenticate what you’re asking for. If you do not have opposition, you are not a winning team playing nobody. Oh my God! What if somebody—we’re champions, we’re champions! You didn’t face an opponent. How are you a champion if you didn’t have opposition? And how are we Christians if we don’t have opposition?
Help me! This last season of my life has been about me learning not to despise opposition because opposition is the authenticator of what is really on the inside. You have no idea if you have peace until you’re in the middle of a storm. You have no idea if you truly have love when hate is all around you. You have no idea if you really believe God until everything says, „Don’t believe him!“ This is the mark of a Christian life. Opposition is not our enemy; it’s our authenticator. And people have been selling you this fairy tale that somehow God has left you if you’re facing opposition, and it is a sign that he is actually with you. He said, „I’ll never leave you or forsake you; I’ll be with you until the end of the age!“ And if we don’t have the right perspective, we’re calling things that God could use the end.
Write it down in a point: some of you, this is going to trigger you. But our relationship with discomfort has to develop. If you don’t develop your relationship to discomfort, you will be underdeveloped when your season comes to be useful. Have you ever seen somebody with potential? Like, let’s just even think sports—like a young middle schooler, they’re dunking on people—6’9» in middle school! Poor baby, like dunking on people! Like potential—scouts everywhere! People giving them Adidas and Nikes—like, and they’re doing that based on potential.
But then you take that same child that doesn’t even know how these long limbs work yet, and you put them with college players. It doesn’t matter their potential; they are about to get mollywhopped! Not because they aren’t good and could be good; they’re just underdeveloped. Could it be that some of the things you’ve been walking through—you talk about, «I take authority over everything!”—yes, I feel that! That is what the word says! But you can’t even have a conversation with the children you birthed! You’ve never said, „I’m sorry.“ You have the authority to command angels, and you don’t have the authority to say, „Sorry?“
You hear what I’m saying to you? It’s because there’s some place in your spiritual walk that is underdeveloped. You’re not a bad person if you’re underdeveloped; you’re not off. It just needs to be recognized, ‘cause until you recognize it—watch this—you will never work on what you don’t recognize is even an issue. Pastor Mike, why are you talking straight to us? ‘Cause some of y’all really think you’re okay! Like, you really have bought your own lie: „I’m fine, I’m an independent woman, I do my own thing. I don’t need no man. I don’t need no man.“
Are you doing all that on Instagram and TikTok, looking for a like and really what you want? Watching Ruth and Boaz seven times? Shoutout to Devon Franklin, number one on Netflix! Good job, buddy! But they’re at home; that’s why they’re watching it. ‘Cause what they really want is Boaz! Do you understand me? But without acknowledgment, without self-awareness, without coming to God and saying, „If there’s anything in me that’s not like you,“ and that means that our window of tolerance many times is too small.
Very good! And so, church, I need to talk to you about tolerance because it’s a very simple definition I want you to write down: Tolerance—watch this—this blessed me—is the capacity to endure. Very good! I need to increase my ability to have the capacity to endure things. Some of us, at the first sign of it not going good, we’re out. Cut-off games so strong, and we hide behind statements that have been weaponized. „I’m protecting my peace!“ And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t protect your peace, but could you be protecting it so much that you don’t build up any resistance against anything?
Because you’re so protected, nothing is actually helping you become anything. And I see so many people weaponizing language that is for, listen to me, severe cases of trauma, not regular life! In regular life, somebody’s going to try to rob you of peace! As long as you wake up—so what is your solution? Not interact with the people that God tells you to reach? „Go into all the world and make…“ How will you make a disciple of somebody you won’t have a discussion with while you’re protecting your peace? So now you’re being disobedient, protecting something that God never wanted you to protect ‘cause he said, „I am your peace; I’m the Prince of Peace.“
I need you to get some endurance. I need you to be able to stand there and have them talk to you crazy, and you say, „I love you anyway, and I’m praying for you.“ Matter of fact, „I’m going to pray for you right now! Can I hold your hand?“ „You don’t want me to hold your hand? Well, Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank you that there’s no distance in prayer, and I give this person to you.“
When are you going to develop? And you will never develop if you’re running from resistance. You will never develop, watch this, if you’re running from honest critique. Church people can’t take the truth! Y’all tell everybody that gets up to sing, „Sing, little Rooney! Sing, little Rooney, you did so good!“ Rooney sucked! And we—no, y’all, this starts little, and I understand encouragement, but little Ron’s 39 now. And all he’s heard all his life is effort equals excellence.
I’m on a tangent; I’m sorry. Effort does not equal excellence! And all these people out here getting their feelings hurt because somebody actually told them the truth: „You are not good!“ You are not good! That is an opportunity. With the truth, it is an opportunity to come to another level of development. Let me just tell a story on myself.
I’ve been playing drums since I was two years old. And as a young man, I had a natural gifting to play the drums. My mom and dad supported me in that; they bought me drum sets, they did all kinds of stuff. And when I got 12 years old, I started feeling myself. Now I’m being honest—12! My mom and dad, we would travel all over the country, and I was sitting grown men down off the drum set! Like, you don’t understand how it feels as a 12-year-old to walk into a church and you look over and see the drummer and think, „I’m about to eat him alive!“ I’m just telling you, musicians understand what I’m talking about!
And my mom saw that pride in me, and she said, „For the next five cities we go into, no matter what is happening, you will not play the drums.“ I was like, „What?! I was like, she can’t do that!“ 'Cause she really loves to drum; you know she’s—I’ve said if y’all know Mama B, she’s okay. So we’re going to city after city, and she wouldn’t even look in my direction. I’m like, „Oh my gosh, she’s serious!“ And what that taught me was humility.
And what it honestly opened the door to—watch this—was my development. When I came back home off the road that year, my dad asked our former U minister of music, Pastor David Smith at the time, „Do you know anybody that can teach Mike something?“ Because he’s good at the drums, but there’s another level. And literally, he gave him a number to a guy named Arthur Thompson. And Arthur Thompson would play drums for Wayman Tisdale and all these other big people, and he had this drum studio in the basement of a building downtown.
My dad took me there, and Arthur put me on the drum set—a beautiful drum set. He was like, „Let me see what you got, you little fella.“ And I showed out! I hit every drum 3000 times! Do you hear what I’m saying? I was the animal in this moment! And he said, „Cool, yep, a lot of potential!“ He said, „For the next 6 months, we’re not going to play the drum set at all.“ And he gave me a pillow. „You’re going to learn the fundamentals on this pillow.“ And it almost broke me! I was trying to convince my dad, „Why are you paying this man $40 every time I come here to torture me? He’s not even teaching me the drums; I could practice on a pillow at home!“
I was literally at the point of breaking until I didn’t realize it at the time, but every rudiment, every paradiddle, every single roll was the conditioning that I needed to actually put into play on the drum set. One day, when I was sitting behind the drum set, because I endured the process, it was like an entirely different world opened up to me on the drum set. I was like, „I’ve never been able to do this before; where did this come from?“ It’s because, through opposition, my window of tolerance was expanded.
Church, when are you going to develop? When are you going to stop saying that just coming to church is not enough? „I go to church.“ There are some devils that go to church too! Okay, let me stop! Somebody say, „Increase me, Lord!“
Let me be clear ‘cause I don’t want the word tolerance or our capacity to endure to be confused with abuse! Because I know somebody might say, „He’s saying tolerance is not you getting punched in the face!“ The metric for this is we tolerate everything Jesus tolerated. So, if you want to know what Jesus tolerated, that means we’re going to have to go to his book. But what you tolerate needs to be defined by the truth of God’s word. Write that down! What I tolerate needs to be defined—not by culture, not by my family—but by the truth of what God’s word says.
So we have to tolerate what Jesus tolerated. And here’s a good word that can help you understand it: Embrace what leads to eternity. So let’s talk about it. Take a second and think about what Jesus tolerated just walking with his 12 disciples. Jesus tolerated a liar being in his group. Judas was lying from the beginning, but he did not kick Judas out on day one. He literally let him have a position! Yes, sir! He actually gave him—watch this—opportunity to change.
See, depending on where your perspective is right now, you thought Judas being a part of the group was a bad, weak call by Jesus as a leader. Because if you knew he was going to sell you out, you should have just taken him out before he took you out! Stop! The Bible tells us that Jesus' character is—I’m pretty sure I know what you’re going to do, but on a slim chance that something in you could change, I’mma still give you the opportunity, and I’m going to believe for your transformation every single day.
He literally tolerated somebody who knew he was going to portray him walking with him daily. Who have you cut out? Who have you totally disconnected? I’m not saying you don’t draw a boundary! But what I am saying is maybe some of the very things and people God’s called you to, you are disconnected from because your window of tolerance is too low. Jesus—I can’t go through all this stuff, but Jesus was okay with conversing with sinners.
„Christ, man, 1-2-3 online, it just seems like you have no tolerance for somebody who’s lost.“ Duh! They don’t believe what we believe! Duh! They—like, guys, but we can’t have lunch with them? We can’t have dinner with them? This exposes the weakness of our faith! When your conversation with somebody that doesn’t follow Christ makes you wobbly about your stance, was it even a stance in the first place? If being around a drink makes you think you’ve got to get lit, as the young people would say, did you ever really have freedom from it in the first place?
If conversing with the opposite sex makes you think you’re going to be in a compromising position, you’ve got to increase your window of tolerance! ‘Cause if you don’t increase your window of tolerance, you don’t give others the time you needed. See, everybody selectively forgets or has selective amnesia, and you remember all the good things God did for you, and you remember how many times you did the Bible study, but do you remember climbing out of windows? Speaking of windows, do you remember what you needed to come out of? Do you remember how many times you said, „Yes, I’m all in, God!“ and went all backwards?
Has anybody ever been in the state of „I’m trying, but whoo?“ And I don’t know, maybe it’s just the human experience that God doesn’t let us walk away from who we used to be without bringing somebody from our future who’s like we used to be. And I’ve found some of the most intolerant people to be people who get around versions of themselves from the past. You see that pride in them, and because you know what that did to you, you don’t speak to it as someone who’s been through it. You outcast them like something’s wrong with them, knowing that that thing was in your DNA.
And what I’m saying is if you could ever get a window of tolerance bigger than you being okay with them still in the mess, you could be the key to their transformation. You could save them some steps! You could tell them, „Don’t step here, ‘cause if you step there, there’s danger right there!“ But with a low window of tolerance, you throw out who you’re supposed to help galatians 6. I got to end y’all. Y’all’s window of tolerance for this type of teaching is low. I got to—I’ll try again next week! This is why it says, „Dear brothers and sisters, if…“
Okay, let me just say this. Jesus, this might be triggering, might mess with your theology, but Jesus tolerated sin. He hates it, can’t stand it, wants to be far from it. But he tolerated it so that me and you could actually be redeemed. Think about it! So why can’t you tolerate knowing somebody’s in sin? Why? Why can’t you? If Jesus—remember, we’re only following our rabbi. I’m not clapping for it, I’m not celebrating it, but I don’t have to run away from you ‘cause I know you’re in it.
If he tolerated people’s sin, why can’t you? No, I really want you to think about this! Why can’t you know somebody is cheating on their spouse and still—? I know somebody—ohhhh. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh wow! Some of the most saved people in the room, hear what I’m telling you. Hear what I’m telling you! I’m not saying we condone it, but can you commune with them in it? And most believers can’t! Most believers would have never eaten at Zakius’s house!
Most believers don’t have the anointing of Ananias! Y’all remember Ananias, right? She’s looking at me like, „Ananias?“ It’s okay, you don’t have to know the Bible yet! We’re progressing, okay? And Ananias was the guy who was commissioned by God because I believe he had a high window of tolerance because Saul was killing Christians! He was a Christian assassin. He was literally getting government contracts to go into areas and kill Christians! He literally is known for this!
Has an encounter with God on the road to Damascus! He goes blind, and God is saying, „Paul, why are you doing this to me?“ He’s like, „I don’t know, Lord!“ Who, he’s blind! And then God, at the moment of his transformation, speaks to Ananias and literally says, „Ananias, I need you to go lay hands on that dude who’s an assassin.“ That’s where he would have lost most of us! That’s where he would have been like, „Yep, never mind; God, I heard you, but I ain’t doing that.“
He literally says, „God, okay, I’ll do what you asked me to do.“ It’s okay, baby! It’s just a baby in the back, y’all! All right, come on, I’ll do what you asked me to do. And Ananias has an anointing that is able to lay hands on somebody whose hands killed his brothers! He was able to have enough tolerance to say, „Three weeks ago, without a word from God, I’d kill you. But right now, instead of killing you, I’mma be a part of your deliverance.“ Instead of being the one to take you out, I’mma be a bridge to help you transform.
Without a word from God, I’d beat your tail, but with a word from God, I’m going to help you reach your purpose! But the only reason he could do that is ‘cause he had enough tolerance. In order to increase your window of tolerance, you’re going to have to tolerate principles, perspectives, and people in process. I’m going to say it one more time: If you’re going to increase your window of tolerance so that the window can stay open for your blessings, you’re going to have to tolerate principles. Principles that you did not create! God created these! He said to love your enemy! If I were writing it, it’d be something different: „Slap your enemy three times on the left side, then slap him again on the right!“ You know what I’m saying?
But I didn’t create it. He didn’t just say to love him; He said, „Pray for him that despitefully use you.“ I have to embrace—I have to endure—I have to wrestle with the tension of not liking you ‘cause I know what you said. Yes, sir! And I still have to say, „Father, give me a second.“ Lord, sometimes you got to take a second to purify my mind. But if all you can say is „Father, bless them,“ I’m—y’all, I’m trying to make it as simple as God. Touch them! Come on, God, be God in their life! Y’all don’t—God, be God! Whatever you want to do, from success to smite, I’m down!
No, it’s hard. But remember what I said: it’s commands, it’s conditions, and then it’s consequences. He gave the command to do it. There are conditions that happen when we do it, and then there’s consequences. And that’s why I’m telling everybody that’s here, this is time for us to keep the window open! Charles, come help me real quick! Keep the window open! So this is how I’m ending, because I don’t want you to ever forget this!
Okay, God is coming to all of us. Yeah, I’m good! God’s coming to us because we obeyed, and he’s saying, „I got blessings that you don’t have room enough…“ You can take the whole thing off! Got blessings for you! I want you to hear me differently! Get them headphones! I want you to hear me differently! But at the moment of God—is God scared at this moment? No, no, no, no! But God’s wanting to hand the blessing through, and He’s like, „Man, thank you, Lord! I can hear you differently!“
Thank you, Lord! That there’s something you want to do. He wants to give us protection! Give me that; that cover, that hat right there! He wants to give us protection! He wants to—the window’s still open! When the window’s open, there is a free flow of blessing because I have the capacity to receive! God wants to change my mode of transportation. But I can still see the blessing! I know that God has it for me! I didn’t even have to pay for it!
But because I disobeyed him, because I won’t do what he says, but I act like I do. And then when I do, he opens it! But I say, „God, just so it’s still open!“ And the Christian life makes us feel like as long as it’s open a little bit, but you’re missing the blessing; it’s still not room enough! And it’s not until my obedience is interact—oh! So I can still get the little Starburst for my bumps or my blemishes! Look, watch—that’s why many times blessings are still coming! But depending on our window of tolerance, I’m praising for this when something else was available!
I’m thanking God for the chapstick, but there’s a vehicle available! And God says, „I’m not going to keep playing with them, so I’m only going to give them what they can handle at the level of God.“ But I’m not ready to say fully, „Yes!“ I know I wrote it down on my Crazy Faith card, and I know I’m believing you for more, but I can’t stand people! So you can give me the book and get it to the world, but I don’t want to promote it! God, give me the message for the world! I’ll obey you, I’ll open, but I don’t want to talk to people about it!
And so what God will do is he’ll be like, „Well, let me see if I can get that!“ Ah! I can’t give him that! Ah! Yeah! He can give him some Nerds! Thank you, Lord! Hold on! Hold on! Listen! God, expand my business! Expand my business! God, I’m going to sow a Crazy Faith offering seed that you told me this is crazy! I’mma expand! And God said, „You obeyed me and you started tithing; I’mma open the windows of Heaven!“ And he starts to expand you, and you’re like, „God, thank you so much for all of these people!“
And thank you for the insurance I have to pay! And thank you for the taxes I have to—nevermind, ‘cause there are two sides to every blessing! Pastor Darius Danzo calls it the backside of the blessing! Many times, because our window of tolerance—watch this—you didn’t know when you prayed for a million-dollar income that that meant 40% was for taxes! Now you’re in tax evasion, praying for God to deliver you from something you could have been prepared for! And now you’re living a life of secrets!
But then God says, „Hey, be honest, just obey what I said to do.“ And then you obey, and then he opens the window of heaven again, and you’re like, „Donuts!“ God, I thank you for donuts! I know this example is going kind of long, but I want you to realize—oh, thank you, makeup! What else is there? Ah! To whom much is given! To whom I have not increased my window of tolerance, I don’t have what’s required for that type of blessing!
Church, it’s time for us to expand! Everything shouldn’t take us over the edge. Every time you see something on the news, you shouldn’t be like! „I have developed my window of tolerance for people talking about me!“ It’s okay now. I understand this is what I prayed for! I prayed for impact! And at the moment of impact, you also get unwanted opinions!
So when God’s blessing us, since 2019, God has opened the windows of Heaven for our church! And literally, the enemy, three years ago, tried to get me to shut it! There was a— they don’t even know! There were a couple of things I could have done that would have made my flesh feel real good, but it would have shut the—but what I said was, „Nope, I’mma keep the window open!“ I know this hurts, but I’mma keep the window!
‘Cause somebody else got to sit in a chair over here. I’mma keep this window open! I don’t care what they say about me! I’mma keep this window open! I don’t care who comes and who leaves; somebody’s baby needs some diapers! I’mma keep this window! The crazy thing is with all that stuff sitting over there, I didn’t know if all this would fit through this window, but somehow God knew if I just kept the window open, there would be provision! There would be space for everything I need!
Hey guys, what if none of this stuff was for me? Is there a single mother in this room right now? Here, I saw your hand first in the back! Come here, sweetheart! In the black, yeah! Yeah, you, right there! Yeah, bring your baby. Put the rest of the—hey, I need a couple guys to help me! I need a couple guys over here to help me! Oh yeah, you got a baby—that’s right, at the age! Here we go! I want you to take this and take it back to her seat right there.
I want you to take this—I need some more help! This is more room than she has to receive! Sweetheart, I want you to come here! You come here! They know where your seat is! Let’s give that to her! Yeah! You, you come on up here! You just come right here! Hey, hey, Charles—there’s some money too! There’s some cash, huh? Yeah! Yeah, give me that!
Yeah, let me hand this to you! You give that to her right there! Yeah! What if the windows of Heaven being open—that’s pouring out a blessing that I didn’t have room enough to receive—it’s ‘cause I didn’t need to receive it! Sis, I don’t know what’s been going on in your life, but that was a sign that God is about to supernaturally provide for all of your needs! I dare somebody to rejoice with her! I don’t—some of y’all done forgot! That child will not know lack! That child will have everything that it needs emotionally, spiritually, financially!
Standing all over this place—keep the window open! Say it with me, „Keep the window open!“ I got to make allowances! I got to give margin for people to be crazy that can’t rob my peace, steal my joy, ‘cause I’m not shutting the window because my window of tolerance is too low! Keep the window open! If you know there’s an area that you need God to expand your capacity, would you join me in just raising your hands right now?
If you’re online, if you’re there, maybe a coworker, a family member, a situation. Today, we’re going to ask our good God to come and help us where we are weak. Father, I thank you for who you are today! And I thank you, Father God, for giving us the ability to admit where we are right now! We need your help, Father! For many of us, me included, our window of tolerance has been too low for certain things! God, we’ve cut people off we were supposed to pray for! We’ve severed relationships with people we were called to serve!
And Father, even many of us have disconnected from places and people you wanted to give us dominion today! Father, would you cause us to endure as good soldiers so that as we endure, our faith may be expanded? Father God, today God, I’m asking you to do a work deep down on the inside of me and everybody that’s listening— that we would not forfeit our calling because we don’t keep the window open! Father, even for those in this room who heard this message in Malachi that need to start putting you first financially by tithing, God, I thank you for the courage to move beyond Father fear and to obey your word!
The command has beautiful consequences — that you would open the windows of Heaven and pour us out blessings that we do not have room enough to receive! God, just give us the courage to obey you! Today, I pray that my brothers and sisters are taking steps forward and they’re growing in their ability to trust you and to trust in your promises! There’s a sweet presence in this room right now.
I’m going to read one last scripture to you to let you know that tolerance is not just enduring forever. Tolerance is about an appointed time! And God sometimes needs you to last a little longer, stay a little longer, pray a little longer, hold on a little longer because he’s working something out! ‘Cause he did it with us. 2 Peter 3:9 says, „The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promises as some people think he is.“ He said, „No, he’s being patient for your sake! He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but he wants everyone to repent!“
The reason God’s given some of us some more time is 'cause he said, „I can’t promise you you’ve got a bunch more days.“ The reason why Pastor Mike is going so hard right now is ‘cause this is your day of salvation! Today is your day to repent! That means turn! Today is your day to say, „I’m going all in for Jesus!“ Today is the day to say, „I’m putting this down!“ This no longer will be the place where I run to for peace! He’s saying, „Could you just give me your life so then we can use it as intended?“ He said, „I’m being patient!“
And if you’re in this room and you’ve never accepted Jesus, there are thousands of us in this room and there are tens of thousands online right now. I just want to let you know that the reason you’re here today is because God’s been patient with you, Jesus! The reason you still got breath in your body is ‘cause God’s been patient with you! And my Bible tells us not to take the grace of God for granted! Do we just go on sinning? Of course not! Thank you for your grace!
But today, I’m going to make a decision! If you’re in this room and you need to decide to put your life in the hands of the only one who can handle it—Jesus—on the count of three, I just want you to lift your hands! I don’t care who you are, where you’ve been, where you were last night, and what you were planning to do tomorrow! Today is the day of salvation! And I’m telling you, this is the greatest decision that you can make—putting your faith in Jesus Christ!
We’re about to go home, but right now, this is the moment that’s more important than anything because it has eternity in mind! I know we’re thinking about today and tomorrow and next week, but God is thinking about where will you spend forever! And he says, „I want it to be with me!“
And I’m excited about this because it took me from being a liar, a manipulator, somebody who was addicted to pornography, had very dark things in my heart. I share my testimony openly ‘cause if it had not been for the Lord on my side, where would I be? I do not know! But where God has brought me to is not ‘cause I’m perfect; it’s because I’m progressing! And today, I want to offer you the only religion that doesn’t tell you to work so that God can potentially look at you! It says that God already came and gave himself while we were yet sinners! He died just for us! And all we got to do is accept what he’s already done!
On the count of three, if you want to make that decision bold, strong, with courage, I want you to shoot your hand up in the air! One, you’re making the greatest decision of your life! Two, your name is going to be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life forever! Three, shoot your hand up in the air if you want to make Jesus your personal Lord and Savior! I see you, brother! I see you, sister! I see—oh, come on, Transformation Church, I see you! I see you up there in the balcony! And more than that, God sees you! I see you, my man! If you’re online, put your hand in the chat!
I believe that God is about to do something! Young lady, I got to—I got to—Mo, we got to bless her more! I don’t—I don’t know what that means, but after I–I mean, I just saw it as clear as day! Yeah, you could go ahead and rejoice like it happened to you! Like, you could do that! Yeah! There’s a part of me that was like, „Why did I do that in that moment?“ And then God just literally told me. He says, „That’s what I do for all my children! I pay their debt!“ The debt that sin created, he said, „I pay that!“
Everybody, we’re at Transformation Church! We’re a family. Worship team, y’all come back up here ‘cause I feel the presence of God in this place right now! Something is changing! Hearts are moving! There are things that are about to be rearranged! God’s increasing some of y’all’s window of tolerance! Things that used to set you off ain’t going to take you over no more! You’re expanding! Your heart is growing! Things are moving for you! Thank you, Lord!
Okay! But we’re a family at Transformation Church! So nobody prays the prayer of salvation alone! So could everybody out loud say, „God, God, thank you for sending Jesus just for me! Today I give you my life! I believe you lived, I believe you died, and you rose again just for me! Today I repent and give my life to you! Change me, renew me, transform me! I’m yours! In Jesus’ name, Amen!“