TD Jakes - It's a Faith Thing
The problem with you receiving the promises of God is that sometimes God promises you the most illogical stuff. As long as I've been walking with God, God said something to me a few years ago, I wrestled with him about three years telling him, I don't even know nothing about that. How could you give that to me? I don't have no background in that. I wasn't qualified for that, and da, da, da, and God was busily building it up. It didn't make no sense. It scared me when it didn't make sense. Can I be honest with you? The person who's teaching you faith got scared, because sometimes God has something for you that is so mind boggling. Can I just be honest with you?
I wrestled with him like Jacob. It was a good thing. It was a great blessing. I had great purpose, but I didn't want to touch it because it didn't make sense. And then I thought it didn't make sense for David to be king. How do you make a shepherd boy king? He has no background. He has no protocol. His father was a peasant. He grew up taking care of sheep. He had not been trained, he didn't go to school for it. He wasn't prepared for it. But God said I found me a man who's after my heart and he's going to be the next king of Israel. For it is not by might. It is not by power. It is by my spirit sayeth the Lord. And I say this because there are some things that God said to you that are frightening. It doesn't make sense. You're scary, you're reluctant to receive it. You don't feel qualified, you don't feel ready and yet God's going to do it. And he told me to tell you it is a faith thing. Whoever I'm talking to give him a praise.
Now I gotta pick up this point. Where there is no hope, faith has nothing to do. Hope, esteem, where there is no hope, faith has nothing to do. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for". When you have low self esteem, a lower esteem for your life, faith's hands are tied. So if I were the enemy and I couldn't stop faith from being true, I would kill your hope, by showing you what you are not, what you don't have, and what you don't... And you're too old and you're too young, and you're too dark and you're too white and you're too brown and you're too this, and you're too that, and you're too the other. Because if I kill your hope, faith has nothing to work with. Now, faith is the substance of the thing you hope for. The worst people in the world to preach to are people who have no hope.
People who have decided well, I guess this is as far as I'm gonna go. And they make themselves happy with mediocrity. It's not that they're happy with it. They make themselves happy with it because it is all they can grasp. The people I like to preach to, are the people who have the audacity of hope. The audacity to believe, the audacity to believe it's possible. The audacity to think I could go to school. The audacity to think I could own my own house. The audacity to think I could preach the gospel. The audacity to think I could build a church. The audacity to think I could build a mall. The audacity to think I could get up from here. The audacity to think I could make it without you. I don't care what you say. I withstand your ideas. I fight your ideas. I am somebody. I am worth something. I can build. I can evolve. You think whatever you want to think but you can't change the way I think about myself. As a man thinketh in himself.
Slap somebody and say, I think so. I think so. I don't care what you write. I don't care what you tweet. I don't care what you text. I don't care what you blog. I think so. And as long as I think so, what you think don't have nothing to do with what I think. I think so. Oh, it's gonna get tough in here in a minute. I think so. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, it's the evidence of things not seen. For by it, the elders obtained a good report. They wasn't good. They weren't good, but they were able to get a good report by faith. Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him as righteousness. He wasn't righteous. Abraham wasn't righteous. Don't make me take you back to the Bible because Abraham was not righteous. I'm not saying he wasn't a good man, but he was not righteous, but he believed God and it was counted unto him.
That's right. I go crazy talking to accountants. No disrespect to none of you but you drive me crazy because to me, I bring the money in, I bring it in, here it is, this is what we got. No, we can't account for it like that. We have to put it in this column. I said, just put it in the bank. I don't care what column you put it in, just put it in the bank. Well, if you borrow it from this column and put it over here, it's all the same money, but it's how you account for it that passes the audit. Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him as righteousness. He wasn't righteous, but God marked it up on the ledger as righteous because he had faith. Faith is like food stamps. You ain't got no money, but we'll take it like money.
Come on, come on, I'm gonna teach it till you get it. Everybody else walked in the store with money and American Express and MasterCard and Visa. And here come Mandy Wilson with a bag full of food stamp. But she got just as much food as everybody else because the food stamp was accounted. This why this... I want you to understand why people hate you, because people hate you because they know something about you. And they know you ain't that righteous, and they know you ain't that holy, and they know you ain't that good, and they saw you do something stupid, and they heard you did something stupid, and they fussing at you right now, saying I ain't gonna listen at her. I'm not gonna listen at him because of that. But what they don't know is God is a bookkeeper and he accounted it as righteous. And what you need to know is once the book say you're righteous, stop acting like you ain't.
Walk in what God said, talk in what God said. Move in what God said, preach in what God said. Because according to the books. You think you're waiting on God. God is waiting on you. God is waiting on you to believe what he said about you. Not what you remember about you. For by it, the illness of pain, a good report. Watch this, can I go a little deeper? Through faith, we understand. Faith is the truth we stand under. Through faith, we stand under. It is my covering. Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed. Now, when you read that in the King James Bible, it sounds like he's talking about the creation. He really isn't because when he says through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. That is true of the creation.
But in this particular text, he is not using the Greek word "cosmos". He's using the Greek word "eons," which is ages. Through faith we understand that the ages were hemmed in by the Word of God, that my future is locked, that he's got a hedge around tomorrow. I'll prove it to you by the Bible. Satan, Lucifer, go curse Job. You know I can't curse Job. You got a hedge around him. I can't never... a curse speaks to how you're gonna end up. How can I mess with his future, when you got a hedge around his future? Through faith, we understand that the eons were framed by the Word of... your tomorrow is already fixed. Your tomorrow is already fixed. You down on your knees crying about how I'm gonna make it. What I'm gonna do? How can I get there? I don't see no way. I don't have enough. God said shut up. I got it already framed in.
So if faith is so important, so how do I get it? "Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God". Wait a minute. So if I'm gonna have faith, I gotta protect what I hear. Okay, so I got to shut down all these voices, external and internal, because it creates a belief system that either cancels out my blessing or grows my blessing. If I'm sick in my system, I'm gonna be sick in my substance. That's why when I talk to you like this, I'm talking about how you think, because if I'm sick in my thinking, I'm going to be sick in my results. I'm gonna self sabotage everything God has for me because I'm not clear right here. Are you hearing what I'm saying? "By faith, Abel offered up a more excellent sacrifice than Cain".
Mhm, yeah. And through it, his blood yet speaketh. "By faith, Noah, being warned of God of things not yet seen, built an ark to the saving of his house". Uh huh. So, Noah built a boat with no water... in his backyard. Willing to look like a fool and wait on the rain to catch up with what he built. Some of you gonna have to build something that looks like a fool and wait on the rain to catch up with you. Where are my innovators at? The Word, the Bible says in Hebrews 4:1, "Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it".
Let's be scared. Let us have fear. Go back to verse 1, "Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any should seem to come short of it". Come on verse 2, "For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with", your profit is tied to your faith. No faith, no profit. No faith, no profit. The word did not profit. As strong as God's Word is, it did not profit them, not mixed with faith in them that heard it. There were certain cities that Jews. Jesus could not do miracles in because they had nothing to draw with. This morning, as I close, I'm gonna stop there. I feel like going into an outright crazy preaching fit.
There is something that God has for you, and you gonna need faith could draw it out. It's not a dancing thing. It's not a shouting thing. It's not a scripture quoting thing. This has come down to a faith fight. And you got to stand still and steady yourself and strengthen your backbone and stand up against the enemy. And this way you gotta talk to him like this. You gotta walk right up to him. Say though he's slay me... yet shall I trust him.
And you gotta walk up to Mr. Devil and introduce yourself to Mr Devil and say Mr Devil, I'm the head. Mhm mhm, I'm the head and not the tail. I'm above and not beneath. I'm more than a conqueror. I'm blessed in the city. I'm blessed in field. I'm blessed in my uprising, I'm blessed in my downsetting. If I'm blessed in Charleston, I'll be blessed in Dallas. If I go to Chicago, I'll be blessed in Chicago because the blessing is not on the city. The blessing is on me and everywhere my feet drop. God's going to give it to me. You know why devil? Let me tell you why. You can't stop me. It's a faith thing. It's a faith thing. You can have my coat, but you can't have my faith. You can have my shoes, but you can't have my faith. You can take my car, but you can't take my faith. Make some noise in this place.
Me and my wife got married. We moved to Elvar Road in Dunbar. A little tiny wood frame, simple two bedroom house. She said it was nice, that's love. The kitchen was so small that if you baked something, you didn't have nowhere to cut up nothing. It was just like a little cubicle and I can't remember how I got it, but I got a little bit of money. It wasn't a whole lot but a little bit. Instead of buying a bigger place and doing something smart with it, I bought a satellite dish. You remember that satellite dish Germaine? You remember how big it was? It was one back then, old timey satellite dishes about 12 feet. It was bigger than the house. It looked absolutely ridiculous.
When it moved, you couldn't even see the house, but I could get all kinds of stations. We didn't have central air but we had a dish. We didn't have a dishwasher, but we had a dish. Here's what's funny to me. Every station that I picked up was already in the air. All the dish did was make it possible for me to receive what was already there. I didn't need the stations to be created. I needed the dish so I could draw down what was already there. Whatsoever you are praying about right now, you already got it. It's already done. It's already there. It's already available.
Healing is the children's bread. Whatever you need is already there. If I can get you to have faith, you'll receive. You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you, but you gotta have something to receive it with. Your faith don't create the power. It just makes it possible for you to receive the power. Throw your hands up. I want you to have a receiving week this week. I want you to receive on a level that will blow your mind. I want you to start walking in faith and not in fear, and not in doubt, and not in worry, and not in frustration. I want you to receive right now in your spirit, in your spirit, in your heart right now.
You're watching online. The anointing is in this place. I want you to receive it right now, in the name of Jesus. It's a faith thing. It's a faith thing. Somebody, the Holy Ghost got you sowing online right now, because you wanna get the faith thing. It's a faith thing. It's happening right now. It's a faith thing. It's moving right now. It's faith. It's not gonna be about works. It's not gonna be an ingenuity. It's not gonna be by trickery and scam, and you think you're so slick, and you're so smart. But that's why you lose all the time, because you don't understand, it's by faith. This is a faith thing. Everybody in here that got faith, make some noise. If you believe God, he will set you free. Now, wait a minute. People still gonna talk about you. They still gonna say whatever they wanna say, but God will set you free.