TD Jakes - Prep Before Promise
Whereas you want blessings just so you can brag about that you got them, God gives blessings to people who will take action. And if you're not going to use it, why would God give it to you? And so, he designed it that if you didn't use it by a certain time, the worms would eat it up, because you were forbidden from hoarding yesterday's bread for today's battle. And as they were journeying through the wilderness, the closer they got to the Promised Land, there is a small, minute phrase in the text that I started to pull up, but you can look it up whenever you want to. It's a simple little sentence, but it has great impact. It has the force of a sledgehammer. It says, "And then the manna ceased".
What do you do when what used to work doesn't work anymore? What do you do when you have gotten used to a system that God has abruptly halted? There was no warning. There was no prophecy. There was no preparation. Without any warning at all, it just stops. And some of us think that we have lost the favor of God because what used to work isn't working anymore. And the manna ceased, and Moses died. And they cried at the bottom of the mountain because everything that they had become accustomed to had been disrupted. I want to preach to somebody in this room that everything that you were accustomed to has been disrupted and now, you have to move forward without any playbook, without any rules, without any guarantees, without any certainties.
If you take another step, you gotta take it by faith because the manna has ceased and the Moses is dead, but the movement continues. What do you do when you gotta keep movement? You gotta keep movement, but Moses is dead. You gotta keep movement, but the manna has ceased. And Joshua, almost as if it were a footnote at the bottom of an elaborate literary work, says, "Prepare your victuals". This is a revolutionary idea to people who only had to gather their food. Now God says, "I won't make it happen anymore without you. I will require your investment in your provision. You have gone as far as you can go off of my charity. Your next meal is gonna require your involvement".
Oh, I don't know if you're ready for this. I don't know if you're ready for this. I am taking you from being dependent to being interdependent. I'm weaning you from easy. I know you wrote books on how it works. I know you wrote "12 Steps to a Blessing in a Dry Place". I know you wrote all kinds of books about water coming out of rocks. I know you wrote books about me lifting up serpents in the wilderness. I know you wrote a lot of books about a lot of stuff, but I'm changing the playbook. And I don't know who I'm preaching to today, but the Lord sent me here to tell you he has changed the playbook. What used to work will not work right now. He told me to tell you what brought you here will not take you there. The systems, the structures, there's going to be a massive paradigm shift.
And if you don't have liquidity, and if you don't have dexterity, and if you don't have pliability, and if you don't have intellectuality, you will not be able to evolve into the next dimension. Because the manna has ceased, and the Moses is dead. And the movement continues. And right nestled, cradled in this beautiful text is the command to prepare your victuals. So Dexter, when he cooks, he cuts up all his onions, and grates all his cheeses, and flash boils all his food, and brines all his meat, and does all of that a couple of days ahead of time. Because the prep time is more important than the cook time.
Now, I know this is a hard message to preach because I'm preaching about prep time to a microwave. It's difficult to talk to you about really good dining because what you eat is not really food. It's a biological experiment. It's something that if you looked at it with a microscope, it would be crawling because you took it out of the freezer, you popped it into the microwave, and you heated it up for five minutes. And you lifted the lid, and it almost scalded your hand. And you eat it, and you call it food, but that's not food. That's not food. That's bacteria. Real food requires prep time.
Look at your neighbor and say "I'm in prep time". I'm not acting funny. I'm in prep time. I'm not ignoring your phone calls. I'm in prep time. I'm not disregarding our relationship. I'm in prep time. I haven't got the big head. I'm in prep time. I'm not arrogant. I'm in prep time. I know I seem distracted, and I don't seem like the person I used to be, I'm the same person, but I'm in a different place. I'm in prep time. I'm getting ready for something, and more is required of me in this season than what was required of me in my last season. In my last season, we could play around. We could fool around. We could mess around. We could date around. But I got to break up with you in this season because I'm in prep time.
In my last season, we could breathe on the phone for an hour and a half, but in this season, in order to get where I gotta go, I'm in prep time. And yes, I still appreciate everything that you used to be, but I recognize your manna has ceased. In other words, you are not the source of my sustenance. You are no longer the place where I eat. And I love you, and I appreciate you, but I can't be on the phone for hours and hours talking about people because I'm in prep time. People who can spend hours on the phone talking about people aren't going anywhere, and I can't afford to spend another year talking about what other people are doing while I'm not doing anything at all. I'm in prep time. I'm wondering if there's anybody in this room in this place.
I'm wondering if there's anybody streaming online who's in prep time. You're chopping up stuff, and dicing stuff, and preparing stuff, and... It ain't happened yet, but you're in prep time. The door hasn't opened yet, but you're in prep time. The whey hasn't been made yet, but you're in prep time. If I am preaching to the right people, set it off in here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I proved my faith because I'm prepping for something that hadn't even happened yet. I haven't mixed it together. It hadn't come together. I haven't placed it in the oven. I didn't put it in the Crock-Pot. I haven't put it on the smoker yet, but I'm in prep time. I'm laying it out. I'm getting it ready. I'm bringing structure to what I believe. I'm not just believing it, I'm bringing structure to it. Because without structure and strategy, I won't be prepared to succeed in the area of my destination. I'm in prep time.
Nudge three people and say, "I'm in prep time". I'm in prep time. I gotta get it in prep time. I gotta get it in the right shape. I gotta get it in the right form. I gotta get it in the right size. I gotta get it at the right temperature. I gotta get it in the right order because I'm in prep time. I can't put cold butter into a pound cake 'cause it won't cream. I gotta get it room temperature. Everything's gotta be right 'cause I'm in prep time, and when I'm in prep time, I have to do stuff that don't make sense to you. Why you got the buttermilk sitting on the stove? Why you got the butter just laying out? Why don't you go ahead and use it?
No, it's not the right temperature yet, but I'm in prep time. I'm calling things that are not as though they were because I'm in prep time. I'm getting my outfit ready. I'm getting my wardrobe ready. I'm getting my language ready. I'm getting my speech ready. I'm learning the right terminologies, not for the room I'm in, but for the room I'm about to walk in. I'm learning the language of my future. I'm preparing myself for what God is about to do in my life. I'm in prep time! You don't understand it because you don't have enough faith. You say when I get there, I'm gonna prepare the victual. It's gonna be too late when you get there.
You got to prepare for it before you get there. You got to prepare three days in advance 'cause in the next three days, things are about to change in your life in a radical way. This is prep time. This word is a prophetic word going out to somebody. You're in prep time. There's about to be a release in your life. If God is talking to you right here, right now, make some noise in this place, any kind of noise, any kind of noise, any kind of noise! Business is the way in which we structure our parameters to be effective. You need to have relationships with partners, investors, and banks. We don't walk into the room trying to figure out how much we need them. We need to do our homework to find out how much they need us.
Prepare your victuals. Prepare your victuals. Look at somebody and say, "Prepare your victuals". This basically, it's not just a change of how you cook. This is a change of how you think. You were raised by people who didn't have to prepare. So you cannot take your parents's mindset into your moment 'cause your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, but the manna has ceased. So that means you have to have a different mindset. You might have the moral equivalency, can't say it, but you cannot have the same mindset. Because if you have the mindset of your fathers, you will be looking up every morning waiting on something to fall down that is never going to fall down again, and you will be waiting on something to happen so you can move. Nothing else is going to happen.
Prep time means mindsets determine assets. If I cannot get it in your mind, I cannot get it in your life. If your mindset is still looking up for manna, then your hands won't prepare your victuals. And prep time, it's a dangerous dubious task of challenging how you think. It's not that the preparation for the food is not available to you. But if you don't have the mindset, you won't have the asset. If you have a mindset of waiting on something to fall in the morning, you won't prepare your victuals in the day. Every time there's a major change in your life, or move in your life, or you move into a new region, or a new occupation, or a new situation, or you become a single parent, or you get married, it's not enough to get a new ring if you have an old mindset.
Come on with me. Don't jump off now. Don't jump off with me. You can't be a married woman with a single woman's mindset. 'Cause all of your single girlfriends will mess up your marriage with their advice about what they would do if they was you. And they don't have nobody, and you listening at them and carrying that spirit home. And it's tearing up your house. Brother, you can't be a husband with a single man's mindset because you will be physically present but emotionally unavailable. Because you are physically and legally married but not emotionally present or connected, and because you have not developed language for anything beyond anger, your wife becomes a sparring partner. Because you are better at expressing anger than you are anything else. And God is prepping you with a change of mindset.
Can I go just a little bit deeper? I know I'm taking up some time, but I want to show you how powerful mindset is. The prodigal son is down in the hog pin. He has estranged himself from his father and his brother. He has gradually lost the dissipation of friendship, the erosion of connectivity. He is in a place of total isolation, surrounded by swine. He is out of money. He is out of friends. He is out of family. He is out of identity. He has no name in the text. He is a nameless person in a deplorable situation, and the only thing that changed, no angels came, no visitations from God came, no Bible dropped down out the sky, the only thing that changed, the hogs were still the hogs, the slop was still the slop, the Gentiles were still the Gentiles. His family was still estranged. His friends had all ran away. The only thing changed, his mind. His mind changed.
The Bible said that with mud in between his toes and gnats around his head, he came to himself. The only thing you have to do to get out of the situation you're in right now is change your mind. You don't need her to come back. You don't need him to come back. You don't need them to pay your way. You don't need anything else but to change your mind. As a mind thinketh in his heart, so is he. And the moment you change your mind, can't nobody hold you down. This is a change of mindset. I'm not gonna keep standing out here in the morning waiting on something to fall that ain't falling no more. What used to work is not working anymore. I'm changing my mindset.
If I gotta get my hands messy, if I gotta get up early in the morning, if I gotta beat the wheat till it turns to flour, I will beat whatever I've got to wheat until I make it turn into what it's got to turn to because my hands are a reflection of my mindset. If you wanna know what I'm thinking, watch what I'm doing. And if you see me out of here doing it, it means I'm not waiting anymore. I came here to tell you tonight that God said stop waiting on somebody to come rescue you from your situation. They're not coming. You need to change your mindset and start beating that wheat up until you see bread. There will be no more bread falling from heaven. You're in a prep season for a promise that's about to take your life.
If I'm preaching right at you, if I'm preaching right to you, if I'm preaching about where you at right now, if you know you gotta change the game, if you know you gotta shift the strategy, if you know you gotta get a new playbook, if you know you gotta break out of the box, if you know you gotta disrupt something, if you know God is challenging you that if you've always done what you've always done, you will always be where you've always been, if you're ready to be radical, reckless, and break loose, and break out, if you're ready to break some rules and do something you've never done before, if you're ready to beat wheat till it comes out as loaves of bread, make some noise in this place. Just some noise.
Tell somebody. Say, "It's yours, but you gotta take it". I'm gonna move from preparation to possession. It's yours, but you gotta take it. It's not gonna come up on your front porch. It's not gonna ring the doorbell. It's not gonna respond to you the way you expected it to respond to you. Ain't no more manna coming down to your door. Ain't nobody coming to your house begging you for a position. You got to possess it. It's yours, but you gotta take it. You gotta take it. You gotta take it because it's yours. It's yours, but you gotta take it. You gotta take it while somebody else is living in it. You gotta take it while somebody else thinks it's there. There's gonna be an altercation, but you gotta take it by force, said that "the Kingdom suffered violence, and the violent take it by force".
I wanna raise up some radical people. I'm sick of church people. I need some radical people. The Bible said that "the kingdom suffered violence, and the violent take it by force". Is anybody in here that's ready to take it by force? God told "Joshua, I have given you the land, but you still gotta fight for it". Slap three people, and say, "Fight for it". Don't just pray for it, but fight for it. Don't just ask for it, but fight for it. You gotta fight for it. I've given you the land to possess it. You gotta drive out the Canaanites, and the Ammonites, and the Jebusites, and the Garashites because that's yours. Somebody is living in your house. Somebody is driving your car. Somebody is sitting at your desk.
I heard the Bible say, "I'll give you houses that you didn't build and vineyards that you didn't grow, but you gotta take it by force". You gotta come out of your passive, little, quiet, sit back, waiting Johnny-come-lately spirit, and you gotta take what God gave you. Take back what the enemy stole from you. Take back what they said wasn't yours. Take back what they said wouldn't happen in your life. You gotta possess it! Is there anybody in here that's getting ready to possess something? I'm ready to move people out. Call you all. I want my staff to call U-Haul so I can move out all of these vagrant people that are living on my territory. Give me a U-Haul truck. Because I'm gonna move you out of my job, out of my position, and out of my place. Because I'm gonna possess what God promised me!
Walk up to somebody, and slap them, and say, "Possess it"! Stop praying for it, and possess it. Stop crying about it, and possess it. Stop worrying about it, and possess it. Stop fretting about it, and possess it. Stop asking for it, and possess it. Stop waiting on it, but possess it. If you don't hire me, I'll hire myself. If you don't give me a job, I'll make a job. If you won't give me a seat, I'll create a table. I'm ready to possess the promise of the Lord!
This ain't for everybody. This is for radical people. This is for people who've suffered enough. I've been through enough hell in the wilderness that if you don't make a way for me, I'll make a way for myself. God said, "I've given you the land to possess it". Shake your neighbor, and say, "Take it back". Take it. I don't care if you gotta take night classes. I don't care if you gotta fix your credit score. I don't care if you gotta turn around and do double time to get where you're trying to go. Take it before you lose respect for yourself. Take it while you got enough strength to go after your dream. Take it while your talent is in place. You gotta take it by force. How can I take it? Somebody else is in it. God said it's yours!