TD Jakes — And Ye Shall Have it
For the last few days in my own devotion contemplating this directional flow, I believe that it is the mind of the spirit for the church at this hour. 1 Corinthians 2:7-10. When you have it, say amen. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. Even the wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory which none of the princes of this world knew.
For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them unto us by his spirit. For the spirit searches all things. Yea, the deep things of God. My mercy. Glory to God. Somebody shout amen.
Go to the gospel of st. Mark chapter 11 and let's consider the witness of Mark 11. In fact, let's begin reading in verse 22. 11:22 so we get the context of which the text shall be extrapolated. Jesus said unto them, such a simple thing he says to them. Have faith in God. Not in yourself. Not in your friends. Not in your family. Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, and who shall ever say unto this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe that those things which he says shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he says. Therefore I say unto you, what things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them and ye shall have them. And ye shall have them.
Look at your neighbor and say, neighbor, and ye shall have it. I don't know what it is. I don't know what you desire. I don't know what you've been praying about. I don't know what you've been envisioning in your spirit. But the word of the Holy Ghost is, and ye shall have it. Look at your other neighbor and say, and ye shall have it.
Greetings to you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It's morning. Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning. I pray that joy is resident in your life right now. I'm excited because we're about to share the word of the Lord with you. That's right. This is the breakfast of champions. Receive this word and you'll be blessed.
Jesus is trying to teach his disciples the power of prayer. The power of prayer. That if you believe God, all things are possible unto you. That you can speak to mountains and they'll move out of your way. Through faith in God. And he said, whatsoever you desire. Whatsoever you desire. Now that disqualified a whole lot of people right there. Because a lot of people, their problem is they don't want nothing. They've been numbed to death by the enemy. Church people, good church people have decided your life is over and if it would have happened it would have happened by now and you come to church out of duty. It's a routine. You just go. But you don't want anything. We cannot feed you because you cannot, I don't care how good you cook. You cannot feed people who are not hungry.
So the Bible makes an assumption and says whatsoever you desire, that already puts an elite category on it because somebody doesn't want anything. That's why you can't be influenced by somebody sitting beside you. They may not want anything. If you want something, you have to go for yourself, even if the person next to you does not. Whatsoever you desire.
Lord, I thank you. Excuse me a minute, I want to talk to the Lord. Lord. I thank you for passion. I thank you, Lord, I never went through anything that got so bad it took my fight away. I cried. I fussed. I even complained, and yes, I got mad. But I didn't quit. Because I still got my passion.
Touch somebody, say, I still want it. Yeah, I still got the roar down inside of me. Still got the tenacity. Still got the relentlessness. I still want it. Even though I realize that passion hurts. Passion sounds like a wonderful thing to feel until you've had it. Unrealized passion is painful. And some people don't want it because it hurts to want it. You'll choose rather to a nest size their passion with tranquility rather than to feel the pain of unrealized passion. Whatsoever ye desire.
When you pray. Not if you pray. When you pray. The assumption is, you are a praying people. He says, when you pray, you want to pray for what you desire. You don't just desire it and hope God gets it through mental telepathy. Whatsoever you desire, when you pray. This, I never saw this this way. If you miss this, you'll miss the whole message. This is the security guard that guards the gift of this text. When he says, believe ye receive it, and you shall have it.
Now, see, when I read it before, I thought it meant if I could muster up another belief, I should have it. But he says, believe you received it. And ye shall have it. Believe you received it. And you shall have it. Now, the problem with most of us, when we pray for our desires, we believe we're going to receive it. If you believe that you're going to receive it, there's no guarantee you shall have it. But what he is saying, believe you received it. And the consequences are, ye shall have it.
Let me work on this a little bit. This is going to be good. You cannot believe you receive it though you haven't had it yet without an operation of the Holy Spirit in a dimension of faith that cannot be conjured through the flesh. We're not talking about some kind of shake and bake stir fried faith you jacked up to try to convince yourself, I believe it. I got to believe it. Make me believe it. I will believe it. No, no, no, no, no. Because if you have to do that, then you shall not have it. Because it's not yours. If you have to work it up, if you have to force yourself to believe it, then maybe you should realize, just because you desire it doesn't mean you shall have it.
See, your desires have to be purged in the fire of purpose. Because if we are to be honest this morning, you know everything you desire... Don't you sit there and look at me like everything you desire is holy. And even out of the holy things you desire, everything you desire that's good may not be yours. So how do we know when the desire isn't God-given desire or a humanistic driven desire? How do we know when God called us to preach or grandpa? How do we know when this woman is my woman, or she's just fine? Most of us have lived long enough to have regret as a result from manipulating the system on our own. Think of the things you forced your way into. And then you had to cry your way out of.
I used to preach a message years ago, you got what you wanted, but you didn't want what you got. So the criteria now says, now, whatsoever you desire, when you pray, then when you pray, in the process of prayer, we're going to put, we're going to put a fence here. Believe you have received it, believe you have received, that's really what it says. Believe ye received it, and ye shall have it. You can't believe you received what isn't yours. You can hope you're going to get it. You can believe you shall receive it. But in order, let me break it down where you can get it. He's saying you receive it in your spirit before you receive it in your life.
Come on with me. We're going to get this in a minute. Whatsoever you desire, when you pray, believe you receive it. And ye shall have it. So believe you receive it, that's receiving it in one dimension means I have it in another one. Now, you can't expect to have it in the natural if you haven't received it in the spirit. Let's work on this. You cannot have healing in the natural until you receive healing in the spirit. You cannot have prosperity in the natural until you receive it in your spirit. The reason some of you are broke is that you have a broke spirit. You have a broke mentality. You can't receive it in here, so you can't receive it right here... It comes in your spirit before it comes in your life.
O come on. A woman is a wife before you put a ring on her finger. If she's not a wife before you put a ring on her finger, she won't be a wife... Let me prove it by the scripture. The Bible says whosoever finds a wife, finds a good thing. If she was a wife when I found her, I didn't make her a wife. You have to be it in order to become it. Let me go deeper. God told Moses, God told Moses, anoint men to be elders that you know to be elders. You can't make him an elder if he's not an elder. You can't make him a deacon if he's not a deacon. If it's not in here... It won't be out there... Give them all the papers you want to, but you can't make them what they are not.
When you pray, believe ye receive it, and you shall have it. That's some strong faith. Believe you receive it. I got it right now. I'm not going to wait until I have it to receive it. I receive it in my spirit. I'm walking in what I've received in my spirit right now. I'm walking in it. They haven't called me it yet, but I'm walking in it. Nobody has acknowledged me yet, but I'm walking in it. The lump hasn't gone down, but I'm walking in it. I still got a fever, but I'm walking in my spirit. The check hasn't come yet, but I'm walking in it. I'm laying out plans. I'm picking out stuff. I'm designing, getting ready. I have nothing in my spirit that's going to stay where I am. I received it in my spirit. I'm going to have it in my life.
Whatsoever ye desire when you pray, believe. Glory to God. Glory to God. Believe ye received it. And ye shall have it. This is some powerful stuff. This is holy ghost dynamite. If you really received this in your heart and in your life, this will change your life! Well, since Jesus was talking about having faith, and this is faith in another dimension. This is faith in the spirit world. That I'm receiving in the spirit things I don't have in the natural. Where do I get this faith? Well, glory to God, if you could get it from me, that would be good. But this is not contagious. If you could get it in the store, you could sell it and be rich. Because it would change the trajectory of your human experience. How do I get it?
Well let's go to the word. The word says faith comes by hearing. And hearing by the word of God. Now, we know this. We understand that when we hear teaching and preaching, it produces faith. We understand when we study the word, it produces faith. But have you considered at the time the text was written, there was no Bible to study. So if faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, do we limit the word of God? Do we confine the word of God to scripture alone? Seeing at the time it was written, scriptures were still being written. This might be too much for Sunday morning. I'm teaching Bible class this Wednesday. I can let it rip this Wednesday.
I'll just play around this morning. If faith comes, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, is he really just talking about scriptures when scriptures are still being written? Is the word of God confined to scripture? So if I'm going to get the kind of faith that believes I have received it, and faith comes by the word of God, this kind of believing can only happen when God has spoken in my spirit. You don't hear what I'm saying. When God speaks it in my spirit, and my spirit receives what God has spoken to me, I receive it right. Ya'll don't hear me. This is to keep me from trying to receive stuff that's yours. Because if he didn't speak it to me, I can't believe it like you and I can't receive what is yours. So I can't covet what God has given to you, because I don't have the faith to receive what I don't have.
Now, can I go deeper? Now, here is how it works. You, as a believer, have the Holy Spirit. You also are a spirit. You are a spirit. You have a soul. You live in a body. But you are a spirit. That's why the Bible says, you don't have to fear the person who can kill the body, but fear the one who can kill the soul and the spirit. You have the Holy Spirit. And you have a spirit. And you have a conversation that goes on on another level. It is of this conversation that 1 Corinthians speaks when it says, no, no, he says the problem with you, you think like a carnal Christian.
Let me show you why your life has been going in circles. I'm so glad you came this morning. Isn't this good? See, a carnal Christian doesn't necessarily have to be a sinning Christian to be a carnal Christian. It certainly incorporates that, but it is not limited to that. Carnal, where we get the word carnivorous just means meaty means you make decisions through your flesh. That's all you have to do is to be a carnal Christian, to operate through what it looks, what you heard, and how you feel. Dance all over the church. You're still carnal. Talk in tongues until your mouth feels like sand paper. You're still carnal. You are carnal because you are responding to flesh over spirit. And if you sow to the flesh, you shall of the flesh reap corruption. If you sow to the spirit, I believe of the spirit you shall reap everlasting life.
So he says, what I'm going to do for you will not come through your senses. So if you are operating in your senses, you are going to go back through the same thing you went through last year because what I'm sending you will not come through flesh. It will come through spirit. And in order for it to come through your spirit, you have to get in the birthing position so you can birth in another dimension. This is going to help somebody. He said, it's not going to come through the flesh. Up until now you've been making decisions based on flesh, what you see, what you've heard. How you feel. But eyes have not seen. The things, the things, the things, things, things, things, things, things, things, things.
Just touch three people and say things. The things. So, when we say things, we're no longer talking about spiritual. We're talking about tangibles. God says, I have tangible things I want to do in your life, but I'm going to send it through the spirit. I'm not sending just the fruit of the spirit. The things God has, the things. If it's a thing, God can do it. If it's a thing, God can move it. If it's a thing, God can release it. If it's a thing, God can grant it. Is anything too hard for the Lord? He shall have anything. Touch your neighbor and say, thing. Stay right where you are. We'll be right back after this.
Have you ever wanted to discover the difference between God's desires and yours? Learn how the Holy Spirit revealed the deep things of God. God has a specific plan for you. His desire is for you to discover his will and receive the fullness of his blessing. Understanding our purpose and our dreams through the lens of the Holy Spirit. What is really most important here is you develop an ability to hear in your own life what the Holy Spirit is saying to you. Desire, pray and believe, you will receive it.