I Did Not Know the Color of Her Eyes

I Did Not Know the Color of Her Eyes

by Tommy Lewis

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

Thank you for what He’s got planned. I hope He hadn’t planned what He did in Alabama. If I’d have known what He was going to do there, I wouldn’t have went. He got me up for about 450 people. I thought I was doing real well. Thought I was preaching good. All of a sudden, He just cut me off and I couldn’t say a word.

That was very humiliating. So I just stood there and you know how Christians are. They want to help you. They wanted to pray for me. But somehow I felt that the Lord was fixing to do something. And I said, “Don’t pray for me. Just respond to the Lord. And see what will come out of it.” I was really going through a lot of things on the inside of me.

Someone… They started responding to the Lord. They had to forget their… forget their self, because seemingly my need was so great that their humanity couldn’t handle it. So they had to let me touch the Lord in them. And if you’ll let me touch the Lord in you, you’ll be blessed as He comes forth through you to love me. How does that grab you? You want to experience God’s love, then you let me touch His love in you. And then your humanity will experience just the way He feels about me. Wouldn’t you like to know that?

You can hear what others think of me. And if you think on it long enough, you’ll know how they feel about me. You ever sort of felt how others felt about someone? They would tell you how sorry they were. And then you would get it in your heart. When you would see them, you’d have the same feeling toward them.

Jesus was always allowing… Have you ever noticed the Lord never talked about problems in the Bible at all? Never? In the Bible, in the New Testament, problems are not mentioned much. Jesus never asked someone, “What’s your problem?” did He? He didn’t ask the leper what his problem was. He didn’t ask the blind man what his problem was. He didn’t ask the woman at the well what her problem was.

Problems are a manifestation or a revelation of a need somewhere in a suffering humanity. And psychology tries to deal with problems. Psychiatrists try to deal with problems and get people out of problems. But you can’t solve problems by dealing with problems. You can only solve problems by having supply to meet need. And when you can meet the need, the problem goes away.

Lady at the well had a problem. Everybody knew she had a problem. But no one could discern her needs. Problems threatens my humanity. I don’t want you to have problems in my presence. I’ll try to stop you from having them.

If I… Because you reveal problems in me. Your problem stirs up problems in me. If I’m with lonely people and… it stirs up problems within my own life. They touch the loneliness in me and I won’t escape them.

I usually try to avoid people that have… Used to, not much anymore. I used to try to avoid people who are revealing their needs in terms of problems. That’s one reason we want the rapture to come. Too many problems in the world. And we want to fly away. Used to, if my wife got sick, I went hunting. Or I’d go fishing.

Well, I think about the last time I ever went hunting. It was snowing and sleeting. And she had the pneumonia or something. And I couldn’t stand her looks. She is coughing and jerking and snatching. She just looked terrible. And her problem was just so threatening. And I couldn’t do anything about it. So I took my shotgun. Went out and almost caught the pneumonia myself. Sloshing around in the rain and the snow. I come back and she didn’t look any better.

So I, at least if she’s going to be sick, I wanted her to look better. So I said, “If you’ll get up from there and take a bath and comb your hair, and put on a decent looking gown, you’ll look better. If you’re going to have problems, at least I want you to look good, if you’re in my presence. Look like you don’t have too bad a problem. Dress it up the best you can, or paint it up or do something with it.”

Have you girls ever noticed when your children get sick, your husband gets mad? There’s a reason for that. He’s threatened by it. He feels helpless. And the things we can’t do anything about, we want to get away from.

Your husband’s so bad, you can’t change him. Just allow him to leave him. That’s really because we’ve got a lot of divorcing going on with that. I only got so bad about four years ago, I thought maybe I needed to leave. I got so threatened about it. I’ve been married for many years and all of a sudden she was acting crazy.

She got jealous, I don’t know why. But she was jealous about it all the time and wouldn’t let me sleep much. She just ran all the time. And I got upset and thought about moving, at least moving in another room to get away from her. I did threaten it.

And I finally turned to the Lord and I said, “What’s wrong with this woman? You know, that You made.” Remember how men are? As long as Adam wasn’t in trouble and hadn’t done anything wrong, he took credit for creating Eve. You notice he said, “This woman’s, you know, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” And then when she made that boo-boo, he blamed it on the Lord. He said, “This woman You gave me.” Remember that? Then the Lord wouldn’t stand for it, so he blamed it on the devil. He just… So passing the buck didn’t start with Sigmund Freud. It started with Adam.

Transferring the guilt. And so I asked the Lord what was happening in her life. Why was she having problems? And the Lord let me know that she wanted me to know her and I didn’t know her. See, we’d been married about 33 years. I got married when I was a baby. Been married all my life.

And I said, “Well, what’s happened here?” And I think He revealed to me why there’s so much problem in marriage when we get a certain age after about 50 years old, 40 or 50. And this is what came to me. That we’d got married very young and… Now, right out of that, we started having children. We had a baby in 18 months. And then in about two years, we had another baby. In about five years, we had another baby. But in the early days of marriage, you… about the only thing you know is just loving one another. The physical part of marriage. You don’t really… You didn’t know them before you married them because…

They were just so nice. You just felt like they were going to be like that all the time. Now… Isn’t it amazing? If the Lord would let you know what you had, you wouldn’t have it. Isn’t that wonderful of Him? There wouldn’t be no more babies if… if He didn’t make us dumb.

Remember when the preacher says, “Will you take this woman to be your wife?” And “for better or worse,” you don’t even hear the worse. Because you’ve never seen her at her worst. She’s always, you know, spent the whole day getting ready to go off with you. Always smelt good.

Bathed up real good. Mama worked herself half to death. But she looked good. The girl did. Then when you went out with her… She never… It was just very obedient. She was more submissive then than ever. Do anything. And then you hear him say, “For better or worse,” and that worse goes right on by. Can’t even be no worse than this woman. And then you get him home and… Wow.

It’s like having Pandora’s box open up in it. And the thing about it in marriage, everything that shows up after you get them is yours. Isn’t that something? Oh… I thought I would come from the devil. I said, you know… That’s… Gift of the Lord. And I thought she was from the devil. Nobody could do that. The Lord couldn’t give you nothing. That betcha.

But I think it takes wives to make saints out of husbands. You’re going to make something out of them. Nobody… And it takes husbands to make saints out of… Wait a minute. They’re going to drive you. So if when you’re driven… Go to the Lord. Don’t you go to the bar, you’ll go somewhere. That’s the best thing to do is go to the Lord. And the rank of the fertilizer, the more powerful the growth ought to be. Hallelujah.

So it just gives us what we need all the time, don’t it? And the key, after all the children got grown and went off, I found out I was living with a woman I didn’t know. And she was insisting on we get acquainted.

And I didn’t really know where I wanted to or not. I was pretty satisfied. You know, you get caught up. She got caught up with children. I got caught up with working, trying to feed them. And when we come home, that’s about all we had in common. They had the children, my job, and she didn’t want to hear much about that because it was too frustrating.

But after all these years, I found out that… She asked me one day, she said, “What color is my eyes?” And she turned her head so I couldn’t see them. I said, “They’re green.” She said, “They are not.” I didn’t even know the color of that woman’s eyes. Isn’t that amazing? I was telling this in a place here a while back, and all the men looked at their wives’ eyes that night.

At least so they could know what color their eyes was. I asked one fellow now in the morning, I said, “What color is your wife’s eyes?” He said, “Well, I looked last night, they’re brown.” I don’t know why I’m sharing this.

But y’all just… Well, y’all trust me to the Lord. I’ll just dare to let Him use me any way He wants to. Well, you do that. And I’ll put no strain on me. If I don’t say nothing, it won’t be… I’ll have to miss it anyhow. The Lord will bless you anyhow. If you respond to the Lord, you won’t be disappointed with you. And if He’s with you, you’re in good company, so you can sit back and enjoy me being with Jesus. You could even enjoy Sunday morning service if you knew that. You could just go there in good company. Jesus being the best company, it looked like you could have a good time about everywhere you went. But even here tonight.

I guess that’s enough of that. That makes sense to you? It really does. We’re closer now. I am beginning to want to know who she is. And I’m finding out she’s a real wonderful person. She’s a great girl. The Lord lives in her.

And while I was going through that mess with her, I asked the Lord about it. He said, “Do you believe in the incarnation?” I said, “Yeah, I believe You’re the Son of God.” I let Him know I knew the Bible. You ever read the Bible to the Lord and let Him know you know it? You know, “Lord, You said so and so.” He knows you said it. He just knows you don’t believe it. That’s what I did.

And I told Him all about that. And He’s like Peter. He said it three times. “Do you believe in the incarnation?” I said, “Yes, I do believe You’re the Son of God. I believe You came into the world through the Virgin Mary.” I made the whole confession of faith. Then He said, “Do you believe that I live in Anna?” Wow.

Well, I said, “Yeah, I believe that. I don’t see much evidence of it, but I do see that. I believe that.” He said, “Well, why don’t you identify her with me? Do you believe that my love can triumph in this situation?” I said, “The Bible, love never fails.” So I guess that I could believe that.

So after that, every time she got sort of… Her hurt started coming out. And it was hurt sin, wasn’t it? That’s what was always coming out. The problems we find in one another. It’s revealing a deep need. And the deepest need in the human life, and the only need that I really see in it, is a need to be loved.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong in the human race that love will not fulfill. I believe that. I believe it’s the only thing missing in the human race. I believe it’s the answer to every question and the solution to every problem. I don’t believe preaching is, because I’ve preached for years, and I’ve seen people just as bad off after I get through preaching as they were before. I was a good preacher once. I don’t try to preach good now. I just report.

And you don’t have much to report unless you have seen the triumph of love. I’ve seen everything else fail. I’ve failed as a preacher. I’ve failed as a pastor. I’ve failed as a husband. I’ve failed as a daddy. I wanted to be a good daddy. Wanted to be a better one than my own daddy was. If I’d have thought I was going to be a worse one, I wouldn’t have married the woman I did and brought children into the world. But after I did, I found out I was about like him. I had failed.

And it says, I guess you can preach on anything else. A lot of other things. But it says that now abideth faith, hope and love, and the greatest is love. So I think we ought to talk about the greatest, don’t you? And if it says it’ll never fail, we ought to quit everything else and find out about it.

It said if you could move mountains and didn’t have love, you wouldn’t be much anyhow. You might make a reputation for yourself. But if you had every gift in the Bible and didn’t have love, you wouldn’t be too much. I used to argue with the Lord about that when He said if you had the gift of knowledge or the gift of prophecy and wisdom and knowledge and faith to move mountains and didn’t have love, you’d be nothing. Well, I let Him know that you would be something. If I could move mountains, I guarantee you, I could have a great big mob to come around every day and watch me move mountains.

If I could heal the sick, I could, you know, I could make a good reputation for myself. Couldn’t I? Well, what was He talking about? If you have not love and have all this other, you’re nothing. Well, you’re nothing in terms of a witness of the reality of the resurrected, glorified Lord. You can do all of that and never be a witness of Jesus. That’s amazing, isn’t it? You can raise the dead. Everyone that was the dying city you live in. If you could raise every one of them, if you didn’t have love, you still wouldn’t be a witness of Jesus.

Because they’ve done that on the other side of the cross, isn’t it? They raised the dead over there and healed and they committed about every miracle over there they did on this side of the cross. But yet not one of them was a witness of God because Jesus said, you shall become witnesses after what? After the Holy Ghost has come upon you. So if anything you’ve ever been, you don’t have to become anymore. Nobody in here has to ever become something you’ve already been. You might have to be renewed in it, but you don’t have to ever become that again.

“You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you to be witnesses of me.” He’s talking about His person, isn’t He? The only witness there had ever been of God as person on the face of the earth with the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s a true and faithful witness, isn’t He?

Peter was good in demonstrating power. He was sort of poor and under pressure in terms of witnessing, wasn’t he? Thelma talked about that. He denied the Lord when he said, “I didn’t know Him.” He really weren’t lying. He didn’t know Jesus. That used to bother me. And I used to argue with Peter and sort of despise him because of what he’d done. But he was not lying. He did not know Jesus Christ. He knew what he had done. He had seen the miracles of Him. He had heard His teaching and preaching. But he did not know Jesus. You don’t know anything that’s not on the inside of you. Not a one of you would know what hate was if you didn’t have it in you. You might see it all around you. But if you didn’t have it and you’re the only one in the world that didn’t have it, you’d be the only one in the world that didn’t know what it was. But if you were the only one in the world that had it and everybody else didn’t have it, you’d be the only one that did know what it was. You’d know what anything is by having it in you. We’ll never know who Jesus is by studying about Him. We’ll find out a lot about Him.

We’ll never know who He is by hearing great preachers preach about Him. You’ll only know Jesus as He reveals Himself on the inside of you. Hallelujah. And that’s why the Holy Spirit’s come. He’s the only one who knows Jesus, and He’s the only one who can introduce Jesus. And you don’t introduce Him from the outside. He doesn’t come up to you and say, “Buddy, here’s Mr. Jesus.” How many of you who received the baptism, the day that the Holy Spirit came in, then you guess what’s the first thing you thought of? You thought of Jesus, didn’t you? You knew Jesus Christ then. And no one had to tell you who God was or what God was. For when you received the Holy Ghost, you received God. You received who He is and what He is. God is love. And if you didn’t receive love, you still don’t know what God is. It’s amazing. I used to think if you just… If you had God in you were bound to know Him. The Bible doesn’t teach that at all. In 1 John it says, Little children, let us do what? Let us love one another. For they that love, what happens? They know God, don’t they? And they are born of God. They that love not, no matter what else they have, they don’t know God, because God is love. I was in a meeting one night, and I didn’t know what to say, and some young lady got up and said, “They will know us by our love.” I said, “Well, that’s good enough. If that’s the only way they’re going to know us, we ought to quit everything else, and just find out what that’s all about, and how to do it.” See? What does it mean?

I believe the church, the next phase of the church, it looks like we’re doing everything to avoid that, but we’re going to fail ourselves into having to come to that. Everything else has failed, hasn’t it? A few years ago, we thought if we could cast out all the devils in America, we’d just straighten out America. Well, they didn’t do it. They failed. It’s a good ministry, but that’s not the way to straighten out people.

Then they come along, they felt like if you could get the wives straightened out, then a whole country would be shaped up. Remember that good teaching? “Why, I’d be submissive,” and that means let the man run the show.

And he probably didn’t know how, because you had been running it long enough, and when you quit, it shocked him. He went into shock. And I was in a meeting preaching on it one time, and the lady said, “Tommy, I gather you don’t believe in submission.” I said, “I know I do. I believe in it as much as anybody in the world.” I said, “But I don’t think you understand it.” I said, “Because if you did, you would look a whole lot better than you look. If I was your husband, I’d leave you. You look so bad.” She looked pretty good until she got under submission. Then she got sort of ugly and rough looking. She was determined to be submissive if it killed her, and she looked like she had many more days to live. That’s it.

Then I was with another couple. I said, “Where have you been so long?” They said, “We got under submission.” I said, “Tell me about it.” He said, “Well, Josie went off and heard the teaching and come home and decided she’d never do another thing unless I told her what to do.” I said, “How did you like it?” He said, “Oh, I loved it.” He said, “I had her jumping and popping. I just smacked my finger and she had jumped.” He said, “Directly though, I started hating her.” I said, “Why did you hate her?” He said, “I couldn’t think of enough to keep her busy.” Isn’t that amazing? I said, “Josie, how do you feel about it?” She said, “Well, I went along with it, but I hated every moment of it.” I said, “How did you get out of it?” So the young couple come into our presence and they were real happy. He said, they were so happy, Earl said, they must have a demon. They’re so happy. He just felt like anybody on a submission couldn’t be happy. And they laughed herself free from it. Isn’t that wonderful? The Lord let us laugh at a lot of our foolishness. So it’s a great… You know, I’m having the best time I’ve ever had in my life.

I decided, I think, about 14 years ago after I’d failed for so many years as a Christian, or what I thought was a Christian, till I actually come to the end of everything and I said, “Jesus, unless there’s something else, I just seem to be drunk.”

Yeah, I’d been speaking in tongues a long time. And I thought that, according to the full gospel people, that was an instant cure for everything. Well, it’ll do what it’s supposed to do, but it won’t cure everything. Not the answer to everything. It doesn’t make you new. Somebody said, the way to tame the tongue was to speak in tongues all the time. That’s not so. I’ve spoken in tongues and then tell lies after I got through speaking in tongues.

Brethren, this ought not to be, but I’ve done it. I can tell that now. Used to, I wouldn’t, because I thought others had, but now everybody has. Isn’t that awful? But it’s just so. The only way to tame the tongue is have the heart changed, isn’t it? You change the heart, you change the tongue. But you can’t change the heart by the tongue.

A lot of them said, if you just confess all the time with your mouth, you’ll get what you confess. I don’t believe that at all. It says, first you believe in the heart, then confess with the mouth, isn’t it? So it’s not just a heart deal. So it’s a heart deal. The life of Jesus is lived out on the heart level. It’s a heart response to Jesus. He lives in our heart by faith, doesn’t He? And faith means I know He lives there because I respond to Him in situations that I can’t do nothing about. I’m not half as afraid to live as I used to be. I’m not afraid of problems anymore. I’m not afraid of… I don’t care if Jesus really delays His coming 10,000 years. That doesn’t bother me anymore. I’m having a good time now. In fact, I’m beginning to enjoy people. Used to, as a good Baptist, the reason I wanted the rapture to come, I couldn’t stand people like you.

I felt maybe we could get along better if we’d become good Caspers flying around. You remember Casper the good ghost? Flying around in the cosmos somewhere. So I felt if it could be better anywhere else, it’d be better to be there than here. And the reason was I was just so frightened of the human… I was just so intimidated and frightened in the human race. I was afraid of what people might think or say or do. I hadn’t seen enough love in the world to want to stay in the world. So I really… I was reading a lot of people getting a death wish. I was reading a lot of the churches wanting to… They don’t want to die. They want to be raptured. And that’s… They really do, don’t they?

But I’m not so interested in leaving. I want to stay here. The reason Jesus wasn’t frightened and… afraid of people is because He knew the solution to their problems and to supply for need. He allowed your need to touch God in Him. And when it touched God, God was glorified in Jesus. That’s the reason Jesus could say, “Father, I’ve glorified You on earth. And I glorify You with the glory that I had before…” You know, He came into the world incarnation. If you want God to be glorified, you let me touch God in you and He’ll be glorified in you. If my hate can touch God in you, then you’ll experience God’s love for me and God will be glorified. But if my hate touches you, you’ll hate me back. The only one that really won’t hate me is God. No matter how we pretend it and try to fake it. It’s impossible for you to love me. But all things are possible with God and God’s in you. And that’s the hope of glory, isn’t it? That’s a wonderful thing to know that. I don’t have to straighten people out anymore. That’s just too much of a burden. Too much responsibility. You ever notice when you try to straighten out anybody, it shows up how crooked you are?

You don’t want to get bent out of shape. Don’t try to straighten folks up. If you can’t help them, don’t bother them. Hallelujah. If you can’t let them touch Jesus in you, then bypass them. Just go around them.

Don’t condemn them, no matter what they do. For in condemning, you’re condemned. In judging, you’re judged. In cursing, you’re cursed. There’s no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. There’s nothing but condemnation to those who came out of Adam. But there’s no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. There’s no condemnation to me right now. I haven’t been on a guilt trip in two or three years now. You say, “Well, have you done anything wrong?” I’ve done a lot of things wrong. But there’s no place in the Bible that teaches us to be guilty. Are there? No place. There’s not one scripture in all of the Bible that teaches us that we are to bear guilt no matter if we sin. The key is, confess your sins and He’s faithful to forgive you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness and go on into celebration of the resurrection. We are to… Don’t look back at the mess. You just celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. We’re celebrating the resurrection of Jesus now. Whether we realize it or not, we are in the days of celebration. Pentecost set off the greatest celebration there would ever be. We were to be so happy and celebrate the resurrection till everybody would just… Hallelujah. Everybody would just be drawn to such a good time.

You want to be where the best time’s going on, don’t you? That’s the reason you find more people at the disco place than you do at the church. They seem to be at least got the carcass kicking at me. While we walk in like we did, we have a better time just before we get in church as we do after we get in. You ever notice that? They’d be on the outside telling jokes and smoking and having a good time still and the moment they step in they come real sad. Isn’t that amazing?

Almost like we’re out of wake. No, we’re not out of wake. We’re out of… We’re in a resurrection. And good news… You like good news, don’t you? I don’t have no bad. The gospel’s not bad news. The gospel’s good news. And the good news is…

He’s resurrected. And the good news is you’re just as much a child of the resurrection tonight as you’ll ever be. So you might as well start enjoying it. How does that grab you? Let me say that again. You right this moment that are born again, you’re as much a child of the resurrection as you’ll ever be. Because you’re born out of resurrection. You’re born out of the dimension of the resurrected Lord. So we’re children of the resurrection. We’re children of God. We are eternal and that means right now. Not going into eternity. Eternity is breaking out everywhere you are. And it’s breaking out through you. Because Jesus is the eternal one, isn’t He? And if He’s in you, then eternity is in you. And it ain’t seeking to come, it’s seeking to break out. Hallelujah. And when He breaks out, He comes out as love. Never anything else. Doesn’t come out. He just has to come as who He is. That’s the reason you can always know Him. Try the spirits, see if they be of God. What test do you put on it? Is it a loving spirit? If it’s not, it’s not God. No matter how theological it is. “By this, all men will know you’re my disciples.” If you have good preaching or good anything else, that’s not the way they’ll know it.

If you speak in tongues, that’s not the way they’ll know it. If you raise the dead, that’s not the way they’ll know it. If you cleanse the leper, that’s not the way they’ll know it. The only way the world will ever be convinced is if we love one another. Hallelujah.

That make sense to you? The key is, I’ve wanted to be loved. That’s been my big problem. All of my madness and all of my meanness has come out of people not loving me. I’ve never been mad with folks who love me. I’m always mad with those who don’t love me the way I think I ought to be loved. You ever get mad about that? Eric, every time you get mad with your husband, you know why it is. He’s not loved you the way you want to be loved. Not willing to let him love you the way he wants to love you, but you want him to love you the way you want to be loved. And the husband is mad with the wife because he wants her to love him the way he wants to be loved. And that causes all problems. It’s a love problem. All problems are love problems. And all the solving of problems will be love too. Everything that is bad comes out of love, and everything that’s good comes out of love. It’s just a love way. That make sense to you? Every bit of problem I’ve had in this world, all of the things that are called problem in my life have been because of love, but it’s been self-love.

And as long as I have self-love, I have a problem with the human race. Because the human race just won’t love me the way I want to be loved. They won’t pet me the way I want to be petted. That make sense? That’s the reason we are angry. All anger comes out of love. All jealousy comes out of love. Wherever there’s love, there’s anger. Wherever there’s love, there’s jealousy. They go together. You can’t have one without the other. One is a perversion and the other is a conversion. The whole deal with Jesus is converting the perverted within us. We are perverted and Jesus has come to convert us. How about that?

Anger can be a curse or it can be a blessing. Jealousy can be a curse or it can be a blessing. We’re made in God’s image and after God’s likeness. Jealousy did not come from the devil at all. Anger did not come from the devil at all. He just perverted it. He didn’t put it in us, he just perverted it. He didn’t put my mind in me, he perverted my mind. He didn’t put my will in me, he perverted my will. He is a perverter. God is seeking from within us to convert us.

You like that? Alright, you want me to tell you when jealous is a curse? Very easy. When you are jealous of someone, that is a curse. Because you want to… that is self-love. That is love, but it is self-love. And then makes you jealous of people. And notice how it says jealousy is… What? It cruel is death? Isn’t that what Proverbs says? You ever been with a jealous person? That is the reason I had so much trouble with her. She was very jealous. And it was almost death to me. I mean, it was constant. Continuous. That was out of self-love. But it was… It was love and it was jealousy.

You want me to tell you what it will be when it is converted? You can tell the difference. God is a jealous God, isn’t He? That is what the Bible says. I believe Thelma said that. And God is angry all the time. It says God is angry with the wicked every day, isn’t it?

And did you know God hates? Wow. But He never sins. And yet every time, my whole life, the very thing that He does and then sin, I do it and it’s a sin. Isn’t it amazing? God does everything that we do and yet He never sins and we come along and do the same thing and sin.

If I get angry, I sin. If I get jealous, I’m sinning. If I get full of hate, it’ll kill me. You know, we teach on that a lot of times. If you get hate, it’ll kill me. You’ll die. And if you get angry, you’ll die. You know, a lot of the problems in the human race is pent-up anger. We’re angry people.

And I get filled with anger. Well, God’s full of anger too. God is love, so God is angry. In my love, I’m angry. In my love, I’m jealous. In my love, I hate. God is jealous for you, not of you.

That’s what Calvary… You want to see the greatest display of jealousy and anger and hatred you’ve ever seen? Look at the cross. It took a lot of jealousy for that. It took a lot of anger. It took a lot of hate for the cross to come into being. But the more you get in love, in the love of God, the angrier you’re going to become. The more jealous you’re going to become. And then we’ll take a cross. I don’t think… You know, as long as you’ll love me, I don’t need a cross. See, that’s denying the cross. I deny the cross by trying to make you love me. Going around looking folks to love me. Never cost me a thing. I never have to take a cross. As long as you’ll love me, you’ll help me stay away from the cross.

But if I really love you, I’ll have to take a cross. It’s amazing. I’ve spent most of my Christian life escaping the cross, denying the cross. Because I’ve been as angry with the church as I ever was as a pagan. I thought at least they ought to be better. I got mad with the Baptist folks. I got mad with about every group I’ve ever been with. I got mad with my church that I… I was pastored. I was mad with them. And they were mad with me. We were just full of anger.

All of us had the Lord within us. We were all speaking in tongues and just having a glory fit about every time we’d come together. Dancing and praising the Lord. And then I would go home and… Guess what?

My children weren’t impressed one bit. They didn’t even want to go to church. They saw miracles every Sunday. I had a miracle church. But they could have cared less about coming. Wonder why. They lived with me. They heard me speak in tongues. I speak in tongues about every night. I’d pray for them. Just have a wonderful time. Get anointing. Get anointing. And anointing is for service.

But being anointed of the Spirit and baptized of the Spirit, two different things. You know that? One who is anointed… Old Testament anointings… They were always anointed. Anytime you see a man doing anything in the Bible, in the Old Testament or the New Testament, in terms of ministering gifts and such as that, he’s anointed.

Even God anointed a jackass one time. So that’s no big deal with God, isn’t it? He had the same Spirit on him that Isaiah had on him too. He had the same Spirit on him that Jesus had. It’s amazing. I don’t mind saying that. That’s in the Bible. And so don’t get so proud about speaking in tongues, because he spoke in tongues too. That jackass spoke in tongues. Isn’t that amazing? Go back and read it. Balaam’s ass. He’s just speaking in tongues.

He’d been praying all the time, and the anointing of God come on him, and he spoke in whatever language Balaam could understand. That’s the language he spoke in. So at least if you come to the tongue level, you’ve got as good as a jackass. Isn’t that wonderful?

That’s great. Hallelujah. It’s not the highest level. The key is, after the anointing left him, he was still a jackass. And that’s the way it was with me. The anointing would leave me, after I preached and all, because I’m anointed to preach the gospel. I’ve been anointed 20 some years. I don’t know when I was. So you don’t ever have to pray for anointing to be on me. I’m anointed to preach. The key is, you just need to pray that I just surrender more to Jesus on the inside of me. Learn to live with Him on the inside.

My problem, I’ve been living with other things on the inside of me. The things I’ve picked up through my life. My life has been controlled more from within by my daddy. Did you know… A lot of us are still… Mama be dead. She still speaks. And she still controls. Though a lot of people of the past, though they’re dead, they still speak. My daddy controlled my life in one area of it for 40 some years. I thought I wasn’t any good because he told me I wasn’t. Said I never amounted to much, and I sure didn’t. I didn’t disappoint him. Because every time I thought of progress, I would hear that word in there. He drew a picture by his words, and I took it and it formed an idol of it within before my heart. You shall have no other God before you. No other idol before you. Most of us don’t worship one out here. We got one before our heart, in our heart. You ever heard, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”? That’s the biggest lie that’s ever been told. Most of your problems in there right now is because of words. Did you know that? What broke your heart? Sticks and stones never broke my heart.

It’s words that broke my heart. That’s the reason He’s called the Word of God. He sent the word to do what? He sent the word to heal us. You’ll know the truth, and the truth will set you free from what? It’ll set you free from the lie. What lie? The lie of the world. The words that you received. See if anybody come bringing up this word… Don’t receive it. What word is that? What God… The only one who’s ever known you is God. Because your life was hid with Christ in God, in the word. No one knows you but God now. You taught on that real good. No one… My daddy didn’t know me. My daddy blessed his heart with lying. He told the lie. And I believed the lie and I was damned for years. Most of us are damned because of the word. Believe a lie and you’ll be damned. That don’t mean go to hell. You’ll be tormented. That makes all my inferiority complex came out of that. Words like I was born on the wrong side of the track. Made me feel inferior to people on the other side of the track. What a hell that is to live in. Caused great hate in my life toward a people.

I heard all of my life that… You know, living in the south… You see, we’re not born with all of this within us. I wasn’t born with hate in me. I wasn’t born with all of the mess in me. I was born with the ground for it to be planted in though. And people came along and planted it. If you sow to the flesh, you’ll reap corruption, won’t you? But if you sow to the Spirit, you’ll reap everlasting life. No one ever sowed to my spirit. And most of us have never sowed to our child’s spirit. We’ve sowed to the flesh and we’ll reap corruption through it. We’ll see corruption through it. Sticks and stones might break your bone, but words will do you a whole lot more damage. He has sent His word to do what? He sent His word to heal us. My problem is not on the outside of me. My fears are not on the outside of me. My fears and my problems or my need is on the inside of me. That’s the reason Christ in me is the hope of glory, not Christ somewhere else. If Christ is anywhere else itself in me, I have no hope. See? So the whole key is He’s unhanging us from the words that we were hung up with.

How does that grab you? If I… You know, usually when I find a woman that her husband has left her or divorced her, it takes months to get her out of the guilt of the very thing. She feels guilty for the whole situation. That’s amazing how guilty. You know why? Because he keeps telling her that she’s the cause of it, which is a lie. So they go around bearing the guilt for the sins of other people. So I bore the guilts and the shames and all the other things for my parents for many years.

And it didn’t bother me until it got in me. And as I said a while ago, nothing will bother you. Even sin could have never killed Adam on the outside of him. Could it? Nothing ever does you any good or does you much harm until you get it on the inside. Not a one of you has ever been filled with food by sitting around discussing and smelling it.

You can discuss it and die with good discussion. So it’s not food on the table. It’s got to be on the table. But it’s food in the tummy that makes a happy tummy. It’s not the theology about chicken that satisfies you. It’s a chicken.

If one of you was hungry and they had chicken over there cut all up and I was going to lecture on chicken in here, where would you rather go? You’d go where the chicken was at. That’s the whole thing. Unless you got it, I don’t even want to hear about it. That’s amazing.

If I’ve got a shirt and it’s got holes in it and you haven’t got a better one, keep your mouth off my holey shirt. Even if God didn’t have something better, I don’t even mess with my sins because that’s all I’ve got. And if you take my sins and don’t give me something better, I’m in a mess. I haven’t got anything.

Isn’t it amazing to go around and get people what we call saved and they don’t ever get anything else? They can’t sin no more. They ain’t got nothing else. They sit around like a whole church full of psycho-ceramics. And that’s a bunch of crackpots. Y’all believe you talked about crackpots last night. And the word come to me, psycho-ceramic. And that’s what it is.

You know, even the Bible, if God, everything that Jesus was then and done then is not available now, I wish they’d have never wrote that book. Because that stirs up things in me. If it’s dormant within me, don’t stir it up unless you’ve got something to satisfy that desire that comes forth. Wouldn’t it have been an awful trick for Prince Charming to rode by that rock that day or wherever that lady was laying and jumped off in that place, off that horse and kissed her and woke her up and jumped on that horse and hollered, “Hi-yo, Silver,” and rode off into sunset.

He’d have been better to have left her lying. That’s a good gospel story because when he kissed her, he woke up sleeping desires within her. The desire to be married, the desire to have a home, the desire to have babies and all the other desires. What if he’d have rode off and left her? He’d have been better to have left her sleeping.

You understand what I’m saying? So by reading that book and all these things that He was taking care of back then, and yet it stirs up all those desires in me without an expectancy, I’m in worse trouble. See? All despair comes out of desire without an expectancy.

Fears comes out of an expectancy without a desire. All your fears comes out of expectancies that you don’t desire. Now no one in here desires to be sick, but a lot of people expect to be sick and they stay afraid of sickness all the time. A lot of us don’t desire to die, but we expect to die, and so we stay full of fear all the time about death. It’s amazing, isn’t it? So it’s… it’s just a wonderful time.

This makes sense to you? How would you like to know how to be transformed? Would you like to know? How to get out of all the inferiority complex? Not care what people think about you at all? That’s the biggest fear you have. You do know that. Biggest fear in this room tonight is public opinion.

That keeps us from going on with the Lord more than anything else. It’s public opinion. That’s public opinion number one. The next fear is what people might say. There’s three of them. This always comes in a three. The first fear is what people are thinking. Yeah, well… I used to preach, and I’d look out, and if everybody wasn’t laughing, I’d wonder what they’re thinking. Then I’d start sweating and stinking.

Boy, that’s torment. It don’t say, “Let this mind be in you that’s in that bunch out there.” “Let this mind be in you that’s in Christ Jesus.” Isn’t that great? That’s a whole lot better. I don’t give a to what you’re thinking tonight. Isn’t that great? Now, I want you to think the best because it’s good for you. But it won’t bother me. It’s what I think of you that determines my… Whatever. Quality of life.

That’s it. Thank you, Lord. Doesn’t it? But it’s wonderful to stand up here and look out at you. Because I’m not… I’ve come here for you to love me. I want you to. It’s wonderful. If I can help you do it, it’s great.

But the commandment is for me to love you. And that’s an adventure. It’s absolutely… it’s an adventure to me. I had a great time and I had as good a time in the airplane coming here as I have since I’ve been here. I just sat there and I’d look at those people and think, now what would they be like if they were filled with what they’re supposed to be filled with, which is love. And then I could just see them radiant and everything else. That’s what it… I didn’t know I wanted them after the flesh. You know, the biggest… if I know you after the flesh, I’m in trouble. But if I know you after the Spirit, I’m free. Okay?

And it says, Paul says, henceforth, no man after the flesh. And so the whole problem is, I’m not interested in who you think you are. I’m not even interested in who I think you are. I’m interested in who… Did you know Jesus never knew a person after the flesh? Not once did He ever know any person after the flesh. He knew every man after the Spirit.

He saw what Peter would be in the Spirit. And He called it before it was even… before it was revealed, Jesus called it. And treated him after that like he was already what He said, what He saw him to be. If you pray for your husband and you’re really praying in faith, you see what he is in the Spirit. And from that moment, if it is faith, then you really believe it, you’ll treat him exactly the way you saw him. That make sense? At the highest love I know is to treat a person as if he already is what he’s supposed to be. Let him say he’s not, but you treat him as if he is. That takes you out of judgment. You don’t even have to judge who’s a sinner and a saint anymore. Isn’t that great?

Just treat him like he’s… You hear so many people saying, “Oh, I’ve been praying for my husband. He’s lost.” You know how you see him? You surely haven’t seen him in the Spirit, and I’ll tell you that. Paul said, I present every man as perfect where? In Christ Jesus, isn’t he? We don’t see… If we see it the way God sees it, Adam doesn’t exist anymore. Do you know that? The race of Adam does not exist in God’s sight anymore. He sees everything in terms of the new creation. That make sense? You say, oh, I…

Well, you say a lot of things, but… That’s all I’m not saying. I do too. How many of them have tried to get perfect? You ever heard that preaching on get perfect, and the more you mess with yourself, the worse you get? You ever heard people talking about crucify yourself? Well, you can get a nail in both feet and one in one hand, but I’d hate to be around you while that pain was in you and you would hammer another hand because you couldn’t nail that one there. You’d beat everybody to death around you.

No. As far as God’s concerned, you’re as perfect tonight as you’ll ever be. Isn’t that good news? God doesn’t see you any other way. He sees you as perfect as Jesus is. He sees you as righteous as Jesus is. He sees you as holy as Jesus is. You want to know your image before God is Jesus Christ. He sees nothing outside of Jesus. Everything He deals with us in terms of Jesus. He doesn’t deal with man after his sins anymore. He doesn’t deal with you after your sins. He doesn’t deal with you after anything but Jesus Christ. You say, “Well, what about the mess that’s in me?” Well, He’s not worried about the mess in you either. The only thing He’s interested about in you is Jesus. Hallelujah. It’s you in Jesus and Jesus in you. And if God deal Him with you in both ways, there it’s already settled. Right here it’s being worked out. The whole key is getting you identified, hallelujah, with who you already are. And as you get identified, you open yourself up to power to affect you in a way that you’ll begin to act like who you are. Hallelujah. How does that grab you? Amen.

As long as you’re identified with mama has power to affect you in a way that will determine your acts and you can’t help it. As long as you’re identified with anyone or anything or any group other than Jesus Christ, you give that thing or that people or that person power in your life to affect you in a way that will determine your acts. Because we act out of effects. Right? Sure we do. The reason Jesus… No one could have… Nothing outside of Jesus ever could determine Jesus’ acts is because He wasn’t identified with anything outside of Him. He was identified with God on the inside of Him. Aren’t you glad of that? That He was still identified more with God on the cross than He was with those who had treated Him so bad. If He had been identified with those who had treated Him so bad, He would have probably told them all to go to hell, wouldn’t He? But notice what He said. The effects of love determined His acts, and His last breath was, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Isn’t that great?

That’s the effects of love. Somebody used to say in the early days that they should have called the book the Acts of the Apostles the Acts of the Holy Ghost. That would have been wrong. It was not the Acts of the Holy Ghost. It was the Acts of the Apostles. It was the effects of the Holy Ghost. Being identified with Jesus, they left themselves open for power to work through them, to affect them in a way that determined their acts. And they became witnesses of Jesus Christ. That make sense? So the baptism of the Holy Spirit is really being baptized into union or into identification or marriage with the glorified Lord. And through that identification, the bride takes on the very likeness of the bride. Or the bridegroom. And He begins to affect her in a way that will determine her acts on earth. And we become witnesses of Jesus Christ right here where we are on this earth. That make sense to you? Isn’t that great? So if something else is affecting you, change your identification. If you don’t like effects, change the identification. If you don’t like ditch digging wages, change ditch digging and do something else. For what? For a… Hallelujah. As you sow, you’re going to reap, aren’t you?

I hope that makes sense. I’ve been identified with just about every group I ever got in. I finally wound up leaving it because I got hurt with it. Some of the best teachers I’ve ever been with. When they demanded more that I identify more with them in their doctrine than I did with Jesus Christ, I left them. And I’ll leave any other group that demands that.

I am not called to be identified with the church. I’m identified with Jesus. That makes me fit right into the church. I’m not called to be identified with any group. I thank God for that because you’ll never be enlarged if you’re just identified. You’ll get narrower and narrower. If we walk in the… Live in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit, we just become enlarged. That make sense to you? Hope it does. That’s the reason Jesus is letting everything hurt us that we’re identified with. But we don’t learn too well, but we’re going to. If you’re identified more with your children than you are with Jesus, they’ll run you up the wall, won’t they? You know why your wife can make you mad than any other woman on the face of the earth? I mean, you can pile them all together. And all of them can’t affect you the way your wife affects you. She can drive you up the wall, but all the rest of them can’t. Wonder why. And all of them doing the same thing. And let her do it, and you could kill her. I’ve never wanted to beat up on anyone else, but I sure have wanted to choke Anna’s eyes out a time or two. And there has to be a reason for that.

She can make me mad, and I can make her mad. I can change her 40 times a day. She’s like a lizard with me. She changes every time I change. If I turn green, she turns green. If I turn blue, she turns blue. If I turn red, she turns red. Well, why in the world would that happen to her? Because it has to happen to her. You know why? She’s married to me. And being married to me, I have power in her life. And I have power to affect her in a way that determines her acts. And after I affect her, I don’t like her acts.

And if I would be more loving to her, I’d get better action out of her. Hallelujah. If you want good action, just give… Just affect them good. See, I mean, tricky enough to know how to get my way with her. I can affect her in a way that she’ll just do anything. I can say… You know, I might even be mad for an hour. And I want her to do something. And I’ll say, “Come here, sweetheart.”

And she’ll come over there and I’ll put these baby blue eyes on her. And love her a little bit. And her mouth becomes like a plumber’s friend. You know, stick around. And I’ll say, “Darling, cook me some popcorn.”

I got real anointed one night and I was teaching. Sometime, you wish you weren’t home… Or your wife and children weren’t around when you anointed. So I was teaching and telling them that wives ruined their husband and caused them to die early because they made them in at you by waiting on them all the time. And I thought it was great. We just had a wonderful time. And then I went in the den and sat down. I was tired. And I said, “Anna, how about fixing me some popcorn, getting me a drink?” She said, “Look here, buddy, I heard that sermon.”

She said, “If you want that popcorn, you can get out and go get it.” I was mad. I was mad. Used to, I could look at her, you know, I married her when she was 16, so I raised her. I didn’t raise her too good, but I raised her up. She was 16 years old. Looked like a little Indian doll. I just loved her in pieces. She’s half Indian and she’s… She’s white-headed now, but she’s real black hair. Just raised like a raven. And I could look at her and make her cry. I didn’t like what she’s doing. And during all this thing we were going through when she wanted me to know her, she was saying something one day, and I was driving along, and I cut my eyes over at her. She said, “Look here, boy.” And I took both hands on the wheel. She said, “You see, that stare made me quiver.” She said, “I want to tell you, I’m not afraid of you any longer.” And I’ve been afraid ever since.

She said her mama wouldn’t let her cuss, and I wouldn’t let her cuss. Even when she was a pagan, I wouldn’t let her cuss. So if she got so free, she decided she’d try it. She’d always wanted to say damn. I don’t know why. And she said she went in the kitchen one day, and I wasn’t around, and her mama wasn’t around, and she said, “Damn.” Isn’t it so good?

You say, “Isn’t that terrible?” No, the Lord can handle it. You see, the Lord can handle it that much better than He could, or all tied up with that angry goss He couldn’t say it, couldn’t He? A lot of us, we think the Lord can’t take the truth yet. He can take it if you can tell it. You just go ahead and tell Him anything. He can take it.

It’s us that can’t come to the place of trusting to tell the truth. I say a lot of things to the Lord now. I used to, wouldn’t I? Used to, if I had a little lust to show up in me, or a lot, I’d say, “Oh God, I’m sorry.” I weren’t sorry. I liked it. But I didn’t dare to let Him know it. In fact, I wouldn’t even confess sin for a long time because I thought, well, if He don’t know it, I’m not about to tell it. Well, I felt if He had to confess it, He didn’t know much about it. And my idea was that He was so bad, you know, He’s preaching and all, talking about how bad He was, I felt like, I’m not going to let Him put me in hell. I’m not about to tell Him. And look how I suffered. See, when I tell Him, the responsibility is not mine anymore. It’s His. As long as I keep it hid in me, it’s just like a snake. The longer you hold him, the worse he’ll bite you. And if you want to quit getting bit, throw him away. And so, a lady from Georgia called me. She said, “Tommy, I’m in a bad shape.” I said, “What’s wrong?”

She’s telling me how bad the church was and she was trying to straighten it out and make the preacher speak in tongues and all that stuff. And I said, “Let me tell you a story.” I said, “If you’ve got a cat, and he… Don’t leave, I’ll get better.”

I really am. If all of you won’t count. You stay. I used to preach to the pew. I practiced on the pew. And I handled that better than I could to people. I was scared to death of them. I just trembled when they come in. But I could have a good time with the pew. I never even stuttered or got off my subject or anything. I said, “Let me tell you a story.” I said, “If you’ve got a cat and he’s scratching, the best way to get rid of the scratching is throw the cat away.” She said, “I get the message.” So she turned loose the cat, and he quit scratching her. If you don’t like to be scratched, quit holding the cat tight to you. So it’s amazing. Well, if I said anything, I ain’t going an hour here.

You want me to quit? I’m having the greatest time. Let me confess a little more. That Alabama thing, whatever God done in me, was probably the greatest. I don’t know it all yet. He’s interpreting some of it in me. But through all of that humiliation, you see, I thought I had to perform and be good. See, I still had that in me. And I just was able to confess it before that group. I said, “I don’t want to perform no more.”

I said, “If you don’t love me, it’s, you know, I’m just tired. I’m tired of performing for people. I want to be real. I’d rather say nothing. I’d rather say one word than perform for anyone.” I’m more at ease on the inside of me. I’ve learned to live with Jesus more in the last month than I ever have before.

In church, I’ve learned that, you know, you can, the whole deal is, Paul said it many years ago, if we live in the Spirit, I never understood much about that. But I think I’m beginning to understand it. So, I’m enjoying, you know, I actually enjoyed you better. You know, I was there last night and really in a rhythm with what you did this morning. And, last year, I was thinking what I was going to say. You know, and I wonder how many speakers never hears another one and is blessed because they’re sitting there thinking about their time to speak. That’s hell. You know, I don’t believe Jesus done that. You know, I’m not in a flow like, and I know that like I can be, but I’m trusting the Lord in me because I don’t know what you need out there. And to formulate a sermon, I can do that. I can preach three points and a poem, anything else. I can run Scripture reference. I’ve done that for years. But, only God knows what your heart is saying out there. And every heart here is hungry. And it’s hungry for one thing, not just information. My heart just cried, “Love me, love me.” That’s the whole, I wanted my mom and daddy to love me.

It’s the whole thing. My whole life, I’ve been, you know, I’ve just wanted to be, you know, love me. I’m made for that before I am anything else. So, I’m not out of order by that. And, when I was, even as a child, I don’t know when Jesus came in me. I must have been, I don’t know where I was an infant or not. I no longer say, I know I joined, I went up in a church 20 some years ago. But all of my life, as a little bitty boy, I’ve been very sensitive. I was having experiences with Jesus Christ. I didn’t know who He was. But I was having experiences with Jesus when I was three and four years old. But yet, when I looked around on the outside of me, I saw no one acting out what I was experiencing inwardly.

I wanted to love my family. It was in me. I wanted to go up to them and put my arms around them. That’s the reason I hug y’all. I’m free to do that now. But then, I wanted to hug my daddy. I’d look at him and I wanted to put my arms around that man so bad and sit in his lap. You understand what I’m saying? But I didn’t feel welcome.

Love welcomes me. They say, I want you to be welcome in my heart. I don’t want to close my heart to anyone. I want to… You see, the heart of love lets you walk right in. Whosoever will, I believe it says, let him come and let him partake of the water of life freely. For the water of life is in me. And my thirst will never be quenched until I let somebody else drink. You hear so many in the charismatic movement going around looking at people to feed them and to give them water. You’ve got Jesus, you’ve got the Father, you’ve got the Holy Ghost. You’ve got the water within you. But that’s the… You see, we’re still carrying the old natural way.

It’s a reverse in the kingdom. In the natural, when you are thirsty, you drink water. It’s a selfish deal. Isn’t it? Even our eating is selfish. A whole man in Adam is selfish. I eat because I’m, you know, self-preservation. I think man will live by bread alone. Remember when the slew foot was trying to get Jesus to turn it in? And Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone. But every word that proceeded from the mouth of God.” So in this spiritual order, the spiritual man, and you do have, you are two men. You are a natural man and you are a spiritual man. And we haven’t been taught much about the spiritual man. He’s the one. He doesn’t know hate. There’s a man in you tonight that doesn’t know hate. Not the hate that I’m talking about. There’s a man in you that knows nothing but kindness. That’s true in you tonight and what you do in the natural realm never will change that. It might never be manifested, but it’s true, and it will remain true forever. And most of the natural man can experience the joy, the love and joy and peace of the spiritual man. That make sense? Can you imagine the joy that the human part of Jesus Christ experienced when He allowed that woman at the well to touch the Father in Him?

Where her problem had touched a human in others who did not have the divine in them? And hatred and bitterness came out toward her? Wouldn’t have her in the neighborhood? And we’ve had that, haven’t we?

And here comes Jesus, and this woman touches the divine because He did not live after Himself. And Jesus experienced, the human Jesus experienced, the joy of heaven, the love and the joy and the peace and the glory of the eternal. That make sense? This was His perfection. The things that He suffered… He suffered loss that He might gain. So it’s when… I come to Linda Hayden. I’m thirsty. I’m hungry if I come that way. See? I’m saying something to you. If you can’t interpret… If you don’t allow the new man to interpret it and bring forth supply, then you’ll hate me. I’ll have power to change you into my likeness. Want to? And you’ll throw verbal stones at me. How many was stoning the woman at the well? Can you imagine the verbal stones that was going against her all the time? I haven’t stoned people with stone folk, but I’ve stoned the body of Jesus Christ with verbal stones. Even when the body of Christ has need, we throw stones at it. Frank Downing, one time he was prophesying, and he said, “How long will you continue to throw verbal stones at my body?” Remember He told Saul of Tarsus, “Why are you persecuting me?” What I do to you, I’ve done to Jesus.

What I say about you, I’m saying to Jesus. Saying about Jesus. And when I treat you any other way than… and you are in Jesus Christ, I’m denying Jesus before man. I didn’t know I’d done that until just recently. I’ve denied Jesus before man many times. It’s amazing.

So all this that I had within me was stifled. I wouldn’t act it out because I did not feel I was welcome in my daddy’s life. I know now he never had that. Hey, listen. So the way for your thirst to be quenched is to let me drink. In that day they shall draw water out of the wells of salvation, won’t they? That’s what Isaiah said. That’s the day we’re in.

I’ll put within you a well of water, and spring up to everlasting life. Out of your belly shall what? Something you put in? No, something will flow out. Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water. And the outflowing of the water satisfies the earth, the man of the earth, like the water coming down from the sky satisfies and quenches the thirst of the earth. The earth that we are, and we are of the earth. When the water of life, eternal life, flows through these human laws of our being, it fulfills and satisfies the human part of it. I’m made for God. See? I’m made by love for love. And that can’t happen apart from you.

It lets you drink. And when you feed another, your own hunger is satisfied. Jesus said, “I have meat to eat that you know not of, and my meat is to do the will of Him who sent me.” Glory to God. Isn’t that wonderful? Praise God. Thank you, Lord. So I welcome you.

I’m not here to preach good to you. I’m here to love you. And that’s the only competition I believe there should be in the church. Seeing who can outlove the other one. Can you imagine? Everybody would be glad to come, wouldn’t they? Just to see. Okay, I’ll talk some more in the morning, if you let me. This is by our hearts before Jesus. Lord Jesus Christ, we thank You. Or I thank You, Lord, for allowing me to be here and to stand in the midst of the church.

And I’m at peace with it because You said You were here in the church. And we are Your church. We are Your body. Lord Jesus, I have felt such a wonderful welcome into the hearts that You dwell in. So I praise You for it. And I…

I know my life will never be the same after tonight. Nor tomorrow. It will be constant change through the week. And we look forward to it with great expectations. And the creation is waiting for us to come to the realization of who we are in Christ Jesus. Amen.