(We Are God's Love Personified)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
May whole things and I will follow you. May God
bless each of you that are joining us today on
this first Sunday of February twenty twenty five. I'm Pastor

(00:26):
Ronnie Hooks of the Word of Life John one fourteen Church,
located here in Troy, Alabama. And the Word became flesh
and dwelled amongst us, and we beheld as glory that
of the only be Gotten Other Father, full of grace
and truth. Prlylujah. We thank you for joining us today

(00:47):
on Facebook Live and others of you that will hear
this on Hope Gospel Radio station aired throughout the week,
and some of you might hear this on our Heart Radio.
To God be the glory only, and all the praise
belongs to Him. Again, we thank you for joining us

(01:09):
on today and this is the Word of Life John
one fourteen Church. All right, today, on this first Sunday,
we do have a word from the Lord. We're gonna
say a quick prayer, not a quick prayer, but we're
gonna say a prayer to ask the Lord to come

(01:30):
in and to help me that I will let the
Holy Spirit minister this word to you and you that
you will have an ear to hear what the spirit
of saying in these last and the evil days, and
that your heart's receive it with gladness. Father. And it

(01:50):
is in the name of Jesus that we come to
you today, thanking you and praising you for your loving
kindness and your tender mercies. We don't take it for granted.
It is you who allowed us to wake up this
morning with the breath of life that you've given to us.
The forgiver of our sins, Lord, we ask let you
search our hearts through and through, and while you find

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anything that is not like you, forgive us. Father. And
we don't just want to say this about words, but
we want to repent, turn away from those things that
we've done wrong, those errors that we've made, those mistakes
and having loved one to the other that we've made
and all we asked that you correct us and mold

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us and shape us into the image that you would
have us to be in. Because we know that we
are your workmanship, and you've provided for us works to
do so, Lord, we ask Father that you that you
come in hollywo on this Sunday, this first Sunday of February,

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all of our lives all over the country, all over
the world, and minister to our souls. This we're asking
Jesus name, Amen and amen. All right, a couple of
scriptures I want to read to you, and I give
you the rest as we go, go to Ephesians chapter

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five with me. Ephesians chapter five. Ephesians chapter five. We're
going to start in verse one, verse one and two.
Be ye, therefore, followers of God, remember that. Be therefore,

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followers of God. We know that God is love. Amen. Okay,
as dear children verse two, and walk in love. God
is love, and he's telling us stuff as dear children,
walk in his love. Hallelujah. As Christ also has loved

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us and has given himself for us an offering and
a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling sabor. Let
me read that again. Be therefore, followers of God, as
dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also has

(04:30):
loved us. Meaning this the same way that Christ treated
those in his day is written in the book. The
way he treated those of his day, his disciples, and
those who came to him, even hallelujah. The Pharisees, the Sadducees,
Hollywood love others. The way that Christ has loved them

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and has given himself as an offering and a sacrifice
to God for a sweet smelling savor. We know that
Christ suffered many of things so that we might have
a life, a right to the tree of life. He
suffered ridicule, he suffered hatred, he suffered persecution, he was

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lied on. We know he was beaten. We know that uh,
he was betrayed. All these things, and not to mention
the uh, the the cross that he went to, all

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of everything that he experienced going to the cross, spit
upon m hallelujah. UH lied upon being beaten. The Bible says,
unto uh he tell he wasn't even recognizable, being beaten

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thirty nine stripes, and then had to take a cross
that he was to be nailed to upper hill. He
took this. He carried this cross through through the city.
I don't know how long it was, how long he
had to go, but he took it, and he fell

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with him and he would They got someone to help
him to carry it up the hill. But when he
got to the top of the hill, they laid him
on that cross, and they nailed his hands and his
feet to the cross, and they took that cross, and
they dropped it in a hole, and he hung there.

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He was stabbed in the side, he was fed vinegar
and water, and yet he said, Father, forgive them, for
they know not what the what they do. So God
here is telling us, Paul is telling us walk in
love as Christ has loved us. Not the way that

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you love, not the way that we perceive what love
is with our feelings and emotions, but with hard action, facts,
hard decisions being made. Hallelujah, action that exemplifies love. The

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title of this lessen this conversation today is we are
God's love. Get this personified. When we, as dear children,
follow God, as we follow Christ, we are God's Love

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in the earth personified. Now, this word personified means that
I'm going to give it to you, just like the
Lord gave it to me. Personify the verb used by
to object person personified, personifying to attribute human nature or

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character to innate objects or abstraction. Abstraction as in speech
on writing, to attribute human nature or character hallelujah. In hallelujah,

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speech on writing. So to what you say, or what
you write, or what you do exemplifize hallelujah. The love
to represent in the form of a person to represent
Christ or to represent God as Christ represented his father.

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The Bible says, I only do those things that my
father told me. So it's imperative that we study to
show our self approved to God hallelujah, and a person
or in art glory to God. So it's imperative that
we surrender ourselves to God as living sacrifice and be

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transformed by the renewing of our minds, so we can
take on the character of God and not the character
of man. Remember what John said in John chapter one.
He said men loved darkness. Why because the deeds were
evil and they didn't want them to be seen. Paul

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said this in chapter seven of Romans. He said that
there's no good thing that dwelling in my body on
my flesh, hallylujah. And eight he said, the carnal mind
is the enemy of God. Need indeed, can it do
the will of God. But God tells us to follow

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God as dear children, walk in love, as Christ also
has loved us. So we are to mimic Jesus. The
Bible says, Mark the perfect man, for the end of
that man is peace. That can be kind of difficult.

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Let me read you another definition to embody the qualities
in a real person and created things. To embody in
a real person the created things of God. What is
he saying those things that God has both said and done,

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and teach do likewise follow you be in an embodiment
or incarnation of the deity or of Christ. Rather not
the Deity, but of Christ. Be an incarnation or the

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embodiment of your predecessor, which is Christ, Jesus the Lord.
Imitate him what he did when you read your the
four books of the Gospel. Imitate him. Many of you
know that. When I've been in prison before, and I

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don't glory in that, but I glory in that God
saved me while I was there. And one of the
things I remember vividly is that when I read the
Four Books of the Gospel, God allowed me to envision
what was going on at the time when in whatever
I was reading it. In other words, when I was

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reading it, I had a vision of what was happening.
I had a vision of what Christ was doing and
how he was doing it. Okay, God allowed me to
see to put a picture to what I was reading,
so I could better understand the nature of Christ or
the nature of God, that is, in Christ. God wants us,

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wants us to imitate this. So when they were ridiculing
him and talking about him, and setting him up and
trying to test him, as we studied this morning in
our own Sunday school lesson, many times he would give
them a straight answer, the answer that came from God.

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He wouldn't tell him anything different, and he wouldn't do
it with an attitude. He would do it out of love.
Since love why because he wants he said. The Bible
says this all have sined and comes short of the
glory of God. The Bible says that the soul that
sentences shouldly die. So he wants us all to come

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to repentance, even our enemies. Jesus said, pray even for
your enemies. Do good to them, Bless those who curse you.
Pray for them who despitefully persecute you, and say all
manner of evil against you falsely. For my sake, walking
in love, turn with me to Hebrews chapter four. We

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are God's love personified. We are God. Where are we
embody the love of God? We embody the the the
character that Jesus portrayed in this earth. We don't just
have the word know the word we want, but by

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the power of the Holy Spirit, we learn to live
the Word. Hence the name of this church, and the
Word became flesh and wealth among us, and we beheld
a glory, that of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth. Our aim in this ministry
and this particular church is to equip you with the
Word of God, so God can use that word to

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manifest himself in your lives. Persuade you, to encourage you
to study your Bible so you can be approved by God.
To demonstrate before other people the will of God and
the character of God, the love of God. You can't
do it without the Holy Ghost. Worry to God, hallelujah.

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Hebrews Chapter four, two, verses fourteen and fifteen. Seeing then
that we have a great high priest talking about Jesus
that has passed into the health heavens, it says that
he and verse two of his Ephesian said, offering and

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a sacrifice to God, a sweet smelling savior. And here
he says that he passed into the heavens. Why because
he knew no sin. Jesus the Son of God. Let
us let us hold fast our profession, seeing then that
we have a great high priest that had passed into

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the heaven, Jesus the Son of God. Let us hold
past our profession. From we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted like as we are,
yet without sin. So he demonstrates to us that everything

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that we experience in our feelings and emotions, he was
tempted like wise even more because he experienced the cross,
the death, Hallelujah. Most of us would never experience the
rejection that most of us would never experience, even to
the put land on. They laid hands on him and

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spin on him and beat on his head a crown
of thorns. Hallelujah. Many of us will never experience that.
But yet, hallelujah, we have him as a high priest
that can go into the Holy of Holies, Hallelujah, that
gave himself to go into the Holy of the Holies

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and go before God on our behalf, on your behalf.
When I looked up to God and I admitted my
sins that day over thirty years ago, when I was
in that cell I said, God, I was the one
that made that decision to do what I did. Nobody

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else wan my mother, what my father with, my sister,
my brother, was my friends, but knows that were with me.
It was me. And I said, Lord, I stand before
you forgive me. It is Jesus Hallelujah, that takes that
confession and gives it to God and says, Father, Hallelujah.

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He believes upon me, whom you have sent to redeem him.
And he has done as you said. He has confessed
his faults and his sins receive him as a dear son.
And because of God's words and because of what Jesus did, Hallelujah,

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I am received. Now I'm charged with Jesus as Lord
of my life and the baptism of the Holy Ghost,
who empowers me to be a witness to walk in
the light, walk in the same love Hallelujah personified made

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manifest in this world in you. What does that mean, Preacher?
That means when I when I used to push you
to the side, if you ask me for a dollar,
now I consider what Jesus would do. The Bible said
that if a man asked, if you give it to him, hallelujah. Well,

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in times past I would have thought about it. Most
times I would have said, no, I'll keep my money
to do what I want to do. Then as I
begin to grow, I realized that to obey is better
than sacrifice. So I started giving it to God because
he said, if give him to the poors, like lending

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to the Lord, obedience. See, God knows the state of
that person. I don't. I may perceive that going. He'll
see it going to misuse that money, or they're trying
to trick me and use me. But that's God's problem now,
because why I don't belong to myself anymore. If I'm

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walking in His love, I don't belong to myself anymore. Hallelujah.
The word says that we are bought with the Christ.
When we receive Jesus Christ is our Lord and savior.
We're no more our own, but we're bought. Hallelujah. He
took away our sins, so where now we're free, hallelujah.
To allow the Christ to live through us, that others

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will see the hope that is in us Christ Jesus,
that he is lifted up, that men will be drawn
to him, hallelujah. See it's it's not the love that
I would project to you, which is human, frail and contaminated,
but it's the love of God that were that would

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tell you no when you need to hear no, that
will cover you when you need to be covered, That will,
that will that will feed you when you need to
be fed, and will that will allow you, and that
will correct you when you need to be corrected. Hallelujah, Hallelijah,

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For we have not a high priest which cannot be
touched with the feeling bye from it, but in all
points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. He
knew no sin, but he became sin for us so
we could walk in love. Do we falter? Do we

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make mistakes? Yes? But God has given us an advocate,
a lawyer, Jesus to Christ, who goes, who sits at
the right hand of his majesty. In a seeding for us,
John said, all you have to do is confess, confess
your false to him. Confess your sin, and He's faithful

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and just to forgive you and conclidse you from all unrighteousness. Hallelujah.
Paul said in Chapter eight of Roman, he said the
thing that I want to do, I don't do. The
thing that I don't want to do is what they
end up doing. And he found another law in his members.

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In chapter eight he said, the law of sin and death.
The sin is condemned now therefore in the flesh. But
the law of life that is in Christ has made
us free from the low sin and death and ate.
He said, Okay, who gonna save me from this body
of death? He said, now with the mind, I served

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the law of God to flesh the lost sin. Why
because sin is in your flesh, your members, hallelujah, that's
why you it's it's it's hard for you to make
those changes in your life. Now. Some people were make
them with ease some things, and some people won't. It

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depends on what it is. Some of you be able
to get rid of uh, step away from drugs and
alcohol and things of that nature. But you might still
be lying, You still might be hating on one another,
You still might be back by those are just as
much as the sin as the others are, and vice versa.

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That those might might be honest, uh and and trustworthy,
but yet have an addiction. Hallelujah. I heard a word
this morning. Jesus often spoke with Paradix in paradox. Uh. Uh,

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they didn't make sense, you know. Uh. Do good to
those who do you bad, you know. Pray for those
who despitefully use you. Bless those who curse you. Hallelujah.
The opposite of what the flesh would do is what

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Jesus did. Love Love. Go to James chapter one. Now
when God gives you this gift through the Holy Spirit,

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this empowerment to be a witness, he said, and you
shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come
upon you, and you shall be my witnesses, Lord God,
as Jesus was the witness of the Father. Now we're
witnesses of Christ. James, Chapter one, verse thirteen and fourteen.

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Let no man say when he is tempted, I am
tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with evil,
neither tempted he any man. But every man is tempted
when he has drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Now,
when you do make those mistakes, when you do walk

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contrary to the will of God and not in love,
it's because the lust, your lust, your lustful desires, the
things that you need to deal with Isaiah said, you
do undo heavy burdens, you unloose the bands of wickedness. Hallelujah.

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There are certain things when God empowers you for you
to do. I remember when I was in a backslit
and condition that I asked God to deliver me again
one time go and the Lord said no. He said,

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I've given you power on the authority to walk in
the liberty of the spirit. And I thought about what
he said. He had given me his word. I knew
what to do. I started confessing, not just to him,
but I started confessing to my peers. Those who I

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was had had to being accountable to the laws of
the land and things of that nature. Hallelujah. So I
put myself in a place where I could get some
help because I needed some help. And after that I

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learned how to be accountable to people as well as
to God. See what servants went to another. We served
one another, not just with the uh with the work
that you can do for them, but with the work
that you do with yourself, allowing people see how God

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works in you as well. I know everybody's not happy
about letting people into their business, but I'm a different sort.
Christ let me into his business. He didn't know any saying,
but Paul let me into his business. I know that

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he was on the Damascus road, got knocked off his beast, Hallelujah,
became blind. I know bout Peter, Hallelujah. Peter was rebuked
by Jesus when he when the enemy came up in
Peter and tried to rebuke Jesus, and Jesus said, get
thee behind me, say hallelujah. It was Peter that spoke

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out and tried to uh uh uh cut that ear
off of the soldier, and Jesus put it back on. Hallelujah.
We're all a sin that comes sort of the glory
of God. We've all made mistakes, but that does not
stop you from walking into love. You make your mistakes,

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you get back up and you keep moving forward. You
keep moving forward. The thing about us saints is that
we fall down, but we get back up. You're gonna
make mistakes, but you get back up. Your face is
gonna be tried, and sometimes you will fail. And don't

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dwell on the big sins as if they the only sins. Smoking, drinking, gambling,
things of that, fornicating something. There are other sins lying, cheating,
back biting that are just as dangerous for us, and
many times we were. We will overlook intentionally and we

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won't give place to it. And we know no unforgiven
sins can no unrepented sin can be forgiven. You have
to repent from any sin. The solution of this is
found in Hebrews chapter four as well verse sixteen. It

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says this, let us stepfore come boldly to the throne
of Grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace
to help in times of need. Saints of God, and
those of who you are, those of you who are
considering to be coming into the body of Christ. It's

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plainly says here. Once you're saved, once you come into
the Kingdom of God, once you become a baptized believer
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, once you are once
you received the baptism of the Holy goes. When you
make a mistake, go to God and ask God for forgiveness,

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and you will receive grace. Continuing to walk in His love.
Continuing to walk in His love. Don't sit there and
let the devil beat you over the head, tell you
that you you there's no way you can get back
in and that you're uh, you're cast away, and nobody

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loves you, and and all of these things, and put
all these thoughts in your head, get back up, ask
God to forgive you, Ask God to help you, and
whatever it is you need help. In glory to God.

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We are God's love personified. God prepares us to be
living epistols. Read of men to learn to walk up right.
It's a process to learn to talk right. It's a
process to learn to live right. It's a process to

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learn to think right. It's a process as a man thinking,
so is he. If you're already if you thought it
in your mind, you've already done it, and that is
a sin. Hallelujah, Glory to God. Some people have allowed

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their minds to go wild with thoughts and imaginations and
don't ask for forgiveness for none of them, not knowing
that what you can see in your mind is seeing
because you've done it, you believe it, You allow it
to stay there, and it's a constant distraction to you.

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Why because you don't do it, you're not transforming in
your mind. You don't learn to think on those things
that are pure, those things that are just, those things
that are true, those things that are praised worthy, those
things that are of a good report. You make your
life even harder than what it is. How they knew you.

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We need to learn to put on the mind of Christ.
As he walked in love. We are called to do likewise,
to walk in love, walk in love. And as I
end this, it's not the type of love that you think.

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It's not the type of love that you think. Be
filled with the Holy Spirit, and he will guide you
into all truth. Let's pray Father in heaven, this message

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that you've given to us to walk in love, not
according to the flesh, but according to the spirit, because
you will love. You demonstrate your love towards us when

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you gave us your son. You presented him to us,
and you asked us to accept him as a sacrifice
for our sins. And not only that ask him, you
ask us to accept him as the way, the truth,
and the light to follow after him that we might

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be saved. This is how you demonstrated your love, and
you ask us Lord to go forth and do likewise,
so rendering our bodies to you Father's living sacrifices that
the spirit of truth can dwell in us. Richly transform

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in our minds so we can prove what is that
good and acceptab perfect will of God, even as Jesus
did the perfect will of God. We may not believe
that it's possible to be perfect for our God as perfect,
but you said it is. We may not believe that

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it's possible to be holy, but it is because you
said you holy fire, your God him holy. But with
you God, all things are possible. And apart from you,
we can do nothing. So we need your help. I
pray Lord that strongholds are brought that are brought down

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that band, that that you teach us how to lose
fans of wickedness and and how to undo heavy burdens.
I pray Lord that there's uh that the enemy of
our soul hardly be cast out of our mind and
our will, and that we learn to obey every word

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that comes out of your mouth Father for us. In
Jesus' name, we do pray. Amen and Amen. Now, those
of you who believe that, learn to walk in the
liberty of the spirit, and as often as you can
get in your son's school classes, build up your study
time with God, and let the Lord and let the

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Holy Ghost teach you and guide you into the truth.
Do what the Lord tells you to do. Those of
you who are not saved and want to be saved,
we're gonna say, we're gonna pray hallelujah and sentence prayer
go through that for you so you can know that
you're saved under the blood of Jesus, hallelujah. If you

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want to be saved, if you're not sure, whatever the
case may be, you can just simply repeat after me,
For the Bible said, if you confess with your mouth
the Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in your heart that
God raised them from the dead, goud shall be saved.
It's just that simple. But you got to believe what
you're saying. Repeat after me, Father, forgive me for my sins.

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Come into my heart and be my Lord and save you.
I believe that Jesus is your son. I believe that
he died on the cross from my sins. I believe
on the third day you raised him up from the
dead with you by your spirit. Father. I need you
to feel me with the Holy Ghost so I can

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be a witness, so I may walk in love, not
judgmental of others. Hallelujah, but submitting myself under your mighty hand,
casting every one of my carrias upon you because you
cared for me. Hallelujah. This I pray in Jesus' name,

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Amen and Amen. If you pray that prayer, Jesus resides
in your heart. If you pray that prayer out of
an earnest heart believing. Now the enemy is gonna come
try to steal your belief and trust that Jesus lives
in you. Don't let him do it. When he comes
in and you you make a mistake because things happen,

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you get a voice in your head. Call on Jesus
immediately to come in and help you. That's a promise
from God. He said he will never leave you, nor
will he forsake you. You got to believe it. Now.
Those of you who don't have a church home, you're
invited to come and worship with us. We have Sunday

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school class on Sunday morning and the extension of the
same Sunday school class on Wednesday even because we are
called to feed you with knowledge and understanding. We want
you to understand what you're reading and what you are studying,
and so we can help you with that. We have
another class called a Relationship Matrix, which there's a panel

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of men and women that we come and discuss relationships
and how to develop and cultivate those relationships using the
Word of God and the power of the Holy Ghost.
Look on my Facebook page you can find out how
to get in contact me with me, Pastor Ronnie Hooks

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for any of this information, and if you want to
find a church in your area, I can possibly help
you with that as well. Contact me also on YouTube,
Pastor Ronnie Hooks, and we have a YouTube channel, Pastor
Ronnie Hooks. Glory to God and look out for our
website to be coming up here hopefully soon. We're developing

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a website that you'll be able to go to and
find all this information. Look out for it and be blessed.
Let the Lord bless you real good on today. God
bless you. Lord, keep you and the Lord make his
face and shout up on each other. God bless you.