July 3, 2024 • 43 mins
In this episode we talk about the meaning of an abundant life. Laurie delves into the promis of Jesus in John 10:10. She uses personal experience of her wedding ring and a beautiful testimony to the relationship between us and The Father. Join her as we dive into this topic and more. Its a good one, so grab a cup of coffee, get comfortable and Let's Harp On It!
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Episode Transcript
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Hi, I'm Lori Harp, and this is my podcast. Like most women, I wear many hats.
I am a nurse, a wife, a mother, a friend, an encourager, but most importantly,
I am a child of the Most High God.
For many years, I believed the struggles I faced were because I was doing something wrong.
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I would hate myself for not being perfect.
Then one day someone told me God loves me where I am. Yes, we all face struggles
and we all have things to overcome, but with God, all things are possible.
In this podcast, I want to unpack the many issues facing women today.
There is nothing in this life, no mistake, no flaw, no scar that is too much for God.
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So grab a cup of coffee, sit back, let's discuss real life issues through the
lens of God's love. Get ready. Let's harp on it.
Music.
Hey guys, welcome back to Harp On It podcast. I'm your host,
Lori Harp. I hope that you guys have had a great week this week.
My week has been a little bit busy and a little bit unusual for me.
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I had a procedure on my knee about two weeks ago to improve the tendonitis that
developed from my surgery that I had a little bit over a year ago.
Long story short, it's been a little little bit more arduous of a recovery than I wanted it to be.
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I was really hopeful that when they gave me the procedure and the injections
in my knee that I would immediately be back to normal.
But as most things in life, there is a process and there is time that has to
take place in order for this healing to take place.
So it's been a little bit of a challenge this week for me because my My knee
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is a bit achy when I'm walking,
and so it's just kind of been a good thing in some ways because it's really
required me to press into the Lord, to do the things that I need to get done.
I've kind of had to quote Philippians and say, I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me over and over again.
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Y'all, that's the only way I got through this week, but I am hopefully prayerfully
really optimistic that this is going to fix the problem.
The success rate of this procedure is about 90%. So I'm really excited to see
where we get in a few more weeks.
When I saw the doctor, she said it just is going to take time to heal.
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And I'm not a very patient person. I want immediate and right now ways that things change.
And a lot of times in our life, that's just not how things operate.
Gut is good and my knee is better than it was before we had the procedure,
and I am believing that it is going to be 100% in no time at all.
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I am so excited to bring you guys this message this week because it just kind
of ties in with what's kind of been going on in my life.
I wanted to bring to you a message on the abundant life.
And so many times when I conjure up the abundant life, I think,
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gosh, that's sipping champagne on a yacht, sailing the seven seas,
not having a job, not having to worry about anything.
But that is not the abundant life that God is talking about.
In John 10, 10, the scripture says, the thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy.
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But I have come that you may have life and life more abundantly.
This is Jesus talking. So remember way back in the beginning of time when Adam
and Eve sinned, Satan stole away those privileges, that dominion,
those things that Adam and Eve were entitled,
and he took them and stole them away from them when sin was brought into the world.
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Now, when Jesus died on the cross and he went down into the pits of hell to
preach liberty to the captives and bring and conquer sin and death,
he did all of that and restored back that right relationship that was stolen
by the enemy when Eve and Adam sinned.
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Now, we still have sin in our lives, but praise God, if we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior,
we are redeemed, and we have salvation, and we get to spend eternity with Jesus Christ in heaven,
and we are no longer bound to the penalties of sin because Jesus overcame those things.
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And so when we get to live an abundant life, we are abundantly.
Completely and totally redeemed from what our fate was.
Y'all, I don't know
that I can articulate enough to really
paint enough of a picture for us to fully understand where we were going and
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where we were heading before Jesus Christ died on the cross and forgave us of
all our sins and redeemed to us from the consequences that we were facing.
Y'all, I know that a lot of people that I talk to are like, well,
you know, I just don't know that.
I believe in heaven and hell, and I don't believe that this or that.
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But the more I study the Word of God, the more I realize that hell and death go hand in hand.
And death is not the cessation of life.
Death is a continual, perpetual existence without God in that existence.
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Now, I know that's hard to understand, and I get it. It's a lot of words.
But essentially, where we are right now, no matter how bad it is on earth or
anything that you're going through, God is still present.
Imagine how much worse or how much more painful and awful it would be without
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God's presence in our life.
That is what the wages of sin is when we say the wages of sin is death.
It's a perpetual existence without God.
It's not just laying down in some dirt and becoming flowers later.
Guys, this is the picture that gets kind of presented to us that when you die, it's just the end.
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But everywhere in my Bible, it says that that's not true.
So when we talk about the abundant life, we have to talk about the privilege
that we have to serve the Lord and have our salvation bought with that price of Jesus'
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blood that He shed for us to pay the penalty that we could never pay.
That alone is an abundant life.
To be freed or to be released from the penalty of our sins in and of itself,
no matter if nothing else happens in your life, that is an abundant life.
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But I want to take it a little bit further. I want to talk a little bit more
about how do we get the most out of this walk with Christ?
How do we get to a point where we are content in what is happening on around
us and through us and with us?
And how do we get to that point where we're not constantly wishing or wanting
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for something else in our life?
How do we get to have an abundant life and a life more abundantly?
So when I started sussing this out, I kind of went back to what is abundant life?
Abundant life is a change that happens inside of you that allows us the ability
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to accept what's happening on outside.
But this change is contingent upon a relationship with God.
And I would even go further to say that the more closely you commune with God
the Father and the closer your relationship with God, the more abundance you will see in your life.
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Now, abundance doesn't mean prosperity, and it doesn't mean all the good things
that all the social media and our culture and advertisement agents want to tell
you that this is how you get abundant life.
Abundant life is not about the of stuff.
You can't have enough stuff to make you content.
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You cannot take a physical thing and try and fill a spiritual void in your life.
The only way that you can find an abundant life is to have a true relationship with God.
And with that communion with Him, He fills our life with things.
Now, one of the things we see that happens when we have a close communion with
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the Lord is called the fruits of the Spirit.
Now, this is found in Galatians. And in Galatians, it lists out the fruits of
the Spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Now, I'll tell you honestly, most of those don't really ruffle my feathers too
much, but self-control and patience are really hard attributes for me to walk in.
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Because the truth of the matter is that I have this fleshy side of me,
my mind, my will, my intellect, my emotions that want things when I want things.
And there are times in our walk with Christ that the Lord says,
yes, you can have that, but not right now.
I need you to walk this journey to get to the point where I'm ready to lay these things into your life.
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And so the closer we are with the Lord and the more we put ourselves under his
will, the more we see evidence of these fruits of the Spirit in our lives.
We see peace that passes all understanding, and it doesn't make any sense to people around us.
Our world can be crumbling. We can be going through tremendous heartaches,
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through tremendous trials.
But because we have that right relationship with the Lord, we understand that
no matter what happens, God has us, and His promises are yea and amen.
And we can stand on those promises despite what we see happening.
And because of that, because of that, we have an abundant life.
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It's that change that takes place on the inside of us that makes us able to
accept and be content with what's going on around us.
Another fruit that comes is joy.
Sometimes we have tremendous sorrow in our life, but we still have joy.
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We still know that the Lord is in control.
We still know that He is a good God and that He gives us good gifts.
Jeremiah 29 11 says that I know the plans that I have for you,
plans to prosper you and not harm you, and plans for a good future.
This is God that's talking to us. He's saying, I want these things for you.
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And so when we're in the middle of a hard place or a difficult time,
we have to rely rely on what we know, and that is the faithfulness of God and
His promises from the Scripture.
Now, I wanted to take a few minutes and talk about a story in the Old Testament.
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It's a little story, but it has so much power in it.
And I think there's just so many nuggets for our walk in this life with Jesus.
And I really believe that this story is going to just help you understand in a tangible way,
how we can get to a point where we have an abundant life despite where we are
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financially or where we are success-wise or how our family looks or what's happening on around us.
How can I have an abundant life in Christ?
Now, I want to switch gears just a little bit, and I want to go to the Old Testament
in 1 Kings 17, and I'm going to read from verses 17 through about 24.
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Now, this is a story about Elisha.
Elisha was a great prophet in the Old Testament, and he followed Elijah.
Now, we know Elijah was a great prophet as well, and when Elisha went to Elijah
and asked him for a double portion of his mantle that was honored to Elisha.
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So we know that where he walks is really close with the Lord.
And when he goes and ministers to people, we see a lot of miraculous things happening.
We see a lot of signs and wonders throughout Elisha's ministry.
And this story is no different.
This story is about a woman that lives in Shunem, and I'll just read this story,
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and then we'll kind of, I might break in a little bit to talk about some points as we go.
Now, it happened one day that Elisha went to Shunem, where there was a notable
woman, and she persuaded him to eat some food.
So it was, as often as he passed by, he would turn in there and eat some food.
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And she said one day to her husband, look now, I know this is a holy man of
God who passes by us regularly.
Please let us make a small upper room on the wall and let us put a bed in there
for him and a table and a chair and a lamp stand so that whenever he comes to us, he can turn in there.
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Now, I want to take a moment here and just say, Bye.
This woman recognizes that Elisha is a man of God.
Now, if you take a moment and imagine that Elisha is a representative of God
himself and how she makes room for God in her life,
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she takes and carves something out for this man of God to have.
How many times do we try to shove God into the crevices of our life instead
of carving time out for Him?
I think this is such a beautiful picture of how important it is to make room for God in our lives.
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We want an abundant life. We want a life where that inner change takes place
inside of us that helps us be content in whatever's happening.
But the only way we can have that is if we have a communion with God the Father,
and we've got to make time for that.
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Y'all, let's face it, this world is insane.
You are bombarded with television, with movies, with every type of entertainment, social media.
You guys, I can get on Facebook and waste two and a half hours and not realize
that I've done it, just watching reels.
We have to take time to carve a moment and some time out to spend with the Lord
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so that we can keep that constant communion going between us and Him so that
we can have that abundant life.
And it happened one day, I'm back on verse 11, and it happened one day that
he came there, that's Elisha, and he turned into the upper room and laid down there.
And then he called his servant Gehazi and he said, call the Shunammite woman.
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And when he called her and she stood before him, he said to her,
he said to his servant Gehazi, say now to her, look, you have been concerned
with us and taking care of us.
What can I do for you?
Do you want me to speak to the king or the commander of the army on your behalf?
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And she said, no, I dwell among my own people.
So he said, what then is to be done for her?
Y'all, remember, if we imagine that Elisha is a representation of God,
there's so many times that when we wait upon the Lord, when we serve the Lord,
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when we constantly put ourselves under His will, God is looking at us and He's
going, oh my gosh, how can I bless this person?
What can I do for this person? Because they're just, they're doing my service
and I just want to bless him.
Now, remember that God blesses us because God is good.
God doesn't necessarily bless us because because we deserve it.
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But y'all, my Bible tells me that he looks left and right.
He looks to the east and the west to find ways that he can bless his children.
Now, I know that me personally, I have three beautiful children,
and now I have a son-in-law,
and nothing delights my soul more than to give them gifts or to bless them in
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a way that makes their life better.
And I'm just a human.
How much more does God want to bless us than a simple, fallible person would?
God is not a man. He is God, and He chooses to bless us.
And I think this is such a beautiful picture of God saying, How can I bless this person? I'll go on.
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And actually, we see here, so she answers that she dwells among the people.
And then he says, how can I bless her?
And Gehazi answered Elisha and said, actually, she has no son and her husband is old.
So he called her, and when he called her, this is Elisha calling the Shunammite
woman, she stood in the doorway, and then he said, at this time next year, you shall embrace a son.
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And the Shunammite woman answered, no, my lord, man of God, do not lie to your maidservant.
But the woman conceived and bore a son, and on the appointed time had come of
which Elisha had told her.
Now, I want you to see that this is miracle number one.
This woman was not positioned in a place to naturally have a child,
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but because Elisha was looking for a way to truly bless her,
to truly meet her where she really needed a blessing,
God, through Elisha, bless this woman to have a child.
God gave her the very desire of her heart that she didn't think she could ever
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have. It's miracle number one.
And the child grew, I'm in chapter, verse 18, and now it happened one day that
he went out with his father to the reapers.
Those are people in the field, reaping the harvest.
And he said to the father, my head, my head.
So he went to, so he said to his servant, this is the father talking to a servant,
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carry him, his son, to his mother.
And when he has taken to him and brought him to his mother, that he sat on his
mother's knees till about noon and then died.
So you guys, the very thing that God had gifted her with was taken away.
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And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, shut the door upon him and went out.
Now, she didn't tell anybody what was going on. She didn't spread her gossip to everybody.
She just took this child matter-of-factly and went up and laid him on Elisha's
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bed and then went down to go see about the next steps.
Now, I think this is important because sometimes when we're in the middle of a crisis,
rather than going to God immediately and telling Him we need help,
we go to 12 of our best friends and 17 strangers we don't know to elicit advice
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and try and get information to help us wrangle through whatever we're going through,
when what we really need to do is we just need to lay our problem at God's feet
and shut the door and take the next step. So here we go.
So she said to her husband, call me a young man and one of your donkeys that
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I may go to the man of God and come back.
And her husband answers her, why are you going to him today?
It's neither new moon or Sabbath. The husband doesn't understand her relationship with God.
He doesn't understand why would you go to God?
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It's not Sunday.
It's not time for church. And it's not a special harvest or a special celebration
that we go to celebrate with God. why would you go to God right now?
Like, I don't understand. But this woman understood.
That if she was going to get something to help her with her situation,
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she needed to go to the very one that gave her what she wanted in the first place.
She needed to go to the source. horse.
So she saddled the donkey and said to her servant, drive and go forward.
Do not slacken the pace for me unless I tell you.
And she departed and went to the man of God at Mount Carmel.
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So it was that when the man of God saw her far off, he said to his servant,
Gehazi, look at the Shunammite woman.
Please run to meet her and say to her, is it well with you?
Is it well with your husband? Is it well with your child? And so Gehazi went
and did that, and she answered, it is well.
Now, when she came to the man of God at the hill, she caught him by the feet,
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but Gehazi came near to push her away.
But the man of God said, let her alone, for her soul is in deep distress,
and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me.
So she said, did I not ask my son, my Lord, did I not say, do not deceive me?
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Then Gehazi said, then he said to Gehazi, that's his servant, get...
Get yourself ready and take my staff in your hand and be on your way.
If you meet anyone, do not greet them.
And if anyone greets you, do not answer them, but lay my staff on the face of
the child. Now, the staff is important.
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In Old Testament, the staff often represents the Holy Spirit or God's presence with that prophet.
So remember when Moses parted the Red Sea for the people to go across to get
away from the Egyptians, he used his staff and held it over that sea.
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That was a representation of the presence of God.
He also threw his staff down and it became a snake and he picked his staff up.
He used his staff to hit a rock and water burst forth from the rock.
So all of these miraculous things, we see the staff as being a presence of God
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himself, the Holy Spirit presence.
So he tells his servant to lay that right on the child's face.
And when Elisha came to the house, I'm sorry, I skipped a little bit, forgive me.
But he lay the staff at the child's face, And the mother and the child said,
as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.
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And so he arose and followed her. So mom's going back to the child. She's not quitting.
She's going back to the child where she left him in there, and Elisha is going with him.
Now Gehazi went ahead of them and laid the staff on the face of the child,
but there was neither voice nor hearing. therefore he went back to meet Elisha
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and told them saying the child did not awaken.
In other words, he's validating that the child is still dead.
So when Elisha came into the house, there was the child lying dead on his bed
and he went therefore and shut the door behind the two of them and prayed to the Lord.
And when he went up, he lay on the child, he put his mouth on his mouth,
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his eyes on his eyes, his hands on his hands.
And he stretched himself out over the child and the flesh of the child became warm.
He returned and walked back and forth in the house and again went up and stretched himself out on him.
Then the child sneezed seven times and the child opened his eyes.
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And he called Gehazi and said, Call the Shunammite woman.
So he called her, and when she came to him, he said, Pick up your son.
So she went in, fell at his feet, bowed to the ground, and then she picked up her son and went out.
What a beautiful story of how God restored the very thing that the enemy tried
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to steal away from this woman.
Now, I wanted to focus on a couple of things real quickly.
First, when we face troubles and trials and tribulations,
there are many times that God God does not move the mountain immediately,
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or He does not allow us to step out of the situation quickly.
Instead, He allows us to walk through a situation so that His power and His
majesty can show up so that when the miracle happens,
there is no doubt of what happened.
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Y'all, there are so many times in my life that I could probably figure myself out of a situation,
and I have had the Lord stop me from being able to fix a problem so that when
I took another few steps in faith with God,
He showed up in a way that I didn't know He was going to do,
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and the outcome was far better than had I fixed it myself.
And, when God shows up and brings the miracle into the situation, it gives glory to God.
Because, honestly, it's not about me. It's about what God does through me.
Secondly, when...
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This happened to the woman. She put the child in the room, closed the door, and went to the source.
She didn't belabor her time with other people to give her their opinions.
She went to the one who gave her the first miracle, the child,
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and went back to him and said, look, you already performed a dynamic miracle in my life.
So I know who you are. I know what you can do with God Almighty.
And so I'm going to you to have my miracle.
I'm not going to my friends. I'm not going to my husband.
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I am going to the person that I know can connect me with God the Father.
Now, in the Old Testament, we had prophets and priests that often were go-betweens
for us so that they could have a relationship with God.
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It was very different in the Old Testament because Christ hadn't died on the
cross and paid for our ransom and given us back the dominion that the enemy had stolen.
And so when we come in now, you guys, this is so beautiful.
We don't have to go find a preacher. We don't have to go find a prophet.
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Y'all, we get to go directly to God.
Why? Because Jesus Christ is our high priest.
He is our go-between. Y'all, the Bible even says that He petitions for us on a daily basis.
He is constantly going to God the Father and saying, Hey, have you seen your
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child? Look what they're doing. I...
Covering them. I paid the price for them.
Y'all, when we get to go into the throne room of God, the Father,
to lay out everything that's going on, He doesn't see our wretchedness.
He sees Jesus as Christ's righteousness.
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And y'all, if this is an abundant life, I don't know what is,
Because you guys, we get to go directly to the source.
We get to go to the one who miraculously laid down his life and rose from the
dead so that we could spend eternity with them forever.
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Stop messing with all the other people around you and getting opinions and ideas from those people.
I'm not saying don't have a relationship with other people. But when you have
a problem, don't waste your time on those people.
Go directly to the source.
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Go to God Almighty. He is waiting for you to come to Him.
Revelation says, there's a verse in Revelation that says, Behold,
I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone will open it, I will come in and sup with him. Y'all,
that's more than I'm just going to come in and hang out.
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In the Old Testament, every time they would do a covenant, there was a meal involved.
Anytime there is a celebration of the Lord or we are doing different things
to honor God, there's always a meal involved.
A meal is a more intimate way to commune with God. So God's not just saying
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he'll come in, but he's going to commune with you.
He's just waiting to have that relationship.
Third, I wanted to take a second and say, remember to shut out the noise around you.
The Bible says that we have to take our thoughts captive.
This is such a hard thing because truly, I am naturally predisposed to go negative.
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I can go negative in a matter of seconds. Like, I am, oh my gosh,
it's the worst day of my life. This is awful.
I can't get out of this. I should just run and hide.
But what the Lord tells us to do is take those thoughts captive and remind ourselves
what the Bible says about us.
Stop listening to what the enemy is telling you God's saying because that's lies.
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He just tells you lies. He gets you frustrated.
Frustrated and all twitterpated that things are so bad, but what God wants to
tell you is, I've got this.
Come to me. Lay your burdens at my feet because I care for you.
I don't just care about you. I care for you. When you can't care anymore.
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I pick up the battle and carry it for you.
My grace is sufficient to come in and complete what is happening in your life.
Where Where we are weak, God is strong.
We have to take these things captive and stop listening to the noise around
us and pay attention to what God
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says, because God says we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus.
And living the abundant life is that change that happens inside of us that allows
us to be content with what's going on around us. It is a gift from God that he freely gives to us.
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And the more in tune with God the
Father you are, the more you will have abundance flow through your life.
It'll be evident in those fruits of the Spirit.
You're going to have love. You're going to have joy. You're going to have peace.
You're going to have patience, kindness, goodness. All of those things are going
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to flow through you because you're in tune with God the Father.
And God has all of those attributes in him.
Y'all, we're just a vessel that we're supposed to flow what God has to flow through us.
But if you don't plug into the right source, if you don't have a connection
with God, how can you produce these things that bring about an abundant life?
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You can't sit out in the desert in the middle of the dirt and expect to have water flow through you.
You cannot be in your tiny place that you've hidden yourself away from everybody
and everyone, especially God the Father, and expect to have these things flow through you.
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You have to have a direct connection with the Lord.
I'm going to close this up with one thing.
Last week, I had a dream, and it was a bit of a strange dream,
but I really feel like it is important for someone out there.
In fact, I have a very good friend of mine at work that I call her my iron girl
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because the Bible says that iron sharpens iron.
And anytime I talk with her, we just get in these conversations that just encourage us in our faith.
And when I was telling her about my dream, she said, oh my gosh,
you've got to share this.
The Lord is going to give you tremendous revelation with this dream,
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and you have to share it because it's so important for other people out there.
So I'm going to be obedient and share this dream.
It was a very short dream. In my dream, I dreamt that I had lost my wedding ring.
And I was consciously aware that I was dreaming, and I woke up holding my finger
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with my other hand and saying, no,
I did not lose my ring. It's still here on my hand.
Now, let me give you just a little bit of backstory.
About 13 years ago, I did lose my wedding ring.
I lost my wedding ring for about four or five months. I was heartbroken.
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Truthfully, I tore the house apart. I tore my car apart. My husband did as well.
My kids helped look. We could not find it.
About three and a half, four months into the situation, I decided I needed to
get another wedding ring because I couldn't find my old one.
And I had finally decided that it just wasn't going to happen,
that I was going to find my ring.
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I was heartbroken, and I was devastated.
And I went to the Lord, and I said, Lord, I know that this ring is just a piece
of gold, but it means so much to me.
Could you please send your angels out to find the ring and put it where I can
see it so that I can have this ring back? Lord, it's just so important to me.
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And I prayed, and y'all, I prayed and kind of moved on in my life.
And so I even went out and bought another ring. It was totally not like my wedding ring.
And so it was very, very different. It was very regal. I put it on.
It just didn't feel right. Nothing worked. It just didn't fit.
So, but I was like, okay, but I got to do this because I can't have what I had.
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I can't have that old ring because I've lost it and it's my fault that it's gone.
And so I went on for another week or two wearing this new ring,
trying every way I could to make it comfortable.
And y'all, I'm not lying when I tell you this story,
but I was driving the car and Matthew he was little at this time,
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he was probably two years old, dropped his sippy cup on the floor in the back
of the car. I drove a Suburban at the time.
And I reached back to get the sippy cup for him to pick it up, to give it back to him.
And y'all, I caught a glimmer of something gold.
And I said, oh my goodness, it couldn't be.
So I pulled the car over and ripped open the back door. and there was my wedding
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ring laying in the floorboard of my car.
And I'm telling you the honest truth. If I tore that car apart one time,
I tore it apart 10 times, and so did my husband and my kids.
That ring was not there.
But God answered my prayer, and He put the ring where I could see it. I put the ring on.
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I cried. I praised God. I thanked the Lord, and I ran and showed John,
and we were so delighted that I had the ring on.
I have not taken the ring back off, and that's probably been 13 years.
I will probably never take this ring off again, but what the Lord showed me
about that dream is this.
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I was afraid that my ring was missing again.
Now, in this dream, I believe the ring represents that covenant we have with Jesus.
When Jesus becomes our bridegroom, when we as the bride, the church,
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marry Jesus, and that ring is a representation of that covenant relationship.
And when I dreamt that my ring was missing, I was in my dream,
concerned, trying to find my ring.
And I realized that it wasn't gone at all, that the enemy was just trying to deceive me.
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And what I want to tell you here is there are times in our lives when we feel
really disconnected from the world around us, and we feel very disconnected from God the Father.
There are times that we feel like we're on an island and we're floating alone,
and our hearts are dry, and it just feels impossible to take the next step because
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we feel so isolated and alone.
And I am here to tell you that the Lord gave me this dream to remind you that
that covenant that you have with Jesus Christ has not gone away.
You might not be able to visually see it with your eyes, but hear me when I
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tell you he has not moved.
Moved go to him run to him spend
time with him and reignite that
fire inside of you to live your life for Christ but Christ has not moved the
other thing that he showed me with this was when I tried to put on another wedding
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ring to take the place of that covenant relationship this is important important, y'all.
You cannot put a physical fix on a spiritual void.
You cannot take something else around you.
Whether it's a great guy and a great relationship, a beautiful marriage,
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if it's eating cookies, if it's doing drugs, if it's having alcohol,
it may even be a good thing.
It may be running or doing something else that fulfills your life.
All of those things are good things to a degree. The.
Addiction's not so much good, but those things that we try to do that are good,
that fill that void, are never going to fill the void.
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The only thing that is going to satisfy your soul and give you an abundant life
and to give you that contentment,
that comfort of that covenant is that covenant with Jesus Christ.
You can try other things. things you can do whatever you want to do.
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But at the end of the day, the only thing that is going to satisfy your soul
is that relationship with Jesus Christ.
I pray that you guys have that relationship and you continue to grow.
If you do not, please reach out to someone around you, a pastor,
somebody, a friend, or somebody who could talk to you.
Reach out to me on my website. I am happy to pray with you, to talk through
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this situation with you, but you guys are never going to find the abundant life,
that satisfied life, that content life, that inner change that takes place on
the inside of you to make you be able to accept what's going on outside without
a relationship with Jesus Christ, your personal Savior.
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I hope that this helps. I hope that you You have a great week.
I pray blessings over you. I love you guys.
Thank y'all so much for tuning in today. If you want to stay in the know for
all things Harp Ministries, check out our website at harpministries.org.
In there, you'll see the latest episodes of Harp On It, upcoming events,
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and our newly released book entitled, How Can I Leave Tall Buildings When I Can't Get My Tights On?
Thank you again for tuning in today. See y'all next week.
Hi, I'm Lori Harp, and this is my podcast. Like most women, I wear many hats.
I am a nurse, a wife, a mother, a friend, an encourager, but most importantly,
I am a child of the Most High God.
For many years, I believed the struggles I faced were because I was doing something wrong.
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I would hate myself for not being perfect.
Then one day someone told me God loves me where I am. Yes, we all face struggles
and we all have things to overcome, but with God, all things are possible.
In this podcast, I want to unpack the many issues facing women today.
There is nothing in this life, no mistake, no flaw, no scar that is too much for God.
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So grab a cup of coffee, sit back, let's discuss real life issues through the
lens of God's love. Get ready. Let's harp on it.
Music.
Hey guys, welcome back to Harp On It podcast. I'm your host,
Lori Harp. I hope that you guys have had a great week this week.
My week has been a little bit busy and a little bit unusual for me.
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I had a procedure on my knee about two weeks ago to improve the tendonitis that
developed from my surgery that I had a little bit over a year ago.
Long story short, it's been a little little bit more arduous of a recovery than I wanted it to be.
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I was really hopeful that when they gave me the procedure and the injections
in my knee that I would immediately be back to normal.
But as most things in life, there is a process and there is time that has to
take place in order for this healing to take place.
So it's been a little bit of a challenge this week for me because my My knee
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is a bit achy when I'm walking,
and so it's just kind of been a good thing in some ways because it's really
required me to press into the Lord, to do the things that I need to get done.
I've kind of had to quote Philippians and say, I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me over and over again.
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Y'all, that's the only way I got through this week, but I am hopefully prayerfully
really optimistic that this is going to fix the problem.
The success rate of this procedure is about 90%. So I'm really excited to see
where we get in a few more weeks.
When I saw the doctor, she said it just is going to take time to heal.
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And I'm not a very patient person. I want immediate and right now ways that things change.
And a lot of times in our life, that's just not how things operate.
Gut is good and my knee is better than it was before we had the procedure,
and I am believing that it is going to be 100% in no time at all.
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I am so excited to bring you guys this message this week because it just kind
of ties in with what's kind of been going on in my life.
I wanted to bring to you a message on the abundant life.
And so many times when I conjure up the abundant life, I think,
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gosh, that's sipping champagne on a yacht, sailing the seven seas,
not having a job, not having to worry about anything.
But that is not the abundant life that God is talking about.
In John 10, 10, the scripture says, the thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy.
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But I have come that you may have life and life more abundantly.
This is Jesus talking. So remember way back in the beginning of time when Adam
and Eve sinned, Satan stole away those privileges, that dominion,
those things that Adam and Eve were entitled,
and he took them and stole them away from them when sin was brought into the world.
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Now, when Jesus died on the cross and he went down into the pits of hell to
preach liberty to the captives and bring and conquer sin and death,
he did all of that and restored back that right relationship that was stolen
by the enemy when Eve and Adam sinned.
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Now, we still have sin in our lives, but praise God, if we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior,
we are redeemed, and we have salvation, and we get to spend eternity with Jesus Christ in heaven,
and we are no longer bound to the penalties of sin because Jesus overcame those things.
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And so when we get to live an abundant life, we are abundantly.
Completely and totally redeemed from what our fate was.
Y'all, I don't know
that I can articulate enough to really
paint enough of a picture for us to fully understand where we were going and
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where we were heading before Jesus Christ died on the cross and forgave us of
all our sins and redeemed to us from the consequences that we were facing.
Y'all, I know that a lot of people that I talk to are like, well,
you know, I just don't know that.
I believe in heaven and hell, and I don't believe that this or that.
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But the more I study the Word of God, the more I realize that hell and death go hand in hand.
And death is not the cessation of life.
Death is a continual, perpetual existence without God in that existence.
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Now, I know that's hard to understand, and I get it. It's a lot of words.
But essentially, where we are right now, no matter how bad it is on earth or
anything that you're going through, God is still present.
Imagine how much worse or how much more painful and awful it would be without
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God's presence in our life.
That is what the wages of sin is when we say the wages of sin is death.
It's a perpetual existence without God.
It's not just laying down in some dirt and becoming flowers later.
Guys, this is the picture that gets kind of presented to us that when you die, it's just the end.
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But everywhere in my Bible, it says that that's not true.
So when we talk about the abundant life, we have to talk about the privilege
that we have to serve the Lord and have our salvation bought with that price of Jesus'
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blood that He shed for us to pay the penalty that we could never pay.
That alone is an abundant life.
To be freed or to be released from the penalty of our sins in and of itself,
no matter if nothing else happens in your life, that is an abundant life.
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But I want to take it a little bit further. I want to talk a little bit more
about how do we get the most out of this walk with Christ?
How do we get to a point where we are content in what is happening on around
us and through us and with us?
And how do we get to that point where we're not constantly wishing or wanting
(08:06):
for something else in our life?
How do we get to have an abundant life and a life more abundantly?
So when I started sussing this out, I kind of went back to what is abundant life?
Abundant life is a change that happens inside of you that allows us the ability
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to accept what's happening on outside.
But this change is contingent upon a relationship with God.
And I would even go further to say that the more closely you commune with God
the Father and the closer your relationship with God, the more abundance you will see in your life.
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Now, abundance doesn't mean prosperity, and it doesn't mean all the good things
that all the social media and our culture and advertisement agents want to tell
you that this is how you get abundant life.
Abundant life is not about the of stuff.
You can't have enough stuff to make you content.
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You cannot take a physical thing and try and fill a spiritual void in your life.
The only way that you can find an abundant life is to have a true relationship with God.
And with that communion with Him, He fills our life with things.
Now, one of the things we see that happens when we have a close communion with
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the Lord is called the fruits of the Spirit.
Now, this is found in Galatians. And in Galatians, it lists out the fruits of
the Spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Now, I'll tell you honestly, most of those don't really ruffle my feathers too
much, but self-control and patience are really hard attributes for me to walk in.
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Because the truth of the matter is that I have this fleshy side of me,
my mind, my will, my intellect, my emotions that want things when I want things.
And there are times in our walk with Christ that the Lord says,
yes, you can have that, but not right now.
I need you to walk this journey to get to the point where I'm ready to lay these things into your life.
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And so the closer we are with the Lord and the more we put ourselves under his
will, the more we see evidence of these fruits of the Spirit in our lives.
We see peace that passes all understanding, and it doesn't make any sense to people around us.
Our world can be crumbling. We can be going through tremendous heartaches,
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through tremendous trials.
But because we have that right relationship with the Lord, we understand that
no matter what happens, God has us, and His promises are yea and amen.
And we can stand on those promises despite what we see happening.
And because of that, because of that, we have an abundant life.
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It's that change that takes place on the inside of us that makes us able to
accept and be content with what's going on around us.
Another fruit that comes is joy.
Sometimes we have tremendous sorrow in our life, but we still have joy.
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We still know that the Lord is in control.
We still know that He is a good God and that He gives us good gifts.
Jeremiah 29 11 says that I know the plans that I have for you,
plans to prosper you and not harm you, and plans for a good future.
This is God that's talking to us. He's saying, I want these things for you.
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And so when we're in the middle of a hard place or a difficult time,
we have to rely rely on what we know, and that is the faithfulness of God and
His promises from the Scripture.
Now, I wanted to take a few minutes and talk about a story in the Old Testament.
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It's a little story, but it has so much power in it.
And I think there's just so many nuggets for our walk in this life with Jesus.
And I really believe that this story is going to just help you understand in a tangible way,
how we can get to a point where we have an abundant life despite where we are
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financially or where we are success-wise or how our family looks or what's happening on around us.
How can I have an abundant life in Christ?
Now, I want to switch gears just a little bit, and I want to go to the Old Testament
in 1 Kings 17, and I'm going to read from verses 17 through about 24.
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Now, this is a story about Elisha.
Elisha was a great prophet in the Old Testament, and he followed Elijah.
Now, we know Elijah was a great prophet as well, and when Elisha went to Elijah
and asked him for a double portion of his mantle that was honored to Elisha.
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So we know that where he walks is really close with the Lord.
And when he goes and ministers to people, we see a lot of miraculous things happening.
We see a lot of signs and wonders throughout Elisha's ministry.
And this story is no different.
This story is about a woman that lives in Shunem, and I'll just read this story,
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and then we'll kind of, I might break in a little bit to talk about some points as we go.
Now, it happened one day that Elisha went to Shunem, where there was a notable
woman, and she persuaded him to eat some food.
So it was, as often as he passed by, he would turn in there and eat some food.
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And she said one day to her husband, look now, I know this is a holy man of
God who passes by us regularly.
Please let us make a small upper room on the wall and let us put a bed in there
for him and a table and a chair and a lamp stand so that whenever he comes to us, he can turn in there.
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Now, I want to take a moment here and just say, Bye.
This woman recognizes that Elisha is a man of God.
Now, if you take a moment and imagine that Elisha is a representative of God
himself and how she makes room for God in her life,
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she takes and carves something out for this man of God to have.
How many times do we try to shove God into the crevices of our life instead
of carving time out for Him?
I think this is such a beautiful picture of how important it is to make room for God in our lives.
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We want an abundant life. We want a life where that inner change takes place
inside of us that helps us be content in whatever's happening.
But the only way we can have that is if we have a communion with God the Father,
and we've got to make time for that.
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Y'all, let's face it, this world is insane.
You are bombarded with television, with movies, with every type of entertainment, social media.
You guys, I can get on Facebook and waste two and a half hours and not realize
that I've done it, just watching reels.
We have to take time to carve a moment and some time out to spend with the Lord
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so that we can keep that constant communion going between us and Him so that
we can have that abundant life.
And it happened one day, I'm back on verse 11, and it happened one day that
he came there, that's Elisha, and he turned into the upper room and laid down there.
And then he called his servant Gehazi and he said, call the Shunammite woman.
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And when he called her and she stood before him, he said to her,
he said to his servant Gehazi, say now to her, look, you have been concerned
with us and taking care of us.
What can I do for you?
Do you want me to speak to the king or the commander of the army on your behalf?
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And she said, no, I dwell among my own people.
So he said, what then is to be done for her?
Y'all, remember, if we imagine that Elisha is a representation of God,
there's so many times that when we wait upon the Lord, when we serve the Lord,
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when we constantly put ourselves under His will, God is looking at us and He's
going, oh my gosh, how can I bless this person?
What can I do for this person? Because they're just, they're doing my service
and I just want to bless him.
Now, remember that God blesses us because God is good.
God doesn't necessarily bless us because because we deserve it.
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But y'all, my Bible tells me that he looks left and right.
He looks to the east and the west to find ways that he can bless his children.
Now, I know that me personally, I have three beautiful children,
and now I have a son-in-law,
and nothing delights my soul more than to give them gifts or to bless them in
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a way that makes their life better.
And I'm just a human.
How much more does God want to bless us than a simple, fallible person would?
God is not a man. He is God, and He chooses to bless us.
And I think this is such a beautiful picture of God saying, How can I bless this person? I'll go on.
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And actually, we see here, so she answers that she dwells among the people.
And then he says, how can I bless her?
And Gehazi answered Elisha and said, actually, she has no son and her husband is old.
So he called her, and when he called her, this is Elisha calling the Shunammite
woman, she stood in the doorway, and then he said, at this time next year, you shall embrace a son.
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And the Shunammite woman answered, no, my lord, man of God, do not lie to your maidservant.
But the woman conceived and bore a son, and on the appointed time had come of
which Elisha had told her.
Now, I want you to see that this is miracle number one.
This woman was not positioned in a place to naturally have a child,
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but because Elisha was looking for a way to truly bless her,
to truly meet her where she really needed a blessing,
God, through Elisha, bless this woman to have a child.
God gave her the very desire of her heart that she didn't think she could ever
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have. It's miracle number one.
And the child grew, I'm in chapter, verse 18, and now it happened one day that
he went out with his father to the reapers.
Those are people in the field, reaping the harvest.
And he said to the father, my head, my head.
So he went to, so he said to his servant, this is the father talking to a servant,
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carry him, his son, to his mother.
And when he has taken to him and brought him to his mother, that he sat on his
mother's knees till about noon and then died.
So you guys, the very thing that God had gifted her with was taken away.
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And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, shut the door upon him and went out.
Now, she didn't tell anybody what was going on. She didn't spread her gossip to everybody.
She just took this child matter-of-factly and went up and laid him on Elisha's
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bed and then went down to go see about the next steps.
Now, I think this is important because sometimes when we're in the middle of a crisis,
rather than going to God immediately and telling Him we need help,
we go to 12 of our best friends and 17 strangers we don't know to elicit advice
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and try and get information to help us wrangle through whatever we're going through,
when what we really need to do is we just need to lay our problem at God's feet
and shut the door and take the next step. So here we go.
So she said to her husband, call me a young man and one of your donkeys that
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I may go to the man of God and come back.
And her husband answers her, why are you going to him today?
It's neither new moon or Sabbath. The husband doesn't understand her relationship with God.
He doesn't understand why would you go to God?
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It's not Sunday.
It's not time for church. And it's not a special harvest or a special celebration
that we go to celebrate with God. why would you go to God right now?
Like, I don't understand. But this woman understood.
That if she was going to get something to help her with her situation,
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she needed to go to the very one that gave her what she wanted in the first place.
She needed to go to the source. horse.
So she saddled the donkey and said to her servant, drive and go forward.
Do not slacken the pace for me unless I tell you.
And she departed and went to the man of God at Mount Carmel.
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So it was that when the man of God saw her far off, he said to his servant,
Gehazi, look at the Shunammite woman.
Please run to meet her and say to her, is it well with you?
Is it well with your husband? Is it well with your child? And so Gehazi went
and did that, and she answered, it is well.
Now, when she came to the man of God at the hill, she caught him by the feet,
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but Gehazi came near to push her away.
But the man of God said, let her alone, for her soul is in deep distress,
and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me.
So she said, did I not ask my son, my Lord, did I not say, do not deceive me?
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Then Gehazi said, then he said to Gehazi, that's his servant, get...
Get yourself ready and take my staff in your hand and be on your way.
If you meet anyone, do not greet them.
And if anyone greets you, do not answer them, but lay my staff on the face of
the child. Now, the staff is important.
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In Old Testament, the staff often represents the Holy Spirit or God's presence with that prophet.
So remember when Moses parted the Red Sea for the people to go across to get
away from the Egyptians, he used his staff and held it over that sea.
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That was a representation of the presence of God.
He also threw his staff down and it became a snake and he picked his staff up.
He used his staff to hit a rock and water burst forth from the rock.
So all of these miraculous things, we see the staff as being a presence of God
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himself, the Holy Spirit presence.
So he tells his servant to lay that right on the child's face.
And when Elisha came to the house, I'm sorry, I skipped a little bit, forgive me.
But he lay the staff at the child's face, And the mother and the child said,
as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.
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And so he arose and followed her. So mom's going back to the child. She's not quitting.
She's going back to the child where she left him in there, and Elisha is going with him.
Now Gehazi went ahead of them and laid the staff on the face of the child,
but there was neither voice nor hearing. therefore he went back to meet Elisha
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and told them saying the child did not awaken.
In other words, he's validating that the child is still dead.
So when Elisha came into the house, there was the child lying dead on his bed
and he went therefore and shut the door behind the two of them and prayed to the Lord.
And when he went up, he lay on the child, he put his mouth on his mouth,
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his eyes on his eyes, his hands on his hands.
And he stretched himself out over the child and the flesh of the child became warm.
He returned and walked back and forth in the house and again went up and stretched himself out on him.
Then the child sneezed seven times and the child opened his eyes.
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And he called Gehazi and said, Call the Shunammite woman.
So he called her, and when she came to him, he said, Pick up your son.
So she went in, fell at his feet, bowed to the ground, and then she picked up her son and went out.
What a beautiful story of how God restored the very thing that the enemy tried
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to steal away from this woman.
Now, I wanted to focus on a couple of things real quickly.
First, when we face troubles and trials and tribulations,
there are many times that God God does not move the mountain immediately,
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or He does not allow us to step out of the situation quickly.
Instead, He allows us to walk through a situation so that His power and His
majesty can show up so that when the miracle happens,
there is no doubt of what happened.
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Y'all, there are so many times in my life that I could probably figure myself out of a situation,
and I have had the Lord stop me from being able to fix a problem so that when
I took another few steps in faith with God,
He showed up in a way that I didn't know He was going to do,
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and the outcome was far better than had I fixed it myself.
And, when God shows up and brings the miracle into the situation, it gives glory to God.
Because, honestly, it's not about me. It's about what God does through me.
Secondly, when...
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This happened to the woman. She put the child in the room, closed the door, and went to the source.
She didn't belabor her time with other people to give her their opinions.
She went to the one who gave her the first miracle, the child,
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and went back to him and said, look, you already performed a dynamic miracle in my life.
So I know who you are. I know what you can do with God Almighty.
And so I'm going to you to have my miracle.
I'm not going to my friends. I'm not going to my husband.
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I am going to the person that I know can connect me with God the Father.
Now, in the Old Testament, we had prophets and priests that often were go-betweens
for us so that they could have a relationship with God.
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It was very different in the Old Testament because Christ hadn't died on the
cross and paid for our ransom and given us back the dominion that the enemy had stolen.
And so when we come in now, you guys, this is so beautiful.
We don't have to go find a preacher. We don't have to go find a prophet.
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Y'all, we get to go directly to God.
Why? Because Jesus Christ is our high priest.
He is our go-between. Y'all, the Bible even says that He petitions for us on a daily basis.
He is constantly going to God the Father and saying, Hey, have you seen your
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child? Look what they're doing. I...
Covering them. I paid the price for them.
Y'all, when we get to go into the throne room of God, the Father,
to lay out everything that's going on, He doesn't see our wretchedness.
He sees Jesus as Christ's righteousness.
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And y'all, if this is an abundant life, I don't know what is,
Because you guys, we get to go directly to the source.
We get to go to the one who miraculously laid down his life and rose from the
dead so that we could spend eternity with them forever.
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Stop messing with all the other people around you and getting opinions and ideas from those people.
I'm not saying don't have a relationship with other people. But when you have
a problem, don't waste your time on those people.
Go directly to the source.
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Go to God Almighty. He is waiting for you to come to Him.
Revelation says, there's a verse in Revelation that says, Behold,
I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone will open it, I will come in and sup with him. Y'all,
that's more than I'm just going to come in and hang out.
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In the Old Testament, every time they would do a covenant, there was a meal involved.
Anytime there is a celebration of the Lord or we are doing different things
to honor God, there's always a meal involved.
A meal is a more intimate way to commune with God. So God's not just saying
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he'll come in, but he's going to commune with you.
He's just waiting to have that relationship.
Third, I wanted to take a second and say, remember to shut out the noise around you.
The Bible says that we have to take our thoughts captive.
This is such a hard thing because truly, I am naturally predisposed to go negative.
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I can go negative in a matter of seconds. Like, I am, oh my gosh,
it's the worst day of my life. This is awful.
I can't get out of this. I should just run and hide.
But what the Lord tells us to do is take those thoughts captive and remind ourselves
what the Bible says about us.
Stop listening to what the enemy is telling you God's saying because that's lies.
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He just tells you lies. He gets you frustrated.
Frustrated and all twitterpated that things are so bad, but what God wants to
tell you is, I've got this.
Come to me. Lay your burdens at my feet because I care for you.
I don't just care about you. I care for you. When you can't care anymore.
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I pick up the battle and carry it for you.
My grace is sufficient to come in and complete what is happening in your life.
Where Where we are weak, God is strong.
We have to take these things captive and stop listening to the noise around
us and pay attention to what God
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says, because God says we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus.
And living the abundant life is that change that happens inside of us that allows
us to be content with what's going on around us. It is a gift from God that he freely gives to us.
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And the more in tune with God the
Father you are, the more you will have abundance flow through your life.
It'll be evident in those fruits of the Spirit.
You're going to have love. You're going to have joy. You're going to have peace.
You're going to have patience, kindness, goodness. All of those things are going
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to flow through you because you're in tune with God the Father.
And God has all of those attributes in him.
Y'all, we're just a vessel that we're supposed to flow what God has to flow through us.
But if you don't plug into the right source, if you don't have a connection
with God, how can you produce these things that bring about an abundant life?
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You can't sit out in the desert in the middle of the dirt and expect to have water flow through you.
You cannot be in your tiny place that you've hidden yourself away from everybody
and everyone, especially God the Father, and expect to have these things flow through you.
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You have to have a direct connection with the Lord.
I'm going to close this up with one thing.
Last week, I had a dream, and it was a bit of a strange dream,
but I really feel like it is important for someone out there.
In fact, I have a very good friend of mine at work that I call her my iron girl
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because the Bible says that iron sharpens iron.
And anytime I talk with her, we just get in these conversations that just encourage us in our faith.
And when I was telling her about my dream, she said, oh my gosh,
you've got to share this.
The Lord is going to give you tremendous revelation with this dream,
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and you have to share it because it's so important for other people out there.
So I'm going to be obedient and share this dream.
It was a very short dream. In my dream, I dreamt that I had lost my wedding ring.
And I was consciously aware that I was dreaming, and I woke up holding my finger
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with my other hand and saying, no,
I did not lose my ring. It's still here on my hand.
Now, let me give you just a little bit of backstory.
About 13 years ago, I did lose my wedding ring.
I lost my wedding ring for about four or five months. I was heartbroken.
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Truthfully, I tore the house apart. I tore my car apart. My husband did as well.
My kids helped look. We could not find it.
About three and a half, four months into the situation, I decided I needed to
get another wedding ring because I couldn't find my old one.
And I had finally decided that it just wasn't going to happen,
that I was going to find my ring.
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I was heartbroken, and I was devastated.
And I went to the Lord, and I said, Lord, I know that this ring is just a piece
of gold, but it means so much to me.
Could you please send your angels out to find the ring and put it where I can
see it so that I can have this ring back? Lord, it's just so important to me.
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And I prayed, and y'all, I prayed and kind of moved on in my life.
And so I even went out and bought another ring. It was totally not like my wedding ring.
And so it was very, very different. It was very regal. I put it on.
It just didn't feel right. Nothing worked. It just didn't fit.
So, but I was like, okay, but I got to do this because I can't have what I had.
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I can't have that old ring because I've lost it and it's my fault that it's gone.
And so I went on for another week or two wearing this new ring,
trying every way I could to make it comfortable.
And y'all, I'm not lying when I tell you this story,
but I was driving the car and Matthew he was little at this time,
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he was probably two years old, dropped his sippy cup on the floor in the back
of the car. I drove a Suburban at the time.
And I reached back to get the sippy cup for him to pick it up, to give it back to him.
And y'all, I caught a glimmer of something gold.
And I said, oh my goodness, it couldn't be.
So I pulled the car over and ripped open the back door. and there was my wedding
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ring laying in the floorboard of my car.
And I'm telling you the honest truth. If I tore that car apart one time,
I tore it apart 10 times, and so did my husband and my kids.
That ring was not there.
But God answered my prayer, and He put the ring where I could see it. I put the ring on.
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I cried. I praised God. I thanked the Lord, and I ran and showed John,
and we were so delighted that I had the ring on.
I have not taken the ring back off, and that's probably been 13 years.
I will probably never take this ring off again, but what the Lord showed me
about that dream is this.
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I was afraid that my ring was missing again.
Now, in this dream, I believe the ring represents that covenant we have with Jesus.
When Jesus becomes our bridegroom, when we as the bride, the church,
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marry Jesus, and that ring is a representation of that covenant relationship.
And when I dreamt that my ring was missing, I was in my dream,
concerned, trying to find my ring.
And I realized that it wasn't gone at all, that the enemy was just trying to deceive me.
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And what I want to tell you here is there are times in our lives when we feel
really disconnected from the world around us, and we feel very disconnected from God the Father.
There are times that we feel like we're on an island and we're floating alone,
and our hearts are dry, and it just feels impossible to take the next step because
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we feel so isolated and alone.
And I am here to tell you that the Lord gave me this dream to remind you that
that covenant that you have with Jesus Christ has not gone away.
You might not be able to visually see it with your eyes, but hear me when I
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tell you he has not moved.
Moved go to him run to him spend
time with him and reignite that
fire inside of you to live your life for Christ but Christ has not moved the
other thing that he showed me with this was when I tried to put on another wedding
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ring to take the place of that covenant relationship this is important important, y'all.
You cannot put a physical fix on a spiritual void.
You cannot take something else around you.
Whether it's a great guy and a great relationship, a beautiful marriage,
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if it's eating cookies, if it's doing drugs, if it's having alcohol,
it may even be a good thing.
It may be running or doing something else that fulfills your life.
All of those things are good things to a degree. The.
Addiction's not so much good, but those things that we try to do that are good,
that fill that void, are never going to fill the void.
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The only thing that is going to satisfy your soul and give you an abundant life
and to give you that contentment,
that comfort of that covenant is that covenant with Jesus Christ.
You can try other things. things you can do whatever you want to do.
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But at the end of the day, the only thing that is going to satisfy your soul
is that relationship with Jesus Christ.
I pray that you guys have that relationship and you continue to grow.
If you do not, please reach out to someone around you, a pastor,
somebody, a friend, or somebody who could talk to you.
Reach out to me on my website. I am happy to pray with you, to talk through
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this situation with you, but you guys are never going to find the abundant life,
that satisfied life, that content life, that inner change that takes place on
the inside of you to make you be able to accept what's going on outside without
a relationship with Jesus Christ, your personal Savior.
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I hope that this helps. I hope that you You have a great week.
I pray blessings over you. I love you guys.
Thank y'all so much for tuning in today. If you want to stay in the know for
all things Harp Ministries, check out our website at harpministries.org.
In there, you'll see the latest episodes of Harp On It, upcoming events,
(43:33):
and our newly released book entitled, How Can I Leave Tall Buildings When I Can't Get My Tights On?
Thank you again for tuning in today. See y'all next week.
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